DICTIONARY   by Thierry Geoffroy / Colonel    ( link to portail )

ABOVE [fr. au-dessus]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Why should art
(and artists)
be above.
Above responsibility.
Above the crimes in society.
Above genocides.
Above politics.
Above pollution.
Above the education in schools.
Above armed conflicts.
Above the epidemics of apathy.
Artists have elected the conductors.
So why do artists have this attitude of aboveness.
Artists don’t have any parliamentary immunity.
Artists can be guilty of non-assistance of a person in danger.
Artists can be punished by the law.
Artists should also be included
as they know so much.
Sometimes they run away.
Sometimes they ignore their duty as witnesses.

ABSENCE [fr. absence]

An artist not coming to express
is an absence.
Absence is loneliness.
Absence is sadness.
Absence is death.
Absence is an expression.
Absence is non-assistance.
Refus de témoignage.
Un vide.
In Emergency Room the absence
can be considered like a desertion
(unless it is lack of inspiration).
But how can Emergency Artists
in an unfair world
be missing inspiration?
The injustice is everywhere.

ABSTRACT [fr. abstrait]

Figuration is not the opposite of abstraction.
Emergency is the opposite of abstraction.
We don’t want to show compositions
that make people dream
and make them imagine what they want.
We are not in Emergency Room
to make people forget what they are
or what they are surrounded by.
On the contrary.
We want them to stare and perceive fully
what is going on outside their ego
and what they are complice with
and responsible of.
We want to point at that.
As sharp as possible.
As loud as possible.
We think we have to give opinions as elaborate as possible.
We don’t do art that is suggestive.
Art that can be equally left or right.
Art that can be cynical and humanistic at the same time.
Art without a grab for us is bullshit
salesman’s tricks.
We are allergic to art made by artist afraid of loosing customers.

What you see on your left
is not what you see on your right
will say Wilson Lincoln
or Lincoln Wilson.

In Emergency Room we want to line up arguments
evidences
fast.
Give us
les armes du crime
the names of the guilty ones
Fast
Comfort the victims
Confront the criminals
We want impact art
Watergates
We don’t want to give a smell of bien être
but we want to insist on the cases
insist on the sickness.
We don’t do some kind of Buddha Bar Muzak
so everyone feels good and feels like buying
feels like net-working
drunk.
We want the observers
(burning as well now)
to run out of Emergency Room
and start the revolution.
Emergency room should not offer relaxation to be able to survive
(relax from what?).

We are not like poor Brazilians from favellas
living in misery
and having carnival art only once a year
to forget about their non-abstract daily pain.

We have no pain.
We are spoiled.
Every minute for us is pleasure.
Every minute is made with our preferences.
We hear the music we want.
We look the TV we want (choose the story we want to hear).
We spend holiday where we want.
Doing what we want.
We spend all the time thinking what will make us more happy.
So for once let’s get
what we don’t want.
Let us face reality
face guilt
Face our cowardice
we are not weak
the fatness protects us.
The reality we look at
is beautiful
because this reality has been our choice.
We are civilised
and have the possibility to pilot the world.
We can even decide which kids are manufacturing our sport shoes
if we prefer Indians or Africans.
We can interfere in the choice of what age they should have
and how many hours they should work for us.
Being privileged customers
we can complain about what we want
when we want
where we want
and make pressure to change it.
 
In Emergency Room
The composition is uncomposed
because it is always including last minute-indices.
By the way
we don’t have time for compositions
designed-trallalla like in Ikea.
 
The art where you see art works
and everyone interprets what they want
is such
a cliché
so conservative
such a luxury
so much serving the dominators.

It is chauvinistic
to give art this duty.
The duty to be abstract.
In Emergency Room the composition is the scenography.
The scenography of the artist being punctual.
The ballet of the collaborations.
But again
in Emergency Room it is not acceptable
to carry no trace
any reference to anything recognizable.
In Emergency Room we are supposed to look after specific crimes
specific subjects.
Emergency Room offers solutions.
 
If we want to see compositions
suggestions
beauty
or poetry
and want to escape
we take a tour in the nature
(maybe while doing a critical run in the forest)

ACTIVE [fr. actif]

Emergency Room is an active space in an art institution.
The emergency artist is the active artist.
An emergency situation calls for activity.
 
ACTIVIST [fr. activiste]

Please don’t call any of us “an activist”
then we have to get rid of them
exclude them fast.
To say: “You are an activist”
is like to denounce someone.
To isolate the artist.
To neutralise the artist
To say: “I am an activist”
is even worse.
Can you imagine a spy saying:
”Good morning I am a spy”
”I am secretly going to spy on you”
The word activist
is a word like “contemporary”
is a word like “happy”.
It is a construction.
An invention to get the focus away from action.
 
Normally artists love to be called activists.
They feel flattered.
They think they are more sexy.
They think they will have more easy flirts
and probably they do.
They feel they will be like heroes.
But they won’t.
Artists called activists
are officially tattooed.
Artists called activists
are easy to spot
are easy to trace
are easy to neutralise
are easy to arrest.
Once an artist is called
or call himself or herself an activist
the artist cannot any longer work undercover.
The artist is deactivated
like a flat joke of which you already know the end.
An activist artist is without arms
(the shoulders touch the floor).
Nonoperational.
Non-existing.
Insignificant.
Spotted.
Boneless.
Fiché.
Dead.
 
In our days
you can count activist artists not only in hundreds
but in thousands.
In hundred thousands.
There is a devaluation as everyone is pretending
or nominate
themselves as activists.
Even enemies of activism nominate themselves as activist artists.
Please notice
that invited activist artists often
are sponsored by weapon companies.

So let us make that clear
if you want to be an activist
working with the Emergency Room
you have to look
Opposite
And be
Opposite
Than an activist

ADDICTION [fr. addiction]

Once an artist starts to participate in an Emergency Room
the artist gets addicted.
The artist discover himself experimenting.
He becomes a new artist
the artist is free from his stock
free from what he learnt at school.
The artist coming to Emergency Room
is addicted to show his burning reflection.
To a real public.
Immediately.
The artist is happy not to be isolated
The artist becomes more addicted to the public
than to himself.
The artist is now free from repeating himself.
The artist is now free to be a cliché of himself.
Himself already a cliché of other artists
The artist starts to enjoy to do mistakes
Mistakes that after all are no mistakes.
The Emergency Artist is an active artist.
An Emergency Room in one country
can not wait for another Emergency Room
in another country.
When one Emergency Room closes
the artists can not wait to open another Emergency Room.
Emergency Room should not close.
Expressing yourself is like running.
It is difficult to get started
But when you get addicted
Your awareness muscle exude an opinion hormone.
Opinion hormone is strong stuff
There is positive and negative addiction.
We consider the addiction
To Emergency Room
As positive.
When an Emergency Room has to close
The artists’ are hanging around
Like junkies looking for fixing place.
They hang around
And we have to open Penetration places
Fast
We need Emergency Rooms
Everywhere
Open all the time.
Restless artists can be dangerous
Restless artists cannot contain what they have to show
Restless artists jump around burning
Without finding a recipient.
Addicted artist without immediate expression space
can be suffering.
We don’t want that.
The goal of Emergency Room is to give them space.
To collect their precious thoughts and visions.
No to do so is a terrible waste
for humanity.

AESTHETICS OF EMERGENCY [fr. esthétique d’urgence]

This chapter will be the subject of an entire book
and we are looking for an art historian
that would like to work further on this material.
please contact 1@colonel.dk

It is fascinating to observe
how artists create a new aesthetics in the Emergency Room
especially abstract painters joining
or sculptors.
We don’ t have the time
nor the resources to work on that chapter
now.
But as everything is documented and most art works are in the delay museum
the working potential is great.
 
However a beginning of a classification is given here:
From experience we have noticed four types of aesthetic approaches.

The first could be called Vox Pop.
Vox Pop means instead of the artist answering the question
The artist forwards it to someone else.

The second could be called Show It Again.
The artist has extracted a piece from the media.
Exhibiting it in Emergency Room.
And thus pointing at it.
“Did you really see that?”

The third form would be the feuilleton.
Or the novella.
The artist follows a case throughout the exhibition.
Or follows a person.
Or observes a street.

A fourth case would be readymade face lifting.
We don’t like it.
But some artist bring art-on-stock.
Lifting it to look fresh.
Even when it is not from today.

Some artists mimic the media images.
but transform the way the medias function.
Like when Sonya Schoenberger is sewing images from the papers.
In so doing Sonya Schoenberger changes the speed of the media images.
And make us aware of how the images of the media are functioning.

ALCHEMY [fr. alchimie]

The goal of Emergency Room
Is to produce a magic potion.

ALCOHOLISM [fr. alcoolisme]

Alcoholism is a disorder
characterised by the excessive consumption
of and dependence on alcoholic beverages.
This is leading to physical and psychological harm
and impaired social and vocational functioning.
Alcoholism is also called alcohol abuse,
or alcohol dependence.
Alcoholism can easily lead to apathy, bad training
and deficient precision.
Hence, alcohol is of no good for an Emergency Artist.
Alcohol has traditionally been essential for an artistic attitude.

Drunk artists loose their antenna of pertinence
Drunk artists loose their critical judgement
The autofocus of drunk artists is acting crazy.
Drunk artists cannot keep a conversation together
because they have to pee all the time
(the excess beer).
When the culture manager close the bar
The artists go to bed
With headaches
On their knees.

Cultural managers and advertisers
like to create an image of the artist as drunkard.
In this dictature of alcohol.
The sponsors decide who is in and out.
In this dictature of alcohol.
The sponsors decide what is art and what is not.
Strangely
Everyone is accepting this.

ALIVE [fr. vivant]

The exhibition is alive
The exhibition is in a mood
The exhibition breathes
The exhibition reacts and protests
The exhibition is sad
The exhibition has sensibility
The exhibition has a spirit
The exhibition is in permanent contact with the world outside
The exhibition has a nervous system
The exhibition aliment itself
The exhibition produce cells
The exhibition has energy
The exhibition cares
The exhibition is afraid
The exhibition is hungry
The exhibition is fed up
The exhibition is sweating
The exhibition is growing
The exhibition has disappeared
The exhibition is lonely
The exhibition is a ghost
The exhibition is out of context
The exhibition is lying
It is not just hung
Hanging is death.

ALLIANCE [fr. alliance]

Artists have to stop isolate themselves from others.
Emergency Rooms encourages making alliances.
Artists must ally themselves with others
in order to improve the precision and the pertinence of their art.
Artist can also ally themselves to each other (artists ally with artists)
Alliances are beneficial for the energy as well.
Weddings can make children.
Alliances can also provide content for form-producing artists
Alliances can also provide form for content-producing artists

The alliance should generate communities
L’alliance fait la force.
Alliances will contribute to the development of a new aesthetics,
but it will also contribute for example to a new kind of journalism
Like the quadridimensional journalism.
Artists can make alliance with investigative reporters
Detectives
Coaches
Football teams
Karate teachers
Handymen
Handywomen
Firemen
Taxi drivers
Gogo dancers
Ecologists
Nurses
But please not with advertising people
They never give
They only take.

AMNIOTIC SAC [fr. sac amniotique]
 
The Emergency Room has until now been shaped like an amniotic sac.
There is a motherly feeling of safety in it
(which could be wrong as we are supposed to organise revolutions).
Artists in the Emergency Room
are floating like twins in a foetus
sometimes on their own
independently to each other
sometimes they bump into each other
sometimes they together swim the same way
sharing the same amniotic liquid.
They can not be indifferent to each other.
They are a community of amnios.
If there are 23 artists in the room
at the same passage
it becomes a foetus rave.
In Emergency Room
while we are debating
we are floating.
Like astronauts in a weightless state.

We are in a claustrophobic environment
which feels safe
and dangerous
which may explode any minute
projecting all of us in different directions.
The bien être
to be in emergency room
despite aggressive debates
comes from the violence waiting outside.
Emergency Room is about getting ready for life
You have to get maximum vitamins (and knowledge) before.
There is a notion of permeability.
Alimentation comes through the wall.
The wall is strong
but permeable.
Even if the wall is rigid
it is elastic
soft.
It is probably the unpredictability that makes it elastic.
There is no sharp angles.
Artists can float
enjoying a status of weightlessness.
But surely must be well prepared and trained
if they don’t want to feel dizzy.
In the amnios of Emergency Room
you can bump into the parois.
You can bump into the walls
and at the same time have the feeling
that the outside world reserve you a lot of challenge.
You know very well that the security is very provisory.

ANODYNE [fr. anodin]
… ces petits rien effrayant…

ANTICIPATOR [fr. anticipateur]

The artist is not only reflecting on his time
The artist is ahead of his time
The artist has a capacity for visions
The artist has knowledge
(the artist has a lot of knowledge)
The artist has intuition
(the artist has a lot of intuition)
The artist is a detector
The artist has premonitions
The artist is like a dog,
 perceiving a tsunami coming.
Art is tools for the future
With these tools the artist
mix informations with his developed sensibility.
The artist is in advance of the broken arm.
Instead of looking inside the animal
The artist of today looks in the news
The artist of today looks at the streets
The artist is per definition avantgarde.
What the artist perceive today will happen tomorrow.

APATHY [fr. apathie]

Apathy is a lack of emotion, motivation, or enthusiasm.
For artists, apathy is a state of being anaesthetised
by production, consummation and business.
This make artists function like machines
performing for the cultural industry.

Clinical apathy is considered to be at an elevated level,
while a moderate level might be considered depression,
and an extreme level could be diagnosed as a dissociative disorder.
The physical aspect of apathy is associated with physical deterioration
muscle loss
and lack of energy.
This state is called lethargy.
Apathy can be object-specific,
it can be directed towards a person
towards an activity
or towards an environment.
Apathy is a common reaction to stress.
When apathy manifests itself as a “learned helplessness”
apathy it is associated with melancholia.
Melancholia is neglected exercise.
Artistic melancholia is common among artists.
Art melancholia stems from neglected exercise in ar.
Neglected exercise in turn is a common effect of neglected warming up.
Warming up to art is an effective cure against apathy.
Apathy can also reflect a non-pathological lack of interest in things
one does not consider important.
Certain drugs are known to cause symptoms associated
with or leading to
apathy.
Apathy is also very similar to laziness
and may be an extreme form of it.
Detached artists start to be disconnected
Art-for-art’s sake is lazy art
Or drunk art
But definitively disconnected art
Art without any social connection
Apathy is heavy
Apathy is without muscles
Apathy is a soft stone

Apathy is the effect of the chemical warfare.
The dominating cynical generals have sent
clouds of chemical gas
making artists (and all citizens)
Sleep
Not feeling anything
Not being able to reflect anything at all
Any feeling at all
Any sense of responsibility at all
No more concerns
No more motivations
No more interest
No more energy
No more will
Death.
A deadly gas making everyone an apathetic
has been released.
We have to look for the chemical formula
to wake up again.
The solution is daily training of the awareness muscle.
The convalescence must start to fight
against the effects of the apathetic gas.
We have army of gas expert
now
trying to search in labs
the formula.
We also organize experiments
and brain-storm meetings on these subjects
Like Critical Run at the Père Lachaise
to try to understand the connection between apathy and death
Test like the apathetic sofa
etc…
But the more we search
the more the enemies are using chemical weapons.
The enemy is using them profusely
Diffusing the apathetic gas from all channels
The supremacy of apathy is total
Corresponding to the weak need of being entertained
From other sources we know that
apathy can be an effect of witnessing horrific acts
such as the killing of people during war.
(Some types of apathy has been located by our laboratory
to be in the scum of sponsored beer
making all drinkers loose
every capacity of reaction
or
with the reaction of laughing at dramatic events).
 
Apathy can also be caused by the use of wrong words
Words
which make believe that
the cells of resistance are working
Making believe that
someone else is fighting instead of you
(like the fake activist or so-called activist).

Oh we wish so much that apathy could be stopped
Isolated
Operated
Extracted.
We have to find the source of the gas-machine
gasing the entire population
To stop it
To find a vaccine to the mortal gas
that allows massacres being commited in front of our eyes
with our entertained laughing agreement.
 
”Allons enfant de l’ apathie !!”
bon apathie
like bonne apres midi
apathy is a mark
Good Apathy
like Good Morning

Good Death !

The apathy has to be localised
as the root of the evils of the world
The search has to be a common task
Apathy
We cry your name
The apathy is the worst enemy of Emergency Art

APHRODISIAC [fr. aphrodisiaque]

Regarding the ONU
aphrodisiac is the third largest world budget
after drug trafficking and weapon trafficking.
Emergency Room is seriously thinking of opening a lab
studying the production of aphrodisiacs.
The selling would pay for our independence
and the progress of our cause.
To collect artist sweat could be one of the precious ingredients
to produce aphrodisiac.

ARCHIVE [fr. archive]

The archive is not made up of the art works.
The archive is made up of documentation photos of video footage showing
the action and psychology in the Emergency Room process.
The archives can circulate in the internet.

ARMADA [fr. armada]

We expect
that after all this Emergency Rooms
and critical runs have happened around the world
we will have an armada of concerned artists
placed all around encircling the decision-making
being active pointing at dysfunctions.
There will be so many concerned and prompt motivated artists
with expertise in any matter
so that their skills
and their mass
will constitute an invasive force
leading the revolution to the victory.
We believe in constituting an armada with a real impact.
As there are in the western world already several millions (billions?)
of artist around
we can already count on a huge recruiting potential.

ARROGANCE [fr. arrogance]
 
Emergency Room by believing in a role of the artist
is an arrogant proposition.
It is arrogant to believe having keys.
Maybe it is only self-confidence
but is there anything wrong in not feeling like a shadow?

ART-ON-STOCK [fr. reserve de l’art]
 
Art-on-stock is the most prohibited for an emergency artist.
Artists usually produces works for exhibitions
and occasionally sales by having a already made stock of works.
This constitutes the Art-on-Stock which awaits a rendez-vous
with a spectator
through an exhibition.
Within the work of art is inherited a fundamental delay
(or an disinterested apathy within the work).
This delay serves as fond for the intended interested pathos
in the meeting of the spectators’ observations,
and the unexpressed intention in the work of art.
Contrary to the usual production, exhibition and perception of art works,
the Emergency Artist does not produce works
on basis of art-on-stock.
Instead, the Emergency Artist produces works of today
for the spectator of today.
First then, at tomorrow, does the works of art go into a stock
in the form of an archive or museum of delayed art.
This stock is a kind of demi-stock of art.
Emergency art is not produced to for any Delay Museum.
Emergency art is not produced for a demi-stock.
If one exhibits art on a art-on-stock basis,the result will inevitably
be a demi-stock.
A demi-stock is a permanent exhibition.
A demi-stock is hung art.
Most contemporary art museums are demi-stocks.
They are insulting the concept of contemporaneity.
Only emergency art is truly contemporary.
ARTIST [fr. artiste]
 
The artist, as we know him, is delayed.
The artist, as we know him, makes art that is already historical.
The works of the artist, as we know him, are located in archives,
waiting for observations and aesthetic judgements of a future observer.
The archives could be the art-on-stock in the studio or the demi-stock of collections.
Therefore, the artist, as we know him, is busy, or, rather,
pretends to be busy.
It is important for the artist to be busy.
It means that the artist rides on the wave of success.
The typical artist has a lot of projects.
The typical artist is not living today but propulsed in the future,
where time is taken in advance.
The typical artist is obsessed by networking,
going to network parties,
establishing contacts,
spending more time in creating potential opportunities.
The typical artist does not show art, but exhibit his possible capacity
to be invited for potential future shows.
The typical artist does not have the time to make art.
A project is the platform for another project.
But what inspires the artist of today?
What motivates the artist of today?
Does the artist feels he has any role?


ARTISTE DE GARDE
 
Like in any emergency room
The society should have artistes de garde.
Watching artists.
These artistes de garde could be contacted
Anytime.
During the night.
During the day.
These artistes de garde could be consulted.
These artistes de garde could be asked to produce art works.
Art works helping to cure diseases in society.
Art works looking at a dysfunction immediately.
Art works showing dysfunctions under a magnifying glass.
Artists from Emergency Room could rotate
Day and Night.
For to secure that the service does not get exhausted.
For to secure that the watching functions optimal.
Emergency Room should not only be permanent in every town,
but also open day and night.

ARTISTIC ATTITUDE [fr. attitude artistique]

The artist has become a sexy model.
In order to be part of this sexy appearance
some people adapt the artistic attitude without caring about the content.
Like going out with a Che Guevara t-shirt.
The model of looking or acting like an artist
has been adapted as a common strategy of seduction.
The artistic attitude is taking the scene to fool everyone,
and one does no longer distinguish between appearance and content.
Contemporary art center does have the artistic attitude as well,
by misusing the word contemporary.
On the same register activism has become an artistic attitude,
by giving the form of an activism,
but essentially remaining graphic design.
The search for sexuality, social recognition, and seduction
is to blame for the artistic attitude.

ATROPHY [fr. atrophie]

Atrophy is the partial or complete wasting away
of a part of the body.
Atrophy of art (art atrophy), with loss of precision and energy,
can occur after prolonged unawareness or laziness,
such as extended improductivity, or having a concept in a cast
(living in darkness for the eye, distraction for the ideas, etc.).
This type of atrophy can usually be reversed with exercise
unless this exercise is severe.
Astronauts must exercise regularly to minimize atrophy of their limb
muscles while they are in microgravity.
Artist must also exercise regularly to minimize atrophy
of their critical competence.
They must train their Awareness Muscle.

There are many diseases and conditions which cause atrophy of art.
For example diseases such as fame and formalism induce an art wasting
syndrome called “anaesthesia”,
which is notable for the severe art atrophy visible for everyone.
Other syndromes or conditions which can induce atrophy
are apathy alcoholism and coolness
of not being concerned
of not being affected
Trying to please the cultural managers.

