Inform us about art actively organized by artists today. How far back does art organized actively by artists go. Suggest a future for artists actively organizing art. How does artist organized art interact with non-artist organized art. Please share something about your own organizing activities.

All the world’s a …or it’s easy as …

Jeremy Fernando

The warnings of Plato resound in my ears as I walk through the halls of the Marina Bay Sands Convention & Exhibition Center. Heeding his advice that art is potentially threatening, and might lead one away from being a good person, I attempt to raise my defenses against the alleged onslaught of pathos that might reduce me. After all, one learns mimetically, and only the very best can shield oneself from the craft of an artisan—where representations are so close to reality that one is no longer able to distinguish what is real from mere imitations. In fact, at the highest level, the artisan’s craft potentially invokes the whispers of daemon—which momentarily affect, and infect, us with the seductions of their simulacra.

Imagine my disappointment when, an hour into Art Stage Singapore (12-15 January, 2012), I remained unscathed.

Jeremy Fernando documents the hallways of Marina Bay Sands Convention & Exhibition Center

The only danger I faced was drowning in nothingness. And not the ironic nothingness of Warhol where the multiplication of images is a seductive challenge to the reader: an I dare you to make meaning of this.

But a nothingness in its most banal form: where all work was flattened through the abstraction of exchange value. Where everything became everything, and anything else—utter and complete exchangeability. With each step I took, Jean Baudrillard’s provocative declaration in The Conspiracy of Art rang truer and truer: “[the majority of contemporary art] claims to be null—‘I am null! I am null!’—and it truly is null. Therein lies the duplicity of contemporary art: asserting nullity, insignificance, meaninglessness, striving for nullity when already null and void. Striving for emptiness when already empty. Claiming superficiality in superficial terms.” (27) All that the assertions, the claims, to foregrounding ideas over everything else accentuated was—craft was dead.

The irony is: the nomenclature of the gathering—Art Stage—is a calling for craft. For, it is craft that creates the possibility of the arrival of art: the skill of the artisan—in its endless repetition in the quest for (perhaps an impossible) perfection—is precisely the ritual that opens the possibility for art. It is the foregrounding of the said craft that also seduces the viewer—to the point where the one that sees only looks at the work—such that one is potentially affected by art itself. In other words, it is only when the artisan isn’t attempting to create a work of art (whatever that even means) that there is the possibility of art.

Which is why the only gesture of art at Art Stage Singapore was found in the unlikeliest of sources. At a corner of the cavernous exhibition space, I stumbled upon a small shop constructed out of plywood. Clearly hand assembled—beautifully. A collaboration between The Secret Little Agency and Basheer Books named The ABC Shop.

Jeremy Fernando stumbles upon a small shop
constructed out of plywood named The ABC Shop

What was initially baffling—as I found out later in a conversation with one of the artisans, Michelle Andrea Wan—was that the booth opposite had complained about facing, what they termed, a ‘mom & pop’ shop.

According to Michelle Andrea Wan, The ABC Shop has poor relations with a neighboring booth

Until I saw their provocation.

A small sign, by the side, declaring: “Yes. We’re a real shop, not art. All items for sale.”

The ABC Shop service pledge conveys the vendor’s unique selling point.

An open challenge to every other booth.

To Art Stage itself.

By foregrounding exchangeability, exposing the secret that ‘contemporary art’ and ‘sale’ are synonyms; that something was only considered ‘art’ when sold. The complaint from the other booth was not about the aesthetics of the ABC Shop, but was due to the fact that the shop itself had shattered the illusion of Art Stage; the illusion that it was an exhibition of aesthetics, or even of ideas, thought.

Not that anyone didn’t already know this. But, just because something is known does not mean it can be openly mentioned. This is, after all, the lesson of Stalinism. Just because everyone knows that Stalin is always right doesn’t mean you can point out the fact that you cannot challenge him—if you do so, your fate would have been worse than the one who actually confronted him. The latter would be shot, but you first. For, your crime is far more serious: you have challenged the illusion of communism itself, the illusion that everyone is equal; the very illusion that is required for the entire state mechanism to operate. It is not so much that illusions shield us from reality, but that reality itself requires illusions to function.

By nullifying its own status as art, The ABC Shop opens the space for the viewer to catch a glimpse of art. By not claiming to be anything but a “real shop,” there is room for an imaginative gesture; there is silence such that whispers might be heard. This is not the performative nullity that is seen throughout the rest of the fair; this is complete nullity. And here, we should not forget that true “nullity, however, is a secret quality that cannot be claimed by just anyone. Insignificance—real insignificance, the victorious challenge to meaning, the shedding of sense, the art of disappearance of meaning—is the rare quality of a few exceptional works that never strive for it.” (28) Where art potentially lies; precisely in the space left for it.

The ABC Shop opens the space for the viewer to catch a glimpse of art
by not claiming to be anything but a “real shop” – Jeremy Fernando

By being precisely nothing more than a well crafted ‘mom & pop’ shop.

***

Jeremy Fernando is the Jean Baudrillard Fellow at The European Graduate School. He works in the intersections of literature, philosophy, and the media; and is the author of five books—most recently Writing Death. Exploring other media has led him to film, art, and music; and his work has been exhibited in Seoul, Vienna, Hong Kong, and Singapore. He is the editor of both Delere Press, and the thematic magazine One Imperative; and is a Fellow of Tembusu College at the National University of Singapore.

OCCUPY WALL STREET
MK AVERILL + ELLIOT TARRY AT THE WORLD-WIDE DAY OF PROTEST
OCTOBER 15, 2011, ZUCOTTI PARK AND TIMES SQUARE IN NEW YORK CITY

Occupy Wall Street At Times Square, New York City
World Wide Day Of Protest, October 15, 2011

On October 15th Occupy Wall Street went world wide. Young activists decrying corporate greed and malfeasance had occupied Zuccotti Park near Wall Street for several weeks by then and were exhilarated by their success at warding off eviction by the Bloomberg Administration. The simple, yet sacrificial act of holding a piece of turf galvanized a movement and garnered support from all quarters of the globe. Taking their lead and strategic inspiration from the Arab Spring activists in Tunisia and Egypt the Occupy Wall Street Movement supplied the missing ingredient to the formula for social and economic justice that has evaded activists of the prior generation. Artist Organized Art’s MK Averill and activist and radio talk show host Elliot Tarry arrived in Zuccotti Park renamed Liberty Park by Occupy Wall Street (OWS) just after 1PM on Saturday October 15th to take part in the world wide day of protest and dialogue. Artist Organized Art (AOA) interviewed MK and Elliot upon their return.

interview by Artist Organized Art, Mary Averill and Elliot Tarry
photo/video coverage: Mary Averill

AOA: MK or Elliot or both, what made you go down to New York, to Wall Street, to join in the protest?

MK: I felt a strong pull to set my feet firmly on the ground alongside the folks that had started this movement in solidarity with them, and I felt it was really important to stand there with them in their cause to right the imbalance of economic injustice in this country. At the same time I felt a little bit like a tourist going down for the day and I struggled with that. Taking the day off and moving myself to New York is not an easy feat for all kinds of reasons, family reasons and I wasn’t feeling very well that day, but it soon became clear that I did need to go and I really needed to be even a small part of the movement, at least for a day. I felt strongly that I needed to plant my feet on the same ground where these folks were fighting for economic justice in a country where things have really gone awry.

Elliot:  I have been an activist for years against the war and for social justice. I do a radio show that deals with those issues and I had been pulling back from demonstrations since years ago because it was clear that they were ignored and ineffective, but this particular movement and this occupation clearly had the ingredients that were necessary to create an awareness and to actually get something accomplished. So, I felt that I needed to be in solidarity with that movement and put my feet where my mouth has been in order to supply what they said they needed more than anything else, which was people and bodies. That’s why I went. It was the only chance I had to go down and it turned out to be the right day.

Occupy Wall Street At Zuccotti Park, New York City
World Wide Day Of Protest, October 15, 2011

MK:  Something really striking about this movement is that unlike other protests, which set up a time and date, they’ve just placed themselves there and are using time on their side, there’s no rush, no urgency, it’s just a powerful statement. When I got down to Zuccotti Park I was expecting to see a lot of people there, and there were a lot of people there, but I quickly got a lay of the land, it’s a really small park and there weren’t that many people in charge running the place unless they were taking big shifts.

