California State University, Northridge Contents

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE

A graduate project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Fine Arts in Art, Visual Arts

By Ricardo Cisneros

May 2019

The graduate project of Ricardo Cisneros is approved:

______Christian Tedeschi, M.F.A. Date

______Steven Hampton, M.F.A., Ph.D. Date

______Laurel Long, M.F.A., Chair Date

California State University, Northridge

iii

DEDICATION

Con todo el amor, para mi papa y mama. Gracias por siempre apoyarme. This accomplishment could not be possible without the support of my parents and my love, Juliana. My road in life, thus far, has not been a straight or easy journey. The work produced during the course of this program is a reflection of deep emotions and hardened, lived experience. Thank you to the amazing CSUN faculty members: Laurel Long, Samantha Fields, Steven Hampton, Erik Sandberg, Lesley Krane, Magdy Rizk, Tim Forcum, and Kim Light. You helped un-package the ingredients necessary to produce the content of my life. I am forever grateful.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Signature Page iii

Dedication iv

Abstract vi

The Running Man as prescient 1

The Unwrapping 3

Negating The Spectacle 5

The Burger 12

Works Cited 14

Appendix 15

ABSTRACT

Contents Under Pressure

Ricardo Cisneros

Master of Fine Arts in Art, Visual Arts

What is the worth of an individual? My mixed media, two- and three-dimensional

works create a visual survey of societal trends and the psychological “detournement”1

that is engineered within systems of capitalism, social injustice, class warfare, andfood

politics. The inception of my current body of workThe Burger(Fig 1.), began frommental turmoil and emotional entropy. My father suffered a cardiac arrest while in dialysis treatment over the summer of 2018. At the time, I was attending the closing showcase of a book making class at CSU Fresno. I received a call from my mother who informed me of my father’s condition. My world fell into a state of static, emotional paralysis. I had to make a choice: drop everything or continue onto my next class (one that I desperately needed to complete my MFA program in two years).

______1 “Detournement is the fluid language of anti-ideology. It occurs within a type of communication aware of its inability to enshrine any and definitivecertainty”(Debord 146)

With my mother’s sound advice, I decided to stay and follow through with the

next class. Due to the intense scheduling of the CSUSummer Arts program I was attendingI was allotted one day a week forbreak. I spent each of those days driving seven hours round trip to see my father. I later found out that his heart had stopped for six minutes before the paramedics were able to resuscitate him. I spent the rest of that summer tending to my parent’s emotional and physical well-being. My father has since

made a slow but full recovery. During his recovery, I began to reflect on how much he

means to me. When I think of all the memories I have of my father, one recurring

tradition always stands out, eating a “Big Mac” sandwich together(cue in the cheesy

1980’s film montage). I wanted to honor him in some way, but I had no clue how that

would manifest in the work. The key to The Burger’s genesis and the focus of my current

body of work was its structure. A total of nine three-dimensional sculptures create the

individual layers found inside the “Big Mac.”Each form is supported by a wooden base,

andthe shape is hand sculpted using a patching compound called Fix It All2, purchased

from The Home Depot.Once the structural integrity of the form has stabilized, a primer is

applied followed by several layers of acrylic paint. A faux finish is on the surface in

likeness of the real burger. Layers that exhibit accessory toppings, such as the top bun

and double meat patties, carry with them smaller hand sculpted and painted polymer clay

sculptures. Each layer acts as a framing element for a hand painting still life composition

located on its center surface. The objects represented are personal medical equipment and

medication used to treat my father’s chronic illnesses.

______

2 Fix it All is manufactured by Custom Building Products, a subsidiary of the Quickrete company. Established in 1940, it is sold by The Home Depot retailer as a patching compound for interior wall repair.

vii

The Running Man as Prescient

The year was 1982. A few notable highlights fromthis time: I was born, Michael

Jackson’s second solo album Thriller was released, andRichard Bachman’s (Stephen

King’s pseudonym) The Running Man(Fig 2), was published. Considered to be the most popular of the Bachman books, it was adapted into a feature film under the same title in

1987. The film’s incarnation exercised various creative liberties that helped establish it as a cult classic. In the novel, it is the year 2025. Richards enters the self-titled game show in hopes of winning the grand prize of one billion dollars. His physical appearance is more in line withan average build; he is just a normal guy looking to score big and help his impoverished family. The duration of his participation lasts over 30 days. He travels across the United States as he documents and transmits his experience to the game show.

