THE GOLDEN AGE OF GARBAGE

as my husband and I walked through sweetwater park yesteday, we noticed a lot of garbage tangled in the rocks and winter branches along the water's edge. this is a divinely beautiful place. it's a bandaid we use to place over our craving for deeper woods. as a space, it offers a modicum of personal reflection to soul-weary city dwellers.

sweetwater park has running through it a giant urban river with rocks that look like petrified tree trunks. on days when the water's low, you can walk out across the broad width of it. but despite it's magnificence, it also carries a negative charge. friends warn us not to swim in the waters, for it's downstream from the big city and therefore extremely polluted. people get sick after touching it. there's a corpse of a giant cotton mill whose bricks were made by slaves. we passed "lynch st." on the way in. we've started to notice a population of gray herons hanging around the small rapids. they are immigrants from more southern places and have somehow acclimated to the colder waters. this environment makes for a rather bizarre mix of nature and human history, of healing in the midst of residue. visits here often become symbolic for us.

this time (2.22) garbage was the theme of our visit.

everyone I know is liquidating. Dimitri Orlov recommends that in seriously downturned economic times, it's better to have physical goods than cash stored away in banks. if the currency is devalued, you can always trade, sell or make good use of your things. . .in extreme cases, you can burn them for heat, or pick through them for nutrients. . .

high captialism created stockpiles of wasteful things, which are now being shaken down and freed up at unprecedented rates. All this junk now floods the independent markets for repurposing. As starving artist types we know what to do in such a golden river of junk and disorder. . .this is a golden age of sorts.

("starve:" it's only a relative term for us americans. . . it may mean no ipods, no cable tv, no new cars or designer clothes, meager travel. . .unrenovated living quarters, vintage computers and outdated operating systems, gardens in empty lots. . .we're make-do citizens but are quite artsy in how we fashion our junk and make use of our free time. . . and we're inclined to survive quite well these next couple of years.)

21st CENTURY FOLK ART

I seem to be using the term a lot lately:“21st century folk.” it becomes more and more useful as a category when talking about my artistic peers. (why is that?)

21st Century Folk Art is particularly prevalent out here in the cultural suburbs, and in the global south. . .this artwork is passed by or does not necessarily seek out international acclaim, sophistication, or expensive hi-tech prowess. . . it lays back a pace or two. it doesn't bother to play hardball with exclusive high art games. lt simply cannot or will not compete . It's a southern cousin to lowbrow, grand niece to brut art. more a voice from the dropped-out, consciously retarded zone, not necessarily poor, rural and black anymore. . .but indeed, still from the edges where the shamans live and cannot keep quiet.

it is persistently produced with independent verve and truely unique identity, made from artists outside the institutionalized networks of success. work like this is free to be spiritual, local, sloppy, dirty, derivative, inexpensive, irreverent, or naive, . it finds an audience among the uninitiated, underprivileged who are unaware , or disenfranchised with greater art trends. often charming, meaningful and also godawful! . . .it’s expressiveness can cut through despite the odds and the abandonment of its maker. In this genre of art, crudeness or rawness works to the artists' advantage, being so rarely valued elsewhere. of course, it's been exploited before (see lowbrow, see souls grown deep, see quilts of gee's bend ) I find this sort of art tantalizingly traditional. there will always be creatives who choose this path. it's a non-plused response to the intimidating multitudes of art being professionally produced and promoted in the leisurely 21st century.

This folk art is different from that which was coined in the 20th century. now it would be extremely rare to find artists totally unaware of the global fine art developments. these artists are self impowered and not waiting around for the next william arnett to peddle their work. In fact, 21st century folk artists are in defiance to global fine art monoculture! (fuck that.) You don't have to live in a country shack and see god in your fingers to be an outsider artist these days. but you might live in the suburbs, be over 35, hold a day job, live with your mother, make work in some already discovered style about already covered ideas.

atlanta still produces fine bumper crops of contemporary folk artists.

here are some local artists who continue to plug away at what I might consider 21st century folk--some practice it high and some low : anne cox, benjamin jones, eula ginsburg, don cooper, lisa kemp, allison rentz, r.land, eggtooth, woody cornwell, myself?, some graffiti artists? let me know who I've missed.

(the image at the top is from a parking lot performance that allison rentz and I did on Black friday in 2007.)

WILD HORSES

wild horses are a prevelent symbol found in advertising. pictured here is a clipping of a real estate logo. it's use is perfectly ironic . I painted out the words, to focus on the image separate from the commercial context.

wild horses are a world-wide symbol for freedom and thrusting energy. . .only when captured by humans, do they turn into a conquering/war-like picture. harness-less, wild horses are a symbol very much being hoarded by america. cowboys, open plains, freely roaming animals. The east has dragons. . .and the west has horses (I think we have won temporary ownership of "horses" as our symbol over the previous owners, the monguls-ancient wild horse men from central china/russian/persia. they owned it for a good while).

