Readers may recall our last encounter with Extensions: the Online Journal of Embodiment & Technology. Contributors to this publication include that mistress of mangled language, Professor Caroline Guertin, and Headlong Dance Theatre, whose Thrash: Physical Responses to the Bush Administration is forever seared into our memories. Another, no less daunting, contributor is Bettina Camilla Vestergaard, a Danish artist whose work “explores how collective identity and personal narrative engage one another using a variety of mediums.” Vestergaard’s artistic approach is described, by herself, as
Conceptual and research based. She works with photo, video, sound, drawing and installation. Her latest projects concern identity and gender with a focus on how this is constituted in public space.
The Online Journal of Embodiment & Technology is no doubt honoured to host a Vestergaard original titled Free Speech on Wheels, Let Your Opinion Roll, and which takes the form of
Intervention in public space, writings on car, photos and video.
I can tell you’re intrigued. Vestergaard obliges us with an account of how this “intervention in public space” came to pass:
I had been awarded a stipend from the Swedish government that enabled me to live and work in L.A. for 6 months.
But of course. And why not? Artists do endure hardship for the betterment of all mankind.
I had high expectations of the city’s complex cultural diversity, so it was quite frustrating that my first three months primarily consisted of passing time in quite residential Hollywood, sitting alone in my car, shopping and getting fuel for yet another round.
As I said, hardship.
I had a feeling of involuntarily being trapped in a fixed pattern that repeated itself: like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, my life had begun to revolve around itself, slowly but surely reducing my mental activity to a purposeless series of meaningless events. I conceived Free Speech on Wheels as a means of short-circuiting this experience.
For the betterment of mankind.
The basic idea was to muddle the barrier between public and private, by creating a space where the many and varied identities of L.A.’s communities could be expressed. I began by parking my car where a large group of people were wandering about and proceeded to put up a sign with the following text: “Free Speech on Wheels – Let your opinion roll.”
Of course some artistic interventions need a little nudge:
In order to kick-start the process, I asked the first volunteers the question: “What does being an American mean to you?” I received a lot of different responses depending where I had parked. For example, there was intense writing activity during a downtown student demonstration and at Earth Day, while it was absolutely zero at the Santa Monica Beach promenade.
Fortunately, things soon picked up dramatically.
Then one evening something happened; I had parked at the corner of Alvarado St. and Sunset Blvd. Quite a few people came and wrote on the car, including two middle-aged women whose conservative attire stood out in the crowd. It wasn’t until later, when a commotion arose, that I saw that they had written “FUCK THE POLICE!” in large bold letters on the drivers’ side of the car.
Gasp. Revolution is in the air. And sparked by two women in conservative attire.
My next stop was the May 1st demonstration, where I parked the car in the middle of Macarthur Park. Everybody was incredibly excited about the idea and the atmosphere was full of seriousness, concentration and humour. FUCK THE POLICE had legitimized a liberty where people could express themselves without reservation, and when I left the park, the car was covered in text. In the period of time that followed, I experienced how the car had taken on a life of its own, as it constantly invoked reactions wherever I drove… I saw how my own role had evolved from being the one reaching out to people for their input to conveying these inputs to others.
“Conveying inputs,” see, for the betterment of mankind. Is further escalation even possible?
With the addition of FUCK THE POLICE, the car had developed into a place where it was permitted to express oneself against power.
By the Great Beard of Marx, the revolution is here. It’s a socio-political avalanche.
The car became a transcending force, breaking social boundaries, and erasing memories of my humdrum Hollywood existence, except for when a police officer pulled up alongside me, at which point there was no doubt that my privileged position in society acted as a protective shield.
With such transcending force unleashed, the Oppressive Bourgeois Hegemon™ will surely have been enraged. Thank goodness Ms Vestergaard had sufficient “privilege” to shield herself against the terrible, terrible power of a nearby police car. Video of this transcending force in action can be found here. The material residue of The Vestergaard Odyssey can be admired at length below.
Ms. Vestergaard’s artistic endeavours have been subsidised by the Danish Arts Council, the Arts Grants Committee Sweden, the Danish Ministry of Culture and the Cultural Council of Aarhus. Further mighty works can be encountered here, along with their vast and staggering cultural implications.
If you can, make a donation. I’ve hit men to hire.
“I had been awarded a stipend from the Swedish government that enabled me to live and work in L.A. for 6 months.”
Maybe they just wanted her as far away as possible.
“except for when a police officer pulled up alongside me, at which point there was no doubt that my privileged position in society acted as a protective shield.”
