I'm busy being busy, but here's my card...(doc. from stills)

"I'm busy being busy, here's my card..." was originally inspired by the multitude of hungry people begging on the streets of Cape Town (simultaneously one of the most beautiful and violent places in the world), many wielding signs that say things like: "No job. Need to feed family. Please help. God bless." Initially my intention was to perform specifically around areas where people were begging with such signs, yet I subsequently realized that this was not essential to the desired content. The associations sought are still inherent in the signage text and the act of standing around with a sign. Wherever I do interact with persons who really are in dire straits in material terms, everything is explained beforehand; and I only remain based on their approval (and often enthusiastic interest). While such presence obviously becomes part of the piece and does heighten the content of interaction, a lavish commercial backdrop is also more than sufficient. My intention with "I'm busy being busy, here's my card..." is to continue in my self-appointed task of questioning mainstream materialistic values and priorities in a world where close to half the world's population live on less than $2/day and climate change threatens any sense of lifestyle security. On the other end of the spectrum, a large chunk of humanity seems suspended permanently in consciousness between the media and retail outlet, between the ramp and the rail. Is `reality' being denounced and excommunicated into the realm of the 'esoteric' and 'unfathomable' in the same way that counter culture is absorbed by mainstream propaganda machines like Hollywood? The tone of the message is not intended to be confrontational; rather as thought-provoking, ideally challenging people to step out of their everyday conception of value and priority. I do not approach or engage with anyone who does not initiate interaction themselves. Rather, I want to function as an unassuming anomaly to the altar of material pursuit. In reality the work does step into confrontation, following either emotional reactions from individual members of the public, or my own mischievous whims - as I experienced during the first few days of public interaction in and around the Boston city center. "I'm busy being busy, here's my card..." had been brewing in my head up until I was asked to participate in Stencils: Public Space and Social Intervention, curated by Hiroko Kikuchi and Alice Vogler at the NESAD Gallery in Boston (July/August 2007). A gallery component to the piece (presented within this context) comprised of the hand-made sign (resting on the floor and leaning against the gallery wall) adjacent to the suit (on its hangar) that I would wear for said public intervention slots; while hurriedly scribbled wall text suggests to viewers that they might remove a business card from the right hand jacket pocket. Having seen a parallel between an empty suit in a gallery space and the endless emptiness of materialistic pursuit at which it was directed, for the purposes of this show it seemed fitting that I change into my persona in the gallery space at the start of each performance, returning it each time as a trace of the interaction. And I think, as far as the experience stands at this point, that my contempt for the suit as adornment, with all its associations of western power and established rigid thinking, and the sometimes 100 degree heat @ 90% humidity played into my intention to play off my appearance against the content of the work. Author: rouxpj Keywords: confrontational live performance documentation politics starvation religion spirituality consumer culture mass illusion Added: March 28, 2008

YouTube | March 29, 2008

Tags:. .initiate. .hungry. .endless. .confrontation. .cape