Collaboration and Competition

I lead a class focusing on the idea of collaboration for the social practice critical theory independent study group.

The more I learn about negotiation (which is my elective this quarter), the more I am starting to think of each interaction we have as artists with the audience as a kind of negotiation. Negotiators are trying to "create value" for the other side and to persuade them into thinking about the issue at hand in a new way. So in theory, as artists, we can decide to have a collaborative style or competitive style or avoidant style with our audience, or with other artists, or with funding institutions. So, instead of thinking of negotiating as something a lawyer does, we might have fun seeing negotiation as something each of us does in every interaction we have with another person. I have been wondering what it would be like to try and match different artists with different conflict styles. Do painters negotiate with their audience in different ways than social praciticioners? If so, how?

For the class, I had people:

1. Take a Confict Styles test. We read through descriptions of five different conflict styles - competitive, avoidant, compromising, accomodating, and collaborative - and then tried to come up with examples of specific situations where different conflict styles would be helpful or not helpful. For example, we talked about how being competitive is helpful in a military or sport situation, but maybe onot in a situation where you want to build a relationship. We also talked about how this test is really only relevant to Western individualist cultures and not to people from Eastern Asian collectivist cultures, such as Thailand where Varinthorn is from.

2. After the discussion of conflict styles at a personal level, we moved into discussion around the Introduction from the book Collectivism After Modernism edited by Blake Stimson and Gregory Sholette. We reviewed how societal perception of collectivism has changed in America since World War 2 and also after 9/11. We talked about reasons why the American government (democrats and republicans) and the mass media might prefer the American population to have a competitive mindset, and what effects that has on our culture.

We also talked about what can happen when the artist collaborates with their audience or
with other artists. We how Varinthorn wonders if using the web and language of advertising in her work is not collaborative enough, and how maybe other parts of her work are collaborative.

I haven't fully wrapped my head around these ideas, but feel like I am headed into rich territory. It is great having this opportunity to look at collaboration from historical, political, economic and conflict resolution lenses, and to then be able to bring this discussion back into the art realm.

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The Group Group Show

The MOST is preparing to participate in a show with our friends DAMP in Melbourne, Austraila centered around artists who work in groups.
We have decided to display a variety of cardboard reproductions of various 'tools' we use in our work together, such as safety cones, stamps, briefcases, staplers etc.



I spent most of the day Friday trying to get consensus with the rest of the group about what text we should use to represent ourselves in a catalogue related to the show, and what 3 images we should use to explain our process and compliment the items that will go in the show.
We picked the phrase, "It's not a matter of where it is, but how to get there" to represent how we work as a group, both in terms of how we think of Mostlandia, and how we come to decisions collectively. We began talking about this at 7 AM Friday morning and chose the following images for the catalogue at 12AM Saturday morning:

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Sketches

During this Committee Meeting, Eric, Chris and I met to begin sketching our plans for Rudy. We drew a lot of pictures and decided on how to visually categorize the information we collected. We also divvied up tasks and developed an equipment list.

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Data Transmogrification

After 7 meetings with Rudy, Chris, Eric and I have split off to prepare a document of some kind that provides Rudy with some possible creative trajectories he can take in order to enhance Junior Ambassadors. The three of us met first to come up with as many possible ideas as we could think of. We used the Consensus Workshop technique where you brainstorm individually on small pieces of paper, post those ideas on the wall in groups, and begin organizing the groups. Our process looked like this:


We used orange sticky notes to indicate general categories for our suggestions, and pink to indicate ideas we see as possible "paradigm shifts" as in ideas that would require a change in thinking from Rudy.

After arranging the ideas into groupings, we spent time discussing what to do with the information. As Rudy provided us with two maps showing his desires in relation the food cart, we discussed the possibility of creating a map of our own in which to present our ideas back to Rudy. We discussed ways in which to make this map interactive and three dimensional, in order to mimic the ways in which Rudy can choose to take a birds-eye view, man-on-the-street view or any view in between towards his situation. We are working beyond this point to develop and create the map.

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February 4 Critique

For my group critique this quarter, I invited 3 Mostlandian citizens, Violet "Winter" Lakeland, Michael Reinsch, and Mike Merrill, to come speak to my classmates about how they perceive Mostlandia. I gave a short presentation about who the MOST is, how we discovered the map of Mostlandia on our friend Matthew's floor, and about the various instances, such as the Mostlandian Embassies and the Yake Spot Portal where we have offered citizenship to Citizens of Other Places.


