REALICIDE
YOUTH RECORDS
Robert
Inhuman
PRE-SUICIDE
INERTIA
Here are a few loose notes I scribbled down the week of
March 1 through 7. No proof-reading was executed by myself
or anybody else. The only time I re-read this before its final state of
completion was while transferring it from handwriting into type. Hopefully the
parallels between this writing and the nature of my exhibition are not
difficult to notice.
- Robert Inhuman 3/8/04
I have no patience for any form of boredom. The tolerance of
boredom endorses the impotence of life. And until I’m dead, life is all I’ve
got to work with. I want to be alive. I don’t want to live like I’m ready to
die – sleeping all the time – quiet – passive – no risks cause “I’ll just do it
later” like “I’ve got plenty of time.” No you don’t; I want to live like my
time is up – I’m out of time. Anxiety drives my will to kick hard here above
the surface of the Earth’s crust. Anxiety – existential romance tragedy speedcore fistfight lifelong carcrash
life-granting deliberate hostile death-affirmation-turned-inside-out love of
being alive. That’s what this world I’ve been experiencing is always hoarding
away or just lacking altogether and this world wants me to slow down – go to
sleep until it’s time to die for real. Nah I don’t want that passive cripple
addiction shit so don’t bring me that “settle down” “maturity” – do that shit
and you are my enemy. Those are the terms you’ll experience me under.
I’ve
decided to exercise an alternative to static object display for my exhibition
as an attempt to indulge in a more primal, raw, direct, immediate, obligatory
physical engagement of performance media. I equate performance media with being
considerably closer to actual non-art life experience expression. I want to be
alive. I want to feel things actually happening to me – not at all hypothetical
– not so illusionary I guess; not so much the debris of expression which I
often equate with static object production. The common argument I’ve
encountered is concerned simply with an implied element of physical progress
i.e. seeing brushstrokes, seeing a print’s misregistration,
seeing a tool’s hack marks. I like process. I like process so fkkking much that I don’t want it to be merely implied. The
process is the art – the public performance of the process is the art. That’s
when I tried performances that involved taperecording
and screenprinting publicly. Those were fun
performance, but on a low level and felt somewhat too much like a Bob Ross TV
show. My art isn’t supposed to be a parlour trick or
a “how to” craft session. That’s not expression; that’d be a tutorial. I made a
casual decision to move just a bit further away from art materials in my work –
especially with certain things. Oh yes if I want blood I know where to get that
shit. I keep it in the center of my fkkking heart,
along with madd love, and I
don’t need to mix up paint or ink that looks like blood. I don’t care. When I
die there are certain people that can divide up the love that’s going to be
spilling out from the center of my damn heart. Put me beneath the floorboards,
world. I’m a shell. This skin is not me. Object production is not me. Art
objects are useful like snapshots for friends’ wallets or whatever – a token
reminder of the times I’m stomping down on the Earth – chronicles of reflecting
upon my actual life. I still make art objects for these sentimental reasons;
with a very finite archival emphasis. But my life is direct experience physical
my body is an object, I’m actually an experience – not the tangible wrapping
paper yo.
If I seem to display a certain layer of
apathy or sarcasm towards my work, it is to maintain an appropriate priority
for art – not letting any artwork I produce, even though I seriously try to
pour myself into that shit, not letting it surpass the importance of actual
life. Sometimes in a critique scenario or in the intimate and indulgent
scenario of art-making – I mean that late night systems of dissection and
pre-meditated layering and adding and subtracting, appropriations and
synthesizing new images and losing hours in sweet masturbation as to where new
images come from in terms of reflecting and distant influences (yeah believe it
or not I know all about tight control and impeccable craft yo)
– sometimes in these situations I feel somehow mislead I guess – like whoa I
need to step back and put the whole art thing into damn perspective. Art just
isn’t actually life – that’s maybe part of its definition, although it reflects
and influences real life – it isn’t life. As to keep myself and my
love-for-life ethics in check I feel it could be correct to laugh at art
production overall… the same way I ought to laugh at a traffic jam or a store
being closed after I made the trip to get something important like food or
whatever. Ha – does that make any sense? kind of off-point… okay: Art is just a contained
phenomenon, unlike life which is ever flowing and all-encompassing. Gotta get
priorities straight.
