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the whole reason i’ve been getting so deeply into these breed-reader documents is that i need us to find a way of infusing what we do with an attitude, a poetic, that isn’t aesthetic but theoretical: something that emerges from how we understand our role in the world, from an ecology of thought, if you like. xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx
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how do we transcend taste? how do we avoid compensation — the impulse to fill a void with an even deeper void? excess, going too far, pushes people away. beneath admiration, repulsion quietly takes root. scarcity, on the other hand, might frustrate people, but ultimately draws them in, inviting them to fill in the gaps themselves.
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perks can only grow if it is cultivated, betrayed, and challenged. it is an orbit around which different minds revolve, and if we want to prevent everything from ultimately being reduced to my personal approval, certain principles need to be made explicit, establishing the criteria by which we decide what belongs and what doesn’t — this, yes; this, no.
we must be careful not to use theory as a refuge from practice. this entire reader should serve two purposes: a) to guide our decisions, and b) to help us describe perks in the third person, in a way that makes what we’re doing legible xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx
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following rosalind krauss and eisenstein on montage — the idea that “truth [is] to be found in dialectics, in (apparently) oppositional positions” — we could think of perks as operating according to a similar principle. cinematic montage produces meaning precisely by cutting between two moments that are separated in time, placing them in opposition and allowing something new to emerge from their collision.
perks could move in much the same way, holding together — acting as the glue between — seemingly incompatible positions. not through the reconciliation of opposites, but through their juxtaposition, friction, and mutual transformation. art and information, the individual and the collective, the digital and the primitive, journalism and fiction, theatre and the internet: these are only provisional examples, perhaps too obvious or predictable, but they point towards a method rather than a set of fixed pairings.
the point is not to occupy a middle ground between two poles, nor to resolve their contradictions, but to create the conditions in which their encounter produces something that neither could have generated on its own. perks would then be less a coherent body of work than a practice of montage, a way of producing meaning through the deliberate assembly of things that don’t quite belong together.
i think the final text should place greater emphasis on singularity, or, better still, on the idea of a “breed” as a mutation, a non-binary epistemological evolution. xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx xxxx xxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxx
from this perspective, the proliferation of names (baselife, cambrian, history2, etc.), costumes, and different incarnations could begin to make sense, offering an alternative to the deeply ingrained corporatism that otherwise tends to frame how we understand these structures. xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
this last point is essential to our practice. as with fluxus, but also cassavetes, distribution should be understood as a creative act in its own right: not simply the means through which a work reaches an audience, but an integral part of how the work is conceived, produced, and brought into the world. we need to devote as much intensity to thinking about how things circulate as we do to making them.
xxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxx xxxx xxxx xxxxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxx xxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx i think perks’ website should essentially be a statement of intent, and that there should also be — even if not necessarily publicly available — a collection of everything we’ve done so far, in the form of a report in the throbbing gristle sense of the term.
“experimental production of collective bodies” is a phrase that resonates with me. as does the rhyme, or assonance, between “breed” and “feed”. another idea that resonates with me is that of an entity that “feeds its own researches into its own micro-cultural production”.
perks institute would theoretically be a more accurate term than perks corp, although i’m fascinated by “corp = corpse”.
there’s a complex idea here that i’ll try to put down as simply as possible. in meridian drift, particularly in its first part, there was this notion of “mourning for the avant-garde”: the mourning of the avant-garde’s comatose state, which, in our view, has been kept under sedation by a combination of systemic conditions. algorithmic optimisation of culture, for instance, has little tolerance for ruptures, and so on.
in this sense, drawing on a freudian concept, we could think of “mimicry as cathexis”: when something dies, we incorporate it into ourselves. autonomy, then, becomes a form of mimicry through which we mourn the avant-garde.
“organising as refusing bohemians” is another way of putting it. the artist’s bohemian identity is precisely what the “system” expects of them, making them easier to control through its networks and through the promise of economic reward and status.
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at this early stage, i think the best thing that could happen to us would be to find a habitat within a university, with the examples of ccru and forensic architecture before us. putting ourselves in a position to reflect on our own practice while simultaneously producing and disseminating knowledge in the form of a by-product would be the ideal condition for what we’re doing — despite all the limitations an academic environment might impose on a mode of thinking that seeks to remain free from constraints. but this doesn’t strike me so much as a contradiction as a realistic compromise, and a better one than most alternatives.
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- i like the idea of defining perks as a “rescue action”, both in relation to its “members” and as a broader programmatic principle.
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- “perks: a series of instructions to forget about one’s identity.” i like this direction of turning perks into a series of instructions, which i think resonates with the llm era. as if every time you make a video, you’re given a set of constraints and prescriptions: “use only a camera strapped to your head, in a single shot”. bruno latour once said: “freedom is getting out of a bad bondage, not the absence of bonds” — particularly relevant in relation to baselife.
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- i like the concepts of hygiene and ecology applied to this particular moment in art history. as if there were so much bullshit circulating already that limiting oneself, reducing things, or imposing constraints could be an act that is as radical as it is necessary — a way of articulating a primarily political and ethical position in an era when anything can be visualised, anything can be requested, and anything can be produced.
- “we’re interested in information, we’re not interested in art as such” is an excellent statement (i’ve deliberately distorted a phrase by genesis p-orridge).
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- “against a division between critical discourse and significant artist practice” is, moreover, what distinguishes us from our predecessors.
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