Saturday, August 12, 2006

Ground Control to Major Tom...


Transcript provided courtesy Puckwaller Media Corp., Inc. L.L.C., N.G.O., ©2006 all rights left


Q: We’re pleased to have as our guest on Quiddity this evening the obscure and enigmatic post-modern internet performance artist known as “Anastasia”. Welcome to the show.


A: Uh-huh


Q: So, What was it that attracted you to becoming an internet performance artist?


A: None of your fucking business.


Q: (laughs) Yes, well, that’s very post-modern of you, I must say. Now, I understand that your latest project is a parody of the famous comic strip, “Cathy”, by Cathy Guisewite.


A: “Parody”?


Q: Yes, Satire. Humor.


A: I have no sense of humor.


Q: Well, you are making satirical parodies of the comic strip, are you not?


A: I like to think of it as spewing seething bile out for all to see.


Q: Well, it may be angry satire, but it’s still humor.


A: I have no sense of humor. I just so happen to be fortunate that venomous rage, abject hopelessness and raw, bitter despair is what passes for “funny” these days.


Q: I see. Hence the “post-modern”


A: If you will.


Q: But although your current work is desecrating and disrespecting someone else’s art, you yourself are an artist in your own right.


A: (laughs bitterly)


Q: Well, you are, I’ve seen some of your work; it is online. You have galleries of both hand drawn and photographic art, several poems and short stories, and even a graphic novel that you write and draw yourself.


A: Yes. My mother keeps saying to me, “Why don’t you get a real job”, and I keep telling her, “Mother, I don’t even have a fake job; I don’t have a job at all. How do you think I’d manage to waste so much time on frivolous nonsense if I had to go to work every day?”


Q: But you have had regular jobs in your life, yes?


A: How did you think I accumulated so much venomous rage, abject hopelessness and raw, bitter despair?


Q: Well, there’s the terrible unfairness of life, the searing agony of loss and shattered dreams, the deep, existential sorrow of being in a world devoid of meaning or purpose...


A: Well, yeah; that too.


Q: And then, there are those who would argue that making art is not frivolous nonsense.


A: They probably don’t have mothers telling them to get real jobs all the time.


Q: Ah - that’s that post-modernism coming out in you again, isn’t it?


A: You know what’s “Post-Modern”? “Re-inventing” yourself is post-modern. People who take “People”magazine seriously is post-modern. Soy Milk is post-modern. Writing fictional novels whose characters are real historical figures is post-modern. Watching 1950's sitcoms on cable tv and thinking you’re enjoying yourself is post-modern.


Q: I see. So, do you consider yourself “cutting edge”, or “so last year”?


A: Most of the time, yes.


Q: And what is it you hope to get out of this?


A: Hits.


Q: Excuse me?


A: Hits. Lots and lots of hits. “Hits” are the coin of the realm in cyberspace. I want to be filthy rich.


Q: And is your “Cathy Parody Project” getting a lot of hits?


A: I’m averaging about twelve a day. I suppose that makes my readership either a select elite who are “in the know”, or a clueless handful with nothing better to do with themselves.


Q: Maybe you could appeal to them to spread the word about your “Cathy” Blog.


A: No, I don’t think so. That would be crass, manipulative, and disingenuous. I have my artistic integrity to worry about. To ask my small readership to tell others who might derive some intellectual or emotional benefit from reading my blog, or to request that they make the effort to link me or make any other kind of effort to make others aware of what I’m doing, that would smack of cheap self-aggrandizement and pathetic pandering. I could never do such a thing.


Q: Well, I admire your dedication to artistic purity, if nothing else. One last question before we go. Is there a secret to your ability to tap into the pulse of the Zeitgeist, to apprehend the Weltschmertz, to draw from the wellspring of the collective archetypal reservoir, and to resonate at the frequency of the Mystic Masters of Old?


A: Yes.


Q: Well, I’m afraid that’s all we have time for today. Thank you for coming, and best of luck in your endeavors. Until next time, this is “Q” for Quiddity, signing off.




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