perspektive 43/44

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perspektive 43 // avantgarde_under_net_conditions //

RongWrong

RongWrong is the cyberspace for discussion other RongWrongs
interview - english

[question 1 - perspektive] after getting through the ascetic stage, the stage of accumulation of symbolic interests and the one to use this interests in the public the avant garde reaches the last stage where it looses symbolic interests and get into somehow "realness" of life and capitalism. RongWrong blames the avant garde in this last stage of gallery heaven and corporate paradise. especially dada got to the campfire for art scholars and semi designer portfolios. in which stage is RongWrong and/or is there a graffiti mouse left for being avant garde AND beign RongWrong?

[RongWrong]

Excuse me if I interrupt--well, that sounds like a very nice Marx
impersonation, my congratulations--you talk about predictable stages and
everything, as if all illusions are on purpose disappearing to reveal "actual
reality"--however, Marx loved Balzac and his beautiful elusive illusions about
Paris more than Paris. 
        There is more than a bit of illusory confidence in that teleological
pronouncement above. How does one know that the 'actual reality' is where you
have arrived instead of another endless rumination so desperate for some
closure, that it throws a net over the world, just to feel it still for a
moment, to feel that it has arrived somewhere, even though such static nets
failed and are still only in mid-drift, a world with a moving net over it? Did
the net work? 
        Back to Balzac. I have it on a good authority--Marxist geographer David
Harvey (known for his many books and fertile mind for the past 40 years, and
admirably, his love of Balzac)--that Marx styled his Communist Manifesto to
mimic Balzac. I read in the New Yorker once that Balzac wrote so manically only
because of his love-addiction to coffee. He would grind some beans, and make
some coffee. Then he would buzz and write. Then it would wear off. Then he
would make a stronger, smaller cup of coffee with the grounds. Then he would
buzz and write. Then, at the still point of this story, he would eventually in
desperation take the coffee grounds and eat them. What is the moral of this
story? What coffee was Marx drinking? What brand name? These are the important
issues.
        Anyway why bring up Balzac? Because Balzac was interested more in the
interrelationships of the world, instead of promoting stolid stages where
somehow all history is compressed into the missed nanosecond where historians
blink and then open their startled eyes to a world that short blink has
entirely changed over to a novel set of static relations.  Before the drying
crystallization of the academic disciplines in the later 1800s and early
1900s--Balzac, novels, and journalism were the social sciences. And Balzac
could hardly be said to have gone through a "phase" where it was all the
glitter that impressed him, then, further moving to "reality" after that. It
was like that from the beginning.
        In other words, I would challenge you to think over your idea of
'stages
in the avant garde' here as a useful way to think about art. What happens I
would surmise is that this concentrates unfortunately on the useless, fey
qualities of anything instead of the core experience that like a magnet has
drawn to it all sorts of fluff pretending it is iron--and when it fails to
stick around, well, it was fluff after all! The useless qualities being that
there are always the party hoppers jumping from this to that messing everything
up having a grand event. However, that is part of RongWrong, so welcome
reprobates!  The nice couches all ready for your cigarette butts are the ones
facing the terrace! 
        The way I have seen "surrealism" in the past (or the "sur-ruralism"
from
which RongWrong expanded) that there is always a plethora of penumbric
interrelations between art, social movements, and social progressivism
desires--cantankerous visionaries buried in the fluff of media, marketing, and
useless art shows.  Surrealism was very serious, certainly about its humor.
However much the public wants such heights on their own, in aggregate they ruin
it for each other and get RongWrong.
        It seems to me that the "original" surrealists set out to do something
self-aware of its framing, its politics, and its aesthetics from the start:
dismantle the idea of the bourgeois artist and bourgeois consumption of art.
Breaking down the barriers between the consumer and the consumed.
Unfortunately, that sells. 
        They had little idea of what to do afterward, and except for some
religio-mystics who were "dada before dada, and dada after dada" like Ernst,
who was just passing through--the social RongWrong experience of surrealism
predictably fizzled and even became boring. Chamfort wrote that simply because
people want to see bears on chains walking down the street is little rationale
for people to go out there and actually do that for the public. However,
RongWrong, absolving all, understands there is only one way in the world, and
all forks lead to a knife in the back.
        In short, the stages are in reverse order if there are any stages:
self-aware political import, seriousness, then popularization, then schisms of
equally seriousness demoting the original seriousness, then popularization,
boredom, loss of purpose, RongWrong, etc. Tragedy. Attempts to mask (and/or
masque) tragedy. 
        In other words, I am suggesting that this process is all downhill to
sophistry instead of "leading ever higher" to some rarefied artistry. It's
rarified artistry from the beginning. Emily Dickenson did say that publication
is the auction of the human mind, you know. 
        I feel it is a mistake to see "avant garde" suddenly turning to
material
or moral concerns, or assuming that an interest in "shock" or "dis by
definition is incompatible with morality or with material concerns. The avant
guarde always has had a bit of religious millenarianism about it, a bit of
divine spark. It's a protest medium, a medium of complaint, of upset, of pain,
of mockery. What else could its aim be except an original concern with lost
values?
        And, back to your quote, instead of getting to the "realness" RongWrong
is all about how thin and paltry what passes for "real" is. How set into
illusions the "real" (or what people claim as real) is. I mean, is this a
low-end bargain-basement consumer item, or what?     RongWrong is all about the
inverse of what you surmise--it is about how to unravel the skin of an onion
without tears, it is about taking apart a sweater and wrapping it around a
sheep, that becomes a lamb once more in joy.

