Upsideclown

One year. 100 articles. So we're having a Reader's Party. Come along to Upsidecrown.

Upsideclown banner

	Fresh Mondays and Thursdays ARCHIVE US
	Body Art 26 October 2000 Victor auctions his liver. Decided it's time I bought into the art boom. Well, I say buy, but I'm the one who's going to be paid. Vent R Spleen, my performance arts group, is really taking off, and whilst Cornelius and Daisy, my creative partners, have reservations about the direction in which we're heading, I'm convinced that this one is going to be our big break. So what's the plan? Well, I have observed for a number of years the trend in the art world towards the exhibiting of animal remains: cloven cows with cloven cloven hooves, demi-sheep, pigs in space. It's so gross it's arresting - art imitating the life and death of the slaughterhouse. The phenomenal popularity of these instillations and the extreme reactions which they provoke have led me to develop a strategy by means of which to take modern mimesis a step further. The next logical step is to take organ display out of the zoo and into the hospital. Yeah, yeah, dead people's parts in glass cases, done before. No. We're not talking deceased diseased, we're talking mine. And my friends. As many of you who want to. Picture this: I'm in the Louvre, pointing at my own kidney in a jar. My remaining self and the divorced morsel a coherent whole, whilst separately symbolising life and death respectively. In a jar I am a regenerative motif, as potent as a dead baby covered in excrement. On a petri dish I am a Platonic dualism, soul and body in two different places. We're starting quite modestly, with a few skin flakes, toenails, eyelashes, nether hairs. But the interesting bit will be that which enjoys the added benefit of surgical removal. The art is in removing components which don't need to be extracted or which aren't discarded of their own accord. Get the body out of me, and my soul will be there in a higher proportion. Watch as the me in the glass case gradually grows bigger than the me gesturing at it. Marvel at the passing of a life dedicated to art into art. I've got a schedule for the next few months. Join me if you can, and lend a hand in any way you feel, be it with a bodily pledge, a camera or a scalpel: 8th November: Finger: Wallmart, Boyse, Idaho 23rd November: Appendix: Sacred Temple of Khrishnan Gurumurthi, Brahmaputra 14th December: Right Lung: Chapel of Rest gallery, Southampton General Hospital 27th December: Liver: Outside the Louvre Pyramid. 3rd January: Limbs: Fuji Building, Tokyo (pointing to be performed from this date by Tom Litt).

top

Current clown:

18 December 2003. George writes: This List

Most recent ten:

15 December 2003. Jamie writes: Seven Songs
11 December 2003. Dan writes: Spinning Jenny
8 December 2003. Victor writes: Rock Opera
4 December 2003. Matt writes: The Mirrored Spheres of Patagonia
1 December 2003. George writes: Charm
27 November 2003. James writes: On Boxing
24 November 2003. Jamie writes: El Matador del Amor; Or, the Man who Killed Love
20 November 2003. Dan writes: Rights Management
17 November 2003. Victor writes: Walking on Yellow
13 November 2003. Matt writes: Disintermediation
(And alas we lost Neil, who last wrote Cockfosters)

Also by this clown:

8 December 2003. Victor writes: Rock Opera
17 November 2003. Victor writes: Walking on Yellow
27 October 2003. Victor writes: Our Tune
6 October 2003. Victor writes: Sucking face (in a public place)
15 September 2003. Victor writes: You got any ID?
25 August 2003. Victor writes: Blood on the Boulevard
4 August 2003. Victor writes: In (paren)theses
10 July 2003. Victor writes: Island Fling
19 June 2003. Victor writes: Back (back) and forth (and forth)
2 June 2003. Victor writes: 300 clowns, 13 eight-year olds
12 May 2003. Victor writes: The swings and roundabouts of outrageous fortune
21 April 2003. Victor writes: ...just sitting there quietly contemplating suicide
31 March 2003. Victor writes: Victoria
6 March 2003. Victor writes: Relevant experience
17 February 2003. Victor writes: You will eat chips and go nowhere
27 January 2003. Victor writes: A bushy fish for fishy Mr Bush (after Juvenal)
6 January 2003. Victor writes: The Accidental Voyeur
16 December 2002. Victor writes: Gripper goes bang
25 November 2002. Victor writes: Bediquette
4 November 2002. Victor writes: Where have all the spastics gone?
14 October 2002. Victor writes: An Immodest Proposal
23 September 2002. Victor writes: Fastscan masterplan
2 September 2002. Victor writes: Dry Humping Social Club
12 August 2002. Victor writes: Beat the Mongol
22 July 2002. Victor writes: What life is not
1 July 2002. Victor writes: Stupor heroes
6 June 2002. Victor writes: Dry
13 May 2002. Victor writes: Muppet Suite
18 April 2002. Victor writes: gingermingeninja
25 March 2002. Victor writes: Sodomize with Pukka Pies
28 February 2002. Victor writes: Dave's problem
4 February 2002. Victor writes: King of the Aisles
10 January 2002. Victor writes: Here come the decorator gimps.
17 December 2001. Victor writes: Make war, not supper.
22 November 2001. Victor writes: Cough
29 October 2001. Victor writes: vbarnesinstruments.com
4 October 2001. Victor writes: Green Gauges
10 September 2001. Victor writes: Blind weed
16 August 2001. Victor writes: Snout!
23 July 2001. Victor writes: You're not going to put this in a clown are you?
28 June 2001. Victor writes: What is a droll?
4 June 2001. Victor writes: Burt Pakamak
10 May 2001. Victor writes: Board to Death
12 April 2001. Victor writes: Tricolon with anaphora?
22 March 2001. Victor writes: Point of View
26 February 2001. Victor writes: Goth's Dinner
1 Feburary 2001. Victor writes: Les Miserables
4 January 2001. Victor writes: Flat-packed furniture
14 December 2000. Victor writes: Deliverance
20 November 2000. Victor writes: Bottomry: Exorcising Ghosts
26 October 2000. Victor writes: Body Art
2 October 2000. Victor writes: Disney must die
7 September 2000. Victor writes: Ice-cream in Offworld
14 August 2000. Victor writes: I like sweets that taste of medicine
26 June 2000. Victor writes: I've seen the future, and it's feathered

top

We are all Upsideclown: Dan, George, James, Jamie, Matt, Neil, Victor.

Material is (c) respective authors. For everything else, there's it@upsideclown.com.

And weeeeeee can entertain you by email too. Get fresh steaming Upsideclown in your inbox Mondays and Thursdays. To subscribe, send the word subscribe in the body of your mail to upsideclown-request@historicalfact.com. (To unsubscribe, send the word unsubscribe instead.)