-
See, I've already pictured this. Right now we are all on our feet, I'm looking down at my phone, and I'm looking especially great, and you're a captivated audience. I'm telling you what an app is saying to me, and we're walking around the exhibition, me under its spell, you under mine. And pointing to the phone, I go straight into the app's technology pitch. Which says
- 100,000 years ago, we had stories and those stories made pictures on the wall, and people got friendlier looking at them, talking about them. 3,500 years ago we got the alphabet and started writing to each other and collecting everything that began with a letter, and we got even friendlier. 28 years ago we got powerpoint and shortly afterwards the internet, and we made loads of cash together and that way we all got a lot friendlier.Today we have apps and we share everything now, we are all friends, everybody in the whole world. And it was all So-Easy..
And it really was. Because that's what we are looking at, there are So-Easy apps for everything. There's a So-Easy app for holding secrets and a so-easy app for hooking up. This one is So-Easy for thinking. In artistic mode it gives the artwork an autonomous voice - and that voice ensures you don't get carried away in your production and betray its integrity. I really recommend it. Now I'm on the final task, and this is what it says.
- Selecting three words only, please explain what we are seeing without ever using those words. Please refer at all times to the app's true unedited recollection of your thoughts to date and do not use the phallogocentric filter we are all so bored with. When you begin - you are ready.
Three words, first word, round. No. Bigger. Says here- Round is later, square comes first.
Three words, first word, strong. No, says here
- Can't say for sure it's any better.
Three words, first word look at it like this. You've just come in and an indefinite article greets you, and it takes you all the way back to the beginning. And it says
- Here you are painting Venus, as you always have nude, and leaning.
And it looks like this.
- Her blonde hair is blowing into the wind.Like this.
- And you have put an arrow through her heart.Like this.
Now, it says,- You are happy, you paint in the foreground Adonis. You paint him moving away the bushes to reveal her. And his hair is also blowing in the wind. His right leg looks to be fading, and the brushstrokes are loose, and the colours are dark. But his sandals are gold, the ones you wanted last summer. And… He has three hunting dogs, but you can't find room for the third, so you just indicate him, chi chi chi, and then cut off his head. And you stand back, and you realise you've left Cupid out altogether. Didn't cross your mind. So you make him really small, a baby.
Like this. The size of your finger. Fat, so he is not confused with a bird.- And he gets all the attention. And you never think about it again. Until one day you see loads of babies on the telly - babies selling countries, babies raping and boasting, babies in charge, babies of all ages, babies older than you, carrying arrows. And you have a colour in your hand, and it's yellow. And that's all you've got.
Three words, first word from there to B. C the arctic fox. It makes sense. Assisted here by gravity, in-part tethered, in-part free. Like all of us. - None the less, atop a dangerous canopy. - Too wilful to enslave gets robbed, savagely.
That's under-lined here
And there's a list, also.
- Taken is the ground.- Taken is the sky.
- Taken is everything that grows between the two.
So cute. So, so cute in any number, but one. Three words, first word, known quantity. Think instead infinity and take it into your hands. It's heavy or light, you decide. It isn't stated here. Make it blue and electric, and stretch it out into thin lines. And it says, in bold letters
- LET'S CALL THEM LIVES.
And this is all of them, broadly speaking - 1,2,3. 4 dimensions of them. - Lines crossing, here. - Lives blurring, here. And it says .. “That this one” ... No. “This one” ... No. “This one” ... is perfect. But, it's not the one you'll choose.- Walks you take by instinct make a path and others...
it says
- make a ruse”
So here's the invitation- “RSVP”
it says.
Three words, first word, from memory. What Just Happened? I remember…
She was sitting in the armchair, the one by the window. - She had something in her hands, a kind of shape and she had no control over it. - He was sitting in a folding chair with him, and him and him, and they all had chairs, four folding chairs, right in the middle of the room. - When she came in she moved her chair, a wooden one closer to his chair, until they were together, and the three other chairs, the folding ones, moved to the window, beside the armchair but not as close to it as they were to each other. The couple in the corner took their chairs, wooden ones over to the side of the room looking out instead of at each other and he rested his head on the wall behind him, because his chair was small. She noticed his discomfort and offered him her chair but he said he was leaving. She said don't go and he said why, I, and she said, but I, and they both sat back down together to decide.
