CCSP dig: discovering the non-specialists

In collaboration with Marcius Gallan and curated by Kiki Mazzuchelli. This installation, informed by the Archeological Dig and the anthropological character of "Mário de Andrade's Mission for Folklore Research" at Centro Cultural Sao Paulo, departs from a more recent history "The Plano Collor" economic strategy implemented in Brazil in 1992. This policy had a devastating effect on Brazilian life and is renowned as one of the most severe implementations of economic theory. Claiming the first public point of contact with the institution - the reception desk - as its area of scrutiny the 'dig' exposes the delicate connections between the intangible and the physical, the real and the representational, and the implementation of ideology and its effects on public and private life.
Video Still
Video Still

The Steve Guttenberg Galaxy Epilogue

The "Guttenberg Epilogue" courtesy of Paul Pieroni featuring my exhibition text written in collaboration with Carlos Monleon Gendal and Josh Love entitled "New Display Strategies: Rich Masterplans that can sustain complex and successful Institutions".

The Steve Guttenberg Galaxy
John Michael Boling & Javier Morales / Charles Broskoski / Eric Fensler / Paul B. Davis [BEIGE] / Oliver Laric / Richard John Jones


The artists gathered together for this exhibition are variably engaged in the ‘art of the electronic age’. This determination does not refer to the outstanding presence of electrical technology in their work – though as you can see the predominant modes are electric; comprising, video, personal computers, gaming consoles, mpeg movies, flash, etc. – rather what it means is that the art on display can be read in terms of its relationship to the perpetually shifting topography of a world increasingly dominated by new electronic media. A hyper-technical world, a world Marshall Mcluhan would have described in communicative terms as a ‘global village’, enfolds us: digital radio, multi-channel television, home computers, computer games, email, mobile phones and, perhaps most importantly, the Internet – all inventions with an everyday impact.

New aesthetic approaches based on ‘glitch’ and compression, novel distribution structures that exploit the open access potentialities of web 2.0, ruminations on the technological dialectic, mass media critique, innovative information systems, snappy-hyper-pop-cultural sensibilities, sonic and percussive montage, code cracking – be it opening them up, or just breaking them down … these are just some of the artistic moves presented for your pleasure in The Steve Guttenberg Galaxy.

In itself, as an exhibition title, ‘The Steve Guttenberg Galaxy’ is a joke; a pun coaxed from the admittedly moronic observation of a singular similitude. In the main it is lifted from Canadian media theorist Marshall Mcluhan’s (1911-80) 1962 publication – ‘The Gutenberg Galaxy’. However, with a simple twist the title is smoothly re-directed away from its proper reference to Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1400-68), the inventor of the printing press and towards Steve Guttenberg (1958 – present), a now faded actor memorable to a generation of movie goers as the all American star of a number of notable Hollywood film franchises.

A joke then … however further contemplation reveals that things are not quite so simple…

By spuriously opposing Johannes Gutenberg (the eponymous hero of Mcluhan’s exploration of the pre-electric age of print) with Steve Guttenberg, a sort of sad anti-icon for our electro-technical, mass media, ‘entertainment as culture’ age, this exhibition, beyond a pun or joke, gestures both towards the newly hyper age as well as to the emergence of a generation of artists operating directly in concert with it, reflexively contributing to its ongoing mapping.

Centro Cultural Sao Paulo

I am currently working here for a work in collaboration with Marcius Galan. With two Receptionists we will be creating a new "folk archive" around the Plano Collor and Brazil's economic stabilization which will be exhibited in a metaphorical archeological dig.