librarypunk - 036 - HUMAN TRASH DUMP

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome, you artists and performers, trying to find your way through the sands of time to bring your performance art to us. It's library punk. I'm Justin. I'm a scholarly communications library, and my pronouns are he and him. I'm Jay. I'm an academic metadata librarian, and my pronouns are he, him. I'm Carrie. I'm a health sciences librarian, and my pronouns are she her. And we have a guest. Would you like to entertain? introduce yourself. Hi, I'm April, and I'm an artist and archivist, recently graduated from an MA program. And yeah, what's up? Oh, pronouns are they, them. Yeah, that's it. Awesome. Yeah, so April,

Starting point is 00:01:44 you reached out to us about talking about some of your projects that are related to performance art and preserving memory. And so we're just going to jump right into that because I think it's really impressive and there's a lot of things that I think our listeners are going to find interesting. There's going to be a ton of links in the show notes this week, so please feel free to look around and find things you're interested in and hopefully we'll find some ways for anyone out there who wants to participate in some of these projects can also get involved. So April, I just wanted to start. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to these projects?

Starting point is 00:02:20 Yeah, so like I said in the intro, I'm an artist, performance artist primarily, but that sort of encompasses a lot of different aspects of like different media crosses different mediums and different kind of things that I'm doing. And so yeah, so I kind of started out, like I said, in the Midwest in Nebraska. I feel like my space was very prevalent and Facebook was just getting started. Those are things that I was like around at the time. And so, like, listening to music on MySpace accounts. I was in a performance art group in college.

Starting point is 00:02:56 And in, like, 2007, we started in 2007 called Future Death Tool. And we would, like, book shows off of MySpace. Did you ever do any shows in Casey? We tried to do a show at KCI once. Okay. Then they, like, rejected our proposal. They accepted the proposal and then rejected the last minute. But we did do something at Laschina.

Starting point is 00:03:23 Yeah, I know where that is. Yep, I was pretty involved. I wasn't super involved, but I kind of hung around a lot of the performance art. And, well, I was part of the DIY noise scene down there from about like 2010, 2011 through 2014, I guess. And a little bit in 2009, I guess was probably when I started hanging out with the noisers down there. So, yeah, we probably crossed paths with some of the same people. Did you see us play in 2014? Oh, probably.

Starting point is 00:03:52 Yeah. I'm trying to think of the band that was, or the group that was playing with us. Yeah. It was for a tour where we were touring from Brooklyn, New York, and we went down, like, south to Kentucky, and then went to the Midwest and, like, back around. And it was, like, in the middle of winter. So it was really shitty to, like, drive. If you played at a warehouse or something, I was probably there.

Starting point is 00:04:15 if you played at like vacant farm or um minotaur or um whatever vacant farm became at some point it became a bunch of things anyway uh we probably played in a lot of the same spaces if you played at kansas city at any point during that time period uh we probably had some overlap so yeah i was curious i was like yeah if you had like any connections i was like i bet we had some overlap. So yeah, that's really cool. Are you, and is one of you in like Milwaukee right now? That's me. Yeah. We also played at the center street free space. Yeah, that is no longer there, but that's right by where I live.

Starting point is 00:04:57 Cool, yeah. Yeah, rip that space. There's a lot of rips. Yeah, we slept on the floor there. This is pretty fun. I bet you probably met some of my friends who are, yeah, in the performance art, world here. Yeah, so that gives like a pretty good like that. So that's like kind of the vibes, the art vibes, noise scene, like the noise scene that's getting pretty like, yeah, happening around that time.

Starting point is 00:05:26 And so a lot of like also a lot of collectives were happening. So a lot of people were holding collective like venue spaces, house shows, where house shows shows. We're all pretty prevalent. And yeah, so with a lot of this is pretty ghost ship. too and that was like a big marker for like collective activity like pre and post uh ghost ship yeah unfortunately that becomes like a very like distinct marker for a lot of different things but it's yeah should we provide an explanatory comma on go ship uh yeah go for it you want to do it yeah i'll do

Starting point is 00:06:02 it uh so go ship was um basically a communal warehouse illegal living situation i guess is that squat with like and there was a massive fire there that killed a bunch of people and it was kind of a big wake up call to DIY space culture that was like hey um maybe this sort of thing isn't like safe and I think that kind of like put the cabosh on a lot of the really great actually collective communal energy and experimental projects that people were doing and somewhat I'm not a person who's super into communal living, but I really appreciated a lot of the energy that went into that sort of stuff. And that was like something that hit really close to home for me because that's a lot of the stuff that I was kind of involved in. And so when something like that happens, it, it shakes you

Starting point is 00:06:52 in a way. Like, you know. Well, it had like an immediate effect here in New York. The fire department went to every single DIY space and just walked through every space and wrote enough tickets to shut them down. And so, like, we lost, like, a ton of venues to that. Yeah. After it. We didn't have as much effect in, like, the smaller Midwestern cities because a lot of that stuff was fairly underground enough. And there wasn't a lot of people, like, living places as far as I knew. But, like, there was enough kind of crackdown. And I think capitalism did enough of that to at least our smaller Midwestern scenes that, like, capitalism did a lot of that for us. Yeah. I think a lot of reasons why people were living in those situations.

Starting point is 00:07:36 too is because of capitalism, right? Like, there was a reason. I mean, in Oakland specifically, there was a housing shortage. So that also compounded the fact that people were like needing a place to live that had, you know, a semi-reasonable rent. Yeah, and a smaller Midwestern city, you don't have those problems as severely because there's not that push in the same way. But yeah, I think kind of going back to what you're saying, like, thinking about collective, thinking about collaboration. That's like, so that's sort of what I grew up around or in in terms of like my early art making days. And that sort of was informed me throughout sort of like this DIY ethos.

Starting point is 00:08:15 And DIY has now had like an upgrade to like DIT, like do it together as well. So it's kind of funny. But which DIY doesn't necessarily mean do it by yourself. But it's like the idea is like you're doing it. You're doing the thing because like no one else is going to like help you. or if you don't do it, it won't happen kind of thing. But yeah, I don't know how far we need to go into all that. I think that's a good base to really explain sort of like the impetus behind a lot of like the work I do and still continue to do.

Starting point is 00:08:47 Yeah. I mean, did you want to cover your education briefly? Because that feeds into some of your performance art. Yeah, so I got a BFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln State School. our art building was right across the street from the Cornhusker Stadium. So every Saturday they would lock it so the football fans wouldn't come into our building and destroy it and like peel over the floor and like mess up everything in there. So on Saturdays when I needed to go in there, I would scale a fence back on the kiln pad

Starting point is 00:09:24 in order to like get into my facilities. But then so yeah, so I did like the art stuff for like a lot. long time after that and then finally went back to school in fall of 2019 to get the MA degree in moving image archiving and preservation. It's a really special title from NYU. And that was sort of because I had been doing so much video to document performance and I'd been working a lot with communities in New York and specifically in Brooklyn around performance art, I had just like hard drives and all these digital files and a video. videos and stuff and documentation.