The park was divided in two, the organizers, by and large young folks who had been sleeping there for a long time, opposite people that had kind of jumped onto the cause who didn’t seem as interested in it as they did in the free food and the scene. So, the park is quite small, yet there’s a lot of power coming out of that small space.

Occupy Wall Street At Times Square, New York City
World Wide Day Of Protest, October 15, 2011

AOA: I heard you were contacted by Nationalize Wall Street. What does nationalize Wall Street mean?

Some time in the middle of the night I received an email from the Nationalize Wall Street Organization, asking people to print up a flyer which said Nationalize Wall Street and bring it down to Liberty Park (aka Zuccotti Park) for October 15th. So, on the way that morning, I stopped at the print shop and had about 500 copies made. It speaks to the reallocation of corporate proceeds for the benefit of all of the society. It was interesting to pass them out. I put a stack of them under a rock in a place in Liberty Park, some people thought it was an interesting idea, some people looked quizzically at it and asked what it was about. Later a friend listening to media coverage of OWS, following our visit there, heard a young women report on many people’s signs say “I even saw a Nationalize Wall Street sign.”

AOA: Is there a connection between the action at OWS, your presence and art making?

MK: Just as Wall Street and corporate America have hijacked all the decisions around the distribution of wealth in this country and hijacked all the natural resources in the country and around the world for their profits, they’ve hijacked art in terms of drawing art into an economy of currency where it is only respected if it’s worth an amount a museum or a collector puts on it as a value. So I feel a strong tie, because artists, too, are feeling the drain of resources and the inequity.

Occupy Wall Street At Zuccotti Park, New York City
World Wide Day Of Protest, October 15, 2011

Elliot: I was impressed by MK’s photo. A man at the park, sitting reading the OWS paper. The publication is called OWS journal. He was wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and the photo seemed to capture exactly some unconscious connection between art mythos and the campaign for social justice. It captured the relevancy of political activism, without being didactic or ideological in form. The picture and his form captured the message. To me, part of the message was the importance of art and mythos, not just in the creation of an effective movement, but just as MK was saying, the corporations have captured or appropriated the art world and culture for their own purposes, for profit making purposes, and what the young people down at Zuccotti Park are saying, the energy they carry, is the energy of liberation from those shackles. That very same message is the message I believe Artist Organized Art (AOA) is carrying and that all artists should feel deep within their being to release themselves from the capture of the corporate monolith.

AOA: Both of you took part in the demonstrations at Times Square later in the day. What were your impressions?

MK: It was pretty awesome. We took a train up from the park because we were running late. The marchers were coming up Broadway from Washington Square Park to Times Square. At Times Square there were thousands and thousands of people. I didn’t really expect that number of them. I don’t think the police really expected that number of people. They seemed pretty organized in terms of the number of barricades, but it was mad, high energy, a kind of caffeine high of people chanting and yelling slogans, holding signs cheering sporadically and the solidarity was very strong. What was really impressive about that crowd was the diversity of ages and ethnicity. It was really powerful to be part of that and stand there with a group of people who all felt the same. Down at Liberty Park you get the sense that the movement is small, but being in Times Square it just grew a thousand fold. I’m not sure how many people were there, maybe ten thousand people. The police seemed agitated, yet some were kind. There were a number of arrests not far from where we were standing. Some police on horse back came in a threatening way and kind of riled up a group of people. When the crowd got riled I saw people sit down instead of getting into a frenzy with the police.

Occupy Wall Street At Times Square, New York City
World Wide Day Of Protest, October 15, 2011

Elliot: I’ve been to demonstrations in New York, much larger demonstrations, but there was a familiar flavor. All ages, all economic levels, all joined together with the drum beats and the street chants. The chant that dominated was “Banks got bailed out we got sold out. Banks got bailed out we got sold out.” Everybody resonated with that chant. When we finally were able to move into one of the areas that they allowed people to stand in, they had it all fenced off into different groups so the cross streets and the traffic could flow and we just happened to zip right into the area right in front of the ABC News ticker on the marquis of the ABC News building. The ABC camera unit was set up in the side street taking photos of the crowds. In large blue block letters on the ticker came the headline “Occupy Wall Street Goes World Wide” and a cheer just let out. A roar from the entire crowd spread like wild fire. It was really exhilarating and everybody could feel it and that the world was with us. That is a transcendent moment. My other impression was there were ten thousand people there. It was a being, a sort of a creature with twenty thousand eyes. Everywhere you looked somebody was holding up some kind of a camera taking pictures of other people taking pictures. Every angle, every square inch of its own being was photographed by some device or other whether it was video or photo. I found that to be a curiosity that I had never seen before at demonstrations.

MK: Just to segue I would say there was a lot of art going on there in terms of people taking photographs and videos of there impressions. The creative signs were great. I think the most creative sign I saw was a woman who had an iPad. By hand she had drawn about 20 different slogans. She would periodically put up one of the slogans, then pull it down, go through her list and pick out another one, hold up her iPad. There was a lot of creativity going on there. People voicing and making a point.

Elliot: The white and black Guy Fawkes mask connects not just to the idea of mime, but to the ancient art of masking and drama that, in this case, is symbolic. Its symbolism comes from a movie, an art form that, itself, was taken from comic books. The movie V For Vendetta was derived from a comic book series. The comic book author chose the Guy Fawkes mask as a symbol of resistance and of a resistance fighter, in the movie. That was in the comics and then in the movie, resistance against the Fascist State. So here we have art in the form of masking. Art in the form of comic book serial art. Art in the form of film. All directly impacting the mythos and the inspiration of a generation. A Movement. That is one of my key impressions that will last.

Afterthought:

MK: One really striking thing about being in times square is this movement that is railing against corporate America and the way business has been conducted in this country. People railing about the division between the 1% and the 99% in the middle of times square where the entire crowd is surrounded by huge, tall, giant, flashing billboards that just reek of corporate America and social control. The media that fills our brains with how we should be, or look, or act, or respond, or what we should like. Here was this movement that ended, up after a march, in the center of this and the juxtaposition of the crowd against these billboards was striking.

Elliot: There is no question, Times Square, in and of itself, is a symbol of the excesses of consumerism to the point where “Giant-ism” is experienced. You walk in to an environment of video screens that tower over you from every angle and sky scrapers bombard you with images of consumerism in a way that demands your obeisance. Yet, here thousands of people were putting there wills and their spirits in opposition to that very energy of consumerism and conquest by corporate media. It was quite an impression to make on the media itself and on everyone there.

Occupy Wall Street At Zuccotti Park, New York City
World Wide Day Of Protest, October 15, 2011

Mary Averill (MK Averill) (maryaverillphotography.com) is a mother, artist and social worker based in Western, MA. She worked as photo editor for Christo and Jeanne-Claude ’s installation The Gates, Central Park, and won 1st place for the Lucie IPA Awards in 2005. Selected activities in 2010 are participation FestiwalStzuka 1 Documentacja, Lodz Poland, intermedia performance works at LAB in Western Mass, Emily Harvey Foundation NYC and Scandinavian Performance Festival, Live Action NYC. Appearances throughout 2011 on SWITCH, intermedia for public television out of Holyoke MA syndicated throughout Massachusetts. She is also the organizer of several international photographic workshops.

Elliot Tarry is an anti-war and social justice activist and an inde-media radio producer with the Bread and Roses Show on WXOJ-lp 103.3 in Northampton, Massachusetts (BreadandRosesRadio.wordpress.com). Elliot is also a pagan ceremonialist and a proponent or what he calls the Sacred Earth Paradigm shift in consciousness. His essays on this and other subjects can be found on his website www.SacredEarthZone.com.

Jessica Higgins & Denis Luzuriaga
Intermedia Television, Holyoke Massachusetts

From a full page advertisement in newsprint, depicting the Holyoke studio space
and some of the artists involved with LAB, the experimental
performance gathering behind SWITCH

by Joshua Selman

An interview with the Creative Director, Jessica Higgins and Producer, Denis Luzuriaga, of SWITCH,  a new art for television project being syndicated throughout Massachusetts. The discussion examines global participation in a local media market:

Joshua Selman: Are you returning to public television as a resource for artists?

