Why do sportsmen and women (fighting for the leadership is unisex) have to take drugs ?
Why are the golden boys so fascinating (or at least used to be until a near past) ?
Why do the daily-used objects have to be always newer, smarter, brighter ?
Why does the official art aknowledged by institutions have to be always more amazing and overwhelming (Jeff Koons in Versailles castel, For the Love of God by Damien Hirst...) ?
Mechanics and the culture of the champion.
"they imposed it upon us
a constant competition
more more again and always more
faster faster and even faster
always faster" (Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, artist)
Speed, mechanical reproduction of the motion and not thinking. Running as the paradigm of the contemporary market economy, aiming at being the best. The body used as a pure mechanical force involved in the mass production and trained to even overpass this mass : running for the hypermass.
If the Emergency Room artists often run, they ideologically do it backwards. This run is an other type of run. It is not a race, against time, against others, against our own unaccomplishment. It is a social gathering, taking the opportunity of talking about various subjects, and incidentally catching the attention of passers-by, tourists, workers, consumers, providential after-fame and hyperproductive runners...
They countercurrent run, rather slowly, in the middle of the city, preferably from a symbolical place to an other one. These places are usually used as symbols for the other type of run, the one which goes onwards (but without knowing where, just on). London, subject of the talk : "What is the role of the artist ?", from London stockexchange to Deutsch Bank, sponsor of the Frieze Art Fair. Copenhagen, talk : "Why is critic missing ?", from the King's new place (Kongens Nytorv) to the Parliament.
This run is a counter-apathy run. Checking we are still alive, in our limbs and in our minds.
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