Three words, first word, something broader than I.
What you just thought of, first thought, best thought. That's what they all say. But, if in this context first thought is forgotten. Killed, outright, no reckoning. Let me remind you, three words, first word tiny, with a tail. Tiny singular, determined creature. This one with two wishes either side. A sweet, tailed and winged thing be. Sweetest ever, sweet dear, darling. Made me - so sad. Dear, Dear... Dear Pegasus. Three words, first word - To whom it may concern.Re: Pegasus
Small mixed-material being has many abilities.
Best of all can fly.
Makes thunder when he runs. And among other things sparks lightening in the imagination.
Dumped, both wings broken, otherwise good condition.
Wormed and chipped.
Free to forever home with one kg of food and a cage.
To rescue : Please see, please see, please... Look up. Out of the sky - tell them, many things are falling. Mayday, mayday. Like I said … Peaches. It's true, tell themStones and meat, falling too. That's really happened. Clouds, completely intact clouds that don't break when they hit. Blobs, blobs with no nuclei. Every other living thing has those three syllables, that's common. Blue spheres of sodium, red blood, bird blood, more blood. Doesn't it hurt?
Tell them, quickly, - Mayday, mayday, delta, echo! - It's easy to remember, if you have nuclei ... it hurts. Now take yourself back to the centre, because we virtually ignored it.
Said the wound to the visitor, open me! That's what it did, it's a trick. There's nothing there, if pushed hard enough, you can reach the other side for sure, that's for sure. Said the wound, “touch me!” That's what it did.
“Please do not” - it could have said, very specifically. “Excuse me - Please do not touch a single thing. - Leave it, leave ittt! Three words, first word - “Sit... good boy.” “ “No,” Pegasus says, standing. Three words, first word, Alpha.Three words, second word, hard. No, constant. Three words, second word, consistent with never giving up. Except for? Never? Three words, second word, tough as in nails, and it feels like this.
Not pulled, hammered. - Roughly bruised, kissed better.Rough, turning to shiny, turning to gold.
- More than gold.
Platinum?
- More than platinum.
Rhodium! - Rough, turning to rhodium.
- No - more than rhodium.
Californium.
- Yes, Californium.
… Dreaming. 3 years later, to the day. 300, 000 years later, I've been for a walk too. One, two... One whole half-life, maybe two...With questions.
1) Can you?
2) If so, do?
Thanks for your time.
And it says only a partial answer. Sorry, no. It says
- It is the only answer.According to a statement, “there are several worlds vertically situated in such a manner that the ground of one forms the sky of another.” The number of these worlds is stated as three -
-better, same, worse.
And it says here, just after that
This list, it says
- This list is exhaustive.
Pfff. It gets wilder than that. Higher, more dangerous... It says here,
- All must be risked to matter.
No matter. No, no matter. It's not going to happen again, not after the last time. Yet you are here, bang centre, the exact half point of the narrative and you are in it.“I am, specifically, on purpose. It's hard for you, I know that.”
You killed me.
”I killed you. It's so hard for me to say that.”
You stole my opportunities?
”I did. I stole them, that wasn't easy.”
You left me dancing all alone without shelter, without home.
”I did. I did that more than once.”
You stole my food and water?
”I stole them, I did.”
And you promise to come again?
Three words, second word #cantgetenough. No #togetheris ... no.
Three words, second word often lost, should be forever. Said the first step to the next, “We could be strangers, just for a while.” Said the second step to the last, “Can't hear you, I'm climbing, meet you at the top.”
”Over here,” said the first step.
”Over there,” said the next.
”Fall back!”
”Keep up!”
All the time reaching, until we are fully grown. But, said the first step to the next. “This place ends in a corner.”
