This is a blog where I will offer my art ideas “open source.” I have lots of ideas, as I’m sure you do, but life being the way it is, most will never be actualized (this could be for many reasons, such as: they’re expensive; they’re time-consuming; they require skills I don’t have; I’m not sure whether they’re any good; I can’t justify them; I’m not gutsy enough to have them attributed to me in actualized form; they’d land me in jail or worse; or they just seem like they’d be more … authentic coming from someone else). Anyway, I’ll outline concepts/projects, and I encourage anyone who is interested to do whatever you want with them: realize them, modify them, capitalize on them, destroy them, tell people they’re yours, submit them to Rhizome, or just tell me they suck. If you have an idea you’d like me to post here too, I am happy to consider. To make things “official”, and moreover because I like to engage with new things, I’m spuriously licensing these under Creative Commons! I also have to mention that a guy named David Horwitz JUST got featured for doing something similar to this, which is probably attributable to some Malcolm Gladwellian phenomenon, like how people do better at crosswords that are a few days old. I may have just made that up. Cory Arcangel also read his surplus art ideas out loud in the form of stand-up comedy. There is also Hans Ulrich Obrist’s “do it” project, from 1994, but I don’t really consider this to be coming from the same place (I’m not ‘instructing’ you to do anything; just using the web to say my ideas out loud). This blog has Fluxus precedents, too, I gather, but I wouldn’t know for sure because I haven’t read up on Fluxus yet. Maybe this blog is an arrogant idea; I don’t know. It seems good. Baudrillard would probably have been really concerned if he heard about it.

Nietzche’s primordial poem

reposted from something I blurted out at blog.selfportrait.net

“And we inherit that, all at once, as if it were reality…” writes Nietzche in 1881 of the primordial poem which humans created, then proceeded to thoroughly forget they wrote. It seems that Joseph Beuys was somewhat late, then, in his simultaneous proclamation and (as Bill Arning points out) imposition that “Jeder mensch ist ein kunstler,” since perception itself was already the art in question. Perception is always a living-with, the partaking in a common but objectless substance, which Giorgio Agamben, with Aristotle in mind, calls friendship. And when Alan Kaprow observed keenly in 1971 that ‘everything is more interesting than art’ (art in the codified tradition of the mark-maker), it becomes clearer through Nietzche what he meant.

Wolfgang Schirmacher’s portrayal of Nietzche seems to suggest that the most artificial quality of life is its anthropomorphic quality. Artificial life (Schirmacher) is here the epic lie (in the most honest sense) motivated by our will to power, manifested by our emotive capacity with which we map moods and values onto the world, and undersigned later with the forged signature of a Christian God. In the very capriciousness of the story humankind has forged, Schirmacher would have it that the artifice is revealed. For Nietzche it seems that artifical life would show its rangy body nakedly to us after the mask of God has fallen. Schirmacher adds to this that it is the post-technological epoch which is truly chipping away at the patina which conceals our status as Homo Generator (one instance he gives is the post-mortem conflation of Lady Di and Mother Theresa calling natality and mortality into question once again). In the trajectory towards an awareness of Homo generator Schirmacher sets forth, there would have been less autonomy than symptomaticty in Daniel Birnbaum’s titling of the 2009 Venice Biennale, ‘Fare Mondi.’

Regarding the anthropocentricity of artifical life, Nietzche ruminates: “Nothing is beautiful, only the human individual is beautiful,” and one is reminded of Henri Bergson’ theory of humor that: only in the social and the human is there comedy, and that when we see it in the inanimate we are solely making the comparison to ourselves.

“In artifical life, only what my life facilitates to be fulfilled can count as real,” writes Schirmacher. I am not yet clear on Schirmacher’s level of commitment to a materialist world view, but for me one of his most piquant critical twists is that ethics are not ‘what one ought to do’ as traditionally formulated, but the question ‘what am I able I do to make a good life for myself.’ How can I not be reminded of late Wittgenstein’s suggestion that we ask not what something means, but what it is for (it makes me smirk to recall that it was Tiravanija who quoted that line, in interview). Without misreading either philosopher too foolishly, I would like to ask how this notion connects to Spinoza’s concept of free will as merely the knowledge that all our thoughts and actions are the only possible products of those conditions which precede them. I believe Spinoza, in Ethics, made reference to the passage of time as the vessel of the future steadily decanting its liquid into the vessel of the past.

I would also like to inquire into Schirmacher’s assertion that the calculable findings of natural science are instrumental, not artificial, while at the same time they serve as reality substitutes, perhaps heuristics? Does not the progress of science, from Leibniz’ calculus to Darwin’s theory of evolution, Feynman’s quantum electrodynamics, appear to reveal strata of reality without knowledge which calls for unpredictable redefinitions of artificiality in general would be less generative? How do we maintain a stable sense of ethics when the next revelation may negate those ethics?