Starting point is 00:10:02 I was like, I think I need to understand how to like preserve this better, how to like deal with this because it's like sort of becoming unwielding. And that's sort of what led me into that degree program. It sounds like it lined up really well with what you're doing. So I guess we can jump into human trash dump. What is it? So yeah. So human trash dump sort of started out of.

Starting point is 00:10:23 So there's another, it's like kind of like project to project to project. Like future death toll is one project. that was kind of more performance and noise. And then when I moved to New York in fall of 2012, right after Sandy, I started in our apartment. I have an apartment with my now spouse. But we started up like a program called Single Channel. And that was basically like a video screen on our wall that we then had like open call for on the internet,

Starting point is 00:10:54 like on Rhizome, if you remember Rizom when it was popular. and we would ask people to submit video and we would show one video for like the month. And so that's sort of where it's sort of like the seed of human trash dump sort of started. And I had recently also like learned of Aaron Schwartz and unfortunately learned about Aaron Schwartz like after he died and after his court case. But this idea of like open access, the guerrilla open access manifesto is linked on one of the links on all the resources and sort of was trying to think of like a big. project that could be, again, collaborative and sort of be more immediate than sort of people.

Starting point is 00:11:32 Like, I kind of, as an artist, I like, I hate, I kind of hate open calls and I kind of hate a lot of the open calls that require you to like pay money because it's already like this other aspect is like, it's like, how can we create more barriers for artists that are already like, you know, not really like making work that's like sellable. Like my work isn't, I wouldn't consider the work that I make necessarily sellable. that's not the intention of the work. So Human Trashon was a way to sort of realize performance art projects and then specifically video-based performance art projects.

Starting point is 00:12:07 So like I said, I'd already been a part of like there was a particular scene I was a part of from like 2012 to 2018 that was like on 104 Messeral Street here. And it was like a two-car garage that had been converted into a performance art venue. people also lived there. But it had been a space since like the, like the, like even like I think even the 90s, like in the 90s, like in the 90s, they've been like grandfathered the people. Like people like would take it over and call a different name and then, you know, do their thing there.

Starting point is 00:12:37 So that's where I started to meet people that I was like, oh, maybe these people would want to do because everyone was doing performance art and then like you would do the performance art thing you did and then it would be gone and like you would never see it again. And or you'd maybe see some photos on Facebook because that was like what you or on social media, right? Or maybe someone wrote like a small piece about what they did or something like that. So that was kind of the only documentation sometimes. People, you know, there are other people that did video stuff at the time.

Starting point is 00:13:07 A lot of like the applications to get grant funding also required you to shoot video if you're doing performance art. So it's kind of as funny like what's the purpose of the video? Like what's the intent of the video? There's also a lot of pushback from people initially like saying, you know, like video is not performance art because it's like the idea is that it's ephemeral, the idea is that it exists for a time and like you have to like kind of witness it and participate in the same space as like the performer or performers to sort of really like kind of get that

Starting point is 00:13:40 energy or something. Yeah. So this is during the 2012 to 2018 period where you're in the garage, right? And so you're you're asking people if they want to preserve what they're doing. But this before you've done your master's in preservation. So what got you wanting to preserve things? Was it because you just wanted to preserve the thing? Or was it to preserve a scene? Was it to make almost like a documentary of, remember us, we were doing this here? Because I think the impulse you probably felt is, if we don't record this, no one will ever. And so you've got artistic things on one hand, which is this isn't supposed to be recorded, but also people need to remember what we're doing because it's cool. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think that there's kind of a couple things that I was thinking about

Starting point is 00:14:33 with that. So there's also a lot of like video art. There's like, I'm going to blank on both the names. EIA experiment, whatever EIA stands where there's so many acronyms and all this, like even in archiving, electronic arts intermix. And then there's also the video data bank. in Chicago. And so those are the two major players, if you want to call them that, who like house and preserve, like video art, like the history of video art. Like they, like artists will give them their videos.

Starting point is 00:15:07 And so like I was unsatisfied as someone. No, I was just raising my hand for when you're done. That's what we do. Okay, sorry. So please keep talking. That was just me going, I have a thought and I'll get to, you know. Yeah, well, I want to hear that thought. But like I was saying, like dissatisfied with the fact that like all of this history was inaccessible.

Starting point is 00:15:28 Like there is this like element within preservation where it's like that it makes it difficult for someone like a person just who wants who's curious about the history of something to be able to then see it. So what I'm saying is like both of those they have like a viewing room. Like I think EA has a viewing room where you can like sign up for an hour slot to like look at videos. but that's like they're not accessible online. Obviously there's people that pirated a lot of this stuff. You can find a lot of stuff online. But like I was sort of unsatisfied with the history of performance art that I was able to see. I was able to read about it in books.

Starting point is 00:16:04 I was able to see like black and white photos of it. I was able to like that's why I moved to New York. I was able to go see it. Like that was the point. But I wasn't able to like really be able to sort of experience sort of some of those other elements that I want to experience or be able to experience. And that's not to say that video doesn't exist of performances, you know, from like the 70s or 80s or something like that. It just felt like there was a gap, a pretty big gap. And so I sort of decided and took it upon myself to say like there doesn't have to be this big of a gap.

Starting point is 00:16:37 And people can, I want people to be able to access this stuff and actually be able to treat this material like sort of as the performance as well. So being able to like, that sort of gets me into why I'm using Archive.org, people can download all the files in the bundle and like they can then be like in, like in, not in control, but, you know, can have this material on their end. And that also kind of creates a link, uh, to preservation, you know, the idea that like you have to have like three copies in like three like geographically different locations or whatever, you know, but like maybe there's more than three because everyone's, you know, being able to have their own or whatever. There was also, back to Justin, what you were talking about with the broken link of BitTorrent Now link, I actually found I had saved three of the bundles dot torrent files, and I was able to then retrieve them. Like, I just was able to pull them because someone else was seating them. So I was able to just pull down three of these bundles. And I really wish I would have just saved all of the dot torrent files and been able to see if I was able to pull all six, of those that I was trying to find

Starting point is 00:17:47 without having to then rip those CDs. But yeah, it's sort of interesting. Jay, do you want to go first or do you want to go? Which one do you want to go first? Sure. So one, I just, that's one thing I appreciate about, like, torrenting as a concept is the sort of like, you take some, but then you also offer, like, you allow other people.