AUTHENTICITY [fr. authenticité]

Firstly: authenticity is impossible
There is reference all around
The only possibility will be to eliminate as much as possible of the attitude.
Totally to eliminate the attitude will barely be possible
But in Emergency Room we have no time for that
On the other hand (or secondly, or of your choosing)
authenticity can in fact be within reach simply
by facing the cruelty of hypocrisy.
Working away from, or pointing at the hypocrisy
will indeed help reaching authenticity.
Or whatever it helps (we don’t fight about words).
No.
We do fight about words.
Authenticity is closely linked with mistakes.
And errors.
Authenticity only seems to be impossible.
The urgent piece of art comes with mistakes, errors, visions.
Urgent art comes with all these things that are not cleared out.
Authentic is being alive.

AUTOPILOT [fr. pilote automatique]

The day Emergency Room will work by itself
Automatically
Without stimulation
Without passeur
We can justly say it will be in autopilot
It will be piloted automatically
This word was found by Peter Lind.

AWARENESS [fr. conscience]

Awareness is an active state
Awareness is a willed state
an effort of receptivity
an intention
Awareness describes a human or animal’s perception and cognitive
reaction to a condition or event
Awareness does not necessarily imply understanding
Awareness is just an ability to be conscious of
to feel
or to perceive.
Awareness is a relative concept.
A subject may be partially aware
may be subconsciously aware
or may be acutely aware of an event.
Awareness may be focused on an internal state
such as a visceral feeling
or on external events by way of sensory perception.
 
In art awareness is the capacity to be present
Not seldom one can get the impression that art is a profession
which is currently undergoing an operation by an anesthesiologist
Could somebody have poor some anaesthetic drugs in the soup of contemporary art?
We might be wrong here.
Anyway
To be aware is to be in contact with everything around.
The ego as well as the public.
To include the search for the oeuvre and the meteorological condition
as well as the emotional and political context.
The awareness is a total disposition to be informed
and to integrate everything at once.
For the artist to redistribute
this awareness in an immediate art work
(which is a combination of everything which is perceived)
An awareness muscle is a good thing to have

AWARENESS MUSCLE [fr. muscle de la conscience]
 
In the same sense memory can be trained,
an awareness muscle can be developed
by an effort.

To develop the awareness muscle,
the artist has to reduce his gesticulations.
When an artist is busy
the artist is not very aware
the artist is occupied.
A daily training is necessary
But how to train?
Scanning the news in a critical way
could be one exercise.
Daily debating politics with others
could be another.
Looking at other point of views
usually produces significant improvements.
Fighting prejudice is an excellent exercise.
Many other forms of training could also
produce beneficial effects for the awareness muscle.
Continuous and daily training is important.
For instance
rewinding and slow motioning
what has been absorbed
getting away the sugar from the propaganda machines
talking to everyone
excercise comparatif
critical run.
 
If not daily trained
the awareness muscle can degrade into atrophy
To develop the awareness muscle requires will-power

BANAL ART [fr. art banal]

Art banal
Art that does not have any impact
Common
Flat
Tasteless
Art that could be done by anyone
Any artist
Anywhere on the map of contemporary art and biennials
Predictable art
Insipid art
Interchangeable art
(a piece can replace another piece indifferently)
Indifferent art
Expected art
Banal
Banana
Banal
Art

BIENNALIST [fr. biennaliste]

Biennalist is an art format, like Emergency Room.
A biennalist is an artist working in this format.
This working implies some savoir-faire and some rules.
A biennalist may collaborate with Emergency Room,
Biennalism is a commenting format.
As most of the time biennials have themes.
They promote themselves as reflecting and prospective.
They are looking upon important matters.
They are looking concerned and critical.
They are looking analytically and synthetically.
Often their themes are but a pretext.
A cover.
A Blue Stamp.
An alibi.
A biennalist loves biennial themes.
A biennalist loves triennial themes.
A biennalist loves quadrennial themes.
A biennalist loves quinquennial themes.
A biennalist takes them seriously.
As soon as the themes has been announced,
The biennalists embraces them
like a chicken on an egg.
Biennial themes are treasures.
Biennial themes often reflect matters about the world of today.
Biennial themes are often very serious.
Biennial themes are often so serious, that the debate they generate
cannot be ignored.
For a biennalist biennial themes are important launch pads for essential debates
A theme can be as powerful as a declaration of love
Or as a declaration of war.
No one should underestimate the importance of biennial themes.
They might have been chosen with care or random.
They might have been chosen sincerely or cynically.
Whatever have been the case,
the themes constitute important matter.
A biennalist is like a faillot at school.
A biennalist wants to please the teacher.
A biennalist feels enthusiasm about debates generated by biennalist works,
and by biennalism as such.
The biennalist takes the themes so seriously,
that the biennalist sometimes might appear embarrassing exaggerated.
Biennial themes are precious.
Biennial themes is a matter very much like artists’ sweat.
No one should abuse their reflective power.
Everyone should take them seriously.
Biennial themes are statements of desire.
They exhibit a desire to be looked at, for a long time.
They exhibit a desire to be answered.
Il ne faut pas les prendre a la legere.
Which means that they should not be looked lightly upon.
The biennalist sometimes wonders who chooses the themes?
Is it the curators?
Is it the sponsors?
Is it the philosophers?
Or is it communication advisors?
Are the themes serious meant?
Or is it mere word-play?
The biennalist is often pensive.
Bewildered.
Nevertheless the biennalists constitutes an army.
Like an hord of insomniac Colombos.
Moving freely around with an avid thirst for debates.
Day and night.
At the Istanbul Biennial 2007 the theme was:
“Optimism at the age of global war.“
The biennialist was wondering who choose that theme?
Was the theme chosen to please someone?
And if so, who?
And how could such theme be debated in the context of a biennial?
At the Athens Biennial 2007 the theme was:
“Burning Athens.“
The theme was chosen beforehand.
At the biennial, Athens was really burning.
some people accuse the investor
investor were organizing the biennial
to give value to their property
Biennalism might look like an idiotic format.
It looks pathetic to work, when parties for the biennial pilgrims rule.
But biennials are important places of investigation.
Biennials contain all the important actors:
the thermometers,
the cultural managers,
the pretender,
the real powerful,
the trend-setters,
the companies,
the politicians,
and the themes.
Biennials are like G-8.
There are no good biennials without biennalists.
Like there are no good democratic institution without emergency artists.
A biennalist does not have to,
but a biennalist often get nutrition from Emergency Room.
For example at the Penetration at the Athens Biennial 2007,
the artists from Emergency Room came and expressed themselves about
today.
The Emergency Room was a motor and a legitimate source of inspiration.
A burning need to express oneself has to be there.
A source of energy has to be there.
If so,
the biennalist is an irresistible enthusiastic voice;
a voice that rises by the burning need to participate in the debate.
There are people playing football.
With a ball on a field.
There are people playing football.
With a beer on a sofa.
Biennalists cannot read the themes without a burning need to interfere.
Biennalists need to express it to us with pure enthusiasm.
Biennalists need to express it even though not asked to.
The biennalist’s voice is a passionate voice.
Biennalists use different methods to express themselves.
It could be penetrations.
It could be talking backpacks.
It could be rumours.
It could be party hijacks.
It could be demoralisation of the queue.
It could be parachutes.
It could be fake painters.
It could be happy events.
It could be weddings.
It could be corrective press releases.
It could even be hair cuttings.
The biennalists have been doing some 10 campaigns!
In cultural managed events.
Like art fairs.
We have noticed that even art fairs behave themselves like biennials,
which opens up great opportunities for biennalism and biennalists!
In a statement from an anonymous biennalist at the Venice Biennial
we read:
“One of the goals of the biennialist is to create a set of methods that will enable artists to penetrate cultural staged events and surf in them freely when they have emergency statements to expose. The general mission of the biennialist is to point at dysfunctions“.

BIODIVERSITY [fr. biodiversité]

In the desperate head hunting for artists
to join the Emergency Room movement
the hunt include a deliberate will in creating a biodiversity.
Not only media artist should be part of the Emergency Room
but also abstract painters.
We believe that perfectionist abstract painters
being professionally abstract
working very slowly in abstract compositions
can have thought a lot about the dysfunctions of the world of today.
 
Abstract painters of course feel pain in front of the injustices they witness
daily
and may feel the burning need of expressing precisely about what they perceive
know
and summarised
the birth
the source
the exact origin
of what they suspect to be the cause of the pain
in real time.
Abstract painter
(it is an example)
can also feel like expressing
what it feel day after day to be
crying
alone on their sofas
watching the world collapsing.
 
But not only abstract painters
but also party organisers
or fashion createurs
or performers
or logo artists
or landscape photographers
(just name categories not expected)
should be approached
begged
to join the emergency movement.

In the room  
All kinds of practitioners inspire each other
and together they create aesthetics of Emergency.
In Emergency Room we don’t want to give only a voice to
provocation artists
or media artists
or porno artists.
We want to encourage different ways of thinking
and different methods of investigation.
All genres should remain alive.
New genres should pop up.



BUSY [fr. occupé]

Busy is the state of being totally occupied.
A state of no more disc space.
A state of not being able to operate anything anymore.
A state of not having space for anything else other
than what is planed in the long term.
A state of being covered and not able to manoeuvre.
A state of immobility.
Busy is a state when your life does not belong to you,
but to everything else except yourself.

Being busy is the state of being occupied to the degree
of not having space for something else
than what is part of projects.
The artist of today is busy because he has projects making him busy.
Neither the proximity, daily life or the actual
can enter in his field of vision.
The busy artist is perceiving the reality with a teleobjective.
No wide angle on his lens.
No macro.
The artist is busy projecting his ghost in the future.
The busy artist can neither absorb, integrate, nor redistribute
immediate impulsive perceptions.

The opposite of the busy artist could be the flaneur.
The artist of today has changed from being a flaneur
to a busy entrepreneur.
The artist of today has radically changed his way of being.
The artist is not anymore a bohème floating around freely,
blown around and inspired.
But a busy person peering at opportunities
and running for network and fake parties.
To be busy is not like having caught a virus or a temporarily pathos.

To be busy is a voluntary and fundamental decision of how to live.
One can only be fundamentally busy.
Busy-by-principle.
To be busy is a strategy to close (nearly) all other possibilities
(than being busy).
Thus the state of being busy
is as close to a spiritual choice
as we get today.
Artists make themselves busy by their own will.
And they don’t even have to.
Maybe some told them business was a cool lifestyle.
Maybe they thought so themselves.
The result is the same:
business is an attitude which is more than a form.
 
Business also corrupt the content.
Business occupies every available space of the artistic receptivity.
A busy artist cannot even have 10 percent free.
A busy artist is occupied.
Should someone die before his feet, he wouldn’t notice.
He is looking further.
At the projected landscape.

When you are responsible of children, the school can call you at any moment,
telling you that your daughter is sick.
Hopefully you will abandon everything
and come immediately.
If you are too busy, she will die alone in the hospital.

Business is the enemy of emergency production.
What would we say if the fire-brigade, policeman or health care were
busy?
– Sorry, we can’t take any action in your matter: we are busy with our
careers.
Business makes any urgent work impossible.
In who’s interest is it to keep artists busy?
Comme le malade imaginaire
l’artiste est busy, malgré lui, but on its own will.
 
The institution is delaying the artist
by not giving him an immediate platform.
Without a platform the artist cannot express.
Artists who are working today
have very limited opportunities to exhibit their works
as truly contemporary works.
The exhibitions of the art institutions have been scheduled far ahead,
and there is no room or space for an urgent work of art.
The institutions are way to slow for a fast working artist.
On the other hand, one can’t really criticize the museum for having slow
reflexes.
After all, the museum has always been for the dead, in which the fixed
gazes stares blindly.
But one could criticize the sea of contemporary institutions, which pop
up all over the world, for copying the glaring
blindness produced in the museum.
Contemporary institutions do have an obligation to be able to react
(today!) to artistic expressions of urgency.
Rarely do contemporary institutions understand this idea.
Instead they want to remain “museums of potential art”.

CANNIBAL [fr. cannibal]

We can notice that artists have a tendency to critizise the art system
or the felt unfairness of their own condition
as the world’s main emergency problem to solve.
They aliment their critical art on crying over their own conditions.
These conditions must be terrible
as many of them forget to pay attention
to the condition of others.

CARAVAN [fr. caravane]

Deadline artists follow the Emergency Room
From oasis to oasis
The caravan grows
And at each stop
The caravan becomes
More colourful
More united
Stronger
Courageous
The dogs howl
The caravan passes

CASTING [fr. casting]
 
In Emergency Room the first meeting with artist is called a casting.
Everything becomes like a part of a film.
Emergency Room is a film.
Every artist has a personality.
In Emergency Room he will play his own role.
The film becomes the story of different characters
trying to cross the desert together
trying to create a new type of community at the other end of the desert
on the other side of the coast.
Emergency Room is like a western
There are a fat cook
a beautiful lady
a tall guy
an unshaved hero
an insomniac
3 Indians
an ecologist
a spy
many singles
some fathers
some lonely mothers
an engineer transformed into an artist
many architects transformed into artists
a provocateur
a lot of shy girls
few grandfathers
hundreds of uncles
some perfectionists
some communists
some fascists dressed up as activists
one comic
3 ironics anyway
2 populists always fighting
many Greeks
many French
many Danes
few Germans
some ethnic Americans etc…
Artists join Emergency Room not only for what evidences they can produce.
But also for
what they are.
And what they can do and be together.

CAVALRY [fr. cavalerie]
 
In our days the artist always comes too late.
Like the cavalerie in Lucky Luke.
Too late to save the family from the massacre.
Too late when the cows have been dead from an epidemic.
Too late.
Art can only make a statement of his incapacity to be on time.
Art = Retard.
Retard means delay in French.
Art always comes after
when the genocide has been done
when the iceberg have been melt
when the innocent have been tortured.
Art = Retard.
Art is only contemporary of the injustice already done.

CELEBRITY [fr. celebrité]
 
A celebrity is an artist which other artists knows from reputation.
When this celebrity comes in the Emergency Room
every one is very exited.
Celebrities are good to attract other artists
(and tourists)
But medias write more about celebrities
than about what is said in the Emergency Room.
Celebrities are good stimulateurs
but also hiders of visibility.
Sometimes celebrities are not very good Emergency Artists
They can have a difficulty to concentrate.

CIVIL SOCIETY [fr. société civile]
 
Artist are usually left out from the public debate.
Artist are supposed to shut up
when it comes to political or social issues.
But not only are they supposed to shut up
they aren’t even asked.
It is almost as everyone has forgotten that artists do exist.
Everyone is asked of opinions on civic matter
the bicycle repairer
the striptease girl
the talk-show guest.
But never the artist.

CLEAN [fr. propre]
 
Like in an hotel
the emergency room has to be cleaned daily
to welcome new artists at the passage at 12.30.
We should not feel the trace
of the previous art work on the wall
or on the floor
to welcome the new ones
But actually
we still feel
the presence
of the previous.

COLLECTIBLE [fr. collectible]

A collectible is an already made item,
endowed with the proper attributes to be defined as an element
in the set of any defined category of objects.
Art is collectibles.
Art is collectibles because there exists a category of objects (any
objects), defined as objects being made by artists
presented as art.

Art produced today, exhibited today and received today
can only be observed as emergency art that very day.
The next day the work or piece of art goes into the Delay Museum
(Retard).
There it can be acquired as a collector’s price (or go into the dust bin).
But at the same time it can be acquired as a prize for a collection.
It has ceased being urgent art.
If the artist hasn’t collected the piece exhibited in the Emergency Room
within 24 hours, that piece is a collectible.
 
COMPASSION [fr. compassion]

Compassion is good if there is an action following
and a strategy for this action.
Compassion can be useless.
Compassion is partly connected with good consciousness.
Compassion is more a mimic in the face than an act.
Emergency Room can sometimes be
de la compression de compassion
and this we cannot use
if no one goes out for action afterwards.

COMPLAIN [fr. plainte]

A complain is not an emergency.
A complain is something very petit bourgeois
about the dysfunction of a mp3 player
or some kind of self-suffering about arbitrary problems.
Complains can be made individually
Complains can be made in groups
like complains about the weather.
Complain sounds more to us like a bobo.

CONCENTRATION [fr. concentration]
 
To be able to absorb
digest
and produce
with a good tempo
the artist needs to be very very concentrated.
Pertinence require sharpness as well.
You cannot do brain surgery without being very concentrated
half drunk
or surfing on the internet
looking in your mail box
listening to the football match on the radio while making a trepanation.
Concentration has to be connected with determination.
Concentration is will-power
a dedicated moment.
But dedicated to whom and to which cause?
You also need concentration to find out what the concentration should be about.

CONCERN [fr. souci]

The artist has to feel concern.
The artist has to be concerned.
Consterné (shocked) by what is surrounding him.


CONFESSIONAL [fr. confessionnal]

Once Joakim Hamou told us that Emergency Room is like a confessional.
We think he though that in Emergency Room
we only speak and whisper our bad conscience,
or repentance,
and then do our penitence in private.
But we think Joakim Hamou is wrong.
Because in “our confessional”
we also have visitors.
If one of the visitors has a camera or a microphone,
what is said in the Emergency Room can reach millions of people.
I admit that in most exhibition spaces,
only the deaf ears listen,
and only the blind men looks,
and the lame legs arrives.
But in Emergency Room
This is not true.
We have a strategy of distribution.
We are like paparazzis.
If we show a picture of a tiny detail,
Suddenly it can appear everywhere!

CONFRONTATION [fr. confrontation]

Normally art works have an incubation time between the production
and the showing.
The artist can hesitate.
The artist can test his work.
The artist can polish his work.
In Emergency Room there is no time
between the production and the moment of exhibition.
The art work is directly shown to the public as an art work
not as a work in process.
The art work is proudly presented the very same day
in the round white cube.
Emergency Room is an immediate baptism.
Once entering the Emergency Room
the art work is considered as finished.
A questionnaire show that most artists will not correct their art works
once they have been shown in Emergency Room.
Emergency Room.
C’est la ligne de l’arrivée.
Le point de non retour.

CONSOLATION [fr. consolation]

The public is in great pain with all the unhappiness of the world.
The artist has to console the public.
Reconfort the public.
Not make fun of the public.
Not despise the public.
But give the public a hand in sharing sorrows.

CONSPIRACY [fr. conspiration]
 
The very smart and organised power
are using all their energy and tools
to manipulate others.
The very smart and organised power
are composing a scenario
in which we are acting now
like fools.
To defeat this conspiracy
We need to observe the enemy carefully
We need to understand its machinations
critically.
Emergency Room should make better machinations.
To defeat this conspiracy.

CONTEMPORANEITY [fr. contemporanité]

Contemporaneity means essentially being in-time.
Thus there can be no archive,
no museum,
no documents
and no monuments
of contemporaneity.
Contemporaneity is essentially living.
Or at least breathing.
It is being in the sequel of events.
Producing contemporary art means
producing art now,
today,
at this very time.
To produce art for a stock of works, is not contemporaneity.
It is rather anticipating a rendez-vous of a future spectator
in an archive of yesterday.
Art is usually produced that way,
continually evading the very moment
of contemporaneity.
At the same time, this is the moment
in which the Emergency Artist wants
to work.
Thus the object for the Emergency Artist
can be no archive or no museum.
The object for the Emergency Artist is to establish a room or a space
for exhibiting the works or pieces
at the same day they are produced.
In this sense the Emergency Artist is a performing artist.
The Emergency Artist is performing his piece contemporary
with it is being exhibited and it is being viewed.

CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM [fr. Musée d’Art Contemporain]

The Museum of Contemporary Art is a fake construction.
There is no such thing.
The idea is to fool the audience
To make the audience believe that this hanged delay is “of today”.
It is even worse
It is a construction.
To make us believe that the democracy generate
it’s own critic
in real time.
But this is not true.
We feel protected by having artist looking at the state of the world
so we don’t spend time to be critical ourself
Because we think they do it instead of us
This is a fake safety.
The contemporary is looking at nothing
or is looking at past stuff
or looking into it’s own navel.
The contemporary museum wants to make us believe that the state
(for instance)
is interested in the problems of the suburbs
But it is the opposite
The contemporary museum is used to clean up the suburbs
The contemporary museum is a diversion
The contemporary museum is an abuse of confidence
The contemporary museum is a scheme
to inject killing confidence
fake caringness
and therefore apathy.

CONTEXT [fr. contexte]
 
When we are reading this, something is happening.
Context is what is happening in the same time.
Context is the simultaneity of events.
 
CONTINUITY [fr. continuité]

The Emergency Room format depends upon the continuity
of works and pieces produced by artist today.
The works and pieces is continually installed, during the Passage, in the Emergency Room.
And the works and pieces are continually transported from the Emergency
Room to the Delay Museum.
The exhibition is a kind of real time film with a rather slow
frame-rate.
The frame rate of one frame per 24h.
Today is a concept which can only be understood
together with continuity.
The concept of today would be unintelligible
as an isolated concept,
without any yesterday or tomorrow.
Today is the continuity of todays,
a continuity in time
which does not sum up to eternity.
The continuity of Emergency Room is a flow.
This continuity is the flow of pieces and works
which represent the invisible images of social matter.
In that sense the very fast exhibition is similar to the very fast
pictures of film.
The difference is that, what is a very fast exhibition, is at the same time
a
very
slow
film.
This is probably because social matter is of a more plastic nature
than pictures.
An Emergency Room Exhibition could then be seen as a “matter film”
 or “moving matter”.
The Emergency Room exhibitions is like living images.
The film is evolving depending of the context.
If something is happening the script changes.
This continuity is against superficiality.
If you stop developing the awareness muscle
you get unaware of lack of training.
Continuity is the need of keeping up.
Continuity is flow.
The flow is growing while it continues.
Life is a stream.
So is the exhibition of today.
There is no interruption.
The exhibition is alive.
And cannot stop.