Another reason I
embrace a loose, sarcastic attitude in my work is that this functions to
enhance misery. One thing that’s definitely worse than depression is being made
fun of for being depressed! I mean it’s enraging and it challenges the
miserable person to either prove everyone wrong, snap out of paralysis – or to
more passionately recoil into sadness – yielding a rich, almost palpable misery
that is similar to stuff out of “Hellraiser”.
Sometimes I shoot myself in the foot cause it’ll make
me jump, you know?
Regardless of
everything I’ve just jotted down, I want to say this for sure: apathy towards
artwork is far less of a sin than apathy towards one’s own life. Don’t pour
yourself into tangibility, into object cataloguing, if you don’t give a fuck
about the state of your own life one-way-or-another-wise. Even
if you’ve got conviction for some type of direct self-immolation, if you want
that bad bad shit, just don’t not care. (disclaimer: I’m not totally apathetic about art – I care a
great deal actually – I’m just laying out my value system in order to
de-mystify my sense of humor about the work)
hahaha so “why graffiti?” of
course. Graffiti is about adrenaline, punk impulse, style and delivery over
archival embalming. It’s about youth empowerment, amusement, and guerilla dada
confusion.
Alright the materials used in street art
(and let’s get that straight – graff is being
discussed in terms of all “street art” not merely as a hip hop cliché) the
materials are very accessible: spray cans, paint markers, rollers loaded up
with house paint, xerox and wheat paste, cardboard or
plastic stencils, stickers (often just marker on postal labels) etc. Not to
make this a formal rule, but these types of materials do enhance the graff ethic, one of the many ways it is tied to punk ethics
with a firm D.I.Y. stance. (Do It Yourself)
Illegal graffiti
is largely about location, technical choices and style, and above all it’s
obviously about risks. Risk-taking is somewhat at the top of importance in graff. For instance I’d favor a simple tag or hollow
(that’s where you just write with one color, no fills etc.) on an extremely hot
spot i.e. right in front of a police station or something – favor that over an
incredibly crafted piece in a very desolate and safe spot or even on a legal
wall. Now – I’m not condemning safe or legal graff –
there’s always a time to just chill and have a good time, make your shits look
decent and not have to watch your back the entire time. Obviously that is what
this exhibition exactly is! My point, to re-state, is just that graffiti is
inherently tied to being a stylish “fuck you” and that is underlined firmly
when it is illegal and in a risky public spot.
Quick note: among
the ethics of common graff writers is an all too
often ignored sensitivity to the rights of individuals. Unwritten graff law endorses tagging and piecing on highways,
factories/big businesses, public fixtures such as electrical boxes etc. It’s
not considered cool to write on anyone’s house or attack the property of one
struggling individual. If artists want to preserve their own individual rights
I guess it’s common sense that we’ve got to respect
the privacy of others to some degree. I’m not articulating this as well as I
ought to, but hopefully you understand faintly at least.
Another
factor that earns madd
points in graff that I’m into is innovative or
experimental technique, another branch of risk-taking that a lot of fine
artists should relate to. Within the past year, IO crew in
Graffiti’s
inherent link to existentialism also appeals to me. What I mean is that your
street art is almost never a permanent fixture. It gets painted over or buffed
out by city workers, pasted Xeroxes get torn off by people and the natural
elements, etc. and documentation is a factor – When can you come back later to
take a picture of your work? sometimes they’ve already
been erased before that’s possible. Kids who paint freight trains often let
their pieces roll off, never to be seen again… so why
do artists use so much expensive (or narrowly-escaped-theft) paint and other
tools for something so very fleeting? It’s about the act itself, tying graff to performance art, and it’s even more existential
than public performance in the sense that you have little or [usually] no
audience. It’s you and a wall – and if an audience shows up you’re basically fkkked unless you jet out hard. It’s in the dark, often
anonymous, and with little guarantee of public recognition or appreciation.
