Aliza Shvarts: The Other Shoe Drops

April 18th, 2008 | researchmaterial

Statement by Helaine S. Klasky – Yale University, Spokesperson

New Haven, Conn. – April 17, 2008

Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art. Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials. She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.

She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art.

Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.

Dimensions Art Blog @ Yale: Aliza Shvarts

Well played, that woman.

16 Responses to “Aliza Shvarts: The Other Shoe Drops”

  1. Another great part about it is that she’s gotten off an entire year’s worth of work for just this one performance, so she’s essentially saved the grueling hell that a lot of people in her major are probably going through.

    I mean, assuming someone doesn’t cut her uterus out of her just to keep her out of trouble.

    –JPJ

  2. Okay, I take it back. She’s utterly brilliant. Thank frick she hadn’t actually done this, this’d be exactly the kind of shit the pro-life crazies would pounce on and use to ride bullshit legislation through our legal system.

    The nutjobs in my Bible thumper state of South Dakota are trying to force another ban through that would challenge Roe v. Wade’s constitutionality. As if the last one failing miserably won’t foreshadow the outcome of the new effort at all.

  3. I’m not sure how to feel about this. If she had actually done as described, it would have truly been both provactive and thought-provoking. I’m sure that I wouldn’t have gone to see it, not because of politics but because of sheer body horror.

    But now that she’s, what, recanted? Not sure if it places the emphasis back on the moral/social questions she’s asking or if people are going to be more interested in the brouhaha. Probably the latter.

    But what an age we live in. Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, childbirth was the number one way for women to die. Number two: catching on fire. (See, they’d lean over and their dresses would catch alight and they’d burn . . .)

  4. The pro-life crazies will never see the clarification, just the original press release. Expect much loud bible thumping on the subject on Sunday.

  5. Daddy was right!

  6. What annoys me most is that it had to get spoiled so quickly. If they had let it go just a few more days, it would have been incredible.

    Now it’s just symptomatic of how easy it is to stir up a shit storm.

  7. Cheeky moo. Still bet she can’t draw.

    By which I mean whoops.

  8. Even though the girl’s work was “designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body,” I think it did a much better job at drawing attention to the sorry ass state of journalism that would allow this type of story to go forward without checking things out first. Despite the intended statement, I think this is a beautiful piece of art sending up media and the art world itself. Not only has she got brass elephant balls, I bet she’s a fucking riot at a party!

  9. Will she make an art piece of the reactions to this revelation too? This is some recursive crap.

  10. She must have three feet, because she just dropped another shoe claiming that it was all real. Apparently she’s sending videos of herself bleeding in the shower to news outlets.

    Is she a hot new artist or a total moonbat?

    My money is on moonbat.

  11. Still, while I’ll except her behavior, and say she did pull a great one on a great many people, I find it hard to consider even her trick great art. It’s art yes, no one can claim otherwise and make a valid arguement, but even in performance art, are we to say “War of the Worlds” was a great radio show just because it freaked out a bunch of people and caused chaos and disorder? It does bring a smile to my face to think of such, and so does her stunt, but if it wasn’t at least half way decent of a radio drama to start, I hope it wouldn’t be remember to this day. Then again, I’m no authority to judge, maybe it’s just my taste.

  12. I have to say that it’s always cool when an undergrad gets people outside of their immediate circle taking about the legitimacy of their work. Extending the dialog of “but is it art?” to a wider audience is always a commendable task. The real cool thing about Shvarts’s piece is that she got people talking about the legitimacy of one medium (miscarried fetuses) and then got the same group taking about the legitimacy of another medium (press releases about miscarried fetuses). I’ve always been a fan of the Guerrilla Girls(www.guerrillagirls.com) and it’s great to see work in their tradition.

  13. Has anyone managed to find a link to any visuals of the performance/art?

    FatherCrow

  14. I liked it so far. It was entertaining and educational to see the reactions in the different communities. I never would have expected the religious types would pop up here.

  15. Ah, now I get it: Lying to a gullible press is a form of art. The Bush White House is a modern day Sistine Chapel ceiling. Take that, “Lazlo Letters!”

    Daddies, please pay attention to your little girls.

  16. Apparently she’s sending videos of herself bleeding in the shower to news outlets.

    All the videos are actually of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

Complete Plan B Archive

Kieron Gillen - 09 Feb 10

The whole run of Plan B magazine has been released as a single 670Mb PDF. That’s 46 issues of some of the finest music writing of the decade. And a lot of posturing pretentiousness too. It’s like two of my favourite things for the price of one. Or none, as it’s a free PDF.

If you’ve any interest in music in the 00s, or music full stop, this is a great thing to just have on file. You’ll discover a new band every time you browse it.

Hell, it’s even worth getting if you’re one of the games journalist sorts. For the first 10-20 issues or so, I was doing games stuff for it. And Quinns and Mathew Kumar too, who I bullied into contributing. Very much written for the non-gamer about games which get pretty much no coverage, we had fun trying to decode the concept of Outsider Games.