Jessica Higgins: Yes, it’s a form of art making. On switch I’m trying to bring intermedia together with all the different modalities. Definitely influenced from the event score and intermedia to just allow an open, experimental place. I would say many people doing the performances there have taken the event score and the happening into the twenty first century using technology, producing video art, photography, painting, dance, poetry, conceptual sound, music…

A 7 minute documentary clip on making SWITCH in Holyoke Massachusetts.
The interviews with Jessica Higgins and Denis Luzuriaga
discuss global participation in a local media market.
Video: Artist Organized Art

Joshua Selman: Do you think television is to video as cinema is to film? How is the viewing experience unique to the form? Is Holyoke a public television kind of city?

Denis Luzuriaga: Holyoke doesn’t have a public access channel so it would be great if we could show SWITCH in Holyoke as well, which is where it was created. The viewing experience is different just by the mere knowledge that there’s a chance that someone’s watching the exact same programming at the exact same second. When we do our once a month gathering in the studio to produce the show that we call SWITCH we definitely benefit from being a group and we work off of each other’s energy. There is a very strong collaborative feeling. Everybody gains inspiration from what other people are doing. To document it properly I have to put myself in the mindset of being an audience member.

Jessica Higgins: What’s interesting to me is the element of surprise. To see what happens. It doesn’t always work, but most of the time it hopefully does. I mean I think of so many artists who have been pushed out of their spaces. There’s like this whole air space that’s now becoming available it’s got a lot of potential for artists to do work and put it out there. The production is just a wonderful tool that artists are using.

Joshua Selman: Since you make these episodes for public television, but you also release them on a web channel (www.vimeo.com/channels/switchtv) are you encouraging global participation in a local media event? I heard you have also done intercontinental video chat sessions for local shows?

Denis Luzuriaga: Starting with your local public access television station is the way to go. People tend to overlook more traditional outlets such as public access and jump immediately to Youtube or Vimeo, but it’s a little difficult to try to present material that is relevant to your community in a forum that is designed for billions of people to have access to. The phrase think globally act locally would be very much apropos.

Joshua Selman: I know, Jessica, that you performed with Elaine Summers’ intermedia dance company at Lincoln Center and at Anthology Film Archives. The performances on SWITCH have a bit of a painterly quality as works on video, how did that aesthetic develop?

Jessica Higgins: Switch was such a natural unfolding. I mean we got together and basically experimented with creative ideas and many of the small Fluxus pieces that I grew up doing in the Fluxus Festivals that happened at the Anthology Film Archives and the Judson Church, doing very experimental, improvisational dance in Lincoln Center..

Denis Luzuriaga: Aside from doing the live performances once a month I paint here occasionally. This building is probably at least 150 years old. This space here originally apparently use to be a grocery store. Often during the performances we do, which we call lab we have video projections going on and so the performers may be performing in front of the video projections some people like to have the projection on them.

Joshua Selman: When I go to youtube the interaction is what I would term “webby.” But with, public television, the webby experience is replaced by a different type of focus. In a way the web experience is lonelier. One person focusing on an interface, it lacks the camaraderie of living space. I like to imagine ancient Greek theater with everyone texting and searching for stuff, passing links, commenting on boards and leaving ratings… but, of course, on stone, wood or parchment and by calling out.

Jessica Higgins: Artists being in everyone’s living room. You could switch on the television and have artists doing a short performance piece and have something that’s refreshing and different. I would love to see intermedia and Nam June Paik’s vision of having art in everyday life.. being able to turn on the television and see a short performance piece refresh people’s everyday life in a way that’s special and mysterious and experimental.

Joshua Selman: Denis, do you also have a background in experimental art and television?

Denis Luzuriaga: I used to live in New Jersey and in New Jersey I had a group. We were kind of experimental. We would show up on rehearsal nights, but we didn’t really rehearse because there was nothing to rehearse. We would all show up with outlandish instruments that were prepared or just in whichever way they were modified with effects and we would always try to out do each other with just craziness. So that’s kind of continued up here since I’ve moved up here to Western Massachusetts, we’re in Holyoke right now.

Denis Luzuriaga: The kind of work I do that pays my bills is in the advertising industry. And it is specifically pre production artwork. They call it also storyboards and comps and animatics. When I started out doing it, it was all done by hand marker illustrations on paper and then that slowly transitioned to all digital. It’s still drawn by hand, but it’s drawn on, in this case, a tablet that also doubles as a monitor.

Joshua Selman: What else would you say are aims or goals of making SWITCH?

Jessica Higgins: My father’s intermedia ideas and theories, which he struggled so hard to put out there, I think there was a reason that this culture wanted that.

Denis Luzuriaga: We would love for artists from other parts of the country and artists from all parts of the world not only to collaborate online with SWITCH but also to come to LAB, to come right here to Holyoke and get involved. We want to make connections with other people who have similar sensibilities.

Jessica Higgins: We decided we were going to do this LAB, which became SWITCH down in Holyoke.

Denis Luzuriaga: I mean take a look down this canal here, there are just some beautiful, beautiful scenes. It would lend itself very well to location shooting be it film or still photography or even just subject material for painters or photographers.

Joshua Selman: LAB is your actual performance laboratory? How is it different from SWITCH?

Jessica Higgins: LAB is more of this place that is so wide open that really anything can happen. But when you deal with switch which is something that’s broadcasted you are dealing with a few very loose constraints such a time. I mean we have a 30 minute segment that we need to perform these pieces in, and we want everyone to get a chance to do their piece. Of course this isn’t written in stone and sometimes if vintage Fluxus artists have come along or we’ve had a few guest artists to SWITCH that are very well known and structures vary a little bit in that case.

Joshua Selman: Holyoke is a very unique place to be doing this isn’t it?

Denis Luzuriaga: When I moved up here I didn’t really know much about this area. I didn’t know about Holyoke at all. Physically it’s a very interesting city. There’s a new building that’s being built here in Holyoke and they call it this High Performance Computing Center. It’s going to house some of the most powerful computers in the world. One of the reasons they’re building a center here in Holyoke is because of the fact that the electricity that’s available to them is green electricity. It’s all hydro-electric. It’s just one block in that direction.

Joshua Selman: Jessica, your father, Dick Higgins, was not only a founder of Fluxus, but he coined the term intermedia as it applies to contemporary art. You also worked with Elaine Summers who is considered preeminent for intermedia as applied to dance and movement. Are you working with your those theories at LAB?

Jessica Higgins: Yes I’m trying to bring together an open space to experiment with intermedia.

Joshua Selman: How does Holyoke measure up as an enclave?

Denis Luzuriaga: Holyoke is definitely the most exciting environment, that people could come to, to collaborate in projects. For example, there’s Bring Your Own Restaurant that happens here in Holyoke. People show up here on the canals and they bring tables and tablecloths and linens and real plates and some people even dress up and of course there’s no money exchanged and that is another community driven event as an outdoor restaurant. The people who attend are artists, they’re business people, they’re politicians. That is an artist organized event.

Joshua Selman: Who thought of going back to television in the age of the streaming media server?

Jessica Higgins: When I saw Denis working it reminded me that Nam June wanted to put intermedia on TV in everyone’s living room. It was a natural leap to ask Denis to put LAB on TV as a show called SWITCH.

www.vimeo.com/channels/switchtv
Public television episodes of SWITCH are available on demand

www.vimeo.com/​groups/​switchtvextra
Extra SWITCH content only available online

Jessica Higgins, Creative Director of SWITCH: American artist, lives and works in New York and Massachusetts. Formative dance studies at Juilliard and Joffrey. Daughter of Fluxus Founders Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles. She has direct experiential knowledge of Fluxus, having early formation in that culture by way of the original members and by participation in historic Fluxus events. She is a regular correspondent for Artist Organized Art and the Creative Director of ‘Switch’ a local access television series of performance and intermedia out of Western Massachusetts. Her works and performances have exhibited in numerous countries.

Denis Luzuriaga, Producer of SWITCH: visual artist working in Western Massachusetts. He combines video, painting, and sound in what can be termed “sense-scapes.” His latest work “Temporis” is a two channel video and sculptural installation. Temporis is installed in a 150 year old mill building along the Connecticut River. Denis exhibits his work in galleries, exhibition spaces, and works with outsider artists performing irreverent versions of yester-year avant-garde such as Kurt Schwitters’ “Ursonata” electrified.