Starting point is 00:18:06 Like, I'm really into, like, hypertext and, like, connection on the internet right now. I'm like, yeah. But one thing you said especially about, like, you know, there was no like formal preservation or documentation, but like people might post like a photo or a small video on Facebook or I was watching the presentation you have on archive.org where to show your own Tumblr, you had to use like the wayback machine to show it. And like because of sort of like the ephemorality of performance and how that could be a crucial part of it, it made me think about how the social media aspect of how people. engage with that is also a part of that. And so I wonder if, I was curious if you wanted to talk about like not just preserving the performance and the art itself, but also the way that people interact with it, if you thought about that at all, or if that's one of the reasons why you're interested in

Starting point is 00:19:05 like the internet archive or anything. Yeah, I'm super interested in like dissemination of information. And so, like, I always think about, think about that. I think about, like, we used to do, like, these, because we were talking about physical media, too. I was talking about that with Justin over the DMs. And sort of this idea of, like, creating, like, these limited additions to, like, beyond, like, this archive.org thing, I have, like, boxes in my closet of, like, VHS tapes. I bought VHS, blank VHS tapes off of eBay, like, 50 at a time. time or something like that and we'd dub like a bundle like they would find on like torrent like on the torrent site or on archive.org and just make like 25 of them and then hand them out kind of like

Starting point is 00:19:54 mixed tapes or like whatever like this kind of idea like because we don't really like I don't know we don't we sort of like we don't do that anymore like I mean like making a mixtape for or a mix CD for a friend mixed tapes weren't what I was doing CDs as a kid my dad was making mixed tapes but so yeah so this like kind of like the physicalness of something or physicality of like a digital files too like throwing like some digital files on like a thumb drive and then handing that thumb drive to someone or something like that and then like also I mean there is like I mean within the noise scene too there was I think a lot of people who were interested in like video work especially when I was living in Portland for a few years before I moved to New York it's sort of like this idea like remix culture

Starting point is 00:20:36 which I think we don't see as much of of now um I I think there is still, I'm sure there is still some, but in terms of just like the, in a DIY, like, space. So this idea that you could, like, kind of take these things and have them and be able to throw them into your video editor and maybe, like, cut your own, like, version of something or cut in, like, new information into whatever thing you're doing. Because, like, when we were doing, you know, like, future dental stuff is, like, you know, there'd be samples.

Starting point is 00:21:06 And, like, we were, like, kind of informed by, like, the wax tracks era of, of, Chicago, like noise and industrial. If you haven't seen like an industrial accident, it's like a very good documentary about Wax Track tracks records. But yeah, sort of like this like heavy sample, like sampling and stuff like that off of like, you know, like Apocalypse Now, ministry taking like an apocalypse now like snippet

Starting point is 00:21:29 and like throwing it into like into NWO or something like that. Yeah, I wanted to ask about community control because obviously when you're doing VHS and DVDs and CDs and burn tapes and all these multiple modes of preservation, which are actually really good for keeping things around a long time. It's unorganized, but it's good. But it's completely antithetical to the way that library and institutions think about preservation, which is it goes here, it gets duplicated, it goes a few other places. But the thing that really struck me about what you were talking about much earlier was just the aspect of community

Starting point is 00:22:10 control over these projects. And do you want to talk about why that community control is important, given the people involved, the subject matter? Yeah, like you're talking about like community-based archiving and stuff like that as well in that kind of vein. It doesn't have to be like a community organization even. It's just more even as just a subculture, which is the way I'm contextualizing what you're describing is, you know, we're giving these out.

Starting point is 00:22:38 We're remixing things. We're reusing things. but you're creating copies and they exist within the community. And then that can become, as we've seen in like with the leather archives, maybe someday all of that will just get put into one place and then be independent from an institution, but it will do the stuff that needs to do the long-term preservation for you. But right now, it's important to keep people safe, to keep their creative control. So I just wanted to know if you could talk a little more about the community part,

Starting point is 00:23:10 of community archiving. Yeah, okay, I see what you're saying. So, yeah, I think, like, even within, like, the Washington Square video, like, so there is, like, this element that, like, we didn't really debrief before, like, me and my camera operator. Like, we didn't really, like, say, if someone comes up to you, approaches you, don't speak to them. Because that is actually, like, a rule, a pretty hard rule that I follow when doing public action because of, like, previous interactions or ones that I've seen other people be involved.

Starting point is 00:23:40 in because even within a community there would be times where like I'll see like if I would have seen there the wildest one was I was doing a house show in Brooklyn and this sort of like goes against like that kind of like trust in a way because like I was doing this like really random house show in Brooklyn in the basement and then like in the winter or something like that and then like a month or two or three months go by and someone like sends me a social media post and it's a photo that someone had taken of me in the basement I don't know when it happened because I don't remember, but it's in like in this Miami art basil like there. And like it's like super like kind of weird and like fucked up and like non-consensual.

Starting point is 00:24:21 And like in the same way that like that Washington Square action is where the camera person like just assumes that I'm like a man in like a skeleton outfit or a skeleton. Like you can't see any of my features but somehow like they register that that way. Yeah. can you just tell the whole Washington Square Park story from the beginning, like what the action was, what happened, for people who haven't seen it? And then, of course, the video will be in the link. Yeah, so like prior to that, so I was still in school at the time, just finishing up. And prior to that, so everyone who does a work study at NYU is automatically in the grad student workers union. So my finals week of being at NYU, I was actually on a picket line for contract negotiations for the grad students.

Starting point is 00:25:16 And so I'd already been out with like signs, like signs like debt-free death that's behind me and stuff like that. I canceled student debt. So I'd already use that cancel student debt signage like a couple weeks previous in this union strike. And then, so I then I took it and kind of walked around the outside of my building on campus and then sort of made my way to Washington Square Park. In the video, I'm wearing like a suit with like a skull like Halloween mask. And then I'm wearing like my graduation cap and I'm holding that sign that says cancel student debt. And I think on the backside, it said something like living wages now or something like that to that effect. And then so I was walking through.

Starting point is 00:26:03 basically walking past like the library walking into Washington Square which isn't very far from my building, the Tish building. And one of the other things that was funny, I don't know if you watched the whole video but there's a part where I walk by a bunch of construction workers.

Starting point is 00:26:20 They're sitting on the park bench like eating lunch and one of them just yells at me, you should have gone to trade school while I'm walking past them which is just kind of like a ridiculous thing to yell but it happens in public art stuff, public action stuff. And so I'm wandering around kind of like the big fountain there.

Starting point is 00:26:38 It's pretty iconic like location. Like it's like internationally known area. And so, and that's part of why I went there, you know, because I understood that there would be, potentially be like people with cameras or something like that. So I wasn't like completely unaware of that. And I was hoping that that would actually be the case. But I'm sort of sitting in front of the fountain, I think.

Starting point is 00:26:58 My hat flies off. And then I put it back on. I go grab it. I think my sign flies in the air. But there's also someone else taking photos while the person who I'm with who's videoing me is videotaping me. And then they sort of, I guess they walked up kind of next to them while they were filming.

Starting point is 00:27:17 And then they sort of were trying to get basically you have to have like whatever like a subtitle or buyline. You have to have credits in order to be able to like sell your photos. So he was getting that like base information in order to be able to market his photos. And so yeah, so during that interaction, he's like asking questions, sort of interrupting my friend as well in a weird way while he's like actively filming me. And so yeah, and then that I like later on that photo and several other photos of that day like ended up on like Getty images for like ranging from like $400 to like $700 like licensing fee. And I saw it in like several articles like online too. So, like, if you search it, like, it's in, like, a Forbes article.

