Byproduct on the Excess of Embedded Art Practices Copyright © 2010 by YYZBOOKS
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BYPRODUCT On the Excess of Embedded Art Practices Copyright © 2010 by YYZBOOKS. YYZBOOKS Copyright © 2010 of individual essays and artworks is retained by the writers 140 – 401 Richmond Street West and artists. All rights reserved. Toronto, ON M5V 3A5 Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the publisher. YYZBOOKS is dedicated to publishing critical writings on Canadian art and Editor: Marisa Jahn culture. YYZBOOKS is the publishing Managing Editor: Ana Barajas programme of YYZ Artists’ Outlet, Copy Editor: Stella Kyriakakis an artist-run centre that is a site of Copy Editor, French: Magalie Bouthillier contemporary cultural conversation. Publishing Assistant: Misty-Dawn MacMillan Design: Ryan Hines YYZ Artists’ Outlet is supported by its members, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council. Byproduct : on the excess of embedded art practices / Marisa Jahn, editor. REV- Furthering socially engaged art, Includes bibliographical references. design, and pedagogy. ISBN 978-0-920397-51-0 www . rev-it . org (917) 902-5396 New York City & San Francisco 1. Art and society. 2. Art criticism. I. Jahn, Marisa, 1977- Co-Artistic Directors: Marisa Jahn, Rachel McIntire, N72.S6B96 2010 701’.03 C2010-905753-8 and Stephanie Rothenberg REV- is a non-profit organization that furthers socially-engaged art, design, Printed in Canada by F. W. Barrett Company. and pedagogy. REV- produces projects that fuse disciplines, foster diversity, and vary in form (workshops, publications, exhibitions, design objects, etc.). Engaged with different communities and groups, REV-’s projects involve collaborative production, resource-sharing, and a YYZ Director: Ana Barajas commitment to the process as political gesture. The organization derives its name YYZ Board of Directors: Darryl Bank (Chair), Sunny Kerr (Vice-Chair), from both the colloquial expression “to Vincent Shiao (Treasurer), Susan Rowe Harrison (Secretary), Andréa Lalonde, rev” a vehicle, and the prefix “rev-” which and Yam Lau. means to turn — as in, revolver, revolution, revolt, revere, irreverent, etc. YYZBOOKS is represented by The Literary Press Group of Canada (www.lpg.ca), and distributed by LitDistCo ([email protected]) and D.A.P. / Distributed Art Publishers (www.artbook.com). YYZ Artists’ Outlet and YYZBOOKS gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts through its Writing and Publishing Section in making this book possible. The publisher has made every reasonable effort to contact holders of copyright for images reproduced in this anthology. The publisher will gladly receive information that will enable errors or omissions to be rectified in subsequent editions. INTRODUCTION 10 Byproducts and Parasites: On the Excess of Embedded Art Practices by Marisa Jahn and L.M. Bogad 19 Parasite (excerpt) by Michel Serres 19 Response by Ian Clarke 20 Response by Matthew Soules 22 What is an Institution? by John R. Searle 23 Response By Joshua Moufawad-Paul PRODUCING & ITS BYPRODUCTS (ART & COMMERCE) 34 Preface to Producing and its Byproducts by Marisa Jahn ARTIST PLACEMENT GROUP 39 Context is Half the Work by Peter Eleey 42 Countdown to Zero, Count Up to Now An Interview with the Artist Placement Group by Pauline van Mourik Broekman and Josephine Berry Slater 49 Manifesto, 1980 by Artist Placement Group 50 APG: Legacies and Aftermaths A Conversation with Claire Bishop and Stephen Wright Editorialized by Marisa Jahn N.E. THING CO. LTD. 54 N.E. Thing Co. Ltd.: From Soft Sell to Soft Skills by Adam Lauder 59 Things United and Non-Categorical: N.E. Thing Co. Ltd. An Interview with Ingrid Baxter by Grant Arnold 63 On the Philosophy of “Gross National Good” by IAIN BAXTER& E.A.T. 64 The Artist and Industry. E.A.T. Proceedings, No. 4 A talk presented at the Museum of Modern Art, December 16, 1968 by Billy Klüver 68 Beginning 9 Evenings by Michelle Kuo 74 Manifesto, 1967 by E.A.T. FELICITY TAYLER 78 The Incidental Persons of the Information Revolution by Felicity Tayler 75 Editorial introduction by Marisa Jahn DEMOCRATIC INNOVATION 79 C ol-labor-atë? A Conversation with Kent Hansen by Marisa Jahn PAUL ARDENNE 84 Of Economic Concerns by Paul Ardenne, translated from the French by Emmanuelle Day and Lisa Larson-Walker 86 Response by Amish Morrell 85 Le souci de l’économie par Paul Ardenne A CONSTRUCTED WORLD All the Bankers at Altamont: An Interview with A Constructed World by Joseph del Pesco 92 MAUREEN CONNOR Personnel A Conversation with Maureen Connor 95 by Marisa Jahn Special contribution by Kadambari Baxi AU TRAVAIL / AT WORK 99 There Are Shitty Jobs Everywhere; That's My Freedom An Interview with Bob the Builder of Au Travail/At Work by Gina Badger and Adam Bobbette 100 Response by Allan Antliff 103 Manifesto, 2010 by Au Travail / At Work 104 Manifeste, 2010 par Au