Nam June Paik: A seminal pioneer of video art, closely associated with Fluxus and intermedia, during the New Year’s Day celebration on January 1, 1984, he aired Good Morning, Mr. Orwell, a live link between WNET New York, Centre Pompidou Paris, and South Korea. With the participation of John Cage, Salvador Dalí, Laurie Anderson, Joseph Beuys, Merce Cunningham, Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, George Plimpton, and other artists, Paik showed that George Orwell’s Big Brother hadn’t arrived. In 1974 Nam June Paik used the term “super highway” in application to telecommunications, which gave rise to the opinion that he may have been the author of the phrase “Information Superhighway”. “The building of new electronic super highways will become an even huger enterprise. Assuming we connect New York with Los Angeles by means of an electronic telecommunication network that operates in strong transmission ranges, as well as with continental satellites, wave guides, bundled coaxial cable, and later also via laser beam fiber optics: the expenditure would be about the same as for a Moon landing, except that the benefits in term of by-products would be greater.”

Dick Higgins: A composer, poet, printer, and early Fluxus artist. Higgins was raised in Worcester, Massachusetts. His daughter, Hannah Higgins is the author of Fluxus Experience, an authoritative volume about the Fluxus movement. Her twin sister, Jessica Higgins, a New York based intermedia artist closely associated with seminal curator Lance Fung, late Fluxus gallerist Emily Harvey and The Artists Museum’s and Construction In Process, performed and collaborated as a youth in original Fluxus related events. Dick Higgins coined the word intermedia to describe his artistic activities, defining it in a 1965 essay by the same name, published in the first number of the Something Else Newsletter. His most notable contributions include Danger Music scores and the Intermedia concept to describe the ineffable inter-disciplinary activities that became prevalent in the 1960s. He was an early and ardent proponent and user of computers as a tool for art making, dating back to the mid 1960s, when Alison Knowles and he created the first computer generated literary textes.

Elaine Summers: A founding member of the workshop-group that would form the Judson Dance Theater and significantly contributed to the interaction of film and dance, as well as the expansion of dance into other related disciplines, such as visual art, film, and theater. She furthermore fostered the expansion of performing dance in new, often outdoor locations. Her movement approach Kinetic Awareness offers a comprehensive perspective on human movement and dance. Summers worked intensively with film and its inclusion in live performance. Her learning of filmmaking and her experiments at Judson finally led to her own intermedia presentation Fantastic Gardens in 1964. In 1971 the Elaine Summers Dance & Film Company premiered Energy Changes. The piece went into full premiere in 1973 at the sculpture garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, including an early use of video showing dancers located in other parts of the garden, in collaboration with Davidson Gigliotti, composers Philipp Corner and Carman Moore, recorded on video by Nam June Paik.

LAB: A monthly gathering in Holyoke, Massachusetts or alternative locations where experiments with action and intermedia are shared by a local community of artists with guests from around the world. The LAB sessions are used as the basis for the creation of the show SWITCH.

Holyoke is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, on the banks of the Connecticut River. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city was named after Elizur Holyoke, who explored the area in 1660. One of the first planned industrial communities, Holyoke bears the nickname “Paper City”

Bring Your Own Restaurant (BYOR): Do it yourself fine dining on the streets of Holyoke. A plein air potluck held every other Friday, 7pm start, rain or shine and from Spring until late Fall. All are welcome. If you would like to join us, bring a dish of something edible to share, your own plate, chair, utensils, etc. and we will enjoy the lovely view in downtown Holyoke with good company. Bringing your own table is recommended, but if you are solo there is always space at someone else’s table. We will have a couple of chairs on hand for those without access to cars. We would like this to be a trash-free event, so please do not bring disposable plates or other items that will end up in the landfill! Dress to impress or dress to de-stress. No reservations

Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky,) The Book of Ice (2011)
Art Center Nabi, Seoul + 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale

Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky) Conceptual Poster: Manifesto for
The People’s Republic of Antarctica, 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale
Republic Of Korea (South Korea)

by artist/correspondent JiHyun Song (송지현)

한국의 대표적인 미디어 센터, 아트센터 나비의 라이브러리 개관식에 디제이 스푸키가 초대되었다. 디제이 스푸키의 방문은 언제나 흥미롭다. 그를 만나는 자리는 음악과 영상을 즐기는 자리이기도 하지만, 박식한 작가의 연설을 들을 수 있는 자리이기도 하다. 그의 연설에 이어지는 관중의 질문은 때로는 대단히 논쟁적이다. 나는 여기서 이 시대의 아티스트의 역할에 대해 생각해 본다.

그는 이번 방문에서 자신의 저서 The Book of Ice (2011)를 소개했다. 책에는 남극에 대한 역사적, 과학적 데이터 및 사진자료들에 그래픽 작업물들이 담겨있다. 물리학자 Brian Greene 과 남극전문가 Ross Virginia 와 공동작업을 함으로써 학문적인 진지함과 객관성을 더한 결과물이다. 남극의 얼음이라는 시의적인 소재를 보고, 이 작업이 환경 문제에 대해 깊게 애도 하거나나, 슬픈 고발을 할 것이라 생각했다면, 그 기대는 고히 저버려야 할 것이다. 그는 보다 중립적으로, 남극의 얼음이 가진 차가운, 미지의 물성에 대해서 집중한다.

Excerpt: The Book of Ice, Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid)
Book Launch at Art Center Nabi, Seoul as part of the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale

그는 아트센터 나비에서 몇가지 퍼포먼스를 선보였다. 눈의 결정체를 시각화하는 알고리즘을 사용한 음악, 또한 거대한 빙하를 담은 영상에 맞춘 디제잉과 같은 것이다. 이를 감상하는 관객은 그의 음악적 감흥의 세계로 인도된다. 그리고 그 음악은 남극의 이미지, 호기심을 자극하는 미지의 대륙을 인상적으로 그리고 있었다.

그의 작품세계는 나에게 아메바를 연상하게 만든다. 당대의 키워드를 먹어치우고, 발산하는 문화적 아메바. 디제잉이 기존의 음악을 해체하여, 샘플링을 만들고, 이들을 잘 섞어 자신만의 음악으로 재창조 하는 것이라면, 디제이 스푸키는 재료 선택에 있어서 상당히 영리하다. 일단 메세지가 충만한 시의적인 소재를 선택하고, 그 매체를 기존의 텍스트와 음악적 장르안에서 해방시킨다. 그는 클래식 라이브 음악과 전자음악을 혼합하기도 하고, 목소리와 현장음을 섞기도 하고, 기성영화를 짜집기하기도 한다. 그의 믹싱작업은 부담없는 출입구가 되어, 미로와 같은 이시대를 관통하기에 부족함이 없다. 실로 그는 전세계를 여행하며 각기 다른 명사와 만나 명소에서 갖가지 협연을 펼친다. 그의 창조물에는 요즘 우리가 지향하는 “다원예술” 또는 “멀티디서플리너리” 라는 키워드가 담겨있다.

Cover: The Book of Ice, Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid)
Book Launch at Art Center Nabi, Seoul as part of the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale
free PDF sample

디제이 스푸키는 밤시간의 클럽 문화를 낮시간의 고상한 미술관으로 가져왔다. 2005년 캘리포니아에서, 나는 그의 발표에 노골적으로 불만을 표시하는 관객들을 본적이 있다. 당신의 클럽스타일 디제잉을 고급 예술에나 붙일만한 철학으로 포장한다고 말이다. 실로 그는 인상주의, 팝아트, 플럭서스 무브먼트의 주요 개념과 저명 아티스트들의 사상을 그의 디제잉 스타일과 연관지어 아주 세련되게 이야기 할줄 안다. 심지어 스푸키 자신에게 뾰족하게 던지는 화살들을 세련된 매너로 받아, 철학적 문맥에 역어간다. 이데올로기는 지목됨과 동시에 분해된다. 작가는 갖가지 이야기들을 예술로 풀고, 문학으로 풀고, 문화로 확장시킬줄 아는 훌륭한 안목과 풍부한 지식을 가지고 있다.

