Sunday, July 1, 2012
Hidden City Fairmount Waterworks
Over the weekend I had a chance to visit the Bibotorium at the Fairmount Water Works. Situated near the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Bibotorium is a part of Hidden City 2012 and is the work of Camp Little Hope.
On first approach the work looks to be a simple beer garden. A beautiful awning, co-produced by local Reload Bags, shades a lovely patch of grass with steps leading to a railing looking out at the Schuylkill. Drawing closer, little details seem out of place. The Bibotorium’s bar is backed by a large chalkboard, a young man is constantly erasing and re-writing the prices of the three available drinks, or is it nine, there are 3 waters, 3 lagers, and 3 teas but initially I couldn’t understand the difference between each. Windows facing the tent’s side reveal an uncanny scene in a dim many columned room. The length of this room is consumed by 3 lap pools and in each pool floats a bizarre robot/boat. My curiosity piqued I realized there were waiters running in and out of the building, through the window I saw them drawing beverages from long pipes emerging from these robot boats. I then noticed other people watching images, projected from the bow of one boat dancing across the rear wall.
Turning to head inside I bumped into a young lady. “Whadda you think?” she inquired. Shortly, Megan had explained the pricing structure and difference between the beverages. The pools are filled with water from different sources around Philadelphia. The robot boats draw water from these pools, filter it and make tea, beer, and water from each pool. As the pools are depleted the prices for those beverages go up based on the remaining supply. Megan, a hobby beer brewer, became a volunteer on the project in the early planning phases when Camp Little Hope was looking for local advice on beer brewing. She explained to me that tea and beer were both ways of filtering water and we got into a pretty fascinating conversation about the future of water here in Philadelphia and the globe as well as about the various roles art making can take to help re-imagine civic engagement.
After a great conversation with Megan I sat down for a panel discussion with locals, industrial designers, and artists that ran from the very practical to the extremely fanciful. If you are in Philadelphia before June 30th, I’d highly recommend checking out this installation/performance, make sure to check the schedule as there are several fascinating talks and lectures coming up. I’ll be reviewing other Hidden City Projects as the month progresses.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
unconsidered
The unconsidered life is not worth living.
The project is simple enough in conception. Discover and actualize my personal kung fu, become my superself, manipulate discipline and self image in such a way that the existence or absence of freewill is irrelevant. But the starting point is infinitely distant. First, before slipping deeper into any kind of critical or philosophical inquiry into the nature of my goals, into the very idea of the ideal, it is necessary to chose a starting point, to generate a kind of fitness landscape upon which the current self can be mapped. Before this can be done the criteria for the landscape must be chosen. Before i can ask "What is progress?" i must determine "Which progress is most appealing?" from there i imagine it might be possible to begin a more serious critical inquiry into the nature of that particular progress.
But before this step can be taken it is necessary to fill out several forms. Cognitive forms are the most apparent. To tease out 'which progress' the nature and boundaries between culture and self must be given some, at the very least, transient form. Attempts to explore this terrain reveal further questions, each level of decent, ascent, traversal reveals another nest of questions and the starting point moves further afield.
For this reason I have chosen to discard the authentic or the ideal. I can see the authentic only as the name for that which is lost, which is no more. Instead of looking for an ideal I shall emultate the western notion of expansion. Or, more precisely, goals and desired landscapes shall be determined by difference, by an attempt to expand and contract the boundaries of self and the construction of image based only on what has not yet been a boundary or image before. An attempt will be made to define the self as the thwarting of the self, guerrilla warfare of a sort. This is a stumbling kind of assault, as sloppy as my life preceding this moment has been, i now set out to establish a disciplined sort of sloppiness. This may be a futile gesture. But it should be recognized, i believe, as no more or less futile than any other, and no more or less authentic.
The project is simple enough in conception. Discover and actualize my personal kung fu, become my superself, manipulate discipline and self image in such a way that the existence or absence of freewill is irrelevant. But the starting point is infinitely distant. First, before slipping deeper into any kind of critical or philosophical inquiry into the nature of my goals, into the very idea of the ideal, it is necessary to chose a starting point, to generate a kind of fitness landscape upon which the current self can be mapped. Before this can be done the criteria for the landscape must be chosen. Before i can ask "What is progress?" i must determine "Which progress is most appealing?" from there i imagine it might be possible to begin a more serious critical inquiry into the nature of that particular progress.
But before this step can be taken it is necessary to fill out several forms. Cognitive forms are the most apparent. To tease out 'which progress' the nature and boundaries between culture and self must be given some, at the very least, transient form. Attempts to explore this terrain reveal further questions, each level of decent, ascent, traversal reveals another nest of questions and the starting point moves further afield.
