Luke Fowler's 'Pilgrimage From Scattered Points' is a documentary about Cornelius Cardew and The Scratch Orchestra. I've put a link to a website that explains what The Scratch Orchestra is, because this explanation won't be clear. The Scratch Orchestra explains the concept that anyone can play music. You don't have to have any musical training to take part in making music, you don't even have to make a sound, you can just perform an action. Basically people get together, some musical, some not and make sounds. The only rule is that every sound or action you make is low key so as not to take focus away from other performers - you should see your performance as an accompaniment to a solo performer. Some performers used visuals to inform the sounds or actions that they make, one performer used a copy of the radio times. The Scratch Orchestra is a political statement. Music is bourgeois, you need to have an instrument and training to play it and listen to it, at least before it could be recorded. Classical music is of the bourgeois, Pop or Folk music is of the Proletariat. The Scratch Orchestra however disregards any music convention and so places itself outside of the conventional musical categories. Which I think is truly revolutionary (in a political sense) and subversive.

Cornelius Cardew is a founder member of the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), he obviously viewed his music as an expression of his political views, the problem being that his political views governed not only his music but also the way in which he organised the orchestra. They began to become a political grouping making political statements rather than an artistic grouping expressing their political position and questioning the political status quo. As a result of this they lost favour with the authorities and members of the orchestra became unhappy and left.

I believe that activism within art is powerful and important, but when artists begin to make political statements and align themselves with political groups they become embroiled in the thought processes of those groups. Generally I think art is most successful when it questions an ideology rather than aligning itself with an ideology. Art should present a dystopia, not a utopia.

Luke Fowler's film is interesting in that it places a documentary into an art gallery. I find this interesting because it attacks the concept of an art gallery from within. It attacks the concept of an art object. It not only appropriates other film makers’ work, it documents another artists expressions. It collates information and makes very subtly, a profound point, perhaps. It also produces beautiful and resonant images.  ¶ 11:47 AM