Starting point is 00:28:03 It's in, like, a Yahoo article. It's in, like, some other, some other shit. But, yeah, there is also the thing, the incident of him, like, sort of just assuming my gender and assuming, like, sort of just, like, really being very pushy also. So, like, we got the whole interaction on tape, being very pushy about, like, getting the answers very quickly so you can, you know, move on to the next thing. Yeah, what that reminded me of was his whole cadence and, like, attitude, just reminded me of, because he comes up and he says, what's this? And your cameraman says,

Starting point is 00:28:36 this is a protest against student debt. And student debt, okay, what, who's the artist? And they say April, sorry, April. Vendetta. April Vendetta. And they say, oh, great. And they say, his name is April Vendetta. And the person goes, yes, the artist is April Vendetta.

Starting point is 00:28:55 And then the caption that came with the video said, student who goes by the name, in quotation marks April Vendetta, and that was the one that got sold. And it just reminded me of that famous clip of Malcolm X when the guy is like, but what's your real last name? It just, because he didn't do that to you. He didn't go, okay, but what's his name? He didn't do that to you. But the tone and the pacing of it, that's where the pushiness felt, it felt very much like that, that situation.

Starting point is 00:29:25 So I thought that was obviously extremely rude. and then he made money off of your demonstration. Yeah, and it was like money off of like a performance to try and cancel the student debt that I had. Like it's like, so that's like super funny. Like also super ironic or something like that. Maybe and then like, but also at the very beginning, yeah, like you're saying he's like, what's this about?

Starting point is 00:29:47 Like he just like is literally like, what's this about? And my camera person just like canceling student debt like the sign says. Like it is like very funny. It's a very funny thing. See, I read that whole situation as, that person was just like a greedy capitalist photojournalist trying to make a buck and like not actually caring. So I didn't read too much into that situation other than that person's just like a fucking

Starting point is 00:30:13 white ass dude being a fucking white ass dude. I didn't think there was too much to read into that situation. No, it's super transparent. He was pretty transparent. Exactly. Like that dude just wanted to make some fucking money and you were his mark. apparently like and I find that a little like I don't want to say it's ironic or carry I mine has been cutting out so I wasn't sure also like by taking a photo of you and then having it

Starting point is 00:30:42 and Getty and something that's a form of preservation of the art you were doing and so I find that kind of like here's like the capitalist way of doing this and having people make money off your image when you had like no say in that and then put that in contrast like what you're doing and like the ethics behind it where there's kind of a similar through line of like we are preserving this sort of moment in static time giving people context allowing people to view it after and then just the like but also the purpose and the outcome of it and like the ethos behind is so wildly in contrast with each other yeah I think what you end up having is like these it's multiply preserved essentially, but it's, you also have multiple metadatas, right? So you have

Starting point is 00:31:28 multiple forms of preservation with multiple creators with multiple outputs is what you have. So you have this, you have these like what, and this, and this transitions into the fragmented archive. We're so good at Segways. Oh my God, Segway. Don't be the guy that invented Segway though and drive your Segway off a cliff. He's from New Hampshire, apparently. So fucking good. Of course he is. Live free and die.

Starting point is 00:31:58 Live free and die, baby. Yeah. And I think, like, also, if there's any listeners out there in listening land when this podcast gets, like, published, that knows how to fucking get a hold of, like, Getty images. We actually might have, actually, we might have some listeners who have previously or currently work at Getty as archivist. If you work there, give me a call because I tried calling. I left like, I think I left like a voicemail. I did like an email. I like tried to contact the dude on Twitter who took the photo and like he never responded.

Starting point is 00:32:33 It's like it's, it's yeah. So here we have an assignment for you library punks out there. If you can help us take down a photo from Getty. Let's see what we can do, punks. Or at least like adjust the caption. Like that's the name. Yeah. Let's get a caption change.

Starting point is 00:32:52 There's the quotation marks that do it for me. That is one of the funnier aspects. There's a lot of grotesquery around this caption. We just want to change a fucking caption, okay? It's not like a library of Congress subject heading. But yeah, so community-wise, like, yeah, I think just sort of there is, like, and performance art is, like, pretty public. Like, you are putting yourself out there in a different way than maybe putting a painting

Starting point is 00:33:16 on a wall in a gallery or something like that. It's kind of got this different element to it. So it's not like, I'm not like, sitting here trying to bitch about all this stuff, but it is like this interesting sort of like situation where sort of there is kind of like a cross of like intentionality as well too, like with the people in the room, with like how that thing lives on too. Like you'll see it in like the institutions too. Like there is an institution we worked for. I worked for with a group and they canceled our like thing at the last minute because they didn't have like the right codes for

Starting point is 00:33:52 the building or something like that. The building wasn't up to code. So they canceled it right at last minute. But they still kept like us and like our project up on their website because like it makes them look good. And also like I don't know about everywhere else, but I'm assuming everywhere else like nonprofits, like you have to like report numbers. Like you have to report how many people you like served. And so that's in quotation marks. Can't see me on the podcast to like to then like prove your worth or prove your value to let and like make more you know to be receive more money or more grant funding or something like that so like and we can talk about grant funding and gig economy of like archiving and preservation later if you want but like and that's also a whole other fucked up

Starting point is 00:34:35 situation but yeah it's sort of like also why I'm not an archivist I actually have an archives degree I'm a health sciences librarian and also if anyone's looking to hiring uh out of the podcast hiring cave abilities. I am available for work and in a lot of student debt. Let's fire up the pipeline. Yeah, absolutely. I'll share whatever you want me to. If you want me to tweet your CV, I'll do it. So I kind of want to move on to the fragmented

Starting point is 00:35:03 body a little bit. So can you tell me a little bit about that project? Because we've already talked about your back and your movement through different social media and like realizing things aren't going to preserve things. So you started the fragmented body. in Tumblr, right?

Starting point is 00:35:21 Yeah, so the concept of Tumblr's fragmented body was sort of like I mean, Tumblr is very visual in the same way that like Instagram is visual but like Tumblr had this amazing way of like sort of allowing you to cascade images and video and like photo and like more of collage based it not like shitty Pinterest but like

Starting point is 00:35:39 an more interesting like interactive way. And so what was cool about that is you could like you could read like you know you could add other people's like content other users content to your page. And so you could like draw connections to to people and different imagery and other like, you know, digital media. And so fragmented body was sort of this idea that I was starting to have.

Starting point is 00:36:07 And I think it played a large role and like sort of also I was probably one of those people and I know there's a lot of people out there. I'm sure there's a lot of think pieces out there about like Tumblr being like this like place for people to like start to. explore different, like, aspects of, like, who they are. Like, there was a lot of, like, I feel like there was a lot of, like, I'm sure you could talk to a lot of trans people probably and, like, have them, like, tell you their, like, Tumblr, like, influences or something like that.

Starting point is 00:36:32 Or just, like, just the idea that, like, it felt very open and, like, very, like, a cool space to, like, be able to, like, share different images and different ideas. And so that's sort of where it started and where it kind of, where that particular aspect of it sort ended once Yahoo purchased it. like censored all the censored everything. Jay, Sadie, and me all know each other from Tumblr because we were in the library and community on Tumblr for a long time. And actually my first professional presentation as the librarian was about Tumblr.

