Excellent information, from a leading source of excellent information.

Nobody susses out cohesive and pertinent advice like DoC.
http://www.deuceofclubs.com/

24jun2008 — To preserve meaning, cloak the source

17. Participate without belonging. 30. Sport amused, matter-of-fact cynicism. 34. Reformat. 37. Don't despair at the absurd, go with it. 46.Shop as though money were a consensual hallucination. 61. Refine your signal-to-noise ratio. 66. Do something, anything, to attract highly mobile capital. 75. Profit from tastes you recently helped establish. 80. Pursue multiple narratives that neither explain nor unify. 90. Negotiate identity. 100. Tweak your consciousness. 111. Float globally, frame locally. 120. Await catastrophe. 128. Shuffle fragments. 132. To change what things mean, redescribe them. 138. Disperse yourself in a cloud of narrative elements. 145. Trouble your foundations. 148. Find purpose without direction. 151. Redeploy the images that oppose you. 162. Take pleasure. 175. Mock your own urgency. 177. Long for a place to stash your electronic money. 221. In the attempt to demystify, further obscure. 223. Imagine you're a nomadic, desiring machine, without limits. 226. Play with texts while an oppressive social system goes about its business. 253. Pledge allegiance off the map. 268. Slack. 271. Forego the desire for encyclopedic mastery. 275. Move without changing your electronic address. 280. Don't write to say the last word. 285. Find beauty in the breakdown. 287. Stay mobile. 290. Present yourself as a flexible, highly skilled, short-term commodity. 307. Buy time. 330. Explore the richness of your limitations. 341. Replace your career with multiple revenue streams. 343. Make the border your territory. 345. Downsize. 349. Traffic in novelty.

Apparently taken from: Life's Little Deconstruction Book: Self-Help for the Post-Hip by Andrew Boyd

Video Performance proposal

Tim Hansen - Proposal for Video Performance

Concepts:
Gap between Public and Private Information
Transparency of Process
Pursuit of Truth
Defeating the Power of Embarrassment

Idea:
Venture into public in the guise of a “reporter” or similar journalistic construct, have random strangers attempt to embarrass me by asking me questions. This is a reversal of the typical role of the reporter putting the general public “on the spot”. It is mine to suffer, for my suffering is my truth, and through my truth, my freedom. The project will attempt to illuminate every theoretically secret piece of information about me with the understandable exception of financial access information in the interest of protecting myself from fraud/identity theft.

I am an American, and in America, most of our secrets are sexual. Therefore it is an excellent idea to reveal every last tidbit of private sexual data in order to release me from the power that secrets have over me.

I dislike the idea of being a private person. I dislike the idea of there being knowledge about me that only I have. In the event of my death, that knowledge will perish. If the knowledge is distributed widely, it shall live on as long as it can be shared. This is immortality. I am not concerned with positive or negative connotations. Good or bad, attention is power. This is why I am qualified to be a celebrity. I can traffick in shallowness and vanity like nobody’s business.

Another objective of this is to live as a role model for the government, because every time the government keeps a secret, it fucks us. This is the truth.

In order to avoid the perception of bias, the process by which I interact with the public will be documented as an integral part of the work. My opinions are inherently biased, as are all opinions everywhere, but by sharing the methodology the viewer will be able to discern this bias and filter it out of the elemental Truth.

I have a childlike fascination with Truth. There is a way that things Is, outside of the sphere of human interpretation. Complete knowledge of the Truth is not a thing available to us as human beings but it is the pursuit of it that keeps us moving forward, in technology, in philosophy, in society, and in personal growth.

This is obviously reckless on a personal level. Still, it’s a hell of a lot less dangerous than heroin.

-Tim Hansen
4/16/08

Advancing the metric of cheapness...

There is a problem with the art world and that problem is that the price of art is inflated. Rather, I should say, that is -not- a problem. That is a set of circumstances that have arisen from market forces and the supply and demand of the intangible art aura, which has long ago outstripped the actual production cost of most works of art. This is not a problem because it came to be in a natural fashion. What it is, is an opportunity.

