On September 30th, Further Dispatches From Elsewhere released a further dispatch concerning the actions of an art curator named Audrey Greigh. “We do not quite understand her aims at this time [...] is she trying to exploit our nonchalance? This remains to be seen.” Her gallery exhibit was describly thusly:
NONCHALANCE
Zetetic/Peripatetic: Investigations into the Ontology of the Elsewhere Public Works Agency and the First Steps Towards the Formulation of a General Theory of the Practice of Nonchalants
A failed collaboration between so-called curator Audrey Greigh, who has sadly lapsed into doctrinal error, and Elsewhere Public Works EPWA.
The dispatch continued with information on Soex Gallery where the event was scheduled to run from October 17th until December 12th.
Two days later, another Dispatch was released; it ended with an announcement of a Special Live Broadcast on October 16th, a “tribute to our lady of Nonchalance, Miss Eva Lucien, on this special day of her disappearance. In stereo. Be there with bells on.” Two events, one weekend: the 21st anniversary of The Missing, and an art show.
Before attending the tribute, I ran a quick side errand to the San Francisco Library, looking for a copy of Baudrillard’s The Consumer Society, but the only thing Baudrillardy was a reader that only had excerpts. I averted my gaze away from the library’s psychotic carpeting while taking photos of various pages, then left.
While Crumbly and I were making my way to the park, a small crew had gone to Faye’s to pick up all the radios. While there, they received balloons/markers with written instructions.
[Photo: Duckstabd]
We parked our butts at the agreed-upon meeting spot in Delores Park. MrEricSir and Alexia joined us shortly thereafter, and we all waited for the live broadcast.
After listening to “The Rainbow Connection,” “Baby I’m Yours,” and a short collage of familiar voices from the nonchalantic past, Commander 14 took the helm:
[...] It is my duty to ask you, listeners, what were her words? What was the lesson? What did she say unto us? Do you believe that she meant what it is that she said? Now, let me quote. “I decided to leave them a message map in recorded waveform. They won’t find it immediately. It could take years. When they are ready, it will become apparent to them.” And now it is my job to ask you, the listeners, are you ready? Have you come far enough? Will you hear the call? She may be calling out to you now, and if so, would you even recognize it? Are you waiting for something to happen? Then you have grieviously missed the point! You are what happens! Is the world of nonchalance all around you? Or is it not? You are either of the tribe ... or you aren’t. The battle rages on, all the time! It is a metaphysical ROAR in the deep forests of San Francisco and we are the guerillas in the midst, never asleep, never unaware, of the millions of [...] surrounding us constantly ...
A bit later Commander 14 asked for some things, some oddly at hand, one completely fictional.
For an upcoming operation, we are collecting the following items. Couch cushions and other billowy artifacts. Used blankets. Miniature replicas of the Jejune Institute. Small dogs named “Jejune.” Donuts in the shape of hobo glyphs. If you have any of these items, please stayed tuned to Further Dispatches From Elsewhere for pickup and dropoff. We thank you for your continued support.
Hrm. Looked like I was going to have to fix those columns on 580 Jr. after all. The donut, however ... that was a reference to an edited image Jason created, a life-like portrayal of a mythical rabbit hole donut confection. There used to be a place in San Jose, Lou’s, that would take the donut holes and slam ’em back onto the sides of the donuts before frying so your finished donut looked like it had a tumor on it. A tasty bonus donut tumor bolus. Lou’s was gone, but there was the possibility that getting someone else to do something similar wouldn’t be that hard.
Meanwhile, a crowd had gathered for the tribute in a corner of the park, but we were facing the other way and didn’t see the gathering. Eventually Crumbly figured it out and we trundled on over to join up with everyone. The balloons had already been written on and launched. Some people were holding candles, but I wasn’t falling for that trick again ... during the Action I was carrying a protest sign, a bell, a piece of chalk, a mask, my bag, and trying to take photos while getting hand-jazzy ... that required six more hands than I actually had at the time (2).
I handed off some sticker packs of the SF personalities and assorted related graphics to various people.
At the end of it all, there was a giant group hug. I may have been involved in that.
After the broadcast had finished, the crowd had dispersed and the radios were returned, I thought about the request for “miniature replicas of the Jejune Institute.” That’s plural there, so it was time to get to work, especially when the undetermined future could have been the next day! I went ahead and made 580jrjr, a simplified version of 580jr, so other people could create models using a regular printer. And also a “blank” for people to go freeform/“hog wild.”