Finally, regarding Schirmacher’s conception of ethics as self-determined: “Does my life achieve fulfillment? This is the only ethic question,” I agree that freedom is a secondary concern, but I wish to understand what the contingency plan is when two people’s personal ethics must compete over the same resources? If, as Schirmacher quotes from Schopenhauer, society profits from the failure of certain individuals, is Schirmacher’s personally-defined ethics a form of avoiding or shelving the humanistic project of a rescuing into the fold of the less fortunate, as difficult as this may seem.

Peter Bruegel

Maurice Benayoun - Tunnel Under the Atlantic - 1994

Frances Flora Palmer for Currier + Ives - Across the Continent Westward the Course of Empire Makes its Way - 1868

Anne Collier - New Beginning - 2007

Lara Favaretto

William Wegman - Reading Two Books - 1971

James Croak Chandelier Mistaken for God - 2006

Helmut Smits - A Plastic Plant Acting Like a Real One by Losing Its Leaves

Punishment for the sins of others

Post-Performance performance idea:

Find a man on the street who looks like, but is not, Jeff Koons.  As you pass him, audibly mutter, “FRAUD!” Do not engage him beyond that.  He will or will not, in this lifetime, put the puzzle together.

SETI@home

The most creative thing I have done lately, which I might go as far as to call a “work” if we are talking about art as the expanded field that it is, was to download and install a piece of computer software called SETI@home. Let me explain. SETI@home is a project based at
University of California, Berkeley, which utilizes the spare computing power of thousands of volunteers’ machines to aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life. The software receives very small packets of data called “work units”, of say, 20 kilobytes in size each, and analyzes the data while my computer is idle, just as if it were a screen-saver. The data originates from a radio telescope in Puerto Rico called the Arecibo Observatory, which is aimed at various points in the sky, searching for possible evidence of radio transmissions from
interstellar space. Evidence of these transmissions might take the form of unusual spikes in transmission power, or patterns of signals such as a triplet of pulses; these signals would be in contrast to more common “space noise” originating from things like distant supernovae
explosions. The computing power required to analyze all the data that Arecibo collects would be far too expensive for the Space Sciences Lab at Berkeley to finance, but distributed computing makes this power intensive research possible.
My main motivation for installing SETI@home must be described as romantic. The idea that an intelligent life form might have, in the distant cosmic past, transmitted a signal in a durable format over the vast stretches of interstellar space, with the intent of making
contact, is of the utmost profundity to me; it stands perfectly well for me and many others for what religious people might call ‘holy’. Furthermore, were the SETI project to succeed in picking up a genuine signal (which some scientists believe it will within two decades,
according to Drake’s Law), this would be the pivotal existential moment in the psychic history of humanity, for we would know that we are not alone.
How I come to define the act of downloading this program as a creative ‘work’ akin to an artwork, is more complicated (I do consider myself an artist, though not a practicing one). But I think it has to do with an anxiety about production. The American Conceptual artist
Douglas Huebler notably said in 1966, “The world is full of objects, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.” As I see it, the American Conceptualists were largely fraudulent and pathetic in their exercises attempting to negate art, but the anxiety about the
profligacy of objects is real, and manifests closer to my generation with an eco-friendly bent through artists like Tino Sehgal, who speaks of the unsustainability of physical sculpture and its relation to the quarry. Aiding in astronomical research is for me a form of achieving at
least a sense of participation without bringing about more production (I would really like to develop my ideas in this area by studying at EGS). It also makes me feel connected to something immovably real; cosmic truth (or perhaps just the idea of truth that we crave).
Critiques: me downloading SETI@home is full of ideological symptoms. Zizek cleverly defines ideology in relation to Donald Rumsfeld’s speech about the uncertainty of WMDs in Iraq. Zizek observes that ideologies are “things that we don’t know that we know.” In this case, what I ‘don’t know that I know’, is that I am placing myself in an angrily elitist
opposition to anyone who does not direct their existential attention toward the cosmos. At root I think my interest in the cosmos is a manifestation of a fear of death. However, my true understanding of the science behind astronomy amounts to cargo cult. Is participating in
SETI@home a genuine attempt at participation, or is it an affectation?
I also notice something shocking, which I am quite critical of; as my computer begins to clock in hours, I feel a fear about the possibility that it could miraculously stumble upon the contact signal. Suddenly, I feel invested in the comfort of my life, of the present; first contact
would be so disruptive it would change almost everybody’s psychic life dramatically. A paradigm shift such as this would be exhausting. So comfortable is the middle-class lifestyle for many, that real revolution seems inconvenient (maybe even more so in America? I want to
study in Europe partially to know this). This is a shameful fact that I have to point out. I think some philosophers are guilty of it too, if I am not mistaken. Although I have not read all of Zizek’s First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, I read a passage in which he discusses how
philosophers have often taken aim at injustice and subjugation, but almost never where it is actually, literally taking place! It takes extreme courage to want to upend, or to sink the whole boat, rather than just to pretend.