I thought that instead of people looking at my website or some pictures and talking about them for an hour, I would instead invite the citizens. This is not because I see them as my art project necessarily, but because I am really interested to learn more about why the have continued to participate in our projects past the time when they became citizens. It seems important to me to include their first hand experiences of Mostlandia in my description of what I do because it seems like their participation completes/expands my activity as an artist. It also seemed to me that like hearing from citizens first hand would be more interesting than me telling the class about it.

I asked the following questions:
- Please give your name, and what you do in your daily life.
- What do you want to tell us about Mostlandia?
- How do you describe Mostlandia to other people?
- Describe what happened when you first encountered Mostlandia.
- How do you participate in Mostlandia?
- What causes you to continue participating?

The feedback I received was interesting to me, however, I'm not sure whether the class knew how to interact with our visitors. I think that this was an interesting experiment, and would like to get more feedback from citizens, but perhaps without an audience.

Another element of this discussion was that at some point Harrell told us that Mostlandia contains, for him, three of the things he hates most in the world: patriotism, paperwork and bureaucracy.

Harrell's other critique revolved around an example Khris gave where someone visited one of our embassies and asked him if he could help them get official paperwork to get their daughter a visa. Khris told the person that he could give them paperwork, but that the Australian government might not recognize it. Harrell's main point was that at that time, Khris should have left his post at our Embassy and helped the visitor go navigate the Australian bureaucracy. Khris's main response was that he couldn't really contingency plan for such an event. My response was that Khris was honest and that it wouldn't have really made sense to leave our show and take on this other project - we needed him at our office. Harrell maintained that we should have contingency plans for everything, anything, but I don't know that I agree with that.

I wrote an email to The MOST describing the feedback we got as such:
Cyrus wanted it to be more fun, and said he didn't like how the audience didn't talk more. He said he wanted to say a lot of things but wasn't sure how to interject or talk about stuff.

Eric thought it shouldn't be fun because it was in the school setting. he also thought that we should all watch the extended version of lord of the rings all three movies together in one sitting. because, "you have the whole light vs dark, and in the end even the golum is involved in destroying the ring, and someone who you didn't expect - samwise gange (sp) - was the hero to the end. and this struggle is really about the end of the world, and you have the fellowship who comes together to save it"

Avalon presented me with a mathematical equation showing how Mostlandia is real based on variables such as imaginary(I), real(R), mostlandia(M)... if he posts it on his blog like he said he was going to, I'll send you all the link.

Amy steel said that she really enjoyed just watching Violet talk.

Eric and Michael both appreciated how Mike Merrill was able to articulate his thoughts in an interesting way.

Varinthorn said she really wanted Rudy to talk more because she enjoyed listening to him.

The visiting artist, Kate Procrass, thanked us for presenting, and said she thought that our work was really interesting. She said she enjoyed the way we talked about history and place as subjective things.

Violet said she had never thought about art in the way we talked about it in the critique. She wasn't sure how to think or talk about it.

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The Committee

In December, Chris Hudson and I started working on a project called The Committee. The idea behind The Committee is that as creative people we can act as a think tank for other people who are stuck or trying to figure out different aspects of their lives. We will form partnerships with various people and help them design various "trajectories" or paths to follow that may be based in present reality but may head into unknown territories.
So far, we've only worked with our friend Rudy as he tries to build his new business, Junior Ambassadors Food Cart. We spent our first meeting thoroughly discussing where Rudy would like Jr. A's to be by the next summer. We spent another meeting talking about accounting, and another discussing a map that Rudy produced illustrating his desires for the next year.
After the first few meetings, we asked Eric Steen to join us, and are now in the process of creating our response to our work with Rudy.


Type the rest of your post here.

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The MOST @ Pecha Kucha, Feb 11

Khris and Rudy spoke at the Feb. 11 Portland Pecha Kucha night.
The theme for the evening was "Layers: Hidden and Apparent Contstructs".
We went last, and got a rousing reception from the audience. Think Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update meets Mostlandia in all the best ways.