I want to advance the metric of cheapness within the criteria of the art-purchasing decision. To date, on the back of immense cultural tradition, we as humans have a tendency to place more emotional value on things that cost more money, irrespective of other factors. This makes sense, but it must be challenged. I want to encourage people to find emotional satisfaction not only in the "art experience" but in the comparative bargain of the art experience. This is of course a directive for the public at large. The savvier art dealers are already well-versed in the ancient art of buying low and selling high - they couldn't remain in business otherwise - and we are all their dupes if we continue to consider "fine art" as a rarefied something elevated above the grasp of economic forces.

Outside the sphere of emotional intangibles, generally speaking, human beings strive for bargains; the supplies and raw materials we need for sustenance and prosperity by and large are bought on the cheapest market and sold in the dearest. It happens this way for two reasons; one, because the distribution of material things in the physical world is inherently unequal, and two, because the criteria for want-satisfaction for every individual human being is different Those two circumstances alone have given birth to communication, cooperation, trade, society, and civilization. In short, the only way to get what you want in this world is to trade with someone who has what you want. Value is subjective. In order for trade to happen, the other person must value the thing you want less than you do, and value something you have more than you do. The father of the Austrian school of economics, Ludwig von Mises, put forward that on account of these inescapable conditions, trade itself is the primary driver of human action. All human action, for the entirety of human history.

This is fundamentally capitalism, and while that's a dirty word in a lot of art circles, it works. It works because it is the only system that allows every individual to decide for themselves what they want in order to improve their condition. So, then let's apply this to the art sphere. It's a business like any other business, possibly unique in the way most of its customer base wears its ignorance of the business end of it like a badge of honor. Like most things that fall under the banner of culture, it is prone to the phenomenon of the superstar, the veneration of a very small percentage of artists as Big Names who subsequently fetch Big Prices. Just as in the motion picture and professional sports industries, this happens because the "product", imbued with emotional intangibles as it is, is freed from most of the limitations of physical material production and trades on emotional value alone. The hope of every artist is that they can ride the snowball effect of name recognition and eventually arrive at a place where mass society decides that their work Means Something. This meaning can then be sold at a higher price because it is pervasive. Once prices become high enough, however, the original meaning has a tendency to fall away and the art object's primary cultural value is that it is very, very expensive.

This has even happened with Andy Warhol; an early painting of his depicting a car crash recently sold for $71.7 million. That is a number that, to the casual observer, will outstrip any other cultural notion. It's a cheerful irony for Warhol's legacy, being as he was one of the first art "superstars" (he was even fond of that word) to directly identify, illuminate, and attempt to convey the beauty of the inescapable economic aspects of art to the art-buying public. He was, in primacy, a commercial artist. It frustrates me to no end that the majority of self-styled tastemakers among the art aficionados I've crossed paths with remain indifferent at best to the pro-capitalist nature of Warhol's work.

Then again, so much heinous shit has gone down in the world that, while not even remotely connected to free-market capitalism, has been done in the -name- of free-market capitalism, that the words themselves have been injured. What can we do when the word for a thing no longer means that thing? We are left continually explaining ourselves. We've never even -seen truly free markets in modern civilization. The vast majority of the heavy-duty corporate evil in the world has come about not from the process of free trade but from direct government involvement to benefit one party at the expense of another. This is because the state of being in power almost invariably trends towards the pursuit of unfair advantage, generally with consequences ranging from ineffective to disastrous. But this is a mild digression.

I am fascinated by artnet.com's Market Performance Reports.

"The seven charts in each artnet Market Performance Report compile yearly auction market information from artnet’s Price Database on over 4,300 of the most important artists driving the global public auction market. Considered collectively, these charts provide information that assists collectors, appraisers, advisors, curators, financial institutions and art investors when tracking such market trends as liquidity, volatility, sales volume, and pricing for artworks of interest. A brief description of each chart is provided below and a sample artnet Market Performance Report is shown on the Market Trends home page."

My point is this. To paraphrase Warhol; art is business, and business is art.

I am Tim Hansen.

Nobody sells for less.

Holy shit, I'm on Indiewire.

Basically, if you read between the lines, you'll notice a new imperative to for me to finish Catch This Fox, and quickly. Otherwise my legacy is basically, "another charismatic failure from Milwaukee". We have enough of those.

