Private In Public

Slide 2: DEFINITION OF PRIVACY [In eptistmology].. Being known to or knowable by, only one person. It is in this sense that the thoughts and feelings of which a person is introspectively aware within his stream of consciousness are held to be private. More precisely, a thing is private (in this epistemologically important sense) if it is knowable directly and without inference by only one person. My smile is, of course, as much mine and no one else’s as my feelings are, but this makes it proprietary rather than private and is of little epistemological interest (though my smile, unlike my bicycle, cannot be mine at one time and somebody else’s at another). The mental states of another are indeed private in the sense defined, but that does not exclude me from having indirect, inferential knowledge of them.   Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought Ed. Allan Bullock and Stephen Trombley, Harper Collins, 1999.

Slide 3: camera This is not a presentation about surveillance and the encroachment on the privacy of the public. But about the role of art in facilitating privacy through acting privately in public. It is about changing public space through behaviour.

Slide 5: DANCING IN THE STREETS

Slide 6: THEY WERE DANCING IN THE STREETS

Slide 7: Guerilla Disco. A disco in a public place: Participants had headphones, tuned into a pirate frequency. We listened to Kristian Davidek (AT) spin an amazing set and danced for 2 hours on the streets. No one else could hear what we were dancing to. It was private radio and a public disco. Privacy in sound: hearing your own thoughts and not the thoughts of others. Proprietary music and relationships: with other dancers and the DJ. Public interaction: viewed and documented by others. If I can act so self-consciously in public by listening to headphones and dancing in the middle of Hauptplatz on a Saturday night, what is privacy in contemporary culture? Is privacy a state of mind?

Slide 8: RELAXING

Slide 9: RELAXING

Slide 10: And then there’s our Ben, lying around in garden beds

Slide 11: Private thoughts: echoes of dreams and private rhythm: stillness/slowness Proprietary space: Laying and lounging extends physical space. And slows down rhythm of the public space. Public exposure: Laying prostate is a vulnerable position, changes the power dynamic between people and shifts known roles of power in those public spaces. If I feel comfortable about lying around in a Pfarrplatz Lido. Sand covered the platz public space as part of an artwork, what is it and water from the paddling pool that I keep private? beckoned. Deckchairs with inbuilt speakers whispered with the sound of waves breaking on shore. People lay around in the sunshine, with their laptops on and their shoes off . Ben Cittadini (VIC) lay in garden beds around docklands, reclaiming personal space in public. He was not arrested, not asked to move on.

Slide 12: AIRING LAUNDRY

Slide 13: The shit machine THE SHIT MACHINE ‘Feeding’ human food - vegetables, meat, cereals, etc, plus enzymes which appear in the human digestive system, Wim Delvoye’s Cloaca replicates one of humanity’s ultimate ‘private’ act in public. By machinising and externalising our hidden workings, the machine asks us what it really means to be human. And perhaps what all the secrecy about shitting is for? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WvIuDIA4bM

Slide 14: AND WHAT’S DIRTY LAUNDRY WITHOUT TRACEY EMIN Bed, 1999 and Everyone I Have Ever Slept With, 1995 (RIP)

Slide 15: AND POSTSECRET

Slide 16: Private thoughts: secrets and the pain of one’s own embarrassing experience and perspective. Proprietary space: The exposure of one’s history and one’s awkwardness or uncomfortability. Public exposure: Changing the power over history and personal perspective. Calling for a witness. Campus 2.0 Mischa Schaub (AT). Boxer shorts on a washing line across the city, If my most private shame is exposed, what is spelled into messages by the viewer. the purpose of hiding? If a machine can Process of feeding Wim Delvoye’s Cloaca replicate what we need to couch in from Ars Electronica 2007. innuendo and suggestion, what is the Tracey Emin (UK) Bed 1999 and Everyone purpose of shame? Is postsecret the new I Have Ever Slept With, 1995 and a confessional? snapshot of Postsecret. Interesting, Frank calls Postsecret a Community Art Project – implying, perhaps, that the airing of ‘dirty laundry’ is a community requirement.

Slide 17: Speaking of online.. Second Life I hate Second Life, but I think it is one of the most interesting constructs and enlightening forums for discussion on human (and public) behaviour, space and identity since the 1960s.

Slide 18: AVATAR AS IDENTITY?

Slide 19: Creating an identity

Slide 20: Web 2.0

Slide 21: Private identity: You own feelings and thoughts about yourself. Is your name private? Proprietary relationships: You name can be yours as someone elses, and other people are aware of it. But at what point is it NOT yours. Public domain: Does publicising your name automatically Avatars in SecondLife are signified by transport you into the public glowing text above the figure. WoW by sphere? Can you still have privacy Aram Bartholl (DE) allowed participants with your name on your head? to replicate a SecondLife avatar IRL (in real life). We walked around Linz with our names above our heads, become real and virtual, becoming public and private. she sees red my blog.

Slide 22: Lyndal Jones, Crying Man 4. Artspace, Sydney. 2005

Slide 23: Private pain. Private source. Proprietary behaviour: your tears, the sobbing, the noise it makes and your own torment. Crying in public. A white western taboo. Grief is not a public act and encroaches on the anti-social scale. Encourages social behaviour without clear boundaries or direction: help and concern for wellbeing. Lyndal Jones. Crying men in a gallery. I’m interested in artists that deal with crying in public. Sophie Calle maybe?