Below are our first 2 slides with text. Try to imagine them read out loud...
"Timeless. In Person. Local depending on where you are located at. It's the KKJR Power News Desk Team reporting in 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1.."
Place, intimacy, fun, and documentation: these are the guiding principles of KKJR. Mostlandia is nowhere and nooooooowwww here.

In tonight's headline story, the Misplaced Items Authority has successfully located many pairs of lost shoes. The Authority is unable to return the shoes to the claimants, as they have since been incorporated in Mr. Ashton Rhodesia's Telephone Wire Museum of Unusual Footwear. Mr. Rhodesia tells the KKJR Power News Desk that he plans on returning them to the rightful owners as soon as he can figure a way to get them down.

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Visit with Marc Fischer

In addition to meeting with Amy, I was lucky to host Marc Fischer of Public Collectors and Temporary Services and meet with him one on one. I started this visit by showing Marc the 1st edition of the Book of Selected Maps published by the MOST last fall. I also showed him our website after the map book. Marc had a very different reaction to the work of The MOST and Mostlandia than Amy.

His first question was whether there are any real world consequences to Mostlandia, whether there is anything at stake for people who interact with Mostlandia aside from The MOST. We had interesting dialogue around the fact that I refuse to call Mostlandia a fake or fantasy country, in that he refuses to describe it as anything but fake. I have had conversations similar to this one before, however found Marc to be adamant about wanting Mostlandia to have real-world consequences. This makes sense to me in light of the socially-engaged, political, and critical artwork he makes. I also appreciated his honesty about his thoughts. I think that other people have this opinion about our work and I like getting to talk about it.

We also talked about the group structure of Temporary Services, and how they will sometimes break off to do individual projects when one person in the group is more interested in an idea than others. They also will invite other people to become part of the group on a one-project basis, in order to bring in energy or expertise. I have always admired Temporary Services for their writings and thinking on the subject of collaboration, and I valued being able to talk with a group member about these ideas in person.

Here's a little snippet of email conversation the MOST had when I relayed this information:

------------ Original message ------------
From: "Rudy Speerschneider"
> My responses are in blue (if they aren't blue, then they have a T in front)
>
> On 1/11/08, Katy Asher wrote:
> >
Marc Fischer suggested we try adding people to the group on a single project basis. what do you think about that?
>
T: In the interesting way of thinking about the vast number of ways we could work as a group and as a necessity to go beyond ourselves, into the mysterious, I think that this ideas would be worth exploring. Right away, i'd say we'd have to have a very specific reason for doing this, it would have to fit into our process naturally in a similar way to that of Matthew (Yake), or Bob (Ice Cream), or Molly (Embassy). They'd have to already be half way there.
>
He also wanted to know if there were any real world consequences to Mostlandia, and refused to call it something other than fantasy or a fake country. It was interesting. He just wondered if there was anything at stake for anyone who interacts with Mostlandia aside from us. I can elaborate if any of you are interested.
> >
T: That' bullshit! Of course there is. What's at stake??? WHAT'S AT STAKE!!??? Only our ability, as humans, to think and imagine a world beyond the fucking real and known one!!!! To expand our minds!!!!!
-----------
From: j_rhoads@comcast.net
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:58:21 +0000

best response ever re: what's at stake :)
-----------------
From: katy@mostlandia.com
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2008

That's funny because I had an awesome creative writing teacher in Boulder, Daniel Weinshenker, who would always bellow at us "What's at STAKE?!" He was an English Grad Student and would have us write poetry while simultaneously watching flamenco dancing.
"What's at stake guys?" he'd say, "What's at STAKE. That's right" and pace around the room.
---------
From: Khris
Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008

I think that it would be interesting to talk more about Marc's suggestions. I could see it working out pretty well, as long as we were all on the same page before any sort of project like that was initiated.

Real world consequences of Mostlandia? I've pretty much stopped talking to people because of their ideas of Mostlandia. Mostly because how they understand (or, more accurately, don't understand) Mostlandia gives me an insight into how they think of things. That's a real world consequence, but it's kind of a personal example, I guess.

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Visit with Amy Franceschini

In January I had a one-on-one meeting with Amy. I showed her images from The MOST's website and told her about how I am currently trying to figure out how to explain Mostlandia to people who have never experienced it. One thing I noticed during her visit is that Amy takes notes while people talk to her about their work. I appreciated this listening approach. You're talking and she's scribbling furiously but not interrupting. It made for an interesting discussion - some of the notes were just information and other bits were questions.