CONVENTION [fr. convention]
 
Even if every type of sexuality seems allowed in an swinger club
there are secret conventions.
You can do weird sexual acts
but in a way there is limits.
Even in the wild
there is some conventions.
It is the same with Emergency Room.
Conventions between weird wild people is an interesting thing
To observe.

COOLNESS

Coolness is a state.
A smoothie.
A piece of luxury.
A feeling-proof jacket.
Une aureole.
Coolness is being not affected by anything.
Of a state of not being exposed to shakings.
Of a state of not sweating.
Or freezing.
But comfort.
To be in a constant state of self satisfaction.
Regardless of what ever happens.
Regardless of what ever appears.
Coolness is a state of indifference.
Coolness is a protection from suicide.
Coolness is an aggressive form of apathy.
Coolness is a form of scorn
against any form of passion.
Coolness is the opposition of any form of involvement.
Like a vibration without any radiation.
Like a shaking without any waves.
A distance.
Coolness sounds positive.
And looks good.
Feels quick and sharp.
Like a cliché.
Coolness is an invention of the power.
Coolness is the affirmation of power as an active state of apathy.
Une culture d’apathy.
Fertile.
Contagious.
Coolness is the opposite of being offended.
Coolness is the opposite of being affected.
Coolness is the opposite of being devastated.
Coolness is a suppression of the horror we all know about.
Coolness is the feeling of survival as self-maintainance.
Coolness is the maintainance of the power.
Of apathy.
For the price of compassion.
Coolness is in opposite of insomnia.
Coolness is a dreaming state.
Of feel-good.
For the price of sorrows.
Coolness is a luxury state.
Coolness is an attitude.
Coolness is almost a kind of yoga.
Coolness shields from torture and torment.
Coolness shields from horror and terror.
Coolness is so soft and flexible,
elastic, that
Coolness cannot be cracked.
Coolness is so self-confident.
So self-self
So auto-erotic
So alembic
So slippery
So flashy
That:
Coolness is the perfect form of an artistic attitude.
Coolness reproduces itself in itself
Because it is so cool.
Like a bubble bath.
Like shampoo.
Like soap.
Like buzz words.
Emergency Room is suspicious about coolness.
Emergency Room sees that it looks too good on photos.
Emergency Room suspects that coolness constitute the muzak of the
contemporary mind.
When your kids are sick
You suffer with them
You don’t use gloves to touch them.


COP AESTHETICS [fr. esthétique du flic]
 
The Emergency Artist can go through society as a cop.
With blue-lights of pure receptivity
the artist assimilates a cop aesthetic.
As the cop, the emergency artist is no individual
but a function.
If the cop is a function in the state
the emergency art is a function of civil society.
The artist of today can be compared with a civil cop.
Thus the artist of today wears no uniform.
We can’t see the blue light of artistic urgency
The emergency artist is only armed with an artistic eye.
The emergency artist is armed with a visually trained consciousness
a reflective mind
and a reacting impulse.
All of which can be subsumed and activated as an awareness muscle

CREATIVITY [fr. créativité]

Creativity is the enemy of Emergency Art
The gas chambers were creative.
Weapons are creative.
Torture is creative.
Creativity is now used as a alibi to engineer scary things.

CRIME [fr. crime]

Crimes are commited in front of our eyes
every second
we are guilty of not assisting a person in danger.
We see those crimes.
We know who is committing them
but we don’t assist.
Even without physically seeing them
artists can see crimes
artists can smell crimes
artists can hear crimes.
Seeing the author of the crime
implies a responsibility to stop the criminal
so crimes don’t reproduces like mushrooms.
It is also the duty of the artist to describe the hidden criminal
as precise as possible
(as artist can see them).
and to bring the weapon of the crime to be analysed.
It is also the duty of the artist to take care of the crying victims
unfortunately the artist is in between those two positions.
It is not easy to be an artist
and have so many responsibilities
and such over-developed senses.

CRITICAL RUN [fr. course critique]

Critical Run is a format for criticism;
it is a stimulating, debating, and sweating format.
In Emergency Room we extract outrage,
we extract sweat,
we extract efforts,
Critical Run is a run where we debate while we run.
Critical Run is an embodied metaphor.
An absorption of what we feel we should do
in a world at the edge of an abyss.
But it is not a run away from the gulf to escape
But a run for solutions.
Critical Run is a method to energize the debate in emergencies.
We can not remain seditary.
Drinking (for instance smoothies)
Eating (for instance sushi)
Run.
Run away.
Run towards.
Run together.
Run for.
Run.
We see the debates are dying.
They appear wilted, decaying.
The debates are faded.
The chairs have transformed the debates into interior design.
The sedate debates are ornamenting the walls.
They are like dead relics,
like perspectives or view points,
seen from a chair or a panel.
The debates are like a furniture
turned into real estate long time ago.
Critical run normally takes place in the same town
as Emergency Room takes place.
Once a week.
Once a week the emergency artists in Emergency Room runs or jumps for a run.
A Critical Run.

But Critical Run is a separate format as well.
A Critical Run doesn’t have to emerge from an Emergency Room.
Critical Run is a complementary and an independent format.
In the early phase the the critical run where called “the artists run”.
But nobody was participating.
Artists usually don’t like to run.
Artists and art people are typically negatively biased against running.
And artists who do run, don’t do it as artists.
But incognito.
Running is somehow denigrating art.
Running art does not appear suitable dignified.
Running art might be difficult to look at.
An the faster art is running, the harder it is to be looked at.
Therefore artists doesn’t like running art.
Or running artists.
This is a clear and dignified and perceptive position.
For the art work.
As for the artist.
This is probably the only position they really have.
The interjection RUN! is insulting them.
It is insulting their works.
They get more outraged by hearing the word run
than to hear about death caused by injustice.
To ask an artist to run
is like asking him to share his sponsor ticket for a sponsored art party.
The question in itself is the offence.
A no way-question.
Fortunately, after investing an immense effort:
in hyping the run,
in having beautiful looking run leaders;
an immense effort in persuading by:
elaborate rhetorics,
nice words,
even flattery,
an immense effort in convincing by means of:
painting up a scenario of the future career,
pointing to aspects of originality,
and even to art historical necessity;
the Critical Run finally succeeded to take place
once a week during the Emergency Room period.
The Critical Run happens mostly on bridges.
The Critical Run usually last some 20 minutes.
Still –
some artists,
because of:
Back problems,
Knee problems,
Problems with their feet,
Digestion problems,
Tooth Problems,
Shampoo problems,
Wind problems,
Shoe problems,
And other equipment problems,
Like shorts problems,
And t-shirt problems,
schedule problems,
and a lot of other
problems –
have to participate on their bike.
We accept that.
Emergency room,
after all,
is not made up of elite troops.
It is certainly not an easy task,
to debate and run,
simultaneously.
The run makes the runner pant.
The run produces short sentences.
The run makes the syntax staccato.
The run makes the artist to a stammer.
The run makes the critic to a stammer.
The run makes everyone to stammers,
panters,.
This panting & stammering,
This staccato & syncopation
would be disastrous,
shocking,
embarrassing
in an International Conference.
In the Critical Run it is the point.
In the Critical Run
palpitation,
or heart beat,
is necessary.
Metaphorically
as well as
Physically.
Words, thoughts, statements,
ideas, reasonings, questions
has to be to the point.
In an emergency.
Useless statements would be disastrous,
shocking,
embarrassing
for the Critical Run.
In the Critical Run
this critical panting & stammering,
this critical staccato & syncopation
requires will power and motivation.
The Critical Run requires critical thinking.
And thinking on the move.
The thinking evolves as the group moves along.
 
Critical Run is a method.
A method to extract precious statements.
Critical Run often have themes in advance.
But subject matter can be decided on the spot.
Debates can evolve in the run.
As emergencies cannot be planed.
Everything in the run is filmed.
Critical Run has its erotic moments.
Maybe because of the pantings.
The stammerings.
The staccatos.
The syncopations.
Critical Runs can take place in different parts of the world.
Critical Runs do not need much logistics.
The critical runners have their own clothes.
The critical runners may look strange.
Critical runs are very mobile.
Critical Runs need running artists.
Critical Runs need running critics.
Critical Runs need beautiful and intelligent run leaders.
Until now, Critical Runs have happened
in Siberia
in New York,
in Athens,
in Paris,
in Istanbul,
in Napoli,
in Barcelona
in Stockholm
in Rotterdam,
and in Copenhagen.
Critical Run always have a precisely selected point of departure (POD).
Correspondingly the Critical Run have a carefully chosen point of
arrival (POA).
These PODs and POAs have been selected with care
for their symbolic and contextual implications.
Like a POD from the parliament to a POA at a police station.
Critical Run can also happen backwards.
Recession Regression Repression.
Critical Run can happen in a cemetery,
if the theme is death,
if the theme is apathy.
Critical Run, runs perfectly with any idea of movement.

CULMINATION  [fr. culmination]

Emergency Room is a format.
Emergency Room is inhabiting humans.
Emergency Room will grow and grow.
Soon it will culminate and explode.

CULTURE MANAGER [fr. directeur de culture]

The artist of today has to take over the work of the culture manager.
It is a too important position.
It is too important to be left to administrateurs of cultural
propaganda.

Biennials and similar events are not made by curators.
Biennials and similar events are made by cultural managers.
These cultural managers have always a specific political agenda.
A touristic agenda.
Or an economic agenda.
Curators are the puppets of cultural managers.
Cultural managers are the puppeteers of curators.
And Curators are the puppeteers of artists.
The artist should take over the job of cultural management.
The artist should take control over the exhibition scenography.
The exhibition scenography determines the meaning of the exhibition.
The exhibition scenography defines the work.

CUT THE CUT  [fr. coupe la coupe]

Name of the editing method used in april 2006.
The news are cut in the editing room-
The artist cut the cut that has to be cut-
The story changes-
Gets a new meaning-
A new dramaturgy-
The power is in the final cut -
It is an auction of who will cut the cut-
(editing cut) -
 
DARWINISM [fr. darwinisme]

We may have reached a phase
where only a certain type of artist
will be able to survive.
It could either be artists capable of getting media attention
and media coverage
or artist skilled at entertaining networks.
This means that artists working with more discret poetic tools
may disappear from circulation.
This is why Emergency Room invites any type of artistic expression
or any type of artistic medium to give their share.
We must have a art diversity.
We don’t want a milieu where only web artists, graffiti artists,
media artists and provocative artists are getting all the attention.
Emergency Room should be able to keep all kind of practices alive.
Emergency Room could be a kind of Noah’s Arch for art.
The opinion of every kind of artist is important
for the public
and vital for civic society.

DEADLINE ARTIST [fr. artiste de dernière minute]

The artists working in Emergency Room
Are also called Deadline Artists.
They are so called because they operate under a deadline.
The Deadline artists have decisions to take.
In urgent conditions.
If they don’t mark the line
by bringing an art work in time
we will all be dead.

DEBATE [fr. débat]
 
The debate is a jam session.
Artists learn to question their motivations
to confront them
to shake them.
Artists learn to observe their colleagues
when the artists are talking
and not drunk.
The debate is a dating moment
for further collaborations
for coming revolutions.
During the debates
there is a comparative positioning.
During the debates
artists can also see that they are sharing topics and evidences.
During the debates
it often happens that some artists have chosen the same dysfunction.
They can discover that they are alert together.
That they share the same concerns.
That they share the same intuition.
It is very good that they know that.
That they are not alone any more.
In front of the monsters.
Nor more loneliness in front of the medias.
They can start to form a brigade of opinion
going out to recruit more.
The debate is the moment where they nearly touch each other
Naked.
Naked in the sea of opinions.
The debate takes place in the round embracing room.
In the rondeur of Emergency
every one is falling on every one.
And even if the cells are fighting.
They are part of the same body.
This fighting cohabitation is a generator of energy.
There is a togetherness in the wrestling.
Artists are like kids.
They become friends by fighting each other.
Not by scratching each others backs at vernissages.
No one escapes untouched from the debate.
The debates are even worse for the public.
Sometimes people just pass by
by mistake
by accident.
as they were looking for another show in the museum
just to find themselves engaged in the debate
forgetting about the yesterdays art
hey intended to stare at
In Emergency Room the public must take part.
In Emergency Room the public has no choice.
In Emergency Room the public just must.
The artists must invite friends and parents to come as well.
The artists must invite neighbours.
They must invite the guards of the museum as well.
They must invite the secretaries.
The taxi driver.
The accountant
Nobody can escape.
Nobody can survive
The debate.
The debate is always filmed.
Intelligent things are said by the participants.
During the debate
the missiles are going in all directions
the phrases are ricocheting.
 
The goal of the debate is not to convince but to touch
and to embrace
to give again to look at
to give again a chance to look at what was not seen.
It is a rebirth.
 
It is good to debate.
But in Emergency Room we don’t have that much time.
Emergency Room are more involved in decision making.
Emergency Room can not debate hours and hours
if nothing concrete comes out.
And Emergency Room must say that sometimes the debate take us nowhere
especially if a salesman-artist is trying to convince us
about the urgency of a non-urgent art work.
Debates should not be like une orgue de barbarie.
 
The worst debates are those which turn out
to be demonstrations of good will.
When the debates turn out being a demonstration of
how good we are.
Good will is presented like a product
like a Tupperware.
 
Some artists marry because they meet at the debate.
They noticed each other
recruited each other
spied at each other
jumped on to each other
(this happened in Athens).
They test their pertinence with the public.
They pass exams
with no stress.
Their art works should be like these every time.
They should sharpen their arguments like guitars.
They should learn how weak their art is.
They should test the impact of their art
(no impact yet)
(yet no revolution).
Come on
it is coming!
They surf on the round walls
The walls of the Emergency Room becomes humid
(more during debates)
(and passage).
They boost their ego.
They rise the temperature.
They exist together.
”But are debates not a waste of time?”
Debates are part of the warm up.
Debates are the proof that Emergency Room is not a sect
Yes, there are rules
But that is more a formality.
Emergency Room does not decide what to think.
Emergency Room ask questions.
The debates are not a mess.
It is a boiling debate.
It is a chaos with no initial direction
Oh my god!
It is good we have a clock
to have something to relate to
in this amazing amount of subjects.
 
Debate are filmed
(as said).
Emergency Room collect artists’ thoughts
like we collect the sweat.
During debates there are less sweat
(unless they really fight like in Athens)
but the wet drops we collect
is artists’ splutter.
Emergency Room collect that
(you know we are collectors).
Artists’ splutter.
The Emergency Room becomes humid of condensation.
It is very intense.
Artists are thermometers.
It is a meeting of thermometers.
With damp.
Mixed with some artist sweat.
From debates
weddings can happen
Water and gas on every floor
Sweat and Spit in every round corner
Spit is in the air
Attention!
Prego!
Silence!

We must listen to each other
It is discipline.
Training to listen to all of us.
We are not here to show off
but to organise alliances.
No demonstration of muscles
but kissing naked party.
Emergency Room wants to create movements
and weddings.
Weddings can produce children
or drama.
Energy
or disasters.
In Emergency Room the most authentic form of debate are the critical run
Because they are run and sweat.

DEFEATISM [fr. défaitisme]

Everything goes wrong
and it is like that.
Nobody can change anything
and nothing changes anyhow.
Better be drunk all the time.
Or cynical.
Or dead.
Or to become digital in a second life.

Emergency Room does not have the mission
to shake the defeatist out of his circles.
Defeatism is just another enemy of Emergency Room.
At least trees have something to say.
Defeatists don’t.

DELAY [fr. retard]

A work can only go in the Retard
if it has been exhibited before in the Emergency Room.
For the normal contemporary art consumer the Delay Museum must seem
very fresh, as a work can be in the Retard room only the day after.
What is “declassé” for us by leaving the Emergency Room
to the “Delay Museum”,
may look very fresh for an art lover.
An art work is, as we know, a delay in glass.
Glass is a substance which floats very, very slowly.
The art work waits for a reflection of the spectator in the glass.
The spectator is delayed.
The art work is waiting.
Time is running.
Sand and silica is floating, slowly.
A portraited lady, a stormy landscape, a group of persons
or a still life has either not much likelihood back,
or is urbanized, dead, or moulted into potassium carbonate.
The abstraction is gently becoming more and more figurative.
A red square slowly transforms itself into a Russian Babuschka
A cool appropriation piece becomes – without nobody noticing it –
rather original in it’s handling.
The art work gets sad and sadder.
One day a spectator notices the sadness of the art work
and gets
melancholic.
The spectator starts thinking about sand running through hands,
water running through rivers and stuff like that.
And the spectator goes on, meditating upon things undone
which can never be done,
things done which can’t be made undone,
the already madeness of art.
In this mood the spectator sees the art work
and the art work gazes back to the spectator.
They understand each other,
they rejoice with a sad delight in a meeting
which is too late.
They are both meditating the meeting
which never took place four-hundred years ago,
twenty years age, some weeks ago,
yesterday.
They are too late.
The accident has already taken place.
The arm is broken.

DELAY MUSEUM [fr. Musée du Retard]

The format of Emergency Room gives the possibility
that one could,
but doesn’t have to,
establish a “Delay” Room.
This Delay Museum contains pieces
which have been alive and actual
in the today of the discourses of society,
but now have turned into yesterday’s works of art.
The transport from the Emergency Room to the Delay Space
doesn’t affect the quality of the work itself.
It is a consequence of the very concept of Emergency Art.
The works might still look very, very fresh and new,
but aren’t.
They might, or might not, have become great or less great works of art,
but this is questions for art history.
Questions of this kind is not especially relevant for the Emergency Artist.
The Delay Museum is mocking the institution.
The Delay Museum is more fresh than any other type of exhibition.
Fresh enough for the normal observer and normal art lover.
For Emergency Art it is yesterday’s art.
Not the art of today.
In a sense it is the retirement of the work.
When the work has done it’s civil duty
it has earned a pension to which it retires.
The Emergency Artist wish it the best luck.
Before going on with producing today’s art.
This retirement is the delay.
This retirement is the Delay Museum.
Some of the art works are still very good works,
even if they no longer are on show in the Emergency Room.
Some of the work that have been in the Emergency Room
will go into a Delay Museum.
The Delay Museum is constituted by art work
that have be given it or abandoned by the artist.
An artist who does not pick up his art work within 24 hours
gives it automatically to the Delay Museum.
The Delay Museum is a museum.
It is made up of great art that have to be conserved with care.
The role of the Delay Museum is to show this great art.
The art that was shown in Emergency Room
is still great art one or ten years after.
It is great art
in spite of it’s spontaneity and speed with which it was made.
The art has a timeless life after Emergency Room.
The Delay Museum has a conservative function.
Like any museum.

But the Delay Museum is a defence attorney as well.
The Delay Museum should discourage the enemy of Emergency Room.
Opponents who argue that art can not be produced within the conditions of Emergency Rooms.
That art can’t be produced today.
That artists can’t work fast.
The Delay Museum wants to prove that masterpieces are being produced.
The art in the Delay Museum still has the power to be more contemporary
than any contemporary museum.
What is pejoratively called delay for Emergency Room
seems to be fresh in the contemporary world.

What is bad wine for us is good wine for them.
The delay museum is a HOOOOOOOUUUUUUUU made in a classroom.
It points out the abuse of the word “contemporary”.
Another example of the hypocrite’s abuse of words.

DEMOCRACY [fr. democratie]

We live in a democracy
so we are taught.
It is such a dogma
that we can’t contradict it.
A matter of fact.
A matter of doubtless fact
Living in a democracy by definition requests
contribution
participation
interaction
and evaluation.
Democracy is a humble dispositive
loving critics
and not imposing their dictates.
A democracy
has to be provoked
like a wife
has to be tickled.
The democracy has to be shaken
to test it’s elasticity.
The democracy loves to be provoked
questioned
challenged
thrown in the river
forced under water
sent to the moon
passed into the washing machine
68 times
put into a New Year’s rocket
exploded
cut in small pieces
eaten.
The democracy is like a dance partner.
She wants fun and strong emotions.
Therefore she likes to be shaken
balanced
projected
catched again
as much as possible
as many times as possible.
The democracy is
Shake me Shake me Baby
Strongly
Baby Shake me One More Time.
And most important of all
Never believe that the democracy tells the truth.
Well back to the dogma.
We live in a democracy.
We could also say:
we are civilised
we are the top top of civilised people
we are so lucky
(and therefore so happy)
(and therefore don’t need to escape reality)
that we must venerate the democracy
like a goddess.
We must pray for her.
But praying won’t help.
The way to venerate democracy is not to be passive.
Democracy is a religion requesting permanent criticism.
The cult of praying for democracy
is not to be on your knees.
To criticise democracy
is what she really demands.
The Emergency Room so much loves democracy
(maybe Emergency Room is foolish)
that Emergency Room wants to contribute
with donations
presents.
To participate in the ceremony of
the test.
To her reinforcement.
Emergency Room wants to contribute to the daily vaccinations.
Every critic of the democracy makes the democracy more strong
more healthy
more resistant
and this is what we all want
We do?
Don’t we?

Don’t forget:
If the democracy ask with a greedy smile
Give it a kick in the stomach
(don’t worry she won’t be hurt)
(she will take it as a compliment).
Do you remember those arrogant kids at school
All the time asking to be hit in their stomach?
Always saying, with a smile,
Come on!
I don’t feel anything
Hit me again
Please
I like it
Hit me!
But maybe
(sad thought)
Democracy produces it’s own illusion of democracy.
Like the contemporary produces it’s own illusion of contemporaneity.
Maybe we are fooled by democracy.
Like we are fooled by contemporary art.
Like we are fooled by the activists.
Is Emergency Room a format only for democracy?

DERIVATE [fr. derivé]

Emergency Room is a format.
The different activations of Emergency Room are instances of this
format.
It is possible to extract other formats derived from Emergency Room:
Critical Run.
Protest fashion.
Awareness muscle training center.
Penetration.
Debate rave
Biennalist.
are some examples.