I am in love with this symbol--wild horses. . .and I am not alone. . .as we gentrify our contemporary existence, tear the wildernesses from our reality and banish them to the past, we mythologize the wild things and freeze them in imagery for all time. . .it's like taking a graphic picture of something that has disappeared--not on an individual basis, but on a larger cultural scale. when things make their transition from historical stories based in reality to full-blown myth, they become exaggerated, larger than life images. I imagine there will be billboards on the moon with pictures of wild horses on them. . .that's how much we love the image ( and not the reality of) wild horses.

HORSES N' RAINBOWS

craig dongoski, a favorite professor & brilliant mad man once said: as symbols, rainbows, butterflies and flowers are practically incorruptible. and I agree.

I would add a few more to that. . .hummingbirds and wild horses are some of my favorite symbols . . .right up there with diamonds : )

why do these images conjur up wonderment in our human hearts? I think it's their temporary unsustainable natures. such incredible beauty and swift powerful energy can only burst into this world for fitful moments. . .and cannot stay very long. as far as the smaller things. . .the flowers and the butterflies. . .their lives are short and sweet. but the memory of their presence stay with us forever. . .they remind us of that part of earth's magic reality.

IMMIGRANTS

Here is a working woman from the 1980s. . .her shiny desk is oddly void. a non-digital clock sits on the wall (something leftover from the factory, perhaps). there's no computer, no ipod, no video phone. . .she operates with a landline, a rolodex, a can of pens and real paper with actual text printed on it. . .perhaps only the coffee is a consistency with the work place of now. . .

I have a bit of a fetish for images of working women this is a favorite clipping of mine. she seems so independent, so ingrained in her professionalism. . .the family photos loom guiltily behind.

this reminds me of a strange piece of podcast I heard just the other day. . . this report called those born into the web world "native." those who remember life before the web are "immigrants." putting those of a certain age and socio-economic rank on the outside of our shared homeland. I wonder. . .did they call those who lived before television immigrants? I think it is foolish not to honor those who bore precious witness to the transition of reality with the web, and also those still just discovering it. . .to call them immigrants is a strange dis. . . but this term may not stick. it could be the insecurity of the reporters, themselves immigrants by this definition, their own uneasiness with this new place revealed. . .

(yet another example of the endless reportage on our new culture, always accompanied with clever words. . .there's something about the year 9 of any decade. . .it's the year our identity kicks in. this year, it's hitting us how 15 years with the internet has altered our lives. publications are filled with pop culture anthropologists joining in the awakening.)

"MEATSPACE"

I ran across it today. . .the word "meatspace." I thought it might be a crudely titled online network for desperate singles . . .but on the contrary. it's a cyber-nerd term for good old fashioned physical reality.

such a derogatory reference. is it a dangerous sign. . .that those people who prefer online reality are falling out of love with the physical earth? or on the contrary. . .does this foretell a near future of deep meatspace-- abandoned by mainstream human activity--and therefore becoming a valulable refuge for robust formations of consciously disconnected, earth-lovin' subcultures? hard to know.

I read just the other day, that jungles are taking back countryside in lots of third world places. . .because of a recent migration pattern to urban centers. and some developers are seeing it as evidence that wilderness conservation is no longer needed. . .curious propaganda, indeed.

pictured here is another good sign . . . I found this one deep in the countryside of northern new mexico (2008), one of my favorite physical places on earth. "hilarious that it says, back by popular demand" because it doesn't seem there is a human population living here at all. . .or perhaps I am mistaken.

BELLS OF DESIGN

here's a clipping of ford's nucleon model. pretty cool design. would make a great maglev (magnetic levitation) road jet.

some times I wish cars would disappear! think of all the things we could do with highways and roads if they weren't all clogged up with individual cars.

mitchell joachim wants to design cars that are less machine, more facebook on wheels. (ugh!) . . .his critique of the word sustainability is interesting. he says the idea of efficiency means less bad. . .is not positive or evocative enough a buzzword for people to buy into . . .I'm not sure I agree. we may not buy into sustainability as much as have no other choice but to adhere to it. . . .joachim's bling! is showing through. . .but then again who wants a future that is balanced and bland, without the attractive bells of design. . .?

PETS

. . . in the first world, we cater to our pets' needs as if they are our children. we buy health insurance for them, we fret over their comfort, tote them around, buy them running water fountains, toys & treats, dress them in baby clothes and kerchiefs. . .just today, I heard over the radio: "did you know that today is national pet dental care day ? " . . .the industry does indeed play on our lonliness, our lack of touch, our distance from the real wilderness, our fear of death, our fear of old age all soothed by the wrinkle-less, speechless, domestic animals. . .as long as they're in good health.

the thing is. . .most pet's have significantly shorter lifespans than us. . .we can be sure that we will encournter death, sickness and old age with them before actually encountering it in the humans that are closest to us.

in light of this. . .it is no surprise that our first domestic robots will be all kinds of designer pets. . .that live as long as we do. . .they just need to get the fur right. . .and it will be a hit.

