APOCALYPSE NOW, MAYBE LATER, OR EVEN SOONER: THE BLISS OF
PREDICTION

BY

KATHRYN SANSOM

BA Visual Arts, University of Western Ontario

A THESIS ESSAY SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTERS OF APPLIED ART

in

Visual Arts

EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY OF ART AND DESIGN

© KATHRYN SANSOM, 2009

ABSTRACT
This thesis begins with an explanation of my curiosity with anxiety, an interest that I have not
only revisited from my previous practice, but is elemental to my lived reality. During the Masters
candidacy at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, I have come to regard anxiety, and its
counterpart panic, as a universal phenomenon as much as an individual affliction. The
penchant for speculative anxiety – the tendency to anticipate doom – I argue, has been a reality
of Western civilization since the first raindrops fell on Noahʼs holy construction. However, my
thesis posits that this anxiety has an enhanced status in post-modern culture. The volatile
reality of human civilization, as well as my own feelings of insecurity about the future, emanate
from the trope of dystopian futures, popular depictions of apocalypse and post-apocalypses, as
well as mediated news sources. I borrow and reprocess each of these in order to prepare for
surviving any form of inexorable demise.
Throughout the thesis, a number of works are analyzed, focusing on those that are
quintessential to my current practice. Beginning with a description of dystopian references that
have inspired my anxiety, I go on to describe ways in which speculative anxiety influences the
construction and material reality of my work. The thesis distinguishes the utilitarian objects I
make from dominant methods of manufacture, suggesting that their alterity of form, function,
and fabrication enacts a dissensus -- introducing my own narrative and anxious state to the
function of the pieces. The result of my artistic process thus far has consisted of material plans,
models and sculptural objects. I conclude by describing forthcoming projects that are more
performative by nature, and explain how they function as an additional level of immersion into
my neurotic condition.

ii

APOCALYPSE NOW, MAYBE LATER OR EVEN SOONER: THE BLISS OF PREDICTION

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................. ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................................. iii

LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... iv

PREFACE: DEAR READER ...................................................................................................... v

INTRODUCTION ……………………............................................................................................ 1

THE TO DO SERIES: THE CONSTRUCTION OF SPECULATIVE ANXIETY…………………... 5

GROW OP AND TANNING APPARATUS: THE MATERIAL MAKE-UP OF ADVANCING
STAGES OF PREDICTIVE PARANOIA..................................................................................... 15

CONCLUSION: ENACTING SPECULATIVE ANXIETY.........................................................… 25

BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................ 29

APPENDIX …………………………………………………………………………………………….. 33

iii

LIST OF FIGURES
Plate 1. Barrels and Buckets (2006) ............................................................................... 3
Plate 2. To Do (2008) .................................................................................................….9
Plate 3. To Do (THX 1138) (2009) .................................................................................12
Plate 4. Grow Op (2008) ............................................................................................... 16
Plate 5. Grow Op Harvest (2008) ................................................................................. 16
Plate 6. Grow Op (March Study) (2009)…………………………………………………… 18
Plate 7. Donald Lawrence, Storm Kit (1992) ................................................................ 19
Plate 8. McBarge (photo credit: Jeffrey Kilmer) (2008)…………………………………... 27

iv

PREFACE

Dear Reader,
Please do accept my apology that I am not yet able to provide a comprehensive instructional
manual for how to prepare for our imminent end. I cannot say for certain what will be
necessary, as the possibilities continue to broaden, and of course, I will be securing my own
preparations first and foremost.
All my best,
KS

V

INTRODUCTION

In 1978, Steven Kingʼs saga The Stand was published. The novel follows a government
designed super-influenza virus that, when accidentally released, violently kills 99.4% of the
human population. The germ warfare, colloquially named Captain Trips, leaves the morals of
good or evil to be questioned by the remaining .06% of the human population.

The few

surviving souls divide, drawn in equal portions to their spiritual poles, headed by the good
Christian leader residing in Alabama, and the devil himself in Nevada. Kingʼs modern day
version of the Biblical book of Revelations was finally adapted into a television mini-series in
1994. The credits for the first of four installments in the series, titled “The Plague,”1 is a graphic
showcase of bodies at the government compound where the germ-warfare was made and
accidentally leaked. In a concentrated dose, the virus kills within moments, and the credits are
a montage of decaying bodies, eerily caught in their conventional work poses, eternally frozen
by the man-made flu. The credits to this adaptation of Kingʼs religious saga are scored by an
upbeat and rather ironic song by Blue Oyster Cult “Donʼt Fear the Reaper.” In the same year as
the release of the mini-series, my older brother brought home the entire series on box-cassette
for the family to enjoy. At precisely the eleven-minute mark, with the credits coming to a close, I
experienced my first panic attack. The combination of implied mass-catastrophe, an excitable
imagination and a religious upbringing, in conjunction with my tender age, resulted in an
inconsolable episode of anxiety. My mother spent nearly three hours calming me, placating my
empathy for the characters, explaining that neither me, nor my friends, were going to ʻdie and
go to hell.ʼ
This early experience -- my first grasp of the nature of anxiety2 -- had a profound impact.
Early in art school my work began to respond to the supposed affliction of anxiety, which as
precursor, I defined as an inordinate unease with a given situation or environment. In its
cognitive form3 I was subscribing to feelings of frustration, listlessness and irrational fear. Early
1

Mick Garris, director, The Stand, 1994.
The series is divided into four parts, based on the book and the script written by King. The first part is titled “The
Plague” and takes place as a superflu (influenza) virus ravages the human race. In it, King outlines the total
breakdown and destruction of society through widespread violence, the failure of martial law, and eventually the
death of virtually the entire population.
2
John Voyer, Janet Gould, and David Ford, “Systemic Creation of Organizational Anxiety,” The Journal of Applied
Behavioural Science 33 (December 1997, 471 - 489), p.472.
Behavioural psychologists on the topic of organized anxiety propose that “[m]any people experience anxiety, an
intense feeling of apprehension and fear, in circumstances where these emotions are warranted, such as acute
physical danger. However, since the dawn of pschology and psychotherapy, psychoanalytic scholars have
suggested that anxiety, at an unconscious level, is virtually endemic to the human condition.”
3
I had not yet acknowledged the physiological symptoms of anxiety in my artwork.

1

on, my projects began to adhere to this anxious psycholosis of the maker: in an early work I
organized a collection of the brush bristles that had flawed my canvases while painting. Many
feeble attempts at making hyper-clean and precise paintings led to the discernment of bristles
falling from my student grade brushes and blemishing the paint. Abandoning the paintings that I
set out to make, I began to experiment with this, a nuisance perhaps, but a much more candid
result of my painting process. Testing the quality of brushes by way of bristle loss, I carefully
timed the process in the name of scientific accuracy, rubbing the canvas rigorously with an
assortment of brushes, I then meticulously collected the bristles fallen from each, organizing
and accounting for them in an archive which I later mounted on the strip of canvas from which
the bristles came. This work, named Differing Qualities of Industrial Latex Brushes (2005)
began my concession to moments of derailment, and skill ineptitude in my process of making.

