This is Not a Video

“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. […] Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.”

— Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)

An Accumulation of Spectacles

“In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.”

— Guy Debord

This little demonstration shows how our minds can be fooled. And also… Marilyn Monroe was murdered. #IamNOTaCAT.

Art Must be True

“You construct fake news broadcasts on video camera… And you scramble your fabricated news in with actual news broadcasts… [Y]ou can advertise the fact that you are writing news in advance and trying to make it happen by techniques which anybody can use. And that makes you NEWS. And a TV personality as well, if you play it right .”

— William S. Burroughs

How do we define fake? Something which does not exist? Or something which is other than what it proclaims to be? A fake knife can still draw real blood. What is the potential of the “fake” to have “real” consequences? At what point will “fake news” rule the world? Is there such a thing as fake art? Either all art is fake; or none is.

FakeArtist presents: artist-in-residence

“artist-in-residence” was a 24 hour public performance and the expression of a sustained contemplation on the contemporary social struggle of homelessness through durational performance art, followed by an audio/visual sculptural installation exhibition. “artist-in-residence” was part of FakeArtist’s month-long residency at The Guesthouse in Cork, Ireland.

This work focused on modes of representation in depicting the relationship between the material (sculpture/modified readymades) and the experiential/performative.

The little house made of (fake) Amazon boxes

It sought to create a socially engaged performative space in which to accentuate the potential of performance art to critique or subvert power mechanisms in everyday life.

Plastic on plastic

“But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence… illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness.”

Ludwig Feuerbach

Plastic on Plastic is a conceptual artwork which situates a novelty “dog poop” in a plexi-glass box. This piece is an an ironic synthesis between the Russian Suprematism movement – typified by Kazimir Malevich’s 1918 White on White – and the exploration of human waste in conceptual art beginning with Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 “readymade” The Fountain.

This meta-pop-artwork transplants this curious readymade polyurethane sculpture from one absurd context to another, posing questions about the nature of sculpture and simulation, as well as physical and environmental waste. Simultaneously, the piece celebrates the playfulness of the human spirit, which for nearly a century, has found equal parts joy and disgust in this ersatz object.

Why Not Cheeze Balls?


Materials: Corian and plastic. 2019.

“The society which rests on modern industry is not accidentally or superficially spectacular, it is fundamentally spectaclist. In the spectacle, which is the image of the ruling economy, the goal is nothing, development everything. The spectacle aims at nothing other than itself.”

— Guy Debord

Why Not Cheeze Balls? situates 10 pounds of hand-cut Corian in a one pound “family sized” plastic jar of Cheese Balls. Corian is a plastic form of artificial marble, and in this piece, 752 unique hand-cut shapes have replaced the 28 ounces of artificial cheese flavored “balls.” This artwork follows in the lineage of the “assisted ready-made” of Marcel Duchamp, Why Not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy? in which 152 cubes of marble pose as 152 sugar cubes in a birdcage. One piece at a time, this artwork excruciatingly juxtaposes an artificial home decorating material with an artificial food product, posing the ultimate question: Could Batman really beat Superman in a fight?

FakeArtist presents: Ode to the Hutzler #571 Banana Slicer

Video, poetry, readymade object manipulation. 2019.

A post-postmodern critique on mindless consumerism and home internet shopping, #571 explores readymade object manipulation through the mediums of poetry and video, juxtaposing the style of modernist poetry with text found and inspired by fake/ironic reviews for the product on Amazon.com.

#571 depicts the ambiguity and irony with which video presents the processes of material and aesthetic, or almost erotic, consumption in reference to the iconosphere of popular culture in which consumption is often associated with erotic motifs. But when is irony an agent of change and when is it an empty celebration of the status quo?

#571 was, as well, an acknowledgment to the removal of the artwork Consumer Art by Natalia LL from the Modern Art wing of the National Museum of Poland due to the allegedly erotic and obscene implications of the work. #571 was developed as part of FakeArtist’s residency with IKONA – Instytut Kultury Ośrodek Nowej Awangardy in Warsaw, Poland.

