Improbable Monument

Monument Interaction, The Naked Man

Background:

"Let’s celebrate the Naked Man in the courtyard between HSS and Business buildings at San Francisco State University. This monument as of today has an obscure meaning, there is no plaque telling its history, what it commemorates or represents.
To us this naked man emerging from ferns in a very lush courtyard is an opportunity to celebrate a new emerging consciousness. He represents a new man who is not scared of nature, one who does not need to cover himself up in the face of the elements. Similarly to Adam before the apple episode this statue has its genitals uncovered, to us it means that he is not ashamed of his own nature and that he actually wants to partake in natural simplicity. For us it is also an opportunity to rectify the course of history and to modify a culture that tells us we should be ashamed of our nature and of our genitals. Furthermore we draw a parallel between the fact that this statue usually goes unnoticed and the fact that Nature is always there and providing us (humans) with wisdom and new knowledge, yet no one seems to pay her any attention.
Finally this celebration is an opportunity to expose the subject of environmental collapse to the student body and to the important role of our consciousness in environmental rejuvenation."


Action:

Invitation:

Who: You!
What: Celebration of the Naked Man
When: Date TBA
Where: The Courtyard between the HSS and Business building
Why: To rectify the course of history and to erase the part of history that tells us we should be ashamed of our nature and of our genitals.

Program:

I. Introduction
II. Speaker- Virginie
III. Lei-ing of the statue
IV. Closing Comments and Questions
V. Celebration with music, dancing, and refreshments


Audience:

Most obviously we wish for the whole world to be the audience to this monument of re-birth. In combination with introducing this new monument and new meaning to men and women of our current society, it is also a hope that it can be shared with the young and new generations of our society. Therefore, we hope our audience is a good mixture of young and mature.
In the monuments current location, in between the HSS and Business buildings, it is our aim to show the straight-laced, business and science society our natural and humanistic heritage. Being concerned with human matters and creations, while still important, makes us all forget that we are a natural creation as humans. We don't just survive around nature or even amongst nature, we are a part of nature.
Our most important audience however, is not those who commute to work or carry a briefcase, it is their children and their childrens' children that gives hope to this new monument. We wish to show the youth that nature is not something that we control or grows around us, it is our home and our family. With the re-birth of this monument we hope that there is no fear of our natural bodies and our humanistic qualities. No longer will there be a separation between Nature and Humans and future generations will grow and create societies with Nature in mind.

Ideas for my improbable monument

A monument to the Earth.
- For its ability to recycle and regenerate
. A hole in the ground. People would come and add one thing they would have thrown away (anything but organic material). Then everyone would have to realize/remember that we manufacture many un-natural materials that take years if not centuries to degrade.
. A square of dirt left unattended. Over the years people would see what is the natural restoration process. For example today I visited a friend that I visit very frequently. She has a barrel of dirt on her front stoop (very unattended) and I always think how bare and full of weed this thing is. But today a "weed" flowered into gorgeous and numerous bright pink blossoms!
- A monument to the re-unification of humanhood with the rest of the planet.
It could be a small forest inhabited by many wild creatures (a mini-Eden) in which one enters to commune. At its center, a meadow allows the visitor to experience oneness with nature, either in silence or in communion with others through ceremonies and rituals.

Nonsenso, a fake ad

This is a fake ad against Monsanto, makers of genetically modified seeds, genetically modified bovine growth hormone (rBGH), highly toxic chemicals and now leader in agricultural biotechnology.
The text sounds a bit immature but I wanted to represent this company's true voice. The scientists experimenting with the genetic make up of rats and potatoes, or fish and tomatoes are completely irresponsible. I would go as far as saying that they are psychopaths.
Yes there is an issue of large population in the world and the question: "Can there be enough food on earth for an estimated nine billion people?" is definitely important. However the question "Is there a future for our planet if we keep tweaking its natural state?" is primordial! In the ad I write "We have been afraid of Her for more than 5000 years. She provides for us but we are just not sure for how long." I truly believe that our global human consciousness has been separated from nature from the over-development of our Neocortex, the "organ" that allowed for self-consciousness and language ( read Roberto Villoldo's The Four Winds ). We gained foresight and the ability to fear the future and we lost the ability to trust the fact that nature provides. I think our fear of the future comes from the accumulated memory of pain stored in our global consciousness.
But now we can evolve again!
We made amazing advances in term of comfort, hygiene and life expectency but we have greatly regressed when it comes to listen to the intuitive self and other living beings. We need to re-balance the feminine and the masculine, trust ourselves and transcend the pain and the fear of death.
We tried to be masters of the earth but it is obviously not working, we should get back to being Her stewards (here I think of indigenous cultures).

