Author: wasswasswass

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Bruce Nauman is a Contact Dancer

Body Pressure

Press as much of the front surface of your body (palms in or out, left cheek or right cheek) against the wall as possible.

Press very hard and concentrate.

Form an image of yourself (suppose you had just stepped forward) on the opposite side of the wall pressing back against the wall very hard.

Press very hard and concentrate on the image pressing very hard.

(the image of pressing very hard)

Press your front surface and back surface toward each other and begin to ignore or block the thickness of the wall. (remove the wall)

Think how various parts of your body press against the wall; which parts touch and which do not.

Consider the parts of your back which press against the wall; press hard and feel how the front and back of your body press together.

Concentrate on the tension in the muscles, pain where bones meet, fleshy deformations that occur under pressure; consider body hair, perspiration, odors (smells).

This may become a very erotic exercise.

© Bruce Nauman 1974
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Royalty

Europe has/had royalty. The US does/did not. Whether or not the Bushes/Gores/DuPonts etc are royalty is another topic. Royalty has a history of supporting the arts. Has the state in Europe replaced royalty in terms of art funding? Is the reason the US has such a poor record for funding the arts because the US never had royalty?

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Culture vs. Entertainment

Something I wrote a while back, Jan 25th 2005, and was thinking about again recently…

“…leads into my questions of audience. Why are they here? Entertainment, investigation expectation? Do they want to be challenged? If your expectations are not met then do you feel disappointment? But then if you as audience have expectations do we (the performers) need to be there? The audience could pay their money and just sit there and imagine the whole thing.

To be simplistic about it, there are two types of audience members. Those who go to a show with a certain amount of or with expectations. And there are those who go to a show with no expectations at all. But if you have ever seen an artist’s work before, it is impossible to go to their show and not have some expectations of what the show will be like. That is why people go back and see certain artist’s work again. The previous experience was satisfactory in some manner. The audience enjoyed themselves on some level.

This brings in the question of enjoyment. Do you enjoy having your expectations met? or contradicted/contrasted? Do you want your world view challenged or reaffirmed? Do you want recognizable elements, quotidian events re/arranged related in a suprising manner? Do you want to see something completely unrecognizeable that you cannot relate to at all? Do you come here to be offended? Do you come here for cultural edification? Or is it pure sensational masturbation?

Some might say that the opera, the ballet, the symphony are signs or events of high culture. Of higher value than a baseball game, a monster truck rally, or a wet T-shirt contest. But not the events in and of themselves are important but how the audience members relate to the event is important; is what makes them of cultural import. At the truck rally, people go to hear the roar of the engines, the smashing of the cars to see the huge trucks fly through the air and land or flop over.

At the ballet people go to hear the orchestra and see the lithe ballerina fly through the air and land in the arms of her partner. But @ either event the audience knows what is going to happen. They know the elements that make up the spectacle. They, the audience, are there to satisfy a certain desire, to fulfill an expectation. What would be more of a cultural event is is the typical ballet audience member went to the truck rally and the Nascar Dad went to the Lincoln Center to see the American Ballet Theater retrospective etc. Does the audience want to hide?”

My main point of something being cultural or not is the relationship between the audience and the material. If the audience is going for fulfillment then all events are of the same cultural value – sensational masturbation as I wrote above. If the audience is going to expand its horizons, that is culture.”

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Homeland Security…


Fighting Terrorism since 1492.

Yes, I agree with the sentiment of the T-Shirt. Or do I? What is the meaning behind the shirt? Maybe I do not fully understand it. The only people I see wearing this shirt have been Caucasians, white folks. So are they saying that they support the Native American Homeland Security that encountered Columbus in 1492? If so, what are these white people still doing in the USA? Go back to Europe then. Are these white people saying that they want to be kicked out of the United States? Or are they saying that Homeland Security is a joke, cuz look how successful Native Americans were at keeping out the white man, so we should not bother with Homeland Security now?
Seems like knee jerk liberalism to me. It contains pictures of Native Americans, has words associated with GWB & Co, must be a good thing. Funny to see mself write that-knee jerk liberal, being a liberal and all. Also could be that I am missing the point. If so, please tell me.

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Population Density vs. Time

As I am in NYC now, I have been riding the subway a lot, which has made me think about something I used to think about a lot when I lived here. Last night we saw a show at the Ohio Theater in Soho. After the show, we walked to Prince St. to hop on the NRW line to 42nd St. There we transferred to the 1 line. Exiting at 157 St. we walked to 161st. The trip took one hour, give or take. At most the trip was 12 miles in distance. So our average speed was 12 m.p.h. Kinda slow. If I traveled that slowly getting around the Bay Area, I would never get anywhere.

