Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Tattoo machine, how to make one, cheap, easy
Bored?, to young?, wanna do something cool?, then read this article about how to cheaply, easily and quickly make a tattoo machine, very good if you wanna make some extra cash in prison.
First if you can get a hold of an electric tooth brush that you don't want you can just take the top off leaving you with the motor, batteries and the on/off switch already attached, otherwise you have to do the wiring your self. Then you need to cut the guitar string about 7" long and put a right-angle bend about a cm from the end, then get the pen ink and either file down the ball or just take the hole metal tip off, now you get the eraser from the top of a pencil and push it as hard as you can without breaking it onto the motor head ( the bit that kinda looks like a axel and spins when the motor is turned on) and make sure that when you turn it on it's nice and sturdy, then push the bent side of the guitar string into the eraser but make sure you push it in off the center ( this is critical), then put the other side into the pen ink, now you have to get the toothbrush, cut all the bristles off and melt it in the center then bend it so it's on a right angle, now just tape it up and there you have it, your own working tattoo machine. It should work kinda like a train does ( with the wheels, you'll get what i mean when you build it) This really works, I've personally done it myself and i can vouch for it myself.
ITEMS
- small electrical motor (from a electric toothbrush, hand-held fan etc.
- batteries
- on/off switch
- eraser of the top of a pencil
- second from the bottom guitar string
- non-electric toothbrush
- tape
- pen ink
DO AS FOLLOWS
First if you can get a hold of an electric tooth brush that you don't want you can just take the top off leaving you with the motor, batteries and the on/off switch already attached, otherwise you have to do the wiring your self. Then you need to cut the guitar string about 7" long and put a right-angle bend about a cm from the end, then get the pen ink and either file down the ball or just take the hole metal tip off, now you get the eraser from the top of a pencil and push it as hard as you can without breaking it onto the motor head ( the bit that kinda looks like a axel and spins when the motor is turned on) and make sure that when you turn it on it's nice and sturdy, then push the bent side of the guitar string into the eraser but make sure you push it in off the center ( this is critical), then put the other side into the pen ink, now you have to get the toothbrush, cut all the bristles off and melt it in the center then bend it so it's on a right angle, now just tape it up and there you have it, your own working tattoo machine. It should work kinda like a train does ( with the wheels, you'll get what i mean when you build it) This really works, I've personally done it myself and i can vouch for it myself.
How To Get Someone To Watch Your Amateur Film
Note: You will need your amiture film on video tape.
1) Go down to your local Block Buster video or what ever your local video store is called and rent a popular video.
2) Take it back to your house and open the tape up with a philips head screw driver.
3) Open YOUR tape up and swap the tapes from inside the cases.
4) Screw the shit back together and send it back to the video store.
Next time someone hires the video, they're watching your video!
1) Go down to your local Block Buster video or what ever your local video store is called and rent a popular video.
2) Take it back to your house and open the tape up with a philips head screw driver.
3) Open YOUR tape up and swap the tapes from inside the cases.
4) Screw the shit back together and send it back to the video store.
Next time someone hires the video, they're watching your video!
Description of an Event by Survival Research Labs
SRL presents:
Crime Wave
26 November 1995
9:00 PM PST
Show Location: Viewers should assemble in San Francisco at the intersection of Main and Folsom. Tickets will go on sale at 8:00 PM. Do not show up early as no tickets will be sold early. Show will start promptly at 9:00 PM. Tickets are $10 (cash only). No refunds will be given.
I really had a great time at the SRL show tonight. The show was a long one, over an hour. I shot 3 rolls of film, we'll see how they turned out.
If you don't know about SRL - Survival Research Labs, you should. Check out:
http://www.zoklet.net/www.srl.org/default.htm
We (Me, Lisa, Zardoz, Jeff Hunter) arrived at 7:30ish hoping to get in early. We were a little too late for that, and had to stand in line for half an hour to get tickets and getting "in". I was a little annoyed at having to stand in line; I'm plenty happy to support SRL and pay the $10, but I didn't want to stand in line. But enough whining.
Wayne and Vince (aka the Flame Thrower guy) were there already in their Bright Orange Jump Suits(tm). (Wayne, Andrea and I had come by earlier while they were setting up but we all left to take care of things, Vince had been there almost since Saturday Night)
Tons of people started showing up. There must have been over 2000 by my quick count; a bunch of the otaku and cyborganics were there as well as the usual Burning Man / Cacaphony Society crowd. Saw a lot of people from the Trocadero and Bondage-a-Go-Go too. To me, that means either this is a really small city or that there are a lot of people with the same eclectic mix of interests that I have.
A few things that made an impression on me:
- The Number and Scale of things.
- The location at the foot of the Bay Bridge. It's a $3.50/day parking lot that has been the site of some (in)famous events (raves and skate parties) in the past. There is a huge cement footing where the bridge and the suspension cables are anchored into the side of Rincon Hill.
- Robot Choreography was great. Almost everything worked like it was supposed to, and combined well with the spooky industrial-ambient music.
- The Fire/Flame Vortex that created a tornado of flame. Wow. What a strange sight, I want one for home now.
- Seeing the Portside Condiminium building (a block away) smoke alarms go off: it's a new building with the ADA-compliant visual (strobe) as well as audible alarms. Every room in the building was flashing, prompting Lisa to say it looked like a UFO about to take off. Very Surreal.
- Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller) doing the Announcing. We saw Penn walk by and Vince confirmed that he did announce the show.
- There was an ISDN line installed for live videocasting to the Internet. Worked half-way decently, to boot - we watched the setup from my loft before we got there.
- I wasn't the only person with a gas mask
- The small percentage of assholes present
Afterwards: Ana and I drove by afterwards and parked up on the Harrison street bridge to watch the aftermath, Vince was there. He said the cops and fire department were really pissed off at first, but they were starting to calm down.
Originally, they roped off the whole area as a police line - do not cross, then said they were confiscating everything - including the trucks and cars there. Someone brought in coffee and donuts as a peace offering (we saw the big pink box of several dozen donuts); but the Fire Department was still there with the HAZMAT hazardous materials team with a big book of code violations for the SRL guys. He was going through the book and making a big list.
That sheriff in the jumpsuit who came throught the crowd by us was very cool about the whole thing. Vince was stationed at the street area when he came in and said "Why have you blocked off the street?" They told him they were filming a movie* and that they didn't want people to have to make a u-turn on a one way street. They pointed him to someone who was in charge; he was all steamed up at first but they gave him some ear protection and said "enjoy", and he is basically responsible for letting the show go on. He was still there at Midnight when Vince, Ana and I were there.
Vince said the cops told everyone to leave a little after we left, and it was a shame because there were lots of people who wanted to stay behind and help clean up. Now the core team will have to do it or else pay the city to do it. (There were some small spills of oil and gas that were made worse when the Fire Dept hosed everything down.
PS - The 'thing' that makes the incredibly loud noise was just that: a thing that makes a huge amount of noise. It is a V-8 hooked to an modified automatic transmission (I think "turned backwards" to rev it up) which then spins a steel cable around in circles. The sound is that of the steel cable. Rumor has it that as it gets up to speed, the ends of the cable are going faster than the speed of sound and so it makes a series of tiny sonic booms - hence the insane loudness.
* The event was Video'ed and will be available on tape soon. So this was not a lie.
Crime Wave
26 November 1995
9:00 PM PST
Show Location: Viewers should assemble in San Francisco at the intersection of Main and Folsom. Tickets will go on sale at 8:00 PM. Do not show up early as no tickets will be sold early. Show will start promptly at 9:00 PM. Tickets are $10 (cash only). No refunds will be given.
***
I really had a great time at the SRL show tonight. The show was a long one, over an hour. I shot 3 rolls of film, we'll see how they turned out.