나는 디제이 스푸기가 현시대에 새롭게 등장하는 아티스트 상을 반영하고 있다고 생각한다.그것은 일인 다역의 사회적 퍼포먼스를 수행하는 역할이다. 동시대의 예술가는 타분야의 전문가들과 협연을하고, 큐레이터를 만나고, 자신의 작품이 가진 문화적 텍스트에 대한 이야기를 하고, 관객을 예술행위에 동참케하는 워크샵과 이벤트를 진행한다. 이제, 좋은 작가는 자신의 작품을 훌륭하게 포장해서 더 많은 문화 향유자에게 다가갈 수 있게 노력한다. 그런 의미에서 디제이 스푸키의 발표회는 디제잉 이벤트, 강연, 책 판매로 구성된 괜찮은 문화 마케팅 모델이기도 하다. 여기에는 약간의 즐거움, 그리고 약간의 고급스러운 지식, 그리고 참여의 기회라는 예술을 사랑하는 사람을 중독시킬만한 삼박자가 갖추어져 있다.

Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid)
Book Launch at Art Center Nabi, Seoul as part of the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale
Photo: JiHyun Song (송지현) 9/5-2011

그의 발표에서 나는 예술가이자, 기획자이자, 또 선생님이기도한 일인 다역의 나의 모습을 보는 것도 같았다. 물론 디제이 스푸키는 슈퍼 스타이고, 나는 평범한 젊은이일 뿐이지만 말이다. 그는 적극적으로 디지털 시대의 숙명을 수행하고 있는 반면, 나는 주춤거리고 있었다. 이렇게 열심히 살고 있는 우리가 가끔 고도 자본주의 사회의 흐름 속에서 부유하고 있는 것처럼 느껴지는 것은 무엇 때문일까? 작가의 침묵이 미덕이 되고, 작품이 대신 말을 거는, 예술가가 불어넣은 영혼이 가득 담긴, 그런 작품을 요즘 시대에서 만들어내기는 어째서 이렇게 어려운 것일까? 세상 밖에서, 침묵속에서, 자신만을 바라보며 수천장의 자화상을 그리는 고흐들이 발견되기 까지는 너무 오랜시간이 걸리는 걸까? 돌아오는 길 내 맘 속에는 질문이 꼬리를 이었다.

Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid) discusses the mathematical basis
for The Book of Ice at his book launch, Art Center Nabi, Seoul
as part of the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale
Video: JiHyun Song (송지현) 9/5-2011

Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid) demonstrates musical compositions
for The Book of Ice at his book launch, Art Center Nabi, Seoul
as part of the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale
Video: JiHyun Song (송지현) 9/5-2011

Paul D. Miller (http://djspooky.com), known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid (born 1970), is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as “illbient” or “trip hop”. He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author. He borrowed his stage name from the character The Subliminal Kid in the novel Nova Express by William S. Burroughs. He is a Professor of Music Mediated Art at the European Graduate School.

Brian Greene (http://www.ted.com/talks/brian_greene_on_string_theory.html) is a Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Columbia University, and is recognized for a number of groundbreaking discoveries in his field of superstring theory. His books are widely read.

Ross A. Virginia (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~ravirg/index.html) Director of Arctic Studies at Dartmouth College, a world renowned expert on Antarctica, is an ecosystem ecologist interested in human influence on biogeochemical cycles in terrestrial systems. His emphasis is on understanding how processes such as desertification and climate change alter plant-soil interactions and the ecology, biodiversity and functioning of soils. His research examines carbon and nitrogen cycling in deserts, including the arid lands of the southwest and the polar deserts of Antarctica, the McMurdo Dry Valleys. He is also interested in the relationships between the disciplines of ecology, ecosystem science and environmental law.

The Book of Ice: http://www.djspooky.com/antarctica/THE_BOOK_OF_ICE_excerpt.pdf (Free PDF Sample)

Seung H-Sang (http://gb.or.kr/) Curator 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale, has completed Paju Book City project in Korea, and he has gained international recognitions through projects like Guggenheim Pavilion in Abu Dhabi, Chao-Wei SOHO project in Beijing as well as Korea DMZ Peace-Life Valley, the graveyard of late former President Roh Moo-hyun and Commune by the Great Wall in Beijing. He served as a commissioner of Korean Pavilion for Venice Architecture Biennale in 2008. He has established and operated the architectural firm, Iroje since 1989.

Ai WeiWei (http://gb.or.kr/) Curator 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale, is influential artist, curator, social commentator and activist. His ground-breaking work, Sunflower Seeds, was recently presented at the Tate Modern Turbine Hall. The work consisted of 100 million porcelain seeds, each individually hand painted by 1,600 Chinese artisans. Ai’s work has been exhibited in Venice Biennale, Kassel Documenta, Guangzhou Triennial, Sydney Biennale and many other institutions. He has also participated in Beijing Olympic Stadium project modeled after the bird nest designed by the Swiss architects, Herzog & De Meuron.

Gwangju Biennale (http://gb.or.kr/): Founded in 1995 in memory of spirits of civil uprising of the 1980 repression of the Gwangju Democratization Movement, the Gwangju Biennale is Asia’s oldest and most prestigious biennial of contemporary art. Under the helm of previous curators that include Kerry Brougher, Sukwon Chang, Okwui Enwezor, Charles Esche, Hou Hanru, Honghee Kim, Yongwoo Lee, Youngchul Lee, Kwangsoo Oh, Wankyoung Sung, and Harald Szeemann, the Gwangju Biennale has established itself as a highlight of the international contemporary art biennale circuit. Centered on the Biennale Hall in Gwangju’s Jungoui Park, the presence has elevated the city of 1.4 million to become a cultural hub of East Asia. It is home to some of the best-preserved cultural relics in the nation, and is known locally as the “City of Art, Cuisine and Culture Previous editions of Biennales went under the titles Beyond the borders(1995), Unmapping the Earth(1997), Man +Space(2000), Pause(2002), A Grain of Dust, A Drop of Water(2004), Fever Variations(2006) and Annual Report : A year in Exhibitions(2008), 10000 Lives (2010)it first help a pre-biennale (June 18 – 27) that year and officially established the Gwangju Design Biennale in 2005 based on experiences from the pre-biennale. The Gwangju Design Biennale distinguishes itself from other design exhibitions or fairs by featuring unique planning and configuration that actively incorporate not only the aesthetic and practical value of design but also socio-cultural relationships. Its emphasis is laid on understanding the trends of domestic and international design and cultural phenomena and expanding publicity. Therefore, the Gwangju Design Biennale pursues the convergence and consilience of all design fields, rather than classifying each genre, and features cubic and experimental activities of visual culture.

Art Center Nabi (http://nabi.or.kr) is an art museum in Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea. Since its opening (Circa 2000,) Art Center Nabi has actively promoted new media arts in Korea. Exploring new possibilities of creation, education, and exhibition of media arts, Art Center Nabi has been in the forefront of the convergence of art and media technologies of the time.

JiHyun Song (송지현) 학력: 고려대학교 국어국문학 학사 졸 2001, 시카고 예술대학 필름/비디오/뉴미디어 학사 졸 2004, 캘리포니아 예술대학 실험애니메이션/통합매체 석사 졸 2007, 교육방송 국제 다큐멘터리 영화제 프로그래머 2008/9/10, 한양대, 건국대, 영상부문 강사, 주요 전시경력: Big Screen big Game, 서울 스퀘어 2010. 12, She, running the City, Museum of Modern Art, NY, US 2006

Fluxus Survival Fundamental
George Maciunas Seeking Shelter

Alison Knowles provides this drawing (2011) of George Maciunas.  The background image
traces part of The Berlin Wall, in yellow, the satelite image is provided by NASA.

August 13th, 2011

by Alison Knowles

Before we arrived in Germany that first winter, to live in the Ehlhalten house that George had built with the potato farmer, we learned that George had worked the previous winter living as a draftsman, by day, and in the back of his car, by night. This was verboten, of course, and took daily ingenuity, courage and presence of mind to carry it off. Each night became a performance. First George bought the food at the PX, either eating there or adding to his stash of small stock items for the car. No need to eat in a restaurant – ever!

One imagines the interior of the car as the ultimate in space organization, full of boxes, the glove compartment becoming a desk, the piles of clothing that had to be worn each night in neat piles in the back seat on the floor. The driver’s seat provided storage for food. George would exit right along with the others from the main entrance to the parking lot, then detour and double around back to enter the service entrance before the gate closed for the night. Once secured in a far corner of the lot, the arduous task of dressing against the brutal cold must begin. With coats, sweaters and hats the disguise was complete.

