The Harsh Real Estate Market of Creativity

Like most good ideas, someone has done it before.

Just read about this today. Looks like they did a version back in 2008.

This artwork, in the realm of architecture and performance, starts as a massive tower created from lashed together bamboo poles and brings into space representations of complexity and chaos. At its pinnacle, the continually evolving architecture being built from within (no outside scaffolding or support) will cantilever out as far as the bamboo poles network allows, and then will bridge down to the floor.

Theirs moves, I guess. And it is meant to have platforms and walkways, more like a scaffold, where as my tube structure was more to block off space, rather than support movement.

I also like how their piece is justified by the usual artist bullshit, where as I justified mine as a cure for boredom, and a rejection of the super-ego's censorship of crazy/stupid sorta-creative ideas.

Big Bambú is connotative of an autonomous, spontaneous, self-governing, disorganized network responding to itself to better navigate the environment. “It represents me- in that I am who I was, and, I am completely different than I was when I was a little boy.” Doug Starn writes.

Yeah, whatever. Rhizomes and shit. We've all read it on the internet somewhere before. How about you don't "direct a team of 8-13 rock climbers" in something "spontaneous and autonomous" on the roof of the MOMA, and just fill your fuckin' house with tubes, man? Am I right, or am I right?



Anyway, the good news is that the Salem Art Association is letting us (M and myself) fill an old department store with tubes, along with M's sewn cloth monster/plant constructions. I just placed an order for 5000 tubes. As @burnlab said, "That's a lot of hot glue." Yep.

They want us to write an artist statement too. I'm looking forward to it, mostly because I hate artists statements. Rejecting the urge to do something overly sarcastic, about how our structure represents "my authoritarian, oligarchical, well-planned, dogmatic, fascist childhood". THIS IS NOT ART: THIS IS A BUREAUCRATIC DEPARTMENT OF MORAL IMPERATIVES. No. Maybe micro-fiction is the key?

We start construction today. We'll have assistants as well, supposedly. Maybe I'll quote them when their not expecting it, swearing as tubes fall on their heads, and use this as the artist statement. I plan on temporarily unionizing them, at the very least. :)

More info on the opening when we get closer.