If you don't know about SRL - Survival Research Labs, you should. Check out:
http://www.zoklet.net/www.srl.org/default.htm
We (Me, Lisa, Zardoz, Jeff Hunter) arrived at 7:30ish hoping to get in early. We were a little too late for that, and had to stand in line for half an hour to get tickets and getting "in". I was a little annoyed at having to stand in line; I'm plenty happy to support SRL and pay the $10, but I didn't want to stand in line. But enough whining.
Wayne and Vince (aka the Flame Thrower guy) were there already in their Bright Orange Jump Suits(tm). (Wayne, Andrea and I had come by earlier while they were setting up but we all left to take care of things, Vince had been there almost since Saturday Night)
Tons of people started showing up. There must have been over 2000 by my quick count; a bunch of the otaku and cyborganics were there as well as the usual Burning Man / Cacaphony Society crowd. Saw a lot of people from the Trocadero and Bondage-a-Go-Go too. To me, that means either this is a really small city or that there are a lot of people with the same eclectic mix of interests that I have.
A few things that made an impression on me:
- The Number and Scale of things.
- The location at the foot of the Bay Bridge. It's a $3.50/day parking lot that has been the site of some (in)famous events (raves and skate parties) in the past. There is a huge cement footing where the bridge and the suspension cables are anchored into the side of Rincon Hill.
- Robot Choreography was great. Almost everything worked like it was supposed to, and combined well with the spooky industrial-ambient music.
- The Fire/Flame Vortex that created a tornado of flame. Wow. What a strange sight, I want one for home now.
- Seeing the Portside Condiminium building (a block away) smoke alarms go off: it's a new building with the ADA-compliant visual (strobe) as well as audible alarms. Every room in the building was flashing, prompting Lisa to say it looked like a UFO about to take off. Very Surreal.
- Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller) doing the Announcing. We saw Penn walk by and Vince confirmed that he did announce the show.
- There was an ISDN line installed for live videocasting to the Internet. Worked half-way decently, to boot - we watched the setup from my loft before we got there.
- I wasn't the only person with a gas mask
- The small percentage of assholes present
Afterwards: Ana and I drove by afterwards and parked up on the Harrison street bridge to watch the aftermath, Vince was there. He said the cops and fire department were really pissed off at first, but they were starting to calm down.
Originally, they roped off the whole area as a police line - do not cross, then said they were confiscating everything - including the trucks and cars there. Someone brought in coffee and donuts as a peace offering (we saw the big pink box of several dozen donuts); but the Fire Department was still there with the HAZMAT hazardous materials team with a big book of code violations for the SRL guys. He was going through the book and making a big list.
That sheriff in the jumpsuit who came throught the crowd by us was very cool about the whole thing. Vince was stationed at the street area when he came in and said "Why have you blocked off the street?" They told him they were filming a movie* and that they didn't want people to have to make a u-turn on a one way street. They pointed him to someone who was in charge; he was all steamed up at first but they gave him some ear protection and said "enjoy", and he is basically responsible for letting the show go on. He was still there at Midnight when Vince, Ana and I were there.
Vince said the cops told everyone to leave a little after we left, and it was a shame because there were lots of people who wanted to stay behind and help clean up. Now the core team will have to do it or else pay the city to do it. (There were some small spills of oil and gas that were made worse when the Fire Dept hosed everything down.
PS - The 'thing' that makes the incredibly loud noise was just that: a thing that makes a huge amount of noise. It is a V-8 hooked to an modified automatic transmission (I think "turned backwards" to rev it up) which then spins a steel cable around in circles. The sound is that of the steel cable. Rumor has it that as it gets up to speed, the ends of the cable are going faster than the speed of sound and so it makes a series of tiny sonic booms - hence the insane loudness.
* The event was Video'ed and will be available on tape soon. So this was not a lie.
An Introduction to Graffiti
If you want to do graffiti and are afraid to break the law please stop reading this now. Legal graffiti is an oxymoron. A scourge. Graffiti is not a form of art, it is not made for MTV, the back of your backpack, t shirts or impressing chicks. It's a community, a hobby, a lifestyle, a brotherhood. It's a place people exist and live, please do not shit in our house, respect our rules and those who have come before you.
Learn to tag first, and to learn to tag you need to learn to read it. Ride the buses and all that, look for it when you're walking around. Then you need to emulate it.
It takes about 2 years of nonstop everyday filling all your notebooks with tags until you can even think about not being a toy. Toy is tagger slang for someone who doesn't know shit, or a poser. We also don't call ourselves taggers, we call ourselves writers.
And before you ask yes you need to learn to tag before you can do those insane artistic murals, called pieces. Tag first, baby steps, thats all there is to it.
It'll help a lot if you can get someone to show you. A lot of people think that writers are like gangsters, but I've experienced nothing but a tight community with a few exceptions. Generally nice people. Graffiti came from hip hop not rap, it also has strong punk roots.
Just keep on "bookworming", buy some magazines from your local skateshop, hip hop store or wherever and eventually writers will find you. So long as you realize you don't know shit and are respectful they won't mind helping you out a bit.
You'll need something to write too, a name. Don't choose something toy like "death" or "stoner-dude". In general 3 letter names are reserved for crews (groups of people who write together, like awr [angels will rise]). You want something cool like shok, skuf, saber or zephyr. A lot of times people get there names given to them by older writers. don't choose something too long either, and if you don't like it don't be afraid to change to something else till you find something that fits.
Oh yeah its also considered impolite or disrespectful to ask someone what they write. Respect is also everything in graffiti, but remember RESPECT IS EARNED NOT GIVEN.
Anywho after two years you can start actually "getting up" (deface property). You need streakers, or paint sticks (art stores), or paint pens (pens with a little spraypaint ball inside them) or really big markers like magnums or pilots. www.beatbreaks.com is a good site (look under art supplies).
I don't recommend scribing, or carving windows. You can do it with any old rock, a chip from a spark plug's ceramic or a scribe from a glass store but most police take pictures of every glass tag, so if you get caught you can get put away for a long ass time (very expensive to replace a glass window).
Then theres spraypaint. ACE cans and those cheap ones have caps on them that make graffiti impossible. OSH cans are the best of the worse, they'll do in a fix because there cheap but have a tendency to fuck up and have shitty colors, except for OSH silver which looks sick.
Krylon and Rusto are the good stuff, Rusto colors look different from Krylon (make sure it says "flat"), you learn to recognize the difference and get a preference after a while.
There's also Montana and Beltone, which are designed for graffiti, but expensive. Plus you can rack (steal) Krylon, Rusto and OSH cans. But you also need caps, if you don't live near a graff friendly store then just buy a hundred or so off of the Internet (they're cheap wholesale, as in ~10 bucks for a hundred).
Normal caps (stock) usually spray out too much paint and therefor drip (very bad). Fat caps spread out the paint and make a big line, good for fills and throwups. You can make fat caps look neat and such by going really fast with them. Stock caps can also be used though, you just need to experiment with speed and how close you hold it to the wall. ironically using stock caps is one of the best ways to get can control.
Outlines make less come out and are good for anything (Beltone and Montana come with them). Rusto caps have a dot in them and are good for fills, or anything else. The difference between American and German caps is merely a matter of preference, though I like Americans more myself.
Throwups are basically not very complicated pieces or bubble letters, traditionally black and white. You can do them fast and if you're good you can do them with style (style is everything). If you're going to do a throwup make sure you fill it, because you're a toy if you don't. Oh yeah going out and doing throwups all over is called bombing.
Pieces are murals, you'll learn to develop your own style through practice. You need to practice a lot and get can control too like on a shed in your friends back yard or something. You should "cut" your lines, move fast with precision, calm, no thoughts running through your mind. Straight neat lines are much harder then they look. The secret to making a piece burn though is shading, gradients and detail.
