Month: October 2007

I Feel Better After I Type To You

From Lot 49:

Within the third of the ten files of user search queries AOL mistakenly released, there’s a poem of sorts. Between May 7 and May 31 of this year, AOL user 23187425 submitted a series of more than 8,200 queries with no evident intention of finding anything – only a handful of the entries are paired with a search results URL. Rather, the author’s series of queries forms a stream-of-consciousness soliloquy.

Whether it’s fact or fiction, confession or invention, the search monologue is strangely compelling. It’s a uniquely temporal literary form in that the server time stamps make the passage of time integral to the storytelling. It could be the beginning of a new genre of writing, or simply an aberation. But it does beg further explanation. What circumstances prompted the author to converse thus with AOL’s search engine?

AOL user 23187425’s “stream of consciousness soliloquy” has now been turned into a book by Superbunker (Superbunker being “a framework for conducting and disseminating cultural research… operating as a cross between a think tank and a decentralized federation of neo-alchemical laboratories..”).

I want one.

The KLF

Identified by many names, but effectively the partnership of Jimmy Cauty & Bill Drummond, active from 1987-1997.

Although best known for their musical endeavours, their real game was large-scale discombobulation. They terrorized the worlds of pop music and fine art in equal measure, in between writing an extraordinary book called The Manual, amongst numerous other curious exploits. But their most inspired Work was also one of their simplest: literally burning a million UK pounds in cash money on a remote Scottish island in 1994.

Both parties remain active in the fields of art and music. Cauty, notably, making and selling postage stamps for his own self-declared sovereign country, whilst in his spare time misguidedly buying dodgy second hand vans, crushing them into cubes, and sucessfully selling them back at cost to the dealerships he bought them from, as works of art.

Charles Shaar Murray on Drummond in The Independent, 2000 (via Wikipedia):

“[He] is many things, and one of those things is a magician. Many of his schemes… involve symbolically-weighted acts conducted away from the public gaze and documented only by Drummond himself and his participating comrades. Nevertheless, they are intended to have an effect on a worldful of people unaware that the act in question has taken place. That is magical thinking. Art is magic, and so is pop. Bill Drummond is a cultural magician.”

Gabrielle De Vietri

(Via Freakley.)

Official site.

The Relationship Contracts (well, the two I’ve seen) are beautiful.

(If these existed outside the realm of Art, they’d make life a lot simpler. But much less interesting..)

Audio interview, mostly about the Ideas Catalogue.

From statement:

Through my work I aim to address common personal, social, and artistic problems. My source material originates in the overlapping codes of behaviour in social, professional and legal interactions and transactions. Departing from flawed givens, misleading texts, and habitual human behaviours, I attempt to locate alternatives, however absurd.

…While my works are mainly text-based, they often expand to incorporate their contexts in performative or sculptural ways…

My central interests lie in a desire to affect and redirect our social imaginary, which disciplines the way in which we lead our lives. I intend to communicate the purpose of my works to individuals rather than masses, broadening and diversifying the way in which their social imaginary functions, and in turn affecting the way in which they think and behave. This public outlook makes for artworks which are frank, moralising, social, and instructional.

‘Requiem’ by Adam Costenoble

(Via Em.)

Seen at Conical yesterday.

In Requiem, Costenoble presents a new video installation that basks in the failure of human aspiration. The video presents a lone dreamer equipped with faux-wings and helmet, seemingly prepared for flight. The man, already conscious of his innate failure to overthrow encumbrance, enacts a token gesture of absurd rebellion.

Succeeding in his personal quest to surpass human limitation is self-proclaimed hero of Liberty: Jet-Man, whose aerial exploits over the Swiss Alps starkly contrast with the lone dreamer’s feeble urban exercise. Evading the fate of Icarus, these men resentfully succumb to the repressive rule of nature, falling not to the sea below, but back down to the everyday human condition.

It was alright. Not without a certain resonance. Heh (sigh). But not in any way I’m particularly seeking to cultivate..

Adam Costenoble is a Sydney-based emerging artist whose practice to date has focused on video and interactive/user-dependant installation works, however, Costenoble considers himself a non-medium specific conceptual artist. A self confessed existentialist, Costenoble’s work draws on philosophy, literature and cinema that contemplates the human condition and the human experience in the physical world.

(Note to self: see art.)

Strangers & Intimacy

(Via Rob Hely.)

Strangers & Intimacy was an interactive performance work staged at West Space in Melbourne in early 2005.

The project began in September 2004 when eight artists were assigned a pen pal living in a city on the other side of the world. On the first day of September they all wrote a four line letter of introduction to their foreign pen friend. Over the four months, between September and December they continued writing letters to each other each week.

The development process was interesting enough all by itself..

Part One = Letters – The strangers meet via hand written letters, they reveal themselves, become intimate, share pasts, stories, memories and daily life.

Part Two = Melbourne – They establish a working relationship upon meeting at West Space in Melbourne, they stand face to face, sort through all the material, share ideas and create performances.

Part Three = Glasgow – The artists then travel together to Glasgow, the temperature drops, the poles shift and new intimacies form.

.. but what sounds really interesting (from the account related to me yesterday) is the actual performance, which – probably appropriately – isn’t described at all on the page linked above.

Hermann Nitsch

(Via J.)

Specifically the Orgies Mystery Theatre (possibly unstable Google cache link; original is down).