Three words, second word: Note-To-Self. Cause for concern. Best part may come off in the hand. What if there are rules for breaking things of a single nature. Here on this cusp of objective space. Exactly here, exactly where we are right now! For safety, you can make it clear-cut. In which
- No falling is possible,
- Sharp is rounded,
- Distance is optical only,
- One route up is the same down,
- No start,
- No finish,
- Fluid momentum,
- Only gains,
But, you won't remember it that way.
Three words, second word - has a young dream. Three words, third word communicates fully. If this is it, I...
Three words, third word, hole with a W.
Not the hoops, the letters, and not the shapes, same sauce. Same as in the picture. Exactly the same. It's all been accounted for. Count it.
The bones are there, like skeletons, some still dying, submerged, half-submerged, tic.
Eyes popping, tic.
Elbows forced out of knee sockets, tic.
Displaced, tic. Arms, tic.
And you write in a bubble
Are you coming home?
You write this when you are sleeping. Never busier, winkies closed, but little pinkies like canaries in the coal-pit repeating. Come back index. Come back thumb. Make big black marks instead of song. And you can keep you shoes on.
Three words, third word, tic with an O. What about it, what about that, how's that, how'd you do it? Beat the clock.Shrug
No really, you look so good, even after all this time.
And I must have looked it up, because its defined here, as the indefinite continued progress of existence. But I go on to conclude “Creep! Hey you! What kind of a creep are you? What kind of a being are you? What kind of a pervert are you? What kind of friend are you? Hey! Yea, you! And time replies with an aria, and we all fall asleep. Well wake up! Don't move. Stay right where you are. Read me out loud and in a public space. These are my terms and conditions”
Distinguish:
Between effect and affect. Very few people, small proportion, just peeps, can tell the difference, if there is one. Try! Tell it. Tell it what you told me earlier, about when I was just born. You said I said...
Don't you remember? You said I said...
Pie. You said I said PIE, but on the second day I said it in numerals. And you said that I was ever so bright.
The brightest little circle in the whole milky-way. You predicted it. Foresaw it and set me on fire. My whole circumference. From one edge to another without breaking. And when I'm boiling hot and people say I'm dying. What will you have done?
You won't have done it. You won't have done the first thing. Adhered to any of the instructions.Can't miss it anyhow it's ageing, no. Can't miss it, it's gaping. And, it's just the right size. And, it says here
- You put your face in, like this, you put your whole face in, and you scream.
And nothing happens. And you do it again and again. And you know you shouldn't look inside, but you do. And there they are, the things you long for.Three words, third word, the short of it:
A day at the beach
A run in the waves
An ice-cream with a flake
A whole winter-long of dreams coming true, of we-can-do-anythings, be anythings.
So you speak out loud into the hole. “Then I'll race you,” you say.
And the hole says
”I'll challenge you.”
and you say, “then I'll contest you.“
And the hole says
”I'll wager you.”
and you say, “then I'll summons you.”
”I bet you can't,” the hole will say.
But you'll say
”I have, I read it more than once, and I know how it ends.” Spoiled.You are spoiled rotten. You are a spoiled bloody rotten heartbreaking enigma. It's in between the lines we read instead. Where: The idea moves to the protagonist. The protagonist moves to the first test. The first test equips the protagonist with special powers. The special powers move the protagonist through the second test and the second test moves the protagonist into a hero's return. This is clear. What am I?
Three words, third word - credible. No, incredible is fine. Theoretically, three words, third word, nearly. True. Three words, third word, starts with suspense.
No.
Ends happy.
No.
Starts happy - ends. -
In Complete Platypus
***
Characters
H : (Host)
P : (Panel, 1,2,3,4)
C : (Challenger 1,2,3)
***
(Intro music and applause)
Host: Thank you very much and a very good evening to you, to our game of deliberate misrepresentation.
Where-in four presumably smart people try to figure out which one of 3 challengers is sworn to tell the truth.
Of course only one is the real Artist of the Year.
