Cultural Prophylactics: An Introduction
In late April 2009, Andi Sutton and I performed a survey over two consecutive days at an experimental arts venue on the South Side of Chicago. The event was moderately well attended, tickets cost $7, and a healthy spate of mostly object-based visual art projects lined the rest of the high-school gymnasium. Our “performance” was at times extremely popular, despite that it was kind of boring, and very hot, and required ponderment as opposed to a more engaging “fun” activity, such as Michael Coolidge’s lawn bowling game, set up just around the corner. Up on a stage at the front of the venue, Andi and I donned costumes, administered surveys, and liberally made use of health and safety devices such as surgical masks, chemical gloves, hand sanitizer, plastic wrap, and air freshener.
The survey—and performance—acted occasionally as an instructional tool, not unlike a marketing focus group in which one is not asked whether or not one enjoys a certain blend of iced tea, but is asked to rate it along several different scales running the gamut from enjoyable to extremely enjoyable. Essentially, we were asking respondents, directly and indirectly, to draw a parallel between the notion of public health and the notion of creative freedom. This was the instructional aspect of our performance: that the two are linked. The information-gathering aspect, however, intended to explore the several sticky issues that fester beneath this relationship, such as those pertaining to cultural appropriation, labor compensation, gender discrepancies, racial diversity, and plain old self-worth. In essence, we sought to inquire: what of our culture requires protection? And what of it should we protect ourselves from?
Of course, the information actually gained was far more diverse and interesting than even what is encompassed by those diverse areas of inquiry: mainly, we learned that people are hilarious. Random subjects would be asked to create and don a tinfoil hat, for example, or multiple pairs of latex gloves and a hospital gown. To others we would sit uncomfortably close or move uncomfortably far away. One gentleman cheerfully wore a double-gas mask throughout the verbal portion of his interview. Most seemed to enjoy the process, however pointless, however puzzling. Some, however, reported feeling judged, left before completing the survey, or complained that they could not understand the subtext behind our questions.
Many issues of culture, and cultural appropriation, and cultural protection—and for that matter, public health—come to a head over matters economic. Tourism, copyright law, branding: these charged issues are all rooted in who has, or takes, the right to claim what culture—and who will benefit from it. What follows is a selection of findings that pertain to arts funding, federal spending, personal income, and related matters of capital.
See some previously published images here.
