Secretary Interview I

May 27, 2004

Ryan Griffis from Furtherfield recently interviewed me for the on-line new media journal.

For the next few entries, I will post excerpts from the interview.

RG: I’m curious about the initial formation of the US Department of Art and Technology. What was the process that led to it, and who was involved in the beginning?

RP: Four years ago, I moved to Washington, DC. After some exploration of the “nation’s capital,” with its monuments, the US Capitol, the White House, etc., I found myself in the midst of the greatest of all spectacles, the most ostentatious of all theatrical sets, the backdrop for America. I wanted to insert myself as a performance and multimedia artist into this space. I wanted to incorporate it through appropriation and transform it into an alteration of what it was originally intended to articulate as a proposal that repositions the role of the artist on the world stage. This was the germinal idea of the US Department of Art & Technology. US DAT became a site-specific performance work emulating systems of government in order to re-engineer those systems through the prism of the artistic lens.

(Go to Furtherfield for the full text.)

A Close Encounter of the Political Kind

May 23, 2004

The Mrs. and I were invited to the Veep’s house this past week to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Art in Embassies program. That’s Dick and Lynn Cheney’s temporary abode.

The real Ambassador in Moscow: Adam & Eve, ©1989, Susie Krasnican, glass

Forget exporting troops to distant foreign outposts. Art is our best missile defense system. And artists are our most accomplished and eloquent ambassadors. Susie has a piece in the Ambassador’s residence in Moscow.

I am a humble Web hack and artist-raconteur. Where in the world can politico sightseeing and hobnobbing be so imbued with power? Especially in these times. It was not my first encounter with the Republican powers-that-be. And I wondered what type of opportunity I might have to affect public policy. On the other hand, I also considered the weather this time a year in Guantanamo.

A Convention Intervention

May 16, 2004

We have selected New York City to stage a ‘convention intervention’ in order to subvert the ensuing propaganda of the Republicans with our own techniques of media and illusion. Our decision will show that if you want to carry out anarchic entertainment for the nation, there’s no place better in the world to do it than New York City during the Republican National Convention!”

From August 20 to September 4, the US Department of Art & Technology will present to the nation a uniquely redefined convention: the 2004 Experimental Party National (UN)Convention & (Dis)Information Center. New York City and LUXE Gallery on 57th St. will serve as the focal point, but the Department encourages participation by citizens all over America and throughout the world.

Details to follow…