Perverse Corridor (2005), an intaglio copper plate etching of architectural halls and
museum plans, was made during my final undergraduate year. It is intended to symbolize the
claustrophobia, an overbearing uneasiness, that I would sometimes experience as a result of
the institutional environment. This work viusalizes the institution as a maze or labrinth, with
several plans layered over top of one another to create a confusing architectural landscape. An
Untitled sound project from the same year was made up of sounds of the mundane, those
typical to the environment around me -- an alarm clock, a fridge running, a siren on the street. I
rearranged and manipulated this sound-litter, making it into an unrecognizable ambient soundscape: a calming drone from daily annoyances. A later series of drawings from 2006, called
Barrels and Buckets (plate 1), is blotted ink pressed on mylar. This process was based on the
research of psychological tests using inkblots. A blot of ink on paper has been an analytical
device since 1921 when Hermann Rorschach realized that the young children in the institution
in which he worked were all finding different objects in the guessing games they played.4 This
inquiry was my first interest in the idea of the clinical diagnostic of psychological phenomenon. I
endeavoured to know the cause of my anxiety. Immediately recognizable was the undeniable
fact that each of the plates that I created resembled the one before. The experiment had taught
me only that diagnosis is nearly impossible concurrent with testing. The process, dearth of its
original intent, did maintain its value as an indicator of failure and of the clumsiness of selfreflection -- a reiteration of themes that had begun to appear in earlier works.

4

John E. Exner, The Rorschach, Basic Foundations and Principles of Interpretation, Volume 1 (4th ed. Wiley, 2002).
The Rorschach inkblot test is a method of psychological evaluation used by psychoanalysts to test the personality
and emotions of patients.

2

3

Each of these past works came from a subjective place, where explorations of anxiety
were in response to the immediate circumstances, and mostly based on a latent fear of failure,
or the nature by which my neuroses had the ability to envelop a given circumstance. Fear and
neurosis is displayed in all the before-mentioned works (in respective order): being a newcomer
to painting and struggling with skill-inadequacy; feeling anxious and claustophobic as a student
in an often intimidating academic process; general frustration with urban dwelling and longing
for tranquility; and attempting a clinical DIY of my condition. Each looks at the reaction, product,
or both, of immoderate feelings of fear and unrest that I subjected myself to.

The works that I will discuss throughout this thesis similarly address a personal condition
of anxiety, but instead of analyzing its affect on an instantaneous circumstance, my masters
work has been an exploration of what I call ʻspeculative anxiety.ʼ That is, I have become
increasingly aware of an ʻeventuality of total destruction.ʼ5 Still very much self-reflective of my
existing anxieties, my inspection has broadened to look at an, arguably, more univeral
apprehension with mortality. I endevoured to analyze the source of my anxieties to a greater
degree, and in doing so, the snake has begun to devour its own tail.

My reason for beginning this thesis with my childhood experience with a cultural fiction
that forecasts a problematic future is the rouse that such speculative-fiction has had on my
current trajectory. A childhood inundated by science fiction, and through that fiction, the trope of
a dystopian6 future, is partially responsible for my unease with what the future has in store.
However, popular literature is not alone accountable as other contributors such as religion and
mediated information all conflate into the putative reason for my anxiety. Conscientious of the
influence of this disquiet on my art practice, I will herein describe how it is part and parcel to the
conception, construction, and representation of my newest work.
5

John Armitage and Joanne Roberts. “On the eventuality of total destruction.” City 11, no. 3 (December 2007, 428432): p.428
An analysis of the bunker-inspired architecture of Paul Virilio and Claude Parent.
6 6
John Stuart Mill, “England and Ireland,” Speech to British Parliment, 1868.
The term dystopia was first coined in 1868 when John Stuart Mill gave a speech in British Parliment. Obviously
aware of Greek and Latin etymology in the English language, he adapted Sir Saint Thomas Moreʼs term Utopia. In
Utopia the prefix ʻUʼ is derived from the Greek ʻEuʼ which means ʻgood,ʼ while ʻtopiaʼ comes from the Greek ʻtoposʼ
meaning place. It is believed that when Mills changed the prefix to ʻdys,ʼ that he did not only imply the opposite of
Utopia, but the Greek meaning of the prefix being ʻillʼ; an ʻabysmal place.ʼ There can be double meanings here
however, as the Latin prefix, ʻouʼ could be applied, and instead means ʻno,ʼ so ʻno place,ʼ which points to the
alternative allegory that More may have intended, which is that the idealized society that he writes about, with a
perfect socio-political system, is an unobtainable fantasy. If utopia is looked at as a term to describe an unobtainable
entity, then it can be assumed that the more realistic prediction is its opposite. In this sense, the term dystopia reads
as redundant or contradictory; as there was already an inherent cynicism of the plausibility of the whimsical and
carefree Island that More visualized.

4

THE TO DO SERIES: THE CONSTRUCTION OF SPECULATIVE ANXIETY
“All responsible writers, to some degree, have become involuntarily criers of doom, because
doom is in the wind... in science fiction a writer is not merely inclined to act out the Cassandra
role he is absolutely obliged to...” - Philip K. Dick1

The epitaph to this section is the sentiment of Philip K. Dick, a notorious science fiction
author, who “came of age, quite literally, with the bomb.”2 His obsession with a nuclearholocaust led to the writing of several wry and dark projections of our future state, the most
popular of which is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (which was later adapted into
Bladerunner by director Ridley Scott). Dick, like so many authors of his genre, was obsessed
with news and progress of war. Most dystopian narratives and speculative fictions, like Dickʼs,
are characteristic of a war-torn society, with moral themes criticizing contemporary political
settings. By gleening current events, and projecting their effect on the future, Dickʼs tales
embellish cultural realities.3

As iterated in my introduction, this dystopian form was something that was near and
dear to my upbringing, having spent nearly every evening watching my father become
engrossed by the fantastical heroism of James Tiberius Kirk.4 It was no wonder that in later
years I had an immediate proclivity to speculative fiction in my comparative literature studies.
Though fixated on the genre, I was originally weary of the disconnect between the cultural
influences of the authors of sci-fi dystopian tales and my own, as the quintessential works were
written by male-American authors following the Second World War, and prescribed to a phobia
of communist uprising.5

More recently, however, my inspection of panic and anxiety in

contemporary culture has revealed present-day variations of the same concerns that the
authorsʼ of the quintessential dystopian works faced.

Certainly the wake caused by 9/11, and the Bush administrationʼs subsequent ʻWar on
Terrorʼ (where the U.S. was determined to “take out seven countries in five years”6) signalled a
1

Philip K. Dick, quoted in Gregg Rickman, To the High Castle: Philip K. Dick: A life 1928 - 1962 (Long Beach:
Valentine Press, 1989): p. 119.
2
Thomas M. Disch, The Dreams Our Stuff is Made of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World (New York:
Touchstone of Simon & Schuster, 1998): p.87
3
ibid, p.88
4
Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek, original television series, 1966.
The captain of the Starship Enterprise, played by William Shatner
5
James Tyner, “Self and space, resistance and discipline: a Foucauldian reading of George Orwell's 1984,” Social &
Cultural Geography 5, no. 1 (March 2004, 129-149): p.138.
6
General Wesley Clark, quoted in Where to Invade Next, edited by Stephen Elliot, (Washington: McSweeneyʼs,
2008): epitaph.