Wrap the Jejune Institute around a carton of milk! Shrink it down, make it the size of a deck of cards! Print out two of them and make them fight! Churn out a dozen of them, carry them in a sack! Use Rasterbator, blow it up large enough to stick on a discarded refrigerator box! Small! Big! Micro! Jumbo! Draw an abstract version of the JI while asleep! Mount a bell on the inside so goondroids can’t mess with your stuff! Hup hup hup!
The day ended, as most days do. Kelvin indicated that he had attended the tribute as well:
I went to the thing. In the park. On the radio. And. It. Was truly a bizarre encounter. I was shocked to discover an entire subculture based in some abstract way around the ideas Eva expressed in her journal and other works. They call themselves the Elsewhere Public Works Agency, and they are totally off their rockers as far as I can tell. They seem to treat as Gospel all of Eva’s strange nonsensical philosophies about life, eccentricities, and that mythical place from her childhood she mentioned called “Elsewhere”. As misguided as they appeared, there was something very moving about the broadcast itself. It possessed both a whimsy and a melancholy that I quickly identified with, and it seemed to be very much in the spirit of the person we knew as Eva. At least in part. I also had a vague sense of dread while in their presence, like something very bad could come of association with these people. I kept my distance for the most part, staying around the perimeter.
The next day, I met up with Crumbly Donut to hit SOEX with hitting.
The boilerplate on the website prepared us to investigate the EPWA’s ontology. We were budding general ontologists. Onto!
Nonchalance, Zetetic/Peripatetic: Investigations into the Ontology of the Elsewhere Public Works Agency and the First Steps Towards the Formulation of a General Theory of the Practice of Nonchalants Part fringe folklore, part comment on group potential, part dérive, Nonchalance creates hyper-real alternate reality games through tightly synchronized constellation of rivalries, quixotic maps, surrogate locations, and chance meetings. For Southern Exposure, Nonchalance presents Zetetic/Peripatetic: Investigations into the Ontology of the Elsewhere Public Works Agency and the First Steps Towards the Formulation of a General Theory of the Practice of Nonchalants, a new public project focused on the failed collaboration between curator Audrey Griegh and rival group, Elsewhere Public Works (EPWA). As visitors walk through the familiar sites prescribed in this work, Nonchalance’s narrative layers time and lifts them into a parallel reality of intrigue and the desire to right a topsy-turvy past through inquiry and the ability to just drift.
Nonchalance’s exhibit was just inside the main gallery, which featured a small number of large, unrelated exhibits. Or were they? The cased-in portion of the Nonchalance exhibit featured a beat up “Soon Obsolete” sign, a pile of tiny bricks (brick jr.), a few miniature tinfoil hats (jr.), a serious bell, an Octavio Coleman mask, an EPWA armband, and some nonchalanty teeth. The whole thing was crowned with a series of numbered pushpins joined by strings that I of course feverishly replicated on paper JIC but had no obvious use/meaning.
Above the case was a volley of letters between Drybones of the EPWA and the aforementioned Audrey Greigh, a “guest artist and curator” working with SoEx. It was a bit of a meta-exhibit; an exhibit of the discussion of setting up the very exhibit you were looking at.
You know Audrey’s fake, no one has a signature that relaxed anymore. Everyone’s got crabbed hands from those damned video-games and typing astute comments on internet video service domains. The exchange didn’t seem to end well; Drybones got bristly with Audrey’s attempts to corral thee powerful force of nonchalance, Audrey apologized and asked for final approval on the exhibit. In the package he had sent to Audrey, Drybones included a clutch of tiny envelopes for gallery visitors.
The envelopes read “WHATS INSIDE THIS ENVELOPE THE CONTENTS ARE FOR YOU” and on the back: “[NOT AUDREY].” Crumbly (NOT AUDREY) and I (also NOT AUDREY) grabbed tiny envelopes. Inside ... a card.
“FOREWARNING: CLASS SEVEN PENETRATION!” CLASS SEVEN PENETRATION?!?!? WE NEED TO LEAVE THE GALLERY IMMEDIATELY! After flouncing around the displays for awhile, we met up with Urban Phoenix and hit the streets. Atlas Cafe was right across the street, and there on the side of the building, a mural ... with a gargoyle. This l’il feller looked to be a little embarrassed, having dropped a number at his feet.