BILLBOARDS

billboards are our most common form of public art. and yet advertising hoards up all the billboard space for the purpose of selling things. its ironic how intolerant people are of public art (both official and unofficial kinds). . .yet the public seems completely ok with billboards everywhere.

my friend evan calls them floating walls. (when you endeavor to build one, you must calculate the wind's force on it) . .a good way to think of them.

in some earlier comments I was asked what kind of billboard I would make, if I had the chance. . .well I did have the chance, recently thanks to louis corrigan. I built a small billboard (12'x12') up on my house . . .and so far my neighbors have tolerated it. . .in fact many say they enjoy seeing it. but I was careful, not to make an advertizement. I made a promise to never put any words on it. instead I put a carefully chosen found image. . . .it's quite ambiguous, but still political.

but I do think the best billboards are the old ones, empty or in a state of disarray. before long they will all be video screens, flashing and making noise. . .and these will be relics.

pictured here is a text suggestion from reader, adam bruneau: he thought a billboard should say, "don't buy anything."

ANOTHER GOOD SIGN

EMPTY SIGNAGE. . .

I've been engaged in an interesting online discussion among empty sign enthusiasts. . .we've been theorizing about their ubiquity and their deeper meanings. . . .

(pictured here is an old piece of art that DANIEL OSBORNE gave me. . .I glued it into my notebook (2006?) and added a random caption).

here are some links and ideas:

-DELETE art project, suggested by HERMANN ZSCHIEGNER
-architect TIM NICHOLS' collection of empty sign photos

-HIROSHI SUGIMOTO's theatre photos
-ED RUSCHA!


A FEW IDEAS ABOUT EMPTY SIGNS:

-why we do love these empty signs so much? Why does the absence of information have such an appeal?
Maybe because the empty billboard is a sign reduced to a mere signifier, pointing only to its own existence. A classic ready-made. And our "avantgarde trained minds" really respond to that. Can we ever overcome Duchamp? Should we? (hz)

-empty signage indeed appeals to our inner duchampian aesthetics, but it may also appeal to our secret desire for emptiness/ moments of visual rest in our urban/suburban world, smothered in advertising. (kt)

-those empty signs harken to our endtime fantasies. . .evidence that the machine is falling apart. . . the floating walls are left unmanned. (kt)

-there's also that utopian staple (for some anyway): a symbolic tabula rasa --the iconic empty billboard. a blank space at 48' wide. . .the ultimate chance to start the message over. (kt)

BACKING OFF THE SHORES

Oceans are like airwaves. . .both are incredible resources for everyone to enjoy and respect.

I fantasize about a time when storms, erosion and pointless reconstruction of beachfront property have resulted in a backing off from the shores. . .perhaps there might one day be global beach development policies. . .in most cases builders would be required to avoid all land a 1/2 mile from every shore or at least be restricted to minimal, temporary or eco-minded builds. these beach areas could become precious commercial free wetland/dune zones both private & public. . . they could buffer inland coastal developments from the realities of nature--current 21st century weather instability. existing constructions would be allowed to just lay as deserted corpses, disappearing in the sun and salt.

can you imagine how incredible florida would be if everyone had to walk through the dunes, or the swamps to get to the shore? some areas would have incredible elevated walkways, and of course some plalces would need to provide innovative access for handicapped and the obese (maybe they could ride in eco-airships out to the water. . .)



-kt

ANTHROPOLOGY OF A CHRISTMAS SNAPSHOT

I just got back from florida. a natural wonderland and also a playground for an interesting breed of materialism. I do think that the more lush the land, the potentially greedier the people. for how or why should humans resist luxury if it is so readily available? and yet. . .in this place all you need are flip flops and a fishing hook to survive. oh, well, so is the fate of beautiful places . . .that they'll be smothered in commercialism.

This is a scan of a christmas card given to my friend skip by his older brother. I think if it survives (and perhaps I have increased its chances) into the future, it will make a good image for art history. I had noticed the photo on that quintessential glass side table of framed photos at skip's dad's. . .snapshots galore, all following strict convention. this one stood out among the bunch of 'em. (later when skip showed me his personal copy, I asked if I could scan it and publish it because I thought it was so exceptional.)