DESIRE [fr. désir]

There is a real desire to know the artist’s opinion about today.
It is a prayer to the artist.
If the artist can give some comfort in front of the loneliness of the media.
If the artist can save us from hypocrisy.
The artist has been at the sideline of the game for a long enough time.
The entrance of the artist on the battlefield is necessary.
Now.
The artist can change everything.
There is a real desire to have the artist arriving fast.
Working precisely.
Like a doctor.
Like a sorcerer.
Or just a bachelor.
Grinding with desire after his hanging nude.
Emergency Room desires the opinions of the artist.

DICTIONARY [fr. dictionnaire]
 
To write a dictionary is a trick for the ones that don’t have the time to write a real book.

DIGESTION [fr. digestion]

Inspiration enters the artist through the pores.
The artist can absorb all kinds of inspiration.
Images.
Stories.
Words.
Concepts.
Smells.
Personal stories.
Love.
Fear.
Loneliness.
Vertiges.
Unknown waves.
Not yet identifiable vibrations with cold air.
Warm air.
Hopes.
Sufferings.
Impossible hopes.
Beliefs.
Forms.
The artist is an absorption machine.
Swallowing all the time.
The artist swallows before the artist produce.
The artist sometimes chews carefully.
The artist sometimes smells at the object to be swallowed.
The artist sometimes looks at the object to be swallowed.
The artist sometimes digest very fast.
Sometimes the object is not digested at all.
But runs through the body of the artist.
In this case of perfusion
There is no digestion.
 
The artist can play and smash the instrument
In an cataclysmic reaction.
Some inspirations need long and careful digestion.
Some strong stuff have a direct and immediate impact on the organism.
However:
The capacity of digestion
is the capacity of concentration.

DISTANCE [fr. distance]

Between the intention of the artist
and the art work brought into Emergency Room
there is often a large distance.
Such a large distance
that it cannot be measured.
Some artists talk and talk
like a Stalin organ
du tac au tac.
Pretending to be self-confident
some artists talk
about any kind of concerns.
They seem to have an opinion
about everything.
But when you look at the art work
You cannot see it.
It has disappeared!
Why?
We don’t know.
But the fact is
that the public can feel this distance.
Like a repulsive magnet.
The public sometimes think
it has been fooled.
It could also be that the artist’s art works are shy.
They don’t really want to tell anything
(maybe because they have nothing to say).
But at the same time
The artist has a desire of closeness.
The artist is like a teenager.
The artist needs a lot of attention.
The artist needs massage
and at the same time the artist rejects it.
Sabotage.
Lack of maturity.
Or mystery of the artist.
The goal of Emergency Room
is to reduce the distance
between the speech and the work of art.

DISTURBANCE [fr. perturbation]

Disturbance like the weather can create turbulence in the plane.
The artist should be able to create disturbances in society.
Disturbances which after an initial discomfort will feel like massage.

DREAMS [fr. rêve]

In Emergency Room
We don’t have dreams
But visions.
Dreams are so sweet
so useless
so passive

DUTY [fr. obligation]

The artistic duty of an emergency artist
is to identify and make visible
dysfunctional states in society.
An artist has a duty because the artist is part of society.
The artist is not above society.
This is a not a totally uncommon prejudice among artists.
In cop aesthetics the artist’s views, likings and dislikings are
partially irrelevant.
As the case is with cops in society, the cop – as well as the bureaucrat –
has to differ being a civil person and a state
official.
As a cop the artist represents the interests of the state,
where the personal interests has to be suppressed by the duties
of the function.
For the emergency artist the situation is similar.
The artistic autonomy is replaced with an artistic duty.

DYSFUNCTION [fr. dysfonction]

Dysfunction is a state where a function doesn’t execute properly.
Dysfunction can be a hair in the soup
or dust in the autofocus system of the camera
a mouse in the nose of the elephant.
Dysfunction can be caused by an insignificant thing
or by a monumental problem.
However
A dysfunction destabilizes and affects the entire system.
For the Emergency Artist to extract dysfunctions
is like extracting
blackheads
or surgical removing a tumor
With precise care.
Pointing at dysfunctions
and extracting the dysfunctions
can save the entire system.
This is the function of Emergency Art.
Identifying dysfunctions.
The Emergency Artist as pointing device is an aesthetic cop.

EDUCATION [fr. éducation]
 
Emergency Room has teaching plans.
Emergency Room can go on and on
head hunting
but it takes too many resources.
The already existing deadline artists are not too many.
They are almost non existing.
It is smarter to make a culture of emergency artists.
Instead of looking for them everywhere in the ocean
we could cultivate emergency room artists like oysters.
The most effective way is to establish a teaching system.
To create a new generation of artists.
The trained critics draw faster than their own shadows.
This Emergency Education should contain some teachings in
Statistics.
Investigative journalism   
Colomboism
Spy courses
Gymnastics
Ethnographics
(outside the ghetto of art)
Slow dancing -- News-sharing
Social training without alcohol
This Emergency Education should also contain some
Meetings with spin doctors
Meetings with really bad guys
Meeting with politicians.
This Emergency Education should almost look like a training camp.
Not the type of study where the students sleep in front of a slide show
showing examples of some activistic wellness.
This Emergency Education should teach how to do art fast
So that humanity might survive.
How to create ultrafast with no resources.
How to create without consuming.
This Emergency Education should learn how to do:
Social graffiti
Lie detectors
Critical runs
Derive runs
1 minute retrospectives
Everything goes wrong courses
Mistake courses
Hypocrisy swimming
Sweat tasting
Motivation testing
Responsibility
Art for the dying pensionist
Rumour art
Recession art
Emergency mixing
Protest fashion
Fashion shows
Debate  Rave
Protest choreography (scenographie de manifestation)
Emergency tai chi
Spamming courses
Google exposure
Role of the artist courses  
Civil maturity
etc...



EGO [fr. ego]

The ego is the core of artistic production.
The ego is the motor of artistic propulsion.
The core that causes many problems.
The motor that gives some serious chocks.
The ego is the enemy of any artistic solidarity.
Of all communities
Artistic communities
are probably the weakest.
Because of the artistic ego.
Emergency Room stimulate the artistic ego.
Massages the artistic ego.
Encourages the artistic ego.
Cultivates the artistic ego.
But at the same time,
In the same moment,
Emergency Room tries to make the egos melt together.
The artistic egos should melt like the lava of a volcano.
Like the fond in the soup.
In the round Room of Emergency.
 
ELIMINATION [fr. élimination]

Elimination is one of the most scary words
that has been marketed recently in entertainment industry.
It is in fact a trend of elimination.
Elimination on television.
Elimination in politics.
Elimination in asylum centres.
Elimination in couples.
Elimination in families.
Elimination has become festive.
It is more convivial to eliminate than to welcome.
We celebrate more around exclusions than around inclusions.
We have learned how to make exclusions with a smiley.
To insult and reject people with a smile.
To kill with a smiley.
To torture with a smiley.
To make xenophobia look cool.
Insulting peoples dignity has become a trend.
Strangely elimination is used for genocides
as for the most popular TV shows.
Eliminations are done with style.
With a clapping & laughing audience.
Designed by talented creative people.
We wish we are different in Emergency Room.
But maybe we are no better.

EMBARRASSING [fr. gênant]

To care about some subject matters has become
not only unpopular,
not only unserious,
but embarrassing.
A trend has been established that being involved in dramatic cases.
In pertinent subject matters,
like:
Mass murder.
Genocide.
Xenophobia.
Manipulation of public opinions
Political lies.
And other subject matters
has entered the domain of
Embarrassment.
To be embarrassing is the opposite of being cool.
Emergency Room is ready to touch at
embarrassing
and untrendy subject matters.
Even if the emergency artist
runs the risk of looking like a fool.
Even if the emergency artist
runs the risk of not appearing serious.
Emergency Room is ready to look like an old gaffer playing guitar for
the benefit of The Salvation Army in front of the Department Stores
at Christmas
to collect coins for the homeless.

EMERGENCY ARTIST [fr. artiste d’urgence]
 
An Emergency Artist is an artist taking part in the Emergency Room.
It is an artist that feel that there is a state of emergency.
In a state of emergency, it is paramount that the artist of today is
precise
and on time.
Therefore is an emergency artist
training
and preparing.
An artist giving some of his time to point at dysfunctions.
An artist in immediate permanent connection with his surrounding.
An artist feeling part of civic society.
An Emergency Artist works within the concept of today.
An Emergency Artist does not bring items from the stock to the Emergency Room.
An Emergency Artist is open for collaboration.
An Emergency Artist is not afraid of mistakes.
An Emergency Artist is not expressing for promotion himself
An Emergency Artist is concerned by the functioning of society
An Emergency Artist is an optimist with regard to the future
(an Emergency Artist does not feel everything is lost)

EMERGENCY ROOM [fr. salle d’urgence]

Artists are thermometers for dysfunctions of society.
They are the visual experts.
But in order to exhibit an artist has to wait months
or years
in order to negotiate with art institutions
find funding
and collaborators.
This limits the artist urging to respond to the contemporary
and leaves the art work as delayed comments on yesterday’s world.

Through Emergency Room
artists can react every day.
They scan the emergencies of today and respond to their discoveries of conflicts and discrepancies
– no comment or reaction is wrong.
By being a constantly changing exhibition space
commenting on current problems
Emergency Room creates a hotline to the public and to the mass media
and the streets.
Everyday there will be new reactions
and everyday there will be new reasons for audience and media
to tune back
“Artists, audience and media have been fighting for weeks
in order to get to see and participate
in the new and innovating exhibition
that with its “art of the news” puts the art institution itself to debate.
Reuters, The New Yorker and the TV-channel ABC News
are some of the leading media that have brought the story
about the original exhibition, and at P.S.1/ MOMA
more than a thousand visitors per day have been seeing it…”
(Nikolaj M. Lassen, Weekendavisen, March 30th, 2007)

The format of Emergency Room is established
because artists as visuals experts
have important statement to do
today
before tomorrow
before it is too late.
We are living in a state of Emergency.
The Emergency Rooms is updated every day.
Emergency Rooms ought to be established in every institution of contemporary art.
Emergency room takes the form of a room
(but can have derivates).
Emergency Room has a lot of burning members.
Emergency Room has plans for developing.
Emergency Room should be permanent to have a streaming critical force.
Every town should have an Emergency Room.
Emergency room was a manifest before it become an activate format.
Emergency Room can create waves in the swimming pool.
Emergency room is an aircraft carrier from which the bombardier take off from.
Emergency Room is a butterfly that can bring the chaos.
Emergency Room can be a poetic platform.
Emergency Room can absorb everything and digest it.
Emergency Room can detect cancer before his total expansion.
Emergency Room has a lot potential but is still at is phase A.

Emergency Room deliberately chooses to mix evidently different aesthetics
For instance cross-media artists with abstract painters or sculptors.
Emergency Room trains the awareness muscle of the artists.
Emergency Room encourage artists to work in an environment
where experimentation and artistic daring is welcomed.
 
Artists evolve and develop new unexpected methods and art forms
often resulting in significant changes in the praxis of participants
and thereby in the aesthetics of the emergency art as such.

Emergency Room is an international movement
and everywhere the format is actualized the community of ER Artists expands
from internationally acclaimed artists to local burning-artists
– all meeting each other on location
working together to meet their deadline.
Many Emergency Room participants follow to the other Emergency Room
encouraging artists to collaborate and become part of the energized community
and tear down the limitations and boundaries.
Today is today.
And tomorrow is too late.

EMPTINESS [fr. vide]

Sometimes the Emergency Room is empty.
None of the artist feel any concern that day.
Or none has found the time.
Or none found the right form to express.
Empty days do happen even if alarming events keep on happening in society.
The Emergency Room is on pause.
Or on holiday.
Or don’t care any more.
The absence is a scary sign.
An absence is an opinion.
But at least the absence show the absence.
Not using the Emergency Room is like not using the right to vote.
Sometimes an empty day can come after an empty day.
The passage can be a change from an empty day to an empty day.
Whatever the case, a photo (an exhibition view) of the empty space is
taken with the registration of the date.
Emptiness is a statement.
Emptiness can be the representation of apathy.
Apathy may be the emergency.

ENDURANCE [fr. endurance]

To participate in Emergency Room is like to run an endurance run
like a super-marathon.
It is very tiring to be in Emergency Room.
One needs to be strong
Resistant.
Giving a storm of opinions
Reacting daily
Transforming emotions in art works
Transforming knowledge in art works
Facing the debates
Facing the questions
Facing the apathy
Collaborate
Sharing with people you don’t know
Going to bed late
Waking up early anyway
Facing misunderstandings
Being exposed to the mafia
Being exposed to the corrupt medias
Being exposed to the dead art audience
Being exhibited in Emergency Room only for one day
Having to run and debate at the same time
Doing passages at lunch time
Doing art at bed time
Being critical
instead of being drunk
Becoming expert and doing research for that
Needs endurance.

ENEMY [fr. ennemi]

Emergency Room has some enemies.
Many enemies.
But enemies are stimulators   
and gives energy
 
ENERGY [fr. enérgie]

To produce art fast the artist needs energy.
To point out dysfunction and injustice gives energy.
To produce art fast gives energy.
To be in good producing shape gives energy.
To be confronted to the public gives energy.
To be debating with colleagues gives energy.
This energy is existing inside the artist.
The artist is burning to make art.
The artist is inspired and has something to say.
This is why the artist is an artist in the first place.
The artist has this burning desire to transform what he knows or feel
into art.
The artist can not keep inside what is boiling in him.
The artist simply has to express.
If the artist doesn’t
the artist becomes like a rat and goes around with lowered head.
For to have the energy the artist just needs a transformator
or a stimulateur.
A transformateur transforming what he sees and feels into art.
Like smoke.
The artist watches the news.
The artist watch out through the window
The artist goes out in the streets walking
The artist produces smoke and put it in a jar.
The artist shows the jar with the pissed air he has been ruminating,
including his opinions, sensitivity and conceptual methods of production.
The artist fills up the jar.
When the artist sees the dysfunctions that pisses him off,
the artist feel a need of saying something.
The way visual artists say something is by producing visual art.
But the lack of a space for immediate exhibition
makes the artist stand still.
Instead the artist gets himself another beer in the fridge.
(See ALCOHOLISM)
Instead of producing great art.
The artist just moves the finger.
Zapping.
The artist open the fridge and light up another cigarette.
The apathetic zapping artist is now in search
for even more apathy and anesthesia.
With the saliva dropping out of the corner of his mouth.
This is why beer companies  are sponsoring contemporary art.
They sell illusion and apathy.
The sponsor zapping saliva for artists.
On the contrary
The artist who knows that he will have an immediate audience.
An audience for to which to show an immediate production.
Such an artist will suddenly get very motivated.
The opinion of the artist will have a chance to live.
Energy will grow.
The confrontation with the public will happen.
Breaking the loneliness.
Standing up.
Rising out of the sofa.
Without zapping saliva.
His muscles will function again
all his muscle
ENERGY!
The artist can now abandon the artistic attitude.
The perspective of an immediate (and erotic) confrontation
will make the artist run to his tools
and produce an art work.

ENERGY!
Knowing that his opinion will be desired, will generate
tremendous energy for the artist.
An energy which spreads among others at the same time.
And not delayed.
The role of Emergency Room is to transform or canalize the artist’s jump
Out Of His Sofa.
To transform it into productive energy.
We could call it electricity.
The frustration created by the dishonour of being of abused can be
transformed
into fighting enthusiasm by the sher
level of bull-shit spraying from the media.
We repeat:
Piss off-energy canalise to a recipient is propulsing the artist
out of the sofa.
Existing and exhibiting canalize the initial propulsion energy
into more energy.
High energy – your love is lifting me.
Oh
Oh
High energy –
Your love is lifting me
Lifting me high.
The apathy transformed in empathy will rise energy.

ENLIGHTENMENT [fr. illumination]

Enlightenment is maybe a hidden goal.
Just to be enlightened
Here.
Like that.
See the dysfunction
cure them
and be enlightened.
Peaceful in the middle of the chaos.
Not apathetic
but enlightened
connected.
In touch with everything.
Distillant une solution calme et sage.
 
The artist that has done his social duty can be enlightened.
The artist can precisely feel the universe around him
perceiving everything
the time being real time
the past being real past
the future being real future
the other being fully existing.
Aujourd’hui m’aime.
The enlightenment will come with the perception of the surroundings.
All the collaborations.
All the battles won
or mostly lost.
 
The enlightenment will come
when all the sweat has been given away to make aphrodisiacs.
The enlightenment will come
by looking at the new protesting generation.
The enlightenment will come
with the daily reproduced precision.
The enlightenment does not come by sitting under a tree
But continuing running
Running
In the rain.
The enlightenment is the reward of the warrior
that introduces new laws
Better laws
More fair laws
And especially a law to criticise the laws.

ESCALATOR [fr. tapis roulant]

We should have an escalator in front of the door of the Emergency Room.
This escalator should project artists into the Emergency Room.
And the public as well.
We should have an extra trick
To have more flow,
more traffic,
regular traffic,
streaming debate,
rhythmic.
Like the big printing machines going:
tchak tchak tchak
And as soon as the problems have been spotted
they get passed on
as a rugby ball
catched up by the Emergency Artist,
the Rugby players
who transforms it to a work of art
tchak tchak tchak.
With such an escalator
Emergency Room could be a factory of criticism.
Critical production will take over the market of sleeping pills.
For good.
Permanently.

EVASION [fr. évasion]

Why why why escape
when we are surrounded by preferences
when there is soft angles all around
when we are protected against any perturbations.
Why should we transcend everyday.
What is wrong with everyday.
We have nothing to escape.
The idea to escape is not acceptable
Our life are not a misery.
We are allready in paradise.
We have to share some of the paradise
It will then be an even better paradise.
Most people have the feeling of having such a difficult life
a painful work.
So hard that they cannot stand reality.
They have to escape
to forget.
Get a whisky after work
to think about something else
to see a stupid film
to sleep in front the TV
drooling on the sofa
with open mouth.
It is difficult for us to understand why they have to escape.
They have programmed everything with preferences.
They have a wife they have chosen.
They live on a street they like.
They have the work they wanted.
They spend the weekends as they like
every weekend.
the holidays as well.
They are surrounded with stuff they desired the most.
Everything is perfect like the smoothie they drink
Caressing their throat and their stomach.
But strangely
they need to escape
they cannot be critical
they just cannot
it is too tiring for them.

But escape from what?
If they were dying of hunger
we would understand their need to escape their hunger.
But here they have everything
and all the time.
People should be filled up with critical energy.
Criticism should be a hobby
Action as well.

EXCURSION [fr. excursion]

The Emergency Room community
sometimes feel like going at excursions.
Excursions outside the Emergency Room.
From time to time some activities are organised outside.
It could be Media Hijacking-
It could be Critical Run-
It could be Conference Shaking-
It could also be Penetrations -
It could be Street Invasions-
It could be any imaginable excursion-
To keep in shape.
Emergency Room is not a kind of safe confortable format.
Emergency Room is not just hidden in the heated rooms of the museum.
The Emergency Room might go on excursions.
Excursions are healthy for Emergency Room.
Excursions gives Emergency Room the freedom to be where it is at most
functional.
Emergency Room is a platform.
A platform might pivot.
A platform is there for to reach an audience.
Emergency Room is a mobile and pivoting platform.
The excursions (when they are prompt and effective)
Could be called raids.
 
EXHIBITIONIST [fr. exhibitioniste]
 
When the artist arrives at the Passage with his piece of today
The artist is an exhibitionist
As Emergency Room passage is a jam
Every one becomes an exhibitionist in the Emergency Room.

 EXPERTISE [fr. expertice]

The artist is an expert in information affecting the senses
and an expert in conceptual representation.
Those who are in control of images and emotions rules the world.
The artist who is supposed to have a certain degree of expertise
in the production distribution and consumption of information
affecting the senses and conceptual representation
is curiously absent from the battlefield in the War of Images.
This, we believe, is no coincidence.
The artist is consciously being withheld from the battlefield.
The artist is put to his isolated studio to produce
already made pictures of yesterday
to be exhibited tomorrow
and viewed when they are already too late.
The visual expertise of the artist is disarmed
The Emergency Artist can’t obey this imposed logic of art production.
The Emergency Artist has to use his expertise where it is of real use.

EXPOSURE [fr. ouverture]
 
Art works don’t stay a long time in Emergency Room.
The exposure is short
But the opening is large.
We do bloggs.
We do films.
We do get media attention.
We do get an active public.
Emergency Room re-display in the delay museum.
If an artist says something important
the artist’s work will get maximum exposure.
 
FAIT DIVERS [eng. miscellaneous]

Some artists are like old ladies.
In their spare time they love to read about fait divers
or the lives of celebrities.
Fait divers can inspire them.
This is sad.
Young pertinent artist are not old ladies.
 
FATHER [fr. père]

The artist can also be a father,
and feel concerned by local details.
Like traffic lights.
Bike lanes.
And public health.
The artist does not have to be a parasite,
to be an artist.
It is the artist that take care of the society.
Not the opposite.

