Sleazy Art Meetings 10

[furtherfield]

BlankSleazy Art Meetings 10

The Home Alone Conceptual Artist


I'm 19 years old and I still live with my parents. I've always been a good girl, and I have never dared to think about art activism, conceptualism that seriously before. Mostly because my dad always scared away the more sensitive of my boyfriends, who were usually very artistic, calling them queer or pinko. I guess he was always worried that I'd wind up sharing a creative or critical hypothesis with another boy, jumping into something deeper than I had bargained for. 

Guess what Dad, sheltering me from it has only made me want it more. My family went on a short holiday the other week and while they were gone I had the house to myself. I had some time to think before they left, about what I was going to do, and when I found the ‘Critical Edge Art’s Extraordinaire Ensemble’ web site, I knew exactly what my plans were. I put up an ad asking for a radical conceptual Internet artist to come over to my house during the day and deconstruct the hell out of me. I figured an ad like that should get a few responses and boy did it ever. There were 14 in total. 

I was desperate to fill up that socially constructed void that had been shaped by my father's over protectiveness and replied to every artistic male dude who answered my ad. For 7 days I had one artist come by in the morning and one in the evening. It was so stimulating with so many dystopian, non-conformist positions to explore. My head was literally spinning, all that glut of instant information seeping into me in such a short space of time. I was so loaded that I could hardly walk straight.

The last artist was the most interesting though. He showed up a little late and I was a bit worried my parents would walk in on us. He had just come back from receiving a prize from that highest of institutional accolade ‘The Webby Awards’ for the best achievement in technology and creativity. So I decided to risk it, I didn’t want to miss out on this special dude.

I led him to my now well broken in studio and experimental ideas room. And then I performed for him - I love watching an artist's eyes bug when I re-enact Chris Burden’s classic, live performance with my hand crafted pea shooter. But the shooter kept slipping out of his hands, which was actually meant to be, it was part of the performance. He was asked to smother his hands in olive oil to add tension to the experience, and it did! He suddenly exploded, with exclamations like ‘Live art is the trashcan of culture recycling, celebrating the debris of the modern world!’ Woe there boy! I thought, let’s not get to expansive; we’ve only just met. 

Anyway, I pushed him onto my comfy chair so I could inhale his well-formed stock theory. He said it was real, but I said that all theories needed to be tested. I think I was getting quite good at it, and as he got more confident I swallowed his big idea for a bit. It tasted good and it seemed to fill my criteria of what a single large idea could be, in fact I felt his premise measured well compared to many others that I had explored earlier. It wasn’t like one of those fly by night trendy ideas that lesser artists come up with, this one had substance, sustainability. 

He then suddenly pumped me with obscure concepts, like ‘how something represented as primary, complete & originary is derived, composite, and/or an effect of something else’, but he was gentle. And I was thankful, for then it all came bursting out of me. All that suppressed and constrained potential just started gush out like there was no tomorrow. Oh, it was so wonderful, my eyes rolled as I looked up at the ceiling whilst experiencing the most erudite realizations since I passed 5th grade. 

I loved every conceptualized thrust he offered me. We went at it for what seemed like ages before he was about to declare his well, loaded supposition. Then I let him discharge his fluidity and intent all over me, and as he was releasing his inner most hidden opulence the front door opened and my parents walked into the house. My Dad called out my name from downstairs asking me if I knew whose car it was in the driveway. I told the artist to be quite, but he shrugged me off and swiftly left by the window, leaving his ‘Webby’ prize behind. I never saw him again, I’ve seen him on net art lists every now and then. I learnt a lot about conceptual rigor that day…

marc garrett
http://www.furtherfield.org

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