RongWrong blames the avant garde in this last stage of gallery heaven 
and corporate paradise. 

        Yes, I feel that description is apt, though it's more a sense of
Sysephean endlessness instead of a last stage, the endlessness of water
splashing out from any stone thrown into it is always submerged back into the
lake, covered with other rocks from before.   

especially dada got to the campfire for art 
scholars and semi designer portfolios. 

        I remember someone coming up to one of l'eminence grise's photo
exhibits, eager for contact. All he could tell me about for what "he was doing"
was a required (non-)art school project where the topic was assigned and it was
those inane Absolut Vodka advertisements. He was proud of something about it,
and I honesty forget what he said about it. I was sitting there drinking my
tea, watching the patrons in the quiet coffeehouse/restaurant/basement of a
coffee factory.  THE BEST ART OF THE MEAL said the neon sigh of a sign, gasping
out a stunted message thanks to long gone out light bulbs that would have made
the coffee slogan "the best part of the meal" originally. Anyway, there I was,
with this greedy nonentity, listening to him rapturously describe an
advertisement that has little purpose except for itself--which means that it
has zero purpose--and just to see what would happen--me being without tenure
and all, that it's much easier--said near the top of my voice in the stillness
of this cavernous room, looking straight at him, "THAT'S UTTER SHIT!" It was
interesting that he was sort of calmed by such an admission, he smiled relieved
and guilty, like I was some sort of priest absolving him through my enacted
catharsis, and he continued on, acting like he was going to convert me to some
metaphorical point that he had embedded in that faux-advertisement of his as a
sign of his worth, as a sign that "he knew it was shit anyway" and had embedded
that meaning in the work. Well, what is the use of such empty rationalizations?
What is the use of painting clouds on prison walls and then laughing at prison
walls, like you are smart or something? You idiot. You are still in prison. You
are still your own jailer and perpetuating the crime of emptiness. Well, I
switched to Sky Vodka soon after that, I can tell you.

in which stage is RongWrong 
and/or is there a graffiti mouse left for being avant garde AND beign 
RongWrong?

        Well, as I said I fail to see any stages in this. It's the
co-option and
subsequent commercialization of the surreal that RongWrong is pouncing on like
a scritti politti graffiti mouse. If RongWrong is to be taken as both (1) the
act and (2) the co-option of the act, and (3) discussion of the inescapability,
(4) with a design to pressure more attempts at escape, then RongWrong's mouse
is like a dog chasing its tail, winking knowledgeably at you as its spinning
reveals its eye to you each time.

[question 2 - perspektive] RongWrongs defines itself as an art movement in the sense of being a guerilla manualist. provides propaganda material on the website as powerpoint presentation, books, fliers and mediations. it is also a puppet state empire for all the RongWrong artists who want to share martinis and memberships. NSK proclaims an artistic state in time. Does RongWrong maintain a imperialistic state in art or what does puppet mean refering to corporate signs and commercialization?

