In March 2011, Francis Schaeffer Cox, a leader of a Militia in Fairbanks Alaska, 2nd Amendment Activist and advocate of Sovereign Citizenship ideologies, was arrested after an escalating series of troubles. He was charged with multiple counts of possession of unregistered firearms and plotting to kill local law enforcement and officers of the court. Acquitted of all state charges in October 2011 due to an inability of the prosecution to use evidence gathered by the FBI, Cox still faced many Federal Charges. In the following months, Federal Authorities brought additional charges against Cox including conspiracy to commit murder.
As Cox awaited trial, I followed the case and began making artwork in parallel with that research for the duration of the trial or until such time that the charges were dropped. What was initially intended to be a one-month project based on the expected court date began to stretch on and on as the trial continued to be delayed. By March, this work had evolved into an installation, which resembled a stage set of a sort. Since a stage suggests performance, I invited Daniel Fishkin, a sound/electronics artist to use or address the space somehow as I continued to work on it, to, in effect, have two parallel practices happening in the same space. His proposal was to incorporate a second version of an instrument (which he calls, “The Lady’s Harp”) into the architecture of the installation. During Bushwick Open Studios 2012, Daniel, myself and a troupe of talented musicians performed several shows on the Lady’s Harp as part of Daniel’s project, “Composing the Tinnitus Suites” (Link: http://dfiction.com/composing-the-tinnitus-suites-2012-excerpt/), and used the instrument in its dormant state to amplify auditory clips I had gathered as part of my research. To signify the end of the project, I wrote and sent Schaeffer Cox a letter in which I explained my project and expressed my admittedly ambivalent feelings about his case.
I have not yet received a response.
“To interrupt the utility of bridges, tunnels, highways, railroads, Switzerland has established three thousand points of demolition. That is the number officially printed. It has been suggested to me that to approximate a true figure a reader ought to multiply by two. Where a highway bridge crosses a railroad, a segment of the bridge is programmed to drop on the railroad. Primacord fuses are built into the bridge. Hidden artillery is in place on either side, set to prevent the enemy from clearing or repairing the damage. All purposes included, concealed and stationary artillery probably number upward of twelve thousand guns. The Porcupine Principle. Near the German border of Switzerland, every railroad and highway tunnel has been prepared to pinch shut explosively. Nearby mountains have been made so porous that whole divisions can fit inside them. There are weapons and soldiers under barns. There are cannons inside pretty houses. Where Swiss highways happen to run on narrow ground between the edges of lakes and to the bottoms of cliffs, man-made rockslides are ready to slide.” John McPhee La Place de la Concorde Suisse
An installation of variable dimensions and expressions that purports to show the ephemera a lost political movement. Based on Henry George, the late 19th Century American land reform advocate and a social theorist, EWBTVL imagines a past wherein a robust political movement arose around George’s ideas. As a remnant of that past, the overly-postered partition walls (the likes of which one finds around work sites and vacant lots) and torn fragments suggest a present where this movement has fallen out of popularity. Which is to say that as a work of historical fiction, EWBTVL hews closely to historical fact.
In the first part of this two-part performance/installation, I created a reading list of political literature focusing on revolutionary movements and criticisms thereof. I then read these books. In the second part of this piece, I recreated the books that I read out of blocks of wood, digital prints and aqua-resin In recreating the books, I de-saturated and manipulated their covers so that they looked sun-damaged. I then brought them out onto the street to sell. If asked for a price, I would insist that the piece be sold in its entirety rather than book by book.
THE READING LIST: Handbook for Volunteers of the Irish Republican Army by Anon ;The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arednt; Statism and Anarchy by Mikhail Bakunin; The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir; Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke; The Basques: The Franco Years and Beyond by Robert P. Clark; Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver; Stalin by Issac Deutsher; The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon; Journal 1955-1962: Reflections on the French-Algerian War by Mouloud Feraoun; Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire; Life of a Revolutionary by Antonio Gramsci; The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek; The Coming Insurrection by The Invisible Committee; Cambodia: 1975-1978 edited by Karl D. Jackson; On Thermonuclear War by Herman Kahn; The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism by Bertrand Russell
The Cistercians were group of medieval monks who left the cosy confines of Cluny Abbey for the uncultivated marshes of Citeaux to more closely abide the Rule of St.Benedict. That rule is most succinctly summarized in their motto: ORA ET LABORA (Prayer & Work.) This utopian ideal of wilderness, as a return to simplicity and earnest endeavor, strikes me as an interesting anachronism.
It increasingly seems to be the case that wilderness is more valuable than cultivated land, which we have in abundance. Perhaps we to need to return to the Rule of St. Benedict but to enter this noble work in reverse. To return to our cities and suburbs and begin the hard work of re-wilding our rooftops and our vacant lots. To re-wild our minds. To de-domesticate. To simplify.
The table is covered with strewn papers, empty coffee cups and cigarette butts. Among the debris, there is a large cone speaker with two smaller speakers and a microphone. The scene suggests a protest or political education booth that has been abandoned. The speaker plays a mash-up of different versions of the Internationale, which drifts in and out of audibility. It was conceived as both a stand-alone installation and a platform for performance, free speech and debate.