Starting point is 00:37:06 And I was basically saying what you were saying, which is like it's the only site that will allow you to show off your special collections in a way that provides context and meaning. Because everyone at this time is around 2012, was trying to have their own blog, because blogging was still a thing. We saw bloggers going around, and we would have these blogs deep in the university web page

Starting point is 00:37:28 and no one ever read. And I said, okay, let's... It's like a finding aid. Yeah, let's do that somewhere else where there's already a lot of other museums who are going to re-blog our stuff and librarians. And then, of course, a lot of those people eventually have migrated out and there's not really a big librarian presence there anymore.

Starting point is 00:37:47 I really appreciate your focus. on like the um i don't want to go all like medium is the message on it but like your focus of how this presents information as a platform and incorporating that into the project itself and not just going oh this is a a good way like a cool layout or this is like a good way to show information but making that a part of the project itself yeah i just i really love that because i feel like not a lot of people focus on like yeah they'll be like oh this is a good way way to show this, but not including that as part of it, if that makes sense. Yeah, I wrote a note earlier when you were talking about sharing tapes and sharing media with

Starting point is 00:38:29 each other, I wanted to get your reaction on why this can't happen or why it hasn't happened on places like YouTube or TikTok, which allow the reuse, quite a lot of reuse, to a point where it's absolutely obnoxious the way things are reused. But why isn't that, because of the public and capitalist nature of those platforms. Like, why do you think they're not working? Why is it, do you have a preference for the analog world? Do you think that, you know, sub-communities should stay in that analog world? Physical media world. 2022, your physical media. I could probably write a dissertation on why YouTube sucks. It's like steadily gone down. Like, I mean, like, there was a point in which YouTube was very cool and you could, like, do lots of, like, you could see. Also, like, there was, like, niche, like, there's definitely niche, like, porn, like fetish stuff that used to be on YouTube. It's no longer on it. They definitely banned that at a specific time. I can't remember in my brain when it was, but they definitely were, like, specifically targeting, like, fetish communities. But, yeah, I think the idea that, like, everything needs to be monetized. Like, here's the thing, too. Like, I mean, as an artist, I

Starting point is 00:39:46 as someone working in digital media and someone who's not making a lot of money or isn't making a lot of money off their stuff or isn't trying to, like a free platform provides a great space to do something, but that free platform becomes like an exchange that like I, in a lot of ways, like I'm not willing to like negotiate with in a lot of ways now. Like, like, you know, the way to Instagram like, you know, minds your data and the ways in which like that free thing isn't really free because they're getting something. The corporations are getting something from it. They're taking things from you.

Starting point is 00:40:21 And so, like, they were even, like, there was a whole study. Like, someone was doing, like, taking YouTube transition stories and doing, like, face, was, like, face scanning on all the people who were doing those and, like, compiling that data and compiling that information off of, like, these transition story videos. I can't remember what year that was, but it was not that long ago. And it was, like, pretty fucked up.

Starting point is 00:40:43 So it's like another reason why like, and so like even like some of those like challenges that they have on Instagram where it's like show your past photo and show your like present photo. Like some of that stuff is like they want like both those images so they can like then like, you know, have that face information. It's very like minority report. Maybe that's the right. Is that the right sci-fi reference? I don't fucking know.

Starting point is 00:41:05 It's like all the tweets that are like, what was your favorite album that came out of the year you were born? And I'm like, uh-huh. my favorite album is the one that's not going to give you password hints. That's what it is. Yeah, I think. I also just don't want anyone knowing how old I am. Yeah, and I think like Tumblr, like, I think you're right.

Starting point is 00:41:26 Like, Tumblr, like, had this element of, like, being able to, like, connectivity that I felt more connected to, like, not necessarily, like, I was friends with everyone. I followed or something, but there was, like, it felt more like you could reach out to people. And I don't think like I don't really feel like TikTok or YouTube ever had that. And like YouTube is like overrun now with like fucking Prague R you bullshit and like all this other like just like really terrible like conspiracy theory. Well the way YouTube's designed YouTube's algorithm is designed to escalate your content. Right. So it's like once you start watching one thing, it's just going to keep testing you to see what you will watch next. Right.

Starting point is 00:42:06 So it's like, okay, you liked this thing. Well, are you ready for the next thing? Like, so that's what it keeps doing to you. And it's just an escalation. I flagged a Pragaru video once and they closed my like Google account and I had to like contact them to like reinstate it. Yeah, the point Kerry makes is what I was about to say is that these platforms, these newer platforms are algorithmically driven, whereas Tumblr was user recommendation driven.

Starting point is 00:42:35 So you would follow someone with similar tastes and they were recommending things. They were re-blogging things that you liked. There was no algorithm to it. It was actually truly social. It was the same way where like someone tells you about a band they like. Whereas when an algorithm tries to do that, like I just got my Spotify wrap up in the year. It's like, well, you really like this band. It's like, no, I couldn't find any fucking other musicians because you kept giving me the same 10 songs.

Starting point is 00:43:00 You kept playing that for me. Like, you did that. You kept showing me that in your algorithm. That's you, Spotify. Mine is always like, you listen to this one, Maria Kallas, opera area for like two weeks straight. Are you okay? My Spotify wrapped is an iPod classic.

Starting point is 00:43:21 One other thing I hadn't mentioned yet that I want to mention is like zine culture and how important like that is and still it is. And like zines, you guys on Zene peoples on one podcast. Yeah, we had Milo on. Yeah, Milo, yeah. So yeah, there's like this element too of like sort of this maybe limited run or like a run done by like this idea that's done by like, you know, kind of like one person with like standing in a photocopy or something like that. Like there is this like and then also like going to a show or something like that and like handing out zines like there is like very again in like sort of the tape swap situation too. Because that's also like when we do noise shows and we wouldn't make any money.

Starting point is 00:44:00 Like we would just trade CDs with like the people that played or something like that, you know, like or if someone had a zine or something. something like that. Like that is sort of, it was better to me than like, yeah, getting like an algorithm to tell me what I want to look at. Someone once tried to pay me in cigarettes and I don't smoke. Well, you could probably have sold those cigarettes to someone. Yeah, I'm, I'm not much of a salesperson. So like, that's more effort than it's worth. I'm just like, no, just give me money. Damn it. This isn't prison. Yeah, money would be preferable. What I do to deserve this. No. I was just like, thanks, but no thanks, kind of a deal. I was like, you could give those to someone else who would probably appreciate those more than me, but I appreciate the gesture.

Starting point is 00:44:49 April, you have in, what is it? The fragmented archive, which I think is like thesis one, I was reading it and highlighting it. There's a couple of things I want to just quote real quick. An archive can override a dominant narrative. An archive can give people access to ideas outside of it. of a suppressed framework that has been put in place to keep the status quo. Performance artists must look beyond the institution's wall to consider archiving and preserving performance art as part of a DIY community effort.

