WITHOUT WAX, Mr. Erdman’s final Chicago showcase, opens Saturday, August 14th, 2010. RSVP by emailing derek@nationalheadquarters.org, or RSVP to the Facebook Event.

Jason Foumberg: Where are you moving to, and will you be an artist there also?
Derek Erdman: I’m moving to Seattle, WA. I’m going for the grunge and Frasier. I’m going to start Grunge 2 when I get there. It’s going to be like the first grunge, but moodier with mind control. I reckon I’ll be an “artist” when I get there, and the same variety of artist. I have no idea what I’ll be doing there exactly. A lot of napping, I suppose. That weather is conducive to naps and weight gain. There are so many pho restaurants, that’s all I’m going to eat. Soups and naps.

J: The same type of artist?
D: Yes, painting ducks and stuff, sure. I’ll probably make more geographically fitting paintings, like of those people that throw the fish at that market. Coffee cups, Shannon Kringen, dudes in REI outfits. Man, I can’t wait. Seattle here I come.

J: Did you accomplish what you came to do?
D: In Chicago? I came here to work at a record store and own a table top video game. I did that within the first two years of living here. This town is easy, everybody is nice and it’s so cheap. But the winters are just awful. I didn’t even leave the house from September to March last winter. It was just awful.

J: How many artworks in farewell show? Will they be for sale/priced to sell? Are you taking them all to you new home?
D: I am taking none of my own things to Seattle, all of it will be sold or I will put it in the garbage. My friend Lacey, with whom I’m moving, will probably want some of it. I’ll make her pay for it though, I’ll deduct it from rent. There should be 1,000 paintings and drawings at this event. Everything will be cheap. There will be a number of paintings for $6 & hot dogs and gummi bears.

J: How many cover illustrations have you done for Newcity?
D: Absolutely none.

J: On the $15 portrait project website you ask that no one send in pics of pets, but the preview pics of your farewell show has features tons of animals. So do you like animals or don’t you?
D: I don’t like animals. I certainly don’t think people should have pets. It’s obviously a form of slavery. Can you imagine how many plastic bags full of #2 are floating in the ocean as we speak? It’s mind boggling and totally gross. Dogs don’t want to wait until 6pm to go on walks. They don’t want to be primers for children. The neighborhood I live in has new couples. First they get the dog, then the get the baby. Sometimes there is overlap, the dog & the baby. You can tell the dog is miserable. Cats? They make me sneeze. Drawing people’s pets is like having to look at baby photos, oh brother. But I’ll paint a duck, no doubt. People don’t have ducks as pets. Ducks are free.

J: What will you miss most about Chicago? Least?
D: I will miss my friends and hangin’ on the stoop. It’s easy to talk to people here, I love to talk to strangers. I assume I’ll be able to do that in Seattle as well, I dunno. The only thing I won’t miss is the snow in the winter. I hate snow when it’s old and black and melted slush chunks. Everything else about this city is wonderful. I can’t think of a single thing otherwise that I don’t like. Everything is wonderful!

WITHOUT WAX: 14 Years of Derek Erdman in Chicago opens this Saturday, August 14 at High Concept Laboratories, featuring Music by Odd Obsession DJs and Beer + Wine from Printer’s Row Wine Shop. Click here, there, here, and here for more info. RSVP to derek(at)nationalheadquarters.org or call (312) 834-4290. Exhibition on display through August 22, gallery hours by appointment.

I would’ve liked to spend more time with her last week when I was in Kansas City, but we’re both so busy that the best we could do was a couple cheerful hugs at Succotash, a cozy indie brunch house over which an enormous, larger-than-life sized painting of Jaimie dribbling tomato soup down her chin presides, as if to say “All Hail Queen Jaimie. Queen of Kansas City. Queen of the World!” So I conducted this interview over email, but have every intention of following up with more behind-the-scenes content (if there is such a thing as “behind the scenes with Jaimie Warren”) the next time we cross paths, fingers crossed!

Whoop Dee Doo. Photo © Megan Mantia, 2010.

Angeline: Why Kansas City? What is your relationship to the city, and to the Midwest?
Jaimie: Born and raised in Wisconsin, daughter to the owners of a biker bar in the Milwaukee suburbs, I came to Kansas City for my first day of college, and I had never been prior. I have come to absolutely love it here, mostly because I think my friends are so incredibly talented and helpful. Also, living in a smaller city makes you form this very DIY, “make your own fun” sort of lifestyle and aesthetic. Everyone here helps one another with their projects, because we are all trying to see the city succeed and be seen as an emerging arts center. So it’s an awesome way to work! We all want each other to be successful, and we have tons of fun doing it!! I am always collaborating with bands like the Ssion and Carnal Torpor or fashion designers like Peggy Noland and Ari Fish.