In the novel, his journey comes to an end when Richards flies a plane into the game’s headquarters. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead role as Benjamin Richards, the film version is set in the year 2017. Richards’ character is portrayed as a rogue police officer. While on a mission, he disobeys an order to fire onto a crowd of civilians. As punishment, he is sent to a labor camp where the lower-class must work to pay their burden back to society. There, he meets a resistance group that would like to recruit him in their efforts to fight the oppressive government regime and media monopoly ICS.

Together they orchestrate an escape attempt where Richards and allies are captured and taken by the justice department. The host of the real life show, Family Feud, actor

Richard Dawson plays the film’s villain and Damon Killian (Fig 3). As host to The

Running Man, Killian exercises complete control over any televised broadcast. He

fabricates a story that embellishes the actions of Richards’ escape and portrays him as a serial killer in order to enlist him as a contestant in thehighly rated television show. In order to regain his freedom, Richards and other contestants of The Running Man must work together to defeat gladiator-like executioners referred to as “stalkers.” The public watches the onslaught of violence outside the arena as Killian encourages gambling odds in favor of which contestant will die next. The fictional narrative world represented in

The Running Man holds a relevant and resilient commentary on issues afflicting society today. The system modalities that allowed the fictional media tyrant, ICS, to control all aspects of information in the film, can also be found today. Co-Op city can be replaced with the United States and an analogous system of class warfare, media biased information, dependency on consumer products, addiction to celebrity icon’s, and exhausted natural resources. Over three decades after its theatrical release, The Running

Man continues to inform content within my art practice.

The Unwrapping

Growing up in the eighties, I watched a lot of television. As the middle child in a family of 8, television was a cheap resource my mother used to keep me and my siblings occupied. This is not by any means an implication of bad parenting on her part.

Television allowed my mother the time she needed to focus on the daily upkeep of our household while my father worked two jobs. My perception of the world at this time was restricted to popular culture and information accessed from basic television. We were raised in the stark landscape of south Los Angeles. The development of self during the social climate of this time was bifurcated by ahome and a street identity. Survival was contingent on the path chosen, and that decision would impact the accessibility of a future. It was a trickle-down system. Drug cartels, such as “La M”, also known as the

Mexican mafia,recruited kids into gang culture and employed them as distributors.

Options were limited when I was young; in my opinion, you were either in a gang, a member of themiddle class, or part of the working poor. I worked early on in my life. My father worked weekends, outside of his two regular jobs; he moonlighted as a server/bartender for upscale events in Beverly Hills. I learned how to mix a decent 7/7

(Seagrams and 7-up) cocktail by the time I was 12. We worked a 14-hour shift on

Saturdays. My exposure to the wealth and class difference between my family and those that we served at these events still informs how I view the world. After our shift, my father and I would share a “Big Mac” sandwich from McDonald’s. I remember my achingfeet and the numbness in my back, but neither seemed to bother me because the moments with my father andthe feel-good chemicals in the food made the work worth it.

The bond we shared during these meals gave me an appreciation for the work he performed and the time he spent away from his family. I grew up learning the discrepancies of human value. The wealthy seemed to display an inherent demand for comfort, while my family struggled toeat. Society treated us like a product for consumption. Ouraccessibility to success was pre-determined by where we lived and what we could afford.

Negating The Spectacle

In 1957, eight members from two prominent groups, The International Movement

for an Imaginist Bauhaus and the Letterist International, came together at a conference in

northern Italy. The Situationists International (the SI); were composed of various political theorists, artists, and intellectuals. Influenced by avant-garde movements such as DADA and Surrealism, they envisioned a unification of art and life. Disillusioned by the increasing presence of capitalism, the leader of the Letterist and a member of the SI, Guy

Debord, developed in his book, The Society of the Spectacle, a central theory known as

“The Spectacle.” In it, he lists a total of 222 numbered “Theses” that outline the inner workings of “The Spectacle.” This became a centralized platform for the SI and referred to the media’s increasing influence on society since the 1920’s. “Debord’s analysis is based on the everyday experience of the impoverishment of life, its fragmentation into more and more widely separated spheres, and the disappearance of any unitary aspects from society. The spectacle consists in the reunification of separate aspects at the level of the image. “Everything life lacks is to be found within the spectacle, conceived of as an ensemble of independent representations” (James 69). The Situationists were interested in creating disruptions through the means of a particular situation. One method used,

“Detournement” or “diversion,” was developed as an obstacle meant to “challenge the alienating, separating, pacifying, spectator-inducing, socially controlling forces of the spectacle” (citation). The diversion tactic was used as a means of re-formatting aspects of culture to disrupt the original, intended experience. Another approach the SI developed in their efforts to facilitate specific situations, is “Hypergraphy,” which merged text, poetry, and imagery into a particular composition. Internal arguments within the group and the

exclusion of GruppeSpurr, the German contingent of the organization, led to its ultimate collapse in 1968. The group’s leadership seemed more interested in producing political theory than creating art. While the Situationists’ goal can be seen as a direct critique ofand revolt against the emerging capitalist influence on society, a more recent methodology called “Culture Jamming” has manifested as a masquerade of commercialism whose focus lies in the infiltration of a specific corporate target.

