When my son was very little, about 2 years old, there was a discount department store called Venture.. He later told me that the song by Steppenwolf was not " head out on the highway/ looking for adventure... ''
but 'looking for a Venture' ....poor little guy strapped in the back seat of the van in one of those child carriers trying to see whether the next concrete shopping mall plaza might have a Venture... Mesaprise-- misapprehension-- something we totally want to resist in design and consumption or in the design of consumption or the consumption of design (the bad seed! the nightmare project !) :: how things don't work..... The mistake is the beginning of the mutation. "In the still cave of the witch poesy... " Caroline Bergvall: Pervaded with that Ceaseless Motion 12:53 2006 Caroline: "Shelley's "Mont Blanc" poem read with sound by Mario Diaz de León. Note on the title: For some inexplicable reason, on the day of the recording I found myself without a copy of Shelley’s "Mont Blanc". I quickly downloaded one from some online Shelley site. Only much later and far too late did we discover that two lines were missing. Line 32: “Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion”. This was partially reintegrated to the poem by becoming the title of our collaborative reading. Line 65: “Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread”. This beautiful line is still spreading." http://www.carolinebergvall.com/ -Christina On Dec 8, 2009, at 10:37 PM, Kevin Hamilton wrote: > Thanks Renate, for inviting Christina and I to take the mic, and > thanks to Patty and company for the past week's prods to action and > thought. > > Within the "Hacktivating Design" thread, Christina and I thought to > introduce the example of mis-use through humor and mistake, the > performed, non-ironic screw-up as a wedge into the impenetrable > sensorium of contemporary consumption and art/design education. > > [from the British television show/performance act The Mighty Boosh] > > Naboo: This is black magic. This is hardcore. Don't mess with the > occult. > Vince Noir: I thought it was good for you. > Naboo: What? > Vince Noir: Well, you know, good for your digestive system. > Naboo: That's Yakult! > Vince Noir: Oh, yeah... > > Modernism loves failure - especially when it's on purpose. When > properly reflexive, it's like letting the line go slack on the > boundary of normative thought and action, only to snap it back into > place to show you knew what was right all along. > > 187.1 Hey, Wayne, I've got a new gold brain. > > But sometimes the screw-up can't resolve itself, rationality can't > right itself again. Lately I've been popping over to revisit Kenneth > Goldsmith's piece "Head Citations." It's better in book form than > online, but you can find it here: > > http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/goldsmith/works/head_citations.html > > Scanning this list of mis-heard pop lyrics, the shape of failure is > wonderfully unclear, and banal in a way that is tied to the limits of > sensation, rather than to some definition of "the everyday." Some I > get right away, others I can't. And significantly, Google can't help > with the decoding. > > 192. Well since she put me down I've got owls puking in my bed. > > You can stop reading here if you're just looking for a start to this > new sub thread. Or, you may read further to hear an embarrassing > account of my own interventionist screw-up. > > ..... > > Ten years ago, as I was finishing out my graduate degree, my > colleagues and I were all busying ourselves creating > "interventions." (The daily bread of our program was the material > later to emerge in Mass MOCA's influential exhibition.) My thesis > project, which today causes me to cringe even in working form, failed > miserably in a way worth telling. > > I had been working on a series of public performances in which I > generated amplified sound through walking in modified shoes, and then > tried to walk in sync with strangers, so as to lend _their_ feet the > sounds of _my_ special shoes. For my penultimate Quixotic/Certeau-ian > attempt, I identified the busiest crosswalk on campus, and grabbed the > very notable sound signature of the space : a two-note audible > crosswalk signal for the visually impaired, which at the time was > somewhat unique and very distinctive for the space. (You can hear a > sample of this here: http://www.wilcoxsales.com/images/cuckoo.wav) > > I disarmed the city's signal for a day and replaced it with my own - a > perfect imitation which would only sound when I walked: left foot for > the high note, right foot for the low note. > > This (in theory) turned me into a piece of city infrastructure, where > my walking was necessary for the safe navigation of a busy street. I > also had control of the beat, and could alter it as I attempted to > walk in sync with others. (Meanwhile, the project wholly neglected the > subject of sighted and non-sighted experience of the city. Cringe. > Interventionist hubris in full effect.) > > Halfway or more through my performance, the sensors went bad and the > system started firing at random - meaning that THE SOUND WOULD START > SIGNALING EVEN WHEN IT WAS UNSAFE TO CROSS. I was suddenly about to > send people walking into traffic. > > I had to rapidly unplug the system to at least make it safe. And then > I saw a vision-impaired person approach the crossing. So I whipped out > a little digital sampler and hooked it up to the system, and used my > fingers, instead of my legs, to fire the signal at the correct pace to > indicate safe crossing. > > I had hacked up a big mess. Getting the normal system to start again > would take intervention from the city. I called in the report/request, > but they wouldn't be there for hours. So I remained there at the > crosswalk, firing my little sampler with my fingers to keep the sonic > space exactly as usual, safe for all. I did that for probably 5 hours > or more until the city came - longer than the actual project. So in > the end, my most successful intervention was to insert myself almost > invisibly into an urban structure, only to recreate that structure. > Accidental self-camouflage. > > There's nothing about this project worth emulating, but the farther I > get from the piece the more provoked I am by the role of the screw-up, > the way my prideful desire to "activate" a space fell apart, only to > be replaced by an obligatory, laughable and irrational activity. > - Kevin > > > > > > Christina McPhee http://christinamcphee.net mobile 805 878 0301 skype: naxsmash facebook: Christina McPhee contact: c/o [email protected] http://silverman-gallery.com, San Francisco > > > > _______________________________________________ > empyre forum > [email protected] > http://www.subtle.net/empyre _______________________________________________ empyre forum [email protected] http://www.subtle.net/empyre