Video by Cody Critcheloe

A: How did Whoop Dee Doo get its start?
J: Whoop Dee Doo started as a gallery exhibition of Kansas City artists that we exhibited at Rocket Projects in Miami. By the night of the opening, 14 Kansas-Citians had flown themselves out to do random, amazing performances for the event. It made me realize how much awesome performance stuff was going on, and how I really wanted to highlight that somehow. At the same time, I was insanely inspired by Chic-a-go-go, a public access tv show in Chicago, and I had traveled to Chicago to be on it several times. Plus, since KC has such a small arts community, we often branch out to other mini-communities. So you’ll go to a party and there will be punk kids, drag queens, Mexican bikers, moms, etc. Super weird and awesome. It’s a mix of all of these elements that made the show what it is today.

Now we have about 22 volunteers. Matt Roche and I are the Co-Directors, and other big bosses are Leone Anne Reeves, Natalie Myers, Megan Mantia, Flannery Cashill, Chris Beer, Roger Link, Peggy Noland, Stuart Smith, Lee Heinemann, and others. Our crew is totally amazing.

Whoop Dee Doo. Photo © Megan Mantia, 2010.

Whoop Dee Doo. Photo © Megan Mantia, 2010.

A: How has your experience curating and producing Whoop Dee Doo informed your work as a photographer, and vice-versa?
J: It’s weird, I know they totally inform each other, because both bodies of works revolve around how unique my community is, and finding a strange way to express it, but to this day I wont allow myself to photograph the show in my own style. It’s like I force myself to keep them separate for some reason. But anyway, I’ve always been a performer myself, only in a super-awful-and-awkward sort of way, so everything meshes really well.

Just like I was saying, in the same way our community is so random and mish-mash and amazing and awkward: so is the show. So you’ll have Celtic Bagpipers and Dads and kids and drag queens and drill teams and Swedish Dancers and scientists all dancing in one room together. So amazing!

A: Who/what are your influences?
J: Roseanne Barr is my #1 inspiration, and yes, mostly because of who she was on the show “Roseanne,” AND HER INFAMOUS SINGING OF THE NATIONAL ANTHEM at the San Diego Padres game in 1990!! And my dream would be to be famous enough one day so that people followed my weight loss and gain like they do with Roseanne and Oprah Winfrey.

But also—John Waters (DUH!), Diet Dr. Pepper, Halloween pranks, all the VH1 reality shows (in particular- Rock of Love and Rock of Love Bus, Flavor of Love, and I Love New York), Stevie Wonder, Dolly Parton’s book: My Life and Other Unfinished Business, Roseanne Barr’s book: My Life as a Woman, and the Nightmare on Elm Street movies (I have the 8 disc series WITH the original 3D glasses).

“Still Punk” video featuring Jaimie Warren by Cody Critcheloe

A: What is your training, how has formal arts education impacted your career?
J: I have a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. I think my education came mostly from my peers. I was totally blessed to have an amazing crew around me that worked all night, every night; we were good at constructive criticism and we all pushed each other very hard. Also, I had a radical teacher, Adrian Herman. She was the bomb. I still work with a lot of the same people I did in school, even those who have moved away.

Jaimie Warren as Madonna in Ssion’s BULLSHIT video, by Cody Critcheloe

A: Can you talk about the title of your book, Don’t You Feel Better?
J: Weeeeeellllll, that’s sort of a weird and awkward story, as the title of the book (and my website) used to be the title of a totally different project that got put on the backburner many years ago, but who cares! I think it’s funny because when someone says that phrase, I picture someone taking a big dump and feeling better after it happened. Don’t you? Heehee but seriously: I think it plays well with the self portraits. It reminds me of playing dress-up as a little kid, which I’m still able to get away with as an adult. Which is funny and kind of pathetic at the same time.

A: When you take self-portraits, do you usually have someone else to give the camera to while you pose, or do you take them yourself?
J: I always hand it off to a friend. I tell them what I’m generally looking for, and it almost always works out pretty good.

Photo © Jaimie Warren, 2010.

Photo © Jaimie Warren, 2010.

Photo © Jaimie Warren, 2010.

A: You’ve managed to create images and events that are highly theatrical yet feel very candid and personal. How do you balance improvisation with pre-production? When does the work demand precariousness and when does it need to be precious and purposefully composed?
J: Well, if you are seeing anything precious it’s just an illusion. Everything is usually planned somewhere between 30 seconds and 5 minutes before the shot is taken. It’s pretty improvisational. I think that’s why some people like it, because it has that very “I could do that” or “I’ve done that” look to it. Everything is done on an extremely low budget, and when I am emulating someone, it might almost seem like an insult because it’s so half-assed it seems comical or ridiculous, or even awful.

Photo © Jaimie Warren, 2010.