I love the professional lighting combined with the perfect sunset on the beach. the whole family dressed in planned casual white clothing. but it's the expressions on their faces that really make this a valuable image beyond initial family use. this family is oozing confidence and happiness and florida privilege at a crashing moment in history! its rather intoxicating, even if it's fiction. . .and that I'll never know. mom looks fit and beaming, dad too. . .skip said they both worked on their tans in preparation for the photo. but the expression of the children are especially delightful. the little girl's gesture of embrace seems so fresh and authentic. . .it is clear that the youngest boy is indeed dear to her. and yet, if you look at the parent's hand gestures, you can see each is pushing their children into each other for posterity. (I once had a friend who was a life coach. . .I traded some art for her services. . .she taught me that people will tell you what they mean with their hands, not their mouths) these people live in a cullture warp, a bubble of wealth that may or may not burst soon. either way, they are not aware of it.

my husband and I travelled with skip in his gigantic van (for band travels), stopping in winter park/orlando to see satchel's family circus, pic up skip's mom and then move on to sarasota key. we would have a quick vacation at his single dad, the diamond salesman's 70's condo on the water.

let me just say: I LOVE FLORIDA IN DECEMBER. traveling there in the 1960s--empty sand dunes, exotic blooming flowers, cocktails and clubhouses--would have been my ideal time to go, but I'll take it even in hyper weird 2008. the water is so unbelievably beautiful, like liquid diamonds in the sun, so forgiving and vibrant with wildlife, . . .and it's interesting to see the difference in culture between here (land-locked, forest-hwy materialism) and there (sun-drenched, oceaned-bleached materialism).

among the stories skip's mom told me in the back of the van on our way into deeper western florida was about the children in the photograph. . .her grandchildren who I had seen ravaging wrapped presents earlier in their white living room until boredom left piles unopened. when they travel, they are each fitted with their own dvd screens and headphones in the back seat, so their individual interests can be satiated while riding. they never even have to look out the windows and see the environments in between destinations. you have to wonder what might happen to them someday, if the greater world reality ever were to bust through.

-kt

PUBLIC SPACE

non-commercial public spaces are disappearing from use. . .big boxes and parking lots are our social parks now, where we brush up against each other in person. now we create public spaces online. I want to know. . . what the architecture of Facebook really looks like ?

I was invited to participate in an architecture critique recently. the students were all redesigning a local I.M.Pei building as a museum of money. (very clever assignment by professor Tim Nichols. this historic building is only 2 stories high on a block greedy for skyscrapers. this is prime real estate. small buildings waste space that could be making money. it stands just around the corner from the 615 building, which they killed two years ago, and the space still sits empty.) The design I remember the most was from a very shy young korean student. in her model, she removed the bottom floor of the building, and preserved the top as is. . . and then, she put an empty space for temporary open markets on the first floor. She made a simple yet lovely shady piazza! A place I would love to see come to fruition, especially on that corner which has dramatic spatial choreography.

But from what I can see, the developers will collaborate with I.M.Pei himself to deface his own building into a mixed use, and of course "green" mega-building. They intent to preserve "a portion" of the original. well, of course I'm skeptical. . .but I guess one can't be too critical of any attempts at preservation at this point. . . . . . . .

OWNERSHIP & TIME

it's such an odd juxtaposition. . .here we are in an economic avalanche, and also an avalanche of time. . .and yet upscale advertisers like the new york times still proliferate ads for diamonds (are forever) and men's high-end wrist watches. I think that wrist watches are a particularly curious choice for promotion by madison avenue. (. . .it's something I watch. . .pun intended. . . ) it may show we are worried that time is out of control.

common people don't really wear watches anymore, we wear phones with digital clocks, we work inside the grinding guts of clocks. perhaps wrist watches are becoming that symbolic piece of jewelry, a social marker like a top hat or white gloves or a family crest. perhaps a 21st century wrist watch is that contemporary time machine: if you can afford a decorative $5,000 watch, you can alter the speed with which you move through time. you wear the insignia of the leisure class.

of course, anyone with willpower can alter time if they wish. . .drop outs abound on both ends of the scales.

but back to mainstream american reality. . .or gossip girls, or something. . .
I heard it said once by a shrewd single woman: the mark of a poor man is that he's rushing all the time. hmmm. there's some truth to that.

-kt

THE ANTI-MATERIAL MOVEMENT

well, it makes sense that we would arrive here sooner or later. I mean captialism has indeed conquered the world. just at the moment that we focus so entirely on material things and their possession (down to ideas & images & colors). . .we have subconsciously invented a cavernous virtual shadow world.

In this other world, we can horde infinite invisible space seemingly without consequence. . . build storages of thoughts and images, of alternative lives and architectures. . . all of which can be pulled up at will, much better than any human kind of memory. I dare say, artists no longer need canvas to secure their identity as leading communicators & image-makers & thinkers.

