A Report from the Phantom Zone

Information has evolved into a new species of garbage.

The entire concept of someone who is “informed” has changed and now fragmentary 140 character lines of text pass as communication. It is not that this new breed of information is false that is the issue, but rather it is an illusion of knowledge.

We are all watching as knowledge is drowning in a river of irrelevance. There is constant stream of data flowing from one communication device to the other without picking up value along the way.

Sci-fi novels of the 20th century did not anticipate this 21st century state of reading. Bradbury and Orwell taught us to fear totalitarian governments that wanted to burn books, but no one warned us about the general public expressing their freedom to write so much that nothing would be worth reading.

This century’s dystopia novels will be populated by people who read and write all day long, but somehow they know nothing. People who are continually informed and yet have no information. The heroes of these novels will be underground rebels who insist on writing and reading more than 3 lines of text. They can have clever names like Edmund Spenser or Milton Vyasa and these new logos-heros will insist on things like news outlets that pay for and conduct thorough research. Inevitably the next generation of dystopia novels will conclude with death by communal distraction.

This new species of information is worse than being deprived of information because information has become a plague. The more you read, the less you know.

Tyranny is no longer required for the ruin of a society; the freedom to pursue an infinite appetite for distractions can do the job more efficiently. Included in this is the distraction of continual creativity without rationality or analysis.

A 14 year old girl is reported to have sent 35,463 text messages, or about 1 text message a minute in the month of June 2008. “The Old Man and the Sea” only has 27,315 words. The texter in question has stated she texted that much in one month because she was at cheer camp. It seems safe to say that while she wrote more than a Hemmingway novel in one month, the level of valuable information transmitted was probably significantly lower.

The antidote to the venom of cultural distraction is to return to state where reading is considered a serious business. Where the goal of information transfer is no longer quantity, but quality.

It is now November; ticket buying season for Miami Basel even in a down economy. All of the fairs can be followed on Facebook or Twitter:
Pulse on Twitter
Pulse on Facebook
Art Miami on Twitter
Art Miami on Facebook
Miami Basel on Twitter
Miami Basel on Facebook
Aqua on Facebook
Etc.
Etc.

I take these modes of communication seriously. Why would I follow Miami Basel’s Twitter account? Because I want to see if the fairs will be worth an investment in a trip this year. I expect the information they post to actually be valuable. I expect to see exhibitor lists. I expect to see performance art schedules.

But I am already wrong.

One of the fair’s tweets already says, “See you out there!”
It was not worth reading.
It was information evolved into garbage and I was its garbage collector.
I have faith in a return to the seriousness of reading, but I expect it will be a while.

-Steve


Me in Miami Basel 2006



Morgan Pozgar, age 13, is officially the LG National Texting Champion

P.S.Follow me on Twitter or Facebook
OMG LOL

SCAD-Atlanta Photo Exhibition

A Report from the Phantom Zone

This is a news report and criticism:

On Sept. 29, Boing Boing blogger Xeni wrote a criticism of this Ad by Ralph Lauren:

stating,"Dude, her head's bigger than her pelvis."

Ralph Lauren's law firm has now threatened to sue the ISP of the website for use of an "infringing image" and sent them a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice. Copyright law clearly outlines "fair use" as including work reproduced for "purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."

So here is the simple question, does copyright law give people the right to threaten critics? Even if Xeni is ultimately proven protected under copyright law, BoingBoing, the ISP and Xeni all have to pay a lawyer in order to respond to the take down notice which has a very clear and formal procedure of notice and counter notice (Chilling effects explains the procedure here). Of course this is Ralph Lauren ultimate strategy because in the future, critics will be less likely to criticize their brand because the cost is not worth it.

In fact, if Big Red and Shiny or anyone else that reproduce my blog, runs the image, they may receive a take down notice and have to hire a lawyer to reply to it, ultimately not making this report worth running.

What about galleries, museums or artists that don't want negative reviews of their work? They can all send take down notices and effectively grind all criticism to a halt. In theory, as both a critical and news reporting publication, Big Red should be able to take any image from anywhere and reproduce it in any critical or news reporting article that is about the image. But in reality, Big Red has to be very careful because some images are simply not worth the required response to a take down notice.

Everything Ralph Lauren is doing is legal, just as it is perfectly legal for me to reproduce the image for reporting purposes on my blog and on Big Red. I say if every blogger joins with Xeni and BoingBoing and reports on this image, Ralph Lauren will be the one who can not afford to pay their lawyers to send out take down notices to everyone. As an added bonus, more people will see how terrible their ads, products and corporation are for our society.

So please, write a story about this image on your own blog. You can even take this whole article and reproduce it if you want with your own comments or criticism. I don't care, and trust me, I will not threaten to sue you for copyright infringement.