Travail / At Work TOMAS JONSSON 105 The Magpie: Economic Redundancy as Civic Participation An Interview with Tomas Jonsson by Marisa Jahn PERFORMING POLITICS 109 Preface to Performing Politics by Marisa Jahn KRISTIN LUCAS 113 “Refresh”: Versionhood and The Multiplicity of the Self An Interview with Kristin Lucas by Marisa Jahn 115, 117 Court transcript 114 Response by Kate Henderson JANEZ JAnšA 120 Subversion and Similitude in the Janez Janša Project by Marisa Jahn 123 The Name as a Readymade: An Interview with Janez Janša, Janez Janša, and Janez Janša by Lev Kreft STEVE MANN 132 Prior Art: Art of Record for Personal Safety by Kathleen Pirrie-Adams 133 Response by Michael Page 135 Incidentalism and Existential Contraband: On Steve Mann By Marisa Jahn and Connor Dickie MAMMALIAN DiviNG REFLEX 137 Social Acupuncture and The Dog That Saved the Duck An Interview with Darren O’Donnell and Natalie de Vito by Marisa Jahn 143 Social Acupuncture: A Guide to Suicide, Performance, and Utopia (excerpt) by Darren O’Donnell, Mammalian Diving Reflex JOHN SEELY BROWN 144 On Performance Fabrics (excerpt) by John Seely Brown 145 Response by Etienne Turpin and DT Cochrane THE YES MEN 146 The Baked Apple: On the New York Post “Special Edition” An Interview with Andy Bichlbaum (The Yes Men), L.M. Bogad, and Andrew Boyd by Marisa Jahn and Merve Ünsal REVEREND BILLY 152 Billy Versus Bloomie: Electoral Guerrilla Theatre in New York City by L.M. Bogad 159 Letters from the Congregation to Reverend Billy and The Church of Life After Shopping MR. PEANUT 161 Mr. Peanut for Vancouver Mayor 1974 An Interview with Vincent Trasov by Luis Jacob TEJPAL S. AJJI 164 Isotopes and a Radioactive Modernity by Tejpal S. Ajji MISS CANADIANA 167 And the Winner Is… by Michelle Jacques ANTANAS MOCKUS 171 Living Fossils, Cultural Amphibians, and the Future’s Midwife An Interview with Antanas Mockus by Pedro Reyes Editorial introduction by Joseph del Pesco 177 CONTRIBUTors’ BIOGRAPHIES 183 NOTES INTRODUCTION 7 weB EGIN IN THE IMPERIAL BELLY This book includes examples from mostly North America and Europe. There are many more individuals and groups that I would have liked to include but that will have to be included in an expanded book or additional framework. —Marisa Jahn 8 A byproduct, commonly understood, is defined as: 1. Something produced in the making of something else. 2. A secondary result; a side effect. A system, commonly understood, is a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole; a harmonious arrangement or pattern; and/or an organized society or social situation regarded as stultifying or oppressive.1 9 BYPRODUCTS ON THE excess OF AND PARASITES EMBEDDED ART practices Narrator Camille Turner is a Canadian artist of the otherwise. African descent who invented a persona named Slavoj Žižek describes the psychic liberation “Miss Canadiana.” Appearing in public in a floor- of deploying a stand-in to substitute for the self: length red gown, tiara, and white sash imprinted “By surrendering my innermost content, including with this self-given title, the costume allows Turner my dreams and anxieties, to the Other, a space to tread past boundaries, and appear as a VIP opens up in which I am free to breathe: when the guest at a panoply of otherwise prohibited events Other laughs for me, I am free to take a rest; when (political functions, military guard ceremonies, the Other sacrifices instead of me, I am free to go tourist sites, pageants). Turner herself does not on living with the awareness that I did atone for physiologically conform to the mainstream public’s my guilt; and so on.”3 Žižek argues that psychic expectations of beauty. However, by invoking the displacement, in fact, regulates normalcy — even gesture and iconography of beauty pageantry, Miss for the individual who “knows better,” and “behaves Canadiana reconditions expectations about beauty as if,” this self-consciousness does not obviate the and race. experience of cathartic release. Figures such as Turner recalls a vivid experience on a trip to Miss Canadiana might be seen as stand-ins that North Preston, Nova Scotia, where Miss Canadiana allow anxieties and hopes to emerge; subsequently, was paraded through the streets on the hood through practice, through their enactment, the of a fancy car to greet the town’s residents. The stand-in becomes confluent with reality. tour ended with a reception at a community Consider the advantages of camouflage — centre where Miss Canadiana gave a short talk. it enables the organism to slip and slink into Not promoted as an art event, Turner describes its surrounds. In Mimicry and Legendary her sense of curiosity about what would happen Psychasthenia (1937), Roger Caillois examines when she revealed that Miss Canadiana was an the way that insect mimicry entails not invented character that investigated her sense of only morphological simulation, but also the racial exclusion in Canada.