Flaps Market Butterfly ~ with Marc Herbst , The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest
~ Fall 2006 ~ 2:00 - 4:30pm _ 10.03.06 / 10.17.06 / 10.24.06 ~
Combining an anthropological (field trips/ participant observation) and phenomenological approach (meditative physical exercise) and discussion, this class will seek to identify both social and infrastructure-based institutions and the space for the idividual. Then we hope to muddy these up with the goal of finding routes for innovative social or personal projects. This class is inspired by the Alan Sekula's "fish stories" documentary and personal mania of a great power-ballad.
~
Pablo called him mysterious. Alia said adorable. (And then she modified that, saying that “adorable is condescending, right? [He] is smart. He’s what you call a keeper.”) Sarah used the word “hilarious.” And all Michael could say was “er, um, er, um.”
Of course, I am talking here about Marc Herbst.
With Marc, we read Mill Town by Bill Cahn. (We did not discuss why we read it afterwards.) We partnered up and walked to the garden, each one of us with an agenda given to us by Marc—“you want your partner to stick his hands into the Earth,” he told me and to my partner he said, “you want your partner to want to save the garden—and then we (). (We did not discuss it.) We went on group excursions to any place in the community we wished (the 7-11, public schools, the bus stop) and watch for expectations in dialogue. Qusai suggested we pull up alongside a construction crew and ask them if we can help, but instead a few of us went a nearby church and wandered around the lobby and read what was inscribed on the wall: “God Loves a Cheerful Giver.” (We did not discuss it.)
Such was Marc’s teaching style. “I like the way Marc makes us do an exercise—staring at each other, trying to convince each other to do a task, feeling the pain in our body—and then leaves it at that,” Qusai maintained. “No need for explicit contextualization of that experience itself—participating in the experience is an end in itself.”
Ironically (or perhaps not) it was Marc who led us in the most in depth hour-long discussion any of us had ever had about dishwashing in his workshop on consensus. It kind of went like this:
Sundown Schoolhouse Student (SSS) #1: I propose we talk about the final event.
SSS #2: I propose we talk about what happens after the final event.
SSS #3: I want to talk about what we want from a newspaper.
SSS #4: I propose we talk about who does the dishes.
[More debate]
SSS #5: I feel that the vibe is pretty micro right now and that we should talk about the dishes.
[It is decided that we will spend three minutes talking about the dishes.]
SSS #6: Maybe only a few people should do the dishes, but everyone should be doing something.
[A show of hands indicates agreement]
SSS #5: I think there should be three helpers. But wait. What about days where we have a really small breakfast and a really big lunch. [Silence]
SSS #6: And if the chef is delegating, should they also wash dishes?
[One hour passes]
SSS #5: The vibe seems like we have a new proposal.
[The proposal is that the chef is in charge and that they are in dialogue with Fritz about time management.]
SSS #4: I consensus.
[At lunch, three SSS’s wash and dry dishes, two wipe off the table and clear dishes. Four sit comfortably on the bench by the kitchen table.]
Michael argues that, “this method became fundamental to our ability to make decisions and to accomplish things.”
Marc is the only Sundown Schoolhouse instructor to utilize the windows as boards to write on, and from that day forward the windows will have words on them in Sharpie that may or may not be able to be erased about memory, sometimes memorie. (“This is not a real school,” says one student to Marc. “Last week we even spelled magic Magick.”) “Institutional Memory” and “Interpersonal Memory” and “Persistence of Memorie,” read the windows.
I (Devin) wrote only one thing down in my notes and that was The Radical Practice in Remembering.