With our new favorite three-digit number fresh in our minds, we counted off the 31 squares and found another lockbox.
It looked like we needed to order some special tea at a nearby cafe. Briareosh and his wife joined our group. We occasionally ran into the Duckstabd family as we kept crossing paths.
Urban Phoenix bought a round of Amphigory Tea for everyone. We played musical chairs, agent Cal Bruin showed up, Crumbly sat outside after I had sat inside so we talked to each other through the glass which didn’t work at all. We called the number; it was Drybones. First he made sure it wasn’t Audrey on the line, then gave us instructions to cross the street and find a Suspension Zone where we would receive further instructions from Commander 14.
So we crossed the street, passed a tostada+ stand, and found the Suspension Zone.
OH NO CRUMBLY DONUT IS TRAPPED IN THE SUSPENSION ZONE (TRAPPED IN THE SUSPENSION ZONE!)!!!!
Ha ha ha, no, he was able to exit the zone of his own free will. It only appeared as if he would have to spend the rest of his life trapped in a tiny box, dependent on the good will of strangers to feed him tostadas/horchata from the nearby tostada+ stand and bring him news from the outside world.
The payphone next to the Suspension Zone rang. Crumbly picked it up and had us sporadically laughing at his terse summaries of the breadcrumbs Commander 14 was dropping on the other end. There didn’t seem to be anything new in the mix ... end of trail for awhile. We loitered in the Zone. The graphic for the Suspension Zone was well-done, especially considering that we had thought we were going to see the same thing we had seen two weeks prior:
At that time, I was still processing Eva’s Journal – when she had met the Bon-Vivants (Delsqui, Cornelius, Play2), she had them write down their phone numbers in it. Cornelius’ number was Hip Hop Shoe Repair, Play2’s number went straight to the Alemany Flea Market, and Delsqui’s had the message from Drybones talking about the effects of the tea etc. We picked up the trailhead for laughs to see where it went; we hadn’t figured on a robo-caller, so we didn’t re-call the number while we were out there. Also I had thought that it was for some related side event that was already over, not a play-test. We got tostadas from the vendor right there on the sidewalk and ate them in the proto-Suspension Zone.
Fast-forward two weeks; two younger guys showed up to answer the payphone, and it looked like this was the first part of their exposure to everything. After they left, we ended up talking about how some people are “skimming the cream” and that’s just the way it’s going to be with ARGs, you can do the real cool stuff without immersing yourself in the non-cream, or however that metaphor works. Which is fine; some people just don’t have the time or inclination. And really, I can imagine someone coming into all of this at this point and balking at the firehose. Mere hours after I wrote the previous sentence, a friend indicated to me that she was so far behind that she was ready to toss in the towel. I indicated that what she still needed to do was non-linear, that she could pop in anywhere and connect the threads at her leisure. Perhaps the EPWA should set up a counseling service for the recently overwhelmed.
Another agent, Ariock, was having problems with the phone – it wasn’t doing the robo-call trick anymore. Immediately I thought “Oh ... Not again.” I used to run a site called Phoneswarm and on that site I’d list a different payphone number each week, only for that week. But sometimes Other Priorities would press my face against the wall all smooooooOOOOSSSSSSHHHHH and I wouldn’t get around to changing the number as frequently as I wanted to. If a phone company ro-bot tallies a high number of incoming calls to a payphone, sometimes they will shut off the incoming call feature because of course drug dealers still use pagers. Phoneswarm inadvertently killed at least three payphones, maybe more. After a few minutes the payphone finally rang and Ariock was off and running. Listening, not running.
I was hangin’ tuff at Crumbly Donut’s afterward and he asked me when I’d be in the city next. I said I didn’t know. I idly picked up one of the two pamphlets available at SoEx and ran across this entry:
THE BOUNDARIES OF COLLABORATION AND THE FUTURE OF FENCES, WALLS, AND OTHER IMPEDIMENTS. A talk and project tour by Nonchalance Saturday, October 24, 2009, 2:00 pm Artist collaborative Nonchalance invite guest artist and curator Audrey Greigh to Southern Exposure to discuss her most recent attempt at working with the Elsewhere Public Works Agency (EPWA). Find out what she learned about who the EPWA are and what they do to maintain and manage “nonchalance.”
“Next week, actually.”
Say, why not continue on to the next part: Talk.