[RongWrong]

RongWrong's estate is a cyberspace expression--simultaneously
everywhere
and omnisciently nowhere. Wider expanses are immediately, like satori,
available on the internet, without the intervening, the waiting throughout the
saros of adolescence for the rare eclipse to pass through your life in transit,
revealing only then wider symmetries. RongWrong through the medium of
cyberspace is suddenly in your face 23:59:59 hours a day 365.24 days a year. 
It can be taken in small doses, or read through with THE BEST ART OF THE MEAL
like espresso that leaves your heart pounding, aching for more, racing as if
words that are pouring into your eyes had only been invented seconds before,
sounding and booming out though as if they are timelessly perched, freshly
stenciled in that elusive ageless, unmoving stillness that Times New Roman has,
like text-heavy monoliths on a gray background. Few if any images. Only the
RongWrong moon to guide you. John Murphy, the Great Rotwang himself, asked me
once why I kept the site so sparse. I told him flatly, "no, RongWrong is
supposed to be visually disappointing, that's part of the statement." Plus I
was looking for a sense of 'self-election' into RongWrong, wanting to get to
know those who would fasten on the words instead of the lack of images. He was
impressed, and humbled. "Man, you are probably the only other person who
understands that," he said with a gleam in his eye. Later, images were added,
though they are buried within RongWrong, like striations of color in black
opal, with a map to find them except one's own adventuresome exploring. 
        I like the further symbolism of the sudden immediacy RongWrong
asks, the
intimacy RongWrong asks of silent readers imbibing RongWrong in the equanimity
of all who approach across the world that is tied down with cables and
struggling to get out of the RongWrong--there are even the Saudi Arabian hits,
hits from a state where likely they would have their mouse hand cut off for
seeking out, or even desiring, RongWrong. I smiled when I see these Arabian in
origin web hits. This is because there is something Islamic about RongWrong I
have often thought as well--the intentional lack of worshipping icons, avoiding
worshipping the image, and instead beautifying the text to focus and serve
RongWrong-- however unlike Arabic in the sight RongWrong may be, hopefully
Arabic to the ears. 

        The cyberspace Puppet State empire provides a literal shadow government
framework in practice as a commentary on Puppet States, scraping
sanctimoniousness, empire, and ecological degradation we habitually persevere
in calling our "way of life" instead of our "way of death." RongWrong is the
cyberspace for discussing other RongWrongs. 

[question 3 - perspektive] RongWrong states that political dadaism is an oxymoron and makes itself the "dada of dada" - a kind of mistress of dadaism. you blame the daily broadcasting for its mastery of platitudes of style and rewind the mac luhan massage medium to the point of the initial sending machine: the message is the media - the massage is multimedia. you reuse political tools to revert the recipients to what is RongWrong - the core intention of the sender. is RongWrong only a new form of SM entertainment or the only way out of media orphany?

[RongWrong]

Ah, that such translations are already garbled is another smiling sign of
RongWrong in action. This is entirely in error. 

You quote:
"RongWrong's manifesto is like Tzara's in that he opposes manifestly all
manifestos. And this particularly good plagiarist feels that political dadaism
is an oxymoron. RongWrong feels that political dadaism, through the internet,
is our beautiful hopeful Pandora's Box to explicate ourselves from a situation
in which ideological politics has disguised the governmental political idiom.
Have you visited paradise lately?"

which clearly refers to the preceding link (which you should check), instead of
RongWrong, is being referred to as feeling that "political dadaism is an
oxymoron. [However]. . . . RongWrong feels that political dadaism, through the
internet, is our beautiful hopeful Pandora's Box to explicate ourselves from a
situation in which ideological politics has disguised the governmental
political idiom. Have you visited paradise lately?"

See how hopeful that is?  I respectfully submit that you are in error on this
point. Turn it around. RongWrong feels that given present contexts in the
world, anything BESIDES political dadaism is unjustifiable. 

you blame 
the daily broadcasting for its mastery of platitudes of style and 
rewind the mac luhan massage medium to the point of the initial 
sending machine: the message is the media - the massage is 
multimedia. 

