Regarding Evil by Ross B. Cisneros B.F.A The Cooper Union School of Art, 2002 SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN VISUAL STUDIES AT THE_____ __ ATMTSSACHUSETTS INSTRTUT MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOG OF TECHNOLOGY JUNE 2005 JUN 28 2005 c 2005 Ross B. Cisneros, All rights reserved. LIBRARIES The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic ROTCH copies of this thesis document in whole or in part. Signature of Author: Degrtmei't Aehitecture '-M~y 6, 2005 Certified by: Krzy'sztof Wodiczko Professor of Visual Arts Thesis Supervisor Accepted by: Ad6le Naud6 Santos Chair, Committee on Graduate Students Acting Head, Department of Architecture Dean, School of Architecture and Planning 2 REGARDING EVIL By ROSS B. CISNEROS Submitted to the Department of Architecture On May 6, 2005 in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Visual Studies ABSTRACT The transnational summit, Regarding Evil, was called to assembly with the simultaneous sounding of the trumps in six sites around the world, projected simulcast. In collaboration with the six individuals who were issued the instruments, each announced their particular state of emergency and converged at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a seventh blast. Scotsman Kenneth Smith assumed the role of 7th piper. Artists and scholars of international reputation had been invited to present visual and discursive material confronting the elusive and immeasurable subject of Evil, its transpolitical behaviors, charismatic aesthetic, and viral disbursement in the vast enterprise of simulation, symbolic power, and catastrophe. Panel discussion and audience participation provided a public forum to expand this dialogue. Engaging in the discourse of ethics as a codal system by which we can only hope to define a subjective good, continues to undermine the intelligence of Evil and fuels the perpetual orbit around exotic 'otherness' as an opaque foreigner situated in an archaic Other World of saboteurs. Questions that I have raised concerning the usefulness of colloquia and the discourse of Moral Law included "How then can we speak to/of evil while choosing to sidestep the subject using rhetorical strategies at the risk of sacrificing symbolic power?" "Must we rely on the performative death act to regain this symbolic power?" Including ourselves within the equation of Evil is necessary for a richer appraisal of our condition, which may, in some cases, require the invocation of such an unwanted guest directly into our universe. Thesis Supervisor: Krzysztof Wodiczko Title: Professor of Visual Arts 3 4 6 HOW TO READ THIS MANUAL As with any performative or ephemeral works of art, the methods of documentation and (re)presentation often become a second curatorial process in transposing the experiential into archival forms of souvenirs and written accounts for the physical archive of memory. This text serves such a function and should usher the reader through the events of the summit Regarding Evil under the following headings: PREAMBLE... p.9 Author introduces circumstantial, social, and preliminary theory behind the project. QUARENTINE... p.15 Author introduces the committed site for the summit. CALL TO ORDER 1:00am EST... p.17 Vito Acconci reads poem Untitled by Ross Cisneros INTRODUCTION... p.19 Transcription of introductory remarks by Ross Cisneros EVIL'S POLITICAL HABITATS... p.29 Transcription of presentation by Jodi Dean Ph.D. LET"S GO AHEAD, LET"S MISBEHAVE... p. 49 Transcription of presentation by Ronald Jones Ph.D. IDEOLOGUES OF THE REJECTED... p.61 Interview and account of performance "Do You Want Total War?" by Boyd Rice DE LAMA LAMINA... p.73 Introduction for Matthew Barney and his film De Lama Lamina 2004 for its first American screening. FALLOUT SHELTER... p.79 Author introduces the Neo-Nazi response to Jodi Dean's presentation ANTI-BALLISTIC DEFENSE... p.93 .Jodi Dean produces a paper delivered in Tucson Arizona describing the shortfalls of public discourse when Nazis contaminate academic blog worlds RESTRAINT... p.101 In an interview with NPR, Ross Cisneros refuses to read the Manson letters MONOGRAPHS... p.105 Professional record of participants CORRESPONDENCE... p.113 Collection of relevant PHOTO FILE... p.143 Collection of images related to the summit PRESS KIT... p.183 Selected media appearances BIBLIOGRAPHY... p.195 Primary research texts COMPLINE... p.199 The last liturgical hour PREAMBLE 10 If the purpose of a thesis is to leave behind a record or trace of a particular course of research for others to reference, then I find it appropriate to include an account of the serendipitous encounters that led me to the subject Evil. This preamble should be useful in understanding that the question should not be why I chose to investigate Evil, but rather how it was demanded of me. At some level, the passageways towards my final undertaking at MIT may seem disparate and will read more as