Quoted, directly.

http://www.indiewire.com/movies/2008/02/production_repo_22.html

PRODUCTION REPORT | "Economy Superstar," "Frozen Butterflies," "Fruit of the Tree," "Oak Hill," and "Patsy"

by Jason Guerrasio (February 6, 2008)

"Economy Superstar"

After years shooting reality TV, Jerry A. Henry decided to begin work on his first documentary after meeting 24-year-old Milwaukeean Tim Hansen. Henry follows Hansen as he attempts his lofty ventures -- everything from making a movie, creating a comic strip, even collecting beat up Toyota Camrys -- but never following through on any of them.

Two years in the making, Henry first met Hansen while scouting for a show in Milwaukee and saw him at a car show stenciling cars and started a conversation. "Literally that night I called him and said, 'I want to come out to Milwaukee and hang out with you for a week,'" Henry says. "That's pretty much when I realized I had a film. I just had no idea that the person I would be following would end up to be such a dynamic character."

Once a week every month for two years Henry abandoned his job in reality TV and flew out to Milwaukee to film Hansen's "reality," and stayed at his house to save money. At the time Hansen was filming his own documentary on Subaru enthusiast Miles Fox. But working on the doc for seven years has blurred the lines between doc subject and filmmaker and things spiral out of control when Henry follows Hansen, Fox and Hansen's supposed girlfriend to New Orleans on a road trip which leads to a huge falling out. "One of the main things that comes out of the film is this notion of procrastination and how it's inherent in all of us and why people do it," Henry says.

The film, which Henry compares to "American Movie" and "Napoleon Dynamite," recently was in IFP Market's Documentary Rough Cut Lab this past year and Henry plans to shop the film around to TV networks and submit to festivals within the next few months.

Shot on DV, the film was shot, edited and produced by Henry and produced by Andrea J. Chia.

[For more information, please visit www.economysuperstarmovie.com]

A scene from Jerry A. Henry's "Economy Superstar." Image courtesy of the filmmaker.

Gloss

Subcutaneous gloss enhancement natural glow healthy skin execute your purchasing decision

what is the knowledge what is the purpose

new time process directive knowledge of power is not necessarily the knowledge that is power nor is power inherently knowledge

the power of ignorance can be very strong indeed to wit popular support of American foreign policy from oh, say, the Spanish-American war to the present.

who are we and what the hell are we doing

the right hand knows not what the left hand is doing even when one hand washes the other

Cold Dissociative

Expansion transknowledge overflow design rupture a glimpse at the code behind the clay exterior soft and malleable with the pale pink-amber glow of a heart that is sun furnace Body and Sol behind skintight thick flesh

Palpability. Tangibility. Daaamn right.

and can you touch it can you hold it in your hand what does it speak to you what does it say it's sunshine it's so fine it's the word love in a language that lacks the faculties to understand it, knowing only how to sell it, or the want of it, the primordial subhuman subrational Want, all-conquering, all-powerful, universally satisfying like a brand new iPod.

You know it, I know it, the American people -are- it, it is them, they are that, that is ours, I am you, you are us, we are me, together.

Truth and Satisfaction need not be mutually exclusive. Find me the rare ground where they overlap and I'll build a house there. Cheap enough if nobody's looking to buy, and who would when they don't even know it exists, if it exists. The name of the town is Chimera, the only constant is change, there is no rest for the wicked, and there is no alternative to wickedness. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And in the lattitude afforded by universal truth, you can say what you want and be who you are and not necessarily make things any more difficult for yourself save for the attitudes and inclinations of your adjacent social tangents.

You don't know it, but you can choose your own vectors. Look at the people and objects around you and study their speed and direction. An agile solid can move out of the way. A liquid is wide-ranging but still selective, however beholden to a material instability. Vapors are omnipresent and here we go from the righteous solid to the stone solid gas.

Texture, then, is the metaphor. Is the reflection of our gloss a conscious echo of the world around us or an impenetrable chameleon shell? the mirror candy placebo? when we see only what we want to see, will it be more than just ourselves?

Can't get it right, probably more thought than is necessary, too far away from touching another human being to know and it is damn hell of impossible to spoon yourself.

Woman [universal], where are you in my landscape?