Her notes for me were:
- The MOST could consider developing and providing workshops as a way of generating some income and sustaining ourselves.
- We should consider the "colonial" aspects of having boundaries or not having boundaries
- Touchy-feely (We discussed how a lot of the kind of work being created by so-called social practice artists these days has a touchy-feely, or feel-good aspect to it. Is it true that the only way people can interact in more generative/open ways these days is through these mediated activities? Aside from the fun aspect of Mostlandia, is there something I am interested in learning about or cultivating?)
- Sami
- Portugese exhibit at Yerba Buena approximately 8 years ago

The most intriguing aspect of this visit for me was discussing what part of making work with The MOST interests me the most aside from the part where we engage with our audience. I think that I am most interested in learning more about how other artists work collaboratively: how they make decisions, resolve conflicts, come up with ideas and execute projects. Amy looked surprised and said that she is pretty sure she knows the answers to those questions within her group Future Farmers, but that the group had never acknowledged it.

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Collaboration with a Non-Art Person in a Public Place - Assignment 1

I spent a couple of weeks talking with my boyfriend about what kind of project we could make together if we were to try and collaborate as part of an assignment from Harrell. We came up with a variety of ideas, however this was our favorite. We've installed a set of styrofoam ears (left ear only) in our front garden like small Easter eggs.

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Space Oddyssey + 7

Back from the holidays, I have a new blog post whose title is one of the slogans The MOST came up with for the coming year. We've had a slogan for each new year, beginning with the infamous "Let's Score in 2004!" Another slogan for 2008 is, "2008 - it rhymes with a lot of things." Not as catchy, but maybe catchier than the things we came up with that did rhyme. Right now is the time for looking forward and setting intentions, casting the net for possible futures, both within the MOST and in my own life.
Space Food (taco bar, bacon and brussel sprouts, candied yams)











This quarter I'm thinking a bit about groups and group dynamics. I've signed up for a Negotiation class in the Conflict Resolution department as one of my electives, and am finding it hard not to see every single human interaction I have through the lens of a negotiator. I also have had critiques with two artists who also work collaboratively, Marc Fischer and Amy Francescini, that gave me some helpful and intriguing ideas and perspectives on how groups work. I'll post more on all of this later.

As a last little bit of this post, I thought I'd pass along the lyrics to a song that Khris, The M of the MOST, emailed to our group email account while we've all been writing about what our goals and desires for the MOST in the new year.

The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure
The Magnetic Fields

I met Ferdinand de Saussure
On a night like this
On love he said
"I'm not so sure
I even know what it is
No understanding
No closure
It is a nemesis
You can't use a bulldozer
To study orchids"

He said...
So we don't know anything
You don't know anything
I don't know anything
about love
But we are nothing
You are nothing
I am nothing
Without love

I'm just a great composer
And not a violent man
But I lost my composure
And I shot Ferdinand
Crying "it's well and kosher
to say you don't understand
but this is for Holland-Dozier-Holland"

His last words were
We don't know anything [etc]

His fading words were
We don't know anything [etc]

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Rumball Ball and more...

December 9 is the beginning of Rumball Season!

What is Rumball? Visit the Mostlandian Wiki to learn more!

If you're in the mood, come visit us for

The BROWN BRONZE & BLING BARTER BALL!
Sunday the 9th from 3-6 PM
Junior Ambassador Food Cart
on the grassy lot next to 4734 North Albina

Junior Ambassadors will be hosting a party with a Tea Project by Gary "the Referee" Wiseman.
Wear a shade of Brown or Bronze, a Bright thing, Bring a gift or food to Barter, Boogie, and most importantly...Bring it on!!!!
This outdoor event, regardless of the weather, will get going around 3 o'clock and last, oh you know, a couple hours. Tea, snacks, shelter and music will be provided.



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Sing the Museum Electric

Over Thanksgiving I visited the new Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver. One of my favorite parts of the museum was an installation by David Altmejd. The show consisted of a large room with the walls covered mirrors, and 6 figurative statues whose surfaces were covered in mirror as well.

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Poll Results

The Results are in from my blog-reading audience.

