Wednesday, January 7, 2009

The bog,



Awesome humans: Manuel, Robb and Sam B all chipped in hard and carved out a path for the pissoir. They were so fast and efficient I wound up wondering why I hadn't done it already. I am considering using only pistachio shells to demarcate its borders. They are light in color ( this should aid in night time walks) and we seem to constantly replenish them.

At the moment the path just kind of ends and I would like the pee to make its way (if only moderately) under ground. The question is, " how does one know that they are finally at the pisser?"

So much art seems as if it implies something. A lot of work has the patina of intention and the scale and tenor of something vastly meaningful. Yet, frequently, I feel as if I am lead down a long hallway only to be told that the journey was the destination: Screw that. If I work hard to trace the designs of an artists intention I want their to be a payoff. I am really tired of that whole, " Hey, it is whatever you want it to be."One could say that about a punch in the nose too, but one rarely would. I think their was a time where that sort of work was relevant and inventive; such is the work of Bruce Nauman. Both the following image and the well known Duchamp are titled "Fountain."

A lot of it is kind of terse and mean spirited but IT manages to somehow summarize the whole elitist position of late modernism and satirize it at the same time.It is hard to be a fan of that sort of thing, but at least I get it.

So, these are the things I am thinking about when we go to build our pissoir. Suggestions? What do we want to pee on? How do we avoid the vulgar and hackneyed tropes of our time? Should we reference our own passing? Should we get all environmental and all?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pissing in the snow
outside my door--
it makes a very straight hole.

-Issa

Jeff Olson said...

insanum compleo