For this reason I have chosen to discard the authentic or the ideal. I can see the authentic only as the name for that which is lost, which is no more. Instead of looking for an ideal I shall emultate the western notion of expansion. Or, more precisely, goals and desired landscapes shall be determined by difference, by an attempt to expand and contract the boundaries of self and the construction of image based only on what has not yet been a boundary or image before. An attempt will be made to define the self as the thwarting of the self, guerrilla warfare of a sort. This is a stumbling kind of assault, as sloppy as my life preceding this moment has been, i now set out to establish a disciplined sort of sloppiness. This may be a futile gesture. But it should be recognized, i believe, as no more or less futile than any other, and no more or less authentic.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Authentic Falsification
From Konrad Becker's Strategic Reality Dictionary: Deep Infopolitics and Cultural Intelligence
The technological ability to make copies that are indistinguishable from, or even better than, the original undermined the distinction between the counterfeit and the real. A piano player could never have dreamed of ever playing a work exactly the same way twice. The digital changed the concept of authenticity. News sources report that the global counterfeit business of branded commoditites has spun out of control. But imitation was already an issue when innumerable fake Greek statues turned up in ancient Rome. It was common practice in ancient times for an anonymous author to write in the name of someone famous. Pseudepigraphical work veils the identity of authors writing in the name of a real or fictitious person. Cryptomnesia is the name for lost or forgotten, suppresed or erased memories. It refers to works where authors believe that they are exploring or discovering something new, but are actually recalling a similar or identical work previously encountered. Recalling to the mind experiences to which they would not have access otherwise, and experiencing a memory as if it were a new inspiration. Previously the word "forgery" simply meant "to make," as in the blacksmith's hearth. Since theoretically a forgery could be an even more important work of art, it raises questions in regard to value: it seems that forgery is not so much about content, but authorship. Some art forgers have become popular figures and in the view of many, the only real damage done is creaming off the bank accounts of the wealthy. More often than not the counterfeit of high-culture currency is a source of popular amusement. If it is not worth forging, it is not worth having. But forgery is not seen as a "victimless crime" by the gatekeepers of culture, since it might alter official authorized history, collective identity. Tied to the secularization of society and the emerging cult of beauty in bourgeois social order, the sacred aura of the uniquely "beautiful" image is mirrored in the secular religions characteristic of totalitarian regimes. The subtle distortion of reality and the corruption of ideas that are introduced through the skillful subterfuge of the fake have been compared to the danger of undetected aliens living among us. Not just another false posture of insurrection where population segments are efficiently kept in line by irrational cults of illusory rebellion dancing before the monuments of power. An uncontrollable invasion of alien doubles subtly infiltrates and alters cultural codes.
Brian Holmes introduction to Strategic Reality Dictionary: Deep Infopolitics and Cultural Intelligence
buy the book
online text: Tactical Reality Dictionary: Cultural Intelligence and Social Control
The technological ability to make copies that are indistinguishable from, or even better than, the original undermined the distinction between the counterfeit and the real. A piano player could never have dreamed of ever playing a work exactly the same way twice. The digital changed the concept of authenticity. News sources report that the global counterfeit business of branded commoditites has spun out of control. But imitation was already an issue when innumerable fake Greek statues turned up in ancient Rome. It was common practice in ancient times for an anonymous author to write in the name of someone famous. Pseudepigraphical work veils the identity of authors writing in the name of a real or fictitious person. Cryptomnesia is the name for lost or forgotten, suppresed or erased memories. It refers to works where authors believe that they are exploring or discovering something new, but are actually recalling a similar or identical work previously encountered. Recalling to the mind experiences to which they would not have access otherwise, and experiencing a memory as if it were a new inspiration. Previously the word "forgery" simply meant "to make," as in the blacksmith's hearth. Since theoretically a forgery could be an even more important work of art, it raises questions in regard to value: it seems that forgery is not so much about content, but authorship. Some art forgers have become popular figures and in the view of many, the only real damage done is creaming off the bank accounts of the wealthy. More often than not the counterfeit of high-culture currency is a source of popular amusement. If it is not worth forging, it is not worth having. But forgery is not seen as a "victimless crime" by the gatekeepers of culture, since it might alter official authorized history, collective identity. Tied to the secularization of society and the emerging cult of beauty in bourgeois social order, the sacred aura of the uniquely "beautiful" image is mirrored in the secular religions characteristic of totalitarian regimes. The subtle distortion of reality and the corruption of ideas that are introduced through the skillful subterfuge of the fake have been compared to the danger of undetected aliens living among us. Not just another false posture of insurrection where population segments are efficiently kept in line by irrational cults of illusory rebellion dancing before the monuments of power. An uncontrollable invasion of alien doubles subtly infiltrates and alters cultural codes.
Brian Holmes introduction to Strategic Reality Dictionary: Deep Infopolitics and Cultural Intelligence
buy the book
online text: Tactical Reality Dictionary: Cultural Intelligence and Social Control
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