SAS Presents: YOU BELONG HERE

Strong Acid Soundsystem proudly presents: YOU BELONG HERE

A co-opt of the British Army’s most recent campaign that shows British soldiers in bleak landscapes and devastated communities, with huge background text proclaiming ‘YOU BELONG HERE’. Another attempt at recruiting new soldiers, it seems naive to the fact that the British army does not, and has never belonged in these communities, making money from intervening in coups, feuds and wars that Britain and the USA helped start and often enable through arms sales.

I have taken the YOU BELONG HERE slogan and instead placed it on a virtual constructed visualisation of Strong Acid Soundsystem. The SAS logo fills the rig as if becoming a sentient being. The British Army’s adverts, containing soldiers in uniform beckoning you into the destruction (which you’re supposed to find inviting for some reason), has been replaced with psychedelic silhouettes of free party heads dancing the night away. The silhouettes themselves are drawn from photographs taken at old skool 80s and 90s raves, with the style an obvious homage to the one and only Keith Haring.

The flag above the rig uses the central Hannya from the SAS logo and adapts the slogan ‘ARMY: BE THE BEST’. The best at what exactly? SAS proudly claims that WE THE BEST. At welcoming, at partying, at celebrating the beauty of free, accessible music, and its power to connect people from all walks of life. This mantra, and SAS at large, is for everyone who believes that art and music knows no discrimination and no boundaries.

I want to finish by referencing what I spoke about at the start of my explanation of this piece. For over a year, we have watched as Israel brutally and indiscriminately murders the people of Palestine, and the UK Government still refuses to cease all arms trading and call this ‘humanitarian crisis’ what it is: genocide. In their complicity, the UK Government have reminded us of the ever-present, ever-depressing truth of life on this island, and in the Western world at large: there is much money to be made from war, and money will always be more important than human life.

I encourage you all to do what you can to continue to support the Palestinian cause. Get out and protest, write to your councillors and MPs, share stories from people on the ground, and do not allow yourself to be desensitised to the horrors that we are used to seeing on social media everyday. There is a link in my bio to the Oxfam website where you can send a postcard to your MP demanding a ceasefire and to stop arming Israel.

Thank you for reading

FREE PALESTINE