This tragic romance can help transcend the artist past the ego of archival
priority and past the dependence on social gain. Obviously some graff writers do become famous and financially successful but , trust me seriously, it doesn’t happen overnight
(unless they’re secretly money-lusting whores I mean, but that’s not what I
call graff) The point is that graff
is a medium that can direct artists towards romantic existential anxiety and
vigor. (footnote: the fire extinguisher pieces I
mentioned earlier – there are no known photographs of them; they have been
painted over with flat stone-grey paint by the “Graffiti Busters”)
Existentialism
appeals to me in several ways. First off though – I am not an atheist and life
on the planet Earth is brutal for pinning people down with countless vices
rooted in tangible dependence. I feel like an idiot but sometimes it’s really
hard for me to understand things like why I have to eat and sleep, even though
my physical body reacts negatively when I don’t maintain it in the conventional
ways. I get really pissed when I notice, on a daily basis, my own being bound
by physical needs. I feel like in a more ideal scenario I wouldn’t have to
worry about things like aesthetics and physical material’s properties like I gotta wait for some paint to dry before I can screenprint on it. It’s frustrating and some of my work’s
sarcasm can be a temper tantrum over this ridiculous hang up. Destroying work
through editing the chronology of a process is tied to a disappointment in
physicality. And yeah, a lot of the time I feel like sex should feel better for
that matter! Condoms dilute that yo! Is this the best
this world has for my damn body?! geez…
more more more and even
more. Gotta demand maximum kinetic energy while I still have the youth to do
so. That post-inertia suicide creeping up – I can’t have it until I’ve tried
so hard. Doesn’t sound very grown-up or level-headed I suppose.
Maybe this is a
remotely relevant time to explain a little about my pseudonym? My faith in life
and the word’s worth is based on the assumption and hope that there are things
in existence that surpass human potential. I want to say, all humor aside for a
moment, that in my heart I’m a firm misanthrope. People fkkk
up – that’s obvious. Unlike a lot of people though, like Boyd Rice for example,
I have no interest in exempting myself from the misanthropic judgments that
blanket the scourge humanity that makes inherently wicked decisions – I am
human. This Earth owes its downfall to humanity and human imperial manifest
destiny ego; human if-you-can-do-it-you-must-do-it ego. And don’t start with me
because I’m one who doesn’t consider human beings animals. I have immense
respect for animals and their lack of moral choice, although yes the cliché
argument is that I’m not a vegetarian etc. but look – I’m not proud of my
species and also I am an admittedly weak and angsty
guy. This is philosophy, not a paragraph to say how I actually live (I also
subscribe to a lot of Christian doctrine but things in my life fall astray
there as well – I want to become a better person though – I swear seriously) ha
talked about getting sidetracked! – fictional
confrontation with people who probably won’t read this. So what I was getting
to was animals’ lack of responsible choice – humans are the creatures that make
the major world-shaping choices I think, and we make pretty bad choices fairly
often. I am looking for something that surpasses our weakness and
short-sightedness. This is ultimately tied to my priority, whether obvious or
not, on spirituality and searching for a connection to what is commonly called
“God” although I have to stress that I want to leave all stereotypical
personifications that are commonly used to mock and dispel the existence of a
deity presence OUT OF THIS.
I want to
ideally and philosophically be disassociated from humanity’s values. That’s
misanthropy from what I understand. So either lower or
higher, I essentially am interested in the nature of in-human, or non-human,
beings. Animals are inhuman; God is inhuman. By giving myself this name
I do not become inhuman, but I am constantly reminded of my ultimate ideals and
ethics. It’s similar to being named “grace” or well, more bluntly, being named
“christian” etc. etc.
The name “robert” is much less serious, as I felt it practical to
attach an orthodox human name to ease people that aren’t down with my fierce bullshht. It also ties me to the history of early punk rock
personas and the first name can be abstracted to stuff like “rob” or “robbery”
which is to forcefully steal and a metaphor for guerilla sampling/appropriation
in the arts. Another factor in my decision to work under a new name was the
desire to be disassociated with family values etc. etc. and their auto-dogma
that I am confused as to how I can be born into a title – but I’m not going to
rant about that right now.
I think I
approach print, as many printers seem to somehow, with a certain romance – the
whole man versus machine, expression through mechanization, assembly line gone
exquisitely wrong thing is a big drive in my choice to incorporate screenprinting, xerox, and
digital prints into my art. Print is also a tool to sarcastically comment on
consistently and permanence, and it is also a tool for social significance
historically. I could indulge in directly dissecting my role in the history of
print-making, but there are several of my peers that will do this in essays and
they will do it remarkably well. So props to the history buffs, if I had a
“suggested further reading” section, y’all would definitely be in there!
