My name is Cary Peppermint
and this is a performance of that name. Some of you may know me
best from my recombinant media practices such as the time I sold
myself as MEDIUM using Ebay.com or the time I created an invitation
to an ever-present party using Evite.com or maybe from the time
I posted 100 images of myself and artist Christina Mohammed on Ofoto.com
lo-fi
flame trick - 2003
and rendered our faces awash
and unrecognizable through the Photoshop "lens flare" filter
in an effort to photographically convey the concept of the over-exposed,
western, consumer-subject who is without purpose or identity, hyper-mediated
and awash in the blinding light of capital and exchange or maybe you know
me from the time I sold "admissions" to simulated parties NOT
REAL PARTIES that were held in an undisclosed warehouse location in Harlem
USA where the participants had to drink warm Budweiser beer, play with
balloons, dance on an electric blue astro-turf until the lights went out
and the music stopped and participants had to FREEZE at intermittent intervals
and then participants were illuminated briefly by the built-in flash of
a Polaroid camera and the participants’ images fell on the floor
and then the lights came on and the music continued and the participants
danced on top of their images and the whole sequence was repeated over
again or perhaps you know me simply from the chemical induced simulation
of net.art as expressed through my creation of the popular quasi-hallucinogenic
drink SOYLOVE that many fine and distinguished members of the net.art
community tripped upon while under the scrutiny of 48 hours surveillance
cameras in an event that was titled, "The Warhol Hijack" or
maybe you read about me in AI Magazine when they said, "The lessons
of the Surrealists are remixed daily in net.art such as Peppermint’s."
You may not have heard from me in a while. I had some difficult times.
My dad died suddenly of a heart attack in 1999 and then on September 11th,
2001, my mom suffered a stroke in simultaneity with the World Trade Center
attacks that resulted in her death a short time later. The living representations
of my past suddenly disappeared and I experienced a crash course in the
"sketchy" act of recollection, the performance of memory. The
dead don’t talk back or fill in the details or otherwise supply one
with updated material. It is frightening when one’s informants stop
talking. I feel like I’ve been left behind trying to make it up as
I go along with nothing but slippery language and restless images that
my desires distort and seem to only end up further dissipating. So tonight
I am thinking there is no high fidelity. There is no 1:1 ratio. There
is no direct representation. I have said it before and I will say it again:
"Mediation is a lie told with the utmost conviction." However
I think now that there is such thing as a "faithful record"
that is an attempt at movement, to engage in a practice, make creative
decisions, weave narratives, leave behind evidence that might encourage
dialogues and create documents like this one.
Needless to say I didn’t feel like performing my name for a while.
However, as you may have concluded by now I am feeling much better. Most
recently, I have been hanging out in the deep woods of Maine. I have been
listening to coyotes and owls, tracking moose and contemplating the mass
proliferation of insects that inhabit the woodlands of planet earth. I
have been carefully and responsibly shooting guns at inanimate targets.
I have been using a chainsaw and various other dangerous tools. I have
made new friends with names like "Bob", "Mary Jane"
and "Big Jim" in a land of expanded space, slower bpms (beats
per minute), reduced mediation and above all, from what I can tell, a
greater incidence of sincerity; the desire to listen to and create "faithful
records."
It takes a lot of nerve to mediate yourself. I am back in New York now.
I’ve got a lot of nerve and so some people take my performances seriously
and cannot distinguish the violent reductions in character produced by
the re-presentations of the likes that I offer here from the complexity
of my imminent and continuing live physical presence. This is too bad
but it can also be a good thing when it comes to the success of art and
the continuation of my product.
That said, Let’s talk about CONDUCTOR performances.
From today forward, I’d like to change the way I am received that
is the distance and/or focus with which I am mediated. I’d like to
re-direct the transmission. This is what I do best as an artist: I manipulate
distance and speed. I manipulate space.
1. For years CONDUCTORS have been released in numeric versions akin to
software applications, e.g. Version 2.0, Version 2.5, Version 4.0, etc.
I am tired of this model. Sure, it started off as an interesting, timely,
poetic device employed in the dot.com era that referenced not so much
"progress" as software conglomerates would have you believe
but more update and an accumulative process of planned obsolesce. From
now on instead of by a version number, CONDUCTORS will be distinguished
by a descriptive name immediately following the title, e.g. CONDUCTOR
FRONTIER VERSION, CONDUCTOR BEACH-HOUSE VERSION, CONDUCTOR DEEP-WOODS
VERSION, CONDUCTOR BRONX VERSION, etc.
2. For years I regarded "proper" scheduled performances as somehow
untrue or less sincere than other more impromptu, less mediated and integrated
"life performances" or what I like to think of as "exposures."
I executed CONDUCTOR performances with a certain apologetic tone and ultimately
considered them mere "trade-show" exhibitions. I felt like CONDUCTORS
were a necessary evil that served as a diluted reference toward a more
comprehensive body of "real" and more important work. I stand
here before you today in witness that I have misunderstood CONDUCTOR performances.
In the past I became involved in personal, post-performance battles of
my ego wherein I could not locate or distinguish myself from performer.
I would often mutter naïve, narcissistic statements like the following:
"If only I could sleep with and become lovers with each and every
member of the audience then and only then would a sincere performance
take place that would most nearly approximate Art." I do not feel
this way anymore. On one very basic level I think of CONDUCTORS simply
as DECISIONS. A CONDUCTOR performance is a violent but necessary DECISION
involving the allocation of space and time for something to happen that
purports to be the truth. How else is dialogue charged? How else are ideas
jumpstarted? I am in the business of ideas and CONDUCTORS are my way of
making an offer. CONDUCTORS then become most nearly something approximating
Art by way of the "Counter-offer" on the part of the audience
member, participant, reader. The energy that runs through a CONDUCTOR
is supplied by those who employ imagination, personalize the experience
and dream that a connection was made; a circuit was formed integrating
life and art, audience & performer. It is my job only to mediate and
in assuming the role of "medium", I must expect nothing. I must
walk away from each work with an understanding of my limited capacity
and essentially my singular role as a conducting material through which
to complete a circuit, through which the living might gain access to a
"faithful record."
Cary Peppermint
NYC - 09.01.2003
P.S. Just to set the record straight and put an end to scandalous rumors
circulating around the online-artworld & beyond: Christina and I sold
the Progirl.com domain a couple of years ago. It no longer houses our
works. However, our best to the photographer whose work now graces that
site.