All the others have merely assumed that identity and they do not have to stick to the truth.
Now panel, in front of you, you will find a copy of an affidavit.
Will you please follow along, while I read from it?
(Host reading aloud)
"I was voted artist of the year for my courage in the face of adversity. This is how it all began. I had found myself at an auction, trying to get out of the rain. The shower had been exacerbating a condition of internal mutterings that I had suffered for some time. It was many weeks before, when it happened - that a clump of open-ended creatures seemed to stream past me on the wind, and disappear. {voom}. It was immediately apparent to me that somehow, this ghost of fugitives had become trapped inside my ear. I thought of brutal ways to liberate it and then, eventually I resigned. I tried to imagine instead what might be gained by listening to it. But my ears, I worried, cannot be trusted, occupied like this - they had started to eavesdrop on neighbors, birds, papers-ruffling, foot-steps, and they were firing in response to other frequencies. At times, I wanted to spit them out, - the gasps, squeals, yawns, stammers, screams and squeaks. The bidding had already begun. There were elephant husks, zebra skins and a forlorn bag. The small ticket on it said simply, 'Incomplete Platypus.' Anybody? {bam}. And, then we left together, inexplicably.I took it to the studio, which I had acquired at a knockdown price, and spent all my living hours in. Don't be alarmed the landlord had said, but, there is an enormous rock right in the centre of the space. We are only charging for the floor around it. The rock is moving towards the wall, he explained, but it won't bother you, it's so slow you won't even notice. I shook his hand, confident that I had a long-distant-future ahead and could work around the rock, until one day the whole vista would be mine. But, the landlord had not been entirely honest. It is true, I hadn't noticed the rock moving per-say, but as it did, it shed its sand off in years, centuries of it piled-up in corners and on window-sills, swaddling everything in its wake. I grew attached to the rock and when it reached the wall I saw no stopping it. So I asked the landlord to rent me the space next-door and I followed the rock through the wall, then the next and the next after that, until we were at the end of the street with a tunnel running the whole way back.
I opened up the bag and saw that the body parts were in a loose pile with no nipple, but surrounded with milk. It must have been female. It must have had young. I took its paw in my hand and stroked it. Its hair was still oily and sleek. I had an image of it, as a whole thing living lively, - although it was before me so obviously dead. I closed my eyes, and saw it feeding-by-magic, in the electric fields it might once have commanded, with its eyes, nose and ears closed-tight. Its ghostly shapes, hairy and billed, picked from everywhere terrestrial, ariel and chimerical, like all the odds and ends put together and ignited with a far-fetched chance.
The rock, still on the move, was causing cracks in the gable-wall to appear, like lightening in slow-motions. Soon it would all fall. The mortar-storm crackled for a while and slowly turned dark, when out-of-me, came a sustained ventriloquial {coo}, and everything fell beautifully silent. No bang, no splat, no zip, no oops. No imposed sounds in my head. Outside, people were lining-up to take a peak inside. Soon the whole space was to be open to the public, to strangers and worse still, to friends and family, and I would have to account for myself. I went back to the very beginning, where I had left a broom and I swept forward, reclaiming anything of value and tidying-up around all the broken walls. I perused the boxes and shelves of half and over-rendered works. But I was devastated. I couldn't present them, they were still questions, coy and - hanging there indefinitely, with something missing inside. I examined the platypus and appreciated its every detail under a magnifying glass. And I thought about how even halved, this creation was un-contestable.