Starting point is 00:45:17 As we break from the institution, we can create fragmented community archives where something much more compassionate can form. A fragmented archive is not an archive with missing pieces. A fragmented archive is a way to understand a complex set of numerous and tangled connections and what it could mean to play a small part of a larger hole. Have you thought a lot more about what a fragmented archive is? And is it not, that's a main question. Is it an archive? But is it, does it perform that role of preservation well when we do it this way? Yeah. I mean, I think it's less about it being well, maybe about the wellness of it and more about like the reality of it.

Starting point is 00:45:58 Because currently that is sort of like the reality we exist. Like NYU special collections has some really amazing. Like the downtown collection is amazing. Like they have the Riot Girl collection there. They have like the David Wannerovich like answering machine tapes. And like he was a very like political and very like, you know, meaningful artist in the history of art and the history of, you know, of all sorts of different aspects of who he was. You know, and these other people that are part of that archive. but like I have really haven't really been able to experience or like see any of that.

Starting point is 00:46:32 You know, like we have, you know, you threw a little bit of a, you know, you can sort of see some of it. Like we had some online like the, there's the online finding aid for it. But but yeah, I think like I think it's more about understanding that that is sort of what's happening and sort of giving people sort of more of a, like a, I guess like a wake-up call or more of a realization. that like if you also like not every artist like special collections don't want every single artist collection they want ones that are the most valuable also in air quotes and value is dictated differently by different institutions and different people like value can be money based value value can be like more like spiritual based or whatever you know how are you defined value so it's more it's more of a real it's also a realization i kind of had to come to through going through school in a way

Starting point is 00:47:26 And I didn't really quite understand it as much. I had an idea, but really going through the school program and really seeing and going to like the Library of Congress and Cold Pepper Virginia. And I want to talk also about like institutional resource hoarding and like how there is no way for someone like me to go out and actually find a TBC, a time-based corrector for like people who don't know. Like a time-based director minimum on eBay is like $600. And that's like not one that.

Starting point is 00:47:56 is very good. And so, like, going to, like, Library of Congress and Cole Pepper and seeing, like, the pallets, the room of pallets of just, like, spare parts that they have hoarded and they have, like, secured there. And, like, I understand it's, like, the national, whatever, treasures. But, like, at the same time, it's like, well, who else gets to do this? And, like, who else gets to do this at, like, the archival standard? Like, you know, they were being taught about this archival standard, this idea that you're supposed to add TBC into your workflow in order to have like the right signal generated from like your VHS transfers or whatever tape transfer you're doing. And like, so I mean, like what you're reading, the quotes you were kind of quoting were sort of,

Starting point is 00:48:38 it was also more of me kind of being introspective and realizing that like, again, time and time again realizing that I have to do it. And I have to do it, if I have to do it, like we should also think about doing it. other people should think about doing it too. Because I was also, I have in my notes, actually, that my work is directly a product of a lack of support money and institutional resource hoarding. So like when I left undergrad and had all this access to all this like fancy equipment, you know, welding equipment, a room just for mixing rubber, a plaster room, a foundry where I

Starting point is 00:49:17 could pour like aluminum and bronze and like a kiln. yard where it had all sorts of kilns in it, I left and had nothing. And that's actually why I turned to video because I didn't have a studio. And so video was easy. It was something I could carry in my pocket or my backpack. It only costs a few hundred dollars. And so every time I buy a video camera or any sort of equipment like that, I almost always buy refurbished if I can or used equipment. Because at the end of the day, like I know that I can't go out and buy like that 6K camera or the 4K camera other people or even a 4K camera. And my computer came and support 4K like videos.

Starting point is 00:49:56 But yeah, that's sort of what that's sort of stemming from. Jay, did you have your hand up? I did. It's related to when you brought up David Voinovich. So if you had something more directly related, Carrie, you go ahead. Okay, thanks. So like I said, I used to do a little archivy stuff. And I was in sound archives.

Starting point is 00:50:18 and I was at an Association of Recorded Sound Collections Conference in 2013, and UCLA was trying to launch a moving image archives program at that time. And so speaking to a lot of the things you were saying about resource hoarding and kind of looping back to what you were saying about your debt and your debt load from NYU, particularly, and how like, especially for something like moving image archives, you really only have a few schools that specialize in these programs, right? So like with this like kind of like, yeah, two to three, yeah, depending on how you look at it, right? So with this kind of combined problem of institutional resource hoarding and the scarcity of programs,

Starting point is 00:51:06 like who can actually fucking afford to do these kinds of programs in the first place? So you have scarcity of availability. So people are going into massive kinds of debt to enter these types of. of programs. So the debt load to enter these types of programs is fucking massive in the first place as you've explored through your work. And it's really, I think that's impactful. And I like that when you opened your talk that I watched before we did this episode, you actually started by saying the exact amount of debt that you had, which. $94,000. Yeah, exactly. And I think we need to be more upfront about that. So talking about that upfront. So people are taking on

Starting point is 00:51:47 massive amounts of debt loads to do these kinds of programs. These jobs don't fucking pay. There aren't very many of them. And these programs aren't accessible. They're also very short and often contract-based and often like one-year grant funding. Exactly. And that's why I didn't stick with sound archiving and went and got a job in a health sciences library. Because I knew I couldn't like support myself as a single human being because nobody's going to fucking marry me. And like I mean, this is 10 years ago too, but I'm still not married. So my planning worked on that level.

Starting point is 00:52:29 But I mean, it's just like one of these things where it's like what the fuck is our profession thinking when we're creating these kinds of programs with these massive, you know, costs with no work for the people. who graduate from them. It's irresponsible. It's, and it creates an unsustainable situation. Yeah, and at the beginning of the pandemic, you know, a lot of the, there was a lot of of layoffs and a lot of those layouts were in museums and at least in museums here.

Starting point is 00:53:01 The Met laid off a ton of people. Everywhere. Public libraries and a lot of like major cities laid off tons of people. So like the Chicago Public Library and a lot of those major city libraries have archives and do programs like that. They have some resources. Like I think Chicago Public Library laid off a lot of their media program. Yeah, getting like sort of back a little bit back to like Justin's like initial question or initial thought about like sort of this fragmentation and understanding the fragmentation and sort of understanding the ways in which

Starting point is 00:53:32 fragmentation can occur. Like that's sort of what the topic or the talk was sort of about like sort of understanding these like that's also like something again like I said in the presentation and that we sort of like learn through school and like this idea that like an archivist can look at material and not put themselves into the material in some sort of like non-biacy like non-biacy way and sort of so you're also putting you know yourself into the material that you're looking at but yeah I think it's to understand like yeah so like maybe that part of like that david vonerovich stuff is like is locked up at the NYU special collections but there's like other things other people that you know generate work that's influenced by him or something like that. And so that then creates sort of like a new way to look at that work or a new way to look at someone else's work. And like I think I said it already, but like this idea that, yeah,

Starting point is 00:54:25 not every artist is going to suddenly be, like get their materials acquired by some like institution or something like that. And so it's getting people to understand that like even if they're not, if they're performance artists and they're not like interested in video, video, videoing their performances, they should still be like thinking about, you know, archive and preservation, preserving their material. And also thinking about like if you're in a community, how can you do that together? You know, how can you share your resources? Because that's a huge problem. I was always hoping and always trying to initially also sort of start even like a

Starting point is 00:55:02 place where we could all like people like in the community could like, you know, borrow cameras or borrow equipment from each other and sort of stuff like that as a way to sort of share resources. Yeah, I wrote this down while you were talking about resource hoarding. And you talked about doing things and this is an audio medium. So you did finger quotes when you said archival standard, which is resource impossible due to institutional hoarding. And also like, I wouldn't even categorize it as hoarding, although I do like that framing and I am going to use it.