5

pronounced resurgence of global-warring. This event, ground-shifting as it was, was merely a
catalyst for the re-emergence of a conversation that had been ongoing since the Cold War. The
development of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, a low-yield nuclear weapon, had been
underway since the Tora Bora problem of Al-Quedaʼs impenitrable cave hide outs in
Afghanistan, which first took hold in the early 90ʼs. The low-yield nuclear weapon to deal with
underground bunkering, commonly called a ʻnuclear bunker buster,ʼ was a tactical advancement
of the Clinton Administration in 1994, which had high hopes of elaborating on the nuclear-tactics
left behind by Reagan.7 Knowing this, it comes as no suprise that the file was dusted off by
Bushʼs adminstration in order to revisit the topic of thermo-nuclear technologies for the recent
battling in the middle-east.

Fears of further nuclear hubris and global-war, still very much a prevalent concern, come
simultaneously with a lexicon of other doomsday scenarios. There are images and cries of
apocalyptic-scenarios in almost all of the head-lines of recent months: a global economic crisis,8
terror in the middle east,9 the experiments of gravitational and anti-matter-physicists going
array,10 a hodge-podge in itself of environmental crises,11 genetic engineering and other morally
questionable technological advancements, as well as a changing program of possible flupandemics.12 From this one might postulate that the recent Hollywood frenzie over the newest
forms of speculative-fiction (for example the cult-favorite Omega Man remake, I am Legend)
epitomizes contemporary adaptations of older forms by re-mixing them with contemporary
themes (trading zombie-paranoia for germ-warfare). Meaning that my initial presummptions
toward speculative fiction, that its form had reached obsoletion in contemporary culture, was far
from the truth. Instead it seems that “[u]topianism, social and cultural experimentation, and
drastic self-conscious innovation -- symbolic and concrete -- occur in the midst of all major
social revolutions of modern times. They occur because of analogy, infection and euphoria.”13
Anxiety-riddled ʻdoom-cryingʼ can thus recommence.

In addition to the decidely reinstated relevance of these obstensible forms of speculative
fiction, contemporary philosophers have reinforced the bearing that anxiety has on post-modern
7

David F. Bell, “Bunker Busting and Bunker Mentalities, or Is It Safe to Be Underground?” South Atlantic Quarterly
107, no. 2 (Spring 2008): p.214.
8
“The plan should be built to last,” Globe and Mail, February 19, 2009, sec. Business.
9
“Two sides to every story,” Globe and Mail, February 11, 2009.
10
“CERN hits another snag,” Globe and Mail, February 10, 2009, sec. technology.
11
“GREEN SCENE,” Globe and Mail, February 13, 2009.
12
“Avian Flu: The Next Pandemic?” CBC News, May 12, 2008, sec. In Depth.
13
Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (USA:
Oxford University Press, 1991): p. 11.

6

culture. One of the more popular discourses at the turn of the post-modern era was panic for
example. In a publication titled The Panic Encyclopedia, the authors take a special topical
interest in the nature of panic, initally setting out their intent as:
“a frenzied scene of post-facts for the fin-de-millenium [...] even the alphabet
implodes under the twin pressures of the ecstasy of catastrophe and the anxiety of
fear[...] Not then an alphabetic listing of empirical facts about the modern condition,
but a post-alphabetic description of the actual dissolution of facts into the flash of
thermonuclear cultural ʻeventsʼ in the the postmodern situation.”14
Throughout, the authors argue that the nature of panic, situated in a specific post-modern
circumstance, is evident in dispersed forms -- from ʻPanic Beachesʼ to ʻPanic Xanax.ʼ15 So too
does Jean Baudrillard believe anxiety to be the most fundamental of psychological principals of
the post-modern state. He goes one-step further in fact, describing nervous psychosis as
inherent to the post-modern condition, with rampant ʻschizophreniaʼ the result of anxiety over
advancing communicative technologies:
“if paranoia was the pathology of organization, of the structuration of a rigid and
jealous world; then with communication and information, with the immanent
promiscuity of all these networks, with their continual connections, we are now in a
new form of schizophrenia. No more hysteria, no more projective paranoia properly
speaking, but this state of terror proper to the schizophrenic.”16
For Baudrillard, the typical dystopian fear and paranoia of the machine is a present day reality.

No discussion of panic and doomsday speculation would be complete without the
mention of the ʻarchitect, and bunker archaeologistʼ17 turned philosopher, Paul Virilio, whose
research on war and its resulting architecture led him to believe that “you cannot understand the
world of progress without the world of destruction.”18 Virilio, similar to Baudrillard, believes
culture to be “entering the age of the synchronization of collective emotion,” an event he is
weary of as a bi-product of “technologyʼs pursuit of speed in the information war.”19

While this by no means provides a comprehensive overview of the discourse of panic
and anxiety in contemporary culture, it is intended to function as a general claim for the topic as
one that exists in addition to my subjective experiences, reinforcing its relevance as a theme in
14

Arthur Kroker, Marilouise Kroker, and David Cook, Panic Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide to the Postmodern
Scene (Vhps Distribution, 1989): p. 15.
15
ibid.
16
Baudrillard, Jean. “The Ecstasy of Communication.” In The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, edited
by Hal Foster, (New York: New Press, 2002, 126-134): p. 130
17
Thomas Geisler, and Pierre Doze, “Rock Around the Bunker.” Damn, no.21, (April 2009), p.93
18
Paul Virilio, quoted in Thomas Geisler, and Pierre Doze, “Rock Around the Bunker.” Damn, no.21, (April 2009):
p.93
19
Juris Milestone, “Design as Power: Paul Virilio and the Governmentality of Design Expertise,” Culture, Theory &
Critique 48, no. 2 (October 2007): p.176.

7

contemporary art practice. A curiosity in the nature of anxiety is what resulted in the first
artwork that I will discuss herein. The project, made up of a compilation of lists, is a catalogue
of preparations that I have deemed necessary for survival in the event of a doomsday scenario.
Each item on the first list, entitled simply To Do (plate 2), is based on tips found in various
speculative fictions, and is the conflation between fictional tributes and what I argue are viable
present-day anxieties. Written on thin graph paper, the writing for To Do is hand-done and
scratched out in certain areas. Hurriedly done with uneven spacing between terms and with
arrows to point out shared characteristics from one point to another, the haphazard penmanship
on non-archival, flimsy, graph paper speaks to a doodle. The work has values of a text piece,
but might more closely relate to the class of automated drawing -- entirely dependent on the
action and performance occuring during its construction. The surface, 1-cm spaced graph
paper, is typical to plan drafting or architectural drawing.

Each item on the To Do list was found in a speculative (science) fiction movie and/or
book, specifically the speculative sources that forecast a problematic future with bleak and
desolate outcomes.