The rock, having seen everything before, offered no solace and rumbled on. But here and there, in the last pockets of dusk, I found tiny trumpets floating in the air, like feathers, not falling - but booming. And I placed my ear by one and listened. {If you are lucky,} it said, {you will become a meme like us, you will leave this place with the wind and be part of the spread of ideas, or you will be extinct with the rock and live in its shadow.} I returned to the shelves in light of this pending duel, with a clear head. And I saw at last, the cruel twist. In all that noise, each of the protagonists I had created, during my time between the grinding rock and the fickle wind, had been mute. Suddenly the wall gave way in its entirety, like a joke, and the rock slipped over the threshold and into the night. It had been night without day ever since and still nobody had come. I sparked the stub of a candle, that I found underfoot, and it threw enough light to see me through to the far end of the tunnel, where the studio began at the top of the street. I went there and opened the door. Outside, the street was empty, but it was bright blue with daytime. My eyes took a moment to adjust. Glistening signs of enterprise hanged limp above the shop-fonts, creaking slowly, one and then one hundred. All the windows, ablaze with light, stared blankly back at each other in wincing rectangles and squares. Everybody was dead from starvation and the trees were dead from heat. In the stillness, un-companionable tumbleweeds rolled into town and whizzed by me, like self-motivated lunatics. I wet my finger and put it to the air, feeling nothing. {There is no prosperity where they go} I thought, {whether they are propelled by wind, or compelled by emptiness. Either way, I will not follow.} And I marked an x on the ground to note their direction, so as never to take it.
I wandered further but no doors answered my knock, nor streets of them, or towns of them. Abandoned at high noon, a generation or two, I deduced. I took a sheet of paper off the ground and rolled it up into a telescope, looking through it for all the people, any. In the distance I saw a tiny boat, floating in a small bay, and waiting. Now that there were no people, there was nothing between me and an escape. But I returned inside to the night and left the door open for the day to seep in, in shafts. This vagrancy soon apportioned a significant amount of the more devastated foundations to the tumbleweeds, which were rolling around in them, like garden pets, and getting under my feet. I went to pick one up but it took root in the ground defiantly. So I took a shears and, determined to atone for my time wasted with the rock, I nipped the coup in the bud. The roof was finally falling-in and the tiny trumpets were trying to engage me in their giddy panic, squealing {like, like, like} and scrambling into the shelves, shutting the doors after them. The studio collapsed to the ground, leaving only the press standing in the crush. I blew the dust off and took a look. Everything inside it had turned to petrified stone. Forced to disband from each other, the worried winds had squeezed into whatever material hosts they could find, and before perishing, had eschewed within each of the protagonists distended expressions. The fright had fossilised them in a brief but worthwhile life. I tried to locate the boat again, but could not. I opened the telescope flat and the tiny boat extended its legs, moved over the corner, opened its wings and flew away. I went to the edge, where the wall had been, and I set a small fire. Admiring the rock's unyielding sense-of-self, as much as can be said for the co-operation of many, I was grateful the whole collusion was over.
I realised that the rock had moved a billion years since I had last eaten and was barely distinguishable on the horizon. And I declared myself out loud {slave to neither, nor nostalgia either}. Then I roasted what I could of the platypus, and I ate it hot-off-the-pan, like bubble and squeak. I stood over the tumbleweeds pack, top-dog now. They scattered before me, slowly unfurling a collective harvest of tiny flowers and stems of beans, apples and strawberries, like assorted Spring bouquets. I was already thrilled, when along came a bee, humming in wild amplifications {it loves me, it loves me not, it loves me...} before rollicking from one bunch to the next and bringing Summer.
Signed, Artist of the Year."
Host: And I think its time now to play our game.
Remember only the real Artist of the Year is required to answer your questions truthfully.
Each of you will question until you hear this bell.
Brrng
Host: And at the end of the questioning period you will be asked to register as usual your vote as to which of these is the real Artist of the Year.
Lets start this time with eh, oh, well lets go 1, 2, 3, 4.
P1: Number two. What was the time, that it took the rock, to clear a quarter of a millimetre?
C2: Around 14 hours and 15 minutes, I think.
P1: Number three, what would you say?
C3: I'd say 14 hours and 36 minutes.
P1: Number one?
C1: I think it was about 14 and a half hours.
Alright, eh..
(laughter)
P1: And you, number 2, is your main tool, cerebral, gastro, or vascular?
C2: Well, its all in the mind. Its from the gut. Its in my blood. And I believe in it.
P1: So you are part of the establishment? A dynasty?
C2: Yes, that's it.
