ekloff

From the people that brought you the film, Helvetica,  is a new film called Objectified, which discusses some important considerations in consumerism, technology, design, and the battle between marketing,materiality, function, and aesthetics. It’s a good film if you have a chance to see it.

As part of New Genre in gameplay, the game Quelf is preprogrammed absurdism in action. It’s quite amusing…

Come out of the norm, escape your shell at an innocent party or gathering. Have a hand puppet sing a love song, point and stare at a spot in the ceiling without talking, keep your elbow on the gameboard, draw targets on a piece of paper and tape them to your clothing. If you violate the criteria or fail a certain performance or action or answer, you pay the random consequences of the card you draw.

This game is like a softened blow of NeoDada, more accessible to the general public, especially the board game audience. Playing this game is interesting and certainly challenges expectations even within a board game. Someone had to wear a item around their neck that wasn’t used as normal jewelry. In this case, they found toilet paper and made a bowtie object. Another turn, they had to build a fort out of furniture.

The final chapter of Ways of Seeing seemed to be most interesting and most applicable to my processes.

You are what you have.

Publicity, Advertising, Marketing, Design. It shapes us, forms ideas, alters culture, it gives and takes a components of life. It is all based on persuasion, consoling the viewer with a dream of what they could be in the future. It has to pull from the past to sell the future.

The power to spend money is the power to live. The understanding of this in advertisements is that you become lovable with this power. On the other token, you become faceless if you can’t spend money. This strict distinction (and in fact a extremity of reality) provides the idea of glamor.

A fear of being desirable is the product of social relations in advertising and culture.

Documentation of Bolie Folke’s new genre practices.

Watching Man on the Moon, I find Andy Kaufman to be an inspiration of a new kind of artist. Andy Kaufman used life as a medium. He didn’t think of himself as a comedian, but as a “song and dance man.” He was someone that would illicit a response–any response (laughter, anger, shock, annoyance, childlike purity, sympathy). He led others to question the reality of his behavior and anyone he came in contact with. His antics altered how life was seen as accurate and believable.

Even his death is a legend, and mystery and gimmick are still following him. His life is riddled with amazing spectacle, mimicking real life and enhancing it in ways that make him an innovator and challenger of comedy, art, and life. He was his own great social experiment.

“A Brief History of the Audience 1960-1981″ by Robert Nickas

In this reading, roles of performer and audience are examined. References to punk and theatrical artists such as the MC5, the Velvet Underground, and Iggy Pop are given the credit for their political and social experiences. They interacted with the audience. The audience became part of the antics, with crowd surfing, being taunted, and upset by the unmet expectations.

Everyday life was expressed by Martha Roster in her Monumental Garage Sale, where an otherwise normal garage sale was hosted with a persona of a counter-culture Southern Californian. Included in the performance was a slide projection and autobiographical audiotape playing in the background from previously bought garage sale items.

The idea of the garage sale is something that I am personally interested in. There is a snippet of intimate life being given away, and status and social implications are involved with the items sold. “One is what one appears to own.” The garage sale has unwritten laws and behaviors and those who have been to a few know what to expect and can judge the activity. The number of visitors and the appearance of interest and busyness encourages others to follow suit. But does quality of signage and preparation change the monetary value of the goods sold? Does the number of items or location alter the flow and nature of garage sales?

IDEA: Make a garage sale you can’t find (ambiguous signage). I’ve seen yard sale signs exist when the event has long passed. I could create a maze that leads a crazed drive to a desired location.

February 20th of 2010 marked the first idiosyncratic performance by Bolie Folke. The formula was as follows:

1. Perform a song to open the concert event and CD Release show. Have headliner provide assistance during the song.
   
2. Accuse the headliner that they stole the opening act. Proceed to steal the headlining act by performing a song they will soon play. Rewrite the lyrics to become applicable to the situation.
   
3. Play an original song without any surprise.
   
4. Play an original song as part of the audience, facing away from the crowd as if looking at the performer. View oneself with a mirror placed on stage where the performance had originally taken place.
   
5. Use microphone to amplify a karaoke beat on laptop. Choose a topic (mashed potatoes) and start the song in a rapping voice “(Your topic) in the club.” Use computer to find a wikipedia article about or related to your topic. Proceed to freestyle rap the words of the article with your own pace and melody. Intermittently, pause the singing with minimal dance moves.
   
6. Have your own event within the event. In this case, have a release show occur simultaneously (for business cards). They can be sold at any price.

Results

The headliner was caught off guard hearing one of his songs being covered and parodied. A fraction of the crowd knew that it was a cover song, and the song stated that the song was being covered in the lyrics. The song was drastically shortened. The employees of the establishment hesitated when the name of the venue was part of the song.

Many were interested in the mirror replacing the performer and the connotation of destroying the visual center of attention. The looking within at oneself provided the performer with a new perception on the role of the crowd and the role of the performer. The performer becomes part of the crowd, part of the spectatorship. The crowd must look at itself or the reflective vanity of itself or the performer.

The song about mashed potatoes did not go as planned due to technical difficulties, but the results were just as satisfying. Confusion during the happening had many nervous by the extended lack of traditional performance as there was no singing or instrumentation other than the laptop playing. They were also amused by the humorous content. A problematic Internet connection prohibited the wikipedia entry to show up in the browser. The seeming awkward pausing and crouching by the computer provided equal entertainment value.

Business cards were placed at the merchandise table of the headliner. However, no business cards were purchased after advertising them.

Reading In the Spirit of Fluxus by Elizabeth Armstrong and Joan Rothfuss, and centering on the section entitled The Latest: Fluxus and Music, the Fluxus movement is founded on breaking the boundaries, as the Surrealist, the Dadaist, and the avant-garde before them. Anything could be a musical composition. John Cage could play a silent piano piece for over four minutes (4’33″). Instruments could be broken, or massaging lotion on ones hands could embody the idea of amplification of the quiet as portrayed in the composition called 0’00″.

“If all sounds can be musical sounds, then this fruitul premise might be trasferred readily from the realm of audible or potentially audible sounds to any realm whatsoever.” Virtually anything can be anything. You can hammer nails into piano keys. You can throw beans on the strings of the piano.

I’m sure to use the questioning that the Fluxus have for commercialized art, of rigidly defined confines within society. This will expend my ideas beyond what has been the norm or expected.

Now that I see the video, John Berger looks very familiar. I’m sure I’ve stumbled on him before. Good reads too. This is reference to my writeup to the first chapter of his book.