What I used to think about was population density and how that governs travel time, not necessarily distance governing travel time. The population density of Manhattan is 66,940.1/mi². The population density of Oakland is 7,126.6/mi². San Francisco‘s population density is nearly 16,000 people per square mile. Not nearly as high as Manhattan.
Could there be a way to measure how quickly one moves through a certain number of people? Could a baseline or a constant for that be determined to then determine how effectively different urban populations move around? Each city or suburb for that matter could then compare their “commute times” to this constant.

If on our commute back home last night, we traveled 12 miles, we traveled through 12 x 258.7 = 3104.4. 258.7 came from taking the square root of Manhattan’s population density. This is assuming that all 66,940.1 people are evenly arranged in a grid pattern and taking the square root determines how many people are in one straight mile of the side. So let’s say that going through Manhattan for those 12 miles we traveled through 3104.4 people miles.

If we were to go through Oakland for twelve miles, we would travel (12 x 84.42) 1013.04 people miles. Through San Fran – roughly 1505 people miles. How long this would take in SF or Oakland? Not sure. Depends on traffic, earthquakes, freeways melting etc. And in Manhattan the time depends on flooding of subways, trains derailing etc.

If we traveled 3104.4 people miles in Manhattan in one hour, that is 3104.4 people miles/hour, or 3104.4 pmph. If in Oakland, we took 60 minutes to go those 1013.4 people miles that would be 1013.4 pmph or about 1/3 as slowly as in Manhattan. When I get home I must measure how long it takes to travel 12 miles.

It would be nice to be able to collect data on this-different cities, times of day, population densities. I am sure that someone is already doing this.
Number aside, the pros of the subways here outweigh the cons. No money spent on gas, car insurance, parking, maintenance, tires. No looking for parking, worrying about getting your car scratched. Yes, you gotta walk more and sometimes the subway is hot, but think of the reading you get done.

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I want bigger boobs

Now why I didn’t think of this? The guy who runs this is making $1000/day. The sad thing is that he picked not a very nice name. And the site is not very attractive. I think someone should start another one. I mean, the first version of most things does not do very well. Remember the Newton? How much longer before another site comes along and out does this one?

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Virtual Friends

“People see face-to-face contact as being absolutely imperative in forming close friendships.”

Duh!

“But new research suggests that anyone looking to form new and genuinely close friendships via online social networks is going to be disappointed. An ongoing UK study, conducted by Dr. Will Reader of Sheffield Hallam University, suggests that real life meetings are still needed to foster genuine “real” relationships which are based on trust.”

“According to a new report by the UK Employment law firm Peninsula, employees are costing companies over $260 million a day. Based on responses from 3,500 companies, Peninsula estimate that 233 million hours are lost every month by employees “wasting time” on the Internet.”

“Loss of productivity through social networks such as Facebook is proving to be a major headache and my advice would be for companies to block access.”

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A Gnew Car

“pre-owned” is the new “used.” Well, not new as pre-owned has been around for a few years. What I wonder is how long will it be before “pre-owned” loses its shine and is replaced with something else. What will that phrase be? What will the pre-pre-owned (new) term for “used” be?

A gnew car?
A post purchase vehicle?
A pre-stressed car? (like all the furniture at Restoration hardware)

Tangent –
This makes me think of clothes. Saw a hat today at J. Crew. $24 for silly hat that had spots sewn on it to make it look old and worn. I think they sell pants in a similar vein. As a matter of fact I think I have some. Similarly saw a pair of jeans today on a woman. She was pretty but her jeans were atrocious but they probably cost $$$. Large patches on her rear, knees and other places that do not get worn out on real jeans were frayed. But the fraying was not the normal color of frayed jeans- that whitish grey color, but golden. And the fraying did not go through. Looked like patches of frayed material were sewn on.

Are we as Americans so hungry for history, for a past that we must manufacture it?
If pre-stressing has reached clothes and furniture, when will it reach everything else? When will we be selling new cars that look pre-owned? When will we be selling computers that look like they have been dinged up, maybe already have a few viruses? What determines what people will buy new that looks new; what people will buy that looks used but is new; what people will buy that is used and looks used; and finally what looks new but is used?

  1. CDs,
  2. LPs
  3. cars
  4. clothes
  5. houses
  6. lovers
  7. pets
  8. furniture
  9. plants
  10. sunglasses
  11. shoes, etc.

What do/would you buy used/not used/pre-stressed?

Faux history is an aesthetic choice.