a narrative than a technical form of scientific writing that describes a problem, experimentation, and subsequent results. Among the variables that arranged the larger constellation were the challenging political activities that began after September 11 th (or the political habits that were now operating with hyperbolic strength), was the resurgence of both fundamental religiosity and Gnostic traditions, a failing counter-culture to ruling power, and the effects of being an artist placed in a technocracy of mythic scale. Each of these effects created an environment of study that was site and time specific as my pursuits as an artist took me from one contradiction to the other- contradictions that depend on negation but in my own artistic practice, operate in cooperation with elliptical thinking. From the position of an artist, placed in the context of a technical institute, I had experienced the temptation of chasing after the Genius of mind and measure, to imbue this mythical genius into artworks, and exhibit the results of my hunt as if they were the hides of exotic animals. There was no honor in this method of control and did not reveal the prophetic capacity artists have in revealing mystic truths. After my first semester at MIT, I immediately enrolled in Harvard's Divinity School in a desperate attempt to save my heart from the machines and prove my optimism for transformational experience outside of measurable traditions. I found myself fighting especially hard to assert myself as an artist and a poet amongst hard-line architects, mathematicians, and theorists while seeking allies among theologians, artists, mystics, and the Rosicrucian Order. To my surprise and delight, The Order had an incredible presence at MIT and an ancestry that has since been chiseled into the stone of the buildings to read: BACON, NEWTON, and EDISON among others. Members of the Manhattan Project were initiates of the Rosicrucian Order, and before becoming fully absorbed into the project, were required to perform the secret rites held in what was once the "Rad Lab" since demolished and replaced with Frank Gerry's Stata Center. With this discovery, a very important aspect of my relation to technology slipped into place. It was clear to me that the technological advances that have had the most impact had their beginnings in the discipline of metaphysics and transcendental philosophy. To be more specific, the revelation that technologists had as a starting point a vast vocabulary within transcendental philosophy, poetics, and metaphysics led me to believe that there was a more primary art to be practiced and mastered that could be understood and shared across various disciplines. The course of my investigations regarding the transcendental aspirations of art, religion, technology, and philosophy were also crossing heavily into politics and organizing strategies for the masses. If The Communist Manifesto is to be considered the great artwork of Marx (as it should), than the politics of George W. Bush and his administration should also be considered a political design center considering the future global arrangement of religion, economy, and ideology. The most impressive and vulgar strategy of the current American political agenda as spoken by the president has undoubtedly been the inclusion of language suggesting a war between a transcendental Good and transcendental Evil. This political program made it all too easy to justify protective measures in bordering 'God's chosen people' from the bestiary of strangers. Evil has again returned to the simple Manichean design that draws power from its very opacity, luring people away from a moral center and into an illusion contrary to truth and against the will of people. This structure is known to define Black Magic and the Dark Arts. Can the very inclusion of such terms have the ability to invoke such transcendental Evil? Or, is it part of the frail human condition that commits an error in believing in the immortal capacity to touch transcendental power? There was a particular day during the summer of 2004 that gave me a sense of urgency to confront the subject of Evil, real or fantasy, in a more direct way. I had just spent my first summer as an amateur organic farmer on a 1740 agricultural property. My relationship with academic life, farm animals and the brute force of tilling the earth brought me closer to the brotherhood of The Concord School as defined by this very specific triangulation in New England that resulted in the transcendental concerns of American intellectuals Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Alcott, and Fuller. Continuing in this American Gothic tradition of New England, I had learned that the previous owner of farmhouse was a self-made witch after having received several mailings to her attention related to sorcery and spell casting. Against all logic, every residual evidence of her habits in the house fell suspect to voodoo or ritual.