At first, we have found that mundane information no longer needs to take up space in our physical world. already we are free of a lot of our little things: photo albums, notebooks, music, list of contacts, bills, resumes, art portfolios. . .we now keep all that online. up there, no storm that can wipe it out, or so we believe. . . that virtual world floats above us somewhere, decentralized and uber-safe.

we can swap or sell or release all kinds of our junk through sites like craigslist and ebay. the unwanted trash is just flying through the air. unused spaces trade by seasons. (and, driving this over-production of trash is online shopping: the mail has never carried so much crap.)

there's also the added element of speed. For a common person, to be attached to things such as a house, or a neighborhood or a culture in a particular place and time. . .these notions are no longer stable in our rapidly changing physical world. large parts of our environment may change before our eyes at any given moment. the more we reconcile with this, the healthier we can be. so, perhaps there's a class of us forming who are free from a certain burden of materiality.

this of course, may not apply to some ruling elite (the wealthy who can own their own island, gate and make permanent a landmark or a community, build their own remote mega-city or protected wilderness). For they seem to be surging ahead into a mad materialism, despite an unpredictable world economy. this foolish and endulgent focus on bling things makes them especially deaf to the cries of the Earth itself, which seems to be instigating her own share of change and unpredictability. . .upon all of us ultimately material beings.

for most of us, making-do and fixing what we have, choosing our tech very shrewdly. . .it behooves us to move in the opposite direction from extreme materiality. the internet certainly can be of help here. the lighter we are, the more free to move around, and the less space we have to pay to occupy. perhaps, in time, this sort of resulting lifestyle might create the need for more "natural" as well as non-comercial public spaces. (one of my favorite ideas is: the transformed library space of our near future. its a sort of country-wide development of large, museum scale public living rooms of knowledge. . .these places would be as frequent to find in cities as coffee shops. diverse in environment, some full of plants as well as screens and glassed in discussion rooms, designed by local artists, interior designers and architects. some "libraries" would display actual books and archives of objects. other "libraries" might be solemn and sparse, with silence policies, like secular temples for contemplation or simple urban rest).

my friend carro (local artist lillian blades' husband, exceptional collector of objects) says that the one thing that high capitalism will always produce is waste. such a wise thing to say from a man who scourges the auctions and estate sales and thrift stores for modern furniture to resell. it will be a long time until we might really de-materialize. . .and get to be bodies on a more "natural" planet. . .all our materiality gloming up that other super developed virtual world. . .

for now we have tiers and tiers of garbage people (myself included), sifting through the streams of things and spaces falling apart and being thrown away. . .looking for diamonds.

two beloved references:
both called for the re-spiritualization of contemporary society
(two totally outsider perspectives):

Alexander Solzhenitsyn (critic of soviet russia) http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1143

Russell Means (American Indian activist and actor) http://www.russellmeans.com


-kt

BACK OF KILLERS

I think criticism mostly hurts. I don' t like it so much myself when it's aimed at me. then again, if it's from someone I respect, I try to listen and see if it rings true. . .maybe it does and maybe it doesn't.

I do think that perhaps what's been getting under my skin lately about being social at this moment in time, is its unbearable lightness, and its speed . . .we're watching each other look at where we're going and what we're doing, who we're doing it with. we find ourselves in psychically tight corners. like a crowded elevator, this is not a place for intensity.

perhaps criticism is inappropriate in a communications world of immediate responses, of friend-building, easy feedback and close virtual quarters . . .this only makes us inclined to be more polite, or more coy. and perhaps that is the right response. . .with the potential to be unfair, to be on the record, to be harsh in a way that the target of the criticism does not return. . .why bother? but, then again what is a society that is not particularly critical--or honest-- with each other? at least sometimes? I suppose we have to look for appropriate places for criticality, and still be extra careful?

or have I just been living in the south too long?


-kt

KILLERS

RADICAL WORLDS, SAME PLANET

what is it going to feel like to be old in the 21st century? . . . well, I kinda already know. . .how it feels to let that next big wave of new technologies, of hyper online fashionistas crash overhead and leave you entirely behind. . . for to have longeivity in this system, one must be fluent in tech, a rapidly changing language of testosterone and youth, surface information, popularity, fast graphics, and accessibility. one must also have the patience and energy to learn how to do the things you already knew how to do, in an entirely new way, over, and over, and over. it's humbling and refreshing and exhausting. . .for as long as we're willing to play, it will keep us unusually young into old age.

( I'm wondering, then, how culture might divide into certain zones of maturity. . .where do those with overarching wisdom fit in to this glocal human situation? well, I certainly know, I'm always looking for good teachers. meaningful elder life advisors and actual role models are hard to come by. we are emancipated from the strict bindery of so many traditions, but it's also a lonely, demanding highway out there without firm voices of authority and guidance. although our bodies may become less relevant as we live more and more of our lives online, age & death is still an innevitability. we still look to those ahead of us to guide us along. age is not just a pejorative thing, it's a resource.

a first foreshadowing of death in our culture, is that moment when a participating citizen just completely stops making the effort to keep up with current tech. could happen for some at 20. . .others at 40, 60, 80. for some it's a slow process, for others gradual.

I suppose seniors of my generation will fill up significant virtual space with their nostalgic laments, their cheezy conformist snapshots, their endless 80s music. . . .will others lurk and laugh?

me, I hope that I'll be that old mountain lady, or desert-mountain lady: long hair, mystical eyes, tatered lace & cowboy boots, library full of kick-ass books and objects & plants, a fast computer at a large wooden desk, a view of the sunset, an eletromagnetic travel device. I'll be in communication with other contemporary edge dwellers around the globe, plus the spirits, the rocks, and the animals. its a nice dream. . .wonder what will actually happen?