"The massage is multimedia." --ah, that's going on the RongWrong koan page.
;-)  That is IT exactly. Ergonomic 'comfort' is only a padded shiny cage of
repression. Of course that is nothing novel--Marcuse was writing about it in
the 1950s. An acquaintance of mine, Bruce, the Aleppo Espresso
(http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~mrkdwhit/page16.htm#Bruce) once said that he was
spending so many hours working at Photoshop at his multimedia work, that he was
losing the ability to think in colors or to use words, that everything tangible
was being bowdlerized into pixilated predictability in his mind. He looks at
the sky, he says, thinking 'more cyan, rub out those clouds.' He analyzes the
wood grain in his desk wondering what techniques or filters were used to create
it. The world pours out of the screen like lava and dismantles his unified
world into a series of clicks, mouse glides, and color filters leaving him
exhausted. He found he literally took work home in other words, visually.  
        I believe you mean message, though spelling/typing errors can be a seat
of brave wisdom occasionally--and that was one such occasion.
        And yes, exactly, RongWrong attempts to get around the mediums used, to
achieve a direct empathetic transference of the RongWrongness of it all. To
whit, RongWrong employs various methods in an attempt to get around method,
RongWrong to explore meanings. I suppose this is Islamic. Perhaps there should
be an Arabic translation of the RongWrong? That would certainly look nice. I
would love to hear how it sounds. I'm reminded of Laurie Anderson's "voice of
authority" as well in RongWrong.

you reuse political tools to revert the recipients to 
what is RongWrong - the core intention of the sender. 

        Oui.

is RongWrong 
only a new form of SM entertainment or the only way out of media 
orphany?

        Ah. It is both. It is a practice that engenders one by performing the
other. Do you see? When one comprehends that "RongWrong itself is RongWrong"
(http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~mrkdwhit/page19.htm#koans)--that it is both
simultaneously, then yes, it is both a sado-masochistic entertainment about
"media orphany" (an excellent phrase), as well as a way out. Less by accepting
passivity the 'orphan' status, and more by simply running away or RongWrong
creating a whetstone for those who want to sharpen their gall to run away from
their '"media orphan" status' back into human relations. I congratulate you on
this insight above. And this means running into someone's life (or lives)
instead of the cradle of the telephone modem. It means creation and assemblage.

[question 4 - perspektive] how will the RongWrong army of thinkers recruted and will they survive the age of plastification? is the internet a hidden place for many pandora boxes opened only by splendid artistic warriors to neutralize the content management system? :-)

[RongWrong

Well, this gets back to our disagreement (perhaps) about epistemology.
Though perhaps I have convinced you to drop this predictable modernist
delusion? Actually I get sadistic pleasure from agreeing with Microsoft CEO
(criminal ex-urban organizer) Bill Gates: the internet does bring people
together, at least it puts them into situations that make it more likely they
will get together. I know two people who have used the internet to get married,
travelled thousands of miles to meet virtual strangers and
suddenly--poof!--marry them. It's very strange to me. 

"is the internet a hidden place for many pandora boxes opened only by splendid
artistic warriors to neutralize the content management system? :-)"

