[spectre] Rules of Crime -- Heath Bunting and Kayle Brandon

[Andreas Broeckmann]

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 07:08:16 -0700
From: "Rachel Greene" <rachel at rhizome.org>
Subject: RHIZOME_RARE: Rules of Crime -- Heath Bunting and Kayle Brandon



To view this entire thread, click here:
http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?thread=14556&text=27800#27800

+ + +

Hi all -- An exhibition I curated in my capacity as Adjunct Curator at
the New Museum opens this Saturday, September 18, from 12-6pm. From
12:30-1:30 pm there will be a Discussion between me and Kayle Brandon.
Heath Bunting, genius artist, was not able to enter the United States
for the installation but he will be participating by phone (and
hopefully arriving later this month).

Works in the exhibition include:

BorderXing (with new installation in the gallery as well as the
original Tate Modern Commission)
Excerpts from the Botanical Guide to BorderXing (a book produced by the
artists and the New Museum)
The Status Project (an amazing and ambitious project shown in
development)
LunchBoxes (instructions and food packages based on the meals the
artists ate while border crossing)


Below is the text from the exhibition brochure:


Rules of Crime: Kayle Brandon and Heath Bunting

Heath Bunting has been a problem from the beginning, long before he
began working with fellow Briton Kayle Brandon. Itís not just that he
has always been outside the formal logic of ìofficial art,î choosing
instead to pursue graffiti, hacking, anonymous actions, and group walks
or hikes; in fact, this has given his work its special vitality. When
ìinternet artî took off as a phenomenon in the mid 1990s, Buntingís
projects seemed Situationist and lo-fi.  Diverging from widespread
interest in the narrative and formal aspects of the internetóthe
screen, hypertext, appropriation, etc.óBunting approached the medium
with an explicit emphasis on undoing routine behaviors and aggressively
combating commercial incursions, as evidenced in works such as Kings
Cross Phone In and read_me.html.

It may be difficult for those who know little about leftist British
counterculture or internet art to appreciate what a force Bunting
represents, but as early as the 1980s, he developed a unique personal
mission to create open, democratic systems in his work. Throughout the
1990s, his formidable presence in the internet art scene as a
prankster, hacker, artist, and curator of the progressive platform
irational.org was hard to ignore. He delighted in introducing new
artists to the small internet art community by publishing their work,
and in pushing the buttons of critics and curators by parodying them in
e-mail hacks or by exploding the art worldís self-congratulatory
tendencies (for example, for a 1998 presentation on the phenomenon of
internet art at the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Bunting showcased
nonexistent Web sites from Libya and Cuba, two countries that were off
the grid; the bogus addresses produced error pages, and Bunting sat
down, statement made). He became a legend, a countercultural folk hero,
who was one step ahead of the pack and could program or hack almost
anything.

That many of his artworks, including those done with Kayle Brandon and
on display at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, involve the
development of subversive products only adds to his intrigue.
BorderXing, commissioned by the Tate Gallery of Britain and the
Luxembourg-based Fondation MusÈe d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM)
in 2002, explores and documents the feasibility and methods of crossing
borders within Europe without legal papers or official permissions.
These trips are described in rich detail on the projectís Web site
(which one can access at the New Museum but is otherwise generally
restricted from public view), where Bunting and his collaborators
(chief among them Brandon) delineate the tactics and materials
necessary for crossing several dozen international borders.

At times, the photographs boast of idyllic, gorgeous, remote scenery
surrounding sun-dappled hikers eating high-protein foods before setting
off on another route. At other times, cautionary advice about the
dangers of ice-crossing or the more defensive border patrols is given:
ìDonít run if you are seen as you will probably be shot.î While knowing
how to avoid detection by dogs (for one, never urinate in the same
place twice) may have been a more commonplace skill in generations
past, these days, this type of knowledge is considered suspicious and
criminal. In the world of Brandon and Bunting, the necessities for
navigating national borders are rugged equipment, high-protein food,
water, maps, and knowledge of the outdoors and tracking. For most of
us, papers (visas or passports), fingerprints, or iris scans suffice.
Brandon and Buntingís organic, fluid relationship to notions of
ìcountryî are part of a great tradition of outdoor culture and historic
exploration, traditions that rely on the body, survival skills, and
instinct. These skills are now highly controlled if not prohibited
altogether, replaced by more abstract discourses that set legal limits
for convenient, modern travel.

The clash of natural beauty and criminal behavior is amplified in
Brandon and Buntingís pocket-sized booklet Excerpts from the Botanical
Guide to BorderXing (2004). In the book, they provide the means for the
proper recognition and naming of many plants found along European
border-crossing routes, enabling the reader to identify their
characteristics, biology, and toxicity. Such knowledge is of interest
to flower enthusiasts, but is also of prime concern to border crossers
needing to find sources of nourishment. Just as hobbyist books
detailing the secret nooks of the French coastline were hijacked by
enemy forces during the Second World War, Brandon appropriates a
popular type of field guide to provide a potent survival tool.

BorderXing has been only partially available to audiences since its
launch at the Tate Museum in 2001. Though the project is Web-based,
Bunting controls the borders of the site, giving access, at his own
discretion, to people in disenfranchised countries, participants at
social venues (such as museums, schools, and cafes), and those who make
a special request. In a stunning reversal of the notion that
information flows freely, Bunting is highly selective (and smart) about
who can participate in his enclave of knowledge.


The themes of BorderXing and Botanical Guide are pressed further in
another Bunting-Brandon collaboration, the Status Project. Planned for
completion in 2005, the Status Project explores the various forms of
legal status and their relationship to the informational debris that
litters our lives (asking, for example, if one can procure a passport
using junk identities such as DVD club memberships and pharmacy loyalty
cards) and will include a guide to manipulating identities using the
art of dataflage (akin to camouflage). In its early stages, as shown
here, Brandon and Bunting take the constituent forms of birth
certificates, driversí licenses, and passports, and then abstract and
distill key data, such as signatures and photographs, that have become
indexes not only of legal status but also of ìuser profiling.î

Bunting and Brandon exhibit a libertarian attitude toward the role of
art in everyday life. They have the ability to subject anythingófrom
Web pages to botanical research to the high bureaucracy of passport
procurementóto their aesthetic of openness. In fact, openness and its
attendant unpredictability are central to their views on the dialectics
of democracy. That spirit is evident in their joint online platform,
irational.org, which not only contains the breadth of their activities
but also shares their methods, materials, contacts, and suggestions.

Rachel Greene





+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Rhizome.org is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and an affiliate of
the New Museum of Contemporary Art.

Rhizome Rare is supported by grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the
Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and with public funds from
the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Rhizome Rare is filtered by Rhizome SuperUsers, a dedicated group of
volunteer editors. To learn more about becoming a Rhizome SuperUser,
please email editor at rhizome.org.

To unsubscribe from this list, visit http://rhizome.org/subscribe .

Subscribers to Rhizome Rare are subject to the terms set out in the
Member Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php.