When I first heard about Banksy's collaborating with Bristol's City Museum to organise an exhibition of his works, I was shocked. In fact, one of the most well-known acts by this (in)famous graffiti artist is vandalising art museums by installing his 'appropriated' works in the museums secretly. 'Is he going commercial?' or 'has he been tamed?' - questions like these came up in mind. In order to find out why such a man who has been upholding anti-establishment for so long made a deal with the government, I went to Bristol to take a look.

When arriving at the museum, we were told by the steward that it would be a 4 hr waiting and we might not get in. I looked around and saw people from all walks of life in the queue, what surprised me was the large number of parents taking their children to see the exhibition. If somebody suggested organising the same exhibition in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Government would undoubtedly see Banksy's works as immoral materials that would induce social disorder and inappropriate behaviour from our younger generations. But perhaps for those parents in the queue, the most inspiring qualities in Banksy's works for their children would be, rather than vandalism and rebellion, his wit and creativity.

The exhibition has the same stylistic and symbolic flavours as his mind-blowing book 'Wall and Piece' published a few years ago. My favourites are the swimming tesco fishcakes and the portrait hit by a toy arrow. Playful and sarcastic, he criticises social prejudice and inequalities via his 'appropriated paintings' and installations. One of the social phenomena that Banksy has been blaming the most is the domination of museum art. He argues that putting artworks in a museum is merely a practice to generate profits for a small group of individuals. To prevent this, the exhibition is free, so anybody can come to have some laughs about the current social system via his works.

When I discovered that Banksy's works were 'hidden' among the permanent exhibitions in the whole building, all my negative questions about him were answered positively. It was not difficult to spot out his works at all though - there were always people gathering in front of them and giggles could be heard, whilst the works by other artists were virtually ignored by the viewers. This time Banksy does not need to paste his work on the wall in disguise and count how long it would last; attention of the viewers no longer needs to be drawn. Rather than having been tamed, he has triumphed over museum art - gloriously yet still quite anonymously this time. 

The other day on Beatportal I read an article named 'The Function of identity in techno' (http://www.beatportal.com/feed/item/the-function-of-identity-in-techno/). It talks about what Dave Sumner aka Function, one of the founders of the techno label Sandwell District, thinks about 'anonymous techno' as a resistance to mainstream music. As its name suggests, anonymous techno is created by artists who tend not to reveal their identity. 'Well-known' anonymous techno artists include Detroit's Undergound Resistance, who perform in ski masks and black combat suits, Berlin's Basic Channel, who perform behind a black curtain, and of course, Function himself. The article has a few photos of Function, yet his face can not be seen. The reason why they conceal their identity is that they want their listeners to focus on their music. 'In the early and mid 90s, a lot of statements were made through techno,' he says. 'For years it was a faceless thing. Then techno got hijacked, and a lot of people starting acting like major labels, focused on superstars and big promotions.' 

Function believes that anonymous techno is a resisting force against the mainstream market. “To us, techno is a like a sister or a brother of punk. With techno, proper techno, there’s no compromise. It’s against the grain and focused on technology.' His music is characterised by its dark, purist and hypnotic approach: “It is cyclical, as is the process behind it. I get into a kind of self-induced hypnosis when I make music. When I can listen to a loop over and over again, for hours, and not get bored, I know it is perfect. It sucks me in.' Whilst this kind of deep and intelligent music upholds the ethos of underground dance music in its purest form, becoming more popular within the underground scene is inevitable. Collaborating with Beatport (doing an interview and selling music there), perhaps the most popular online store for electronic music, may have breached the doctrines of anonymous techno already. So how should anonymous techno artists cope with this problem of 'fame'?

Function reckons, 'nothing we have done has changed. There is a perception, or fear, that Sandwell might change because of the press and hype, and when we started getting some attention a few of our hardcore fans said ‘oh, they’re jumping on the minimal bandwagon’, but any artist should be measured on the strength of their work, and not on their hype.'

Indeed, a parallel can be drawn between Banksy and Function. Both are anonymous, and yet both are ironically famous; they represent a new form of resistance to mainstream media. 'Resistance and domination', developed and elaborated profoundly by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, is one of the most important notions in classical British Cultural Studies. This notion refers to the interaction between the ideological domination of the privileged social groups and the symbolic resistance of the unprivileged social groups, and is expounded in the Centre's seminal work 'Resistance Through Rituals'. The book illustrates how subcultural groups (mainly from the working class) like Punks, Teds, Mods and Skinheads resist the dominant ideologies symbolically, e.g. spiky hair of the punks in opposition to ordinary hairstyles which symbolise formality. 

Whilst this notion was useful for mapping out the cultural phenomena in the past, many theorists have put forward that it is no longer valid nowadays due to the meltdown of class boundaries and the rapid information flow brought about by the advancement of computer technology, e.g. Internet. We have entered the era of post-subculture, in which minority groups, (the underground artists in our case) interact with the majority (mainstream media) differently from the past. 

Of course the opposition between underground and mainstream still exists, but there has been more collaboration between underground and mainstream than ever, and without a doubt it will continue to grow rapidly. Last year when I was doing my MA at Goldsmiths I attended a guest lecture by Kode 9 aka Steve Goodman, the owner of the Dubstep label Hyberdub. The lecture was about 'sonic virology' - a conceptual model for mapping out how underground musicians interact with the mainstream market like viruses. Besides attacking the host (mainstream market), collaborating with the host for mutual benefits (mutual symbiosis) is also a key for the relationship. One good example for that would be Hyberdub's producer Burial having done a remix for the track 'And It Rained All Night' from Thom Yorke's solo album 'Eraser'.

Therefore, it can be seen that the pure opposition between domination (mainstream) and resistance (underground) is outmoded. The demarcation between them is becoming fluid and a new form of resistance is on the rise - resistance with collaboration. Whilst some may worry that underground artists will lose their core values and characters, safeguarding the underground ethos and quality will be the key in this kind of resistance - Banksy and anonymous techno artists like Function have already set good examples for us.