A: How has the Internet influenced your idea of documentation?
J: The Internet is so amazing for someone who lives in the Midwest. Especially for Whoop Dee Doo, when we are researching acts to have on our show when we travel to other cities or countries. I don’t know if there is a term for it, but you know when you hit link after link after link, and you’ve suddenly been on this totally weird downward spiral on the Internet? That is when we find our best stuff, like when we got the Christian Mimes who paint white face and have floor length silver sparkly outfits, or the Civil War re-enactors who amputated a foot on stage for us. As for my photography, I cant tell if it’s influenced my personal work, but I know it makes it easier to research other peoples’ photos.

A: What are you currently working on, what should we be on the lookout for in the next couple months?
J: Peggy Noland and I are working on a project in Brazil next year! Also, we plan to have a live animal birth (cow or pig?) on Whoop Dee Doo when we travel to a small farm town to do a new show in November. Also, Whoop Dee Doo will be in featured in a new book through Deitch Projects called “WILD FILE” which will have a USB stick with videos by radical artists like Cory Arcangel, Ryan Trecartin, Takeshi Murata and more. I’m also in a recent Rizolli book called SHOOT: Photography of the Moment, with 26 photographers including Wolfgang Tillmans and Juergen Teller (OMG!!). The book was released at the New Museum and is traveling internationally with an accompanying photo show of works from the book – it’s going to Ireland next. The project is curated by Ken Miller, who used to be an editor for Tokion for many years, and he is super cool and smart.

What else? I have a fake goth band called “Y-Not” where I scream the word “Why” at the top of my lungs until everyone leaves the room, which usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour. And me and my best girlfriends have a rad DJ performance night called “Booby Trap” that we’ve been touring, so you should bring that to your town, too; it’s really weird. And when I was in India in January I was working on a potential Whoop Dee Doo BOLLYWOOD edition! (Oh please dear God I hope it happens.) Lastly, I am currently working on a new book with Higher Pictures so keep your peepers peeled!

Jaimie Warren is a photographer, performance artist, and Creator/Co-Director of the faux public access television show “Whoop Dee Doo.” She is represented by Higher Pictures (New York, NY), she has had her first solo artist monograph published by Aperture (New York, NY) in 2008, recently closed her first solo museum exhibition at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Warren has exhibited at White Flag Projects, St. Louis; Smith-Stewart, New York; David Castillo, Miami; Max Wigram, London; Getsumin, Osaka; Beida University, Beijing; Rocket Projects, Miami; Colette, Paris, among other venues. Her photography has been published in dozens of national and international publications. Warren is a recipient of the Lighton International Artist Exchange Program grant, and a 2009 Charlotte Street Fund grant.

Warren’s non-profit community arts program and faux public access television show “Whoop Dee Doo” has exhibited at various galleries and museums including the Smart Museum at the University of Chicago, Deitch Projects (New York), The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (Omaha, NE), and LOYAL gallery (Malmo, Sweden).

dontyoufeelbetter.com

Circuit bending, hacking and prototyping is spreading almost as fast as the moving electrons that inspired its genesis. A growing community built around the re-purposing of consumer electronics can in part be attributed to some cornerstone books: “Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking” by Chicago circuit-bending professor Nicholas Collins and Reed Ghazala‘s “Circuit-Bending: Build your own alien instruments.” Citing Collins as reference for his creations, Yoshi Akai applies his talent, imagination, and bronzed and bejeweled aesthetic sensibility to the creation of nervous nano-scale soundscapes and analog acid-sonic washes.

On a cultural level, the allied fields of bending and hacking have merged into a medium for teaching that is literally the sharing of knowledge from experimentation. Articles to come will explore this transformation of hackerspaces to making spaces, but for now little imagination is required to think of Akai’s pieces as products of an airship guild, the fruits of hours of toiling and attention to detail that comes from rigorous apprenticeship. Yoshi talks about the beginnings of and inspirations for work that has not gone unnoticed, and that arguably ushers in a new breed of Steampunk.

Alex: Tell me a little bit about your background and what led to building these instruments?
Yoshi: My background is art and design. I have been researching interaction design. What led to building these instruments is simply curiosity. I always desire to visualize my idea.

A: Your designs strike a balance between utility and turn-of-the-century charm. How do aesthetics affect the you way make instruments?
Y: I always believe that high quality or expensive instruments are not only about quality of sound. They are also about delicate craftsmanship.

A: There is a wonderful playfulness in your inventions, from using a LEGO as a conductor to your crispbread record player. Is that an important aspect of your art?
Y: The concept of the LEGO Sequencer was started as an interaction design project. The concept is to make a 3D tangible user interface. To make a device for a computer, LEGO has limited possibility, however for simple instruments, LEGO is a nice material. Because almost people have played with LEGOs, it invites the user to have fun. I usually get ideas and questions from something surrounding me. Knäckebröd (Crispbread) Turntable is a conceptual art piece, so the Swedish bread has a meaning on this work. When I saw the crispbread in Sweden I thought that could be almost same size as a record; it is only a little bit bigger than vinyl.

