The Aliza Shvarts Thing

April 18th, 2008 | brainjuice

I’m surprised at how many of you are freaking out over this thing. (And a little disturbed at the tenor of some of the responses, too.)

Seriously: you believe this is real? My money says the physical “art” doesn’t exist, not as described. I mean, I’m open to being wrong. But right now, I think the press release itself is the art piece. In fact, I would imagine any final presentation would be a collation of the media responses to the press release, broadcast as it was during a visit from the Pope to her country of residence. She’s going to be hoping someone sticks the PR in front of scary old Ratzinger.

(And if there is a physical piece, I bet you it turns out to be food colouring, latex and bits of chicken. I mean, use your heads.)

You may not like that a press release can fulfil the terms of art. (And if you don’t know what defines art, go back to your old school and tell them to finish the fucking job.) But, as a conceptual piece, it’s quite incredible. As Charlie Stross said, it’s the “most inspired publicity-stunt debut in the art world since Damien Hirst.” And that was twenty years ago. If she’s doing what I think she’s doing, Aliza Shvarts might be the first “great” conceptual artist of the internet age.

15 Responses to “The Aliza Shvarts Thing”

  1. I’ve been kind of freaked out by all of the freaking out, too. Especially given that the sponsoring faculty isn’t speaking to the press (yet). Those tenured Yalies love the spotlight!

  2. There’s another possibility.

    As a friend of mine pointed out, it’s possible she’s a shill for the “pro life” crowd in the USA, trying to portray morning-after abortifacients in the worst possible light with the goal of getting them banned (or at least moved to prescription-only status).

    Remember, the young earth creationists aren’t above funding gullible young fanatics to work through geology PhD programs so that they can claim to have gen-yoo-wine geological scientists on their side.

  3. Cut ‘n paste from the LJ feed:

    Actually, if she didn’t actually do it, it’s a big fat fucking yawn. If your art is so over that it’s almost the default advertising technique, it’s time to move on.

    Of course, the art world will eat it up anyway. They love anything that allows for their five seconds of attention whoring/importance.

  4. I don’t know about the idea that she’s a “Pro life” shill… if you really wanted to do that, surely there isn’t much distance in using someone who is an Artist? You *expect* something a bit crazy.

    Surely, if you had a serious agenda you could plant a few choice articles in the big broadsheets and tabloids about a woman in some backwater place that no-one’s ever heard of doing the same thing. It’s not as if there isn’t precedent for such a move. No-one cares as much about the retractions as they do about the original articles.

    It’s a shame that Artists don’t come with stock like Companies and Corporations do… if she can continue to whip up this amount of Interest, then she’s really going to be The Next Big Thing.

  5. […] Warren Ellis on the Eliza Shvarts thing. Some more from Ellis. Some of Shvarts’ art. […]

  6. I can’t find the site again, but I just read something this morning about authors selling stock in themselves. The future is now.

  7. Someone’s already poked some pretty good holes in the story - such as, the whole “self-insemination” thing hardly ever works, so there’s little chance she’d be able to do it multiple times - so Warren’s probably spot-on with this one.

  8. i hope that’s what she does, otherwise she’ll be like the guy who starved a dog to death in a gallery to prove a social critique point. i know you hate dogs, but you see what i mean.

    in any case, Brazilian artist Yuri Firmeza back in 2006 did an expo with the press releases and email exchanges with journalists about the fake expo of ficticious Japanese artist Souzousareta Geijutsuka. local press shit-stormed him afterwards.

