Lies, damned lies, and Darwin tours
Apr. 27th, 2009 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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As lawyers, bankers and lots of other professionals know, lying for a living is nice work if you can get it. Here's a clip of my unreliable tour yesterday of the Schirn Kunsthalle's Darwin exhibition -- part of the Playing the City programme.
As lawyers, bankers and lots of other professionals know, lying for a living is nice work if you can get it. Here's a clip of my unreliable tour yesterday of the Schirn Kunsthalle's Darwin exhibition -- part of the Playing the City programme.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 12:18 pm (UTC)Could you give a genealogy for this tour guide thing?
I can't help seeing it, at the moment, as situationist tactics tamed, defanged. A verbal detournement. Fun if nothing else.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 05:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-28 03:17 am (UTC)Thanks!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-28 03:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-28 02:18 pm (UTC)Dorothy
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 01:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 02:53 pm (UTC)Or maybe you just have a moment of clarity and attempt to see beyond all those unhelpful artificial boundaries.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 05:54 pm (UTC)No, I watch Reeves and Mortimer and think how on earth did they get a TV show. Besides I like to distinguish my Artists from my comedians although I might love both in equal measures.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 07:52 pm (UTC)This isn't a loaded question; but why is it that you distinguish your artists from your comedians? What is the value of that boundary for you?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 08:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 09:45 pm (UTC)Comedians can also stimulate our imagination (i'm thinking Vic & Bob again), show us ways of living, of interacting; they can politicize us (Charlie Brooker, and his thinly veiled rants); amongst other things.
It excites me when these boundaries (which mother Earth didn't place there for us) become blurred, especially when it comes to comedy and art.
By the way, which Picasso? And under what circumstances?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 11:45 pm (UTC)Any Picasso, we're never likely to see one outside a gallery environment unless you have very rich friends, I don't.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-28 10:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 02:21 pm (UTC)The Extinct Dodo
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 02:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 04:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-28 02:15 am (UTC)Yeas, if one's life experiences can influence the physiology of one's brain, then it follows suit that new cultural idioms will have an effect in some small way. One's genome contains in it the history of the people from which one derives: if one's ancestors lived primarily in cities or on farms, then one's physiology will differ from those whose ancestors were primarily hunter gatherers up until recently (resistance to cholera or smallpox, lactose intolerance, ability to heal quickly, body frame, propensity to gain weight, etc.). It may offer a slippery slope into eugenics, but the medical evidence backs it up.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 04:09 pm (UTC)Does the unreliable tour guide ever succeed in doing a hook-line-and-sinker on an audience member?
One would have to be a little impaired to fall for these skits, but presumably, on occassion, the questions asked must indicate that you have a faller.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 05:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 06:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-27 08:06 pm (UTC)Anti-Social Darwinism
Date: 2009-04-27 10:19 pm (UTC)Speaking of the relationship of comedy to art, I’ve wondered about the (possibly dangerous) relationship between comedy and politics too; you can stretch the boundaries of acceptability quite a bit when joking—sometimes highlighting the hypocrisy of certain taboos.
Re: Anti-Social Darwinism
Date: 2009-04-28 01:53 am (UTC)Re: Anti-Social Darwinism
Date: 2009-04-28 04:02 am (UTC)Re: Anti-Social Darwinism
Date: 2009-04-28 09:06 am (UTC)Momus, I think your “Unreliable Tour Guide” performance is great also for the “institutionalization of institutional critique.” Some claim that the question “what is art?” is defined by an educated coterie—an elite democracy; and you both fortify this position by being “obviously unreliable” (hence implying that there is a real legitimacy to the real tour guides: they will tell you what art is and why)—and also challenge it by BEING an artist who appropriates others’ art, painting pastiche mustaches if you will, to make your own new art that defies being framed by the real tour guides—hopefully not me, here—maybe a (fun-house) mirror in a museum would present an opportunity for you to unreliably self-critique?
The Darwin aspect is also relevant to some art theory, in that “historical narrative” can be taken to define art; as if art evolves too—with its legitimate claim to being art tied to a genealogical heritage—to some origin that is unquestionably art (if such exists). Maybe I’m projecting my own platitudinous simple-mindedness here, but I see a lot of theory behind the memorable comedy— even if art is best defined by example and not theory.
Re: Anti-Social Darwinism
Date: 2009-04-28 09:54 am (UTC)www.postegoism.net
Lies, damned lies, and Darwin tours
Date: 2009-04-28 08:04 pm (UTC)certainly there'd be more visitors!
'just like MJ is entitled to like children' - LOL
Cheers
Thiago
P.S.: love the hairdo.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-29 01:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-29 06:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 09:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-19 06:06 pm (UTC)