culture jamming. Mark Dery

Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of Signs by Mark Dery

Marc Dery wrote what is to me a very comprehensive guide to culture jamming. First he describes the problem with culture: "The effects of television are most deleterious in the realms of journalism and politics" because television is an outlet for corporate interest. Everything there, is manipulated and private, there is no transparency but there is not even content and "because this whole notion of freedom of the press becomes a contradiction when the people who own the media are the same people who need to be reported on."
He starts his article with a critic of TV but really addresses advertisement, which might have been so well developed because of TV.
Then he explains jamming. He surveys many different types of jamming. To me one sentence stood out: "Culture jamming,[...], is directed against an ever more intrusive, instrumental technoculture whose operant mode is the manufacture of consent through the manipulation of symbols." From a member of Negativland collage band who first used the term culture jamming.
Ideally Cluture Jamming "directs the public viewer to a consideration of the original corporate strategy"

Interventionists... here they come.

The Biotic Cooking Brigade

"What do Bill Gates, Milton Freidman, William F. Buckley, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, Sylvester Stallone, Canadian Premier Jean Chretien, Swedish King Carl Gustaf, Ronald McDonald, Timothy Leary, Eldridge Cleaver, Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, World Trade Organization Director Renato Ruggiero and Andy Warhol have in common?
They've all been pied by the Biotic Baking Brigade or its cohorts around the world. The fine art of landing a freshly-baked delicacy in the face of the reactionary, pompous, and otherwise deserving has a long and venerable tradition. As a way of highlighting a particular cause, gaining often spectacular media attention, or merely bringing the lofty down a crust or two, there is nothing quite so fine as a cream pie.

This anthology cooks up an intoxicating mélanges of history, analysis, tactics, and recipes for this most edible of the political direct action techniques.
Tips from experienced pie-ers on the best ways to slip into a shareholders meeting unobserved—ammunition in hand—and on blending deliciously tried and tested recipes of delectable vegan pastries (perfect for launching, or dining upon). Generously sprinkled with some of the punchiest, wittiest communiqués explaining just why those responsible for environmental destruction might be in line for their just desserts and the theory behind why pie-ing—why now.
"The BBB is a movement that actually moves—a network of political pranksters who literally practice in-your-face politics. They target assorted greedheads, hitting them right in the smacker...with pies! But it is worthy work. The BBB's pies are the Boston Tea Party of our modern day, sending a serious message to the corporate oligarchy." —Jim Hightower
"It's an assault on public officials. It's an assault on government. It should not be condoned." —Michael Yaki, San Francisco Supervisor
"Is well placed humor one of the best protest tactics there is? The proof is in the pudding! Or should I say—pie cream." —Jello Biafra". Exerpt from the AK press ordering page of the book titled Pie Any Mean Necessary.

YOMANGO

MANGO is a popular brand in europe, yo mango is spanish slang for "I steal" and YOMANGO is a movement that considers shoplifting as a social commentary. One of their intervention was to steal clothes and to have a fashion show with those back at the store.
At the bottom of all of their website's pages is a notice:

"ATENCIÓN, ADVERTENCIA: Si te fijas con atención y miras los contenidos de esta página verás que YOMANGO no va de robar, ni es apología de ningún delito y ni siquiera trata de mangar nada, YOMANGO visibiliza una realidad muy concreta: la gente manga, e intenta entender porqué. Algunas hipótesis ya han empezado a aparcer: la precariedad en la que la mayoría de las personas hoy nos encontramos sería una de ella, otra sin duda, son las políticas abusivas de las multinacionales que gobiernan el mercado y el mundo, por eso desde YOMANGO decimos: YOMANGO NO ES ROBO, LA PROPIEDAD ES EL ROBO."

ATTENTION, CAUTION: If you pay close attention to the content of this page you will see that YOMANGO is not going to steal, nor does it apologize for any offence and it is not even looking for things to steal. Yomango is making something very concrete visible: people steal and we try to understand why.
Few hypothesis emerged and one stood up: the precarity in which the majority of people we meet is, is caused without doubt, by the abusive politic of the multinationals governing the market and the world. Therefore YOMANGO says YOMANGO IS NOT STEALING, PROPERTY IS STEALING.

Chance Operation

The Recipe :
- cooking randomly: (after Rirkrit Tiravanija)
go to your grocery store. photograph the outside.
go to isle 3. halfway down the isle on the right side, pick a food item.
(if isle is not food items, go to the next isle up that is food, 4 then 5...)
do the same on isle 6.
if your grocery store is teeny, (under 6 isles) get something 5 feet down the 1st isle and 2 feet down the second.
go to the produce section. starting at the very left of the produce, pick the 2nd, and 6th items in the middle-height section, and the 8th thing over high up.

photograph each item in its spot in the store, and all together on your kitchen table.

make a meal that includes all of the random ingredients, photograph it and share it with your friends.