The method by which I have catalogued these points can be explained by

looking at one in particular: point 13 suggests that I “[s]ave up to get on first trip to outer world
colonies.” This point is derived from the film Bladerunner, the cult classic film adapted from
Philip K Dickʼs Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. In Dickʼs proposed future, set in
approximately 2019, the earth has been inflicted with an unknown scourge. Social structure,
material culture and aesthetic principals have shifted, and a new emphasis is placed on caring
for the few surviving animals left on earth. 20 Bladerunner starts in a futuristic place, filled with
neon signs, flying cars, dark skies and constant rain. Within the first minutes of the film, an
advertisement for travel to outer world colonies appears. Earth it seems, in this imagined future,
has been deemed unliveable, and the envogue undertaking is to move on, evacuate. The
majority of the human population has left for the outer world colonies, presumably some
glistening, fresh, new planets. A floating billboard boasts that the spacecrafts that transport
individuals to the outer world colonies are equipped with all the luxuries and comforts of a
glamourous cruise. Further along in the plot, we learn that not ʻjust anyoneʼ can jet off to the
outer world colonies, that the individual has to be in top health and well-to-do. Point 13 of To
Do is directed at the viability of pursuing a life(style) of luxury in the event such a future were to
arise. As opposed to staying around on the planet with the rest of the scourge, I have opted to

20

Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (L.A: Del Rey, 1996)

8

9

ʻsave upʼ to get on the first shuttle out. (I am hoping that when it comes right down to it, as the
saying goes, ʼcash is king.ʼ)

Taking precautions in preparation for the possibility of environmental INsustainability
(only ten years in our future no less) is admittably alarmist and reactionary -- certainly a bit
anxious -- however the issue of earthʼs climate and human livability is rooted in perfectly
legimate present-day discourse of environmental crisis. An ominous ʻmedia voiceʼ has declared
that our current environmental trajectory will render the earth insupportable in a short matter of
time. “Responsible scientists, environmentalists of a variety of ideological stripes and colours,
together with a growing number of world leaders and politicians, keep on spreading apocalyptic
and dystopian messages about the clear and present danger of pending environmental
catastrophes that will be unleashed if we refrain from immediate and determined action.” 21
There is clamouring all around -- in the media, in science, popular science, everyday
conversation -- whispers of an imminent environmental doom, of which the most particularly
disarming are the officials who legitimate the evidence (for if a scientist says it then it must be
true). This point, as all of the points on the grocery list of possible requirements, (although first
imagined in the 60ʼs) has a contemporary relevance within the context of Earthʼs human current
environmental route.

The formal choices of To Do are also informed by a state of nervous anxiety. The shaky
handwriting and hurried development of phrases in the text conjure images of artist, scrap of
paper in hand, anxiously jotting down notes as each theme appears in the film or book that is
watched or read.

The choice of the paper is indicative of paranoid anxiety by way of

anticipatory preparation: the 1 cm bicubic graph paper characteristic of planning strategem.
The way the list is written reflects anxiety-while-writing induced stress and symptoms, which
quick gestural marks, and disorderly word choice or syntax are examples of.22 For instance,
point 9 on the list: “Acquire a fast black car made even faster with rockets” (to escape the
warring tribes in the post-apocalyptic setting of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior), would read, if it
were more grammatically accurate, “attach rockets to newly acquired fast black car.”

In a similar list, To Do (THX 1138) (plate 3), many of the formal qualities remain the
same, however, I have focused specifically on elements of George Lucasʼ first feature length
21

Erik Swyngedouw, “Impossible "Sustainability and the Post-Political Condition” (Manchester University, 2006): p.3
Peter Salovey, and Matthew D. Haar, “The efficacy of cognitive-behavior therapy and writing process training for
alleviating writing anxiety,” Cognitive Therapy and Research 14, no. 5 (October 1, 1990, 513-526): p.514.
22

10

film, THX 1138. In the film, a typical Orwellian landscape is created when ominous causes
force the human race to move underground, and civilization is rebuilt with emphasis on
consumerism and apathy. The individuals are sedated by government issue psychotropic
drugs, they live in white rooms, wear white clothes and are surrounded by futuristic surveillance
strategies. Living off of compartmentally freeze-dried food, the inhabitants are completely
dependent on alternate reality technologies for daily nuances.

One of the necessary

preparations that I selected from the film is to [15] “get a libido buffer.” This point refers to an
object in the film that ʻtakes careʼ of the sexual drives of individuals. The ʻlibido bufferʼ is a large
pump that is placed over the mid-section and automates while the individual watches a
hologram of a member of the opposite sex dancing naked. 23 This object, used to discourage
sexual interaction between the individuals of the subterranean society, maintains the sterile and
clean atmosphere -- a disease-free setting that is so important to their survival when living
underground. A device that consequently inhibits the spread of disease would be put to good
use in a climate made precarious by threats of super-diseases, such as the avian flu, or more
recently the similar strain carried by pigs.

Thus, in preparation for outlasting a possible

pandemic of diseases, it is indeed an invaluable device to have.

Despite their bearing within the context of current troubles, the solution of purchasing a
flight to outer-space, or outfitting a masturbatory-mechanism, may not offer a legimate sense of
relief. This is likely because they are not... legitimate. Instead, they are as playful as the
fictions that they reference. As with my prior work, where I was aware that my anxiety was not
a wholly exclusive trait of my own, and not a trait to be given the utmost somber attention, I am
obliged with this work to play with the nature of ʻspeculative anxietyʼ as a universal trait with
questionable efficiency. Where in Differing Qualities of Industrial Latex Brushes (2005), I
allowed for a tongue-in-cheek concession of my anxieties of skill ineptitude at painting, I intend
a similar playfulness in the presentation of my fears of mortality, a fear which harkens back to
biblical times of the ʻRighteous Man Noah,ʼ or even as early as ʻmanʼ crawling out of the cave
and realizing his mortality as he is digested by the hungriest predator.

23

George Lucas, Director, THX 1138, (DVD re-release) 2004.

11

12

A recent exhibition at the Royal Academy of London took as its theme a similar notion of
play with doomsday anxiety. In an introductory essay for the exhibition Apocalypse, Norman
Rosenthal, the exhibition secretary, admits that:
“[w]hether we like it or not, the coming of the twenty-first century -- two thousand
years after the birth of Christ, whose existence modified our culture and perception
of time in such a startling way -- is a subliminally apocalyptic moment. How are
younger artists today reflecting the inevitable contemporary abyss? In what new
ways are they accepting and describing contemporary realities that suggest the
uncertain and insecure future that has always existed for humankind? Are there
also grounds for optimism? For artists are surely here to assert life and its
overwhelming value as well as to commemorate the inevitability of death.”24
While Rosenthal locates curiosity with the apocolypse within the very specific temporal and
cultural framework of Christianity in the millenium, he admits that an ʻinsecure futureʼ is a
recurrent anxiety for humans. The show Apocalypse: Beauty and Horror in Contemporary Art,
topically addressed the speculative anxiety of contemporary art makers at the turn of the
century, by showcasing the varying degrees of which contemporary cultural occurances can be
construed as apocalyptic, including a vast array of pieces that signify simultaneously horror and
beauty (given the proper creative spin). The works in the show speak for a range of fabrication
-- the kitsch creations of Jeff Koons juxtaposed with the abject sculpture of Jake and Dinos
Chapman -- who often include in their themes a mockery of the notion of death. The reason,
according to Rosenthal, is the ineluctable appetite for younger artists to find ʻoptimismʼ despite
bleek outlooks or malingering fears.