Whole thing here. Go gets!

Coilhouse is Hiring! Apply Here.

Coilhouse - 08 Feb 10

Back around the time of Issue 03, we launched the Small Business Advertising Program to create affordable ad space for indie companies in the print version of Coilhouse. By the time Issue 04 rolled around, the number of advertisers had grown significantly – by this time, we had record labels, jewelry and clothing designers, sculptors, other magazines, web hosts, toy makers and graphic designers advertising in our pages. Click here to see them all. With editorial duties taking up more and more of our time as the weeks go by, the moment has come for us to seek help with the advertising side of running the magazine. We’re looking to hire an Ad Manager for our Small Business Advertising Program, starting with Coilhouse Magazine #05… and possibly subsequent issues.

Full details after the jump!


Read the rest of Coilhouse is Hiring! Apply Here.


Post tags: Coilhouse

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blissblog - 08 Feb 10

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blissblog - 08 Feb 10

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blissblog - 08 Feb 10

State of South Carolina Secretary of State Subversive Agent Form

jwz - 08 Feb 10

Check the appropriate box. Do you or your organization directly or indirectly advocate, advise, teach or practice the duty or necessity of controlling, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, the state of South Carolina or any political division thereof?
[ ] YES [ ] NO

If yes, please outline the fundamental beliefs. If applicable, attach a copy of the bylaws or minutes of meetings from the last year.

"Inflection Points" Presentation

Open The Future - 08 Feb 10

For those folks who are interested, here's the Slideshare version of the presentation I gave last week at the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute annual meeting. I was asked to talk about foresight thinking, as the event theme was "The Big One of 2056: What Went Right?" a look at a fictional 7.8 quake in the SF region that was handled as well as they could imagine possible.

My goal was to offer a bit of reassurance to the audience that there is some real utility to thinking about the future, and to spell out (in a cursory way) the kinds of big picture issues they should keep in mind while looking ahead forty-six years.

By and large, it was a successful talk. The post-talk questions were engaged, with little push-back, and I'm told that the overall response from the audience was quite positive.

The talk was video recorded, and I'm told will eventually be available to the public. I'll link when that happens.

CAN GIFTING ECONOMIES SCALE?

John Robb - 08 Feb 10

A gifting economy is different from a barter or market economy in that valuable items are given away to those that need them, without any quid pro quo, exchange, or payment.  Gifting economics (lots of great papers on this topic) were/are the economic heartbeat of hunter-gatherer tribal cultures, the social organization where we spent 99% of our time as homo sapiens sapiens.  Barter was, in contrast, a mechanism for economic interactions between tribes.  

This gifting economic system wasn't based on pure altruism.  It did have an enforcement mechanism to ensure compliance with the system over the longer term.  On the positive side, there was an intangible increase in the social status (using personal or societal metrics) of a tribal member that gifted an item.  On the negative, a failure to offer hospitality or gifts to those in need was considered a mortal slight that could incite violence or expulsion from the tribe.

There were also a considerable number of drivers for gifting at the tribal level.  Here are some:

  • The survival of the tribe, as a group, was more important than the survival of any individual.  However, the loss of any individual could put the tribe at risk.
  • The generation of surplus and innovation was highly uncertain.  Sharing reduced that uncertainty to manageable levels.
  • Sharing reduced internal friction that could put the tribe at risk.

Scalability

It's pretty clear that the societal drivers of tribal gifting economics and the mechanisms of enforcement didn't survive the transition to a global social system composed of billions of members.   Simply, the connections between any two individuals (outside of immediate familial relationships) are too abstract for these drivers and enforcement mechanisms to be relevant.   As a result, market based mechanisms for economic interaction have gained dominance.

However, the ongoing shift of the global market-based economy from a trade in rival goods (tangible items that invoke zero sum economics) to digital non-rival goods (items that can be copied at no expense or diminishment, endlessly) provides a window of opportunity.  It may be possible to revive gifting economics for non-rival goods to amazing beneficial effect.   Some ideas on how this could scale:

  • Automated reputation metrics that enhance social status based on contributions.
  • Mechanisms built using MMO gaming as a way to tie successful gifting to status improvement (leveling) or an ability to attract investment.
  • The creation of an inside/outside barrier that separates a gifting economy from the global economic mainstream.   Automated mutual interdependence (see my friend Bruce Sterling's absolutely brilliant story on this:  "Maneki Neko").

Latest on SNOW

Jean Snow - 08 Feb 10

Latest on SNOW

So what’s the latest on SNOW? I guess two new developments art that I added a dedicated Twitter feed, and also created a Facebook fan page. The Twitter feed is mostly just automated with new articles from the site — because some people actually prefer that over RSS feeds these days — but I do keep an eye on it, and will reply to questions and comments. The Facebook page is just another way of putting the site out there, and should be a good way of informing members of SNOW-related events as they happen.

Regular content updates have also continued over the past week, with a few new guest columns and my regular news items. Here’s a list of what you may have missed over the past few days.

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blissblog - 08 Feb 10