Monday, December 28, 2015

A screaming comes across the sky

Museum of Capitalism, redux.

I sent my proposal without registering, including a request for payment. They asked me to resubmit, following the rules.
You might be surprised how positively our planning committee and jury might respond to proposals that are entirely speculative, conceptual, "jokes", or critical of our Museum or the competition itself.
It helps that my email signature includes this

(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

"I like the idea, and your cute bunny image."
Americans always see a rabbit not a cat.
A friend found it it. I've always assumed it was designed by a Japanese teenager.

I'm going to resubmit my proposal in the form of a dissent.
There's one more damned than all. He never gambols,
Nor crawls, nor roars, but, from the rest withdrawn,
Gladly of this whole earth would make a shambles
And swallow up existence with a yawn
-Baudelaire

The form of wood is altered if a table is made out of it. Nevertheless the table continues to be wood, an ordinary sensuous thing. But as soon as it emerges as a commodity, it changes into a thing which transcends sensuousness.
-Marx

Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death.
-Werner von Braun
I didn't send the proposal unawares. The lead juror is Chip Lord, but I wasn't sure anyone still had a sense of humor. And the idea of a museum kind of disgusts me. All museums are museums of capitalism: filing cabinets full of objects and people. Capital dissolves meanings. All that is solid melts into air, and all that is not becomes material. "Philosophers' concepts are called objects. Writers of financial contracts are called financial engineers."

An amusing thing about the pitch for the competition is that the designer used a 3D font based on optical illusions: the image of solidity is not only illusion of three dimensions but a self-defeating one. My anti-proposal made the same argument.

Capitalism:



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