Thus buffered, he could sink into the back of the car until dawn. Rising demanded precision and attention to detail. He could exit from the car to the basement of the building where the maintenance people shower and shave. Then, back to the car to dress (in the front seat) grab a bite from the food stash, probably bread and milk. He was then ready to exit unobserved when the first deliveries came in. Once out the gate, he retraced to the front entrance and drove in with the others to be at his desk by eight.

This was truly a Fluxus vehicle: one ready for a quick getaway, with all the stuff in one place. Everything in it was of the utmost daily necessity and miniaturized. The gate keepers, no doubt, observed what George was doing and enjoyed the game as much as he did. The question is, did George suspect that they knew? What was verboten, of course, was to end the game by speaking to the “authorities.”

George Maciunas: was a Lithuanian-born Manhattan based artist operating in Europe and the USA between the 1950’s and 1970’s. He was the defining founder of Fluxus, a small group of experimental artists who grew into a large international community of artists, architects, composers, and designers. Other leading members who forged this movement included Dick Higgins, Emmett Williams, Alison Knowles, George Brecht, John Cage, Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman and Yoko Ono. Maciunas is most famous for organising and performing early Fluxus Concerts and for assembling a series of highly influential artists’ multiples and selling them through his own Fluxus store on Canal Street in NYC. He is also credited with having pioneered SOHO as an artist’s enclave in lower Manhattan.

Alison Knowles: American visual artist known for her soundworks, installation, performances and publications, and as a founding member of Fluxus. In 1967, Knowles produced what is considered to be the first computerized poem The House of Dust in collaboration with composer James Tenney. In the 1960s, Knowles composed the Notations book of experimental composition with John Cage, and Coeurs Volants, a print with Marcel Duchamp. Her acclaimed exhibits and performances include two walk-in book installations “The Big Book” and “The Book of Bean.” In 2008, she performed three Event Scores at the Tate Modern in London, and in 2009 she exhibited and performed in “The 3rd Mind” American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989 at the Guggenheim Museum. She was appointed guest professor at Documenta X in Kassel, Germany, and in 2009 was an artist-in-residence at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. An edition of The House Of Dust is due to publish this Fall. She recently performed at the White House.

Ehlhalten is approximately 12 km north east of the state capital Wiesbaden, Germany, at the edge of the Taunus mountains. As a boro of Eppstein it is joined by  Bremthal, Ehlhalten, Eppstein, Niederjosbach and Vockenhausen. Ehlhalten is the boro with the fewest number of inhabitants (about 1350) but the largest area due to its rather big forests. According to legend, Ehlhalten once provided a cutter that tailors used at the water of the brook in Ehlhalten. As the water rose and fell, affecting the measurement of the inch, people cried: “Elle halten!” (“hold the inch!”), leading to the name Ehlhalten.

The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the “death strip”) that contained anti-vehicle trenches and other defenses.

VENICE RADIATES:
La Biennale di Venezia 2011

Josh Smith (below), Maurizio Cattelan (pigeons in signage above) and Latifa Echakhch (front)

‘If you want to do something new, you have to look at the past.’
- Mauro Zennaro, typeface and visual identity designer, Rome June 2011

by Erika Knerr

The 2011 Venice Biennale orchestrated by Bice Curiger is titled ILLUMInations.  The selection of Ms Curiger jettisons an exhibition and catalogue that is both “evocative and stringent,” to use her descriptive words. ILLUMInations is evocative of a wide range of allusions spanning centuries. She does this by including Tintoretto as an artist in her exhibition, building the show thematically around three of his major late works.  The Stealing of the Dead Body of St Mark 1562-66, and the Creation of the Animals, 1550-53 are temporarily on loan from their long time home in the Gallerie dell’Accademia, and the Last Supper, 1592-94, from the San Giorgio Maggiore Basilica.

The president of the Venice Biennale Foundation, Poalo Baratta’s curious praise of Curiger is that her “strict capacity for selection and her great faith in that mysterious goddess quality evokes an expansive eagles eye view on the global scene at the moment.”  In the emphasis on looking back, in order to make a leap forward, there is a sense of taking back the wild horses reins. There is a nod to the decades of anti art’s distractions and rejections, while she rolls out a crisp dawn to a wider view of our future, one giddy with a thoughtful, grounded, profound “taking the bull by the horns” bravura.  OR perhaps it is a provocation to a collective spirit. We feel a call to our ancestors to whisper their secrets to us in the wind, and the concurrence of the momentous historical shifts moving throughout the Middle East and Asia today.

Tintorettto, Creation of the Animals, 1550-53

So how did the artists in Illuminations feel about showing with Tintorettto?  I love that Bice Curiger took seven paragraphs of her catalogue essay to discuss Tintorretto. She questions border zones on a number of levels, finding ways to brilliantly perch the show at the intersection between the early historical masters and modernity. She erases taboos that have culturally fragmented us allowing us to move seamlessly between and across the borders of time, modalities, belief systems and national identities, while emphatically defending the values of the Enlightenment.

Sigmar Polke (left) and Seth Price (right)

Therefore by looking at fragmented identities one is able to witness the possibility of a more far-reaching cultural wholeness as a global collective. In looking back she also incorporated and recycled works previously shown in past national pavilions of prior biennales into Illuminations.  Maurizio Cattelan’s stuffed pigeons were regestured, as well as the choice to include Sigmar Polke’s work shown also in the 1986 German Pavilion.

Bruno Jakob is an artist to look more closely at, who shared the opening room with Tintoretto. One of his “Invisible Paintings,” that he paints with water, steam or pure telepathy is showing in the same room guarded by Italian security that are protecting the three Tintoretto’s that grace the walls of the Giardini.

Urs Fischer

A showstopper and one of my favorite works from Illuminations is Urs Fischer’s monumental candles installed in the Arsenale. The candles gradually burn down throughout the run of the exhibition echoing his previous sculpture of three women as life-size candles from 2004.  He recreated by digital cast the well-known “Rape of the Sabine Women” (1582) by Giambologna.   It’s interesting that he chose the abduction of the women of Sabina as subject as they are said to be the “Mother of Rome.” The story goes that seven centuries before Christ, Romulus founded Rome and invited all the male criminals, rogues and rascals to live in Rome.  They needed women, so they kidnapped many women from Sabina, hence the creation myth of the Roman Empire.  There is a repurposing of the classics here that successfully form a contemporary voice to communicate with.

Elisabetta Benassi

Radiance is what is important in this years sprawl around the city of Venice.  Bice Curiger comes to Venice like a cultural warrior, comparing the importance of self-reflection in contemporary art to the “amen” in church. ”Illuminations focuses on the core business of art”1  On this page are some examples of how the artists interpreted this theme.

Annette Kelm

Andro Wekua

Norma Jean

Karl Holmqvist and Gabriel Kuri

Guy de Cointet

Giulia Piscitelli

Klara Liden

Haroon Mirza

Christian Marclay

Monica Bonvicini

Bice Curiger, Director of 54^th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia. Photo: Francesco Galli.
Courtesy: la Biennale di Venezia.  All other photos : Erika Knerr.

A graduate of the University of Zurich, Bice Curiger is an art historian, critic and curator of exhibitions at an international level. Since 1993, she has been curator at the Zurich Kunsthaus, one of the most important museums in the world for modern and contemporary art.  Bice Curiger is co-founder and editor-in-chief of “Parkett”, one of the most authoritative and innovative contemporary art magazines in the world, published in Zurich and New York since 1984. Since 2004, she has been publishing director of the “Tate etc” magazine produced by London’s Tate Gallery. She is also the author of various publications and catalogues of contemporary art.

Erika Knerr was a 2011 participant in the SVA Master Design Workshop: Design History, Theory and Practice in Rome and Venice.  She is a conceptual artist working between graphic design, painting, writing, performance, and poetry.  She is publisher of New Observations magazine, a seminal art publication in New York that is currently being developed in a third incarnation with Artist Organized Art where she is Project Director/Managing Editor of Artist Organized Art’s New Media Innovations Project. Erika Knerr is a graduate of Tyler School of Art (BFA) and the School of Visual Arts (MFA). Her work has been shown internationally in Italy, Poland, Spain, Israel, Wales and the US.