82/20

Durational performance art and audio installation. 2019.

82 statements in 20 minutes along with 82 public transport tickets – each valid for 20 minutes – which emerging youth artist Kalina Klich collected on trips to and from school before switching to paperless tickets. The artist neither agrees, nor disagrees, with each unspoken statement, but proposes each as an example of statements which one might hear or consider during a daily commute. The mask suggests the anonymity of travelers, while the i-Phone and headphones represent the portable world which the artist never travels without. Even as we move throughout our world, do we carry our own worlds with us?

1. Education is the most important thing.
2. Do you know that the Amazon rainforest is still burning?
3. It takes a thousand years for plastic to degrade.
4. You must have an exact plan for your whole life.
5. All homosexuals are pedophiles.
6. You won’t be able to achieve what you desire.
7. Why don’t you ride a bike to work?
8. There is no left-wing party in our government.
9. Power plants are responsible for 75% of energy production in Poland.
10. Nuclear power plants are responsible for 0% of energy production in Poland.
11. You have to be better than the others.
12. Women are people, just as men are.
13. The 13th of October there will be another election in Poland.
14. Every moment without self-improvement is lost time.
15. The music you listen to does not define you.
16. Your life is in the hands of politicians.
17. Church is a divine institution.
18. The better car you have, the better person you are.
19. How often do you go to Starbucks?
20. Don’t take that plastic straw.
21. Entertaining cinema is cinema for idiots.
22. You must have a perfect body.
23. Why don’t you choose to take the bus?
24. The more you earn, the better.
25. In school, only priests should teach.
26. Women should always be well-presented.
27. Unrestricted access to guns is not a good idea.
28. All homosexuals are pedophiles.
29. The more followers you have on Instagram, the more valuable you are as a person.
30. Wearing make-up is lying to a man.
31. You are stupid if you read silly books.
32. How much plastic do you use during the year?
33. The teachers’ strike is a good idea.
34. You must own new things all the time.
35. Time is money.
36. Feminism is not a fascism.
37. Pre-marital sex is a sin.
38. Do you know what love is?
39. Poland is a non-religious country.
40. Smog is not a problem.
41. Love does not end after 40.
42. People with a different sexual orientation are a plague.
43. You have to do everything for yesterday.
44. Why can’t you just be nice to everybody?
45. Each year, 5.5 million children die from famine.
46. Did you buy that plastic bag?
47. Do what you love, but only after you come back from the job you hate.
48. Homosexuality is not a disease.
49. Stop spreading hatred.
50. Teaching is a very respected profession.
51. It is your choice whether you have kids.
52. You really need that new pair of boots.
53. A woman should earn less than a man.
54. Smoking kills.
55. A glass bottle degrades after 4,000 years.
56. Immigrants will steal your job and your wife.
57. Each second is precious.
58. The climactic catastrophe will happen in 2030
59. The countdown to annihilation is showing two minutes to midnight again.
60. A person who believes in a different religion is still a human.
61. Do not follow your dreams.
62. If your grades are not good you will never get anywhere in life.
63. It’s impossible to live without internet.
64. Money is the real power.
65. Modern art has no meaning.
66. Why do I have to read the mandatory literature?
67. You are not special; you have to work harder.
68. Every woman should have at least three children.
69. Sexual orientation is not a fashion.
70. Time passes too quickly.
71. Higher education is an indication of your intelligence.
72. You can’t sustain yourself from art.
73. Social media has huge power.
74. Kids have a voice.
75. Not every politician is only interesting in making money.
76. Vaccinations are not the devil’s invention.
77. Homosexuals deprave our children.
78. You can’t change the world.
79. The life of each human is equal.
80. You should look exactly like everyone else.
81. Don’t do it; you will fail.
82. Work harder all the time.