P1: Number three, was your relationship with the geological and botanical world always so dramatic?
C3: Oh yes, always. When I was a young child I went swimming with my family on a beautiful Italian lake. When all of a sudden a giant eel sucked up all the water and with it all the people in their swimming togs and bikinis, leaving just me and the plastic swans. There were yellow dinosaurs, orange rings and acres of mud. I was horrified and decided there and then to never grow up. And I had to wait there until the belly of the eel went quiet.
P1: Alright... number one, when you say something petrified the memes, what do you mean?
C3: I don't know, exactly, maybe, my disbelief in them? Or the catastrophic collapse of everything around them, they are parasitical after all. They crave attention.
P1: Number two, where is this place, can I go there?
C2: You can, but, not with logic.
The miles it passes through, the walls, the years and centuries.
If it were locatable, somewhere in a land we know, we would not allow ourselves to travel there.
P1: How can an ordinary person, a civilian lets say - without artistic licence, get a slice of this multi-dimensional, life?
N2: Em, gosh I'm not sure
Brrng
(applause)
P2: Number one, which side of your head did you share with the wind?
C1: Em, my right-hand side
P2:Off the right?
Eh number two, can you describe the rock, did it move east to west or west to east?
C2: Em grey, hard, and it moved thru - lengthways
(applause)
P2: Alright.
(laughter)
P2: Number one, why do you feel you were chosen by the rock? The wind too, were you chosen by the tumbleweeds also?
C1: I wasn't chosen by the wind. The wind was always on its own journey. It didn't care whether I was coming along or not. I may have been chosen by the wind of memes because they eek out vulnerabilities. They can feel you shaking on tiny bandwidths. And the tumbleweeds? Well they came to fill a hole, I guess, to loot space.
P2: Number three, does the artist have an authority to preach or teach the world at large?
C3: One must be more humble than that. After all, what does one imagination have over another, only freedom and the privilege of being expressed.
P2: Right em, You must have been very drained of resources by the time you were forced to pick a side. Was it was vanity that persuaded you?
C3: Yes, I wanted to have something to say, not be stuttering about or spitting gibberish out.
P2: Spitting what out?
C3: Gibberish.
P2: Number one, when you went outside and made the telescope, why did you not take the boat?
C1: Well I didn't go by boat, because I get sick. But also, not chasing the boat that I thought I saw waiting for me, was serendipitous. There was no boat, just the dream of one.
Brrng
(applause)
P3: Number two, your eventual assertiveness is repaid by a revolution among the weeds - Why is it that the bee survives?
C2: Em gosh, I'm not sure.
P3: Number two, do you ever adhere to real time?
C2: Important things transcend time. I also dispose of practicalities such as geography or 100 per cent fact. It is better be feral.
P3: Number 3 what are you most afraid of when you are searching for all the people.
C3: Im afraid of my legs getting awfully tired.
P3: You're not afraid of things in the world?
C3: Well eels
P3: Eels? That interesting,
Host: Not getting hungry!
(laughter)
Brrng
(applause)
P4: Did she say eels or heels?
P3: Eels, Eels
(laughter)
P4: Number two, would it be true to say that you do not escape because there is nowhere else for you to go?
C2: As long as I was bound to the studio in an abandoned world I did not reference any political or social agendas, I flew through periods of hunger and recession. The studio is insulation, it is difficult to leave and still be care-free. But, there are studios everywhere, even in downtrodden places. It's quite exotic. Many artists are needed because they come and go so often.
P4: In the end, what creation of yours made any difference in this world, would you know?
C2: Is it the make-believe gardens?
P4: Thank you very much. Number one, if this is about autonomy and the struggle between tradition and trend. Have you succeeded?
C1: The twist is that with autonomy comes isolation. If the bee comes with spring and by the next flower is in summer, a banquet can be had, but winter is coming too, and quickly.
Brrng
Host: Thats it, time to vote. Hope you've got enough evidence.
Now panel, without consultation will you mark your ballots?