(I like the description of that old lady katy thompson cory, life-long photographer of the hopi indians. she dropped out of high society nyc in her youth (1908), hopped on a train to the west and never came back. they say she wore ripped up dirty old lace. . .she was that old lady in donny darko checking the mail, that invented a time machine, she was a person elegently walking between radically different worlds, both oddly on the same planet.)

-kt

LIVE THEATRE

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE, THE PLAY! from twinhead theatre played all weekend to full houses at the altered eyedrum space. because I was working the event, worried about the financial survival of the old eye, I saw the play 4 times, delightfully.

I must say that theatre productions are the things I have enjoyed the best at eyedrum this year.

a particular brand of atl actors keep showing up at eyedrum and bring a unique spirit to the place. this excites me. the play has multiple potential outcomes, was written and directed by quorum and as steve westdahl noted. . .the backstack area was equal in volume to the front stage.

I laughed out loud. . .I could tell the audience enjoyed the baffoonery, the un-pc costumes, the ridiculous adult content, the bad puns. it's my complaint that theatre in atlanta too often resorts to slapstick humor, which generally bores the shit out of me: it's a 2 year old standing up and falling down continuously cracking itself up while everyone watches laboriously. but the twinhead humor was more characer driven, although plenty juvenile, and the acting was generally very good, very direct. at times the content went beyond low-end entertainment and humorous mockery. . . it made comment on fundamentalist religion, the numbskull humanity of our historical past, misuse of power, fertility of high technology, and the tedious, random role of choicemaking in our contemporary existence.

again, talking to steve westdahl, the man with the best mustache in atlanta (he also makes a damn good clown, and does good yard art ). . .we mentioned the "downturn" (that much lighter, less permanant economic burp, not to be confused with a full blown culture-changing economic depression. . .) and its effect on local arts. we need art more now than ever, to be a relief from the professional reality of a "downturned" economy. . .and a reason to gather together under the protective distracting umbrella of human creativity. steve seems to think that this atmosphere of penny-pinching and economic stress will trigger a return to affordable art, out of necessity. . .of course, he's an actor, and is seeing how affordable local theatre has a new role to play. fine art may be a different story (more on that later). . .and frankly I'm inclined to jump on the bandwagon of artistic fiction (live theatre) for a while. I can see that it suits our times very well.


-kt

GAMBIARRA - the Brazilian word for MAKE DO

I spent 2 weeks in new orleans this october helping to design a satellite event for the nascent biennial prospect.1. I agree that economic depression sure does something wonderful for bohemia. new orleans sparkles in it's make-do, post-katrina karisma. that it's been abandoned by the gentrifyers, the ikeas, the mcmansions and the 21st century suburban shopping centers, is its saving grace. venture capitalists see it as infertile and risky. insurance for property is ridiculously high. it hardly even has a market. . .it survives because of its vibrant art-filled culture composed of extreme characters and romantic materiality rotting away in the swamp. the people who are now drawn to it as it awaits it's future, have something other than money on their minds. to me it is an urban refuge which I am grateful to have rediscovered at this critical moment in history. . .and it's only 7 hours from the ATL.

I like the word gambiarra. it is a portuguese term which means to make-do with on-the-fly grace and resourcefulness. it's a true contemporary art. being a sometimes starving artist myself, I know it takes great character to stay positive, make stylish decisions, socialize and make art on zero budget. to be the ousider who solves problems with naive creative zeal despite also sometimes scraping or cheating to get what you need, or doing entirely without, without apology. meanwhile the parade of bells & whistles appear across every billboard, judgementally. . .every moving screen screams happily, every new upscale subdivision promotes a stale unsustainable dream. until recently in our culture, to make-do connoted failure. . .but in sao paulo, brazil, a "mega-city," a future of extreme capitalism. . . "gambiarra" is a commonly used compliment. . .in a place where the well-to-do drive armored suv's, and land private helicoptors on top of buildings to avoid the chaos and depression of the common streets.

-kt

RESPIRITUALIZED MODERNISM.

I like to picture the future full of gardens! old parking lots filled with planned wildernesses. . . empty lots glassed in and left to become, once again, natural.

this image is from my latest body of work: everything disappears! it's an altered ad from a recent new york times magazine. inside a perfectly corporate piece of architecture, separated above the jungle. . .I made ghosts out of two suited professionals who gazed over their dominion, and also removed the tag line which was: Us & Them. . .

here are a few personalized definitions:

natural: (not unlike the word/concept --sacred)
that thing or space that has been untouched by human manipulation for a significant period of time.

supernatural that which is more than natural (the prefix-super means above and over, greater than, beyond, outside, transcending). . .and what, then is that? . . .high technology of an entirely beyond human nature.

spirituality: an individual's relationship to the unknown.