Knäckebröd (Crispbread) Turntable © Yoshi Akai, 2009

A: Pieces like the Wireless Catcher, White Magic and Velvet remind me of Edison and his “invisible” technological breakthroughs. What about the invisible is attractive to you?
Y:I do use the ideal of the invisible for my art and design works. For the design, if technology is the infrastructure, the designer should make the technology invisible. For the art and performance, the invisible is a kind of magic for me.

A: Hacking consumer goods obviously plays a large part in your creations. What was your first hacking/modifying experience?
Y: Actually I cannot remember. I should probably talk a bit about my family first: my great grandfather was a professor of Japanese Tea Ceremony, and my grandfather was a stonemason. They both made their own tools from consumer tools to fit a new purpose, for example making a stone carving tool from a kitchen tool. I have been doing it since when I was kid. I still do not have an exact definition of “hardware hacking,” but for me an Hawaiian Aloha shirt also a type of hacking.

Yoshi Akai in performance

A: What resources would you suggest for people interested in building their own devices?
Y: I always get inspiration from different fields, if I look only in the music field for making the musical instrument, I cannot find a new idea. Also a toy store is full of inspiration. From a technical perspective, “Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking” by Nicolas Collins is a great book.

Detail on one of Yoshi’s handmade pieces © Yoshi Akai, 2009

A: What are you currently working on, interested in or listening to?
Y:Right now I’m working on an interface with bionics sensor.

Yoshi Akai’s collection of modded instruments © Yoshi Akai, 2009

A: Can people purchase any of your creations?
Y: Unfortunately, I do not have plans to sell anything at the moment. It’s because I only have one set for my performances. Also, every piece is handmade, so production requires several months. I hope one day to make limited editions for sale.

Yoshi Akai was born in Nagoya, Japan. He obtained a BA in textile design and a MA in design from Tama art University in Tokyo, and a MA in textile art from Southampton University Winchester School of art in UK. After his work as a designer in Japan, he joined programs at Kungliga Konsthögskolan and Chalmers University in Sweden. He has had numerous exhibitions in Japan, UK, The Netherland, Korea, and Sweden. He is currently producing original musical instruments with a unique input system, and is doing performance with those creative gadgets.

You can check more of Yoshi’s pieces at his website or on youtube.

As much as I’d like to, I can’t pretend to know him well. But what little I do know is that Ray is making some of the most iconic and important art to come out of Chicago since Carl Sandburg wrote about a “City of the Big Shoulders.” CRO is currently in Asheville, North Carolina, fundraising for a new street art campaign combating the ignorance and idiocy that is the Tea Party Express. Can you dig it? Read more below and consider participating in The People’s Party, either by donating to the cause or spreading the word by downloading this free poster and putting it up WHERE FREEDOM RINGS.

Blago’s Shoe Shine © CRO 2009

Angeline: Why did you leave Chicago for Asheville? What have you been up to down there?
CRO: Sometimes you feel the world is telling you things. You can either ignore these messages or listen. I felt I needed a bit of a break. The past 3 years really wore me out. For as much beauty as I saw, there were many things that really let me down. Originally, I thought I would come here and write a book about my Obama experience but through the process of thinking about it realized that I actually don’t really care about that.

A: In retrospect, how has your experience working on “Go Tell Mama!” shaped your work today?
C: Oddly enough it’s actually made me more cynical and apathetic. GTM gave me a chance to conduct a bit of a public experiment. I got to see the political inner workings of things. I also got to see how manipulative mainstream media is firsthand. It’s all kind of a joke. Sometimes it’s better to just eat the sausage, metaphorically speaking. Once you see how it’s made and what’s in it, it’s a let down. As Americans we are getting so worked over. Politics is not about having the tough conversations. Sadly, it’s simply about winning.

No Race Creme Series: American Values © CRO 2010

Proposed route of Anti-Teabagger poster campaign (along same route as the Tea Bagger Express).

A: What and Who is The People’s Party?
C: The People’s Party is you and me. As some of you know, the Supreme Court recently ruled corporations can now dump as much of their money into politics as they please. During the election of 2008 regular people like myself could use the Internet in extraordinary ways–we had a voice like never before. For a time the scales had become balanced. Right now it seems like most folks could care less. But just wait til the next election comes around and your voice is drowned out by the constant onslaught of corporate influenced ads that will saturate your television. If regular people don’t find some way to unite themselves we are in for one hell of a shit future. Most of America believes everything they see on TV. The brainwashing will continue but on a grand scale. The People’s Party is an attempt to unite like minds whether Black, White, Gay, Straight, Woman or Man. As soon as we can stop bickering amongst ourselves and realize we have more in common and who the real enemy is we can actually take steps to make this country more than a shell of itself. Obama talks about calling people out but I still see him beating around the bush. My first goal with the People’s Party is calling out the Tea Bag Express and conveying how ignorant and misinformed they are. How the base of their movement draws upon historically racist fears. If you feel the same please support this mission.