Stenciled prints
and xerox copies of drawings and photograph snapshots
of overy-pop romantic shht;
taperecordings of loved ones’ voices cut to bits and
digitally sequenced; layers of morbid sensuality mechanically assembled pimping
hard irony depression placebo hell hardcore melancholy placebo hell depression
is hung up often on trying to figure out what is most important to live all
about. Life is what I’ve got to work with – avoiding the ultimate sin of
indifference, I favor emotional shit – “I wanna hurt”
like the screamers cover I always do with Realicide. It’s better than lifelong
apathy – learned to live in favor of a lifelong pain – I want to Have
Unstoppable Red Tension. Prints romantics is like a
metaphor I think for things contradicting my desires and goals for a worthwhile
and fulfilling life. It’s like I make an image of what I either want or have
already experienced – usually a cartoon because it doesn’t so much challenge
reality; minimal illusion – take the sentimental image and have its vessel into
artwork be a form of cold machine, print, as a deliberate and morbid irony. I
want it to ruin the purity of my wants in order to reflect real life
disappointments and a consistent lack of satisfaction. In life, shht don’t work out too well – things don’t line up making
sense – and I have been trying for a few years now to eliminate my instinctive
cowardice for escapism into a better world – a “better world” is hypothetical –
a “better world” is me waiting, until I die, for this “better world”. The grass
is always greener, you know? (slime green…) the metaphor of romantic xerox is also paralleled in the music I’m involved with –
sampling and sentimental taperecordings for instance,
and also the phenomenon of a human being screaming over digitally produced
beats. It’s the fluid versus the rigid – the desires versus the let-down that
life actually is almost all of the fkkking time
(footnote: I complain a lot about dissatisfaction, but let me assure you that I
am taking steps to very soon lead a life that is fulfilling and worthwhile) So
to sum this up – machines crush escapism if used in a certain metaphoric sense
and I wanna H.U.R.T.
This is a
disaster. What does it actually matter? I should probably go to sleep instead
of staying awake but I’ve got to remember that I’m not old yet and what I’m
working with here, life, yeah it’s damn finite. ok ok: The appeal of cheap reproduction and ultimately the
closest thing associated with tangible immortality that currently appeals to
me!... Although my heart is really going into performance worship right now, I
still produce more objects than many of my peers. I regularly print hundreds if
not thousands of flyers, posters, and CD sleaves. The
vast reproduction of images and editioned products
has always had a lure based on the comfort I find in de-valuing objects. I
consider myself very (and in the past I’d say even absurdly)
sentimental. During my teens I began to decide that growing attached to things
like my drawings and other material possessions was bad for a few reasons – to
not go super-off-subject I’d say the reasons were of practicality,
anti-obsessive-compulsive efforts, and spirituality-minded.
I remember that I
began making a lot of xeroxes of my drawings and
taking photos of my possessions, then xeroxing the
photos of course. This was my way of relieving the original objects of their
sole importance, since it could then be divided among
however many copies were produced. Also, if something bad happened to the
original object I had like a back-up sort of. This sentimentality-safe-guard found
a fluid evolution into the collage xerox book
self-publications I was doing towards the end of high school, these having
slowly developed out of my efforts in obscure D.I.Y. comic book publishing. My
images were, in a way, invested in safe deposit boxes when they were
distributed to my peers. I didn’t have to worry so much for the safety of my
material belongings because of the prints. Whether it is sensical
or not, this was enough to ease me and it might back up what I was struggling
to articulate earlier about a romantic approach to the utilities of
print-making. And, needless to say, this is paralleled in my sound recordings
in the form of first tapes and later burnable CDs.
Immortalizing an
image – an image immortalizing, in a neurotic sense, its representational
subject like say if it’s a photo of a loved one – but immortalizing an image at
this point is best accomplished digitally. Digital imagery and sound can
preserve, with virtually seamless archival quality, any audio/visual
representation of reality. It won’t fade like paper or wear out like tape. And
what I was trying to do in high school by distributing copies of my images is
dwarfed by the potential of the internet, which is the fastest, most
consistent, international, and least subject to turmoil in the material world.
I mean if my house burns down I’ll lose a lot of tangible work, but if it’s on
the internet it probably won’t burn down like that.
“So sleepy” was
the title of my first painted graff piece (my first
year in the Cinci street art scene was strictly xerox pasting) It was an altered recreation of a drawing I
made in high school of an emaciated male figure sleeping on his side in a bed
with deep red cuts all over his body. This painting was done after a few of my
performance pieces which involved physical harm, but it only foreshadowed
future performances which I can articulate in great detail upon request. More
and more my art objects seem to either reflect or foreshadow my experiences in
performance pieces and life overall (if performance is even separate I mean) –
when I began to understand the superior adrenaline and sense of momentary
complete satisfaction that performance media could offer, I was forced to
seriously question the necessity of object art production in my agenda.