  9. I give her a lot of credit. How many art students can you name? From now on, you’ll always remember Aliza Shvarts.

  10. Well through various other rumours about the internet, yes she’s pulling your chain. The press release IS part of the project to initiate a public response.
    Some of you might remember something similar, though a lot more funny and less offensive, done by Shepard Fairey. He was going to RISD and had an assignment to create a piece of art to impact people in everyday life, so he pasted the head of Andre the Giant over the Governor of RI’s head (or maybe the mayor of Providence)on a billboard overlooking the highway. It kicked off the “Andre the Giant has a Posse” phenomena and led to a career in graphic design using the image for his OBEY designs. He basically created an art project that effected the general public and created a life of its own - there’s no clear line between the public reaction and the fandom, and the initial piece of artwork itself.
    Of course it didn’t make us question how low humanity has sunk.
    What makes the reactions to this woman’s work so startling , I believe, are 2 things:
    1) The current trend that offensive crap can be called art.
    2) The trend where students of IVY league schools feel they have the right to do REALLY stupid things in the name of art, “making a statement”. (like the girl entering the airport with the electronics w/ LED’s on her shirt made to look like a bomb).
    This “abortion art” seemed to be the next logical step forward into hell.
    Someone please tell me America isn’t the only place where we have to worry about these retards with money and time on their hands?

  11. As pointed out on pandagon, if safe abortion was as easy as this press release made it out to be, it wouldn’t be the controversial issue that it is.

  12. just for the record, the “guy who starved the dog to death” (that would be Guillermo Habacuc Vargas) didn’t really do that either.

    link one and link two

    yeesh. i thought people who read science fiction were skeptics by nature.

  13. With all the other weird stuff that Warren posts on this site, I admit I was taken in by it when I first saw it.

    It is still in pretty poor taste, even though I now realise that it’s not real. And like Tracey Emin’s bed, I don’t really consider this art.

  14. @Colin, it is art, you just don’t consider it to be good art. I don’t eat scrapple or liver, but I don’t argue whether it’s food.

  15. […] internet is all abuzz this week about Aliza Shvarts, a Yale student who issued a press release claiming that she artificially inseminated herself, then […]

Positive Reinforcement Therapy

Coilhouse - 20 Nov 09

This one goes out to Nadya, Zo, and especially Courtney Riot, our beloved creative director. Hang in there, babies.


Post tags: Coilhouse, Serious Business

?I?m bad? I?m a man? I HATE my penis.?

Coilhouse - 20 Nov 09

Well hello there!

PrimalScreeeeeamEEEEEAAYYYAAGH

Do you lack healthy boundaries? Are you guilty of the compulsive overshare? All-too-eager to share gory, palpating details with complete strangers that no one besides your own mother and/or proctologist would ever want to know?

Non-consensual rape anecdote telling. Tactical uterus hurling in lieu of real intimate contact. The “I wasn’t breast fed enough so now I need to publicly air my personal anguish to feel properly nurtured and validated” power point presentation. “Cry For Help” cutting (across the street, not down the road). Cloaking references to life-shattering trauma in Obfuscating Yet Ominous Faerie Singsong? (patented by Tori Amos).  “Fuck You Daddy, I’m a Suicide Girl Now!” blog posts. Spontaneous primal scream therapy in the supermarket. If you have ever attempted one or more of these maneuvers, chance are, you’re a TMI Avenger.

Relax. You’re among friends. And you’re gonna loooove Body Memories. A squirm-inducing, low budget indie film directed by the same fella who brought us one of the most fabulous independent documentaries of the decade, Body Memories is…

…one man’s journey inward to find meaning in his life. He becomes an archeologist of the soul, digging through the layers of his past. Evocative images blend with a riveting performance that uncovers family secrets and buried traumas.

Enjoy.

(More clips under the cut.)


Read the rest of “I’m bad… I’m a man… I HATE my penis.”


Post tags: Crackpot Visionary, Culture, Film, Gender, Sexuality, Silly-looking types, Surreal, Testing your faith

Miss Piggy?s Teaches of Peaches

Coilhouse - 20 Nov 09

Every time an issue of the magazine goes to print, things somehow turn Highly Inappropriate here at Coilhouse. This is apparent to anyone who was there on Twitter during the hours of our final revision deadline last night. And it’s only going to get worse before Issue 04’s out. So to celebrate, a video of Miss Piggy singing “Fuck the Pain Away” by Peaches. It’s that kind of day.

[via Shannon]


Post tags: Madness, Music, Puppetry

claytoncubitt: Will Blanche, ?The Newly Constructed Towers of...