A: What do you think of your peers, specifically those working in graphic design or street art? Are there any contemporary artists you especially admire and support?
C: There are too many to list them all but a few include; Banksy, Mr. Eddie, Scot Lafavor, El Mac, CHOR Boogie, Cody Hudson, Chris Silva, Date Farmers, Maya Hayuk, David Ellis, Juan Chavez, STATIK, and SWOON. I like creative expression in general and can usually gain something from everyone’s voice. With that said, personally, I like work that has just as much, if not more, substance as style. I’m a nerd, I like to use my brain as much as my eyes. I need work that makes me think about it long after I’ve seen it. Like a good movie, do you wanna just sell a bunch of tickets or do you wanna make a lasting impact?

A: What are some of the challenges you encounter in your day-to-day artistic practice?
C: I get the impression there are forces out there who really don’t want to hear what I have to say and have the power to censor me. They would rather I make non-confrontational pretty pictures of kids dancing around a tree. I struggle with trying to figure out ways to have conversations directly with the people and how to cut out the middlemen – who’d like to control the information. Day-to-day I struggle with the same issues most Americans deal with – how to pay bills, how to get clients to pay me on-time and value my work and how to fund my ideas.

A: You’ve got a long-term collaboration going on with Motionographer Rebecca Berdel for Mocro.tv. Tell us about that. What have you learned about the creative process from this relationship?
C: When Rebecca and I are at our best we make some impressive work. When we aren’t, it can get difficult. At times we debate over the direction of the work like the Coen Bros fighting about the direction of a scene in The Big Lebowski. I bring certain things to the table she can’t and in return she does the same. You know, I’ve learned a lot about letting things go. Collaboration can be tough. Ultimately you really have to learn how to respect one another on an equal playing field.

A: Where do you hope to be in a year with your career? What do you hope to accomplish?
C: This is my life. I don’t really have aspirations to work for a corporate agency or some other full-time job. The future is about figuring out how to prosper as an independent participant in the global market. I only want the freedom to produce my ideas and speak truth. That is happiness.

I hope my work is a simple document of time. When I’m not around anymore I hope folks can look back at my work and get a clear understanding of what it felt like to be an American in the 21st century. I like to think I make work about issues we all think about but don’t really like to talk about or simply ignore. I’m not trying to sugar coat anything or pretend this country has evolved somewhere that it hasn’t. After traveling this country coast-to-coast I understand we still have major issues. Sure we may not be talking about burning crosses and fire hoses but we are talking about a culture of subtle, quiet self-segregation. I mean only 5% of Americans attend integrated churches. For me that’s a red flag. I’m giving you the straight dope. I hope we stop lying to ourselves about this post-racial crap and have the conversations we need to have to actually take steps forward.

The DADT Problem © CRO 2010

A: A lot of your work is about identity. How has your understanding of your own identity informed how you choose to portray identity, and how you identify with your audience? 
C: I’d rather not think about identity but I am confronted with it practically everyday. What does it mean to be American? What are the branded messages conscious and unconscious society tells us about ourselves? How is identity defined for many by what we see on TV and how does that differ from reality? Much of my work is about coming to terms with this. Our societal problems have been carefully crafted and orchestrated for years and have developed over generations. I reject many of these notions and my work is an ongoing attempt to redefine or re-brand them. I can empathize with gender and LGBT issues and I hope they can empathize with me.

A: Describe the Internet. In five words.
C: Infinite Access Uncensored Immediate Freedom

CRO by Sarah Hoskins

Ray Noland is an artist and designer working under the alias CRO. He is the creator of “GoTellMama!” – a grassroots Obama art, video and street campaign which toured the country during the election of ’08. He is also the artist behind the now iconic “Run, Blago, Run” street art phenomenon. Noland also independently published the now-defunct online magazine BLACKLIST® (’03-’06). He has a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (’95) and has worked professionally as an art director and brand designer. His art & illustrations have been published throughout the US and Europe and are in the collections of the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian. Though Noland’s work has been displayed in galleries in Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland and Atlanta, he is more familiar with renting vacant storefronts and converting them into DIY art spaces.

creativerescue.org

Children in the village try to squeeze into the picture. (Photo by Christian Doll, © 2009)

Angeline: Where does the name “Oyat” come from?
Christian: In Uganda, I lived with people from the Acholi tribe, who gave me this Acholi name. Most African names, particularly in Uganda, come from the condition of one’s birth, like their birth order or if they are born after twins or during a rainstorm, or if they have a birthmark. “Oyat” is usually given to people born under unusual circumstances. Few people aside from elders know the meanings of all the names, though. So, the student who gave it to me (a former child soldier who was also an amazing dancer and “footballer”) thought that it meant “an unusual person.” This was kind of a joke because there I was, the only white person for miles and miles living in the middle of a Ugandan village, living like the people there, trying to help and trying to learn the language. Pretty damn unusual. Being an atheist named “Christian” can get cumbersome, so I’ve been using the name Oyat more and more and have been publishing everything online under it.