If you are a lawyer from Ralph Lauren, please send the take down notice to: saishman@blogger.com

Thanks and I look forward to the lawsuit,
Steve Aishman

A Report from the Phantom Zone

There once was an artist from Boston
Who searched all the way to Austin
“Where is the art?”
He said with a fart
“If this country had balls, we have lost them!”

-A limerick by Steve Aishman

You shouldn’t be reading this in front of your computer.

People have a tendency to keep their computers in clean rooms like offices or on desks with flowers and potpourri.

This article should be read in your basement or in the archive section of the library.

Somewhere where dust mites thrive.

This article should be read somewhere that people try to avoid or cover up with a Glade plug-in.

Somewhere with history you can smell, but not nostalgia.

I’m not talking about nostalgia.

In the 19th century, nostalgia was considered a disease and its “symptoms” included despondency, melancholia, bouts of weeping, anorexia, and suicide attempts.

There is enough nostalgia and more than enough articles discussing how smell links us to the past.

I’m talking about a smell that snaps you into the present.

Like when you enter a room and you just know it is full of newspapers.

Or that it used to be a gym.

These are smells that make us hyperaware of our senses and more grounded in the present while simultaneously informing us about the past of a place.

Very few artists work with smell and I’m not sure why.

This weekend I saw Radcliffe Bailey’s piece “Storm at Sea, Chapter Three” at Solomon Projects in Atlanta. The piece is comprised of thousands of piano keys, a plaster bust, glitter, and silver candelabra. The problem in describing the piece on the Internet is that only a small part of the piece is visual. It’s easy to write about the intellectual elements of the piece like how the piano keys read as a link to jazz music while visually mimicking a wrecked ship in the gallery. It’s easy to write about how Radcliffe Bailey’s work is multi-layered examination of African American cultural history that reveals a deep understanding of how the past influences the present. What is hard is to evoke the visceral feeling of the piece that is only experienced when the piece is seen, smelled and heard.

Thousands of piano keys in a room have an overwhelming smell that is the grounding smell I am trying to describe. They also produce a palpable silence as the piano keys that were originally intended to make music, have been rendered eternally mute.
The smell of the gallery immediately makes the viewer’s senses hyper aware in the present, but the musty smell of the keys also speaks about the past. Radcliffe Bailey’s work is perfectly represented in this piece because his work deals with issues of African American history, but ultimately, the work is about providing an awareness of the present.

Because of the multi-sensory nature of the piece, it requires viewing in person. Hopefully, Radcliffe Bailey’s work will come to New England soon for more people to experience.


Radcliffe Bailey

Storm at Sea, Chapter Three (detail), 2009,
piano keys, plaster bust, glitter, silver candelabra

A Report from the Phantom Zone

So the other day, I was at the Museum and I overheard two people talking about a Georgia O’Keefe.

“Oh they are clearly vaginas,” said one person.

“No, they’re just beautiful shapes and colors based on flowers, you’re imposing something that’s not there,” said the other.

“Well, flowers are sex organs, so work based on sex organs will always be suggestive, right?”

So I decided to try and find as many suggestive nature pictures as I could find on the Internet.

As usual with my column, I’m not sure if what I have compiled is an art piece made from appropriated materials, an editorial commentary, or just a form of pornography.

Enjoy.


(link to where I got this image)


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A Report from the Phantom Zone

I'm often reminded of artist George Vlosich's work.

You're not familiar with his work?

He's one of the most written about artists of our generation.
The You Tube video of him making his work has been viewed over 1,600,000 times.
His art work has been featured in national press reports on CNN, World News Tonight, BBC, etc.
He even got to meet President Clinton and VP Gore while they were in office.

George was also featured on Ripley's Believe It Or Not.
You see, George Vlosich makes celebrity and sports drawings with an Etch-A-Sketch.
The first time I saw his work I was at a party held at a friend-of-a-friend's house when a report on his work came on. Everyone stopped in amazement to watch him make an Etch-A-Sketch drawing of a basketball player. When it was over, someone said, "Now that's real art. You know, something that takes skill and hours of labor. I know I couldn't do that because I don't have the patience."

I think I evaluate George Vlosich's work as a balanced between the questions of "how hard was it to make" versus "how much of this is just media sensation"?

Here are some other pieces for your judgment:

1. Santiago Sierra's 21 huge blocks of human feces that were shown at Lisson Gallery in 2007.


2. World's largest photo


3. CNN report on a college student who used post-it notes to make a portrait of Ray Charles


4. Micro-sculptor Willard Wigan who made sculpted the Lloyd's Building so it fits on top of a pin.


5. Justin Gignac's New York City Garbage


6. César Saez' Banana Over Texas work.


7. Scott Wade's Dirty Car Art


8.Tim Knowles tree drawings.


9. Steven J. Backman's toothpick art.


10. and finally, George Vlosich's work.