The MOST is trying to think of a list of people who might be good at teaching other artists about humor, or who might give us solid insights into what is funny. If you have ideas for other people, use the comments section of this blog to let me know.
Results after the jump!

Lone Twin - 7 votes
Amsterdam City Employee - 5 votes
---
4 Votes:
David Sidaris
Werner Herzog
John Cleese
Rudy's Jr. High friend
---
3 Votes:
Dr. Hoffenmittlerhymendorfenmutter
Nature Theater of Oklahoma
San Keller
Bob Obenkirk
Facilitator
Norbert
---
2 Votes:
Andy Dickson
Geostationary Banana Over Texas
Kassys
Fluxfactory
Royal Art Lodge
Michel Gondry
David Cross
Motivational Speaker
Carnival Barker
Steve Martin
--
1 Vote:
The Biggest Fags Ever
Wim Delvoye

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Concretising Humor

The MOST has worked out a very loose framework for how participants in the Das Arts program will spend their time.

The information below is meant to give suggestions for the overall arc, daily and weekly content that the MOST would provide during the block with the intent that participants will take, amplify and modify the content to fit their needs and interests.

One of the M.O.S.T.'s strongest beliefs in the idea of mentoring the Humor in the Arts block is that humor – specifically, comedy – does not have to play a role in the day-to-day of the Block itself. By the nature of the name of the Block, the participants will know what they are expected to explore. We believe that the experiences presented within the course of the Block can encourage Humor in Art without necessarily being funny in their own right. We believe in the abilities of the participants to explore humor in their own art without being presented with ten weeks of stand-up routines, and that sometimes exploring completely humorless topics can open up new insights to really funny stuff.


Additionally, we believe that the visiting artists that we invite will play a large role in the creation how to explore the thematic presented, but also expect that we, as moderators, and the participants will be intimately involved in developing and modifying content for the block. We will consider the visiting artists as experts who bring with them their particular expertise and help shape the overall weekly themes/processes. A good example of the type of structure and spirit of working together is the format embraced by the American sketch program Saturday Night Live, where the host (i.e. visiting artist) is introduced to the participants at the beginning of the week. Over the course of 5 days, the visiting artist will be invited to help us explore themes such as humor, current events, personal histories, fears, etc. and to create some sort of project within the week. We will be suggesting this as a possible format to our visiting artists, although we intend to be flexible.

We envision that the beginning weeks of the block would be focused on activities that encourage everyone involved – the participants, the mentors, and the staff – to become very comfortable around each other, and to really learn the personalities of one another. In exploring the theme of humor, it is integral to be able to do it in an emotionally safe environment, and we would enable this by practicing group activities. Examples of such activities are:
• Making a seven-layer cake as a group
• Playing the card game Apples to Apples (where players have to guess each other's aesthetic tastes)
• Experimenting with something The MOST calls "Getting to Know You," which is a form of interpersonal show-and-tell. During this, participants would be invited to show and tell about current work, inspirations, fears, life stories, a photo, a story, a style, or a clip from a favorite movie etc.

These actions taken on their own may appear inconsequential but as a whole will form a common bond of camaraderie. We want to start by giving participants opportunities to try new things within the group that are less about struggling and more about opening up and sharing successes.

Starting with the first or second week, we will introduce the idea of "practices" where we would be setting up a context for working on these same activities throughout the duration of the term, even if they end up drastically morphing over time. Some possible examples of these are:
• Hosting a twice a week Mostlandian fancy dancing class, or other particularly difficult choreographed exercise
• Once a week band practice
• Walks along a specific path throughout downtown Amsterdam
• Afternoon writing hour (or half hour)
• Compilation of a reader of sorts with historical humor, images, projects, recipies, any research or writing we find or do
• Experimentation with improvisational acting
• Morning movement sections lead by us and participants
• Guided meditations
Having a regular weekly schedule of activities will reinforce the idea of togetherness as well as providing a repetitive structure that allows for surprising, absurd and possibly humorous deviations.

As humor is not created in a vacuum, we would foster an environment where the participants work in groups to create finished products. The middle portion of the ten weeks would focus on participants working in pairs or small groups over longer periods of time to create pieces with the intent of going deeper and wider with our initial explorations. Examples of ideas for this portion of the block include:
• Working to make costumes or uniforms
• Inviting a trained facilitator to guide us in developing consensus on a subject or action plan
• Interventions at or further exploration of places discovered during our walks.
During this time projects would be guided by us, the moderators, but not developed by us.