Established in 1984, the term “Culture Jamming” was created to represent an approach in resisting the damage caused by the corporate and media agenda. In the book

“Culture Jamming: Activism and the Art of Cultural Resistance”authors elaborate on this new approach: “Culture Jamming commonly refers to a range of tactics used to critique, subvert, and otherwise ‘jam’ the workings of consumer culture” (Dery 6). “Culture

Jamming” can be seen as an offshoot or continuation of the Situationists’ ideals.

Artists such as the “Yes-Men” have managed to infiltrate and disrupt their targets by custom tailoring campaigns that hold them each accountable for their transgressions.

The team behind the “Yes-Men” artists Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, have developed a notorious reputation for their ability to create fake websites that mimic a specific corporate site. In a bait and hook scenario, opportunities to speak at media events are sent to the “Yes-Men” directly through the fake website. From this initial point of contact, the “Yes-Men” begin to construct an alias persona, and they inhabit this identity to infiltrate their target. In the 2009 film The Yes-Men Fix the World(Fig 4), Bichlbaum and Bonanno take us through a series of “missions,” as they describe them. In the first, we are notified of an acquisition: DOW Chemical has purchased the fertilizer company

Union Carbide. In 1984, Union Carbide was responsible for an explosion at their

pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. The incident left 5,000 of the city’s residents dead and at

least 100,000 sick for the rest of their lives. Described as the “biggest industrial disaster

in history,” the explosion forced the fertilizer company was able to settle with the Indian

government for only 470 million dollars. A considerably low pay-out, this left each

victim with less than $1,000 dollars to cover their damages.

In reaction to DOW Chemical’s crooked business dealings, the team created a

fake company website. They used the site to lure in opportunities to speak on behalf of

DOW Chemical. After a waiting period, they received an invitation to a conference on

international finance in London. At the conference, the team displayed a gold painted

skeleton named “Gilda.” Used as a visual cue, it helped to emphasize their presentation

when they spoke about a fictitious, mock-system, designed to create a monetary value on

human life. Following their presentation, they were met with applause from the audience.

Risk assessors approached them with praise and general inquiries about their “refreshing”

approach to calculating the worth of an individual. The response in London left the team

disappointed; it seemed as if the satire-based model they presented was not enough to

persuade corporations to account for their immoral practices.

In what can be considered their most notorious hijack of corporate identity, the

“Yes-Men” received an invitation from the BBC news organization to speak on behalf of

DOW Chemical. On the televised interview they would presumably take responsibility

for the Bhopal disaster. That day, over 300 million viewers watched what they believed

to be a moment of personal accountability. During the televised interview, “Yes-Men” team member Andy Bichelbaum, under the alias “Jude Finisterra,” spoke in regards to

DOW Chemical’s plan to liquidate Union Carbide for 12 billion dollars. In turn, they

would use the money to compensate the people of Bhopal for the catastrophe. The elaborate hoax caused DOW Chemical stock to plummet 4% and cost the company 2 billion dollars in losses. Due to the false statement, the media accused the “Yes-Men” of cruelty. The team traveled to Bhopal to see for themselves whether or not their actions had resulted in further suffering to the people affected by the event. Their reaction was quite the opposite. They were grateful to see some level of accountability. It seems the interview had backfired. While the initial focus of their mission was to force agesture of reparation to the victims in India, the activists’ radical methods seemed to temporarily exonerated DOW Chemical from their moral obligation to the people of Bhopal.

In the final act to The Yes-Men Fix the World, the team decides to create their own issue of The New York Times. Set 6 months into the future, the Saturday edition ran bold, idealized headlines such as “All Public Universities to Be Free” and “Nationalized

Oil to Fund Climate Change Efforts.” The goal was to present a realistic idea of what the world could potentially be. A total of 100,000 copies were printed and distributed in the streets of New York, and the public’s reaction was incredulous. While the mechanisms employed by the “Yes-Men” come from aplace of fiction, their ability to infiltrate the corporate and media systems at the highest levels has become an alluring approach to the

“Culture Jamming” movement. With their direct provocation of a free-market world,

The“Yes-Men’s” activism has proven that something as simple as a fake corporate website can de-stabilize an entire world economy.