-kt

PROPHESY IN THE URBAN FOREST

I had a thought yesterday, that I should have named this blog 21ST CENTURY MYSTIC. wonder if that's already taken. . .

I think my lifetime will witness the re-spiritualization of industrialized society. it would be nice to design the magic back in, be inclusive of the mysterious beliefs and traditions of the global south/3rd world, as they merge with us in this one-world info network. it would also be nice to be inclusive of our ancient ancesters, who we are learning have a lot to teach us about our relationshiop to the earth. the attached 3-d image is by artist Adam Bruneau. It's lovely the way the red, green and blue are out of registration, kind of like early 20th cent litho illustrations. the more out of register, the more I can see the invisible in the image. cool.

I once saw what I would say was a ghost in a throw away photograph. I was at a friend's house, and they were showing me rather mundane snapshots (real prints & not a flicker site) and then there were some mistakes prints at the end of the stack. I looked into one of the blurred photographs, and a figure became clear. . .a woman in a bun carrying a basket ( of laundry? ) up the stairs, looked like the same stairs that I could see in front of me from their living room. ?? I cannot explain it.

there is hardly a line which distinquishes the imagination from intuition. I wonder: which trigger which? in fact in order to see the invisible past or future, to tap into innate human psychic ability, one must begin with the gift of imagination.

perhaps with the speeding up of our shared sense of time (due to a mad race of technology), we will be thrust beyond an age of science. Logic is too slow for our world. who has time to go through proper scientific processes other than serious professionals in labs? everyday people coping with a rather fast reality are now beaconed-- or rather rushed long--to take leaps of intuition in order to make daily choices. slow contemplation, consideration, logic: they are for the stuborn luddites and a few post-colonial elites who still maintain the luxury of timely pursuits. (ubiquitous ads in the new york times publications promote men's wrist watches, as well as diamonds for the ladies. . .it indicates something symbolic. madison ave has invented an expensive fetish out of the old-fashioned wrist watches, roman numerals and all. . .in the 21st century, those who wear thousand dollar wrist watches, hand them down to their sons as the ads sometimes illustrate, have control in that old-fashioned, leisurely sense of time. . .wrist watches are the new top hat.)


-kt

SMALL GROUPS

this photograph is from a found photo album that I inhereited from someone else's junk pile (it's a bunch of dudes in mcdonalds baseball uniforms, gleefully drinkin' company sponsored beer). . .regretfully, I passed the album along to the thrift store before I realized how valuable it was as a whole. . .but this was one of the photographs I did keep. . .kind of says it all about corporate conformity. (my dad, too was a gung-ho corpo-bot. . .afraid to show too much of his own identity at work, and always wearing corporate logos at home. . .I don't think the man owned a sweater without a TEXACO logo on it.)

needless to say, I recently joined facebook. . .and it strikes me that now it's easier than ever to be light and distant friends with a whole lot of people. . .but this kind of friendship--or I guess networking is a more appropriate word--this is something that really confronts a person like me.

I do my best and am most myself in intimate, intense relationships. I like one-on-one contact the best. . . and I also enjoy rather small groups. participation in large anonymous groups like walking down a crowded foreign city street. . .is rather nice sometimes. but being in a kind of mega-social group. . .makes me uneasy, is unbearable light. perhaps it's because like so many of us who grew up in the suburbs, I lived without proper public social space (piazzas, parks, cafe's). . . and without access to virtual social spaces. my generation was accustomed to isolation. it was good for the imagination, good for character building, good for contemplation and tv-overload, good for getting fat. . .we were out of the practice of being friendly in a very light and flexible way that is now achievable online. no dire consequences, no face-to-face intensity. . .just virtual humans buzzing like absent-minded flies around the web.

my first experience being online was in 1994. I was so excited. . .I thought: I can now communicate with others mind-to-mind. . .no bodies in the way. . .I wanted to be a part of the revolution which would overthrow petty small talk and connect brains straight up. I thought I would meet the most cutting edge thinkers and mental explorers, people who wanted to change the world, invent a new society, dream together. . .and then I actually got online. . .in those days, you joined chat rooms. at $5.95/an hour I surfed around idealistically, expensively on my sluggish black and white laptop. and, what I found, were a lot of sex-hungry idiots screaming in ALL CAPS! reading group discussions always included lovecraft and king. I did not get lucky enough and certainly was not savvy to find at least one satisfying small group to be a part of. . .had to wait a decade for that. . .and kind of still looking.


