I came across the term recuperation in Dick Hebdige’s book: ‘Subculture; The Meaning of Style’, most prominently in chapter 6, ‘The Unnatural Break’. In media, sociology, and critical theory, recuperation refers to the process of radical, subversive, or counter – cultural ideas & styles being co-opted, absorbed, and commodified by mainstream media and capitalist culture.
Hebdige describes the process of recuperation having two characteristic forms :
- Commodity form = The conversion of subcultural signs (dress, music, etc) into mass produced objects.
- Ideological form = The labelling and re-definition of deviant behaviour by dominant groups – the police, the media, the judiciary.
The capitalist system integrates potentially subversive elements into its own structure, therefore neutralising the revolutionary potential through commodification and exposure through their outlets. It’s a level of control that establishments have over their audience, whether they’re conscious of it or not.
It is through recuperation that the context and meaning of a work is stripped away, severing the emotional affiliation of the environment it once inhabited. Now perceived for its profit, the reasoning behind the work becomes redundant, leaving a kind of soulless atmosphere to the now ‘product’. An occurrence that is repeated throughout history, the industrial foundations of the art world thrive on the process of recuperation, requiring a level of skill and creativity that runs primarily through subcultures.
“The diffusion of youth styles from the subcultures to the fashion market is not simply a ‘cultural process’, but a real network or infrastructure of new kinds of commercial and economic institutions.” John Clarke (1976b).
Social Hieroglyphs.
Coined by Karl Marx, social hieroglyphs refer to the concept where, commodities hide the social interactions of a production beneath a surface of exchange value. As a consumer society we view an object or a creation, predominately seeing its profitable value and use, while the story behind it, the sweat, the struggle, becomes a hidden language we can no longer read.
The term comes from Egyptian hieroglyphs, where pictorial documentation required decoding to reveal a hidden language of human thoughts, history, and interactions. They represent the connections between people rather than just between things.
Marx’s emphasis on the term was about acknowledging and decoding what is put in front of us in contemporary society, understanding the human effort put into the products we consume. Underneath the surface lies a physical map of the human labor. This understanding becomes crucial in empathising with other people, creating meaningful connections and changing our perspective on commercialisation.
Art often evolves from a struggle, whether that be on a mass scale or an incredibly personal level, it is used as an expression, a way of processing intense emotion in a constructive, impactful way. However, recuperation transforms a radical concept into a social hieroglyph, thereby masking the very labor and struggle it once emerged from.
In a usual interaction between a person and a piece of artwork (be that music, painting, writing , etc) a huge part of its value lies between the relationship you form emotionally with the work, based off your own personal experiences and the original intent of the artist. You therefore become aware of the exertion put into the piece, and are able to sympathise with the artist and the community that forms around the work.
However, this kind of relationship is often lost through art entering the commercial world, it becomes a commodity in which both the art and the artist discard the original intentions in exchange for profitable value.
This is where recuperation has the biggest impact socially, it has the ability to break down communities and control certain people’s perceptions on a mass scale. Through the absorption of once radical concepts mainstream industries widen an audience (which can be positive), however when context gets lost to such a large extent, and money is at the forefront of the work, these ‘hieroglyphs’ make it so the consumer sees only a finished, polished product. Deeper thought is not required.
However, regardless of this mainstream reconstruction, subcultures are constantly moving and growing, creating an undercurrent of change that is equally impactful, just to a different collection of people.