Brian Wood - 20 Nov 09



claytoncubitt:

Will Blanche, ?The Newly Constructed Towers of the World Trade Center Seen From the South Side on West Street, May, 1973? (via These Americans)

See also: Mitch Epstein, ?West Side Highway, New York City? [looking towards World Trade Center] 1977

Percy Jackson trailer

Kung Fu Monkey - 20 Nov 09

Seriously, if I were 12, this would have melted my brain. I love this trailer.

JOURNAL: How to Break and Open Source Insurgency

John Robb - 20 Nov 09

Short Answer:  divide it.

It's long been my contention that Iraq was stabilized at an acceptable level of controlled chaos due to a happy accident by al Qaeda (in an attempt to expand/lead the loose insurgency in a new direction).  What did they do?   They blew up the Golden Mosque in Samara in 2006.  This act of symbolic terrorism did indeed disrupt social networks as anticipated, however the consequences were ultimately disastrous for the Iraqi open source insurgency.  

Baghdad_Ethnic_2007_late_smThe reason for this is it broke the dynamics of the open source insurgency in ways the US and Iraqi government's COIN efforts could not.  First, it created a permanent split between Sunni and Shiite insurgent groups/militias.  Coopetition ended.  Second, it motivated large Shiite militias to start an ethnic cleansing of Sunni areas.  This put acute pressure on Sunni guerrilla groups who were too small (by design to avoid US counter-pressure) to defend themselves against large militias operating in the open.  The result was an opening, very close to the one I described in my 2005 NYTimes OpEd, that allowed the US to convert Sunni guerrilla groups into militias that were not loyal to the central government (in direct contradiction to its COIN manual).   

It's a nice example of the dynamics of many to many conflict, social network disruption, and the development open source counterinsurgency.

See this excellent description at the blog, "Musings on Iraq" for more detail on the ethnic cleansing operations.  It also includes this money quote: "the majority of the Sunni insurgency gave up and switched sides to align with the Americans rather than face annihilation at the hands of the Shiite militias, Al Qaeda in Iraq, or the United States."

NOTE:  it's pretty clear from the above that social network disruption (either through attacks on symbolic targets or blood and guts terrorism) is like playing horseshoes with live hand grenades.  It's ultimately a losing strategy for advancing an open source insurgency.  Social network disruption is very likely to break standing order 6:  don't fork the insurgency.

Twitter Updates for 2009-11-20

Girl Farts - 20 Nov 09

LINKS: 20 NOV 09

John Robb - 20 Nov 09

Some random items of interest:

  • Vigilante militias in Rio are displacing the drug gangs -- favelas under the control of militias has grown from 108 in 2005 to 400 in 2008 (out of 965).  Why?  They have a better (albeit parasitic) conflict/business model than the drug gangs since they act as a substitute for missing public goods/services normally supplied by the government.  First, they provide a minimal level of security and conflict adjudication.  Second, they make more money than the drug gangs by "taxing" everything from propane to cable TV to the gray market.  
  • US gray economy estimated at $1 Trillion (not including criminal, outside of the evasion of taxes and regulation, activities) and growing faster than the "legal" economy.  
  • Proposal and wiki for an open source fabrication lab.
  • Somali pirates are expanding operations into the Indian ocean.  The combination of positive feedback loops (maritime insurance + rapid payoffs by crisis negotiators) and legal ambiguity (the biggest fear of a western navy and governments is that they might arrest a pirate -- prompting a massive/expensive legal tussle with few certain penalties and the forced extension of a visa to the former pirate once he is released from his short incarceration).  Is a franchise model for other locales possible?
  • Yes-we-can-secede
  • A business group in Ciudad Juarez asks for UN peacekeepers.  Hilarious. "Ciudad Juarez, population 1.5 million, has an average of seven homicides a day, with the total at 1,986 for this year through mid-October."
  • Seccession.net.  County based secession effort.  

Untitled Post

blissblog - 20 Nov 09

Yume no Byouin Project

Jean Snow - 20 Nov 09

Yume no Byouin Project

Beautiful (and simple) site design featuring the illustrative work of Yorifuji Bunpei. Via Paul Baron.