With similar incentives, I cannot take full credit for the jest of To Doʼs items, their playful
quality is, in fact, embedded in the narrative forms from which the preparations are derived: ripe
with the over-embellishment typical of dystopian form.25 To draw an example from one of the
narratives that I reference: in the Mad Max films, a battle over dwindling natural oil reserves
causes the cataclysmic war and death of the majority of the human population (the realization
that oil was a depleting resource was as prevalent a topic in the 80s, when the films were made,
as it is now).

However, when the men in power in Mad Max become so obsessed with oil that

they start to cannibalize and destroy each other, the resulting landscape is somewhat fanciful.
Protective hockey equipment and ass-less chaps are dapper attire for the characters chasing
and warring in their fast cars and motorcycles over the remaining bits of fuel. As the “art form

24

Norman Rosenthal, and Michael Archer, Apocalypse: Beauty and Horror in Contemporary Art (London: Thames &
Hudson Ltd, 2000) p.17.
25
James Tyner, “Self and space, resistance and discipline: a Foucauldian reading of George Orwell's 1984,” Social &
Cultural Geography 5, no. 1 (March 2004, 129-149): p.147.

13

best adapted to telling the lies we like to hear and to pretend we believe”26 there is an
inevitability to the parody that surfaces in appropriating from these forms.

Each list, both To Do and To Do (THX 1138), are inventories of preparations. These
preparations are based on elements of dystopian narratives and as such, incorporate the overembellishment and absurdity of these narratives. The points on these lists, though nonsensical,
are embedded in formal realities that are part and parcel to a contemporary state of panic. The
“To Do” series, having shown the source material and reasons for the conception of my
speculative anxiety can open the conversation to works where my anxiety is further rendered
through material construction and representation.

26

Thomas M. Disch, The Dreams Our Stuff is Made of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World (New York:
Touchstone of Simon & Schuster, 1998): p.15.

14

GROW OP AND TANNING APPARATUS: THE MATERIAL MAKE-UP OF ADVANCING
STAGES OF PREDICTIVE PARANOIA
“It crackles through the wires and the air, and scintillates from every sign -- itʼs the most ancient
of the postmodern novelties: panic polytheism, the world religion beamed out from all the sites
of post-civilization.” - “Panic Ads,” from the Panic Encyclopedia1
This past year there was a great deal of discussion about a global food shortage. One
article in particular began with ʻCassandraʼ crying “a new crisis is emerging, a global food
catastrophe that will reach further and be more crippling than anything the world has ever
seen.”2 Beyond the startling frontline the article goes on to affirm, complete with numbers, that
the proposed food shortage is the result of a growing number of middle-income families around
the world who want to eat as middle-income familes usually do -- that is, there would be an
increasing demand for meat and dairy, and in turn more grain feed in the mouths of cows over
those of humans. As an ultimate outcome, those who rely on grain as a main dietary necessity
-- often times the cattle ranchers and farmers -- go hungry. And thus the system begins to fail.

In the event that this scientifically supported prediction becomes a reality... I intend to be
prepared. In one of the more galling literary post-apocalyptic narratives, The Road by Cormac
McCarthy, the reader finds gory and detailed accounts of the lengths individuals go to when
faced with starvation (eating babies). So then, in order to avoid resorting to cannibalism, or
other post-apocalyptic alternatives (canned dog food to quell hunger3) I have instead
endeavoured to construct a nutrional growth device. The project, called Grow Op, is an ongoing
experiment at growing bean sprouts. My research of the ideal food source for post-cataclysmic
survival led me to bean sprouts because of their remarkable nutritional value and ease of
growth. Sprouts are embryonic plants, similar in nutritional value to the human placenta and, as
such, have all the necessary nutrients for human survival. Sprouts also do not require soil to
flourish. Through experimentation I have been attempting to find the ideal apparatus that
encourages maximum growth yields with minimum resource conditions.

1

Arthur Kroker, Marilouise Kroker, and David Cook, Panic Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide to the Postmodern
Scene (Vhps Distribution, 1989) p. 53.
2
Alla McMullen, “Forget Oil, the New Global Crisis is food.” Financial Post, January 7, 2008.
3
George Miller, Director,The Road Warrior, 1981.

15

16

The Grow Op device pictured in plate 4 was my first attempt at creating a sprout-growing
contraption. Its main impetus is to accomodate photosynthesis without the resource of natural
light.4 Fashioned mostly from found materials, it is a hurriedly constructed object, with wooden
arms that teeter precariously in a styrofoam base, the form in which the bean sprouts grow is a
piece of vacuum formed plastic with small holes punched across the bottom.

The water

resevoir tray is also formed plastic (which I later discovered was too flimsy for this purpose).
Sold specifically for aquarium and plant growth, the household fluorescent bulb emits an optimal
range of UV for the process of photosynthesis. The base is covered with reflective foil mac tac
so that the light source can further carpet the sprouting beans. Having ordered an assortment
pack of seeds, I kept tabs along the side and carefully documented what conditions worked best
for each specific genus. The result of this botanical experiment was carefully documented by
the collection of ʻgreeningʼ in individual ziploc bags, shown here in plate 5, and titled Harvest.

Not fully satisfied with the excess amount of fresh water consumed through this
preliminary venture, I created another Grow Op that was a larger scale installation designed
with consideration for water recycling (plate 6). Mounting the lights and growing containers on
the wall, I rigged up a siphon pump and vinyl tubing for precision irrigation of the sprouts in each
of the tupperware containers. I then placed a collection tray underneath each container to catch
water drips and return the un-used water into the reservoir tank.

Each of the Grow Op experiments is founded on fear of the global food shortage taking
hold and escalating in severity, but, for clarification, is not intended to be a social gesture.
Indeed, it is based on what could become a global concern, but is a neurotic construction which
is more selfish than altruistic. In actual fact, a device for growing bean sprouts in a controlled
environment is available for the low-price of $129.95 at a number of common hardware stores.
It is made of a grow light, a container to place the seeds, an irrigation system on a precision
timer, all encased in a stylish space-age looking pod.5 But despite the availibility of this object
(not to mention its relatively modest price for the fine quality) I have decided to construct a ʻdo it
yourselfʼ version in order to sufficiently prepare for a perceived eventuality.

4

In many dystopian and post-apocalyptic narratives the sun has been destroyed or its effect can no longer be felt on
the earths surface. In the film the Matrix, for example, humans have blown up the sun to conquer the solar-fed
machines. In the Road, by Cormac McCarthy, a cloud of dust, from nuclear winter or a cometʼs impact, permanently
blocks the sunʼs rays.
5
“AeroGrow International, Inc..” http://www.aerogrow.com/.

