Friday, June 4, 2010

Dust to Dust Video


On Thursday May 13th I executed a four-hour performance in the basement of the Gallery BWA in Piotrkow Trybunalski, Poland as part of the Interakcje Performance Art Festival. After lighting incense in three of the four remaining coffins I proceeded to dismantle the fourth coffin into its pieces. After carefully removing all of the nails and screws I used a hand held surface planer to reduce all of the pieces into dust. Due to the small, crypt like nature of the space, the room quickly became thick with sawdust and smoke.

Review of Electrified Show in We Make Money Not Art Blog

http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2010/05/electrified-hacking-public-spa.php

Thursday, June 3, 2010

No Man's Land


On May 5, 2010 I executed a 3 hour performance in Ghent, Belgium. After lighting incense in four of the remaining coffins, I buried a fifth in an unused and rare portion of open space in Ghent. This piece was made possible by Vooruit. Thanks to Gregg Young for shooting and editing this video!

Monday, May 31, 2010

Private(s).2.0


I added a mirror to 2 of the public/private male urinals in the city of Gent. Passers-by will get to share in the joy of public urination as a unwitting man relieves himself.

Many people assume that they have a right to certain degree of privacy in public places. As we move about there is a tendency to view our public surroundings as potential places where we can assert our sovereign nature. For instance a person might go behind a tree, hide in a shadow, go down an alley, or squat under a bridge to seek public solitude. In parks people lay claim to a patch of earth by unfolding a blanket and spreading it on the ground. Construction zones and yellow “caution” tape steer the public away from certain areas to create temporary private spaces. Cities even build places like phone booths and bathroom stalls for its citizens to enjoy private moments. As technology advances citizens ever increasingly walk around enraptured in the bubble of their cell phones. And, if a person is of a more pensive disposition, he or she might find their public/private moments walking, staring at the ground, while lost deep in thought. Public privacy can also exist on a subtler, subconscious level as we are taught from a young age to ignore certain public occurrences. The drunken man passed out on the ground or the beggar asking for change at the bus stop might appear to us no different than a tree or a lamppost as we make our way to work in the morning.When we stare past the woman being arrested by the police or ignore the man weeping on his stoop we effectively give the person who is having a public/private moment the privacy of our ambivalence. But, regardless of how the privacy manifests, it can only exist through an unspoken social contract that permits a person the right to assert and create his or her own overt or subconscious public privacy. And, despite the complicated game that manifests as a result of this silent agreement, most of us intuitively know that public/privacy is an illusion and a creation of man. There is no privacy.

Dust to Dust















On Thursday May 13th I executed a four-hour performance in the basement of the Gallery BWA in Piotrkow Trybunalski, Poland as part of the Interakcje Performance Art Festival. After lighting incense in three of the four remaining coffins I proceeded to dismantle the fourth coffin into its pieces. After carefully removing all of the nails and screws I used a hand held surface planer to reduce all of the pieces into dust. Due to the small, crypt like nature of the space, the room quickly became thick with sawdust and smoke.

Monday, May 10, 2010

I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles

I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles

My thoughts shift to Poland. My only connection to the country is my Grandmother. She was the youngest of many children and the only one that was not born in Poland. She passed away when I was 13 and she is the only person that I have been close to that has died. I asked her about her family several times but she always refused to talk about it. I know she could speak Polish but I never heard her utter a word of it. She was a pensive and mysterious woman. As the years go by and my memories of her begin to fade there are a few things that always remind me of her. She would often sing an old song to her grandchildren called “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.” It was written in 1918 and its sad song about watching bubbles floating away. It seems like a fitting song for a devout Catholic woman who, though full of love for her family seemed (at least through the eyes of a child) to possess an inner sadness that was locked tightly and neatly away. The chorus to the song is:

I’m forever blowing bubbles,

Pretty bubbles in the air.

They climb so high,

Nearly reach the sky,

Then like my dreams,

They fade and die.

Fortunes always hiding,

I’ve looked everywhere.

I’m forever blowing bubbles,

Pretty bubbles in the air.

The song has been recorded many times but I am fond of the version by Vera Lynn, which is 3 minutes and 29 seconds in length. For my performance tonight I will wash my mouth out with soap and then attempt to silently blow bubbles for 3 minutes and 29 seconds as timed by my wrist watch.

I would like to dedicate my first performance in Poland, on what would be Mother’s Day in the United States, to the loving memory of my grandmother Helen Marie. Your grandchildren still whistle the song...

Washing Mouth

Washing Mouth

Big Bubble

Little Bubble

Swollen Lips

Soap After

Friday, May 7, 2010

Private(s).2.0

I added a mirror to 2 of the public/private male urinals in the city of Gent. Passers-by will get to share in the joy of public urination as a unwitting man relieves himself.