The appropriation of consumer culture is another notable approach to the “Culture

Jamming” movement. In 1992, toy manufacturer Mattel released a talking Barbie doll that proclaimed in an audio statement, “Math is hard.” This led to the formation of the

Barbie Liberation Organization or BLO in 1993, a small group of artists and activists that

purchased G.I. Joe and Barbie dolls to perform “corrective Surgery” (citation). This

included changing the voice box mechanism from one doll and transplanting it into the

other. The result was a G.I. Joe doll proclaiming, “Ken is such a dream!” and Barbie

saying phrases such as, “Vengeance is mine!” (Fig5). The group pushed the agenda even

further by re-packaging the dolls with altered instructional sheets that included a

voicemail number to the BLO along with national press contact information.

Interchanging the voice boxes of the dolls was only part of the plan. A day before

Christmas in 1993, the BLO sent out a press release claiming responsibility for the

altered dolls. The organization took it a step further and recruited two kids, one in San

Diego, California and the other in Albany, New York. Each was instructed to give a

performance to the media, showing that the dolls were malfunctioning. Their hope was to

open a dialogue about challenging gender stereotypes. Similar to the response the “Yes-

Men” received for their fake BBC interview, some of the media attention directed at the

BLO labeled the antic as a “terrorist act against children.” This multi-faceted approach

of combining activism and art helped emphasize the group’s revolt against gender

oppressive roles assigned by one of the largest manufacturers of kid’s toys.

Operating under a covert organization title, the Billboard Liberation Fronthas poised itself as an advertisement firm leading the way in the improvement of billboard campaigns. Founded in 1977 by artist Jack Nappier, they have altered pre-existing marketing campaigns on billboards with their own personal message. As they perceive it, the billboard is an inescapable projection of corporate interest, and peoplehave no choice but to cross paths with the billboard. The billboards are placed in strategic traffic

congested areas, creating a barrage of product placement that people must interact with

on a daily basis. In their manifesto they proclaim, “You can switch off/smash/shoot/hack

or in other ways avoid Television, Computers and Radio. You are not compelled to buy

magazines or subscribe to newspapers. You can sic your Rottweiler on door-to-door

salesmen. Of all the types of media used to disseminate the Ad there is only one which is

entirely inescapable to all but the bedridden shut-in or the misanthrope. We speak, of

course of the Billboard. Along with its lesser cousins, advertising posters and "bullet"

outdoor graphics, the Billboard is ubiquitous and inescapable to anyone who moves

through our world. Everyone knows the Billboard; the Billboard is in everyone’s mind”

(Nappier 1).With each listed “client,”the Billboard Liberation Front’s altered campaigns

focus on re-contextualizing the advertisement into an improved design according to the

group’s own directive.Some of their campaigns have modified the billboards of companies such as McDonald’s. Showcasing one of their breakfast sandwiches, the altered ad reads, “You have about 10,000 tastebuds, kill them all” (Nappier 1)(Fig 6).In a

different example they add to an existingAT&T coverage billboard thatnow reads,

“AT&T works in more places, like NSA HEADQUARTERS” (Nappier 1). The Billboard

Liberation Front’s approach to the modification of commercial billboards is a great example of what the “Situationists International” helped establish. Their approach to target billboards is methodicaland militarized. Their vision is to improve the billboard, because not only do they see their platform as a right, but they also encourage others by way of guided instructions. In their publication “The Art and Science of Billboard

Improvement,” they outline a strategic approach to modifying a billboard, and it isfilled withsections on matching a particulartypeface, working with scale, and overlaying and

tiling. Each step is an informative tutorial that provides guidancethrough the most effective means of appropriating the target advertisement.

The Burger

When I learned of my father’s cardiac arrest in the summer of 2018, I was overwhelmed by emotional trauma and the possibility of not having him in my life. The dream of most Mexican parents is to see their children succeed beyond their own accomplishments. I have worked my entire life to make that happen, and break the chain of poverty in my family. The Burger began as a singular still-life painting of a Big Mac

sandwich. It featured a blood-glucose test strip in the foreground along with a

representation of a half-eaten burger (Fig 7). The work was a direct response to the

experiencesI shared with my father, and now we share the same chronic illness, diabetes.