17

My re-envisioning of an object that could otherwise be easily purchased through the
consumer market is an intentional act. Another Canadian artist, Donald Lawrence, has used
similar tactics in his practice. His Romantic Commodities series in 1993 was a collection of
objects that could have been found in a hardware store, such as survival kits and outdoor
adventure gear, objects that are designed for those urbanites looking to escape to nature, but
will only do so with implements mechanically made and mass-produced. His alternative devices
were cast and hand-constructed to resemble their mass-produced counterparts, but integrated
distinct ideas of romance and contemplation of nature, with unmistakeable alterations in
dimensionality and painstaking labour involved in their construction (plate 7). 6

6

Katy McCormick, “Accumulations of Desire,” In Donald Lawrence: The Underwater Pinhole Photography Project
(Canada: Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, et al, 2002) p. 7

18

In an exhibition catalogue for one of Lawrenceʼs later works, The Under Water Pinhole
Photography Project, the author speculates on his methods of construction, saying that:
“[by] [t]urning exchange value on its ear, [Lawrence] steps back into a pre-industrial
mode by recasting mass produced materials within a system designed for his own
specific ends. Though adapted from industrial materials, the cameras and kayak
are assembled or altered to the degree that they become one-of-a-kind
constructions, curious objects that bear the hand of the artist and the marks of use.
Thus, designed for use and not for exchange, Lawrenceʼs project functions as both
real and symbolic production.”7
Lawrenceʼs notion of alternative, romanticized ideas of fabrication, using the assembly of the
object to apply an unconventional narrative and a new way of framing an otherwise existing
object, in addition to the similar thematic reference of survival, makes his work a appropriate
reference in comparison to the ʻdo it yourselfʼ construction of my Grow Op. I, too, am reevaluating the design of an object to point to an alternative context -- the speculative anxiety
that calls for a device for growing sprouts in the event of a global-famine. The existing device for
growing sprouts, after all, is not made to accomodate a post-cataclysmic scenario of global
starvation, it is simply a device of convenience. To point to this alternative purpose, I have
subsumed a theme often found in post-apocalyptic fictions...
7

ibid. p.6

19

Scavenging is a popular theme in many post-apocalyptic narratives where a global crisis
leaves individuals struggling post-industry. In The Road, the main character and his son travel
the country with a shopping cart hurriedly outfitted with rear view mirrors to see lurking enemies.
In the film Waterworld, the earthʼs ice caps have melted, and the small surviving population
have adapted by scavenging the few remnants and detritus that floats to the surface from a
previous time. 8 In each, technological advancement as we know it has come to a halt, and the
survivors live a life where the system has shifted from that of consumption to that of collecting
and preserving. Clothes are tattered, trade in survival materials is the new currency, and as
Kevin Costner so astutely puts it within the first few minutes of the film, “Nothing is free in
Waterworld”9 - implying that generosity, community, and altruism disappeared with the
submerged civilization.

Given that the “Grow Op” device is a mock up in preparation for an apocalyptic scenario
(vehement famine), I have applied similar post-apocalyptic motifs to its construction. Or more
accurately, I have been practicing for what a given scenario may call for and what scavenging
techniques may be inexorable.

Having accounted for the materials that will be of great

importance from this bygone industrial civilization -- flourescent lights in case of an absence of
sunlight, which in turn would require battery or generator operation, and a stock-pile of sprouting
seeds -- the remainder, the wood, the plastics, the reflective mac-tac, any other construction
materials, can be easily scavenged from recycled materials.

This logic, while fitting, cannot alone account for why I have decided to create my own
device; for I could still recontextualize the ready-made device to outfit it for my purposes. The
calculated act of creating my own ad hoc version points to a further echelon of anxiety in its
preparation, a removal or isolation from the dominant modes of production. In constructing
Grow Op at a time and juncture before any galling post-global-starvation-endemic where I might
have to scavenge materials, my pieces, similar to Donald Lawrenceʼs work, are being “designed
for use and not for exchange.”10 An act alone which insinuates a removal, or dissidence from
the system of manufacture in question. Another artist, similarly interested in the construction of
devices of utility, but those detached from any predominat form, is Thomas Hirschhorn.

8

Kevin Reynolds, and Kevin Costner, Directors, Waterworld, 2005.
ibid.
10
Katy McCormick, “Accumulations of Desire,” In Donald Lawrence: The Underwater Pinhole Photography Project
(Canada: Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, et al, 2002) p. 7
9

20

Hirschhorn uses ephemeral and thrown together materials to construct installations in “critique
of the mechanisms of display.”11 Hirschhornʼs methodology is typical of his Caveman12, which is
a precarious exhibition space created out of cardboard and packing tape. In creating auxilary
atmospheres Hirschhorn has been regarded as challenger of the established reality, or more
figuratively, a ʻhyperborean subjectʼ:
[t]he hyperborean subject inhabits the universe of facts without assimilating itself,
like the hypochondriac subject, to the order of facts. The world of facts is the world
of objective unfreedom, the world of determinants, laws, definitions. It is the world
that has already been decided, the universe of recognized, official and instituted
factual truths -- reality. The hyberborean subject is the subject of a certain denial of
reality. It withdraws from the imperatives of the idealism of facts in order to open
itself to another world, another order than (established) reality.13
This suggests that Hirschhorn, a ʻhyperboreanʼ being, is negating reality by creating a new
method by which to view it. That is, instead of using an established format for exhibition -- the
white walls of the traditional gallery space -- Hirschhorn is creating his own vernacular with the
cardboard cave. He is creating an alternate reality space for viewing the ʻrealʼ subjects that he
evaluates (in his case both political and philisophical figures) and by doing so jumbles together
a new context by which to view the topic. -- and in doing so, creates a new context by which to
view reality.

This is similar to the scavenging of materials to construct Grow Op which

speculates an approaching cataclysm, however, acting as a hyperborean subject also implies a
deliberate removal from the laws and rules set out in dominant culture. Though aware of these
laws, and the realities that each determine, the hyperborean subject is psychologically isolated,
from them.

If we were to compare this notion, for a moment, to the To Do series, we might flesh out
the relationship between the ʻhyperboreanʼ subject, in terms of defining the psychological state
of the maker, and my own methods of creation.

With the To Do lists, each point is inspired by

fact: the global crisis of which I am aware, and reacting to (ʻinhibiting the universe of factsʼ).
However, my answer to the anxiety created by these facts is in the form of fiction, a function
outside of ʻestablished reality,ʼ and so a cryptic negation of it. Jacques Ranciere calls the
tendency to negate the ʻworld of fact,ʼ creating a form of dissensus, which is situated in direct
oposition to the hegemonic cultural form, that of consensus. Consensus is that which says:

11

Marc James Leger, “Thomas Hirschhorn: Jumbo Spoons and Big Cake,” C Magazine, no. 97, Spring 2008: p.42.
Michael Wilson, “Caves of New York - Thomas Hirschhorn's Caveman.” Artforum, February, 2003.
13
Marcus Steinweg, “Worldplay,” in Thomas Hirschhorn: Utopia, Utopia = One World, One War, One Army, One
Dress, 24 – 51 (San Francisco: CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, 2005) p. 25.
12

21

“ʻwe may have conflicting interests, aspirations and values but we are obligated
nonetheless to agree that the given is given, and that we have to look at it just as it
is. This agreement draws a clear cut separation between what is given and what is
not, what is in and what is out, what is real and what is fictional or ideological or
utopian.”14
In the context of Grow Op, the object of consensus is the established and agreed upon
method by which to easily grow bean sprouts -- the ʻAerogardenʼ being an example. Dissensus
is then negating that reality both by creating my own alternative device, but also in fictionalizing
its necessary uses. Ranciere explains that the act of creating an object of dissensus is “when
the monopoly of reality is questioned, when there is a dispute on what is given, on the name
that can be given, and the sense that can be made of it.”15 In this work, I am challenging the
material fabrication of a growing device. That is, questioning the methods of mechanical
fabrication, questioning the regulatory uses of materials, and recombining these to make sense
of an object suited to my purposes -- at once a object of function and a challenge of fixed edicts.
In doing this, I conflate an alternative reality (post-apocalyptic starvation) to imbue the making of
a seclusionistʼs survival device.