THE WHITE HOUSE POETRY WORKSHOP
Mrs. Michelle Obama for the President’s
Committee On The Arts And The Humanities

First Lady Michelle Obama speaks about the importance of poetry and self-expression
as she hosts a White House Poetry Workshop with students and poets like
Rita Dove, Billy Collins, Kenny Goldsmith, Alison Knowles, and Aimee Mann

by artist/correspodent: Jessica Higgins

Once inside the White House, I sat in a small room shaped like a kidney, many heavy guys with lots of equipment sitting at a small table. There was talk of tending their lawns. I was in there for a couple of hours, many of them brought lunch. Since I didn’t know the routine I ended up at a vending machine. They turned out to be nice fellows, one guy from Fox News offered me his soup. I ended up sort of interviewing him about the Press Industry. He gave an overview of his life style, kids in high school living outside of DC coming in when he gets a call from Fox News. A nice down to earth guy with what seemed to be a conventional lifestyle. We were considered a Press Pool and when called we stepped out into the heat. All the Press guys carried heavy equipment, I tagged along with mine, having also met a woman from a non-profit organization covering education, observing our preference for palm sized cameras we exchanged cards.

I represented myself as Myself, an Artist covering a White House event for Artist Organized Art, me being a specialist in trying to do the best I could in that mysterious way I simply trust. No pretending I was one of them, a hard nosed reporter, yet I distinctly pressed many questions inside the ‘Kidney Room.’

The Press Pool waits outside at the White House. Artist Organized Art sends
Jessica Higgins to cover the White House Poetry Work Shop

Originally someone else was chosen for this assignment, because Alison Knowles, was invited to participate in The Poetry Workshop and Evening Performances. Then, I got a sudden alert that Artist Organized Art would send me in as Press to cover the workshop. Great! But I had 45 minutes to pack and catch a train. Not fair! If, you’re covering First Lady Michelle Obama’s Poetry Workshop At the White House, in the State Room. I also needed to supply what are known as “vitals” (Social Security Number, Name, Address, Date Of Birth and so forth) to the White House for security clearance. There was a moment of pressure as the decision to participate was turning on a dime, while I “packed” without knowing if I would clear security upon arriving in Washington D.C. and presenting myself at the White House. Standing outside with The Press waiting to be admitted was beyond exhilaration, to put it mildly. After some jostling, I was waived in by the invisible hand of power and found myself inside the White House in the role of journalist.

The Press Pool waits outside at the White House. Artist Organized Art sends
Jessica Higgins to cover the White House Poetry Work Shop

Though the audience was aware there were cameras behind the rope, we ourselves were as equipment, with a sense of separation from the seated, comfortable participants.

As the poetry workshop unfolded into something really special Alison Knowles looked at the audience pointing over their heads and wiping her eyes, saying . . .’ and my daughter made it in.’ I wondered if, for one day at the White House, the poets were calling the shots. As I was scribbling away and trying to take pictures time stood still and it felt like every audience member turned and acknowledged us in the Press Pool. I nodded quietly smiling. Yet, there was meaning in pointing out another Artist organizing in the Press Pool and the daughter of one of the Artists on the panel. Anywhere in the world, even at the White House, if an Artist is exhibiting, or performing, presenting something, it’s always more meaningful if other Artists are in the audience. I realized my presence as an Artist and as someone personally connected to one of the exhibiting artists validated the event in a unique way.

Eight hours or more on Amtrak (artist in coach on value ticket) then slow waiting at the gates of the White House – the crowds were both impressive and in need of guidance from those magical workers who let you know where to go next, otherwise too chaotic. The identical ride back on the train went faster because I wrote steadily.

Organizing artists voices, giving diverse artists the chance to expose their percent of mind share while meeting other creative and alternative beings in the context of such a project, makes for an important social and public resource. It allows for artists themselves to work as organizers of a venue for cultural education. The mission of Artist Organized Art, to support artist organized media, events and cultural education, was my poetic license in the context of a very sequential choreography by the White House. I asked Joshua Selman of Artist Organized Art to say something about this for the article:

“Poetry gives us a break in the expected order of things. The inclusion of artist organizers as witnesses to cultural education at the White House makes for an especially poetic moment with the inclusion of an intermedia between journalism, art-making and organizing. It harmonizes with the results Intermedia artists enjoy entering expected art categories with unexpected results. That Mrs. Obama has arranged such a chord is astonishing and hugely encouraging to young people.” (Joshua Selman)

Opening remarks were by Elizabeth Alexander, Melody Barnes, Tiesha Hines and Mrs. Obama. The invited poets included: Elizabeth Alexander, Billy Collins, Rita Dove, Kenneth Goldsmith, Alison Knowles and Amiee Mann.

Tiesha Hines, President of the Ballou Senior High School Poetry Club, is a young Poet
and Artist Organizer known for her positive attitude and support of other Poets

Melody Barnes and Tiesha Hines stated the statistics and annecdotes showing improved grades and innovation abilities among students exposed to The Arts. Ms. Hines praised the First Lady for her extraordinary work in recognizing and supporting The Arts as critical to Education. Mrs. Obama followed, in stately presence, wearing a sequined floral skirt and looking strong and beautiful. Her message quickly matched  her appearance providing profound recognition of, and empowerment to, the next generation of young students. Mrs. Obama defined her role in the issue and stated that she wanted all the invited young students from The Ballou Senior High School, present at the workshop, and the invited Artists to make themselves at home at the White House. To get comfortable. This benefited the overall workshop as the audience settled into deep attention and inquiry. The State Room was filled with teens and established poets ready to share their experience, technique and knowledge with budding poets.

An eager crowd of invited young people follow the Poetry Workshop at the White House,
a project of the President’s Committee On The Arts And The Humanities:
Reinvesting in Arts Education, Michelle Obama, Honorary Chair

“So we’re going to do this big, fancy poetry reading this evening, and that’s all fun, and we’re going to hear some stuff. It’s going to be good. But this is the real reason, this workshop today, this is why we do it, because we’ve flown you guys here from all over the country because we want you to be a part of this conversation, sitting here in the State Room of the White House of the United States of America, because you’re just that important, right? You’re just that important. And this is the best part of the day, every time we do these. It’s today. So thank you for being here.” (Mrs. Obama)

With a huge portrait of Abraham Lincoln hanging on the wall behind the podium, Mrs. Obama spoke of many key elements to the importance of The Arts in Education. How important it is to simply recognize the role The Arts play in education for young people. She touched on how art-making helps in finding new solutions, developing gifts and establishing communities. She mentioned how she had loved creative writing in school. Making pictures with words, how it allowed her to express things that she was going through that went beyond the words she was writing.

“And even if you don’t grow up to be a professional poet, I promise that what you learn through reading and writing poetry will stay with you throughout your life. It will spark your imagination and broaden your horizons and even help your performance in the classroom… That’s why it is so critically important that we integrate the arts into schools. It is a must. It’s critically important that we continue to encourage after-school programs and engage community partners to help young people like all of you develop your gifts and to fulfill your potential. This is not an option. This is a must… For so many young people this will be the air they breathe, the reason they keep going to do the right thing. That’s what you’ll all be doing today here with these brilliant poets and artists. This is a true gift to you all to be in this room with these people…” (Mrs. Obama)

The guest poets ranged from the literary to the experimental. Each one offering access to their unique experience of how they found their approach. Read and recite as much poetry as possible or type out the words of an existing poem to warm the digits. Use information technology. Cut and paste, and a variety of psychological and process oriented techniques, approaches and visions.

“I want you to ask lots of questions and listen carefully. Do not be afraid. Don’t let the cameras or the lights intimidate you. We’re just here. I just happen to be the First Lady…” (Mrs. Obama)

As an Artist covering this art-making study at the White House my own involvement adds a spin since currently many artists organize the activity and support the voice of fellow artists in their broader community in order to enrich it. I was honored to be invited as an Artist-Organizer embedded in The Press for something I agree the world is crying for during a period of unparalleled corporatism and a general threat to the extraordinary uniqueness we all have. Everyone should attempt a moment of art each day, even if it is just a few words, a line of a poem, or prayer that hooks us into creative mind in and around us. That our planet may find solutions to challenges which demand thinking outside the box. The brave move is to speak our own creative, because it may also give others permission to do the same. Such was the imperative streaming from the White House itself as I counted Mrs. Obama among the poets of Situation.