This 6-day play will incorporate all the elements that have made Nitsch so notorious: the slaughter, evisceration and crucifixion of (totemic) animals, the drenching of naked performers in torrents of blood and entrails to a cacophony of revved up tanks, scream choirs and orchestras, interspersed by wandering brass bands playing Austrian tavern music…. Among other materials the artist’s palette will consist of 300 actors and musicians, 3 live bulls, a great many slaughtered pigs and sheep, intestines, fresh flowers, 3,000 litres of fresh blood, gallons of paint, etc., and wine enough for continuous intoxication. One must bear in mind that this ‘work of art’, in a very palpable sense, will also be a public festival:
“the participants are sitting in every corner of the fields, the orchards and vineyards, happily eating and drinking wine…..happiness flows rich and intoxicating through our blood….”

Damn.

“the profession to practise art is the priesthood for a new view of existence…..[art becomes]…the means for a profounder, intenser rapture within life and must be intensified to the point of a shameless, analytical exhibitionism, that demands the sacrifice of total self-abandonment.” [Nitsch, blood organ manifesto, 1962]

That’s what I’m talking about. Or not.

In a strong sense, one has to be there– and in this being-there lies a subjective moment not readily transformed into discursive language.

Yes.

Cults As Art

The previous two posts inevitably bring to mind of a certain other individual whose work I’ve admired. But can he be legitimately classified as an Artist?

In my terms, absolutely. But then I think everything people do is recognisable as art. (And that all institutions are recognisable as cults..)

What about this guy?

The Church of Scientology was not intended to be art in any conventional sense. Its purpose was to make money and slaves for Mr Hubbard, shoring up his rampant god complex.

“Writing stories for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a creative man wants to make a million dollars, the way to do it is to start your own religion.” Etc.

But however venal its objectives, it’s also a bizarre, byzantine and beautiful creative accomplishment – and LRH is recognisable as a Reality Artist of jawdropping genius. (A greedy, sadistic, megalomaniacal cunt, sure – but that’s neither here nor there. He got his. And genius in ugly forms is still genius.)

These speculations stem largely from my experiences with this singular beastie – the most extreme example I know of a mind control cult which was, covertly but very explicitly, created and maintained as a legitimate Art Project.

Distinctions, eh.

Boyd Rice

See previous. Also linkable, in a way, to Korine; it’s all about the Unified Aesthetic.

It doesn’t really matter whether he’s making noise or pictures, mounting exhibitions consisting of random objects found in thrift stores, appearing as the official advocate of Satan in surreal TV chat show debates, reminiscing fondly about his youthful pranking exploits, writing books about Rennes-le-Chateau and the “place where history and myth intersect”, spearheading eccentric and uniquely tasteless underground art movements or designing Tiki bars – his real Work is simply being the entity called Boyd Rice, and doing whatever the hell it is that Boyd Rice is wont to do. And it’s fucking great.

Illuminating 2004 interview with Brian M. Clark:

BRIAN: Do you personally do things like that?

BOYD: I do certain things like that…

Marilyn Manson

From The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell:

Marilyn Manson was the perfect story protagonist for a frustrated writer like myself. He was a character who, because of his contempt for the world around him and, more so, himself, does everything he can to trick people into liking him. Then once he wins their confidence, he uses it to destroy them.

For better and/or worse he remains a huge inspiration and influence.

I can’t figure out whether I haven’t listened to Eat Me, Drink Me yet because I’m afraid it’ll be crap, or because I’m afraid of what it’ll do to me. But I suspect the latter. Which means I will, and suggests that (all evidence to the contrary) he’s still got it.

He’s beautiful, fascinating, complex, disturbing, amazing, and a laff riot to boot. And I don’t care what anyone says about his paintings. I think they’re nice.

“I’m not trying to shock or scare you. I’m just a threat.”

(Link of particular note in this context: The Nachtkabarett.)

Dolly Sen

From The World Is Full Of Laughter:

‘Reality’ is the greatest brainwashing technique ever successfully utilised and maintained. It makes the truth ludicrous and highly inconvenient to believe.

Website bio:

“I had my first psychotic experience aged 14 and stopped going to school. A series of dead end jobs followed. Pretty early on I decided I didn’t want any more of the 9-5 shit and spoon race, and began to write… and maybe watch 70s cop shows.”

Dolly Sen is a writer, director, artist, film-maker, poet, performer, raconteur, playwright, mental health consultant, music-maker and public speaker.

Since her much-acclaimed book ‘The World is Full of Laughter’ was published by Chipmunka in 2002, she has had 3 further books published, had a succession of performance roles around Europe and places like The Young Vic, Trafalgar Square and The Royal Festival Hall; did a poetry tour and won a poetry award from Andrew Motion; directed two plays and several films, appeared on TV, and has done spoken word at City Hall and Oxford University.

This is staggering since she dropped out of school at 14 and has no formal qualifications. She has also had to share her life with severe mental health problems. She was told she would never amount to anything but would end up in jail or Broadmoor and she believed this and was on her way there when she changed her belief into the one of believing she could do anything she wanted to do.

This proves that the mind is an amazing thing; it can drive you mad and inspire you in the same breath. And that you can do anything if you believe you can do it.

Awesome audio interview.

Happy birthday, Dozza. Love your work.