The construction of Grow Op is in essense a paranoid

delusion.

A work that functions in much the same way in its material construction is the piece that I
made for the Emily Carr 2009 Graduate exhibition, Always/Almost. Tanning Apparatus (In
Preparation for THX 1138) is inspired by an object found in the film THX 1138.16 A particular
scene in the film follows the main character, THX, as he enters a small chamber completely
filled with indigo light. The shot remains on him with only the subtle buzzing of the fluorescents
which he stands, eyes closed, bald headed and white robed, meditating under. Recalling the
oddity of all the characters in the film having tanned skin and freckles despite living in
underground caves, it soon became clear that the room THX was standing in was a tanning
booth -- a UV supplement in the absence of sunlight. In response to this scene, I began to
consider our dependency on the sun, without which we would be incapable of producing the
Vitamin D required for the body to absorb calcium. Of course, without calcium our bones would
crumble and dental hygiene would disintegrate, not to mention the proven psychological
implications of going without.17 In any number of plausible catastrophes where our interaction
14

Jacques Ranciere “What Makes Images Unacceptable” (presentation at the Pacific Northwest College of Art,
February 28, 2008)
15
ibid.
16
George Lucas, Director, THX 1138, 2004.
17
Michael F. Holick, M.D., Ph.D. “Vitamin D Deficiency,” The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 357, no. 3 (July
19, 2007, 266- 281): p.267.

22

with the sun is jeopardized (nuclear winter, astroid collison, or germ warfare) we would require a
synthetic replacement.

As for tanning beds and other tanning apparati, there certainly exist monopolies on that
reality. The local distributor Cantan, for example, sells tanning beds and booths which look of
space-age descent and appeal to those looking for the ʻfresh off the beach glow.ʼ18 However,
Tanning Apparatus (In Preparation for THX 1138), similar to Grow Op, is constructed with
dissidence to the dominant methods of manufacturing.

While of comparable utility to the

tanning appliances of todayʼs market, my apparatus has a much less manufactured construction
than the mass-produced varietal. Made with found wood, scavenged plastics, and amateur
electrical skills, it dictates a similar sense of post-apocalyptic scavenging for materials as with
Grow Op. This object is for my own individualistic interest, which does not require consideration
of refined craftmanship, or appeal to a design quality that would make the object desireable to a
consumer market. It is made by someone who does not adhere to the rules of manufacture that
are enforced through existing industrial modes.

A recent exhibition at the New Museum in New York, surveyed a sculptural form with
similarities to my own. The exhibition, titled Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century,
was a survey of practitioners of assemblage sculptures.

In his catalogue entry, curator

Massimiliano Gioni notes that “these new objects clearly defy the traditional limits of sculptural
form as they extend to incorporate found materials, artificial objects, second-hand images or,
more simply, waste.”19 While touted throughout the catalogue as a contemporary practice, the
showʼs curators admit that the method of sculptural assemblage pays homage to the
assemblage forms of Rauschenbergʼs Combines20 as well as the material sensibility of Arte
Povera.21 What unites all of the artists in the large group show is the shared disregard for
preciousness.

Another of the shows curators, Richard Flood points out that “[o]ur time

demands the anti-masterpiece. Things that are cobbled together, pushed and prodded into a

18

“CanTan Sun Systems Ltd..” www.cantan.com, 2008.
Massimiliano Gioni, “Ask the Dust.” In Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st century, (New York: Phaidon Press,
2007, 64- 76): p. 65.
20
Mary Lynn Kotz, Rauschenberg, Art and Life, (New York: H.N. Abrams, 1990)
Rauschenbergʼs Combines come from a period mid-career, approximately 1954–1964, and break down the
traditional separations between painting and sculpture, inventing new uses of multi-media in practice.
21
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, ed. Arte Povera. Themes and movements, (London [England]: Phaidon Press, 1999).
A movement in the 60s in Italy where artistʼs attacked established conventions, power structures and market place.
The original text and exhibitions were organized by Germano Celant, and were characterized by a group of young
Italian artists engaged with unconventional materials and style.
19

23

state of suspended animation feel right [...] Works that appear hurled into uncomfortable,
anxious relationships run parallel to life.”22

With analagous sentiment to that of the Unmonumental show, I have avoided designing
a marketable object (be it of design or of even a polished sculptural form). With patched
together found wood, and exposed wiring, Tanning Apparatus (In Preparation of THX 1138)
points to a tenuous discomfort, an ʻanxious relationshipʼ with the world of reality. An urgency in
its construction shows that the sentiment of the maker, that of a seclusionist, ʻhyperboreanʼ
being, while making the anti-masterpiece shows a dissidence of hegemonic culture.

The system of manufacture from which I am dissenting, is simultaneously responsible, to
a degree, for perpuating anxiety through the unyielding persuit of technological advancement to
answer to a ʻmarket.ʼ In turn, it is a system entrenched in waste by-product, which is the result
of our tenuous state of environemental crisis. By way of detaching myself from the consumer
system, through my own brand of invention and recycling, I protest concurrently the consumer
culture that has gotten us here, and the consensus that keeps us entrenched through a
“synchronization of collective emotion.” 23 A culture unable to escape the throes of neo-liberal
consummerism. This protest which articulates a disapproval of the same commercial culture
that is responsible for our crisis, adheres to a format of critique similar to the dystopian authors
that I have previously mentioned, who often conveyed, in their post-war analyses, fear and
apprehension of what the aftermath of the industrial revolution might mean. 24 Bringing the
source and conception of these projects in full circle to their production. Once again, ʻthe snake
begins to eat its own tail.ʼ

22

Richard Flood “Not About Mel Gibson.” In Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st century, (Phaidon Press Inc.,
2007, 10-13): p.12.
23
Paul Virilio, City of Panic, (New York, 2005): p.39.
24
Thomas M. Disch, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World, (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1998): p.68.

24

CONCLUSION: ENACTING SPECULATIVE ANXIETY

By way of conclusion, I will describe two forthcoming works that show a continuing
interest in the themes addressed herein, but which focus more on the perfomative gesture of my
anxiety rather than object-based conclusions.

The first event I propose is a post-graduate collaborative project with my Grandmother in
rural New Brunswick. Beginning an exploration in event-based work and skill development, the
project will elaborate on my object based practice. Similar to my previous samples this project
will respond to an awareness of current events through a ʻCassandra-crying,ʼ or paranoid overpreparedness. The source of anxiety for this particular project is the global economic crisis and
the anxiety perpetuated around its discourse -- a “once in a lifetime credit tsunami.”1

In

preparation for the collapse of the capitalist system, I am researching the history of the Great
Depression as well as the current impacts of the recession on such institutions as global trade.
The objective of this project is to develop a skill set that prepares me for living a lifestyle of
seclusion, outside of the current system, were a cataclysmic-economic-downturn to occur.