Starting point is 00:55:32 So I'm not going to argue with it. but it's also like staffing and stuff and just interest and grants and all the same stuff. Because there are people in the academy who would probably agree with the stuff that you do is important. It's just like the odds of you finding them and them finding money is very low. But like you're saying, to be able to preserve something at an archival standard now, you can't do because there's no institutional interest. And if and if there were, could you really trust the institution to do a good job and not mothball it for 50 years? Whereas, you know, the historical record, you know, now this is me putting on my, historian hat, the historical record will just have to do with whatever it gets.

Starting point is 00:56:11 And so you doing, if this, this conscious best that you can do archiving is still going to be the way forward for collections of like subcultures like this, because that's how the weather archive started. It's, you're not going to have the best tools at the beginning, but one day, you know, maybe your life's work will end up becoming, you know, not to get morbid, but maybe at the end of your life. Your life's work might all be around. You've preserved it well. It could become its own thing in the future. But isn't that like what everyone always dreams of when they want to try to donate their shit to the library? I don't know if that's what it is because there's a difference between doing that and a subculture. Whereas if it's like I'm a senator and I, I, every single time

Starting point is 00:56:55 I got a death threat, I wanted to make sure that someone else laughed at it too. You get really tied up to and like we can go deep end on like a artist's legacy stuff. But I'm just thinking of preserving things so that historians who will value it in the future. Someone will value this. That's such a historian thing to say. It also weirdly jumps into exactly what I wanted to ask you. Perfect segue. So you brought up David Vonerovich.

Starting point is 00:57:23 And I immediately, in the context of preservation and also like we're talking about like, you know, institutions getting involved in this, especially like, with art and like, you know, having your collections. And I immediately thought about that like David Vonerovich like gallery exhibit that happened like a few years ago or something and how his image and his art gets used now and like hearing people be like, you know, all of the people who were there and the institution that's collecting is so antithetical to what he was actually doing when he was alive. And part of me is like, well, he's dead. He doesn't know. But that sort of like capitalist consumption

Starting point is 00:58:09 of this person's work, but we're framing it as it's like, look, we're preserving and people can come to an art museum and come see it and we're protecting it for the future. It's the Che Guev R T-shirt. Yeah, exactly. And so I was wondering, especially because you're so interested in ways of,

Starting point is 00:58:26 like I love this idea of like a fragmented archive and like it's a dump, it's not a cloud. Like I love your way of framing this of not just let's preserve this, but there's a specific way this might need to happen. So I wonder if you had thoughts about, like, you know, maybe not just you, but like in general, like once an artist or someone whose work or something would be preserved for future generations, how much do you think about like what the mission of their work was versus how it's preserved and then disseminated, like the ethics of that in how you approach preserving your art.

Starting point is 00:59:04 and this sort of framework you're suggesting. Yeah, I don't know if you're talking, which Wanderovich exhibit you're talking about. Yeah, which one. But I actually have a really good, like, to, like, bolster what you're saying, like a really good example is the retrospective at the Whitney. And the Whitney has, like, this giant, huge,

Starting point is 00:59:23 brand new, like, Spanacanoo space down in Chelsea. That might be what I'm thinking of. And what's, like, I guess I don't need to worry around. What's interesting about that is, is so they had a retrospective there. But that space and that like whole area has been like gentrified. And that's like right like literally you look out the windows of that exhibition. And it is the peers where he was spray painting where he was like sucking dick where he was like

Starting point is 00:59:52 doing like all the things that David Vwanerovich would do in like this like subculture way like cruising like all the stuff. It's like happening there. and it's gone because of gentrification because of like that kind of stuff. And it's sort of like, yeah. And I wonder, I wonder if he were alive, like what he would think about that. If like that would be, I don't know. Yeah, we don't, we'll never know, obviously. But it is sort of this idea.

Starting point is 01:00:20 And like that also like, like, in thinking of like land, like NYU is like, you know, they're like a landowner first and then like a school second. Like they own, the way they've spread out here, like they now have like campuses downtown Brooklyn. That wasn't like that before. And like the way they spread across like, you know, parts of Manhattan. Uh-huh. Dubai. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:00:47 Yeah, Dubai. You know, and it's no secret that they, why they were in the Super Meyer Brothers movie. I don't know. I sent it, so I sent this video still to just. in the DM. If you've seen the live action Super Mario Brothers film with John Liglizamo, you would know, and Dennis Hopper, you would know

Starting point is 01:01:07 that, like, that whole thing starts because NYU student, an NYU student who turns out to be the princess is down there digging up dinosaur bones at the Brooklyn Bridge. And there's like an NYU flag at the dig site. And it's just like a funny, it's a funny

Starting point is 01:01:23 picture. It's almost as good as fucking Patrick Swayze and Roadhouse having like a philosophy PhD from NYU. One of my friends from grad school was at NYU when the Olson twins were there. And apparently, I think that was when they filmed New York Minute or something like that. I don't know. This is a long time ago. But I slightly jumped off your question, Jay. Can you say a little bit more, say to repeat just a little bit of it? Yeah. So it had me thinking about like, you know, like Justin was bringing out like having

Starting point is 01:01:58 like donating your life's work or having an institution collect something. Like I remember when Lori Anderson donated Lou Reed's stuff to the newer public library, for example. And so like when institutions collect these things and like, yes, they are the ones that probably can afford and have the resources to preserve some of this stuff. Sometimes. Sometimes, yeah. But often like the way it might be preserved or exhibited or disseminated might be

Starting point is 01:02:28 antithetical to the spirit of the work. And it seems like your idea of this like trash dump versus a cloud and like the fragmented body archive versus sort of the quote archival standard stuff seems to be grappling. And like grappling is that the word? I don't know. Like in conversation with like the methods of preservation and holding onto it actually sort of not ignoring the purpose and spirit of the work, if that clarifies it at all. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you for repeating. I think like, so yeah,

Starting point is 01:03:06 so with like the going back to like this idea that like there are multiple copies, like it's hard to tell, maybe hard to tell like what is that like initial like source copy like in terms of like provenance too. Like I'm interested in playing with that in terms of like, yeah like kind of giving away artwork to friends or sort of creating like that is sort of where the community sort of comes back into play because then there's other people that are now in charge of like taking care of something and like taking care of it in a way that isn't necessarily like the same way that like an institution would take care of it or whatever. I think that that is a really good question that I don't actually have a full answer to because I don't know. I think it is it's difficult because like there there is like a part of you. I think of me that is like, yeah, I'd love to like get my like work in whatever, you know, prestigious collection. If, but like if, if, if it means that like more people would be able to see it or if it means there's like there would be like a lot of ifs I feel like or a lot of