Characters are also fun to do, you just draw someone with really extreme features. Usually start with a circle, a line where the eyes and nose are going to be, then draw the nose, the eyes, the ears, the jaw n like that, so that you're like going in a circle filling in the person's detail. Learn to use lots of shading and take your time, it helps a lot. Think of everything in 3D not 2D with shading. The nice thing about graffiti is it gives you art, design, fighting, quick thinking and running skills that transfer to other things.
Which brings us to our next point, the police. In short fuck em. if you go out solo or just one other person, sober, and aren't a fucking moron you wont get caught. keep your eyes open, and if you see the police, or some off duty fireman who wants to be a hero run. run and don't stop, run to a place cars cant get to like train tracks and run until your veins pump battery acid, then run some more. i've had had 6 cops chasing after me for half a night. hop some fences, stash anything that could used against you and keep running.
we rarely get caught, thats why police hate us so much.
Also if you get good and want to go bust a sick piece (or look at some) without worrying about the police you need to learn the spots, like underground tunnels, huge walls in the middle of nowhere. Then theres layups, where they store the trains at. Thats a whole 'nother side of graffiti (I'm a street bomber myself, though i've hit up the trains a few times).
So lastly i give you some basic rules graffiti, do not break them.
- DO NOT BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS! Biting is copying someones style, the way they write there letters, something like that. You know exactly when you're doing it, so don't. You'll seriously get fucked up bad if you do, even if its out of a magazine or something on the Internet (its a close community, word gets around).
- Respect those who have come before you, learn the history
- Do not ex other peoples tags, even if they ex'd you first, this is for gang bangers and toys who start shit because they have no style. "If you have beef eat a pork chop."
- Do not tag tombstones, peoples houses (fences are fair game), memorials, or cars (except police cars, U-Haul trucks, semis and abandoned cars).
- Throw ups go over tags, pieces go over throw ups. this is how it is, don't cry about it.
If you're a pussy graff will motivate you to get out there, you'll meet cool people and see some weird shit. So go buy a copy of the "wild style" video, check out all the sites on graffiti.org and read the few good posts on puregraffiti.com and bombingscience.com.
Also don't ever put crowns or any of that shit above your tags or pieces, its called the mark of the toy for a reason.
cross-one AT ziplip DOT com
Almost Invisible Art
ALMOST INVISIBLE ART-THEORY
What is Almost Invisible Art (AIA)? As usual, it is easiest to approach such a question by defining what it is *not*, what it seeks to avoid, but to start out with a positive approach , I think that the best current definition is:
"AIA is Art made for the sake of its own, without any explanation or excuses. AIA does not seek publicity and is not made for the sake of money. AIA is experiemental in its approach, and seeks to approach complexity in its own terms. AIA is about Action, not Re-Action, the Self of the Artist having Control over the production, working with hirself and others. AIA seeks to play with the idea of Invisibility. AIA is fiercly independent, yet designed for interaction with other performers. AIA is a form of Art available to everyone, working in a no budget/low budget setting just as well as with ample funds."
When we originally developed the ideas of AIA as we have employed it, we had a very clear political setting, mainly to approach and emulate the complexity structures of the mediasociety, and turn these around into minatures of poetry and moments of passion, leaving traces behind for others to find so as to create resonances in the everyday lives of other individuals. Also, it was our clear aim to find a method wich could be used by the common man as a tool to perform Actions of Self, something completely autonomous and without any dependency on any given channel of expression (As opposed to mail-art). Many of our actions have been termed "blessings", as they have been *aimed* at creating a set of resonances in the recievers end. Other structures have been "open", just poetry for poetrys own sake. (When we use the Word poetry, we should perhaps employ "poetics" instead. To us any structure wich involves Words and/or symbols in a poetic manner, i.e. resonant manner, can be called poetry.) The underlying idea has been to make objects wich in their own right can be termed art-objects, and wich also exist as parts in greater complex patterns, with all the possibilities of poetic interplay this creates employed. The Idea of the almost invisible art has been working for many years now, mostly through Mail-Art channels but also in the hearts and minds of endless numbers of lonely weirdoes working quietly in their own world, for themselves. Origami BallistiKa is in such a way not original at all, and does not claim so. If we can have any claim to originality, it must be in the performance of our personal constructs, and the way we approach complexity and the deeper concepts of poetry and Action, as well as in the shere bulk of our actions. However, we have yet to find much text concerning the basic theory of this Artform, (except for the endlessly selfreferential debate concerning MailArt) and so this is an attempt to set down our thoughts on the subject, without any scholarly references. The aim of this little text, and the number of possible plans detailed below, is not to extol our own virtues, but to function as a primer for others, both now and in the future, so as to give some ideas concerning how one can break out of the various games run by others and conduct ones own games, hidden from the critical and moneyrun eye of the Art-establishment. Some of the readers may be put off by our continual reference to semi-esoteric terms and constructions. For us, the ritualistic aspect of a performance designed purely for the performance sake, is an important one, and has a lot to do with the political reasons for our personal actions, also it has proven a useful tool of navigation and construction when approaching the problems of complexity. Mans poetic talent seems to us to be in many ways linked, both negatively and positively, to mans "arche-typical" structures of understanding and classification of phenomena,and for us these stuctures of tought have been useful tools in our attempts to create a sense of wonder and weirdness, both in ourselves and others. Also, as we have experienced, sometimes when an individual is resigned to surfing the fluxes and is tuned to synchronicity, the strangest occurences happen and you end the night in places you never knew existed, talking to people who seem quite alien to the everyday-people of work and death, and this is to us one of the main beneficient results of this practice. Some places in the belowsketched plans we use the Word "ritualize". Practically, this means in its easiest aspect that the performer concentrates totally upon the performance, and conducts this in a set of steps. Personally, we have worked a bit with visualization, and have found that doing this during performances gives at least us a kick, and also gives the performances a sense of weirdness, because you are obviously not there completely, rather seeing a chinese dragon on the wall behind you or a circle of light around the object being worked on. This is a technical ability wich individuals can learn, and has nothing to do with neither demons nor dragons. This is, again, in no way a requisite in the performance of AIA, just a suggestion to enhance the experience of the performer.Much of our personal style has been designed during travelling, as can be easily seen by its minimalism, and this pattern-analyzing approach to reality-as-experienced-now has served us well this far. This does not mean that the aspiring Invisible must take these terms to heart, the only rule of the Almost Invisible is Do Not Get Caught. Any object you glue/nail/leave behind *as a piece of Art*, without any explanation, can be termed Almost Invisible, even if its 29 foot tall and made of concrete. (One beautiful example from here in Norway is the guy who made concrete statues of birds, and put them up in the concrete passages of the underground here in Oslo) For us, Origami BallistiKa, several esoteric ideas have been crucial in our development, chiefly the sigilization theory developed by A.O. Spare and his concept of an Alphabet of Desire, as well as Brion Gysins/W.S.Burroughs cutup practices, but the concept of Almost Invisible Art works just as well without any of these practical structures being employed.