Her privileged position as what – a talentless freeloading tosser? And did the police officer actually do anything?
“And did the police officer actually do anything?”
Alas, she doesn’t say, which I guess means no. I suppose we’re meant to believe that the mere proximity of a police car is a symbol of the Oppressive Bourgeois Hegemon™ and thus a mortal threat to the artistic fire within.
Yeah, because when someone breaks into your house the first thing you look for is a conceptual artist.
LOL
“Complex cultural diversity… creating a space… explores collective identity… communities… personal narrative… conveying inputs… intervention…”
Kill me. Kill me now.
“…at which point there was no doubt that my privileged position in society acted as a protective shield.”
If one didn’t know better, one might think she was boasting.
… Oh good GOD. This is why when asked my profession I say ‘Illustrator’. ‘Artist’ would connect me with these kinds of idiots.
“because when someone breaks into your house the first thing you look for is a conceptual artist.”
From Protein Wisdom: http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w131/vermontaigne/-5.jpg
“This is why when asked my profession I say ‘Illustrator’. ‘Artist’ would connect me with these kinds of idiots.”
Ah, but the real art is getting funding for horseshit of this magnitude.
You know the first thought that came onto my mind is
“there really is an invisible knapsack”.
There’s no other way this woman could carry that much baggage otherwise.
What if the conservatively dressed women were taking the piss and wrote “fuck the police” ironically?
Did the taxpayers of Sweden and Denmark get to keep the car and its “transcending force”?
What a waste of a perfectly good Super Beetle. Perhaps it would have been more transgressive if he had gotten people to mark up a late-model S-class Benz … belonging to a perfect stranger who parked in the spot behind the Beetle. But hey, then he might have had to blow the whole stipend to make bail. How much fun is that?
Lifestyles of the Sniveling, Privileged and Pampered. Who knew narcissism was a career option?
Funding at that level requires horseshit of that magnitude. The phrases that make Gort beg for death are the markers that you have to throw out if you want to garner approval for your project from your fellows in the academic salon, who would rather commit ritual suicide than support a creative effort that didn’t purport to deal with some kind of issue. If you largely make art for visual reasons and write about it sensibly, you’re in real trouble.
Revvy, I feel your pain but I refuse to cede ground to them. I’m an artist because I make art. Vestergaard’s an artist because there’s nowhere else to categorize that crap.
FUCK THE POLICE had legitimized a liberty where people could express themselves without reservation …
… as long, presumably, as they had the wit to express the correct thought. Or would the artist have been just as keen to legitimize a liberty where people could express a thought along the lines of ‘SUPPORT THE POLICE- SOME OF THEM ARE QUITE NICE REALLY’, or even ‘FUCK PUBLIC FUNDING FOR THE ARTS’?
Shades of a Yoko Ono project at a recent Venice Biennale, where one could place stickers, or magnets or something – for some reason the finer details of this life-changingly liberating artistic intervention into my world-view escape me at the moment – saying ‘Peace’ on a map of the world. But what if one wanted to say something other than ‘Peace’? Too bad, really. I remember regretting the fact that I don’t actually always carry an indelible marking-pen upon my person.
“Ah, but the real art is getting funding for horseshit of this magnitude.”
Call it the Arts & Craps Movement. 😛
“Call it the Arts & Craps Movment”
Did you not find that funny, David? I thought it was a moderately clever reference to the Arts & Crafts Movement which gave us so much beautiful work.
“Fuck the Police” and “except for when a police officer pulled up alongside me”?
If anyone thinks these are rare or unique, they’ll surely be champing at the bit to come over to see pictures of my dog, Bumpsie, and maybe even my lovely home movies!
Apologies for the recent glitch with invisible comments. I’ve had several villagers taken out and shot, so it shouldn’t happen again. I think Franklin hits the nail on the head. Ms Vestergaard’s generic verbiage is not only a marker of flummery and incompetence, it’s also the language of funding. Which makes the pretensions of radicalism even less convincing:
“Funding at that level requires horseshit of that magnitude. The phrases that make Gort beg for death are the markers that you have to throw out if you want to garner approval for your project from your fellows in the academic salon, who would rather commit ritual suicide than support a creative effort that didn’t purport to deal with some kind of issue. If you largely make art for visual reasons and write about it sensibly, you’re in real trouble.”
“Did the taxpayers of Sweden and Denmark get to keep the car and its ‘transcending force’?”
Alas, we’re not told this either. And, as with Ms Vestergaard’s work in general, it’s quite hard to care.