Additionally, we would like to propose that on two weekends (possibly the 3rd and 7th weekends) we try to accomplish some sort of activity that is grand in scale and completely out of the ordinary. We haven't yet established what this might be, but have talked about the creation of a large puppet, a weekend "retreat" for reflection, writing or work-shopping actions and explorations or other event.

The very end of the program would culminate in final displays of our weekly explorations and attempts, such as:
• A final attempt at the difficult choreographed work
• A "best of," or reenactments of events developed in conjunction with the visiting artists
During the final 2 weeks, we would like to develop a very specific, "psychic" closing of the program, in order to acknowledge the finality of the experience. We feel that this would be lead primarily by participants, but would involve developing events towards a conscious ending of the program. We would be working towards acknowledging what we accomplished, discussing the meaning of our time together, displaying our work, and reflecting on how to take it forward into our future work.

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Sci Fi and Robert Smithson

Eric, another SP student in the program keeps proposing that we all need to have a Science Fiction Movie night together.

I keep forgetting to tell him that this reminds me of the Robert Smithson essay Entropy and the New Monuments where he talks about Science Fiction movies as perceptive while horror films are emotive. Maybe Eric can pick some of the movies from the list suggested by Smithson.

In the meantime, I recommend this article to anyone who has an interest in how geology, minimalism, science fiction and horror films are interrelated.

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Benchmark MOST-alogue

Here is a little rundown of some thoughts we are tossing around regarding the prospect of a Mostlandian benchmark:

Katy wrote:
I am interested in making the equivalent of a mostlandian geological benchmark: would it attach to hot air balloons? Would spectrometer surveyors use them to cast lots, or vote on whether a place is Mostlandic? Would they float, be carried in the pocket? Do they create portals or mark portal occurrences?

This is really interesting to me from my previous craft days - primarily, my interest in how a sculptural object can serve a purpose in an active and meaningful way. For examples, my favorite coffee mug is an object that has meaning to me, but it also carries liquids.

the benchmark or _____mark could mark something temporary, or something weighty, or something permanent that's not permanent.

Is anyone following me here? I'm trying to say I'm not totally invested in putting it in the ground forever, but I am interested in making the marker, because it carries a sort of significance about place being important. And Geologists use them also to track moments in time - moments in rock where something fossilized, or moments in elevation, or movement of glaciers.

This could lead to discussions about how long a place stays mostlandian after a person isn't there. or how some mostlandics and/or surveyors might place these in different places throughout their days to see where they move to, or disappear to.

Here are some links to images about benchmarks:
http://www.geocaching.com/mark/#kinds (707 different benchmarks were located and posted in this database in the last 7 days)
http://ak.water.usgs.gov/glaciology/

Khris Wrote:

I should first disclaim that I have not investigated your links.

I don't believe that a Mostlandian Geologic Marker should be designed to be placed in any permanent location, except for maybe ones that denote (the exceedingly rare) fixed, permanent portal. The only fixed, permanent portal that I can think of is Paperville, Ohio.

Regular benchmarks are points of reference for measurement, which is something that is physically impossible in Mostlandia due to the fluid nature of space and time. Therefore, what things in Mostlandia can be used as permanent reference? I would say that personal experience is a permanent reference, but then that neglects collective experience. Collective experience can reference events, I suppose. Events can be utilised as benchmarks for the passage of time: three moons ago, a month of Sundays, etc.

What are other permanent things in Mostlandia that can be measured against?
Could the marker be like a roll of the dice?
Could the marker be shaped like the eight or twelve sided die inside of a magic eight ball, with different responses on each of the different sides? "Results hazy, please try again"? Or "Mostlandia: somewhere to your left?"