AIA is, as the definition states, aimed at being a form of Art available to anyone. Our personal kit at the moment consists of a pair of scissors, a few chosen books, some superglue, some paint and a heap of discarded photos. Additional excellent tools are xeroxmachines, fax machines, a decent computer with a layout program, musical equipment, carstereos with speakers (amazingly cheap!), slidemachines, super8-cameras, cameras (Polaroids are excellent), scalpels, friends in bands, internetconnection, a telephonebook, and a citymap. *The importance of AIA lies not in the product, but in the Deployment and in the complexity of the total of Actions.* When using the term Almost Invisible Deployment (AID)we mean to imply a broad range of possibilities. As described in plans below, much of what we have been doing has been focused on the Act of linking private Art in totally invisible places with street actions and/or cooperation projects with others as an enhancement to their performances/Actions. For totally invisible places, we would recommend such sites as abandoned industrial areas, highwaywastelands, hidden rooftopacesses to buildings, and of course for those of you lucky enough to live in the countryside, any private walking spot you may fancy. For the almost invisible ones, we personally prefer busstops and libraries, wastebins and lampposts, posterwalls and toilets, shopdoors and plain walls, anywhere really where the object does not stick out and announce its presence, but there to be found by any individual with a sufficiently developed observational faculty. Most of the below sketched plans are focused around a central object/item/place. This is because, to us, we feel that it is good to have a central focus in the performance as it is performed, it gives the space of the performance a natural linkage in our perception as we Act so to say. Its relevance to the actual project does not need to be established at all, the important thing to us is that it gives us a good edge as a resonant in the Action. This is, of course, not a necessity, many action of AIA can be thought off without any theme/focus at all. Vitally central in our idea of AIA is the concept of the gift, and that of the abandonment of the structure after its performance. AIA is an attempt at passive communication, of the leaving behind of traces, hints, puzzles, constructs and plans, as we see it, designed to puzzle more than to communicate directly, to activate strangers observational faculty. If one individual walks away puzzled, we deem that performance a sucess. This approach has its serious side as well, in that at the core of the system of Control lies the concept of Stability and Predictability, puzzlement in itself is a state not deemed necessary in the ideal state of perpetual structures and so any act causing such a state is by necessity subversive, even if not political.
AIA does not, as a rule, seek to promote itself, and when it does reveal something, it should always be just a part of the construct. AIA is a challenge to the observer,not a salespitch, it is safe within its own Action and does not need advertisement nor hype, rather it seeks to achieve for the Art-worker the satisfaction of Quality. The only full "revelation" available sits with the performer(s), and can be documented in text at hirs wish. (We have sometimes concluded our campaigns with a internet documentation.) In the plan sketches below, we use the term "Document & Exhibit" quite often. This is intended as an idea for further spinoffs on the original idea, such as thaking pictures of the performances, then either gluing these to the walls where the original performance was, half a year later, or cutting these pictures up and using them as basis for new installation developing the theme of the previous one in a new direction, etc. Or, for those of you who work inside "Serious Art" <snort>, it can mean that you exhibit at gallery, etc. (Personally, we had great satisfaction from opening our own gallery in Trondheim, Norway, running on a Almost Invisible policy of No Pay, No Percentage and minimalistic PR, the documentation being the point. It cost us 15000 norwegian kroner to get hold of a 5x2.5 meter large old flowershop on the outskirts of town, wich we split in five. Recommended, there is something personal in owning land, even more so exhibiting your own Art on your own terms in such a place.) Also, in the plans, it states "make installation" or "Decorate at will". These terms have been left open on purpose, so as not to leave any bindings on the practitioner. *This is where the ART comes down*. Personally, we use constructs of multilayered miniatures, combinations of text and photo and symbols montaged on top of each other, in reference to each other, so that each piece is a complex structure in its own right, wich again is a part of, wich again is etc. This gives us much satisfaction, but it lies in the essence of AIA that all forms are allowed & encouraged. Endless possibilities.The plansketches below are mostly ideas we have *not* performed in the Origami BallistiKa framework, and are not in any way meant to be blueprints to be followed with slavish attention. Our wish has been to sketch out, in writing, some of the variations of the basic themes of AIA that we can imagine at the given point of time, and wich we would like to see performed. Most of these sketches are designed for the individual Art-Worker, some are designed at groups of people. The possibilities for complexity and unexpected poetry becomes enormous when you consider the potential of a network of Active Cooperating Individuals, we have decided to leave such possibilities largely to the minds of the practitioner.
This then, is how we see the basic concepts of Almost Invisible Art. To us, it is a game of games, but also a serious attempt to create complex and vital Art-Works in this time where Art more and more seems to have become a aesthetic exercise and not a tool for sublime communication. Below is given the results of a couple of evenings brain-storming on possible projects to perform, in addition we refer to the Origami BallistiKa CV wich should be on the net at the time that this information has become available. We have deliberately focused on clear structured campaigns and left the jocular/Discordian ones aside, since for once we try to present this subject in a orderly and structured fashion (Feel free to work in as much cakeeating and mickeymouseworshipping as you please). Also, we have not gone into the theory of the meme text, or of the possibilities of the internet in the creation of backup reference, or the concept of the symbol as a personal poetic reference, both selfmade and historical, or the concept of associative peakmoments as employed by J.R.R. Tolkien in his literary theory, nor have we approached the various possibilities of the permutation-techniques employed by par example Z'Evs in his rythmic works. All these, and many other ideas and thoughtstructures, are easily worked into the main body of AIA, as is most other artforms as well. Our humble hopes with this small text is to provide inspiration to all of those out there who feel alienated from the Art-establishment of vernisages and canapès, and who feel an urge to develop their own sense of Art. Also, it is an attempt to present the ideas we have been working with for the last years in a coherent and constructive form. We have on purpose minimalized the idea of MailArt in the below sketches, since this concept has been fully explored by practitioners of much greater skill than ours, for those of you interested in this aspect of AIA we reccomend the excellent magazine El Djarida <<publ.details here>> as well as several internetbased foras. MailArts great failing, as far as we see it, is that it is aimed internally, as a process of communication only within the performing circles, and not aimed outwards except in documentation-exhibitions wich then becomes part of the established gallery-regime. AIA is not limited to any one form of communication, rather it seeks to employ many forms of communication at the same time, in synergic actions. AIA is not aimed at the pleasing of friends and family, rather it is an open communication, like a radiobroadcast sent out into the night with no PR whatsoever. AIA is that wich it is, and that is all, it is not dependent on a receptor but only on the activity of the performer and hirs consistency (or lack of such) in action.Also, and perhaps most importantly, AIA is a dangerous project, because it refuses to be a part of the society of Control and so can be used against it. In the system of control, any conscious Action is dangerous to the status quo, as it is unpredictable and so contains a possibility for instigating unstability in the hearts and minds of the receptors.
THIRTY INVISIBLE THINGS YOU CAN DO YOURSELF
**Plan #1**
Take three objects. Decorate at will. Place them secret places you know you will pass several times a week/day/month/year. Continual decoration? At end of preplanned time, destroy objects? Send objects to people, either chosen or random? Document objects at end of time, use documentation in street Art exhibition?
**Plan#2**
Take a city map. Throw darts at it, when arrow hits mark spot, until sufficient numbers are marked. Draw lines, make symbol, perform actions at places marked. Use lines drawn to decide progress. Develop gamemechanics? Roll dice to decide wich "path" to follow? Set up of predesigned minirituals/performances, drawn at random? Set up of alternates inside preplanned settings, decided at random?
**Plan#3**
Organize a metal/drum jam for your friends. Brew Beer? Bonfire. Premade musical background? Banners? Pyrotechnics? Actions/performances? Strange invitations? Or just relaxed campfire?
**Plan#4**
Make/Find a prototype object. (Carstereo/Dead TV's/Roadsigns/whatever). Collect huge amounts of these objects. Put them up, in groups, decorated at will, in a set of places. Make photocopy-posters w/image of object, hail it like a emperor, a boon to society. Put these up in strange places on a the-bigger-the-better scale. Invisible places. Strange propaganda? Three step pr-campaign? Make essays extoling the virtues of object, put up as street-papers (Large font!!)? Make cultstructure for a joke?