In other news, Ms Vestergaard has shared her wisdom and experience at a conference titled, rather grandly, “Tracing the New Mobilities Regimes: the Analytical Power of the Social Sciences and the Arts.”
http://cosmobilities.net/fullnews.php?id=78
Yes, the arts and social “sciences” are coming out of this looking really, really good.
“Support the police – as it is their duty to uphold our right to write rude words on cars”.
Did I read somewhere that Miss Vestergaard is now taking her Free Expression Car to Saudi Arabia? Or perhaps I dreamt it.
Horace,
“Or perhaps I dreamt it.”
Yes, I fear so. My estimation of Ms Vestergaard might have risen significantly if she’d taken her “intervention” to Zambia, Iran or Saudi Arabia – ideally Mecca – where it could conceivably mean something. Perhaps neither she nor her sponsors think “breaking social boundaries” and “expressing oneself against power” would be quite so welcome there, or indeed tolerated.
http://davidthompson.typepad.com/photos/pictures1/mecca_beckons.jpg
Loitering around festivals and protests in L.A., among sympathetic people and where no real threat exists, doesn’t quite cut it.
“Oppressive Bourgeois Hegemon™”
You should definitely go for a registered trademark. Like the guy who trademarked “freedom of expression”…
David
“Loitering around festivals and protests in L.A., among sympathetic people and where no real threat exists, doesn’t quite cut it.”
Yes, indeed. Of course, I wouldn’t necessarily want Ms Vestergaard to put herself in harms way. And of course there’s no intrinsic need for artists to be in danger in order to produce works of art. What rankles of course is when artists like Ms V BEHAVE as though their activities require moral and physical courage. I can never work our whether they truly believe that they are being “edgy” when they’re only being conformist, or whether they’re just playing up to the trendy dimwits who like to be fooled by the illusion. Sometimes I think it’s just intellectual and linguistic hoop-jumping, like when playwrights are commended for their bravery because they have written a play critical of Guantanamo Bay, or the Israeli Wall. In this case “bravery” has simply ceased to mean what it used to mean, but it still retains its glamour and provides a warm glow.
Anyhow, I can’t work out quite where this particular pathology lies, which I think is why I find it so irritating.
Did you see that episode of Top Gear where the lads went off to the deep South of the USA and drove cars daubed with gay slogans and disobliging references to country and western music? That probably wasn’t art either, but it was certainly a lot more …erm … stimulating.
I think that writing ‘FUCK PUBLIC FUNDING FOR THE ARTS’ on the side of Bettina’s government-provided car would have been rather more profound, not to mention hilarious.
Horace,
“I can never work our whether they truly believe that they are being ‘edgy’ when they’re only being conformist, or whether they’re just playing up to the trendy dimwits who like to be fooled by the illusion.”
You do realise we’re now pondering whether it’s *actual* self-regarding psychodrama or just the opportunist *pretence* of self-regarding psychodrama…? Either way, it doesn’t exactly impress. And, yes, we take Top Gear very seriously at Thompson Towers. It’s a religious thing.
I recall in my distant youth a similar art installation. The powers that be made a particular area in our institution clinical, sterile, cold, white and devoid of any artifice or decoration. The dehumanising intention was obvious to all who had their eyes open. So we set out to subvert it using politicised slogans. On the walls went the phrases: “Don’t let the bastards grind you down”, “Down with the cistern”, “I heart Slade” (presumably referring to the notorious prison), “Mr Venables is a fascist”, “Sharon is a slapper” and many many more. Soon the installation became the venue of choice for subversive activities such as group meetings and smoking banned substances. Unfortunately some of my colleagues were weak and when the bell went they abandoned the revolution, left the loo and trooped back into class.
“…presumably referring to the notorious prison…” 🙂
Joyous – I’m contacting my friends in LA right now to draft me a ‘supporting proposition’. I see a week-long wallowing in the La Brea Tar Pits as the best method for articulating my gender-alignment…
Don’t forget to create a space for exploring cultural diversity and expressing yourself against power. And always convey your inputs.
I’m thinking a slow descent into an infinitely deep pit of pure bitumen might actually be a preferable existence to digesting years of this art-balls. And I’m an artist.
They could then winch me out in 5000 years time, accusing finger still pointing aloft, and install me in my own ‘Memorial Museum of Scepticism’…
‘Ah, but the real art is getting funding for horseshit of this magnitude.’
A Scandie masterpiece (an oldie, but you may not have heard of it): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Bye_Beauty