how to make anything signify anything

Courtesy of the George C. Marshall Research Library. Lexington, Virginia

cement cake

Mix equal parts cement and flour. Place a pan of this powder out next to a pan of water. The rats eat the cement, then they drink the water, and by the next morning their bowels have turned to concrete.

Rat poison vendor's stall at a market in Linxia City, China.

anales

31/03/2011 - 21/05/2011 Madrid

Heringsschwarm

Bikini Bottom

let the seasons begin

Engraving from Ferrante Imperato, Dell'Historia Naturale (Naples 1599)

Closer, 2009

Wor_ds of Pain

Killerball, 2002. Fabric stuffed with soft synthetic materials

untitled

Relational Gunpowder

How was Baudelaire defining the modern artist for example? He was defining (the artist) as an idle man. An idle person, idleness must be eliminated, excluded from the working process. It has really to be excluded from people's daily life and it is something that deserves the least salary. For Henry Ford, every gesture that is done by a worker during his daily life, should produce something, in order words, it has to be equivalent of salary. The history of modern art is really a quarrel between the idleness and virtues of freedom and the rationalization, evaluation of time lived. The artist is always the person who struggles against this separation in work time. For this reason, many works of art have concentrated on idleness starting with the beginning of 20th century. Artists like Langert, Jack Lang and conceptual artists like Stanley Brown. Their works of art consist of idleness. For example, in 50's, 60's Thiery Moens was a member of the realists; he was also talking about a big idleness between signs. And we see how these two worlds are opposite to each other. Both of these two worlds are big and the quarrel between these two worlds will also constitute the history of modern art in 21st century.

On one hand there is an inclination for the realization of the gestures that should be done in the factory, the rationalization of mass production and the creation of consumption objects, and on the other hand, in spite this, we see the trends that try to decrease the importance of the objects against the gesture. In other words, on one hand gesture disappears in the name of object, on the other hand the object disappears in the name of gesture. At the same time, after the evaluation of this gesture, the prevention of any kind of waste, for example the prevention of energy and time waste, which is really a basic waste. In this case we can say this: There was a period in history, where those two worlds were not opposite to each other and the art was mostly included in the society. The society also was not in opposition , the producers were not contrary to their society. However that is not the case any more. In this regard, there are more interesting activities, applications and works in the shared area between these two parts.

From NICOLAS BOURRIAUD's lecture 'TODAY'S ART PRACTICE' - 21.09.2001

To forget

(Image published in The ONION. 2008)

road to ruin

C is for culture/ culture-as-encounter

I don't believe in culture, to some extent, but rather I believe in encounters. But these encounters don't occur with people. People always think that it's with people that encounters occur, which is why it's awful... Now, in this, that belongs to the domain of culture, intellectuals meeting one another, this disgusting practice of conferences, this infamy. So encounters, it's not between people that they happen, but with things... So I encounter a... painting, yes, or a piece of music, that's how I understand an encounter. When people want to connect encounters to themselves, with people, well, that doesn't work at all... That's not an encounter, and that's why encounters with people are so utterly, utterly disappointing. Encounters with people are always catastrophic.

(Gilles Deleuze interviewed by Claire Parnet, 1988)