**Plan #5**
Find some old abandoned industry structure, a house/a crane/ a truckwreckand decorate continously with a gradual development in mind. (If you live by the sea, grounded boatwrecks are beautiful). Use object as point of reference for other structures. Have private poetryreadings/concerts/jams at object, document and exhibit? Exhibitions in surrounding area, centered on object? Have nighttime fires for yourself, make it a object of resonance in your head. Make slides, project on walls at night for set intervals from carbased projector. Make resonant musical score.
**Plan#6**
Find a specific commercial/buerocratic building. (Preferrably one you can enter at will). Make it center of preplanned decoration. Find out its hierarchy, make worship cult of bossman/department heads. Kim-il-Sung style. Make colourful posters extoling his/hers virtue. Put these up in areas close to other employees homes. Reverse Action afterwards, worship of dustbin emptier? Try to get an interview in beforehand, get voice-documentation, loop and use as backdrop for carradio installation? Contact media anonymously? Set up net-pages? (Church of Bob style...)
**Plan#7**
Enter a local highbrow-place. Give everybody flowers/presents/kisses. Make small cryptic callingcards, attach/hand out these, fictional adress and organization. Combine with exhibition in surrounding streetscape using recurrent theme from card. (Symbol/Logo).
Do the same thing to Gothix/punk/artcrowd places. Several times. Best done at first in cities not your own? Establish rep. for strangeness. Military precision maneuvers, using several people in coordinated Action at several places at once? Document and exhibit. Closeupphotos of recipients faces?
**Plan#8**
Find a local park/Greenspace. Decorate at will, using consistent and internally logical theme/symbology, in at least three layers of synergic complexity. Use this theme as resonance for installations elsewhere, as public blessings. Troublespots on highway? Bad areas?. Make objects/gifts/ and hand out?
**Plan#9**
Make a giant dinner. Give away to strangers. Hand engraved plates? Calling card stuck in rice? Gifts accompanying? Make the handing out a performance, using slideprojectors/ banners/musical installations in many layers? Or simple and stripped?
**Plan10**
Make x numbers of presents. Go to local buerocratic/finacial powercenter. Give presents away to people in suits. (The point here is the attempt.) Combine with installation. Make little stickers with slogans, like "Buerocrats are our friends", "We love stockbrokers", etc. put them up as many places in building as possible. Document, streetexhibit. Decorate presents? Ritualize presents? Film the giving away?
**Plan#11**
Make set of slogans. Make Logo. Create fictional organization. Make stickers, flyers, posters. Bomb chosen areas. Send loopfaxes to random industrial numbers with slogans.
**Plan#12**
Find a given number of archetypical symbols. Make sets of poetic keywordreferences, link specific pieces of litterature to each symbol, link certain images/colours. Make installations, using these symbolic constructs as keypoints, with resonances linking them. Use as streetart. Make places for each symbol (Powerspots) totally invisible?
**Plan#13**
Put up little pictures of your parents everywhere.
**Plan#14**
Do *not* cut off your right ear.
**Plan#15**
Tape several sendings of CNN/BBC/NRK or whatever major newschannel you are fed by. Loop and splice. Add words, use cutups. Replay publicly, on walls of almost invisible place. Few invitations, combine with drum jam and party? Play on a wall in nightlife part of city, with crewe going round handing out weird propaganda, "Love your dishwasher" style.
**Plan#16**
Record a nuisance radiohit. Make adaption, fuck around. Record a brilliant radiohit. Make adaption fuck around. Make tapes of these of varying length. Get five soundsources together dirtcheap (Carstereoes? Run on carbatteries?) Mount in not easily reached places in some public area, set on continous play. Leave them there to die. (Countermuzak). Combine with mini-symbols? **Plan17**
Rent a empty store for a month. Run continual exhibitions, without opening the doors. Show slides/films on window at nighttime, hold parties with masks, set up posters and so on, but closed all the time. Play Loud music for three minutes intervals.Then shut it, disappear.
**Plan#18**
Throw dart at map of countryside. Go there. Decorate area. Have party? (Rent a minibus, blindfold passengers, have all set in advance?). Document, exhibit. Alternatively, document at moment of finished decoration and various stages of detoriation.
**Plan#19**
FInd a demonstration you agree with. Create a construction, a set of performances to be done both before, during and after the demonstration. Get really angry, taste that feeling of the group getting ready to fight/stand. Chant strange slogans. Get together group of people? Hand out weird leaflets? Conduct results-oriented rituals? (Sigilizations?) AIm at "Combined-arms" feeling, smoothly running military op?
**Plan#20**
Find a political figure. Ridicule it. Make flyers/stickers/posters. Leave Flyers in postboxes on long midnight walks. Cover walls with posters. Busstops etc. Photomanipulations. Concentrate on areas. Be elegant and sarcastic, or cryptic and weird. Combine image of politician with text from advertisements of sanitary products? Household items?
**Plan#21**
Build a small cottage/lavvo/campsite deep in the middle of nowhere. Decorate surrounding area. Perform privately. Ritualize spots of interest. Arrange parties. Document and exhibit parties. Mystical cycle celebrations? Elemental performances? Exhibit greenspaceimages in desolated cityareas?
**Plan#22**
Send predesignated number of objects through snailmail. Draw recipients randomly (Phonebook? Bingomethod?) or choose. Exhibit same number of objects with relevance to the ones sent out, incorporate the recipients name in these. Send these objects to the same list, but not to the corresponding names afterwards? Send documentation of the exhibition to the list? Keep on sending weird objects to list? No return adress, of course. Get photographs of recipients? Exhibit these? (Dangerous territory).
**Plan#23**
There is no plan #23.
**Plan#24**
Find a free theatre troupe. Mystify them. Decorate their venues, make posters for their performances, make fake interviews with critics who applaud them. Send weird fanmail. Make fictional posters for fictional plays? Escalate weirdness. End with manifesto.
**Plan#25**
Make a set of soundrecordings. Assign each recording a word/wordstructure. Perform poetry using sounds. Send taperecordings with explanation/without explanation to strangers. Make streetmusicinstallations. Make cutups of recorded material, reenact process using cutups. Burn CDs, leave them behind in record stores.
**Plan#26**
Find a musical project you know the music off. During concert, perform sets of installations given predesignated songs/pieces. Decorate area around venue. Have premade sets of poems associated to music published in weird places on the net, glued to walls etc. Hand out objects to audience? Make special editiontapes/CDs with objects, send to members of Band/Fanclub?
**Plan #27**
Find a specific tree. Honour it in all possible ways. Photograph it, use photographs ininstallation as common theme. Find out all available data on its history and its botanical species. Use these as base for cutup, glue them up in the area around. Piss on the tree, at any given opportunity, "My water unto thee".
**Plan#28**
Travel to a strange city. Enter a gallery opening, after having decorated the area. Put small objects in the various artworks/catalogues/drinks. Clap your hands loudly, cover your face with whipped cream. Leave.
**Plan#29**
Make a lot of small objects/poems/textcutups. Go to library/Bookshops. Glue these objects inside books that you yourself own using superglue. Make referential structure with bookcutups in matching numbers.
**Plan#30**
Decorate x numbers of matchboxes, the more the better. Leave them anonymously in one of your favourite bars, with small note asking if these can be handed out to audience instead of the regular advertising ones.
POSTSCRIPT
These, then, are some of the ideas we have chunked down as examples to illustrate what we mean by Almost Invisible Art. Some of these ideas are partly stolen, most are genuine and new.