Many people assume that they have a right to certain degree of privacy in public places. As we move about there is a tendency to view our public surroundings as potential places where we can assert our sovereign nature. For instance a person might go behind a tree, hide in a shadow, go down an alley, or squat under a bridge to seek public solitude. In parks people lay claim to a patch of earth by unfolding a blanket and spreading it on the ground. Construction zones and yellow “caution” tape steer the public away from certain areas to create temporary private spaces. Cities even build places like phone booths and bathroom stalls for its citizens to enjoy private moments. As technology advances citizens ever increasingly walk around enraptured in the bubble of their cell phones. And, if a person is of a more pensive disposition, he or she might find their public/private moments walking, staring at the ground, while lost deep in thought. Public privacy can also exist on a subtler, subconscious level as we are taught from a young age to ignore certain public occurrences. The drunken man passed out on the ground or the beggar asking for change at the bus stop might appear to us no different than a tree or a lamppost as we make our way to work in the morning. When we stare past the woman being arrested by the police or ignore the man weeping on his stoop we effectively give the person who is having a public/private moment the privacy of our ambivalence. But, regardless of how the privacy manifests, it can only exist through an unspoken social contract that permits a person the right to assert and create his or her own overt or subconscious public privacy. And, despite the complicated game that manifests as a result of this silent agreement, most of us intuitively know that public/privacy is an illusion and a creation of man. There is no privacy.

Private(s).2.0

Private(s).2.0

Private(s).2.0

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

No Man's Land, before performance














On May 5, 2010 I executed a 3 hour performance in Ghent, Belgium. After lighting incense in four of the remaining coffins, I buried a fifth in an unused and rare portion of open space in Ghent.

Me Before

Lighting Fire

Fire

Getting Started

Digging

Digging Some More

Sunsett

Carrying it Over

Putting It In

Small Fire Situation

Trying to Put the Sod Back Neatly

Re-Robing

No Man's Land

Performance Tonight, May 5th, 2010 from 19:00-Until it's done. Gent, Belgium.

In an attempt to create a truly public/private moment, San Francisco artist Lucas Murgida will be performing an action on Wednesday May 5th in a forgotten piece of land in between the old part of Gent and Dampoort. This No Man’s Land is situated on the east side of the Archterdok waterway between Dok-Zuid and the river, just north of the Dampoort Bridge. Murgida will be burying a small coffin that traveled with him from the United States. The action will begin at 7 PM and will continue until the coffin is neatly buried and in the ground without evidence of the event.

Lucas Murgida’s work is generally regarded as generous, challenging, difficult to look at and at the same time impossible to ignore. For more information about him please go to his website: www.lucasmurgida.com. To learn about his adventures in Gent visit his blog: http://lucasmurgida.blogspot.com/. And, to see a video highlighting another action he completed related to this event watch this video: http://www.vimeo.com/10253056.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Willem De Beersteeg Park at Night


Possible spot for the performance in the park at the end of Willem De Beersteeg. The street lights turned on at about 9:15 and the sky was completely black by 10:00. There are three other large lights in the park but they never turned on. The lights shown in the picture are from the building behind the park. It looked pretty nice and I think it will work.

Viking Funeral and A Smoking Red Box

I said goodbye to my friend the red box tonight. I tried to give it the powerful Viking burial but it instead turned into a rather impotent flush down the toilet...sigh. It started off really well, however, gust of wind quickly blew out the flames that illuminated the inside of the box. I got a couple of good shots, but in the end my little camera wasn’t strong enough. The box quickly traveled down the Ketelvaart Cannel but then met a strong current from the opposite direction that then stalled it in the middle of the river. As it initially sped away from me I chased it down the river running down the walkways and up to the bridges trying to capture some images. Eventually I realized that people were watching from bridges and from windows. On the last bridge someone came up and asked if the box was mine and I said yes. He simply said, “It looks nice.” After that I just sat and watched it for a while. It looked quite nice to the human eye. Smoke wafting from a slightly illumined red box floating down the river. I let it go after that. If it still there in morning I’ll try to fish it out of the river.

Red Box floats Away

Contemporary Viking Funeral

More of the Red Box

Bye Bye Box


This is possibly the worst picture ever taken but it shows where the box stalled in the river's current.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Old Boats, May 2nd

Last Night



Mysterious picture with red box.

Not so improved box design




New and improved box that turned out to be not so new and improved. Will redesign again. Top one shows incense, oil pellets. They looks like fish tank rocks...

Under Bridge



I wanted to but the box in this quiet space under a bridge but I couldn't get the box to really glow like the other night. So, I started carrying it around trying to find better illuminated locations, but nothing seemed to work. Will try again tomorrow.