Now here I’m not
talking so much about promotional or mass-produced things and not so much about
temporary graff pieces (I mentioned the “sleepy”
piece above because I’m writing this at like 5am and I couldn’t remember what
was next to touch on…) Right here I’m talking about pieces I make that are most
closely resembling conventional fine art – mixed media paint/print/collage on
found surfaces. I’m half-way decent at making art objects now and I’ll later
elaborate a bit on why my thesis is not more geared towards that branch of my
work.
Art object
production seems to serve as down time from more physically taxing work and
commercial/promo-oriented production. The art objects are, as stated at some
previous point, debris and residue of experiences. They are either an
implication of the past or a hypothetical draft of my future work in other
media. These objects are often constructed in a semi-private context and are
really about the end aesthetic; what its end appearance can imply about me and
my plans and my opinions etc. etc. I will continue, despite my growing favor of
temporal experience media, to make art objects and even attempt to display them
nailed to walls like art usually is displayed. Their primary function is
providing meditative time to get my head screwed back on and serving also as a
catalyst for plotting performance media pieces.
The genres of
music I am currently most influenced by and openly endorse are: punk-based grindcore, gabber speedcore,
noise, and street-minded rap. I have very strong and extensive opinions about
each of the listed above, but I have graciously chosen to put priority in this
essay on the more visual end of what I’m doing – I’m doing this as a favor. I
don’t have enough time left to write like 10 pages just about music so I’ll try
to keep this section short… All of these genres appeal to me because of their
harsh, absurd realism, and what is called “lo-fi”
nature. They are often fairly minimal and avoid excess in technique, range of
subject matter, and production trickery. They are down-to-earth viciousness
that I feel parallels the ethics I follow in the visual and performance arts.
I’m so out of time for writing this so here are some VERY brief
definitions and references for these genres…
GRINDCORE:
hardcore punk evolved to an extreme speed, volume, and ugliness – rock format
music that is possibly the closest thing to noise while maintaining structured
compositions. The drums are like machine guns. The guitars are very distorted and seem sort of jumbled due to their speed.
The vocals sound like wild animals or actually more like fictitious monsters
that are really really mad or afraid. Songs are
usually under 1 minute because of finite human stamina. Examples: Dahmer, Drop Dead, Birdflesh,
Gore Beyond Necropsy, Unholy Grave
GABBER SPEEDCORE: the closest parallel to grindcore in
techno. Sounds more literally like machine guns than grind blastbeats.
This is an evolution out of standard hardcore gabber (slower) and even happy
hardcore, the happiest by far of all techno music. Since this is made by
sequencing samples on a machine, there is no limit of time for songs – but they
usually run 1 to 3 minutes because it gets boring otherwise. Techno appeals to
me because, at this point, it is one of the most D.I.Y. forms of music in terms
of creation and publication. It has surpassed the conventional punk band in
terms of accessibility for amateur music-makers. Gabber is the branch of techno
I like best because it has the simplest structures and is least confusing
technique-wise, like punk in the world of rock music. Examples: M1DY, Akira, DJ
Noisekick, Disciples of Annihilation, DJ Promo (Promo
is not speedcore but damn he hits hard!)
NOISE: I’m
not talking about noiserock like Sonic Youth –
straight up noise music is the harshest genre available and probably has the
most obscure array of equipment and process. Instruments are never mandatory
etc. etc. Many people consider this genre to ultimately be the most free form
of musical expression. Examples: Merzbow, Whitehouse,
Kazumoto Endo, Cock ESP, KK Null
RAP: I am
very interested in rap because of its extreme fluidity and encouragement of
improvised expression on a primal level of rhythm and rhyme obviously obviously. I favor rap that’s not excessively produced in a
studio and that deals with lyrics pertaining to life experiences or fantastic
metaphors for real life. This genre, like punk, does not depend greatly on a
person’s ability to sing. You teach yourself and naturally develop a style out
of practice and listening to your peers/influences. I do not like rap as a
novelty whatsoever. Examples: early Wu Tang Clan, Geto
Boys, early Outkast, Mobb
Deep, Project Pat
EPILOGUE (this is even more optional to read than
the rest)
Last summer on July 19th I was part of a graff/street art based show at the SSNOVA in
“If I can’t have what I want, I don’t
want anything.” – The Screamers
Shout-outs to:
Realicide and its extended family, sweethearts at Slimehole
Mecca, you kids who’re stuck up in the center of my heart (not going to name
names – you oughta know), everybody who’s played an
affirming role up in this bitch right now.