Most of these are what we call loosely for campaigns, i.e. sets of Actions going over a long span of time as opposed to one single act of creation as is usual in most traditional creative Arts. Of course, AIA does not demand such an approach, the making of a nice object and the act of leaving it behind or giving it away to a stranger is in itself a full and perfect embodyment of our idea of AIA, and can bring much more Joy than the slaving away over a big-scale masterplan. Essential in the actual performance of any act of AIA, as we see it, is a certain sense of fluidity in the creative process, and while some may wish to follow their gameplans slavishly we highly recommend that, in addition to the construction of highly detailed plans the Art-Worker spend some time with spontaneous creativity, just getting some materials together and creating structures just off the top of the head. Its useful in such cases to have a few central objects, such as books to cut from or photos with a particular history, but this is in no way a requisite, some of the best things we have done have been with found objects and spontaneously composed fragments of poetry influenced by the atmosphere of the place of creation. This, in itself, is one of the best things of AIA, it can be made on the spot, in as basic or complicated form as the artist wants, and can be deployed in any wich way the fancy of the moment takes hir. Another aspect of AIA is its basic positivity, it is, as we see it a very good answer to the resignation wich seems to have influenced so much of the Art-scene after the surge of the sixties. In a way, AIA can be said to finally give Art back to the Artist, being that wich it is and no more.
As stated in the beginning of the text, our influences have been many, and we in no way claim this to be any unique or revolutionary development of Art as we know it, but it is our hope that individuals, and especially young individuals who have not yet been brainwashed by the statusmachine of the established Art-Scene, may find these notes refreshing and a trigger for Action. If we can make one singel individual get off their ass and out in the streets, we have succesfully accomplished our Work.
Do not disappoint us, please.
What is Almost Invisible Art (AIA)? As usual, it is easiest to approach such a question by defining what it is *not*, what it seeks to avoid, but to start out with a positive approach , I think that the best current definition is:
"AIA is Art made for the sake of its own, without any explanation or excuses. AIA does not seek publicity and is not made for the sake of money. AIA is experiemental in its approach, and seeks to approach complexity in its own terms. AIA is about Action, not Re-Action, the Self of the Artist having Control over the production, working with hirself and others. AIA seeks to play with the idea of Invisibility. AIA is fiercly independent, yet designed for interaction with other performers. AIA is a form of Art available to everyone, working in a no budget/low budget setting just as well as with ample funds."
When we originally developed the ideas of AIA as we have employed it, we had a very clear political setting, mainly to approach and emulate the complexity structures of the mediasociety, and turn these around into minatures of poetry and moments of passion, leaving traces behind for others to find so as to create resonances in the everyday lives of other individuals. Also, it was our clear aim to find a method wich could be used by the common man as a tool to perform Actions of Self, something completely autonomous and without any dependency on any given channel of expression (As opposed to mail-art). Many of our actions have been termed "blessings", as they have been *aimed* at creating a set of resonances in the recievers end. Other structures have been "open", just poetry for poetrys own sake. (When we use the Word poetry, we should perhaps employ "poetics" instead. To us any structure wich involves Words and/or symbols in a poetic manner, i.e. resonant manner, can be called poetry.) The underlying idea has been to make objects wich in their own right can be termed art-objects, and wich also exist as parts in greater complex patterns, with all the possibilities of poetic interplay this creates employed. The Idea of the almost invisible art has been working for many years now, mostly through Mail-Art channels but also in the hearts and minds of endless numbers of lonely weirdoes working quietly in their own world, for themselves. Origami BallistiKa is in such a way not original at all, and does not claim so. If we can have any claim to originality, it must be in the performance of our personal constructs, and the way we approach complexity and the deeper concepts of poetry and Action, as well as in the shere bulk of our actions. However, we have yet to find much text concerning the basic theory of this Artform, (except for the endlessly selfreferential debate concerning MailArt) and so this is an attempt to set down our thoughts on the subject, without any scholarly references. The aim of this little text, and the number of possible plans detailed below, is not to extol our own virtues, but to function as a primer for others, both now and in the future, so as to give some ideas concerning how one can break out of the various games run by others and conduct ones own games, hidden from the critical and moneyrun eye of the Art-establishment. Some of the readers may be put off by our continual reference to semi-esoteric terms and constructions. For us, the ritualistic aspect of a performance designed purely for the performance sake, is an important one, and has a lot to do with the political reasons for our personal actions, also it has proven a useful tool of navigation and construction when approaching the problems of complexity. Mans poetic talent seems to us to be in many ways linked, both negatively and positively, to mans "arche-typical" structures of understanding and classification of phenomena,and for us these stuctures of tought have been useful tools in our attempts to create a sense of wonder and weirdness, both in ourselves and others. Also, as we have experienced, sometimes when an individual is resigned to surfing the fluxes and is tuned to synchronicity, the strangest occurences happen and you end the night in places you never knew existed, talking to people who seem quite alien to the everyday-people of work and death, and this is to us one of the main beneficient results of this practice. Some places in the belowsketched plans we use the Word "ritualize". Practically, this means in its easiest aspect that the performer concentrates totally upon the performance, and conducts this in a set of steps. Personally, we have worked a bit with visualization, and have found that doing this during performances gives at least us a kick, and also gives the performances a sense of weirdness, because you are obviously not there completely, rather seeing a chinese dragon on the wall behind you or a circle of light around the object being worked on. This is a technical ability wich individuals can learn, and has nothing to do with neither demons nor dragons. This is, again, in no way a requisite in the performance of AIA, just a suggestion to enhance the experience of the performer.Much of our personal style has been designed during travelling, as can be easily seen by its minimalism, and this pattern-analyzing approach to reality-as-experienced-now has served us well this far. This does not mean that the aspiring Invisible must take these terms to heart, the only rule of the Almost Invisible is Do Not Get Caught. Any object you glue/nail/leave behind *as a piece of Art*, without any explanation, can be termed Almost Invisible, even if its 29 foot tall and made of concrete. (One beautiful example from here in Norway is the guy who made concrete statues of birds, and put them up in the concrete passages of the underground here in Oslo) For us, Origami BallistiKa, several esoteric ideas have been crucial in our development, chiefly the sigilization theory developed by A.O. Spare and his concept of an Alphabet of Desire, as well as Brion Gysins/W.S.Burroughs cutup practices, but the concept of Almost Invisible Art works just as well without any of these practical structures being employed.
AIA is, as the definition states, aimed at being a form of Art available to anyone. Our personal kit at the moment consists of a pair of scissors, a few chosen books, some superglue, some paint and a heap of discarded photos. Additional excellent tools are xeroxmachines, fax machines, a decent computer with a layout program, musical equipment, carstereos with speakers (amazingly cheap!), slidemachines, super8-cameras, cameras (Polaroids are excellent), scalpels, friends in bands, internetconnection, a telephonebook, and a citymap. *The importance of AIA lies not in the product, but in the Deployment and in the complexity of the total of Actions.* When using the term Almost Invisible Deployment (AID)we mean to imply a broad range of possibilities. As described in plans below, much of what we have been doing has been focused on the Act of linking private Art in totally invisible places with street actions and/or cooperation projects with others as an enhancement to their performances/Actions. For totally invisible places, we would recommend such sites as abandoned industrial areas, highwaywastelands, hidden rooftopacesses to buildings, and of course for those of you lucky enough to live in the countryside, any private walking spot you may fancy. For the almost invisible ones, we personally prefer busstops and libraries, wastebins and lampposts, posterwalls and toilets, shopdoors and plain walls, anywhere really where the object does not stick out and announce its presence, but there to be found by any individual with a sufficiently developed observational faculty. Most of the below sketched plans are focused around a central object/item/place. This is because, to us, we feel that it is good to have a central focus in the performance as it is performed, it gives the space of the performance a natural linkage in our perception as we Act so to say. Its relevance to the actual project does not need to be established at all, the important thing to us is that it gives us a good edge as a resonant in the Action. This is, of course, not a necessity, many action of AIA can be thought off without any theme/focus at all. Vitally central in our idea of AIA is the concept of the gift, and that of the abandonment of the structure after its performance. AIA is an attempt at passive communication, of the leaving behind of traces, hints, puzzles, constructs and plans, as we see it, designed to puzzle more than to communicate directly, to activate strangers observational faculty. If one individual walks away puzzled, we deem that performance a sucess. This approach has its serious side as well, in that at the core of the system of Control lies the concept of Stability and Predictability, puzzlement in itself is a state not deemed necessary in the ideal state of perpetual structures and so any act causing such a state is by necessity subversive, even if not political.