A: How well-prepared do you think were for living and working in Uganda?
C: Well, I was a refugee case manager for a few months in Chicago right before I left and I made several African friends who I talked to extensively, so I think that prepared me a little bit for some of the cultural aspects, though not many. Since I didn’t know what country I was going to until a few months before, I didn’t get to read up all that much on Uganda and knew just what most people think of: Idi Amin. Plus, I read all that I could about the Peace Corps and talked to a bunch of RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers). Honestly, though, nothing could have possibly prepared me for living in a developing country and working in a developing country.

Christian with one of the Rwots (Acholi chiefs) and his wife at their house in Gulu. (Photo by Christian Doll, © 2009)

A: How has this experience affected your perspective as a documentary filmmaker?
C: It has made me more committed than ever for having any film project I work on from now on arise organically from the people I’m working with. There are so many documentaries about the developing world that force a western or even a local but privileged perspective upon the material. There was a terrible documentary made about the organization I worked with that was narrated by a British woman and showed the people who were served by my organization doing things but only interviewed one of them. It was all from the frame of reference of the filmmakers. In documentary, perspective is everything, and after living there and seeing so many media projects imposed on people, I would never work on something that wasn’t mostly or entirely shot and planned by the people it was about. I didn’t get a chance to make my film there because I ran out of time and had so many more pressing needs, but my plan was to have a few of the kids I worked with decide how they wanted to document their lives and then train them and work with them to do it. They would dictate what to film, how, and who to interview. I’m still planning on going back and doing it at some point, but we’ll see when I can find the time to sit down and write the grant.

Jarrod sticks his tongue out at Christian. (Photo by Christian Doll, © 2009)

A: In what forms of cultural exchange did you engage while in Uganda? How do you propose to continue the dialogue back here in Chicago?
C: Everything was a cultural exchange. I mean, there were more big ticket cultural events I attended like wedding preparations and these things they call “introduction ceremonies.” And I learned some of the dances a little and I learned the language of the people I lived with. But every hour of every day was a cultural exchange, where I was sharing myself and continuing to gain a deeper understanding of everyone I lived with. After a while, you start to lose yourself in the place around you. When it becomes your way of life too, it stops being so foreign.

A: What was it like killing a chicken with your bare hands?
C: Hahaha. Well, I used a knife, so it wasn’t really with my bare hands. The first thing I killed was a duck, and I felt a little weird about it afterward, especially since it was much harder to kill than a chicken and it took a lot longer. Every time I thought about it, I felt horrible, but that only lasted a few days. Then, I was ready to do it again. Then, I killed my first chicken, which was a lot easier, but it slipped out from under my feet and started hopping around. You always hear about chickens running around with no heads, but no one tells you that they still squawk from the body with no head and that the head moves around on its own. That’s what’s really freaky. By the time I got to the one I killed on the YouTube video, I was pretty much showing off for everyone that it didn’t bother me at all. Honestly, I felt like if I wasn’t able to go through with killing things when that was the only way to have fresh meat in Africa, I should go vegan. The animals I ate in Uganda, though, are raised and killed a lot more humanely than the ones we raise in the United States. I think they have a different way of considering animals there because they are all around you, the farm animals at least, and they’re the way people sustain their livelihood. One of my neighbors stopped asking me for money at one point and would instead offer to sell me one of her chickens which she would raise until I was ready to eat it. It was like making an investment, in her and her children and in my next time hosting people at my hut.

A: What is the single most important thing you learned while in Uganda?
C: Corruption is real, poverty is real, the problems in Africa are vast and the wars have been devastating, and while outsiders can help a lot, anyone who does not aim every ounce of their work into empowering the people they are working with and working themselves out of a job is either ignorant of the situation around them or simply feeding their own ego.

Christian Doll is an ethnographer, documentary film maker, and essayist. He has worked supporting and developing organizations serving refugees, internally displaced people (IDPs), and the homeless. He hopes to continue to educate and move people to action on issues of social justice and human rights and empower the powerless through his work and documentary films. You can read his writing at oyatdoll.wordpress.com.

Ile-a-Vache, Haiti by Patrick Lucien, from the Facebook Group: Support Tourism in Haiti

Angeline: What is your relationship to Haiti? How many times have you visited?
Marie: I was born in Haiti in 1984 and moved to the United States with my parents and my older sister in 1989 at the age of 5. I left behind 3 brothers because of Visa Issues. I’ve only visited once–for one month–since I left.