        Ah, you smile, though this is deathly serious work, tightroping to keep
from falling into stereotypes of megalomania (while critiquing megalomania and
omniscience) or stereotypes of stand up comedy (while critiquing the emptiness
of stand up comedy.) John printed out some RongWrong pages and distributed them
around his staid American workplace. He went in early one morning and placed
these copies on everyone's desks. (I am imaging a scene out of Naipaul's _A
House for Mr. Biswas_, in the tight, bright stuffy newspaper editorial room
with its desks all in lines, RongWrong emblems emblazoned upon post-WWII metal
desks, heavy as uranium. 
        The reaction is exactly what I expected. John found that when he asked
about RongWrong and what they thought, their responses were squirmy and
evasive. It was like he was asking something very taboo, though something they
were embarrassed to be embarrassed about, as though it was something that
everyone knew about already though was so terrified of standing up and talking
about. He described this quality of half liking/half fear--as if they were
puzzled and drawn to RongWrong, and puzzled at being drawn to RongWrong.
RongWrong got under their skin. 
        Within RongWrong there is an intentional walking of that tightrope of
reflecting conflicting messages, and people looking for some clue as to how to
pigeonhole it, to discredit it, how to classify it so they can escape it.
However, they coming up with nothing, nothing except being drawn into
RongWrong, and slowly seeing through the "massage of the multimedia." THIS
attempt to communicate a message, a moral message, and one they agreed with,
made them evasive. He was sort of cornering them, corning their "souls" and
asking a rhetorical "are you with us or are you against us?" And people were so
afraid, and afraid of being with RongWrong and agreeing. This was confusing
them. No one would speak about it in more than a whisper to John. 
        Though later they were all sort of fearfully diplomatic, like "yes,
what
do you want me to say, laugh, laugh, yes, I like it, though let's put this
behind us--i'm trapped in this job,etc. shred these papers, etc." RongWrong
makes contact, contact as pure as if someone had erected a huge sign and hung
it in space shining down on the earth reading "G.W. Bush is an Asshole." And it
was as if the whole world, or at least the democratic majority--5.75 billion or
so if we are actually going to be democratic about democracy the whole world
votes as one--entirely agreed, yes, "G. W. Bush is a Futile Asshole" and were
afraid to find themselves in agreement and unsure how to proceed. It is this
"ready, though unsure how to proceed" quality that RongWrong leaves people
with, like a bitter though enticing aftertaste. 

At points like this--at the commencement of the 21st century particularly, when
we all know that we are being ruled by a huge monied plutocracy that makes sure
all our consumptive decisions and political elections entirely are tilted
towards world destruction--at points like this actual revolution happens.
Instead of violence, I mean simply snapping into a novel sense of actuality. De
Toqueville wrote that France had this strange ebullient quality for several
months in 1789, when there were tears, cries, happiness, and joy that anything
was possible. RongWrong sets up such a situation, solidifies it into print, and
lets it seep into private homes and public schools (and private schools and
public homes) all across the world. RongWrong is addressing the world,
castigating the world, lovingly fondling the world, saying it is good, it can
do better.  Those who find RongWrong are already participating through
RongWrong, through seeding RongWrong.  
        It's tacitly known by everyone, though putting people in a position TO
ACT UPON THIS KNOWLEDGE is what RongWrong catalyzes. RongWrong beacons and
beckons for others to take up the gauntlet instead of hanging back gaunt. 
        That is what John sensed was making them nervous. RongWrong was asking
them to ponder the difference between their thought and expression, and to join
a social movement, and they shocked themselves: they agreed:

"Mull deeply on your decision. RongWrong can be seemingly light in form, but
once begun, at work in one's mind, RongWrong political deconstructionism may
lead one to become a better person, something one's level of social
responsibility at present may interfere with, if incredibly low, as standards
go at present. RongWrong may endeavor to improve one's lot as an individual,
and thusly, interfere with one's social standing, as one begins to be more
acutely aware of a raging hypocrisy between thought and expression. RongWrong
is like a pebble thrown into a well. Is one confident that the pebble is
falling, or is the well dangerously rushing up to greet it?"
http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~mrkdwhit/page10.htm#accepted

        RongWrong is more like a foot in the door: you still have to shove the
door open yourself, with your shoulders, your hands. RongWrong is a lever, a
fulcrum, to give you more pressing power. RongWrong is a catalyst. The Puppet
State empire framework is a catalyzing cabal. 

[question 5 - perspektive] RongWrong make a great use of manifestos and manifsto-like material. postmodern aera - so to say - has lost its connection to "classical" statements and manifestos. cause there is too much lost. duchamps printing magazine was called cause of printing error "rongwrong": what is the medium error in the RongWrong state and why is it usefull to manifest more than a half pipe?

[RongWrong]

I'd say that people are only looking and waiting for something else to
get lost in, and if they find it in more and more only in individuated
"tailored" experiences, this is only an outcome less of what they want. It is
only what they find, which unfortunately none of it by definition finds that
'je ne sais quoi.' 

duchamps printing magazine was called cause of printing error 
"rongwrong": what is the medium error in the RongWrong state and why 
is it usefull to manifest more than a half pipe?

        Ah, that last question is so strange I am unsure what you mean? Could
you state it once more? Or, an open break would perhaps be an appropriate way
to conclude the interview. Up to you. That is what RongWrong is saying: Up to
you.

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