AIA does not, as a rule, seek to promote itself, and when it does reveal something, it should always be just a part of the construct. AIA is a challenge to the observer,not a salespitch, it is safe within its own Action and does not need advertisement nor hype, rather it seeks to achieve for the Art-worker the satisfaction of Quality. The only full "revelation" available sits with the performer(s), and can be documented in text at hirs wish. (We have sometimes concluded our campaigns with a internet documentation.) In the plan sketches below, we use the term "Document & Exhibit" quite often. This is intended as an idea for further spinoffs on the original idea, such as thaking pictures of the performances, then either gluing these to the walls where the original performance was, half a year later, or cutting these pictures up and using them as basis for new installation developing the theme of the previous one in a new direction, etc. Or, for those of you who work inside "Serious Art" <snort>, it can mean that you exhibit at gallery, etc. (Personally, we had great satisfaction from opening our own gallery in Trondheim, Norway, running on a Almost Invisible policy of No Pay, No Percentage and minimalistic PR, the documentation being the point. It cost us 15000 norwegian kroner to get hold of a 5x2.5 meter large old flowershop on the outskirts of town, wich we split in five. Recommended, there is something personal in owning land, even more so exhibiting your own Art on your own terms in such a place.) Also, in the plans, it states "make installation" or "Decorate at will". These terms have been left open on purpose, so as not to leave any bindings on the practitioner. *This is where the ART comes down*. Personally, we use constructs of multilayered miniatures, combinations of text and photo and symbols montaged on top of each other, in reference to each other, so that each piece is a complex structure in its own right, wich again is a part of, wich again is etc. This gives us much satisfaction, but it lies in the essence of AIA that all forms are allowed & encouraged. Endless possibilities.The plansketches below are mostly ideas we have *not* performed in the Origami BallistiKa framework, and are not in any way meant to be blueprints to be followed with slavish attention. Our wish has been to sketch out, in writing, some of the variations of the basic themes of AIA that we can imagine at the given point of time, and wich we would like to see performed. Most of these sketches are designed for the individual Art-Worker, some are designed at groups of people. The possibilities for complexity and unexpected poetry becomes enormous when you consider the potential of a network of Active Cooperating Individuals, we have decided to leave such possibilities largely to the minds of the practitioner.
This then, is how we see the basic concepts of Almost Invisible Art. To us, it is a game of games, but also a serious attempt to create complex and vital Art-Works in this time where Art more and more seems to have become a aesthetic exercise and not a tool for sublime communication. Below is given the results of a couple of evenings brain-storming on possible projects to perform, in addition we refer to the Origami BallistiKa CV wich should be on the net at the time that this information has become available. We have deliberately focused on clear structured campaigns and left the jocular/Discordian ones aside, since for once we try to present this subject in a orderly and structured fashion (Feel free to work in as much cakeeating and mickeymouseworshipping as you please). Also, we have not gone into the theory of the meme text, or of the possibilities of the internet in the creation of backup reference, or the concept of the symbol as a personal poetic reference, both selfmade and historical, or the concept of associative peakmoments as employed by J.R.R. Tolkien in his literary theory, nor have we approached the various possibilities of the permutation-techniques employed by par example Z'Evs in his rythmic works. All these, and many other ideas and thoughtstructures, are easily worked into the main body of AIA, as is most other artforms as well. Our humble hopes with this small text is to provide inspiration to all of those out there who feel alienated from the Art-establishment of vernisages and canapès, and who feel an urge to develop their own sense of Art. Also, it is an attempt to present the ideas we have been working with for the last years in a coherent and constructive form. We have on purpose minimalized the idea of MailArt in the below sketches, since this concept has been fully explored by practitioners of much greater skill than ours, for those of you interested in this aspect of AIA we reccomend the excellent magazine El Djarida <<publ.details here>> as well as several internetbased foras. MailArts great failing, as far as we see it, is that it is aimed internally, as a process of communication only within the performing circles, and not aimed outwards except in documentation-exhibitions wich then becomes part of the established gallery-regime. AIA is not limited to any one form of communication, rather it seeks to employ many forms of communication at the same time, in synergic actions. AIA is not aimed at the pleasing of friends and family, rather it is an open communication, like a radiobroadcast sent out into the night with no PR whatsoever. AIA is that wich it is, and that is all, it is not dependent on a receptor but only on the activity of the performer and hirs consistency (or lack of such) in action.Also, and perhaps most importantly, AIA is a dangerous project, because it refuses to be a part of the society of Control and so can be used against it. In the system of control, any conscious Action is dangerous to the status quo, as it is unpredictable and so contains a possibility for instigating unstability in the hearts and minds of the receptors.
THIRTY INVISIBLE THINGS YOU CAN DO YOURSELF
**Plan #1**
Take three objects. Decorate at will. Place them secret places you know you will pass several times a week/day/month/year. Continual decoration? At end of preplanned time, destroy objects? Send objects to people, either chosen or random? Document objects at end of time, use documentation in street Art exhibition?
**Plan#2**
Take a city map. Throw darts at it, when arrow hits mark spot, until sufficient numbers are marked. Draw lines, make symbol, perform actions at places marked. Use lines drawn to decide progress. Develop gamemechanics? Roll dice to decide wich "path" to follow? Set up of predesigned minirituals/performances, drawn at random? Set up of alternates inside preplanned settings, decided at random?
**Plan#3**
Organize a metal/drum jam for your friends. Brew Beer? Bonfire. Premade musical background? Banners? Pyrotechnics? Actions/performances? Strange invitations? Or just relaxed campfire?
**Plan#4**
Make/Find a prototype object. (Carstereo/Dead TV's/Roadsigns/whatever). Collect huge amounts of these objects. Put them up, in groups, decorated at will, in a set of places. Make photocopy-posters w/image of object, hail it like a emperor, a boon to society. Put these up in strange places on a the-bigger-the-better scale. Invisible places. Strange propaganda? Three step pr-campaign? Make essays extoling the virtues of object, put up as street-papers (Large font!!)? Make cultstructure for a joke?
**Plan #5**
Find some old abandoned industry structure, a house/a crane/ a truckwreckand decorate continously with a gradual development in mind. (If you live by the sea, grounded boatwrecks are beautiful). Use object as point of reference for other structures. Have private poetryreadings/concerts/jams at object, document and exhibit? Exhibitions in surrounding area, centered on object? Have nighttime fires for yourself, make it a object of resonance in your head. Make slides, project on walls at night for set intervals from carbased projector. Make resonant musical score.
**Plan#6**
Find a specific commercial/buerocratic building. (Preferrably one you can enter at will). Make it center of preplanned decoration. Find out its hierarchy, make worship cult of bossman/department heads. Kim-il-Sung style. Make colourful posters extoling his/hers virtue. Put these up in areas close to other employees homes. Reverse Action afterwards, worship of dustbin emptier? Try to get an interview in beforehand, get voice-documentation, loop and use as backdrop for carradio installation? Contact media anonymously? Set up net-pages? (Church of Bob style...)
**Plan#7**
Enter a local highbrow-place. Give everybody flowers/presents/kisses. Make small cryptic callingcards, attach/hand out these, fictional adress and organization. Combine with exhibition in surrounding streetscape using recurrent theme from card. (Symbol/Logo).
Do the same thing to Gothix/punk/artcrowd places. Several times. Best done at first in cities not your own? Establish rep. for strangeness. Military precision maneuvers, using several people in coordinated Action at several places at once? Document and exhibit. Closeupphotos of recipients faces?