Voting there-by number 1, number 2 or number 3.
Alright panel, have you marked your ballot?
Good, fast voting.
Who did you vote this round?
P1: I voted for number 2.
Brrng
(applause)
Host: How about you what was your vote?
P2: I voted for number three.
Brrng
(applause)
Well, one because of what she said about the eels being a menace in the water and two, because of the way she looks.
P3: Number three.
(applause)
(laughter)
Brrng
P3: Well because she looks the most determined and I don't think anybody could invent that business about eels.
Host: Alright what about you?
P4: Well I voted for number two, em.
Brrng
(applause)
Host: Ha Ha Ha, alright, well there you are, rhyme to reasons they may be. Lets see how well you match with us now. So get set, will the real Artist of the Year, please stand up?
(laughter and applause)
P1 One!
Host: (to the panel) Ha Ha Ha. Well, she fooled you all.
(applause)
Host: (to the 3 contestants) Well there you are now, you see, you fooled everybody.
Congratulations
Challengers 1,2,3: Thank you.
(Closing music and applause) -
STATEMENT OF INHERENT RISK
Appreciating Art is a hazardous activity that carries significant inherent risks of personal and psychological harm or injury, including confusion.
The Artwork ‘Consent Volenti’ is an installation of a large painted landscape. By participating in the appreciation of this artwork you are considered to have agreed with this Statement of Inherent Risk, to have acknowledged that accidents and disillusionment can occur without negligence and to have accepted your personal and voluntary responsibility for the cautious conduct of exhibition-going.
This Statement of Inherent Risk is provided by the Artist as an illustration of some of the risks that are intrinsic or inherent to the appreciation of Art in an exhibition setting, under the Constitution and the Rules of this Artwork.
This Statement of Inherent Risk is non-exhaustive and there will be additional risks, both foreseeable and unforeseeable that will affect the viewer. Some viewers will be totally unaffected. Individuals are obliged to consider other risks relevant to their own personal situation.
This Statement of Inherent Risk is relevant to Art appreciation by amateur and professional viewers, those of Trainee or Qualified status, operating either independently, as the passer-through, in a team or in a concurrent group of solo viewers, for recreational or exploratory purposes in accordance with the Constitution and the Rules of this Artwork.
This Statement of Inherent Risk does not exempt or exclude any member of the viewing community from any criminal liability.
This Statement of Inherent Risk was compiled by the artist and does not represent a professional Risk Assessment of all the risks associated with Art appreciation or the fictional habitat depicted in the Artwork. Such environments and the related activities that take place in such environments have real dangers and have inherent and other risks.
This Statement of Inherent Risk was constructed in consultation with the amateur cave diving association and as a waiver is a voluntary relinquishment of some known or assumed rights or privileges that you might have.
Inherent Risk is the risk that an activity would pose if no controls or other mitigating factors were in place (the gross risk or risk before controls). These risks could result in injury to person or property and can even result in death.
Viewers are exposed to such listed and unlisted risks, including but not limited to human risk factors such as error in judgment or failing to meet expectations.
Inherent Risk(s):
Any obstacles, elements, actions or inactions that might affect the satisfactory completion of the activity. The Artwork has been made in line with the laws of physics and when implausible - jocular physics. Climbing or jumping the work could prove fatal, contrary to jocular physics, outlined below;
1. Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of the situation.
2. Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly.
3. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter.
4. The time required for an object to fall 20 stories is greater or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down 20 flights of stairs
5. All principles of gravity are regulated by fears enabling characters to jump up high to grab a chandelier out of fear of below or while running away from a chasing car to never touch the ground 6. As speed increases objects can be in several places at once; e.g. in a fight, a head can jump out of dusty smoke at several places simultaneously
7. Certain bodies can pass through solid walls while others cannot.
8. Explosive weapons cannot cause fatal injuries, instead turning you black and smoky
9. Gravity is transmitted by slow moving waves of large wave lengths when suspended over a large vertical drop, where feet fall first, then legs stretch, torso falls and neck stretches, head falls and tension is released, falling until striking the ground.