Rudy wrote:

I read the link to the benchmark article/info that katy sent, i'd recommend reading it if you haven't. it makes the idea of using/making benchmarks, and benchmark "hunting", in mostlandia a very fun and applicable practice.
The first thing i noticed is how it can maintain the fluidity of Mostlandia's nature.
The appeal of making/placing benchmarks, or stamps, or portalmarks, is its documentation potential. The benchmarks can be invisible or missing or moving in the physical world but real in the record or database, where the story is told of how or where or what. And we, or participants in this knowledge/information, can add to it or subtract from it based on observations either with "hunting" or simply noticing something somewhere which may not have been noticed and would be helpful in the constant surveying Mostlandia. That's what i like about the article is that benchmarks are "official" business, but it invites anyone with a tape measure to participate. So I can see the permanent markers, in fact, be very temporary, shifting, fleeting, etc. Like a water tower that was once documented as a benchmark is now a maple tree.
And has moved four paces to the left.

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Volcanoes, Portal Predictions & Benchmarks

The MFA students have the opportunity to do a bronze pour in the next couple of weeks, and I have been thinking a lot about what kind of object I might be interested in bringing into the world. Below are some thoughts about why the prospect of a pour interest me.

My grandfather, Dwight "Rocky" Crandell, worked as a USGS vulcanologist for most of his life. He predicted the eruption of Mt. St. Helens 5 years before it blew in 1980 (see publication, left), and was responsible for helping to identify where the Osceola mudflows flowed the last time Mt. Rainier erupted. (btw - they flowed into some areas of Washington state that are now being heavily developed, and his research suggests that people living in these areas should be aware of the danger of future devastating mudflows.) Something I learned at a young age was that my grandfather was able to predict the future due to his research into layers of rock, sediment and debris below the surface of the earth. These layers build up over time as they are deposited by wind and water. By looking at the layers, he would note changes in soil, such as a layer of ash or a certain kind of rock, and would measure when these layers were laid upon the earth surface using carbon dating techniques. I always imagined this technique to be something like counting rings on a tree, except counting vertically through layers of soil that were millions of years older than any tree. When he was working on Mt. St. Helens, he noticed layers of ash showing up in hillsides over cyclical periods of time and in this way came to predict that another eruption was due soon.

My connection to my grandfather and an interest in his work lead me to be interested in ceramics during my undergraduate studies, and more currently to ideas of how I might go about predicting the likelihood of Mostlandian portal occurrences.

In undergraduate school, I was drawn to ceramic materials' links to volcanoes and the rock cycle, especially to sedimentary rocks (clay) and metamorphic rocks (fired clay and glazes). I haven't worked with clay in several years, but the molten lava elements of a bronze pour are appealing to me in the same way as looking into the red glow of a fully heated kiln.

As for what this has to do with Mostlandia, one thing that I have been interested in for a while is trying to predict where portals to Mostlandia will occur in the future. For the uninformed, the way that people travel to and from Mostlandia is via portal.. Prior to my work as an ambassador at the Mostlandian Embassy, I headed a research and development team for the Spot-it Brand Portal Spectrometer Company attempting to more accurately predict portal occurrences. I am currently working with the MOST on locating a portal in the South Waterfront neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. Essentially our work right now is to discover the equivalent of a layer of ash in space and time that shows the likelihood of Mostlandia being accessible from this place.


What I have been wondering about is whether or not a cast bronze benchmark (or modification thereof), such as those used for marking the elevation or latitude of a geological landmark might be helpful in predicting or documenting my surveys for Mostlandian portals. I am not at all interested in claiming the land within the proximity of this benchmark, but rather in documenting that the site was surveyed for the purpose of locating a Mostlandian portal. My questions are whether or not placing a mark of such permanence in land limits the way people perceive Mostlandia. After all, Mostlandia is in no way a fixed place, nor is it specifically associated with any "land." Mostlandia is and always shall be a place that happens via experience, and oftentimes the experience of Mostlandia ceases to exist in a particular place after its initial occurrence. Should I include language on the benchmark negating its permanency? Should a Mostlandian benchmark even be placed in soil? I'll include some emails to and from The MOST while discussing this in the next post.

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New Efforts

Mostlandia is headed in a direction I never expected.
Certain factions have actually begun to embrace the possibility of using technology (such as computers and the world wide web) to communicate. I might be jumping the gun, but this trend does seem to be gathering some speed.

Does this have something to do with the ceremonial Computer Hacking we held earlier this summer as part of the Mostlandian Championships?





Hard to tell.



I present the following links as evidence:
Portal Spectrometry: South Waterfront
wiki.mostlandia.com
Land and Sky
Khris Soden
Junior Ambassadors

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Professors MOST

From the T.

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