Each choice is a fiction

The documentary is always a sort of creative adaptation of reality, regardless of whether the camera acts as "a fly on the wall" or a voice-over commentary intervenes and interprets the pictures for the viewer. In Filmmaskinen (1979) Jørgen Leth phrases it a bit differently:

Each choice is a fiction. That's how it is in my consciousness, anyway. Innocence is irretrievably lost (Leth, 1979, p. 123; our translation).

Further down the same page in Filmmaskinen, Jørgen Leth also writes: "Like a membrane, style (a series of choices) is pulled down over the authentic material." But the main issue must be how thick this membrane is – whether reality, so to speak, suffocates. And that depends on the degree of intervention, how the cinematic technique is used, and how the material is edited.

All documentaries are somewhere in between inventing and capturing reality, between the subjective and the objective, and although the distance between the two poles is short, you should reflect on where your film is placed between these poles. To what extent is your film obliged to depict reality? Are you inventing your own representations of real life in order to make reality more distinct? Are you placing authentic people in situations that they wouldn't otherwise have been in (as is the case with Nanook in Robert Flaherty's classic documentary Nanook of the North (1920-22))? Are you writing their lines and instructing them on playing themselves (as in Jon Bang Carlsen's It's Now or Never (1996))? Are you arranging tableaux or events which the characters take part in? Asking yourselves questions of this sort is essential in order to elucidate which form of modality you prefer in your film.

from: http://pov.imv.au.dk/Issue_13/section_5/artc1A.html

it is not too late in the year to buy a convertible and hit the road

In fits of delusion I see myself as a filmmaker. That being the case, I want to make a film for this, not just write about them. 1970’s road movies have always held a certain mystic moth-to-flame draw for me, a glorious frenzy of outlaw activity. The point of this endeavor is to try and experience freedom in the face of ugly realities…the kind of world depicted in films like Easy Rider and Vanishing Point. My hypothesis is that their world is now our world. America once again seethes with panic, divisive anger and desperation as it finds itself mired in another unwinnable war and an economy on the verge of spectacular collapse.

As they did then, so must I now turn to The Road. Not the Kerouac book, although obviously an influence, but the actual, physical Road Itself. The task of a journey, the liberation of motion, the aim to, as it were, Live the Dream, or Nightmare, or whatever shape the journey may take. Discovery itself is the only goal.

My proposal is this. A friend of mine is trading his Hyundai for a 1971 MGB. I suggest we drive it to Zabriskie Point in Death Valley, CA, the site of Michel Foucault’s life-altering experience on LSD in 1975, and take a camera along with us, documenting the trip, shooting entirely on location, making a point of interviewing a wide spectrum of people en route (hippies, redneck law enforcement, good honest salt-of-the-earth Americans, etc). We will be shooting a very specific ten hours or less of footage and covering as much ground as possible in the least amount of time possible. This film must be made quickly. Shot and edited within 21 days, max, with a final running time between 10 and 15 minutes.

The march of radical miniaturization and simplification in motion picture technology that made renegade road films suddenly possible in the late ‘60’s/early ‘70’s has not stopped nor even slowed down. 3CCD 24p cameras like the Panasonic DVX100a (one of which I own and plan to use for this project) have enabled us to dispense with the crew more or less entirely. We have two people, ten tapes, a camera, a flexible suction-cup mount, wireless microphones, a tripod, a destination, and a situation. If absolutely necessary, we’ll recruit two more people and a support vehicle although that does sort of shatter the objective of making a reality out of a very particular myth.

It is one thing entirely to watch a movie, to study it, to talk about it, to dissect and analyze it and write words about it that few people will ever read. It is something else to live it. This is an opportunity afforded by new technology and an eerily heavy blanket of déjà vu in world history. I aim to draw direct, researched parallels between the anxieties and escapist diversions of 1971 and 2007, acting fully in the name of academic legitimacy.

The literature of the time will be our roadmap. We will soak our heads in Foucault and Vonnegut, Terence McKenna and Hunter S. Thompson. We shall take them with us and scan their pages for relevance, scouring used bookshops for additional material if necessary. The Truth, as they say, is…well, you know where it is. If we are successful, the world that birthed us may very well begin to make a sliver of sense. If we fail, we may go mad and in fact never return to Wisconsin. It is the danger that makes it worth doing.