Marx In Public

Walk around New York carrying Selected Writings of Karl Marx… some very red edition with large legible cover font that says MARX.  Go on the subway, bus, cafes, public squares, and read the book.  Have an accomplice surreptitiously photograph people’s reactions and expressions when they see the book.

Art criticism prodigy from Charleston

Large frontal C-print photograph (if film) or giclee (if digital) of young kid, maybe 8 or 9, sitting at a table, with a hefty stack of art books of the cerebral, political sort, (everything from Hans Abbing and Giorgio Agamben to Slavoj Zizek and Tirdad Zolghadr(I know Zolghadr hasn’t written a book)) to his right, and some mags and papers scattered elsewhere on the desk.  He holds a pen in one hand.  He looks impishly at the camera.  There is a glass of Orange Tang at his side.  “I’m coming to get you art fakers,” he seems to want to say.  How does he know, at such a young age?  BOOKS!  Lots of BOOKS!  He is the Terence Tao (math prodigy — PhD at age 20) of art criticism and he’s coming to get the fakers and chasers of lucre, and pretentious Brooklynites who’s talent asymptotically approaches zero.  He is from Charleston, SC — yes, you weren’t expecting that, were you?  Well get this, Daily Show disciple… there are geniuses from outside the urban centers.  They are coming to get you.

Related performance piece: when out at art events or when talking about art in a serious way with new acquaintances, do so with a Southern accent.

Radical Education Movement (installation)

Came up with this idea for an installation and sketched it in MSPaint.  It’s the scene of a crime committed by the fictional ‘REM’, or Radical Educational Movement.  They basically kidnap people with distorted world-views: clerical leaders, religious zealots, gangsters… and forcibly educate them until they are ‘normalized’, roughly meaning they are rational secular humanists who’s religious beliefs are aligned with Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot.

The boxes in the front are for paraphernalia collection; garb, weapons, cell phones.  The books on the table and shelf, read aloud to the bound captives (usually educated in pairs: an Islamic radical and a Southern racist homophobe, or a Blood and a Crip, for example), are supposed to represent some kind of inclusive canon of Eastern and Western scientific writing, literature, art, and political theory.

I can’t find the final draft of this sketch, but it includes a bowl of frisee salad on the table.  The reading is done by hot, rational secular humanist girls in their late twenties.

I would ideally exhibit this at Palais de Tokyo circa 2003.

The Physicality of Stabbing Someone

Create a “skin” roughly twenty feet long by ten feet high, which will cover a gallery wall.

The “skin”, actually about a foot in thickness, is comprised of several layers of materials simulating human flesh (skin, flesh, tissue, bone, blood, organs).

Adjacent to the skin is a table with knives and blades on it.

Gallery-goers are invited to stab and cut the humanoid flesh, which ideally will simulate the sensation and physicality of stabbing someone.

This will bring people closer to understanding violence.

Gourmet

Have my wonderful mom stand in a gallery space and pleasantly recite a very, very long list of tasty sounding gourmet dishes and their ingredients and preparation methods.

Devotion

In a small gallery space, gather a crowd.

Behind me is a large wall text which reads: “I LOVE ART HISTORY”

Proceed to cut my own ear off.

(place ear in ice and have it surgically reattached; this is not part of the piece)

What Leaves The Body?

Take a volunteer who is in his/her dying hours, and place them and their deathbed in a room, the interior of which is being monitored for every conceivable/feasible type of detectable emittance (light outside the visible spectrum, heat, other forms of flux).  When the person finally passes away, the area around the body will be looked at through all these devices, and we will see what leaves.  What we are checking for is a soul.  Maybe there is a known and measurable form of emittance a dying person may give off, which has simply never been honed in on at the moment of death.

I don’t see this as similar to Gregor Schneider or Gunther von Hagens’ interest in the dying body or corpse as sculptural.  I don’t intend for this project to be conducted/displayed in a gallery either.  This is a medical experiment, and should be done in a lab or hospital.  I don’t see anything more morose about it than an autopsy.  Death is the most common thing in the world.  In my opinion, art’s priviliged currency in society and in the intellect should be used for pushing into new, even frightening territories;  we ought to allow ourselves to suffer degrees of indignity, discomfort, and anger, in the holistic pursuit of truth.  We ought to allow art to be immoral or to take part in immorality (I have no problem with Adel Abdessemad’s videos of animal slaughter).  The most horrific things happen every single day in this world in a non-art context.  We already give art so much leeway, let’s not let that leeway be arbitrarily limited by our collective cravenness about the few taboos we still have.    Moreover though, as the educated world is in a period of abandoning God, we really ough to try and know for sure whether there is anything like an afterlife — whether there is any meaning to life beyond what we have constructed for ourselves — and this project is a practical and earnest attempt at determining that.