Think About Feigning It: Half-Assed Solutions for Image-Conscious Quandaries |
By Russ Gottwaldt |
What to do when you long for the easy, mind-numbing days of your summer job?
So you�ve worked diligently over the summer to pay for the ridiculous tuition
that comes from attending Chicago�s most aggressively promoted art school. Perhaps
you even abandoned your low-paying, thankless, work-study job on campus for
a low-paying, thankless job at Jiffy Lube or Pizza Flame.
Initially, the first few weeks of cleaning offices, making pizzas, or changing
the oil on Ray Bickles� Ford Focus seemed stifling, but eventually, you nestled
yourself right down into a little routine of mundane repetition. You became
comforted by the fact that none of your academics transferred into your part-time
job.
As a responsible, carry-your-own-weight, never-take-a-free-ride student, you
persistently carried out the duties expected of you at your soul-crushing, minimum
wage place of servitude and found that once your soul had indeed been crushed,
existence seemed, ironically, less existential. At the end of the day, you were
too tired to worry about the culturally negative impact the summer blockbusters
were having on the nation�s youth and your fatigue eclipsed any worries you
had about pumping gasoline paid for with the blood of Iraqi civilians and U.S.
soldiers. You began realizing how pleasant it is to go an entire day peeling
potatoes among co-workers without anyone mentioning Matthew Barney. You grew
comfortable with describing images, performances, or stories as �cool,� without
any elaboration or specificity.
Then fall semester began and you realized how complacent you had grown. You
now long for the days when formalism was limited to evenly spaced pepperoni
amidst the green peppers or when conceptuality was reserved for the days when
you had to figure out how to move the furniture around for the carpet cleaners.
You�ve grown so accustomed to being uninspired that the thought of creating
an opinion of your own frightens you. There are ways to remedy this:
First, be sure to take
classes with an opinionated, self-absorbed professor. Since these abundant teachers
enjoy reflecting solely on their own tired notions, the academic work in such
courses is simply a matter of paraphrasing their divine thoughts when prompted
to write or speak. Try to repeat these teachers� concepts, as would a struggling
first year student�with repetition and over-discretion�as if these nuggets of
brain food are the newest, most exotic and nourishing forms of thought ever
experienced.
Secondly, if your friends challenge your artistic sensibilities, don�t risk
doing a mental workout when you�ve grown so flabby and brittle over the summer
(mentally speaking). Repeatedly lifting opinions from Artforum, Wired, or independent
film magazines is the only work out you�ll need. It�s an easy way to let a group
of established, aesthetically conscious professionals think for you. You may
worry that your peers will discover uncanny parallels between your thoughts
and popular magazine articles, but set these superficial qualms aside. Most
students, steeped in their own self-consciousness, will validate points of view
only when another institution or larger authority has already backed them up.
Teachers and friends will be flabbergasted that your insights coincide with
the insights of respectable cliques in New York City.
Third and most important, do not contradict Michael Moore. Trying to argue against
even minor points contrary to the I-love-Michael-Moore collective, will discredit
your integrity as an artist and make you appear prudish. No art student fresh
off the farm should think contrary to such an insightful, charming, funny, funny
man.
F Newsmagazine
September 2004