Spending a month living with my Grandmother in Naashwaak Bridge, New Brunswick (an
area of the province that is quite desolate and where the Sansom family was one of the first to
settle from Wales) I can develop skills particular to her lifestyle, such as: harvesting, pickling
and preserving vegetables; mapping and documenting the best places to find local wild growth
such as blueberries and fiddleheads; and creating devices based on popular science methods
and made from scavenged objects. At ninety-two, my Grandmother has lived through a time of
war and depression, in a setting with very little resources, and as such, has a skill-set of stark
contrast to my own (a born and bred urban dweller). In addition to what I will learn through
mimesis of this lifestyle, I will research and study in the archival materials that my Grandmother
has maintained in her multi-generational family home. These historical anthologies, written
letters and newspaper clippings will describe the years during the great depression how it
affected the region, most importantly, will be from the subjective viewpoints of my ancestors.

This performance will probe the psychology of the “safe place,” and the sentimentality
surrounding the notion of ʻhome,ʼ which is integral to my understanding of how I deal with

1 Barrie Mckenna, “Greenspan admits 'mistake' on bank regulation,” (The Globe and Mail, Finance, October 24,
2009), F7.
25

anxiety. I will travel to this particular area of New Brunswick (my safe-place) by train, a method
of transportation in keeping with my time frame of reference -- the Great Depression. As the
statistically proven safest method of cross-country transportation, it is also a travel choice in
keeping with the state of speculative anxiety that is propelling the entire project.

The motivation for this performance comes from the commune that was popularized in the
1960s, where groups of individuals, adamant about learning to live off the land, were searching
for ways to exist without dependency on the hegemonic system.2 This way of life is a reiteration
of Jacques Ranciereʼs dissensus, as the commune is ʻideolgoical or utopianʼ3 in comparison to
mainstream capitalist culture. In mimicking the commune, I then enact a dissensus from
hegemonic culture, similar to Grow Op and the other sculptural forms that I have created.
However, instead of dissent through material production, my ʻdispute on what is givenʼ4 occurs
through the action of living an alternative lifestyle, independent from “the world of determinants,
laws, definitions.”5 In order to best do this I am taking cues from activities found in old Popular
Mechanics publications from the 60s and 70s, as well as items found in The Whole Earth
Catalogue -- an almanac of projects and resources for those looking for alternative methods of
survival characteristic of the commune.6

Another forth-coming, event-based, project is the use of a local exhibition space to create
a centre for research and acquisition of McDonaldʼs Pavillion in Expo ʼ86 -- commonly called the
ʻMcBarge.ʼ The speculative anxiety that this project references is the effects of global warming –
ominous rising sea-levels, which will have a particular effect on habour-cities such as
Vancouver. My answer to this speculative anxiety is the use of the fictional motif found in the
post-apocalyptic film Waterworld. The project title, Nothing Is Free in Waterworld, is a quote
from the post-apocalyptic film, and refers not only to the event of glacier ice caps melting, but
also the adaptation and the savvy required for survival. Increasingly interested in not only the
physical objects required to survive a cataclysm, but supplementary qualifiers inherent to being
prepared -- a sense of home, companionship, comfort, and luxury -- I believe the McBarge
(plate 8) is an ideal amalgamation of luxury and survival in the event of global flooding. Were
2

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Commitment and Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective (Boston:
Harvard University Press, 1972)
3
Jacques Ranciere “What Makes Images Unacceptable” (presentation at the Pacific Northwest College of Art,
February 28, 2008)
4
ibid.
5
Marcus Steinweg, “Worldplay,” in Thomas Hirschhorn: Utopia, Utopia = One World, One War, One Army, One
Dress, (San Francisco: CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, 2005, p. 24 – 51) p. 25.
6
Peter Warshall, and Stewart Brand, Original Whole Earth Catalog, Special 30th Anniversary Issue (Whole Earth,
1998)
26

Vancouver to be covered with water in the future it would be useful as a house-boat or Ark (with
striking similarities to the floating homes depicted in the film), but is also a quintessential
example of postmodern utopian architecture, and thus an undervalued commodity.

At the end of the World Fair in 1986, many proposals were made for an adaptation of the
floating restaurant. These were all rejected and the McBarge now rests in the Burrard Inlet,
abandoned and rusting.

Informed by my conceptual premise, this project will incorporate

administrative skills and professional etiquette with personal incentives. Through research I
plan to uncover the current ownership, licensing, and leasing of the McBarge, as well as what
other uses have been proposed and subsequently rejected. Dialogue with other interested
members of the community will offer consultation on alternative propositions for the bargeʼs
uses. Discussions with supporters and local art patrons, in addition to outlining the importance
of the McBarge as an example of post-modern architecture in Vancouverʼs history (drawing
reference to Jamesonʼs Utopianism in Architecture as well as other references of scholastic
rigour), will culminate in the development of a professional and infallible proposal for the
McBargeʼs acquisition.
27

Nothing Is Free in Waterworld will transform the gallery space into an office setting -- a
desk with a computer, a printer, and a filing system and corkboard to catalogue all pertinent
research and correspondence -- which will indicate the actions taking place even in my
absence. Letters written daily to the Bargeʼs stakeholders, pleading for its sale or charitable
donation to the local arts community; notes and other pertinent paperwork; email and meeting
correspondence; all will be carefully catalogued and displayed as if for a small business in its
genesis. The product, similar to that of my pilgrimage for Dear Grandma, will be a holistic
archive of my actions.

The result of each of these explorations will be an installation similar to Kabakovʼs Total
Installations, where not a detail -- from photographs, to train tickets -- will be left out of the
exhibition of each. Kabakovʼs installations often depict a character or persona dealing with
psychological isolation, where their removal from reality is indicated through a neurotic
collection and attempted “psychoanalytic definition of what dreams are.”7 Thus the installations
have a ʻsensory vividnessʼ of a dissent from reality, similar to my own enacting of dissensus. As
described by Kabakov “The main actor in the total installation, the main centre toward which
everything is addressed, for which everything is intended is the viewer,”8 meaning that the
installation invites an immersion, or sharing of the characterʼs neuroses through its composite
structure. By following a similar format for my installations, both Dear Grandma and Nothing is
Free in Waterworld will immerse the viewer in my panic, and possibly induce a similar call for for
preparation. Each of these projects, a holistic catalogue of the processes of my anxiety, will
incorporate the attributes of lists, drawings, and sculptural objects that I have discussed
throughout this thesis. Thus, the installation of these ʻtotal worksʼ will enable me to distribute,
share, the cathartic bliss of preparing for oneʼs ultimate doom... whenever it may be.

7
8

Claire Bishop, Installation Art. 1st ed. (London: Routledge, 2005): p. 16
Ilya Kabakov, quoted in Claire Bishopʼs Installation Art. 1st ed. (London: Routledge, 2005): p. 14
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APPENDIX
Please see attached media documentation -- includes digital versions of visual components in
order of appearance, as well as a .pdf file of the thesis proper.

33