FEED [fr. contenu]

Medias are desperate about finding contents.
With the right network and some complicity
it is possible to feed the media with content
(they need contents).
They have the visibility.
They have direct access to the apathetics lying on their sofas.
They just need to be feed with artists’ visions
instead of car crashes and kiss-kiss
or hidden publicity to sell beers to kids.
Part of the Emergency Room strategy
is to feed them with critical content
(but maybe the publicists will fight against that)

FEUILLETON  [fr. feuilleton]
 
The exhibition unroll like a feuilleton.
Some artists work with the same method as the novella.
Bringing new works every day like a chapter in a book.
Like an episode in a television serie.
sensitive to the reception of the public.
The exhibition has a chronology.
Some artists can follow a case day after day.
Some artists work with the evolution of the case.
Like a Brazilian novella.
The story changes from day to day.
The artist evaluates.
An ultra fast manuscript is done.
With new element breaking in.
The script is always subject of change.
Medias use the same technique.
They decide to run stories in one day or in months.
Depending on the reception.
They write manuscript.
They adapt conclusions.
Once an artist keep on following a case, the artist becomes an expert.
The artist begins to gain insight into his subject matter.
As well as of the context.
At this point the artist starts to be dangerous.
The artist might even produce a new Watergate.
The artist might prove something.
Unveil something.
Working day after day is like to hammer in a nail.
The arm moves.
The nail moves.
To work in Emergency Room like a feuilleton is a progressively growing approach.
Like a warm up.
A regular building up method.
It is a method of investigating suspect cases and civil dysfunctions.

FILLING [fr. remplissage]

Just like my grandmother collected kitsch souvenirs,
the artist can make a remplissage.
To fill up spaces.
To fill in spaces.
To secure himself.
Against emptiness.
We do notice that.
Exhibition spaces
Gets bigger & bigger.
Institutions of art,
offers huge spaces
to small artists.
This is why contemporary artists are filling up spaces with cars.
With buses.
With boxes.
But mostly cars.
And some additional boxes.
Or a bus.
Artists fight to exist.
Maybe artist fight not to disappear.
Artists fight a struggle to impress and conquer volumes.
Artists fight spaces more than the artistic cause.
Just count how many exhibitions are exhibiting cars.
In this filling
contemporary institutions have become car parks
With hanging cars.
With cars on pedestals.
With cars upside down.
With smashed cars.
With dissected cars.
This filling
can also be a filling of time.
All this remplissage makes the artist busy.
Not disponible.
Remplissage is the strategy of mass domination.

FINISHED [fr. fini]
 
When is an art work finished?
The Emergency Room states:
The work is finished at the PASSAGE.
The moment of the passage is the deadline.
The finishing line.
The passage is the deliverance of the work.
The work is delivered to the public.
The art work has to be ready at a precise time.
There are exceptions.
Performance type of works
Or continuous pieces of art.
Or works which evolves in time.
These work are delivered as well and has to be ready at a precise time.
The artistic decisions have to be taken fast.
The artist is forced to make some choices.
The artist has to be concentrated.
The artist has to make the right moves.
The artist is under the pressure of time.
The clock is ticking.
The artist must breathe.
To include all the air, all the vibrations in the work.
It is late.
The audience is waiting for the opinions of the artist.
The artist is needed.
The artist is wanted.
The artist must run to be in time for the passage.
Before deadline.
The art work has to be finished.
The art work is finished.
Le coup est tombé.
C’est la delivrance.
The artist is finished as well.

FLAT [fr. plat]

Journalism is a flat medium
but still has the power to change or create public opinion.
It is scary
That this flat stuff
can interfere so much on a multi-dimensional universe.
This is why we try to develop the quadridimensional journalism.

FORM [fr. forme]

Form is the act of making the invisible observable
Form is moving
Form is a stream


FORMAT [fr. format]

Format is a new type of art.
Emergency Room is the format of art institutions to be contemporary.
Museum is the format of art institutions to commemorate.
The format of Emergency Rooms, located as a potential space in contemporary art museum, is an attempt to establish a room for visual artists dealing with the issues of today.
Such Emergency Rooms would give the artists the chance to visually comment on actuality – an opportunity to express his position and visions about today…
(today understood as today without delay).
Format is the parameter of form.
It is the format which actualizes form.
The format itself is the mere potentiality of form.
The Biennial is a format.
 
A format is a concept including acteurs with their feelings, desires, pains, complaints, jealousy, etc interacting.

FRAGMENTATION [fr. fragmentation]

Fragmentation can also be applied
as an artistic method.
Coup par coup
With a break in the middle
Every day brings a number of people dying in Iraq from car explosions
Every day the media report it
Like a weather report.

FRIENDLY [fr. amical]

Emergency Room is friendly.
Colonel got a space
then other artist can use
or misuse it.
Headbands are convivial too.
People are invited
stimulated to formulate emergency opinions
friendliness is a human thing.
There are different cultures of friendliness.
In Emergency Room friendliness is pushy.
Friendliness is a burning invitation to extinguish the fire
before everything burn.
You invite the artists at your table.
You invite the opinions at your table.
The people of a different opinion
as well.

FRIENDS [fr. amis]

It is a rare thing that contemporary artists are friends.
Contemporary artists are competitors.
Contemporary artists spy at each other.
Contemporary artists hide information for each other.
Contemporary artists are jealous of each other.
If a contemporary artist gets the smell of an opportunity,
they are afraid of loosing it,
or getting robbed of it,
as they are Judas to each other.
Therefore:
They lie to each other.
All the time.
They network.
(and networking is not friendship)
Therefore:
Artists have friends,
which are not friends.
It is very sad.

 
FUN
 
Many people
Insist telling us
Emergency Room is fun
Or
Looks like fun
Looks funny
Sorry
But
Yes it is nice
To be an energetic group
With a lot of circulation of heavy human stuff
Sweats and tears
Wedding and divorces
But
Looking at the emergencies of the world
It is not that funny at all
It is sad
Depressing
Alarming
but funny
No
No no no no.

FUNCTIONARY [fr. fonctionnaires]

Working for the community part time or full time
can be a volunteer act.
But professional artist have families too
(this could also be why they feel concerned about social stuff).
To legalised
(as a gesture from the state)
and professionalize the entire critical system
Emergency artists could (should) become a public service.
Like firemen
nurses
teachers
road-makers.
Is a public service
serving the society.
The Emergency Room artists could be officials
as a public utility.
They should be working in a neutral way
with professionalism.

GENERALIST [fr. généraliste]
 
Contemporary artists are often generalists.
They care about the world
but normally not in any precise sense.
Contemporary artists care about the world
in a general sense.
In general.
Nothing specific.
Contemporary artists can express
how to save humanity
In general.
Often using already said statements.
Stated again with an artistic shape.
Contemporary artists can say
that the politician is incompetent
that the medias are manipulating
that men are chauvinists
that the US are exploiting the UK
that the UK are exploiting UN
that the president is looking stupid.
And so it goes on and on
Cliché after cliché.
But when it comes to a specific illness to be cared about
We need some specialists.
But
Where are those specialists?
There are some million of generalist artists
and hardly any specialist.
We urgently need some
ear specialists
apathy specialists
awareness muscle specialists
heart specialists
thyroid specialists
hormone specialists
xenophobia specialists
clochard specialists
finance specialists
ecologic-friendly airplane-hypocrisy specialists
penguin autopsy specialists
drug side-effect specialists
propaganda epidemic specialists
numbrilist digital specialists.
Definitively no more generalists
Please!

GHOST [fr. fantome]
 
Ghost is a symbolic name given to an non-existing artist
Floating around
Being in the Emergency Room
Without pertinence
Or with out-of-context art works.

GLUTTONY [fr. gloutonnerie]

Artists can be gluttons.
The inspired artist cannot stop swallowing
(and producing)
in a permanent cycle.
There is no limit of what the inspired artist can swallow.
It is immense.
Basically it is everything.
Not only the artists’ own life
not only other artists’ inspiration
not only the artists’ own frustration.
But the entire world can inspire the artist.
The mechanism of the world.
The mechanism of society.
The events around us.
The injustices beside us.
The dysfunctions.
What the artist sees on television.
What the artist reads in the papers.
What the artist sees in the streets.
The injustices are also a source of inspiration
and they are everywhere.
Everything is inspiring.
Even the racist neighbour.
The polluting car of the police officer.
The way lies are said.
Everything!
The glutton artist
never stops absorbing matter to express.
As a lawn mover
Combing.

GYMNASTICS [fr. gymnastique d’exposition]

The exhibition of ultra-fast art is an act of precision, strength and
flexibility.
Ideally it should be like a diving: short, well-formed and to the point.
The more the artist practice Emergency art, the better the artist gets.

HANDICAP TOILETS [fr. toilettes pour handicapés]

Every contemporary museum has handicap toilets.
They ought to have an Emergency Room as well.
Emergency Room should be obligatory by law.

HAPPY [fr. heureux]

Are you happy?
NO
I am maybe satisfied
will the Emergency Room artist answer
if asked after having done a pertinent art work
having an impact and so on…
Satisfied but never happy.
Maybe because saving life is never finished.
Generating justice is never finished.
Dysfunctions are unlimited
(like accidents).
In emergency room
no one can be professionally happy
or maybe (but maybe)
this state will be possible
the day we have progressed so much
that we are bathing in an ocean of justice.
That day
the mission accomplished could (eventually)
provoque professional fulfilment
and so happiness.
Until then some sporadic success
can only provoque some waves of satisfaction
or vibrations.
The road is long.
So long.
But at least there is a road.

HARMLESS [fr. inoffensif]

Artists working with delay are harmless.
Living without having any impact
make them behave like castrated animals.
Castrated domestic animals
without consequences
without any real life.
Their voice are voiceless
(better not have a voice than a castrated voice).
This army of harmless will never be able to have an impact.
They will never be able to change anything
not even a law.
Or
maybe maybe the worst!
the only think that the sole thing an artist can do
is to inspire an advertising bureau
to make an advertising campaign to sell beers to 10 years old kids
which is a construction of a target group by pedophiles.

Notice that the harmless artist
may better produce poster for ikea
or fajance for public toilets.

There is a hierarchy of harmless
-harmless
-harmless
-harmless
-mean.

HEAD HUNTING   

Emergency Room is constantly hunting heads.
Searching for artists and members of the team.
Emergency Room is desperately looking for people.
For artists who hit dysfunctions faster than the dysfunctions hit them.

HIERARCHY [fr. hiérarchie]

Some day
some art works are more important than others.
In the context of Emergency Room
Some art works are important
because of their pertinence
because of their urgency.
They have an impact on the real world.
We don’t want to hurt any artist
but
we have to mark points and change unfair laws.
We can evaluate the pertinence.
We can measure the impact.
And we can make a hierarchy of pertinent art works.
We can ask (politely) to the snoring art work
to move a little to the side
not to become a magnet of meaningless attention.
Like in any Emergency Room
someone who has broken a finger
doesn’t receive the same care
than someone involved in a violent car crash.
Some patients are sent to another department.
In Emergency Room some artists
can be advised to go back to the contemporary art world
and produce the usual obsolete works of art.

HOPE [fr. espoir]

Hope is a vector in Emergency Room.
Hope starts with an H.
An H must be blown,
like the breath during a Critical Run.
An H is an aspiration of the mouth,
like a missile shot off from its launching ramp.
The H of Hope
is like the energy it takes to the artist
to come out of the studio
and present the burning opinions.
At 12.30.
In Emergency Room.
Artists jump out of their bed to express and exhibit,
because they have hope.
Hope is at once,
like the alarm ringing to wake up.
Hope is a decision.
Hope is not a dream that come by itself.
Hope is a decided intention.
Hope and strategy goes together.
Hope and strategy are a couple.

HORS SUJET [eng. without subject matter]

Sometimes in Emergency Room
artists are totally out of subject matter.
Out of context.
Out of concept.
They want to show an emergency which has nothing to do
with an emergency.
We have to tell them.
We have to refer to the rules.
Otherwise Emergency Room is not any Emergency Room.

HUMANISM [fr. humanisme]

Humanism has to come from an effort.
You cannot be an humanist
just by clicking on a mouse on a picture of a dying child.
This new humanism tell us we can help.
Without costs.
Without efforts.
Without doing anything.
Without thinking about it.
This new humanism actually tries to lure us.
That we can help without helping.
Emergency Room don’t believe in helping without pain.
Emergency Room don’t believe in helping without sacrifice.
This is why sweat is important in Emergency Room.
This is why the critical run is important.
And the violent debates.
and the early wake up calls.

HYPOCRISY [fr. hypocrisie]

Hypocrisy is like a cancer.
It is difficult to eliminate it completely.
Hypocrisy is not located in one point.
But one thing is for sure: hypocrisy is not easy to eliminate,
when it has found it’s host in a state of privilege.

ICONS [fr. icônes]

Che Guevara is an icon.
The Crucifix is an icon.
And George Bush and Tony Blair are icons as well.
Icons are subject to worship of images
Or to iconoclasm
Icons doesn’t mean anything
Icons doesn’t contain any opinion
Icons are (in the flesh)
what they represent.
Therefore icons are kissed.
And therefore are icons burned.
Emergency Room has no interest in icons
Emergency Room is a space for artists with an urgent opinion
To share
Not a space for iconodulia
Nor iconoclasm.                           

ILLUSTRATOR [fr. illustrateur]
 
The artist of today is an illustrator.
The artist of today does not exists on his own.
The artist of today illustrates.
Like the decorator decorates.
Like the bike repairman repaires.
The artist illustrates the exhibitions themes to the curators.
Which in its turn, are illustrations of the agenda of the advertising bureau
itself illustrating the desire of the cultural managers
themselves working for the sponsors.
In brief the artists illustrate the advertising campaigns
of the weapon dealers sponsoring the biennials.
 
Like when the press photographer is sent to make a photos of the racist president
shaking hand with dying Africans
(to illustrate that he is not a devil and you should vote for him
again).
Or to illustrate that the UN is on a peace mission with weapons.
Illustrating gossips
illustrating fake stories
giving credibility to the propaganda machine
illustration is a slave function in itself.

The activist artist could as well be a wedding photographer
illustrating that the bride got her ring
at the right moment.
The illustrator respond to themes that are interesting
for the customer
for the sponsor.
Take care
(sponsors often have bad intentions).

IMPOTENCE [fr. impotence]
 
In front of his sofa,
feeling a strong reaction coming,
the artist wish to express,
to give birth to an art work.
But the artist cannot rise up.
The artist is glued to his sofa.
Maybe
but only maybe
the artist will find energy to reach the fridge,
to get himself and his cat
another beer
cold
freezing cold
(if possible).
Freezing cold
To reduce the pain.
to reduce his headache.
On his sofa,
the artist projects himself in action.
The artist imagines himself as James Bond.
Or Zidane.
Or Obama.
But the artist cannot move.
Not even his small zapping finger.
The contemporary artist is a victim of impotence.
The causes are so many,
and so boring to enumerate,
as everyone knows them.
But don’t forget that it also might be caused by an overdose of trivial pursuit.
Of loneliness.
Of fake beliefs.
The impotence is also the lack of exhibition space.
The impotence is also the lack of interest.
But stop!
Emergency Room can cure this impotence!
Emergency Room can present an immediate platform.
Emergency Room can give a warm welcome.
Emergency Room can guarantee an enthusiastic audience.
And a constant criticism.


INCUBATION [fr. incubation]

Immediate confrontation.
Normally art works have an incubation time
between its production and its exhibition.
The artist can hesitate.
The artist can test his art work.
The artist may ask some colleagues of their opinion.
The artist may even ask his gallerist.
The artist may ask his collectors.
Or the artist may simply ask his wife.
In ER there is no time between the production
and the moment of showing.
The art work is directly shown to the public
As an art work
(not as a work in process).
The same day
Shown proudly
In the round white cube
It is an immediate baptism
It is funambulist without protection net.
 
Once entering the Emergency Room
the art work is considered as finished.
A questionnaire that circulated among artists
confirmed that most artist
will not correct their art work
once it has been shown in Emergency Room.
Emergency Room
C’est la ligne d’arrivée
Le point de non retour.
 
INDIVIDUAL [fr. individu]

The individual is the object of civil society.
This means that society is there for the individual
not the other way around.
The public is composed by individuals as the subject of society.
The individual is there for society
not the other way round.


INDUSTRIALISATION [fr.industrialisation]

To reach an audience
and to have access to the public debate
and the public opinion;
For to be able to interfere
in a civil society
and for to gain visibility
and for to regain territories from the marketing industries;
For to have a voice
in this battle of visibility:
Emergency Room have to industrialize its activities.
Emergency Room have to apply certain machinations:
To be more efficient.
To infiltrate better.
To recruit faster.
To train stronger.
To open more platforms.
To involve more fantastic artists.
To circulate more visions.
To generate more questions.
To be everywhere all the time.
To be on the field of debate and judgement.
To be able to cover up and protect the tennis court
and to be able to deliver a smash.
To recruit one good artist
ten artists have to be approached.
To open one new Emergency Room
a hundred institutions have to be approached.
To fight apathy now one millions of tricks have to be used.
The opportunity does not arrive by itself.
One have to provoke it happen.
One has to gallop.
Gallop
for to traverse the desert.

INGREDIENTS [fr. ingredients]

The notion of ingredients is primordial.
In Emergency Room we need the right ingredients.
If there is too many media artists,
If there is too many smart artists,
If there is too many opportunists;
if there is too many of them,
or if there is not enough of others
etc.…
the Emergency Room does not boil,
the Emergency Room would stay cold,
the sauce does not take;
Emergency Room would then look like contemporary art.
Which is not good.
Right stuff is essential.
Authentic ingredients:
No colorants!
No appetisers!
No pacotille!
No tralalla!
Emergency Room needs the right pigments.
The format needs the real ingredients.
Like the art work needs the right composition.
The format of Emergency Room is like cooking good food.

INTERRUPTION [fr. interruption]

Every times the exhibition stops.
The working exhibiting energy drops.
The usual ritual of having one to three month’s exhibition-time is
stupid.
The exhibition should never stop.
The exhibition should be streaming, flowing.
A stopped exhibition is a dead exhibition.
It is a disaster.
The artist has to start all over.
The artist loose concentration.
The artist loose credibility for audience.
The works can no longer reflect but only jolt.
The artist is then breathing like an old car.
The artist can not be rolling.
The artist is depressed and dejected.
To stop the outrage within the artist’s heart.
If the artist starts getting into a subject
the end of the exhibition is interrupting him.
It kills his impulse.
This is why artists sometimes repeat themselves.
They cannot find moving speed.
The Emergency Room is looking for a permanent room without interruption.
A format for a never ending action.
Why should Emergency Room be interrupted?
La cadence crée l’energie.
La continuité.
C’est la trance.

IRONY [fr. ironie]

fatalité
défaite
fuite.
 
Before you read that and hate us
please note that we love humour
but see ironie as a very ambivalent thing.

Irony is an opinion always licking the winner side’s ass.
As such irony can not be considered an opinion.
Irony pretend to attack bad people or bad institutions
but at the same time it is flattered by the very same people or institutions.
Irony is like those people saying fuck you
and placing a smiley after their insults
to take the spike off.
The same technique is used by politicians to utter racist’s statements
and taking back what they said the day after
for not to loose votes.
The irony is always on the good side
the side that pleases them.
Irony is to sell a product that kills
stating it saves life.
Irony is a gesture or non-gesture of hate
(or maybe of shyness).
Irony is the non-opinion.
Irony is the non-act.
The opinion or the act that cannot be interpreted clearly.
Irony is flirting with hypocrisy.
Irony is arrogance and superiority.
Detachment.
Irony does not assist anyone in his sufferings.
Look!
You cannot be ironic with a child.
If a child has fewer you don’t start to make irony with him.
You don’t make irony with old dying people either.
Irony has no efficiency
if you want to accuse criminals
you don’t use irony - you just have to line up evidences
or troops to arrest them.
Ironie est une technique de lache.
Irony is a technique of camouflage.
A reversible uniform depending of the winners or employeurs.
Irony follows the judo of opportunism.
Ironie is evil and not effective
Nazis created orchestras for people playing the music of their death.
 
Irony is normally not very welcome in Emergency Room.
At least not encouraged
(we will now try to be soft
- otherwise we will probably loose every reader)
as we have noticed
that it is very unpopular to be against irony.

OK
One could say
that there is a difference between
ironie equivoque and ironie non-equivoque.

Irony seems to have become the last refuge of art that wants to
please-displease.
With irony a fascist artist can say he is an humanist and the opposite.
Irony is in fact the tool of the collaborator.
With irony it is possible for the artist to turn his jacket any time
You can say: exterminate all the foreigners
And then say
sorry - of course not -
I was ironic
I didn’t mean that.
Irony is very close to sarcasm.
Irony is too much everywhere.
Together with hypocrisy western society has become experts in irony.
Irony is the enemy of authenticity.
Irony cannot have compassion.
Can you be ironic in front of a dying beggar in India?

Irony stems from personal unsatisfaction
When artists say
“my work is ironic“
It means that it doesn’t mean anything.
Irony is opposite of truth.
Irony is not humour.
Humour loves.
Irony hates.
Irony wants degradation
and humiliation.
Humour wants inclusion
and togetherness.
Irony is connected to vandalism.

Irony might come from the culture of torture films:
A victim gets tortured
but as the movie has to sell for the entire family
the torturer has to make jokes as well
(while torturing).
Everyone is laughing
It is just a film
It is ironic
It is not real torture
Of course
However it is very confusing to send one signal
and to cancel it
at the same time.
This is why we recommend
in Emergency Room
Not to use irony
as the last trick to pass a content.

JAM SESSION  

During the passage
every one being around Emergency Room
is invited to take part.
Artists bring art works.
The passeur shouts “passage”.
The public asks questions.
The public is asked questions.
No one is passive.
It is impossible to be a voyeur.
Just looking.
Just passing.
It is a jam session going on.
In the round room.
Everyone is part of it.
Everyone plays an instrument
or gives a voice.
There is a symbiosis.
Everyone is on stage.
No one feel ridiculous.
for playing wrongly.
We are a family.
 
We are all making a fool of ourselves
by debating
genocide
pollution problems
etc...
The more everyone plays the instrument of opinion
in the debate
the more the hypocrisy
falls.
Everyone is divulging what they are.
It is a nudist party.
We melt into each other.
This lava creates energy.
It is a jam session.
Everyone exists.

