Sunday, December 02, 2007

Post Titled:
Famous Last Words and/or Videos

One of the strangities of death these days is the social media path which is left behind. A young man named Carl Nelson at my sister's (and my former) University, Seattle U., just committed suicide, which, at age 20, I can only imagine it must be an awful shock to family, friends and the SU community, (it being a fairly small school where the students and professors are all quite closely linked.)
Before he passed away he uploaded this video he made to YouTube:

his other videos are very simple, clever funny and lovely as well... SEE HERE.
Before the dawn of social media, if someone were to unexpectedly pass away then there was a good chance that the public or even friends and family who weren't too close to the person wouldn't really know much about them and thier life/thoughts/interests unless they kept extensive journals and wrote a lot of letters. I have known a half dozen or so young people who died between 1992-1999 and all I have are memories- nothing even turns up (or hardly anything) in a Google search regarding their life or death. But now, if I read about someone in the news I can search for their Facebook or Myspace or Youtube or flickr account and actually get a sense of who this person is or was... at least much more of a sense than was ever available before. So strange that in these small digital ways we are able to be somewhat immortalized...
Post Part: The SecondEVEL.
another unrelated but slightly related recent happening:
1.I get an email from KW (Kunst Werk) about an Evel Knievel - lead workshop here in Berlin on the 8th of Dec, I respond immediately to reserve one of the 25 spots available. Awesome, right?
2.I contact Whitehot Magazine to let them know I would like to write an article about this.
3.I forward the message to a few friends in town, but before the end of the day, Evil Knievel is pronounced dead at age 69.


Here was the KW email:

"EVIL KNIEVEL: THINK POSITIVE / POSTGRADUATE ME
Part III: JIMMY CARTER
AN OFFER IN FURTHER EDUCATION, 2007


Saturday, December 8, 11 am
Meeting point: Yard of KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststr. 69, 10117 Berlin

Registration necessary!

KW Institute for Contemporary Art is proud to announce the taking place of one of Evil Knievel’s workshops “Think Positive / Postgraduate Me” as part of the exhibition History Will Repeat Itself of KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. This exhibition is a cooperation with Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund.

In a workshop especially conceived for the exhibition, Evil Knievel will deal on Saturday, December 8, 2007 with a specific aspect of contemporary motivational strategies. “Goal setting through re-enactment” – as the American catchphrase implies – serves as a guideline for his appearance. As a special form of re-enactment that is not only practised in American schools and the U.S. Army, Evil Knievel presents a central technique of self-motivation, which was equally crucial for his own career: to identify with a successful idol.
“For identification with a successful model can be an important factor in someone breaking out of the confines of their inferiority complexes and fear of failure, which cause them to remain in an enduring negative state of mind. A successful technique for improving your world is identification with a symbol that is an inspiration to make the right decisions.”

Knievel’s workshop “Think Positive / Postgraduate Me” will focus on the former US president Jimmy Carter (*1924) who tried not only to reform before and during his presidency his life after the model of a Puritan pilgrimage, but who thought to be in this the very model for the reawakening of the American nation. By re-enacting Carter’s auto-suggestions and by becoming an auto-suggestive model himself, Knievel will discuss the meaning of re-enactment for the American success philosophy. At the same time, Evil Knievel invites the public to experience the values of a positive mental attitude, the use of visualizing for designing one's own life, to experience the courage to a change one’s life.

Saturday, December 8, 2007, 11 am
Workshop with Evil Knievel:
Think Positive / Postgraduate Me
Part III: Jimmy Carter

Meeting point: Yard of KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststr. 69, 10117 Berlin
Max. 25 participants, registration deadline until December 6, 2007,
Participation fee: 8 €
he participants are kindly asked to bring bathing suit or trunks, a towel and a second set of plain white clothes.

Evil Knievel
*1973 Butte, MT; exhibitions and performances a.o. “History Will Repeat Itself”, Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2007-2008); “Super A”, Kunstverein, Langenhagen (2006); “More is not enough”, Revolver, Frankfurt am Main (2006); “Teasing Minds”, Kunstverein, Munich (2004), “Brand New”, Hoxton Distillery, London (2004); “Einblicke”, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2003).

History Will Repeat Itself – Strategies of re-enactment in contemporary art
Dates: November 18, 2007 – January 13, 2008
Opening hours: Tue – Sun noon – 7 pm, Thu noon – 9 pm

The exhibition History Will Repeat Itself is mainly funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes / German Federal Cultural Foundation.

KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Auguststraße 69
D-10117 Berlin
Phone 0049 [30] 2434 59 0
Fax 0049 [30] 2434 59 99
www.kw-berlin.de"

Three Days Later...
KW sends out an email saying that they have decided to cancel the workshop, to which my brain literally responded "Yea-?, no shit, sherlock."

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