Starting point is 01:04:08 like caveats. And I don't think from what I understand and I haven't been in like the archiving world that long, but from what I understand, I wouldn't really be possible in a lot of situations because people are places are usually understaffed, underfunded, people aren't getting paid very much, they're not going to have a lot of time to like take like my stuff and like show it to people, you know, like there is like an element of that too. So like there is like, you know, sure, like I think the resource hoarding may be, you know, smaller than the true fact of the matter that like many places are woefully underfunded, woefully understaffed, people are getting paid not very much. And that's like where a lot of difficult difficulties lie within like an institution or like

Starting point is 01:04:56 the priorities change. Like if like a, you know, they collect something that they thought was valuable and then they get something like something else comes along or something changes. And like maybe that just goes and sits on a shelf and then something else takes priority or something like that. You know, like it just depends on what the collecting institution is doing or the collecting organization and how they, you know, how they interact with the, interface with like the public too right because a lot of the a lot of these places in terms of like maybe like museum like or in terms of like private collection or special collection some of those don't interface as much with the public as maybe like a museum it's like you know showing work

Starting point is 01:05:35 periodically or and some of those works though in museums uh aren't shown as much as others you know because they're not like i don't know like a jeff coons or some i don't whatever like some whatever is popular even what they're popular at the time you know like there's something It's been shelved for probably, you know, years because it's just not what the institution is wanting to show at the time. So I think that there's a lot of factors there. And I think that it is, yeah, there's not one right answer. But I do think that the work is sort of antithetical to like a collection institution. Like it almost wouldn't fit in a way because it's like, and it's sort of forcing, you have to sort of force it's force it to fit in a way that wouldn't really,

Starting point is 01:06:18 would kind of break the spirit of the work like you're kind of talking about like it wouldn't be able to exist as freely or as like spontaneously or as sporadically like I kind of one of the first like noise like whatever albums I made for an archaida org is called sporadic dissemination because it's like the idea is like people would download it but I have no idea who's downloading it how it's being downloaded like I'm not like I don't have like the tools archive or or at least for the user doesn't have the tools to know who's like download it from where or how often, like that kind of stuff. I have like the number, but I don't have like the stats, all the stats as the user or whatever. And nor do I necessarily care. It's sort

Starting point is 01:06:58 of this idea that like, I mean, like another good example is like in 2000 and like when I was living in Portland in 2000 and maybe like 13 or 14 or no, even more like 2010 or 11 maybe. I sent a tape in the mail, which is something you used to do to, like, radio stations and stuff like that. But I sent a tape to a host of a show called My Castle of Quiet, William M. Berger, at WFMU in New Jersey. And he since passed away, but, like, he, like, wrote me back. Like, he, like, wrote me, like, you know, he, like, wrote me back. Like, and we had typed it out. Like, we had this funny, like, typewriter.

Starting point is 01:07:40 And I, like, typed out, like, a typewritten letter with the tape in it that we had, like, hand printed. And year, like, so it was years. It was actually years later. So it was like more like probably 2008 or nine. But like years later, we ended up doing like a live set on his show like in 2014. He like, we like, we were able to arrange it. We kind of kept in contact. And he was kind of like one of those people that like he gravitated towards that action or that like idea as opposed to me like sending him like. And it's also got his attention in a way that like an email like a, you know, just like an email from like a MySpace with a MySpace link or something like that would have probably just gotten not even read or not even returned like replied to you know

Starting point is 01:08:23 yeah this is great sure we could keep going but I I need to wrap up I've got a heart out today but how can we always end on a action-oriented question and so how can people support your work and or how can they participate in Human Trash Jump if they want to or any of their other projects. Yeah, so I'm not really like on social media anymore. I sort of like took a break, big, big long break from that. So I go like DMing me from like our future death toll account because it's like the only one we made for Twitter. But yeah, so human trash dump is on archive. org. You can just search on archive.org site. Maybe that'll be in the link. It'll probably be in the link resources anyways. Yeah, it'll be the top link. Yeah. But if people want to get in touch,

Starting point is 01:09:12 if you have like a digital, like, I mean, the cool thing about archive.org is, you know, you can, like, upload, like, ISO files. You can upload, like, you know, audio files. You can upload. We have stuff on human trash dump that's, like, PDFs. Someone made, like, a manual about how to make, like, mind control videos. And so, and, like, there's a video of me, like, showing off, like, like, my sex toy collection. Like, so, like, we're very open to, like, any amount, uh, whatever it is, you're interested in, like, showing, you know, within, obviously within the bounds of, like, non-shitty material. But, like, shitty is in, like, right-wing or fascist. But you could email me. I think the email would probably work. And that's just human trash dump. And that's at gmail.com.

Starting point is 01:09:58 Yeah, or just, you know, take a look at the things that are up there. I think what's also really important to stress sort of about, like, the fragmented archive or the fragmented, like, body stuff is sort of, like, Like a lot of the work that I have done is like a lot of, there's been a lot of like internal work that I've done on my, on my own that sort of, that's like the one of the main, like an action that isn't maybe as visible. And so I think that everyone can go and like do those things too.

Starting point is 01:10:24 And like maybe think about ways in which, yeah, like ways in which maybe you, you can connect with other people or collaborate with other people. Because the internet has gotten to be such like a shit hole, it's sort of harder to, to feel. like I can be like on social media or feel like I can sort of like exist in those spaces. So like

Starting point is 01:10:44 think about ways in which you can collaborate in your community, show up for your community of creative makers. You know, even like we're working on like an oral history project, like talking back to looking back at people in the community who that kind of like that era maybe ended, but like there's still people active and like new people who are active. And so like embracing the fact that there are new people and I'm like getting older. That's super important. But then also understanding that like, you know, how can we support like newer artists as well too? Because they're also just trying to figure it out.

Starting point is 01:11:17 So like I'm trying to also give like some shortcuts here like to some of the shit. Like, you know, that's like some of the writings and some of the stuff that I'm doing. I'm not telling people they need to copy me, but I'm telling people that like, yeah, the art world is just as shitty as any other like world. and the art world is many different worlds. That's also very fragmented, you know. Like there's the Blue Chip Art Gallery world. There's DIY, whatever.

Starting point is 01:11:44 There's a multitude of art worlds. So when you speak about art, you know, you're already like fragmenting that. Like it's already like a lot of different tiers, a lot of different spaces. So I think that that's important to keep in mind. But yeah, I'll keep it at that. Yeah, if there's anything you forgot to add to the notes, I'll add them in the notes, anything we want to retweet. We'll retweet it for you.

Starting point is 01:12:09 And then good night.

librarypunk - 036 - HUMAN TRASH DUMP

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