I shared it on a very new blog that I created for me and some friends to share recipes.
I randomly got kamut pasta, watermelon spiced seeds, savoy cabbage, sunchokes and daikon.
So I sautéed sunchoke and cabbage in butter, served over the pasta with grated parmesan followed by grated daikon served in yoghurt with coarse salt and pepper. I used the watermelon seeds as a garnish for the daikon side dish. It was yummy

free vector file of corporate logos

We have to find a corporate logo for this week's class and this website is just awesome.

White Skin, White Mask

I had a very good time working on a project using Google Earth. I previously enjoyed Google Earth to "fly" to France or other places when subject to nostalgia attacks. This time I had an assignment in which I was asked to create an autobiography, or a narrative, using video, pictures or any other multimedia.


View Larger Map

I decided to concentrate this story on some places I traveled to that shaped my mental, political and social inner-landscape. Ultimately what came up was the issues of identity and physical reality. I became very aware of myself when I traveled to far places where all the cultural codes I embraced while growing up became then meaningless. The way I had to describe myself was much more complex than back home where the way I dressed and the way I talked was just enough to show to which group I belonged. But in other places my subculture was not relevant to the local way of life, in fact it did not mean anything to them because they were simply not familiar with these codes. For example In Burkina-Fasso (West Africa) the fact that my clothes were not expensive, that I had tattoos and piercings and that I worked as a dishwasher to pay for my trip was not very meaningful; I was from Europe and what people thought of Europeans was that they were rich. Their idea of Europeans is right because even with my “poorman job’s” income from France, there I was able to have a very comfortable life for few months. What I understood is that abroad, issues of economic and social status are intricately related to ethnic issues. My skin is white but my dad’s skin is brown. I never understood that my skin color gave me access to a particular status until my traveling experiences. Indeed I come from an under-privileged background on both sides of my family as for example none of my parents have a high-school degree. So even though at home I had all the tools and codes to resemble that who I am, once in a foreign place all these codes became obsolete, I had to make myself all over again.
I decided to call my exploration of Google Earth White Skin, White Mask in homage to Frantz Fanon who wrote Black Skin, White Masks in 1952. He was a black man born in a French colony of the Caribbean. When he traveled to France he studied psychoanalysis and worked in mental health clinics. He was then sent to work in Algeria, another French colony at the time. He became a very important voice in the independence movement of African colonies and an important thinker in the psychology of colonization. The white mask Fanon refers to in his book is the colonized mind of the colonized black man. Fanon described the phenomena of assimilation of the colonizer’s cultural codes and the inferiority complex inherent to it.

I believe that I use the term white mask in a more literate sense than Fanon does because I do not address the colonized mind as much as the perception others have of me due to my white skin despite my brown heritage. On the contrary, I have to say that my mind is well on its way in term of decolonization.

My Zebra Womb-an

Zebra Womb-an is a wise creature that evolved to assimilate some similarities between the animal and plant kingdom.
Some plants and animals, over million years, dressed themselves with stripes. In fact, for some species these stripes grew to be very elaborate and gorgeous patterns. For us it is quite difficult to understand this natural beauty so we often rationalize or think of it in term of functionality. I saw zebras in their natural habitat, their stripes do not look very functional, if anything it makes them stand out from their surrounding. Lions, zebras' biggest predators, see colors as we do therefore have a similar perception of the zebras as I did. In short the question that arise is: "is there a need for functionality in all of nature's laws?" Isn't beauty an intrinsic value of the world.
The woman part of this creature tells us beauty has intrinsic value and her purpose is to remind us of our humility. Her ancestors evolved naked, without natural elaborate tools or techniques to defend themselves. They learned from other animals' defense mechanisms when creating their own tools. This woman, with her heightened sense of observation saw the beauty of the butterfly and of the zebra. She did not need to genetically steal their traits. First she admired, then observed and finally gave herself beautiful stripes.
Only then butterflies and zebras came to her, as a way to celebrate and honor her love for their wonders.

Anew

It has been a long time since I posted something on this blog! A year already. Since then my heart only widened; it opened some room for the voice that shouts "Arts; I want to create some more". So here I am, using this blog now to share not only my love for friends and family but also my love for school and my learning process. This semester I am taking Conceptual Arts, a discipline that puts ideas before form or media. However, in that class I will still explore new media so I can give myself more options when it comes to project these ideas, may I do so in a culturally relevant manner. I hope you will enjoy my exploration of these topics knowing that I also use this blog as a class assignment.

This is in case it is the first time you've heard the term Conceptual Arts:
wikipedia

And who knows, I might end up at one of the Famous Conceptual Artists Schools