JUDGEMENT [fr. jugement]

In Emergency Room
we are interested in the future.
To make a judgement about art work today
is to stimulate art works that will be produced tomorrow.
The potential of more pertinent art works being brought
for tomorrow.
Bad emergency art being well judged.
Bad emergency art is the road to good emergency art
for tomorrow.
Judging emergency art can be done with criteria
like the rules.
But again judging
is to train
not to blame.

LAME [fr. eclopé]
 
In westerns the good people
(pioneers looking for grounds)
are always making a victorious army out of the lames
disabled
alcoholics
children
dogs
men looking like women
old funny couples
very pretty kinky women with sexy shirts
etc.
All these strange characters are not looking like pioneer troops
or war heroes.
Nevertheless they always end by crossing the desert
and succeed in their goals
despite their handicaps.
Their cohesion and their motivation
(and a special luck due to the script)
make them able to defend themselves
despite all dangers trying to exterminate them.
 
LYING [fr. mensonge]

Contemporary artists
(to our big surprise)
can be lying!
Many do.
And many do it often.
Just like they breathe.
Without you noticing.
Artists bluff.
Artists promote.
Artists network.
Maybe in desperation to go somewhere.
Maybe anxious to be part of something.
Maybe nervous to miss a sponsored party.
Artists learn how to lie.
Artists learn how to generate strong beliefs.
Artists learn how to convince themselves
Artists learn how to convince others
About their mediocre product.
Artists learn how to pretend to be sure
And faking
And playing
And lying.
Has become a common practice.
The artist who wants to get out
will soon discover the same old tracks
will soon discover the same old tricks
The artist is trapped.
Postscriptum:
If you say to the artist that he is lying,
he will often take on the
attitude of the baker confronted with your question
if the cakes are from today?
Taking on an insulted face answers
”of course!
our products are always
fresh”.

MASTERPIECE [fr. chef d’oeuvre]

Like a goal in the finale can be the result of years of training
weeks of competition
months of preparation
of an entire team.
A masterpiece can pop up in the Emergency Room.
At once.
By skill.
By science.
Or by hazard.

The masterpiece has the capacity to remain historic
The capacity to stay forever in history.
The capacity to be a reference.
Or better the capacity to change history
Immediately.
The masterpiece will have the capacity to not loose its strength and intensity.
The masterpiece generates the coming of other masterpieces.
The masterpiece has a special status.
You do not always know which work will be a masterpiece
but you can often predict.
In emergency room 2% of the art works feeding the room
are masterpieces
This is a lot.

MEDIA [fr. media]

People believes that Emergency Room artists are bound to media.
This is not true.
Many artists works with creating their own media.
Going through the world with their own eyes
and their recording equipment.
The traditional medias can afford advanced information research
they can afford conducting cases
create Watergates
But with a good strategy
Emergency Room
could as well soon be able effectively to dig for informations
and interpret them
and distribute them in an artistic form.

MEGALOMANIA [fr. mégalomanie]

The desire to be everywhere at every time
To be covering everything
To be involved in everything
To be in phase
To be connected
To be filling up every room
All the time
To be watched
Like a tennis player
To be watching
Like Argus
Protecting
Covering
His field
Smashing all balls coming on his court
Is megalomania!
To believe that it is possible to interfere
To have hope of a revolution
Is megalomania!
To care about the world
Is megalomania!
The world is so big.

MINISTRY OF CRITICISM [fr. ministère de la critique]

As we live in a democracy
critics are a good thing.
Critics are requested.
WE WANT MORE CRITICS!
MORE CRITICS is the voice of democracy.
MORE CRITICS should shout all the time.
A society that does not encourage it’s own critics
is not a democracy.
A society that encourage its people to vote
is a society begging for critics.
A democracy without critics
is a depressed democracy
is a society in a sad state.
Critics are the bronzage of democratic health.

Now, as we have all kind of ministers,
Minister of Integration,
Minister of Climate,
Minister of Welfare,
Minister of Good Atmosphere,
Minister of Propaganda,
Minister of Doping,
Minister of Non Smoking,
it is time that the democracy installs a minister of criticism.
In the ministry of criticism all critical methods will be activated.
Optimized and taught.
A minister with a department to organize and activate Emergency Rooms
all over.
A minister with a department to administer daily Critical Runs.
A minister with a department to teach criticism in schools.
The Ministry of Criticism should make critical thinking obligatory.
Like the Ministry of Health makes certain vaccinations obligatory
To make apathy disappear.
To make criticism flower.

MISTAKE [fr. erreur]

If you work fast, you occasionally make mistakes.
A snapshot is a fast picture.
An artist should be brave.
The message is more important than the self-image of the artist.
The emergency artist has to work with some speed.
The matter is urgent.
The investigation can’t be secret,
because the artist judges it as being of outmost civil importance.
It is this urgency which forces the artist
to speed up and being precise
And it is at the same time this urgency which forces the artist to accept errors.
To be corrected...
To be continued...

MOOD [fr. humeur]

There are moods in Emergency Room.
Artist are affected by the world that surround them
but also by their own moods.
In Emergency Room
at the passage
we can feel a pre-menstrual artist
an artist more nervous
an artist that has not slept
an artist that is loosing his balance
an artist than wants to hide his laziness
an artist that network too much last night
an artist honestly affected by a dysfunction.
Moods affect the atmosphere in the Emergency Room.
During the debate there is a wave of chock.
Someone can start a conflict.
Someone can give good vibrations.
Personal feeling are influencing the entire community.
The Emergency Room is made out of human with moods.
Strange enough Emergency Room does not only depend of the outside world
but of it’s inside as well
Its participants.
Mood.
Moody.
Moody blues.
Maudit soit mon humeur
I am still selfish.

MOTIVATION [fr. motivation]
 
Motivation can happen suddenly.
Suddenly an apathetic or busy artist can feel interest
in using the Emergency Room.
From one day to another.
Today.
Ne fermez pas la porte.
Ils arrivent!
The scenario of this sudden transformation can look like this:
The artist’s cousin went to jail unjustly accused of terrorism.
The artist keeps observing how the media handles the matter.
The artist observes the dysfunction of the media and simply must have
his say.
The artist observes the way his neighbour react and simply must have
his say.
The artist understands suddenly the power of the propaganda machine.
 
Or, it could be this way:
The artist suddenly jumps up of his sofa.
Something woke him up.
A certain story moved him violently.
This artist cannot stand anymore to be a statistical entity of a target group.
This artist wants to express about the perception.
Or maybe about the injustice
Of which the artist suddenly understood the mechanism
After years of observations.

Or, it could be that the artist
suddenly
sees that he can change the world.
It could be that the artist suddenly gets an urge to share.
It could be that the artist wants to create an community of opinion.
It could be that the artist suffers from loneliness.
It could also be that an artist, who suddenly becomes parent to a child
start to feel responsibility of society.
Whatever the reason, motivation is good for artistic propulsion.
Motivation throw them into the Emergency Room
while they are still
shaky
sweaty and white in their scared face.

MOVEMENT [fr. mouvement]

The Emergency Rooms constitute an artistic movement.
This movement is similar to a river or lava.
It is matter charged with energy.
The Emergency Room exhibitions are of the works or pieces themselves
moving.
They are exhibitions of moving matter.

MUSE [fr. muse]
 
In Emergency Room
There is always some muse
Which makes the deadline artists come back.

NEUTRALITY [fr. neutralité]

The Emergency Rooms have itself no fixed opinion or world view.
The Emergency Rooms are, as such, neutral.
It is a platform and Emergency Room trying not to influence the content
just to question it.

OASIS [fr. oasis]

Emergency Room being a caravan,
the institution, hosting Emergency Room,
become an oasis.
Emergency Room goes from oasis to oasis.

OBSERVER [fr. spectateur]

The observer is any visitor in an Emergency Room.
It is of no importance if this visitor is an artist
during the passage,
an art critic,
someone seeking temporarily shelter from rain,  
an art lover,  
a bored child,  
or someone trying to avoid an
unwanted person,  
frontally approaching on the same side of the sidewalk.
An observer isn’t something you intentionally set yourself up to.
It is being caught in an experimental setting.
The observer is the unintentionally expression of the Emergency Room.
The observer is always located on the other side of the Glass and/or
Screen.
If matter is invisible in civic space,
individuals are ostensibly visible.
In the experimental situation of an exhibition,
the setting is turned
the other way round.
Now the individual becomes an observer, and in this very moment becomes
invisible.
If the individual, in his/her natural surroundings was on the other side
of the glass and/or screen of matter and observed
and governed by matter, the individual turned into an observer in an
exhibition space, finds matter on the other side of
the glass/screen of projected forms.
The unobserved intention of the form transforms to the unintentionally
observed of the observer.
Now the observer governs matter.
However in Emergency Room observers are activated
It is a jam.
We have only exhibitionists at the passage
No voyeurs.

OMNIPRESENCE [fr. omniprésence]
 
The artist
(being an hypersensitive detecteur)
Get all informations
(every second)
without break
the artist detects every change of wind
variation of temperature
pre-menstrual women
tsunamis
racist vibrations.
The artist
is omnipresent.
The artist is a radar covering the entire territory.
Can you imagine the detecting powers if the data of all these artists could be collected in one computer
(if you believe in computer science)
This would then be THE Emergency Room.

OPEN ZIPPER [fr. braguette ouverte]
 
The artists of Emergency Room collaborate.
If you are my friend.
And if I have ma braquette ouverte.
Please tell me.
Some mistakes can be embarrassing
but not all.

OPINION [fr. communauté d’opinion]

Emergency Room is desperately searching for opinions.
Emergency Room is begging for the opinion of the artists.
To start formulating an opinion require
a careful observation of the subject.
But this is a dangerous territory.
It is easy to make a fool of oneself.
It is easy to make mistakes.
Opinions are a mixture of personal feelings and facts.
If opinions don’t circulate anymore
we don’t have anything to talk about.
Opinions are the breathing of our social and intellectual existence.
To present an opinion is almost like undressing.
Getting naked.
To present an opinion is almost an erotic gesture.
To present air to each other.
Two opinions produce a new opinion.
Without exchange of opinions there would be no existence.
No life.
The exhibition is alive and has to communicate opinions.
Opinions can change.
Opinions can adapt.
Opinions can switch to a contrary opinion.
Opinions can be based on prejudice.
Opinions can be contrary to prejudice.
Opinions can be private.
And opinions can be public.
Opinions are flexible and exchangeable.
Opinions are fertile.
To give an opinion should not be regarded as a sign of stupidity.
To give an opinion should not be judged upon prejudice.
Doubtful opinions should be questioned.
One could ask:
From where does the opinion come?
What are the arguments of this opinion?
Opinions are made to be questions.
Opinions are essentially questions.
If we stop presenting opinions we are dead.
 
OPTIMISM [fr. optimisme]

Despite the scary nature of the situation
that motivated the existence of Emergency Room,
the optimism is in place:
There is solutions.
Good strategies are possible.
There are cures.
We have the possibility to make strategies.
We have the possibility to give the cures.
It is possible to win a large number of cases.
The optimism comes from the magic power of human beings:
Working together.
On a fighting mission.
Like in a good old western movie.
Emergency Room is an optimistic format
because it is human.
The Emergency Room artist is optimistic
Else the artist will stay in the bed
Or under the bed.

OUT-SOURCING [fr. sous-traitance]

By working globally with formats like
Emergency Room
Critical Run
Penetration
Biennalist
Not being able to be everywhere at the same time
We have to out-source.
Give some of the production to be done by others
(with of course our observing).


PACKAGING [fr. emballage]

Packaging is a dangerous thing.
Packaging is it the essence of the lie.
Packaging is the way you hide a lie
to cover the crime better.
Like the food in the airplane
with a lot of ecologic logos
they serve us terrible industrial food
in super pollution-machines.
Artist do also a lot of packaging
to stimulate
to hide.
Mostly by lack of discourse.
Art should be more raw.
More naked
And less rococo.
Art should be more direct
to avoid the lying part.
No packaging will be a good thing.

PARANOIA [fr. paranoia]

The more we look at the dysfunctions,
the more we understand the mechanisms of dysfunctions.
The mechanisms of propaganda.
The lies.
The sadness.
The wickedness.
Looking around us is a scary thing.
It is easy to develop a paranoia.
It is easy to get depressed.
The wish to escape is understandable.
Once the artist perceive the mean mechanisms of the world.
The artist will begin to see them everywhere, all over the place.
The artist faces an abyss,
an abyss which is frightening.
Artists in front of this abyss
can easily develop symptoms
Some won’t be able to sleep anymore.
Some will be afraid to be arrested at night.
And tortured in the day.
Murdered,
Because they know,
They know too much.
And what they know,
Some people don’t want them to expose.
Working deeply in Emergency Room is not easy.
It is like handling grenades.
Sensitive artists should be stopped.
In time.
If they start to develop too many fears,
If they start to see too many conspirations,
If they start to see too many connections,
They should be sent away.
To smoke a cigarette in the fresh air.
They should be sent away
To swim.
They should be sent away
To their mother
(if they still have one)
They should immediately be asked
To stop digging
In the poisonous mine of dysfunctions.
The mission of the Emergency Room artists is too huge,
Because there is too much to say.
The solution is to be many Emergency Room artists!
The solution is an army of Emergency Room artists!
Emergency Room started,
Because the one who created it
Started too be too scared alone.

PARTY [fr. fete]

It is difficult for Emergency Room to make parties
But at the same time we are party people.
This is why we fight
because we love life
and the celebrations of life.
But the situation around us is sad.
It is difficult for Emergency Room to party.
Emergency Room does not have any victory on injustice to celebrate yet.
However
Parties are good to keep the community strong.
To party in a collapsing world is a dilemma
like the dilemma with the artistic ego being a good thing
and being a problem as well.

PASSAGE [fr. passage]
The passage takes place in Emergency Room at 12.30 every day.
The passage brings fresh works of today.
The passage replaces the works from yesterday.
The artists meet each other at the passage.
The passage is a kind of relay.
The story continues.
New works take over where the works of yesterday left.
 
PATHETIC  [fr. pathetique]

To try to understand the mechanisms of power
(being only an artist)
The will to try to find the keys to cure some problems
Is pathetic.
Giving opinions
Is not a cool.
If coolness is the ideal
Emergency Room is very pathetic.

PENETRATION [fr. pénétration]

Penetration is a Gesture & Method.
Penetration is a Act & Format.
Penetration is a gesture and method to energize the flea market of art.
Penetration is a necessary act and format for the liberty of art.
The penetration follows some rules.
Sometimes the rules are the same as in Emergency Room.
It is not hijacking.
Nor is it an anarchistic act.
It is a civic act.
With gentleman manners.
Due to its failure to be Permanent,
and its failure to be Everywhere,
Emergency Room is often Out of Space.
It is in this Out-of-Space, space penetration takes place.
Artists from Emergency Room have to stay boiling and burning.
Artists from Emergency Room cannot be kept out of exhibition platforms.
Artists from Emergency Room has a lot of dysfunctions to exhibit.
They need space to express.
And they need to express very fast.
They need to express before it is too late.
The burning artists need space for their burning art works.
It is in this burning state penetration takes place.
And penetration is a fantastic solution.
Penetration does not only creates relations between the public,
but gives to the public important interpretations about the world of
today.
Penetration is not only a energetic act.
Penetration is also the name of the space where it happens.
You can say:
”Here is the penetration!”
Like:
”Here is the invitation!”
Penetration is a welcoming act.
This is why the penetration is beautiful.
Penetration is a relief for the burning artist
in a period of
elimination
and rejection.
It is very important for artists to circulate in exhibition spaces,
just like the underwater currents flow in the sea.
It is essential for artists to express themselves directly
in the place
they want to be in.
Without the artists having to lower their heads.
But carrying on their works with dignity and pride.
Not like a rat in a sewer.
Not like a cow in the stable.
It is very important for artists
to be in their context,
to have access to it
and to demand it.
Show rooms should not be sterile and rigid.
Show rooms should be flexible.
Dynamic.
Unpredictable.
Artists must throw passes to each other – like rugby players –
with strength,
precision
and dare.
An artist, who has given birth to a work,
should not have to wait to expose it to the public.
The work must start living without delay,
and provoke immediate effects.
The work must live.
The work must exist.
New mechanisms,
new systems,
and new rituals must be conceived.
Whatever obstructs the artist’s expression must be moved away
immediately.
Penetration does not necessarily have to encounter a real collision
in order to be successful.
Smooth and loving penetrations are better than painful ones.
The penetration is a generous act.
The penetration is a mutual act.
The penetration expresses artistic solidarity.
The penetration implies a receiver and a donor.
Penetration is a soft transmission of space.
A friendly gesture,
a loving gymnastic,
an effect of proximity.
There are different types of penetrations.
We will list some:
The smooth one.
The censured one.
The changing one.
The turning one.
The touring one.
The evolutive one.
The sad one.
The impossible one.
The refused one.
The painful one.
The jouissive one.
The repeated one.
The insistent one.
The hilarious one.
The dry one.
Can you imagine if penetration was everywhere?
If artists would pass each other space, whenever they had the need to
express something important?
Art would be a thermometer!
Always! Everywhere!

Now penetration is a brand.
A mark.
It is perfectly possible to say:
”I gave my space to Penetration”
Like it is perfectly possible to say:
”I have exhibited at MOMA”.
It is good for an artist to have been penetrated.
Artists start to ask for penetration.
Penetrated artists write it in their curriculum.
It is a sign of generosity to have a status of being
Independent.
Free.
Connected.
Penetrated.
Some artists start to say
”Why did you penetrate him, but not me?”
Penetrations are the future of art.
Penetrations can only be done in a state of freedom.
Penetrations are like free circulation of ideas.
Let us tell a story about the penetration at the Athens Biennial 2007:
“In my opinion, the penetration on September 8th was a huge success. It
was simply beautiful. The penetration was dignified, indispensable,
respectable, natural, authentic, and most of all true. It retired after
24 hours. It almost certainly played with the poetry and not the
vulgarity. It’s as if it did a low bow at the Biennial, an unexpected
generous offering, like a bouquet of flowers. And to clarify myself,
there were many artists who participated. Our meeting point was at the
exit of Kerameikos metro station. Everyone arrived on time, as if they
were attending a baptism. The atmosphere was serious and serene, and
something special was uniting us: group energy. We were not the
individualistic 21st century artists – of a century where individualism
reaches its zenith – but a community. The artists brought in their
works just like someone brings pastries and sweets to a party. All the
components of a sacred ritual were there. The artists dressed up for a
special occasion. They shone of honesty, passion and beauty. The passage
was more than successful, it was magical. It was the act of an unified
group and not that of a selfish onanist. It was a wave that brought in
its own rich lot of beautiful seashells.
Friends, such as Enrico Lungi came from abroad. There were no violations
or feelings of resentment, only respect. All the works were necessary.
It was so beautiful and so simple that I almost wept. It was such a
generous act, so communal- they dedicated time and effort, and made
their works with love. The pieces were still fresh and hot. Unsifted,
and unrecycled by ideas, untouched by the art retailing system. Setting
up the work went quickly and smoothly. Their every move was determined
and accurate. They were considerate of their neighbours space –
everyone seemed to discern their spatial area even though it was their
first time there. Magic was in the air. An instinctual sensitivity, like
a mother has for her son. Natural simplicity. Yes! The penetration went
really really well. Life is worth living!”

PERTINENCE [fr. pertinence]

Pertinence of art is the quality to have an impact.
To hit.
To be extremely precise.
To articulate in the subject.
Pertinence is a quality essential for Emergency Room.
Pertinence is the very opposite of abstraction.
Pertinence is the quality of pointing.
Pertinence in a democracy should function like acupuncture.
Pertinence will function like acupuncture.
Pertinence is like an adjusted slap on the buttocks
Pertinence is muscular.
Pertinence is not a ghost.
Pertinence has a special form.

PREJUDICE [fr. préjudice]

One could believe that art is one of the most unprejudiced areas
Rather the opposite is true.
Hypocrisy has entered in art’s own ranks.
A lot of prejudice circulate.
One prejudice is that artists cannot work fast.
Or that artists ought not to interfere with politics.
Or,
(and this is the worst):
That artist should not be interested in politics.
That politics is not within their field of competence.
This tends to reduce the artist to a disc jockey or a soup maker.
Or a foxtrot dancer.
When the artist is not reduced to a mere producer of objects.
To a decorator of flats.
To a cultural propagandist.
Or to a provo-entertainer.
Like the most dangerous prejudices
They circulate as common knowledge
and people stop to question them.
Or even think about them.
Prejudices about art circulate on the same wavelength
and with the same frequency
as the fixed notions about artistic attitudes circulate.
(being busy / activism / contemporary)
To get rid of these prejudices would seem a difficult task.
These prejudices are deeply rooted
and are not to discussion.
Prejudices are circulating in the dark waters of taboo.

PRELIMINARIES [fr. preliminaires]

As we finished the first edition of this dictionary
we observed that Emergency Room is not at all at it’s full speed yet.
Emergency Room is still warming up.
Emergency Room has not reached full speed.
Yet the surroundings are still hostile
and all the plans have not been activated.

PRESS RELEASE [fr. communiqué de presse]
 
The story made around the work of art has become more important
than the work itself.
The press release is a bombardment of key words.
And key words has a more powerful visuality
than images itself.
The contemporary artist is emitting press releases at any circumstances.
The press release has as mission to seduce a maximum number of people
The press release is a billet doux for availability.
For re-invitations.
The press release has to fool intellectually vigilant people.
The press release contains thanks to sponsors.
The press release contains the brand of the sender.
The press release contains the latest catch-words.
Press releases are like ambience or background music.
They try to mix a bit of authenticity
with lot of seduction.
They try to mix a bit of generosity
with a lot of instrumentalisation.
The line up of key words is horrifying.
The purpose is to neutralise the critic.
Tatami.
Like judo.
or even worse
Hypnotise.
To distract the guardians of art.
Keep them distracted from looking at the lack of content.
The press release is not only an ephemeral information.
The press release is a strong propaganda machine.
The press release is not only mudding art
but serves the enemies of art.
The press release has become the work
Instead of the work.
It is no longer les regardeurs who makes the work of art
But the press release.

