Paul Abacus engages the audience on three levels. The first is an introduction to his ideas and asks to audience to exercise their imagination skills. His factoids about the visible color spectrum, color receptors, and the eye were fascinating and combined with his charisma immediately pulled me in to the presentation. The second level is where he discusses his ideals and uses Buckminster Fuller’s Geoscope as a paradigm in which one can imagine a world without borders. Here he engages history and epistemology in such a way that left me longing that current news castors would do the same and actually give some context to facts with which they are constantly bombarding viewers. His understanding of society speaks to the post modern concept that we are not progressing, that the world in not getting better under our current understands of nature, science, ownership. However, he still believes in progressivism, just not through science or facts. Rather, it will be through social evolution that we will progress.
On the first two levels Abacus is merely a highly charming lecturer with impressive audio/visual aids. However as the performance climaxes, he moves from the position of giving a multimedia lecture to that of a stage actor, of a prophet who is plagued by self doubt, by these ideas that have not come to fruition. He curses and yells that “Patience is not a virtue. Patience is a prison. Patience is accepting a lie,” showing his humanity but also making the audience wonder whether this frustration is in fact his, or if it is performance and critic of activists. He leaves the stage and on the screens we see him walking through the hallway and then being shot, a nod towards assassinations of prophet-like figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., and John F. Kennedy.
Within the presentation itself, I was particularly intrigued by the purpose of nations and that we have outgrown their usefulness. The idea of nations is so engrained into me that the idea of a world without borders is shocking. However I did agree that the most effective form of community is a local one. I also particularly resonated with the idea that humanity has not outgrown god and religion but rather that it has taken a different form.
As for the multimedia aspect, the six large screens symbolized the confusion of borders. When images were split over the six screens, they were unclear and were not cohesive. In the same way borders between countries disrupt our ability to visualize a world without them. I was confused by the cameras circling around and do not understand what they added. Perhaps it was designed to disorient the audience and help them to see beyond societal conditioning. I agree with JVolyn that the projections of Abacus over multiple screens mimicked fascist techniques. And I admit that Abacus’ charisma drew me into his ‘cult of personality.’ That being said, I think that the piece successfully challenged the audience to see beyond ‘antique’ conditioning, presented a convincing argument for a world without borders, and finally placed his presentation within the context of the history/nature of prophets. It reminds me of the recent movie Inception, where the audience is pulled into level after level of dream only to be left wondering whether ‘reality’ in the movie is merely another dream. Abacus may be just another idealist doomed to failure, but his self-awareness of that possibility elevated his presentation to visionary artwork.
Interesting points Charis – I think we see eye to eye on certain aspects of the performance and disagree on others. To touch on some of our differences, I don’t think that Abacus’ argument was compelling enough to warrant significant change. What might be the resultant effect of the dissolution of borders? I don’t think his simplified economic model of bananas and monkeys truly illustrates the types of barrier issues we face as nations and as a species, and although Paul might engage in a post-modern critique, his folly is the same as the modernists. There’s no objective, there’s only progress, and through progress there can only be chaos.
ReplyDeleteAs a counter to Abacus’ ideal state, I think the “progressive” thing to do is to specialize. In a specialized global society each nation is a cog to the greater system, representing the most efficient mechanical design of human genius. In this world, the borders are not dissolved, but rather more defined. Still, they would exist merely as a subset to the greater global culture that we’re devising with the availability of information technology.