-kt

GREEN PAINT

SKELETONS

the SKELETONS played last night at eyedrum, sharing the bill strangely with APG poetry readings. everything was late, late, late, but they gave an inspirational show to about 20 people (a classic eyedrum small crowd). . .the bass player looked great in a sparkling blue dress. we partied later with naz at amy's house, nearby. . .ate sweet potato pie, talked and laughed. . .and sooner or later, the spray cans came out.

you see we live in a neighborhood being oppressed by a yuppie's version of paradise. . .we don't even have to live in a loft, to experience the stiff corporate monoculture that patrols this place, an old bohemian stomping ground. . .the professionals have become serious about graffiti. . . they removed a major landmark of public expression: the cabbagetown wall is now all one cheerful green color. this green paint has even migrated imperialistically out of the neighborhood onto walls, garbage canisters and empty buildings in adjacent areas. "a safe neighborhood is a clean neighborhood" is announced in the neghborhood newsletter. and now we live next to a 1/4-mile, green reminder of who is in control of our neighborhood. we all have to look like martha stewart's living room, or some dumbed down corpo version of it. . .ho hum.

so we went out all 6 of us, and decorated the wall in question for a while. . .diamonds & money signs. . .corpo-norm, llamas, metallica, some cool drawings. . .and then the cops came and made a big to-do of lights, arrested 3 of the skeletons randomly. . .cuffed amy and I but then let us go (?). took them to jail & fined them $753 each. it was all very sobering. we followed our friends in the paddy wagon to a gas station parking lot where they parked for a long time, laughed, bought snacks. amy got out of the cozy travel van and filmed them with her digital camera. a very fashionable, crazed black woman (brown fur coat, white plaid hoody) sent us dagger looks through the front windshield, gesticulated and argued profusely with the freezing air. her battle was perfectly juxtaposed.

they will intimidate all unofficial, unauthorized artistic expression out of this city, might as well live in a gated subdivision. (and what kind of art can be made in that environment? ) officer wolf had no humor; this is his beat. "it's his baby," another arresting officer put it. . .they also mentioned no less than 3 times that they've been furloughed (10% pay cuts). another officer, who was much more cynical and talkative at the precinct said mayor shirley franklin will do whatever it takes to be "in the black" when she leaves office. 3 x $753 ain't bad. I walked over to see the wall just an hour ago, and all the artwork was gonzo. I watched two chubby women in sweats walk away with buckets of green paint. . . .they are in control, no doubt about it. and, I am back in high school again.

what does this mean? it means we have to be a lot more stealth if we want to publish in that spot. . . .ho hum.

it also means atlanta is gonzo, before it ever fully bloomed.

-kt

beautiful sadness! -- the cult of positivity

I think sad is beautiful!!!!

I'm for more sad in art, we need to get it out. . .this world is changing. . .things are dying, new things replace them. . .and not all of them are very cool at all. damnit. . .it's ok to express melancholy.

it's the way I feel a whole lot. and, it's not surprising really. it's healthy to be sad sometimes, despite the pressures from the cult of positivity. in my experience, growing up in the deep american suburbs of the 80s & 90s, positivity is a coping mechanism. . .but also a way to oppress those who struggle against total assimilation into the monoculture. but it might be healthier to let people express their sadness over the loss of more diverse, less commercial subcultures, and the loss of unmanufactured space. . .progress is good AND awful, both. in a progress-only world, a lot of invisible constituents are forced deeper into invisibility. . .(more on that later)

I recently installed a billboard on the side of my house in cabbagetown. . .in response to the sad, sad "cleaning" of the c'town wall, a symbol of territory ownership by the professionals who gentrify this place. the image, posted above, is a sad one, but also beautiful. . .in the tradition of opera, drama & requiems. sadness, which a lot of people feel right now, is important to acknowledge. billboards are our most common form of public art. . .and most all of it is advertising (images with words, almost never - images only). Large public advertising for the most part is exceedingly HAPPY! when one feels sad, looking at screaming smiles sure can be antagonistic.

just talked to louise shaw last night, about the line between positivity/unquestioning acceptance of corpo-norms (the currrent norm of the american mainstream), and outright foolish denial. thin line, indeed.

-kt

corpo-norm

everything disappears!

EVERYTHING DISAPPEARS. . .it's my mantra. (like others before)

it's a philosophy of acceptance. our world changes so fast, it's as if things are appearing and disappearing before my eyes. I am an artist, a designer, a thinker. . .I'm a good observer. . .I live in a very mainstream corporate city. . .a sort of cultural battlefield, a provincial town struggling for (imaginal) international acceptance. . .a little high on the hope of it. . .our optimism is sometimes blinding. I would love to live somewhere else. . .but for now I am here, watching everythingdisappear in the urban forest!

. . .


I started a blog today, because I need a place to publish my thoughts & opinions, let off steam, practice my voice.


word of the day is: corpo-norm. I went to a well-meaning art event last night--over 400 artists applying for $1500. we sat while the presenter told us how special we are, that curators and gate-keepers are very curious to discover the artists in atlanta. and this is how they will meet us. . .through an on-line bureaucratic form, a standardized resume (the ole C.V) and 8 jpegs. not very southern at all. . .

I often wonder why we want to turn all activities into a profession. . .I'm rather starting to dislike the word.

(more on that later)

ciao! -kt