| New Plans for testsite
Here's a rough draft of notes of what we talked about Saturday, including some things I made up as I wrote this. To make this work I have some questions for Elizabeth, which I'll get to below. I consider the following "back story" for now and don't necessarily think it needs to be spelled out so literally in the press release or wherever.
1. The testsite will be the temporary home of a quasi-scientific cult, which believes that an evolutionary leap (akin to religious apotheosis) will occur when the sum of all knowledge is reached on the Internet.
2. The cult's four sacraments are "transubstantiating the Net," "watching the Video," "ritual destruction of [power objects]," and "blogging."
3. "Transubstantiating the Net" means obsessive surfing and printing of thousands of web pages (URLs) from all over the world--images and/or text. Printed pages are arrayed on walls in the cult compound. Artistic judgment and discernment is valued (but not mandatory) in their arrangement, as well as making underlying connections, a la John Nash's labyrinths of tacked-up, schizophrenically interconnected newspaper clippings in A Beautiful Mind. (Ron Howard--the ultimate installation artist.) "Naming the 9000 names of God" and Borges' Library of Babel are also precedents here.
4. The Video, to be projected on a cloth in the back yard. has a flickering, low-res mantra/mandala-like flow; its fragmented videogame imagery includes pixelated versions of the [power objects]. (I'm thinking of the "fruits" from Pac-Man--also the "slot machine fruits" above--not sure what (else) Kristin has in mind.) Through overt and post-hypnotic suggestion, the Video induces a state which triggers the ritual destruction of the [power objects]. ("Overt" meaning there may be an image of a Mario-type character smashing a [power object] with a hammer or other tool.)
5. The physical manifestations of the [power objects] are large hydroponic fruits and vegetables, somewhat reminiscent of the overgrown foodstuffs in Woody Allen's 1973 sci-fi parody Sleeper. They are fabricated as papier-mache Pinatas, and arranged in the back yard near the projection screen for the Video. Each Pinata is stuffed with paper, including many pages printed from Net-Transubstantiation activities. Rapt attention to the Video causes cult members to begin smashing the Pinatas in an orgy of violence. Wadded up Transubstantiated Net pages, disgorged from the Pinatas, can be taken away by cult members and other viewers, a la Felix Gonzales Torres. URLs from the sheets can be entered on computers inside the cult building (or not). Wrecking the fruit and "partaking" of the contents mimics transmittal of the Body and Blood in the Christian religion and is also a way for cult members to symbolically take the Net into their own bodies.
6. The fourth ritual activity of the cult, blogging, is a way to fold the cult's activities back onto the Net--to feed back into the larger, sacred Flow--by documenting everything daily with verbal descriptions and pictures, sound files, etc.. The [add a comment] feature allows people all over the world to participate in the cult's activities.
7. Kristin will be the cult's principal missionary and spokesman. Tom, who likes performance art but is not himself a performance artist, will be the main tech guy in charge of surfing and printing. Tom will bring with him a box of paper from his surfing and printing activities in NY during the weeks prior to installation week and will print more paper when in Austin (see below). Kristin and Reed Posey will produce the Video and Kristin is in charge of fabricating the [power objects]. Both Tom and Kristin will blog. Question for Kristin:
a. A weak link in the above scenario, I think, is the video's "subliminal suggestion" to smash pinatas. Realistically, how do we get people to smash pinatas? Could you draft your former students as "rent a zombies" to get the smashing process started? In other words have shills in the audience playacting a hypnotized frenzy that might inspire others to join in?
b. I changed the "logo" at the top of the page since we aren't talking about vj-ing and dj-ing anymore. Let me know if you have anything else you want to put up.
Questions for Elizabeth:
1. We need to be able to put lots of 8 1/2" X 11" sheets up on the testsite walls. I usually use tiny map pins that don't leave large holes. Is that possible? If not, we would need to affix large sheets of white (craft) paper to walls, so we can tape the 8 1/2" X 11" pages to that surface. Is that possible?
2. We will need a computer, a high speed internet connection, and a fast printer such as a laser printer, to print a few reams of paper quickly during installation week. Do you have such a printer? Can one be rented?