Elizabeth Alexander, Rita Dove, Billy Collins (left to right) the White House Poetry Workshop

The diverse panel gave the Poetry Workshop a beautiful edge in a format which invited two poets at a time onto the stage; Rita Dove and Billy Collins began. Rita Dove asked in what way poetry moves us, how important is it to make poetry our own and offered that she uses draft work to get the words just right. She claimed inspiration from the renowned children’s book titled, Harold And The Purple Crayon, saying you have to follow your own purple path. Billie Collins, pointed out that the mission of ‘finding your own voice’ can be a bit daunting, overwhelming. He went on to say that sometimes deep introspection or finding a mystifying authenticity doesn’t work. He approached writing by loosening this kind of pressure, proposing we read as much poetry as we can get our hands on. Suggestions such as finding the poems of which we are jealous and creating our own versions, a willingness to write some bad poetry until it grows into something we like, also works. Rita Dove described playing with poetry, having fun with language to the point where we’re more interested in the poetry than in our own persona.

One of the young poets asked “at what point did you stop searching for your voice?” Billie Collins explained that the way to originality is through imitation, implying that through imitation we move into our own voice. Rita Dove described teaching through play with language in a game she offers her students in which a series of wild cards contain instructions, such as at the first sign of the moon, sit and write a haiku, questioning the need for heavy handed teaching rather than lending our process of development itself a more poetic contour.

Kenneth Goldsmith and Alison Knowles followed as the next poets to face the audience. Being familiar with the work of both artists I knew this would be the experimental portion of the panel.

Kenneth Goldsmith, Alison Knowles (left to right) the White House Poetry Workshop

Kenneth Goldsmith encouraged us to literally re-type a chosen work verbatim to understand it more fully, to leverage word processing and the information superhighway. He suggested we take poetic license and re-work existing material into new material, claiming there is no reason for writer’s block when we can go to the computer and process something new out of an ocean of pre-existing texts.

Alison Knowles offered the idea that we share whatever we write with another person, whether the work is good or bad. She described starting out as a mediocre painter because she wasn’t getting the meaningful feedback she needed from her friends, feedback which later guided her to become a different kind of artist and poet and she pointed out that including people and sharing the art is important in creating community. Lifting a signature handmade flax drum filled with beans, she refers to as a “bean turner,” the sound of rain echoed her words. In her world, poetry crosses into objects, sound or performance. By the end of the workshop Aimee Mann added that as a songwriter she enjoyed working with language plus music and understanding how powerful they become as they intertwine.

The Poetry Workshop at the White House left many of us pondering the diverse methods and experiences each poet brought to the description of their ways of art-making, yet the finest poetry came from Mrs. Obama who summed up the essence of how these diverse approaches benefit our communities when she asked a special question, regarding what poetry is really all about, to the young poets sharing the day at the White House.

Alison Knowles reads The House Of Dust at the White House Evening Of Poetry

“You got this experience to be here, right? So you are fortunate. You are blessed. So the question after this is what are you going to do to pass it on? What are you going to do to give this gift back? Because, not everybody could fit in this room.” (Mrs. Obama)

Alison Knowles reading The House Of Dust streaming live on the White House
internet channel reaches young people where they live (whitehouse.gov/live)

Reinvesting in Arts Education – Winning America’s Future Through Creative Schools: The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) announces the release of its landmark report Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America’s Future Through Creative Schools. The culmination of 18 months of research, meetings with stakeholders, and site visits all over the country, this report represents an in-depth review of the current condition of arts education, including an update of the current research base about arts education outcomes, and an analysis of the challenges and opportunities in the field that have emerged over the past decade. It also includes a set of recommendations to federal, state and local policymakers. A summary of the report is here.

Tiesha Hines: born in Washington, DC. She is a senior at Ballou Senior High School where she is the president of the poetry club and a member of a variety of extra curricular activities. Tiesha started writing poetry at age 7 for her friends, family and church members of Matthews Memorial Baptist Church. Her favorite style of writing is m.c. style. She was inspired to write by her sister and a few famous poets. Tiesha plans to go to Fortis College and Trinity University to study criminal justice and will continue to do poetry on the side.

Elizabeth Alexander: is an accomplished poet, essayist, and playwright. She began teaching English at the University of Chicago in 1991 and has risen to chair the African American Studies department at Yale University, where she currently works. Her writing has been published in The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The Village Voice, and The Washington Post and her play, Diva Studies, was performed at the Yale School of Drama and garnered a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship. Alexander has released several volumes of poetry, most notably American Sublime in 2005 which was one of the three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize that year. Additionally, she became the fourth poet ever to speak at a Presidential Inauguration in 2009 when she recited her poem “Praise Song for the Day,” written for the occasion.

Billy Collins: author of nine collection of poetry, including most recently Horoscopes for the Dead. He is also the editor of three anthologies: Poetry 180: A Turning Back Poetry, 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Everyday, and Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Bird Poems. He is a Distnguished Professor at Lehman College, City University of New York, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute at Rollings College. He served as New York State Poet (2004-2005) and United States Poet Laureat (2001-2003).

Rita Dove: Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia and former U.S. Poet Laureate and Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress, is the author of nine collections of poetry, including Thomas and Beulah, winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize, and, most recently, Sonata Mulattica. Her publications include short stories, a novel, and the drama The Darker Face of the Earth, which was produced at the Kennedy Center and London’s Royal National Theatre. Ms. Dove has received numerous honors, among them the NAACP Great American Artist Award, The Heinz Award, the National Humanities Medal, the Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service, and the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal. In 1993 she was featured poet at President Clinton’s first state dinner. A Chubb Fellow at Yale University and the recipient of 22 honorary doctorates, Dove is also chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a former senator of Phi Beta Kappa.

Kenneth Goldsmith’s writing has been called “some of the most exhaustive and beautiful collage work yet produced in poetry” by Publishers Weekly. Goldsmith is the author of ten books of poetry, the founding editor of the online archive UbuWeb, and the editor of I’ll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews. A documentary on his work, Sucking on Words, premiered at the British Library in 2007. He teaches writing at The University of Pennsylvania and held the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow Professorship in American Studies at Princeton University 2010. His book of essays, Uncreative Writing, is forthcoming from Columbia University Press.

Alison Knowles: American visual artist known for her soundworks, installation, performances and publications, and as a founding member of Fluxus. In 1967, Knowles produced what is considered to be the first computerized poem The House of Dust in collaboration with composer James Tenney. In the 1960s, Knowles composed the Notations book of experimental composition with John Cage, and Coeurs Volants, a print with Marcel Duchamp. Her acclaimed exhibits and performances include two walk-in book installations “The Big Book” and “The Book of Bean.” In 2008, she performed three Event Scores at the Tate Modern in London, and in 2009 she exhibited and performed in The 3rd Mind” American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989 at the Guggenheim Museum. She was appointed guest professor at Documenta X in Kassel, Germany, and in 2009 was an artist-in-residence at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. An edition of The House Of Dust is due to publish this Fall.

Aimee Mann: In the 1980’s formed the post –new wave pop group ‘Til Tuesday, and went on to establish herself as a distinguished singer-songwriter. She has received multiple Grammy nominations, one Grammy award and released seven critically acclaimed solo albums, including the soundtrack for the film Magnolia, which garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Song in 2000. She has gone on to record soundtracks for several other films and has released widely praised solo albums including Bachelor No. 2, Lost in Space, and One More Drifter in the Snow.

Michelle Obama: née Robinson, the wife of President Barack Obama, was born on January 17, 1964 in Chicago, Illinois. She is a lawyer and was a University of Chicago Hospital vice-president. She is the First Lady of the United States and Honorary Chair, the President’s Committee On The Arts And Humanities. The Student White House Poetry Workshop is a part of the initiative Reinvesting in Arts Education.

Melody Barnes is the Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.

Joshua Selman serves as President of 501(c)3 Artist Organized Art, Inc.

Jessica Higgins: American artist, lives and works in New York and Massachusetts. Formative dance studies at Juilliard and Joffrey. Daughter of Fluxus Founders Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles. She has direct experiential knowledge of Fluxus, having early formation in that culture by way of the original members and by participation in historic Fluxus events. She is a regular correspondent for Artist Organized Art and the Creative Director of ‘Switch’ a local access television series of performance and intermedia out of Western Massachusetts. Her works and performances have exhibited in numerous countries.