During a critique, a comment was made about its construction. In its first iteration, it was

a singular piece of handmade paper I had made during the Summer Arts class I was

ending when I found out about my father’s condition. The paper was mounted on a

wooden base that featured a faux impression of a hamburger bun. Suggestions were made

about the construction of an actual, round bun for the base, and other works that would

exhibit the different layers of a Big Mac. At this point, the work demanded more, and this

needed to be the focus of my graduate project. I sourced several bags of a patching

compound from The Home Depot called Fix it All(Fig 8). The material is a low-grade

construction powder. When diluted with water, it hardens to a solid state. Ithas been a

personal preference over the years because of its low cost and versatility. I have always

admired the material for its packaging: who wouldn’t buy a product that claims to “Fix it

all” for $13.68 a bag? It can’t really fix much, but it had to be incorporated into the

work. The Burger series demanded the use of materials accessible toworking, lower-class

people because of its association to with my personal history. Nine individual layers compose the entirety of The Burger series, and each layer varies in weight and shape.

Each individual structure is supported by a wooden base of the same diameter and width.

With the use of dampened newspaper, the body of each form is molded into its final shape. A final pour of the patching compound unifies the body into a singular unit.

Acrylic pigment is then hand painted to produce the facsimile of the surface represented, and a final coat of automotive grade, clear coat seals each layer. The development of The

Burger has been a process of self-discovery. Its cumbersome nature is not meant to be conventional, and it continues to inform the nature of my own survival and refusal to accept the conditions presented through social inequality. Like its real-world counterpart,

The Burger operates on a wide spectrum of functionality. Its potential to nurture relationships between individuals can also be its demise if consumed regularly. Its allure comes in its design; it’s easy to handle and created to taste exactly the same regardless of time or space. I will always be connected to The Burger for its representation, the rejection of its capitalist relationship,and most of all for the enjoyment my father experiences when he consumes one. This work is a love letter to him and to all the sacrifices he has made. It is a visual surrender of my own mortality and a declaration of my will to succeed despite the systems that attempt to define what I am allowed to have.

WORKS CITED

Deleure, Marilyn and Moritz, Fink. Culture Jamming: Activism and the Art of Cultural Resistance. New York University Press, 2017

Trier, James. “Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy.51:1.2007, pp 69-70 https://www-jstor- org.libproxy.csun.edu/stable/40015547?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents

Velimirovic, Andreja. “How did Situationism Influence Art History?” WIDEWALLS, 2016 https://www.widewalls.ch/situationism-influence-history/

Bichlbaum, Andy., Director. The Yes-Men Can Fix The World. Performance by Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno.,Charny/Bachrach Entertainment, 2009

Bonanno, Mike. “Case Study:Barbie Liberation Organization. “Beautiful Trouble, 23 Dec. 1993, http://beautifultrouble.org/case/barbie-liberation-organization/

Billboard Liberation Front. “BLF Respond, Establishing a new paradigm in street marketing, marketing for the people” www.billboardliberation.comMay, 2014

Jeffrey Vallance – Blinky The Friendly Hen – MOCA U – MOCAtv.” Youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b20KZ2fQPoY

Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. Zone Books, 1994, pp 144,

Appendix: Images

(Fig 1)

Installation view of “The Burger” series, acrylic, paper, polymer clay, patching compound, wood, site-specific installation, 2019

(Fig 2)

The Running Man,Dir. Paul Michael Glasser. Perf. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Braveworld Productions, 1987.Film.

(Fig 3)

The Running Man,Dir. Paul Michael Glasser.Perf. Richard Dawson. Braveworld Productions, 1987.Film.

(Fig 4)

The Yes Men Fix the World, Dir. Andy Bichlbaum, MikeBonanno. Perf. Andy Bichlbaum. Arte France Productions, 2009.Film.

(Fig 5)

Vollmer, Justin. Photograph of NBC News Story “Barbie Liberation Organization.”Film 201 blogspot. http://dustinvollmerfilm201.blogspot.com/2008/04/barbie-liberation-organization.html

(Fig 6)

Kalman, Milton Rand. “Mcdonald’s: Sick of it All” Billboard.8 June.2010, www.billboardliberation.com

(Fig 7)

“The Burger(Top Bun),” acrylic, paper, polymer clay, patching compound on wood, 24” round, 2018

(Fig 8)

Fix It All, Patching Compound. The Home Depot.JPEG File. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Custom-Building-Products-Fix-It-All-25-lb-Patching-Compound- DPFXL25/100213070