A: What was it like the last time you visited? What were your impressions?
M: I was last in Haiti in 2000. Other members of my family visit Haiti frequently. For some reason I was always too busy and involved in other projects to visit. I regret that now. When I stepped off the plane in 2000, I experienced a culture shock. How could I experience a culture shock when it was my own culture? Everything is done differently in Haiti. The richness of tropical colors, the comforting smell of the roadside food, and the cacophony of scooters roaring, vendors yelling, people laughing or arguing in Port-Au-Prince all contribute to a startling experience. When you leave the airport the country and the people waste no time on introductions. You are thrown into the thick of it. I remember how big my sixteen year-old eyes grew, upon passing numerous shanty towns on the way to my brothers’ house. I grew up in the suburbs of New York City. Until then, this degree of poverty was never tangible to me. Only described.

A: What do you know about Voodoo?
M: I didn’t grow up with much knowledge of Voodoo. My family is Catholic. 80% of the Haitian population is Catholic. Some practice Voodoo along with Catholicism. It was something that was frowned upon in my immediate and extended family. I don’t view it negatively but I think it is misunderstood. This misunderstanding of Voodoo as “black magic” has made Haitian Diaspora very uncomfortable discussing it. It is unfortunate that a country with such a diverse wealth of history, art and culture would be minimized to “The Voodoo Country.” We want people to shift their focus from Voodoo dolls and chicken blood to other national treasures and pastimes.

A: What do you love most about Haiti? What do you wish could change about Haiti?
M: I think Haiti’s strengths are its people. We are strong, passionate, and not afraid to speak our mind (we are not a sugar coating people). These values are reflected in the traditional Haitian arts, like the musics Konpa, Rara, and Mizik rasin, as well as the visual arts and crafts of woodworking, painting and sculpture. Chicagoans can see some of this work in their own city at Nicole Gallery, a Haitian and Diaspora gallery, who are having a benefit this weekend for Centre D’Art de Port-Au-Prince, where its founder began her career as a curator and businesswoman. …I wish there was less corruption in Haiti. I don’t know how deep it goes because I don’t live there but I suspect those who need the help the most are often the last to reap the benefits of prosperity. I think this disaster has highlighted this problem for the whole world to see.

A: Do you feel your friends and coworkers–average Americans–have a good understanding of Haiti?
M: I think most people know what they have heard or read in the news. Sometimes its the Hollywood Voodoo version and other times its the embittered starving country version.

A: How do you feel about the way the American media has portrayed Haiti in recent years?
M: I don’t think Haiti has been misrepresented on the whole. I do think that the whole story has not been told. There are great things happening in Haiti that are not shown. Let’s show the progress that has been made. Stability in the government, roads being built, violence diminished. I was watching all the news networks during the first days of this disaster–like the rest of the world–and noticed a key moment. One of the anchors asked the field reporter if there was concern about violence “since Haiti was one of the most violent nations in the area.” The field reporter corrected the anchor stating that Haiti has a lower rate of violence compared to the rest of the Caribbean. This is a common misconception. I’m not saying it’s the safest place in the world but it certainty does not merit consistent reference as Among The Most Dangerous. That being said, I would still contact the US Embassy before going to know all the potential risks.

A: Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. How can Americans and Haitians work together to combat poverty and establish sustainable economic practice?
M: I think that the Haitian government needs to take a more active role in fostering sustainable farming because the land has been ravaged by slash and burn agriculture. This might already be a focus, but if so it needs to develop into a much larger program. Americans and others in the world should consider investing in Haitian business. A lot of business left Haiti a long time ago… We need renewed interest in Tourism. It’s a beautiful country with lots to offer. I know that there are various Haitian government entities pushing for more tourism to our side of the island. We need to rebrand the country.

A: Besides donating money, what are some creative ways we can help support our neighbors in Haiti?
M: I suggest that people who are interested do some research about the country. I really think knowledge is the first step.

Marie (middle, third from right) and her family in 2008

A: Last week I heard that up to hundreds of Haitian orphans will be arriving by plane to Chicago (via the Department of Child Welfare) in the coming weeks and are in need of French-speaking foster caretakers. What would you say to a Chicagoan who qualifies but is hesitant to invite a stranger and foreigner into their home, in order to urge them to reconsider?
M: These children need a smiling face. They have been through unimaginable trauma and just need someone to tell them that the world is not going to come crashing down again. Nothing special, just human kindness. Help if you can. Kindness knows no geographic boundaries or language barriers.

Recommended websites: Heritage Konpa, Facebook Group: Support Tourism in Haiti, Nicole Gallery

Marie Casimir is a Haitian-American writer and performer who lives in Chicago and was raised in New York State. She is currently the Communications Associate at Links Hall where she promotes the work of a diverse group of independent performing artists. Marie holds a B.A. in Journalism from Ithaca College, with a minor in Art History. Marie is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Non-Profit Management at North Park University. She has family in Haiti who were fortunate to have survived the Earthquake. They are well and counting their blessings.