Please feel free to post your opinion on any of these artist's works in the comment section:

Heidi Aishman at PEM

Click to Play

Heidi Aishman views her work at Peabody Essex Museum for the "Trash Menagerie" exhibtion

Interview with Jane Winchell

A Report from the Phantom Zone

August is the cruellest month.

The doldrums of the art world where half of the galleries are closed or not showing new work. Most of the artists are at the beach. August is an annual promise of new life that is coming with September openings. A false hope to those who believe that the art world is like a battery that needs the sun soaked summer to recharge. I don’t see solar panels on the roofs of any museums, quietly trickle charging for a fall explosion of human creative endeavors that will draw crowds in out of the cold. I look at the MFA Boston’s calendar and see nothing opening in the fall. Damián Ortega opens at the ICA in mid-September, how eagerly should wait to see how he takes apart familiar consumer culture and suspends it? Samson Projects opens Michael Phelanin in September, so I guess I’m excited to see how he re-contextualizes mundane consumer culture. (It seems like September will mostly be going out to see what I already have, but arranged differently.) A few galleries will open shows that sound truly interesting like Howard Yezerski who will open Rona Pondick in September or the Mills Gallery who will open its 21st Drawing Show - always a treat. But for the most part, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be waiting for. August is a pregnant pause with no release. No wonder most wars begin in August. People are hot and edgy, waiting for fall, but with no guarantee that anything will pan out. Empty promises make people irritable.

What are you looking forward to for fall? Maybe a trip to MOMA to see “Monet's Water Lilies” that opens in Sept.? (I doubt anyone’s booking a flight.) But there must be something out there … anyone? A show they are looking forward to seeing? Please leave info in the comment section.


Claude Monet at MOMA


Michael Phelanin who will open at Samson



Damián Ortega at who will open at the ICA Boston

A Report from the Phantom Zone

Dear movie industry liars,

Why have you decided that it is easier to make a bad movie with good advertising than to just make a good movie? You should hire the guys who make your ads to make your movies because they must be super-creative to make your crap look interesting. Almost everyone I know shows up at the movies early to watch the previews because they are actually exciting! Usually the movie is a huge disappointment where people leaving saying things like “all the good scenes were in the ads” or “that is not at all what the ads made it look like”.

(I should probably say spoiler-alter here, but you are probably well aware that all of your movies are more spoiled than Madonna’s baby in a Gap store. Ok I’ll say it any way.)

Spoiler Alert!

Take for example the ads for “Orphan” which make the movie look scary and they actually say it has a twist, well it turns out the movie is a comedy because a) the parents are named John and Kate (ha!) b) you can see a microphone boom in a number of shots and c) the adopted girl is a midget. (Seriously, that’s the twist! How funny is that!)

The “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” ads make it look like a new movie, but most of it was stolen from other movies. The temple scenes were from Indiana Jones, the Terminatrix was from Terminator 3, the scene in the Matrix where Smith implants Neo with a bug was just completely ripped off, the battle in the Smithsonian was like “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian”, and even parts of “Team America” were put into the plot of the Transformers! Why are you stealing from bad movies! How can you not be creative enough to steal from good movies?

Recipe for Crap Cake:
INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)
* 2 teenage love triangles
* 1 hour of character development followed by nothing
* 22 year old actors trying to play 16
* the ability to do magic, but no action scenes
* a PG rating
Bake 2.5 hours, makes one “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” crap cake.

In order to help you tell the truth about your movies, we recommend developing a whole new rating system. Since most the previous rating systems like the PG scale, thumbs-up/thumbs-down or the “how many” stars system appear to be arbitrary, completely political, or have no meaning at all, we have developed a new system for you. Feel free to implement it as you see fit.

Our new movie rating system is based on the award winning 1980’s television series “The Golden Girls.” As everyone knows, the best part of the series was old women saying inappropriate things. So from now on, movie ads should not say things like “Movie of the decade – New York Times” or “A real popcorn flick – the Boston Globe” and instead they should quote from the “Golden Girls” like:

”Fasten your seatbelt, slut puppy. This ain't gonna be no cakewalk.”-Sophia
“I hope you like it, Dorothy said you would like something crotchless.”-Rose
“I'm not patronizing you I'm mocking you.” - Dorothy
“Eat dirt and die trash.“ –Blanche
“Funny, touching and with a surprise twist ending. I wonder if it was true. Damn that stroke.” - Sophia
“It looks like the road company of Cocoon.” - Dorothy
“I haven't seen that much face-eating since Silence of the Lambs.” - Sophia
“I thought since you look like Yoda you were also wise.” - Blanche
“Try kissing my behind. It's a real peach!” –Sophia

Using "Golden Girls" quotes in movie ads will be just about as accurate as current movie ads, but they will also be funny. Or you could try making good movies, but I doubt that will happen.

Concerned Citizens,
The Aishman