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Here's a rough draft of notes of what we talked about Saturday, including some things I made up as I wrote this. To make this work I have some questions for Elizabeth, which I'll get to below. I consider the following "back story" for now and don't necessarily think it needs to be spelled out so literally in the press release or wherever.
1. The testsite will be the temporary home of a quasi-scientific cult, which believes that an evolutionary leap (akin to religious apotheosis) will occur when the sum of all knowledge is reached on the Internet.
2. The cult's four sacraments are "transubstantiating the Net," "watching the Video," "ritual destruction of [power objects]," and "blogging."
3. "Transubstantiating the Net" means obsessive surfing and printing of thousands of web pages (URLs) from all over the world--images and/or text. Printed pages are arrayed on walls in the cult compound. Artistic judgment and discernment is valued (but not mandatory) in their arrangement, as well as making underlying connections, a la John Nash's labyrinths of tacked-up, schizophrenically interconnected newspaper clippings in A Beautiful Mind. (Ron Howard--the ultimate installation artist.) "Naming the 9000 names of God" and Borges' Library of Babel are also precedents here.
4. The Video, to be projected on a cloth in the back yard. has a flickering, low-res mantra/mandala-like flow; its fragmented videogame imagery includes pixelated versions of the [power objects]. (I'm thinking of the "fruits" from Pac-Man--also the "slot machine fruits" above--not sure what (else) Kristin has in mind.) Through overt and post-hypnotic suggestion, the Video induces a state which triggers the ritual destruction of the [power objects]. ("Overt" meaning there may be an image of a Mario-type character smashing a [power object] with a hammer or other tool.)
5. The physical manifestations of the [power objects] are large hydroponic fruits and vegetables, somewhat reminiscent of the overgrown foodstuffs in Woody Allen's 1973 sci-fi parody Sleeper. They are fabricated as papier-mache Pinatas, and arranged in the back yard near the projection screen for the Video. Each Pinata is stuffed with paper, including many pages printed from Net-Transubstantiation activities. Rapt attention to the Video causes cult members to begin smashing the Pinatas in an orgy of violence. Wadded up Transubstantiated Net pages, disgorged from the Pinatas, can be taken away by cult members and other viewers, a la Felix Gonzales Torres. URLs from the sheets can be entered on computers inside the cult building (or not). Wrecking the fruit and "partaking" of the contents mimics transmittal of the Body and Blood in the Christian religion and is also a way for cult members to symbolically take the Net into their own bodies.
6. The fourth ritual activity of the cult, blogging, is a way to fold the cult's activities back onto the Net--to feed back into the larger, sacred Flow--by documenting everything daily with verbal descriptions and pictures, sound files, etc.. The [add a comment] feature allows people all over the world to participate in the cult's activities.
7. Kristin will be the cult's principal missionary and spokesman. Tom, who likes performance art but is not himself a performance artist, will be the main tech guy in charge of surfing and printing. Tom will bring with him a box of paper from his surfing and printing activities in NY during the weeks prior to installation week and will print more paper when in Austin (see below). Kristin and Reed Posey will produce the Video and Kristin is in charge of fabricating the [power objects]. Both Tom and Kristin will blog.
Question for Kristin:
a. A weak link in the above scenario, I think, is the video's "subliminal suggestion" to smash pinatas. Realistically, how do we get people to smash pinatas? Could you draft your former students as "rent a zombies" to get the smashing process started? In other words have shills in the audience playacting a hypnotized frenzy that might inspire others to join in?
b. I changed the "logo" at the top of the page since we aren't talking about vj-ing and dj-ing anymore. Let me know if you have anything else you want to put up.
Questions for Elizabeth:
1. We need to be able to put lots of 8 1/2" X 11" sheets up on the testsite walls. I usually use tiny map pins that don't leave large holes. Is that possible? If not, we would need to affix large sheets of white (craft) paper to walls, so we can tape the 8 1/2" X 11" pages to that surface. Is that possible?
2. We will need a computer, a high speed internet connection, and a fast printer such as a laser printer, to print a few reams of paper quickly during installation week. Do you have such a printer? Can one be rented?
- tom moody 5-04-2004 10:00 pm