Rand Sevilla is a graphic artist and also a graphic musician. I don’t know how many bands he has (a dozen, perhaps) but one of them is this outfit called Club Sashay. Recently Rand was pimping a web snatch of his own design to Vicemag via Twitter. It’s called YYAAHHOOOO.COM. It won a prize. It’s an Internet nasty website mashup. Go there to see what it’s all about and then come back and read an interview I had with Rand about the Internet.

Johnny: What are you up to with yyaahhoooo?
Rand: YYAAHHOOOO.COM is an extention of a earlier efforts in experimental HTML called “Maury Povich” available here: randsevilla.com/povich [Whoa!]. I like manipulating language to create irrational experiences. We took a bunch of mushrooms in the desert at this music festival (Manimal) and got on this dialogue about bands like Wavves and Lovvers and Miike Snow. So Peter from Beast Cop and I decided we should start a band called Tom Pettery Presents YYaahhoooo.com. I don’t know if the band will ever happen but the opportunity to take YYAAHHOOOO.com as a domain named seemed great so I grabbed it.

The act of typing in a URL is coordinated by the sequence of the letters: your fingers touching the buttons is the space where your meat makes zeros and ones. Typing in YYAAHHOOOO.COM has this interesting double rhythm that is appealing, too. Its like datdat datdat datdat datdatdatdat dat dat dat.(sic)

J: Is everything in there shit you found, or is some of it your own, like the faces?
R: The gestures are mine but the content cannot really be claimed. The faces are from a blog that lasted for about 2 days called LOLBROS. The profile photo of the authority figure is already funny, but when you make the faces completely and shoddily shitty I crack up. The other stuff is all copy paste copy paste code collages and media arrangement, not dissimilar to the sculptural stuff I used to do when I had room to do it. I really believe that proximity creates identity and that you can create a lot of questions just by putting two signifiers next to each other. I like Haim Steinbach’s work a lot; and what he was trying to do with the banal in a hyper consumer environment, I’m trying to do with the banal in infornographic environment.

J: I know you have a penchant for the grotesque Internet. What do you think about the insane shit one can find in/out there?
R: As having been a person diagnosed with mental illness I don’t know if Insane is an appropriate characterization. I know that will seem a contradiction when you see my next post that says “THIS IS INSANE!!!!!!!”, but that’s just Internet hype. The Internet is the human brain melting into one giant pulsating mass, an überhuman blob. I sometimes feel like the Internet is the pink slime from Ghostbusters II that boils under NYC, and other times I think the internet is the logical extension of the collective unconsciousness and will move us from being messy piles of DNA. The Internet as a whole is grotesque. Its the pinnacle of technology that can be used to appeal to the basest level of human experience.

J: What about the creators of extreme, grotesque content. What kind of people are they? Why do you think they do it?
R: Its always been about sharing. Content creators want an audience. I know I do. We extend our interests and desires in the internet in the hope we will make contact with someone who understands, or at least “gets” what you are about. Would furries, pedophiles or Christians access the Internet if there wasn’t a relevant and related body of content and community available? Unlikely. Internet is augmented consciousness where we aren’t limited to sharing by conventional media. I don’t have to describe a picture or movie I made, I can show you. We all want to have a legacy and the easiest way to do that is insert our code in the pile. The dark and sticky pile.

J: Do you consider yourself apart from the grotesque, or a part of it? Just visiting?
R: Totally part of it, you can’t just visit. I think a lot of people don’t realize is when you are on the Internet your computer is spewing information on other computers and other computers are doing the same. Its a good thing human STDs haven’t figure out a way to travel through the network.

J: Do you have some ideas about what it all means, culturally speaking? To me it’s a scream. I think Internet has been a big long healthy scream so far. Or a “movement” (“shit”)(with a scream). Like culture is exorcising decades of not being able to govern its own entertainment, information and interactivity. Internet as steam chamber.
R: I know I just gave you a bunch of rhetoric about what it means but, when I take a step back, the Internet is still in its infancy. No broadcast medium has really hit the hundred year mark. That’s only two generations in people time. I’ll consider the Internet grown-up when it effectively merges the Newtonian world with the quantum world, that is to say [when] all information, including time and spatial perception (memory, emotion) exists everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. The analogy you gave of the Internet being a shit scream already points to how language, our organic lexicon, is merging with the technical lexicon. The ideas precede the reality–be it flight, 9/11, or Singularity. The ramification of this is that we will not be human anymore and so shit like google, Huffington, and even YYAAHHOOOO.COM will be a remnant of an ancient civilization primitively carved from binary processes, rendered in 2 dimensions.

The Internet is a Monolith.

J: Are you now or have you ever been a member of the somethingawful.com forums? 4chan?
R: I lurk 4chan and Encyclopedia dramatica because it feels like hanging out in the back of the bus with all the bad kids.

I can’t really say to much else otherwise I’ll be breaking the rules of the Internet**.

Randsevilla.com