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10.30.2005


in(art?)ticulations 


today, i planned a family outing with my folks where i took them to a "laboratory" performance arts show that showcased works in various stages. the cost? 15 clams a piece. the real value of the show? i want my money back. i had gone to this annual showcase before in the past, and i expected to see some interesting and provocative stuff. but, those terms are always interpreted differently by different people, aren't they?

the showcase was set up to be a carnival, with the artists stationed at various corners of the theatre space at their respective carnival "booths." the most fun my parents and i had was probably when they a) ate a modest soft-shelled taco with beans and rice and b) threw tennis balls at pillow effigies of the bush administration. a friend i knew was doing trapeze work, but his routine was lost in the chaotic distraction of all the other mediocre exhibits.

in one corner, a pit bull dog owner was encaged in a dog carrier case, while the pit bull was held on leash outside the carrier, being tormented into barking incessantly by light reflected off a mirror. all this was done behind boxes that spelled out, "beware." of what? stupid human tricks?

my mom kept trying to interact with another artist sitting nude atop of a mound of granulated sugar while he created a white paste to smear all over himself. my mom kept asking him, "what's going on? are you okay?" she even tried to offer him her carnival raffle tickets. perhaps, so he can enjoy himself, since she wasn't.

one of the ringleaders of the carnival was decked out as a cigarette and candy girl. she asked me to pick out an item from her box labelled, "cigarettes, candy, stories." she said, "pick an item, and i'll tell you a story about that item." i picked an onion dicer gadget. her story, so un-eloquently told went like this:

"uh... i got that at a 99 cent store, thinking i would save like $18.99 by getting it. but... i didn't." -scene-

my dad then offered to sell her a story for a dollar. ouch.

then, there was a puppet show against the war. the puppeteers started running around the audience with the puppets singing, "stop, children. what's that sound? everybody look what's going down." in an attempt to "engage the audience," one of the puppeteers tried to sing right up to my mother. when he sang, "everybody look what's going down," she pointed to his foot and said, "down there?"

what really annoyed me about the show was that there was this expectation to accept everyone's well-intentioned "art pieces" to be taken as something deep and meaningful. none of the pieces really communicated anything really thought-provoking or new beyond what may have been new and interesting to the performers and their performance art buddies. was the show only intended to be seen by readers of baudrillard who get off on the spectacle of the spectacle? there is no tasaday... and there certainly is no reason to be putting on performance "art" pieces that don't engage anyone beyond the world of isolated academia and pseudo-intellectualism.

I guess the disclaimer on the show's flyer should have been a warning to segregate who should've gone to this mess in the first place. it states: "For mature audiences only. (Of very articulate, forward thinking parents whose children probably belong in a carnival sideshow anyway.") who knows? perhaps, if my family all consisted of graduate students in performance art theory, we would've "gotten" this shit. but, we aren't. we're just $45 dollars poorer.

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