**Plan#8**
Find a local park/Greenspace. Decorate at will, using consistent and internally logical theme/symbology, in at least three layers of synergic complexity. Use this theme as resonance for installations elsewhere, as public blessings. Troublespots on highway? Bad areas?. Make objects/gifts/ and hand out?
**Plan#9**
Make a giant dinner. Give away to strangers. Hand engraved plates? Calling card stuck in rice? Gifts accompanying? Make the handing out a performance, using slideprojectors/ banners/musical installations in many layers? Or simple and stripped?
**Plan10**
Make x numbers of presents. Go to local buerocratic/finacial powercenter. Give presents away to people in suits. (The point here is the attempt.) Combine with installation. Make little stickers with slogans, like "Buerocrats are our friends", "We love stockbrokers", etc. put them up as many places in building as possible. Document, streetexhibit. Decorate presents? Ritualize presents? Film the giving away?
**Plan#11**
Make set of slogans. Make Logo. Create fictional organization. Make stickers, flyers, posters. Bomb chosen areas. Send loopfaxes to random industrial numbers with slogans.
**Plan#12**
Find a given number of archetypical symbols. Make sets of poetic keywordreferences, link specific pieces of litterature to each symbol, link certain images/colours. Make installations, using these symbolic constructs as keypoints, with resonances linking them. Use as streetart. Make places for each symbol (Powerspots) totally invisible?
**Plan#13**
Put up little pictures of your parents everywhere.
**Plan#14**
Do *not* cut off your right ear.
**Plan#15**
Tape several sendings of CNN/BBC/NRK or whatever major newschannel you are fed by. Loop and splice. Add words, use cutups. Replay publicly, on walls of almost invisible place. Few invitations, combine with drum jam and party? Play on a wall in nightlife part of city, with crewe going round handing out weird propaganda, "Love your dishwasher" style.
**Plan#16**
Record a nuisance radiohit. Make adaption, fuck around. Record a brilliant radiohit. Make adaption fuck around. Make tapes of these of varying length. Get five soundsources together dirtcheap (Carstereoes? Run on carbatteries?) Mount in not easily reached places in some public area, set on continous play. Leave them there to die. (Countermuzak). Combine with mini-symbols? **Plan17**
Rent a empty store for a month. Run continual exhibitions, without opening the doors. Show slides/films on window at nighttime, hold parties with masks, set up posters and so on, but closed all the time. Play Loud music for three minutes intervals.Then shut it, disappear.
**Plan#18**
Throw dart at map of countryside. Go there. Decorate area. Have party? (Rent a minibus, blindfold passengers, have all set in advance?). Document, exhibit. Alternatively, document at moment of finished decoration and various stages of detoriation.
**Plan#19**
FInd a demonstration you agree with. Create a construction, a set of performances to be done both before, during and after the demonstration. Get really angry, taste that feeling of the group getting ready to fight/stand. Chant strange slogans. Get together group of people? Hand out weird leaflets? Conduct results-oriented rituals? (Sigilizations?) AIm at "Combined-arms" feeling, smoothly running military op?
**Plan#20**
Find a political figure. Ridicule it. Make flyers/stickers/posters. Leave Flyers in postboxes on long midnight walks. Cover walls with posters. Busstops etc. Photomanipulations. Concentrate on areas. Be elegant and sarcastic, or cryptic and weird. Combine image of politician with text from advertisements of sanitary products? Household items?
**Plan#21**
Build a small cottage/lavvo/campsite deep in the middle of nowhere. Decorate surrounding area. Perform privately. Ritualize spots of interest. Arrange parties. Document and exhibit parties. Mystical cycle celebrations? Elemental performances? Exhibit greenspaceimages in desolated cityareas?
**Plan#22**
Send predesignated number of objects through snailmail. Draw recipients randomly (Phonebook? Bingomethod?) or choose. Exhibit same number of objects with relevance to the ones sent out, incorporate the recipients name in these. Send these objects to the same list, but not to the corresponding names afterwards? Send documentation of the exhibition to the list? Keep on sending weird objects to list? No return adress, of course. Get photographs of recipients? Exhibit these? (Dangerous territory).
**Plan#23**
There is no plan #23.
**Plan#24**
Find a free theatre troupe. Mystify them. Decorate their venues, make posters for their performances, make fake interviews with critics who applaud them. Send weird fanmail. Make fictional posters for fictional plays? Escalate weirdness. End with manifesto.
**Plan#25**
Make a set of soundrecordings. Assign each recording a word/wordstructure. Perform poetry using sounds. Send taperecordings with explanation/without explanation to strangers. Make streetmusicinstallations. Make cutups of recorded material, reenact process using cutups. Burn CDs, leave them behind in record stores.
**Plan#26**
Find a musical project you know the music off. During concert, perform sets of installations given predesignated songs/pieces. Decorate area around venue. Have premade sets of poems associated to music published in weird places on the net, glued to walls etc. Hand out objects to audience? Make special editiontapes/CDs with objects, send to members of Band/Fanclub?
**Plan #27**
Find a specific tree. Honour it in all possible ways. Photograph it, use photographs ininstallation as common theme. Find out all available data on its history and its botanical species. Use these as base for cutup, glue them up in the area around. Piss on the tree, at any given opportunity, "My water unto thee".
**Plan#28**
Travel to a strange city. Enter a gallery opening, after having decorated the area. Put small objects in the various artworks/catalogues/drinks. Clap your hands loudly, cover your face with whipped cream. Leave.
**Plan#29**
Make a lot of small objects/poems/textcutups. Go to library/Bookshops. Glue these objects inside books that you yourself own using superglue. Make referential structure with bookcutups in matching numbers.
**Plan#30**
Decorate x numbers of matchboxes, the more the better. Leave them anonymously in one of your favourite bars, with small note asking if these can be handed out to audience instead of the regular advertising ones.
POSTSCRIPT
These, then, are some of the ideas we have chunked down as examples to illustrate what we mean by Almost Invisible Art. Some of these ideas are partly stolen, most are genuine and new.
Most of these are what we call loosely for campaigns, i.e. sets of Actions going over a long span of time as opposed to one single act of creation as is usual in most traditional creative Arts. Of course, AIA does not demand such an approach, the making of a nice object and the act of leaving it behind or giving it away to a stranger is in itself a full and perfect embodyment of our idea of AIA, and can bring much more Joy than the slaving away over a big-scale masterplan. Essential in the actual performance of any act of AIA, as we see it, is a certain sense of fluidity in the creative process, and while some may wish to follow their gameplans slavishly we highly recommend that, in addition to the construction of highly detailed plans the Art-Worker spend some time with spontaneous creativity, just getting some materials together and creating structures just off the top of the head. Its useful in such cases to have a few central objects, such as books to cut from or photos with a particular history, but this is in no way a requisite, some of the best things we have done have been with found objects and spontaneously composed fragments of poetry influenced by the atmosphere of the place of creation. This, in itself, is one of the best things of AIA, it can be made on the spot, in as basic or complicated form as the artist wants, and can be deployed in any wich way the fancy of the moment takes hir. Another aspect of AIA is its basic positivity, it is, as we see it a very good answer to the resignation wich seems to have influenced so much of the Art-scene after the surge of the sixties. In a way, AIA can be said to finally give Art back to the Artist, being that wich it is and no more.
As stated in the beginning of the text, our influences have been many, and we in no way claim this to be any unique or revolutionary development of Art as we know it, but it is our hope that individuals, and especially young individuals who have not yet been brainwashed by the statusmachine of the established Art-Scene, may find these notes refreshing and a trigger for Action. If we can make one singel individual get off their ass and out in the streets, we have succesfully accomplished our Work.
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