10. Dynamite and gun powder can be spontaneously generated.
11. Any violent rearrangement of matter is impermanent.
12. Things will assume the shape of their container.
13. Everything falls faster than an anvil.
14. For every vengeance there is an equal or opposite revengeance
15. A sharp object when poked will always propel a character into the air upwards with great/shocked velocity.
16. The laws of object permanence are nullified for characters who can materialise signs from behind their back or objects like doors from up their sleeve when and as needed.
Inherent risks are often integral or intrinsic to an activity, where without inherent risk, the activity loses its essential character. Entering into this installation does not guarantee you any of the advantages of jocular physics listed above. Entering into this installation carries the following actual and implied risks.
Large spongy constructions can fall resulting in serious harm including death. (11)
Height accompanies depth-related impairment. (9)
Materials are seductive, but secondary disappointment may occur upon up-close inspection. (7)
A surprise can become regular. (1)
The habitat may not be realised, deployed or maintained exactly as intended by the artist. (12)
The Artwork does not necessarily tell the correct time but will take yours and may leave you with impending notions of time’s relentless passing (13)
Integral to the cartoon ravine are notions of real mortality and the viewer may experience a sudden awareness - that like the horse’s suspended lunge, we submit to that eventuality with a knowing not- knowing. (1)
There are always scale discrepancies when alluding to space and time. (6)
Mitigation action(s)
Any actions or inactions that may reduce the inherent risk or may reduce any damage resulting from the occurrence of the inherent risk.
The viewer is advised
To assess the artificial hazards in the installation, including themselves. (7)
To expect to collide with objects. (3)
To beware of falling natural and unnatural objects from above and assess the floor for the possibility of other objects. (4) To beware of wet paint, touching and contamination. (11)
To look for signs of malfunction such as trembling parts. (13)
To observe rules appropriate to fake physical structures within a gallery environment. (5)
To not engage physically with the piece by climbing, jumping, poking or inhabiting. (15)
To refer to the title regularly. (1)
To replace any doubts with statements. (12)
To consider the risk and benefits of carrying too much information in the gallery. (1)
To beware that multiple questions increase the risk of failure to notice the obvious. (2)
To beware that a narrative may unexpectedly fail to lead to an expected conclusion. (7)
To appreciate the conclusion it does lead to may not be the one you expected. (8)
To assess the possibilities that other viewers in the installation, either known or unknown, may influence you. (16)
To assess the ability of a member of the public to compromise the satisfaction of your visit. (14)
To beware of difficult-to-cut preconceptions such as heavy philosophical, poetic or political lines etc. (3)
To research the ratio dimensions of the work you wish to further investigate against your own body mass index. (11)
To beware that some of the artwork may break when handled. (2)
To take remedial action where appropriate. (6)
To not view up close if you are uncertain of the risks associated with art and disillusionment. (1)
To observe correct ascent procedures if deciding to mount the artwork (4)
To avoid art when overly fatigued. (13)
That communication may fail between artist and viewer. (7)
That taking advise carries its own risk. (15)
To disregard advise where relevant. (10)
In addition to the risks associated with exhibitions, a viewer will also be exposed to the following risks associated with Art;
That the Viewer is a volunteer whose main goals are the appreciation and comprehension of contemporary art, its associated practices and the exploration of exhibitions. (1)
As a volunteer you give your consent and the artist takes no responsibility in the event that you may have come here by mistake or under external pressure. (2)
That the Artist’s Statements, Curators and Gallery Staff can assist Viewers to use well established Art appreciation techniques, so that they may better understand their experience but that satisfaction is not guaranteed. (5)
The viewer is reminded;
That the artist reserves the right to appropriate from ANY or no discipline including art, law, literature, music and film etc under certain fudgy conditions and to liberally interpret health and safety. The artist is entitled to amateur comment on ANY or a combination of MANY and to perform in ANY or none of the following capacities; philosophy, law, history, sociology, politics, carpentry, writing, etc.