PROJECT [fr. projet]

Emergency Room is a format.
A format that can be active in an infinite future.
Emergency Room is not a project.
We don’t like the word project.
The word project is annoying.
Projects are like clothes for the artist’s attitudes
Project is a bureaucratic definition to express non-accomplishment.
Artist say they have projects
to keep up the illusion that somebody needs them
The illusion of an useful production
Like the word contemporary it is a construction
A trap-word to define inactivity and passivity.
–What’s your project?
They ask each other
They should be asking
– What do you mean?
– What is your opinion?
– How do you do a revolution?
– How can we cure apathy?
– How can we unify?
 
But projects do project things
Nothing else
Emergency Room is not a project
Emergency Room is a projection

PROMOTION [fr. promotion]

The artist of today does not exhibit anymore.
The artist of today wants to generate an interest to be re-invited.
Or invited to make promotion of the next promotion.
In another promotion-exhibition,
for which the artist wants to generate an interest,
to be re-invited.
The artist of today in the contemporary are like salesmen in fairs.
Car fairs.
Fashion fairs.
Book fairs.
Furniture fairs.
Art fairs.
The artist of today makes multi media installations.
For an audience of potential customers.
For an audience of customers already won by their cause.
The artist of today makes a demo.
A demonstration of what the artist is able to do.
A demonstration of the skills of the artist.
A demonstration of the product the artist has to sell.
A demonstration of the artists capacity to illustrate a debate.
A demonstration of the artists capacity to exemplify a theme.
The artist of today displays the production.
In the best possible way.
The exhibition act as a portfolio.
The exhibition never exists in itself.
The exhibition exists for its potential to represent.
The exhibition is an image of the next exhibition.
The exhibition is a representation of the next exhibition.
The artist is addicted to representation.
Showing a certain capacity of re-invitation.
The managers of culture and curators knows this very well.
The present consists in having a future.
Having a future is being re-invited.
Not in being present.
But in representation.
Not in invitation.
But in re-invitation.
This is probably the reason why the artist is always busy.



PROVOCATION [fr. provocation]

Provocateur :
“An undercover agent who incites suspected persons to partake in or commit criminal acts“
says wikipedia.
So if we understand wikipedia
the provocateur does not cure crime
or point at crimes
But he incites crimes.
Is that what we need?
Does provocation also lead us to the confrontation of criminals to their crimes?

In Emergency Room
we respect the efficiency of provocations.
But the motivations of the provocateur artist
are important for us to understand as well.
Provocation can also be juggling with a lot of icons in order to be successful.
Sometimes easy symbols and signs have to be manipulated
in order to provoque
(mainly the bigots).
You must know that in Emergency Room the use of icons
is considered as too easy
and is not very welcome
(according to the rules).
In our days provocation seems to be a positive quality
(probably because selling medias exposing them).
An extra Merit.
A mark of quality.
Provocateurs are getting media attention
by using religious symbols
killing animals
juggling with different symbols.
Every time an artist makes a provocation
the news papers remake the history of all the previous provocations.
Provocation sells newspapers
(and rise audiences)
and rise prices of advertising spaces
in the same medias.

The question is:
Is the provocation pertinent?
Which compromise does the provocation have to do to be provoking?
Is the content of the provocation important?
or is it more the receipt of it?
the trick?
the element?
that will mater?
The same provocations can loop year after year
probably made by different artists
the blasphemies with religious symbols
the naked trick
(having sex makes them even stronger)
you have the nazi stuff
you have the caca things
the pipi things
Etc…

Most provocations goes into a ritual of provocation
They have a preparation.
A plateau.
An orgasm.
And the souvenir of it.

If provocations have an impact
(except to put the artist in the annals)
I don’t know.

Provocations could also be considered as a format.
They can be repeated in a cyclic way.
And every time it works.
The success of the provocation
is part of the provocation.

Provocations do not have to be intelligent.
Provocations are like pinches
folle-coche.
Provocations can be box kicking under the belt
straight to the balls
blows below the belt
it works very well.

But
is provocation chevaleresque?
Maybe the provocateur fight for the pleasure of fighting
The interest for the provocation sport.
Like art only is interested in art.
Like a cannibal is interested in its own flesh.
The provocateur is interested in the fight.
The subject is more the pretext of the fight
but it could also be a fight without subject.
Does the provocateur show respect?
Does provocation go for effect?
or for impact?
Who does the provocateur really provoque?
the bigots?
the old ladies?
people suffering believing in a god?
Or can the provocation also provoque the cynical leaders?
Or do the cynical leaders just hijack the provocation
for their own cause?
Provocations may affect weak people
the bigots
their beliefs can be destroyed.
But can provocation replace what is destroyed?
Do we want to hurt the the already wounded.
Or rather judge with argument the structure of power?
What we want to know are the intentions of the provocations
Are provocations launched to get publicity?
Are they meant to cure?
Are they meant to destroy?
Are they meant to humiliate?
Are they mean to create a debate?
Are there any educational provocations?
Can love be injected in a provocation?

In Emergency Room provocations can make shadows to other art works.
Provocation can be very show-business-like.
And then they will hide other emergencies not carrying provocative elements.
Provocation can be a trick
A trap
Un piège
Un dispositif
An explosion.

Provocation is often the meeting banner of the society of spectacle.
Provocation often wants to make the author more known
that is its cause.
 
Is it provocation to run naked among old ladies?
Is it provocation to masturbate in public?
Is it provocation having piercing in front our parents to get attention?
Is provocation just a phase in the making of the individual?
teenager stuff
Or is it turn to the rest of the community?.

PUBLIC OPINION [fr. opinion publique]
 
The public is the subject of civil society.
This is why the public opinion
has such an impact of the state of society.
Public opinion is beyond right and wrong, good or evil
and every other qualitative judgement.
The public opinion is promoted by sheer weight and gravity.
If what is shown in Emergency Room is pertinent and well seen
It will affect the public opinion
and unfair laws will be changed
due to the presure of the public opinion.

PUBLIC SERVICE [fr. service publique]

People pay tax to be protected
educated
cured
and to have the privilege to be criticized.
Emergency Room should be a public service.

PUBLICIST [fr. publiciste]

In our days artists and publicists collaborate.
They are together.
The art is not in opposition to publicity
But in a flirt
Which make us think
Of the death of art.

PUNCTUALITY [fr. ponctualité]

In precision aesthetics the concept of punctuality is paramount.
Essentially being punctual means being on time.
Punctuality is the precision in time.
A punctual piece or work is a piece or work which is delivered at time
and which in itself
is in time.
Punctuality is a rendez-vous without delay.
Can you imagine a gang attacking a bank
And someone in the gang not being punctual?
They will all end up in jail
Caught.

PUSHER [fr. dealer]

Emergency Room works like a pusher.
Emergency Room tries to create addiction in giving opinion.
Some of the rules for instance, are made to create addictions.
Like the rule that artists have 24 hours to collect their work after it has been displayed.
After this deadline, the work will be under the control of Emergency Room.
Either kept for future display in the archives,
or discarded.
If the artist comes to pick up a work, he usually comes with a new one.
And then the artist comes everyday.
The artist becomes ADDICTED.
(positive addiction )  

QUADRIDIMENSIONAL JOURNALISM

Quadridimensiona Journalism
 is a Journalism in 4 dimensions
Three dimensions + 1.
.
Quadridimensional Journalism is an art proposition
but
Quadridimensional-Journalism can be circulating as a new type of journalism
as well.

The Emergency Room is also Quadridimensional Journalism.
It gives experiences
and visions
and interpretations.
The Emergency Room is not only extracting
reporting
but also gives an interpretation that can affect the public opinion.
Instead of looking at flat medias
like TV
internet
news papers
The public experience is a perception of the world                         
in a space
in three dimension (+1).
In this space all the senses are stimulated.
Including the smells
the sounds
all around
all together
simultaneously
But added
is an extra dimension:
the artistic dimension.
 
In emergency room
you are surrounded
and not facing the comments of the world.
They are all over and different at the same time.
In cohabitation.
You are not positioned in front of them
like a separate body.
Your senses and perceptions are taken all over.
The experience is coming from the front
but also from the behind.
At the same moment.
With Quadridimensional Journalism
you don’t take knowledge of only one opinion
but of all opinions at the same time.
All the opinions about today are embracing you all around.
You can also turn the way you want in the room
and decide to stay the time you want.
In Emergency Room somebody
(maybe an artist)
may jump on you
asking for your opinion
immediately.
That may be integrated in an art piece
immediately.
The experience is intense.

In the Quadridimensional Journalism experience
You don’t have to bother with any ads
 you won’t be disturbed by any ads
(like in the normal press where ads about air companies are next to critical stories about the melting icebergs).
It is pure injection
Multi-directional.
All the sections of journalism are experienced at once
from the weather reports
to the policy sections
Quadridimensional Journalism affects all capacities of detection.
All senses.
Even the poetic.
Flat journalism is the opposition of Quadridimensional Journalism.

REALITY [fr. réalité]
 
Reality is not truth
it is opposite.
The film industry
the medias
the advertising bureaus
are obsessed by the search for producing reality.
They want to show reality.
They want to create reality.
They want to make us be in fake bubbles.
A bubble of prefered reality.
A bubble of chosen reality.
Preferable reality.
The Emergency Room artist is flirting with reality as well.
Sometimes the Emergency Artist wants to bring reality into the Emergency Room.
We have had several cases of artists bringing homeless people into the Emergency Room
To speak about their problems
so the public can see
(hear)
(smell)
about the reality.
The staged reality.
The problem is that reality
(like the fake contemporary)
(the declared activism)
is abusing us and hijacking our compassion.
Staged reality could be one of the vectors of acceleration of apathy.
REFLEX [fr. reflexe]

We all need reflexes.
Even the drunk apathetic artist
Need reflexes
to survive
or to save at least their own life.
No matter what
if a car comes too fast to us
we have to be able to jump to the side
to save our life.
We hope we can do the same to save the neighborhoods kids
if it would happen.
In Emergency Room we are interested in caring reflexes
(the reflex to care about others).
Our laboratory noticed
that atrophy of the awareness muscle
can provoque an anaesthesia of the caring reflex system.

REGIONALISM [fr. regionalisme]
 
Going everywhere.
We assemble knowledge of local emergencies.
Emergency Room Napoli will be the best example.
In Napoli artists are mostly interested in Napoli emergencies.
In Napoli they nearly don’t pay attention to global emergencies.
Regions have many dysfunctions as well
Local traffic light problems where kids cross the streets out of school
can also affect the life of many families.
Camorra killing people on the streets are also emergencies.

REPERTOIRE [fr. répertoire]

Artists have a certain number of gestures.
A repertoire of gesticulations.
These gestures can be activated when necessary.
An artist can draw from his or her repertoire.
With style.
Like a cowboy draw their guns.
Like a judo defense.
Like a reflex.
In case of difficulty.
In case of demand.
In case of urgency.
The repertoire of the artist is located in the domain of the
constitution.
Not in the domain of the content.
The repertoire of the artist does not mean repetition.
The repertoire of the artist allows short cuts
The repertoire of the artist develops artistic reflexes.
The repertoire of the artist constitute the savoir faire,
the mastership of the artist.
With the repertoire
The performer
The debatteur
The exhibitionist
is on home ground.
The artist knows how to do it.
In case of urgency.

RESULTS [fr. résultats]

Most important for Emergency Room are the results.
Not the appearance,
Nor the attitudes,
Nor the gesticulations,
Definitively not the forms,
And not even the intentions.
As long as Emergency Room has only been a changing exhibition
It is not a success.
As long as Emergency Room did not change the law
It is not a success.
As long as Emergency Room did not change the public opinion
It is not a success.
As long as Emergency Room did not provoke a revolution
It is not a success.
Emergency Room is unsuccessful
As long as nothing has really changed.
As long as nothing has really changed
Emergency Room is a catastrophe.
To qualify as results
Emergency Room only counts:
The final score.
The number of achieved goals.
Not the fighting spirit of the emergency artists.
Nor the degree of fair play.
And definitively not if it was played beautiful or not.
For Emergency Room it is the result that counts.
The daily ronronememt is not a result.
The daily ronronement is a stage.
The road of Emergency Room is very long.
And it will take time
Before we see the results.
Before we see the final score.

REVOLUTION [fr. révolution]
The revolution is the goal of Emergency Room.

RITUAL [fr. rituel]
 
Art is stocked and damped by idiotic rituals
which contemporary art continues to perform.
Vernissage.
Drinks.
Parties.
Invitations.
Group shows.
Projects.
Partners.
Lubrication.
The model is repeating itself with or without drinks & snacks.
Like an automat.
From where do all these rituals stem?
And why are we performing them?
They kill art.
Let’s create other rituals then!
To baptist a work of art in a vernissage is the worst that can happen.
It pushes the art work to the background.
Making the vernissage to appear as the work.
Emergency Room performs a daily baptism of new art works.
The meeting at the passage is made to discuss the content of the work.
The passage is a non-vernissage.
The passage is exactly not closing the work.
The passage is opening the work for discussion.
The passage treats the work as an opinion.
Not as a glossy surface.
Emergency Room wants to destroy old rituals
Emergency Room wants to create new rituals
Emergency Room is a ritual-putsch
Old for new
The rituals in Emergency Room gives safety
(structures)
As the exhibition is unpredictable in Emergency Room
A ritual like The Passage or The Debate give us a breath of security
All this succession of gestures are a mise-en-condition
that gives us security in the middle of the storm
we can say that a format is made of rituals.

ROLE OF THE ARTIST [fr.]rôle de l’artiste]

If someone witness a crime or an accident
they have to assist the person in danger.
If the artist sees some alarming dysfunction
the artist must shout
what he knows
immediately.
The public is the rest of society.
The artist is an expert in visual communication.
As most dysfunctions,
abuse,
propaganda etc
communicate with the tools of the artist (i.e. visual communication, dramaturgy)
the artist as an expert must deliver what he is the witness of.
Immediately.
Before it is too late.
The artist has the capacity
and the duty
to alarm the other.
If he does not,
he fails to be contributing
of the caring of each other in society.
The artist is responsible for what he knows and observes.
Indifference and not-caring
should be felt as an unlawful error.
The role of the artist is to make use of his visual expertise to the service of the civic society which is now overusing visual communication.   

RONRON [fr.]

Ronron is the sound of the artist falling a sleep.
The sleepy artist is falling a sleep.
again
Like a cat on the sofa.
Like a student in the classroom.
The sleepy artist is existing
without being disturbed.
And with no disturbing.
The sleeping artist is not barking
But snoring.
Admitted:
The sleeping artist does make some noise.
Proving that the sleeping artist isn’t a dead artist.
But the sleeping artist is not alive.
The sleeping artist is like a clone of the artist.
A monotone noise of an artist
not making art
The sleeping artist is like a cosy ball of comfort.
The ronron is a state of apathy.
The ronron does not have any impact.
The ronron cannot provoke any revolution.
The ronron is a selfish state.
The ronron generates its own sound.
A sleep-inducing monotonous sound of comfort.
No alarm.
Roundness.
Comfort.
The contemporary worship the ronron artist.

RUGBY [fr. rugby]

At the passage
(cf. “Passage”)
the deadline artist runs and reaches the goal,
often the very last minute.
The deadline artists enters the Room
& chucks his art work,
like a rugby ball marking a point
in the exhibition space,
just on time.
In Emergency Room
every art work exhibited in good time are like victories.
Artists sometimes don’t exhibit,
but chuck.

RULES [fr. reglèments]

The format of Emergency Rooms is not interested to get abused by
artistic attitudes.
To avoid being kidnapped, Emergency Room comes with certain rules.
Rules is a good thing.
Also for artists.
Rules is like exercise.
Rules sharpen the precision.
Rules are the highway to experiment.
But rules are not divine.
Emergency Room do err.
In ultra fast speed we all do err.
It is therefore OK breaking the rules.
As long as the spirit isn’t broken.
But please, do respect the rules as you respect your friend.

SALESMAN [fr. vendeur]  

The artist of today is ready to adapt to customers.
Any customers.
Sponsors
(of all sort).
Like drug dealers.
Alcohol dealers.
Weapon dealers.
Pedophiles.
The artist has become a salesman.
The artist try to fit to any group show.
To any show.
Even car show!
Brasserie show!
Eco show!
Euro show!
 
The artist of today is salesman without sales.
The artist of today just wants visibility
(or a drink at hand).
Ready to adapt.
From opportunity to opportunity.
The artist’s work pretend to be politic.
Erotic.
Introspective.
Ecologic.
Activist.
Anarchist.
Situationist.
Abstract.
You name it.
The principal for the artist of today.
Is to be part of a show.
Something promoting his attitude.
The artist of today is a salesman that doesn’t sell anything.
The artist of today is in a comedy of presence.
The artist of today flirts with the people that copy the artist of today.
The artist of today likes the artists that are stealing the ideas of the artist of today
(if the artist of today has any).
The artist of today is proud to hang around with the commercial
creatives.
The difference is that the artist of today doesn’t earn anything.
The sale of the artist of today is an invitation to make a sale show
without sales.
What is shown does not really matter for the artist of today.
The sale is an re-invitation to another show without sales.

SCENARIO [fr. scénario]

The upcoming story is in a way prewritten.
There is a vision that has visualised the story
and described it.
The scrolling of the events should follow the manuscript.
Emergency Room
(even if unpredictable)
can follows some scenarios.
There is things that happens because they were made to happen
they were part of a strategy
they were part of a plan
a scenario.
A plan including actors
humans
characters
For example:
We can bet on that some collaborations will be done.
Knowing some factors it is possible to anticipate the results.
But here nothing is gained for sure.
Some scenarios are ideal scenarios.
They should happen
but have little chance to happen
(or they may take a long time to happen).
Like the scenario of the running burning artist coming sweating enthusiastically with an art work that will have a real impact because it’s pertinent.
This is a possible ideal scenario.

SHARING [fr. partager]
 
The capacity to share is very important in Emergency Room.
Share space and share opinions.
In 1989 the sharing was called
”the moving exhibition de type convivial”.
An exhibition space is like the flat of a friend.
If a friend is in the street
(if for example his wife threw him out)
and your friend needs to talk or to spend the night
You must give him a space in your flat
Your sofa
or maybe regarding his level of pain
You will give him even your own bed.
You will do that with great pleasure.
Exhibiting space are the same:
If there is an emergency
There is an emergency.
The public is your friend

SMELL [fr. odeur]

In the Emergency Room artists can use smells.
But, why don’t artist use more smells?
Smell is a good way to express.
Smell smells.
Smells are unforgettable.
Sweat smells.
Emergency room has to smell of sweat.
At least!
But it could smell of something else.
It could smel like greed.
Like death…
Burger.
Oil.
Pie.
Rats.
Hope?

SNAPSHOT [fr. instantané]

Snapshot is the perception of a pointing machine.
Ideally speaking, the snapshot is the non-intentional expression
of the intentionally unexpressed.
It is the instantaneity of Instant Coffee.
The Snapshot being the non-intentional expression
is an excellent device for fixating the invisible
in a visible form.
The snapshot is a information device
processing matter which before didn’t have any form.
Emergency Room is made of snapshots.
And Emergency Room is a snapshot in itself.
Snapshot d’exposition.
The art shown in Emergency Room
can be the result of many years of reflection of an artist.
Suddenly one day it is there.
The artist grab it.
The artist get it.
Fast.
At once.
Échec et mat.
And the artist brings proudly his work – his snapshot – to an Emergency Room.
As a masterpiece.
A lot of true life.
It takes only one instant to grab it all.
L’oeuvre est un snapshot.
Le tout a été attrapé.
Fixé.
Capturé.
The snapshot is the decisive moment.
Like a street photographer.
Or a policeman.
Waiting the right time to catch or point out evidence.
Emergency Room can freeze one day in one exhibition.
The exhibition will then contain everything of that day.
It’s past.
It’s future.
It’s context.
The exhibition being alive then
becomes a slide show
of all the snapshots
with life and comments on top of them.
The exhibition being alive then becomes a continuous stream of snapshots being made.
But with the possibility to zoom in at them one by one.
A snapshot is a shot, aimed and fired very quickly
at a target that appears suddenly and for a very short period of time.
A snapshot is not something to be looked at during a very long time.
Nor from the other side.
A snapshot is more spontaneous and untagged.
The snapshot is an imperfect image.
The snapshot contains the notion of mistake.
In itself.
The snapshot has the power of enthusiasm.
In itself.

SOCIOLOGY [fr. sociologie]

Emergency room can be a place
to observe artists behaviours.
There is a lot to observe as many artists comes daily.
It is open to various possibilities to make statistics and observations.
Every movement and word (or just silence) is filmed.
We can look back and analyse all this.
We can classify and define some tendencies.
We can try to understand how groups function.
We can make schemas of their cultural behaviours.
As Emergency Room occurs in different countries
we can make comparisons.
In Emergency Room human sciences can be a tool
often more useful than art history.
It can be very interesting to observe
the way apathy is implanted in artistic behaviour.

SOFA [fr. canapé]
 
Sofas are graveyards.
Sofas should be transformed.
To control towers.
To headquarters of revolution.

SOFTNESS [fr. mollesse]

The state to be soft.
It is the state of the teddy bear.
The artist of today is a Build-a-Bear.
Or a schwimm gum –
You can throw it away
anyway
When it no longer tastes anything.
When the minute sensation is gone.
You can also glue it under your chair.
Maybe somebody will discover it.
One day.
 
