Paul Abacus advocates his socialist agenda in this performance art piece with a glorified soap box and megaphone. The self-titled ABACUS is a tribute to the man’s egotistical vision that merely regurgitates the ideas of Darwin, Buckminster Fuller, and philosophies that echo Nietzsche, and Marx. The Opera’s vertically-paneled screens enhance their ‘cult of personality’ effect, and command the audience through fascist technique.
As a viewer, I felt generally uninvolved as Paul drowned both the audience and himself in self-reverie and discontent. Even when participatory action was encouraged, it was no more interactive than say trivial polling or mimicry. That being said, if a discussion and following was desired, then I must question his delivery and presentation methodologies, as the position being taken was adversarial to popular belief. I don’t disagree with his social paradigm, and I think he appeals to some very general 21rst Century sensibilities. His argument follows logic and truth, the metaphysical product of modern scientific dogma. But I think this is really the source of confusion, because the Opera combines Paul’s compelling objectivity with artistic drama and performance, which ultimately distorts the output, making it very political.
As a piece of entertainment, I think ABACUS is successful. The piece excites, engages, shocks, and dramatizes. As anything else however, the piece just doesn’t jive. The piece is well designed for RPI and artistic introverts, but would fall apart outside of this niche. In many ways art has always been exclusive, and something that was only accessible to the intelligentsia. I suppose that Paul might be able to evangelize a small crowd of this sort, but if he desired widespread assimilation of his ideas, he might translate his spoken prose to laymen terms. I say this because Paul talks about understanding. The whole principle behind this idea is that if one is to understand then we first need a universal language. Paul touches on the notion, but the problem itself is not addressed.
To speak of the content of ABACUS, I need to first comment on the vehicle of communication. As I mentioned earlier, the visual set-up is inherently fascist with a twist- the audience is looking down at the performer. I don’t believe that this was a condition that was meant to empower the audience, however. The content “performed” was both aggressive and intimidating. The screen(s) depicted high-contrast images with Paul’s deep-shadowed features, paired with flashy statistical visualizations and models, bringing PowerPoint to whole new level of totalitarian influence. Paul’s setup commands the viewer’s attention. In fact it demands it ruthlessly. On this level I have a problem, and my entire organism can’t help but rebel against Paul Abacus’ dream of some definitive social utopia.
I agree with you on your review of ABACUS. I did feel like the participation was not really as strong as it was supposed to be. I thought it was just a performance with no participation at all before I saw it. So I had a mindset that I would just sit there and enjoy the performance. But I believe that participation was an important part of his whole delivery. In order to incorporate his “understanding” in the audience, he asked us to participate. If we participate, we can feel his ideas flowing through us. What we do shows that we understand what he’s talking about. At the beginning, I did not seem to follow his ideas. But once I participated in the roller coaster ride, I felt like I was on the same page with him.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you on that this piece will probably not be widely known beyond this world of artists. Abacus is like another social influence that gets people thinking and like many others out there, fails at the end. It’s mainly due to people having different ideas. People can choose to agree or not but will they really accept his thought as the right process to making the world better? If there is no understanding, then ideas are basically trash. I definitely understand where you got the social utopia from and that is clearly his point. Because it’s impossible in this society, Abacus decides to tell us about it. But don’t you think he should have performed it differently? Like maybe show us what this social utopia in his mind looks like?
I agree with your assessment of the "attempted" (read failed) audience participation that Abacus tried to include in his show, Abacus. For the roller-coaster section he told us to put our hands up and scream. Most of us put our hands up, nobody was screaming. Then he yelled "Scream if you feel it! Scream if you feel it!" A few members of the audience began screaming, just to be polite.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the piece was extremely egotistical. They had these six massive screen with beautiful projectors behind them. It's too bad they were all displaying gritty pictures of Abacus for all but 10 minutes of the presentation. After his swearing tirade, Abacus said "It's not about me". I almost died trying to contain my laughter.
Before the performance, one of the curators explained how she had met Abacus on a subway in Japan...Perhaps there was a reason he was there? Maybe you should have left him there?
@Angela - Thank you for elaborating on some of my initial commentary - And yes, I think that ABACUS' vision was too limited. I felt that the key components missing from the performance were vision, focus, and direction. Instead of giving us a plan to go ahead with the implementation of this better world, we're left with the bit and pieces and no manual.
ReplyDeleteSuch a shame, with all of the visualization technology at his disposal, one would think he'd be able to render a clearer picture - why not demo this imaginary world? He couldn't sell me on his idea because I couldn't possibly "see" the same world that he was abstractly talking about.