SPACE [fr. espace]

Space of visibility is precious
and should not be misused
for stealing attention
for stealing time
for hijacking air.
Our attention is already stolen daily by the publicists
by the fake news.
We are busy.
We are dizzy.
We don’t have time
because our time is stolen.
Because we are busy.
We cannot be reacting on miseries.
People who make us busy
with their target group strategy
are guilty of the crime
of preventing us from reaction.
They are guilty of decoying
while murders are committed
in the other room.
Showing spaces are precious.
Every millimeter count
In Emergency Room we have to give the space
to the one who really needs it.
Emergency Room tries to not be
filled up
by attention-stealers without contents.
Emergency Room only have space for important matter

SPECIALISED [fr. specialisé]

Emergency Room is not specialised in any topic.
But it will happen in the future.

For example one Emergency Room could be dedicated in climate topics.
Another in human rights.
Another in measuring the apathy.
But until now Emergency Room is not specialized.
Maybe in the future we will have an entire building
with classified emergencies.
One floor each.
With perhaps a reception downstairs
so when you arrive in the lobby of the building
(if the architecture is a building -we are working now on architectural thoughts)
you ask to see the Emergency Room about climate change
or to see the one about war in Middle East
or the one about immigration in Europe
or the one about genocide
the one about hidden genocides
the one about semi-declared genocide
the one about political doping
the one about demasking propaganda etc…
(we need a lot of specialized Emergency Rooms then - with daily updates
maybe 650 specialized Emergency Rooms
So the receptionist
will say first floor or 389th floor etc…

we will also need one (very very big) about miscellaneous emergencies.
New types of emergencies that could appear
maybe one about hypocrisy-constructions
or detection-of-apathy emergency
or any yet unimaginable emergency
but also all the forgotten and unclassifiable emergencies.

SPLATTER  [fr. éclaboussure]

If the Emergency Room artist
does not have the possibility of expression.
Now.
The Emergency Room artist is going to explode.
And if the Emergency Room artists explode
the fragments are going to be everywhere.
All over the place.
On your jacket.
Maybe.
In your hair-cut.
Maybe
on the white sofa you just bought.
All over the place.
All over your Feng-Shui atmosphere.
Sushi atmosphere
Maybe.
In the public space.
Maybe.
In your e-mail in-box.
Everywhere.
To avoid this carnage,
To avoid this artistic splatter,
It is better to gather Emergency Room artists in an Emergency Room.
It is cleaner to gather Emergency Room artists in an Emergency Room,
than to have a carnage of their art all over the place.
Than to have a splatter of art on the streets and carpets

SPONTANEITY [fr. spontanéité]

The quality of aesthetic of the exhibitions is not important here.
The importance lies in the possibility to show art immediately.
Spontaneity is the fast execution of a long period of trained awareness.
It is the hunter with his bow knowing time and place with precision
of split seconds and bulls-eye’s.


STATE OF EMERGENCY [fr. état d ’urgence]

Emergency Art is a necessary reaction upon the state of emergency today.
The artist-of-today do not produce art as a leisure
or as a form of basic research.
The artist-of-today produce art on basis of an emergency situation.
Hence they exhibit in an Emergency Room.
We are talking of a kind of blinking blue light art.
Emergency artists are thoroughly trained in solving emergency situations.
There is a permanent state of emergency.
The fire brigade is prepared for fire every time.
The emergency artist is the prepared artist
jumping day and night

STRATEGY [fr. stratégie]

Emergency Room is a strategy.
Emergency room has goals.
And methods to reach these goals.
Emergency Room is at war.
The goals are reached.
Step by step.
In a strategical order.
There is territory to conquer.
Or reclaim.
There are battles to win.
To succeed tactics must be applied.
Organisation.
Actions.
Torpedoing.
Complicity.
Sabotage.
Discipline.
Poetry.
Strategy is a form of contemplation.
Making a strategy is like looking at everything
From an elevated position.
Making a strategy is like looking at a landscape
From a central perspective.
Making a strategy is planning which road to take,
From a map.
There are multiple probable scenarios.
Right decisions have to be taken.
At the right moments.
Every possibility has to be seen at once,
as well as a knowledge of the most minute details.
The past has to be considered.
The future has to be projected.
To make a strategy is like to organise a vision.
Make the thinking tangible out of imagination and intuition.
To connect vision with action.
To make a strategy is to create the work.
The strategy of Emergency Room are made for 6 years.
Some parts of the strategy won’t change.
Some parts of the strategy adapts rapidly to the situation.
The daily progression of the Emergency Room’s strategy is:
Analysed.
Evaluated.
Adjusted.
Corrected.
There are strategies because there must be a victory at the end.
To conduct Emergency Room despite all the unknown parameters
Require great care.
There are strategies because there are many enemies.
It is a difficult war almost lost to be won.
And the road is full of ambushes.
 
SUCCESS [fr. succès]
 
Emergency Room is not successful.
Despite an appearance of success
It is a long way from a slight success.
Emergency Room still snors without any real impact.
Emergency Room is still just an educative platform
Than a real critical weapon causing serious impact.
Emergency Room is actually a total disaster.
A bad pretentious joke.
Look the situation outside
It get worse and worse.
More and more people are suffering
Because of us.

SWEAT [fr. transpiration]

The artist that have been pissed off
rushing at the Emergency Room
because he is burning to express about emergencies
is
running.
The artist sweats.
A mixtures of excitement
physical effort
sometimes fear
or panic.
Nervousness and perception of a world in emergency
make the artists
wet of sweat
and sometimes tears.
An Emergency is an Emergency
No time to loose
The burning artists want to express as fast as possible
to alert the rest of the community.
For us the sweat of artists is very rare
and very precious
When it is raining or even in small doses
we must collect it.
Artists’ sweat is as rare as artists’ opinion
or artist effort.
So for us:
Artists’ sweat is better than honey.
Artists’ sweat is a magic motivation substance.
Artists’ sweat is the concentrated juice of awareness.
Artists’ sweat is a concentration of expressed energy
love and outrage.

TAXI [fr. taxi]
 
Sometimes artists don’t come to expose their reflection about emergencies.
It seems that a certain difficulty to move is the problem.
It is not because artist don’t see any emergencies
But because they are lazy
or busy
or they need a special treatment
or they need to feel like a princess.
The solution
(we are looking here for solutions to increase the production of critics)
will be to collect the artists
and their pertinent art work
with a taxi.
Maybe even sending a limousine will help
(and yes
artist are like that in our days)
Maybe we should also have an ice cream machine in the limousine
(or maybe
yes let us give up
give them sponsor beers
to make sure they will come)
and also wifi access in the limo
(so that they can surf their facebook
profile).
Professional hostesses could pour a rain of compliments
over them
As well as massage girls
(or boys
on demand).
It should also be many journalists in the limousine
fighting to make interviews with them
(while the artist get massage).

Will this help to stimulate artist to care about others?
At least it will help to make them come
To move them out of their beds.
But in theory Emergency Room artists
don’t have the same motivations as MTV-stars
(we are truly hoping now).
Emergency Room artists are grown up persons
that truly care about the world
and bring their energy together.
Emergency Room artist are able to refuse another drink
to be able to look straightly at other peoples pain.
Emergency Room artists are pilots of their own life.
They don’t need pacotille stuff to have the feeling to exist.

Of course we want to help them to give birth to their art work
and be supporting in the logistic
(but only if the taxi method can save lives)
as we don’t have time or resources to entertain princesses going to disco.

THERMOMETER [fr. thermomètre]

The Emergency Artist measures the fever of society.
And make a diagnostics of coming diseases
The Emergency Artist observes inflammation in pictures
in sounds
in smells.
The Emergency Artist records influenza in the media,
in the streets.
The Emergency Artist is a thermometer.
Evasive and ultra fast as quicksilver.
Dangerous.
Poisonous.
As any messenger.
The Emergency Artist is a detector.
Lie detector.
(malaise detecteur)
Social tsunami detector.
Propaganda detector.
Fake peace detector.
A thermometer.
A barometer
which we need to keep an eye on
and connect to an alarm system
If we want to avoid any bad surprise

TIRED [fr. fatigué]

The state of being tired.
Despite having a nice bed.
No girlfriend.
No one really needing us.
To be tired can also be a second identity.
Not having the energy to debate anything.
To be exhausted
always.
probably
after
long evenings of networking
long evenings of scratching backs of vip’s
promoting accumulating potentiality
makes the artist tired.
Exhausted.
Exhausting to be living in a “no one needs me”-land.
Probably deeply painful.
The absence of a perceptible audience.
Absence of love (?).
The feeling not to accomplish anything else than gesticulations.
Les bras tombant.
Les bras ballant.
Allez si tu es fatigué vas te coucher.
Or maybe express your anger before you loose it.

TODAY [fr. aujourd’hui]

Today
before it is too late.
Aujourd’hui m’aime
The passion of living is connected with the energy of existing exactly
today.
Being connected with today
means being connected with everyone.
Today means passion.
Today.
To be lived fully necessitates a super action.
A super grab.
Today request super-vigilance if we want a chance to see tomorrow
if we want a chance to rember yesterday.
Today won’t be everyday.
One day it won’t be anymore today.
In an Emergency Room only works and pieces produced today are presented.
Exhibited today and viewed today.
The works and pieces are today’s works and pieces,
like a newspaper or broadcasted news presents today’s news
not yesterday’s.
If you are interested in yesterday’s news
you go to a library or an archive.
If you are interested in yesterday’s art
you go to a museum or a Delay Museum

TOO LATE [fr. trop tard]

Too Late is the result of a regretted “Rather Not”.
Too Late is not the result of any action
but of a regretted indifference
of a regretted “Rather Not”
which have turned into an “Ought to”.
The philosophical figure of the unregretted “Rather Not” is
Bartleby the Scrivener
he who could write but preferred rather not to.

TOWN [fr. ville]
 
Every town should have an Emergency Room.

TRAINING [fr. entraînement]

The Emergency Artist trains to become eye.
The Emergency Artist trains to become ear.
The Emergency Artist trains to become nose.
To become aware
For the Emergency Artist the muscle to be trained is the awareness muscle.
The awareness muscle is located somewhere between the guts and the mind
and the eye.
An artist should have a training program for that muscle.
 
TREACHERY [fr. trahison]

Artist that will use knowledges
and methods
learned
or experimented
or observed
in Emergency Room
to work with publicists
will be considered as traitors.

TURNS [fr. virages]

In order to be ready for the deadline of the passage
(meeting with the public
the medias
the colleagues
the bypassers)
The artist has to take a lot of fast decisions.
The process of creation is based on construction
But also in decisions.
Choices that can be like reflexes.
Taking some last seconds movements.
The artist becomes like a rally pilot
turning his wheel brutally from right to left
in the mountains of Corsica
making vital decisions
with professional intuition
and years of training.
If he
(the rally pilot)
take the wrong decision
He will die
End up down the hill in a burned smash car.
The deadline artist does not die
(yet)
if he takes the wrong decision.
But not pointing at emergencies fast could be dangerous
As tomorrow it is too late.

UNFINISHED [fr. inachevé]
 
An art work can never be finished.
Only external conditions can finish an art work.
The art work in itself beg for continuity.
L’oeuvre est faite d’oeuvrettes.
A work is a never ending sequence of pieces.

UNPREDICTABILITY [fr. imprévisibilité]

Unless any artist pre-meditate an Emergency Work
(strictly forbidden by the rules)
The exhibition is unpredictable.
We never know how many artist will show up.
Or what they will bring.
As much as we don’t know
What will be their source of inspiration.

If a top model dies on drugs.
If there is a natural catastrophe.
If Clinton abuse another man
(or woman).
We will expect many artists to express.

But if we have the habitual wars.
Habitual number of slave children factoring sport shoes.
Habitual number of prisoners getting tortured.
Increasing number of racist speeches.
We can expect no artist to express..
Sometimes in Emergency Room
we get empty rooms.
This is always a surprise.
A chock I would say.
But it has happened in Copenhagen.
It has happened in Paris.
And it has happened in Napoli.

It can also happen that the Emergency Room
Is filled up with non-emergencies
or with mini-retrospectives.
It can happen that every artist have the same emergency
the same day.
It can happen that an artist has been really sharp.
It can happen that a dysfunction pointed out in Emergency Room
becomes a public debate.
We can almost predict the impact of provocation art.
But we cannot predict the impact of Colombo art.

However
Our lives are unpredictable.
We cannot predict anything in Emergency Room either
(not even the collaborations)
Neither outside
(even if we pretend to be thermometers).
We can try to anticipate.
We can make scenarios.
Try Try Try
But often we are more barometers than thermometers.
 
The unpredictability of the Emergency Room
Is the fuck finger of the contemporary.
Being unpredictable is a handicap for success
As most
(nearly all)
institutions are not willing to show
Unpredictable art
wishing to keep control
wishing to order and direct artistic production.
URGENCY [fr. urgence]

Urgency is a state in which time is short.
To be in shortage of time means that one has to react fast or it will be
too late.
Too late is itself closely linked with urgency.
Too late is the necessary outcome of a negative reaction when faced with
an urgency situation.
If artists doesn’t react to urgency situations, it will soon become too
late
Art is usually too late.
Art as such might even be too late.
That is, art (as a concept) might be conceived as an activity already too late.
Corresponding to the concept of readymade
A readymade is too late
(it is already)
Tout-fait

UTOPIA [fr. utopie]

Depressing word!
Aggressive word!
Truncheon word!
Utopia is a word used by the manipulators,
to produce a signal of a hope,
which is nothing but repression of action.
Utopia is a word that has been used a million of times.
As title for group shows.
As titel for retrospectives.
As concept for biennials.
To exhibit utopia in the contemporary
is like to exhibit a dead deer’s trophy on the wall
in your summer house.
The word utopia carries with itself the notion of incapacity.
Of impotence.
It is the flag to line up the losers
before extermination.
It is to line up an ethnic (the artist)?
Make them dig their own grave,
and shoot them in the neck.
Utopia describes the voiceless sound of the suffering hope defeated.
Utopia laughs at the hopes of others.
Utopia makes the manipulators cheer.
In the Land of Cockaigne the visions of the artist are impossible to
realise.
Utopia is the ghost of Waterloo.
Utopia-shows are like arenas
where hoping slaves
are being eaten by hungry lions.
Over and over again.
It is impossible to escape this spectacle’s carnage.
Utopia in art is like
Arbeit macht Frei.
No one can be free in the art industry.
In Emergency Room we don’t get dazzled with utopias.
In Emergency Room we work with strategies.
There is no utopia.
There is plans.
There is methods.
Utopias can only exhibit the artists’ incapacity to change anything.
Emergency Room tries to develop plans & methods
to make artists able change anything.
 
VISION [fr. vision]

The Emergency Room welcome visual artists with burning visions
about the world of today.
Vision is not observation.
A vision is a projective image not yet represented.
An observation is a reflective representation.
A vision thus doesn’t yet have any support or medium
through which it could be represented.
A vision is a potential image.
With visions we have the ability to see the still unseen.
The artist-with-vision is a function of social and political guidance.
The artist-with-vision is the infra-red image of society.

The artist should not be producing objects.
The artist should be producing visions.

VOX POP [fr. micro trottoir]

Vox pop is an external consultation.
There are two kind of vox pop.
The first is a vox pop of the artist.
The second is the artist searching for the vox pop.
Emergency Room could be considered as a vox pop of the artist.
Artist gives their opinions on a special platform,
where Emergency Room is the microphone, the instrument
which is hold to them to collect their opinions about today.
Normally the microphone is given to fashion models, porn stars,
football players
and other celebrities.
Rarely are the opinions of the artist requested.
Apart from this, the aesthetic of emergency have shown that some artist
themselves prefer to ask for opinions,
asking pedestrians or visitors of the institution.
Those artist don’t give their opinion,
but ask somebody else for an opinion.
The question goes from hand to hand, like a rugby ball.
This is the ballet of the asking for an opinion.
Vox pop is a kind of relay.
The microphone passes from hand to hand,
from question to question,
from opinion to opinion.
The object of vox pop is still the digging for content.
But for somebody, this very movement of forms gets so fascinating,
that they rather pass the microphone
just to get rid of it.
This is no good relay.
This is abstraction

WAITER [fr. garçon]

The artist serve us.
And we serve the artist.
We are serving each other.

WARM UP [fr. chauffer]

The artist needs to warm up.
If, for instance, the artist needs to follow a political issue,
he needs a little bit of background knowledge.
The artist needs to have a disposition to make a work fast.
And the will to work with speed.
The tools of the artist’s should be in proximity.
If the artist have to use a fax,
he should know where to get one.
If the artist have to use a bulldozer,
he should know where to get one.
The artist have to prepare for fast action.
But not only materially.
The awareness muscle of the artist should also be tense
and well-trained.
This is the mental warm up.
The concept of Emergency Room is still warming up.
The format of Emergency Room itself is in a warm up process.
It takes time before the pool of artist involved in Emergency Room
are ready to become precise dysfunction spotters.
The Emergency Room format is still accelerating.
It does not yet have the full speed or full maturity.
The emergency room is not yet ready.
It’s discourse is not pertinent enough yet.
The art works are still too abstract, the comments yet not challenging enough.
A mutation has to be done.
But to sharpen artists and change the artistic attitude will take years.
We are still warming up.

WASTE [fr. gaspillage]

All this energy used for nothing
All this time
This consuming of products
All this photo paper
This acrylic
This hard disc
This attention
These emotions
For nothing.
We want impact.

WEATHER REPORT [fr. bulletin météorologique]
 
The weather report is the only critical zone in the news industry
The only moment when the viewers are in doubt.
This is a parody
The weather report is the model for the critical artist to get inspired
Which is sad.

Daily the news on television
should include one minute prime time from the Emergency Room
where artists are given time to express their visions.
This should be broadcasted just before the weather report.

WEB CAM [fr. webcam]

Web cams can be used in Emergency Room.
To film the traffic
They give an illusion of action from a distance.
Web cam rendez-vous can be organized.
But web cams are in fact not totally welcomed in Emergency Room.
The witnesses should experiment with the space in real-time.
The public should appear in person to see the Emergency Room;
to watch, smell, and fully perceive the actions and the settings.
The action through a web cam should in any case
give the feeling of having experienced the room,
but the artists Frank Franzen and Peter Lind have insisted to have them around.
Thus web cams can be used in Emergency Room.
 
WET DREAM [fr. pollution nocturne]

The artist accumulate in his glands
a certain quantity of unexpressed reactions.
Wet dreams are made of this.
It can happen that the artist sometimes has to release them,
without a proper recipient,
without having been invited to an exhibition,
Such artists can come to the Emergency Room.
Immediately.
Before he gets sick.
In Emergency Room we not only collect artists’ sweat,
but also artists’ dreams and thoughts.
Evacuation of art works,
in spontaneous and uncontrolled ways,
are just natural here

WHITE CUBE [fr. cube blanc]

The Emergency Room has until now taken shape as a round white cube.
The Emergency Room could have another shape as well
But after collaboration with the room designer Jean de Piepape
Emergency Room has decided to keep it round.
The light is very strong (like at an operation table).
The walls have to be very white
and very clean
and painted with perfection.
If there is a hole in the wall
the room has to be painted again.
The Emergency Room makes great effort
to show art in the best possible way.
The Emergency Room pays attention and care
to the scenographic presentation of the works
exposing the art work as good as possible.
The white round cube in Emergency Room fulfills a debate-function as well
The art works have to be shown like if they were
Mona Lisas.
For the Emergency Room they are Mona Lisas
Every one of them
Because They Are
Now.
Every art work entering Emergency Room is considered with great respect
and considered like finished art works
(even if produced with speed)
Because they are produced with speed
Because they are
now

WITNESS [fr. témoin]

Witness is anyone passing,
seeing something happening in the Emergency Room,
which could be reported or written down.
The artist is a witness.
Everyone is existing through someone’s eyes.
Everyone is taking notice of the existence of each other.
Everyone is looking at each other.
This looking is not always as surveillance, but sometimes it is.
Sometimes as a view.
Sometimes as reflection.
Sometimes as speculation.
The witness can of course be touched by what he witnesses.
In Emergency Room some witnesses are witnesses by accident;
others are requested to be witnesses.
The writer and the art historian for instance.
Art historians are invited to witness the aesthetic of emergency,
to catch and possibly measure any change.
Viewers could be passing the institution, for instance,
and come across the Emergency Room by mistake.
Or by chance: temoin malgrès eux.
Emergency art should be watched like an ornithologist – continuously and
with binoculars.
Emergency Room obsessively researches witnesses
to make them witnesses
and even harass them until they speak
to collect
what they saw.

WORK [fr. travail]
 
As a word
Why do some artists call what they do
”work”
When it is pure laziness
or attitude
or posture.
The word work is a dangerous lie
A diversion again!
Like the word contemporary
or activist.
Artist should not work
Anyway.
They should not be bounded.
They should not be busy.
Everybody knows that they should be hyper-concerned
and express about that
and always at disposition for the unexpected.

But as a verb work
- working.
It is opposite.
Many artists don’t work enough.
They don’t do enough research.
Not enough thinking.
Not enough work
Peut mieux faire.

WRITER [fr. écrivain]

The writer is an active witness
giving another dimension to the project.
The writer is someone that can
challenge the artists by observing and describing them
their methods,
their qualities
as well as their defects.
The writer is someone that can
take the artist back to a human level
someone that can de-sacralize the status of the artist.
The writer is another jammer
criticizing
therefore stimulating.

By experience, we notice that the writer is not always welcome
among pre-emergency artists.
For example
Once the writer Morten Friis was describing artists way of being
Doing a description à la Zola
That pissed most of the pre-emergency artists off.
They didn’t like that somebody was watching them
watching at dysfunctions.
Therefor writers are important to have around us.
A psychotherapist needs to be analysed
by another psychotherapist
before becoming a psychotherapist.
It is the same with critical artists.


   DICTIONARY   by Thierry Geoffroy / Colonel    ( link to portail )