The following is an excerpt from the catalogue essay for Three Models for Improvement (Minor), a show held last summer (July 28 to September 7) at eyelevelgallery in Halifax, featuring recent work by Aaron Brewer, Geoffrey Garrison and Andrea Lalonde. (Catalogue available through http:// www.eyelevelgallery.ca).

The fantastic imaginings of a perfect society, of a place where the desires of the individual and the collective are in perfect harmony with each other and with available resources have collapsed, a balloon pricked by history and worldliness. The failure of utopian thought-which can be located most clearly in the first half of the twentieth century-was spectacular. Its dissolution complete, Utopia was defeated, like many renounced fantasies, by the disappointing results of attempts to manifest it as reality. The idyllic paradise waiting across the sea was exposed as a colonial nightmare that stripped lands and peoples of their material and human resources. Attempts to transform societies from the inside bought us totalitarian states which left too high a body count to be considered viable, whatever one may think of the ideologies that drove them. Even the paradise promised by religious faith is being rapid- ly abandoned in much of the West.

We shy away from any attempt to enact massive transformations of the world we live in with Pavlovian obedience, identifying such attempts as arrogant, dangerous, and futile. Though there are still many who identify themselves as revolutionaries, their strategies often resemble fashion statements more than political actions. The organizations that appear to provide genuinely needed services (i.e. Medecines Sans Frontiers, women's shelters, food banks) are all clean-up operations. They exist to offer some small help or sanctuary to the many that our contemporary social structures have failed.

So we focus on whatever small but desperately necessary gestures we are capable of making. Keep our collective finger in the proverbial dike. Try to stave off disaster by blue-bagging our lives. A few steps forward, shuffle back, leaning left or right, we're mostly keeping time. But Utopia, until someone tried to make it real, was meant to be imagined.(2) Even if our policy makers and political leaders have grown too sophisticated for such naive ideas, there are few of us who don't harbour an imagined good place/no place.

Any relevant contemporary engagement with utopian thought requires an acceptance of and investment in its contradictions. It must retain criticality (which is easy), while functioning ultimately as shameless optimism (which is not). The artists presented in this exhibition enact such contrary thinking in their practices. Whether they attempt to make material and manageable the abstractions of international politics and economics; to bridge the gap between the material comforts of the domestic sphere and the egalitarian impersonality of public space; or to prioritize desire over propriety, these projects simultaneously shudder at and yearn toward the concept of a better place, an impossible social contract.

"The Unity that serves to encompass diversity is that of a geometrically reconstituted perception on the part of a fictitious eye." Rudolf zur Lippe 3

The European Union is, at first glance, remarkably close to a multi-national manifestation of utopian ideals. A continent that displayed some of the most horrific of human achievements in the last few centuries - in the attempts of various nations to overcome one another, to eliminate undesirable populations, and to build perfect societies by force of violence - Europe seems finally to have reached a state of semi-peaceable cooperation. It is fitting that Geoffrey Garrison's Euro Bridges were conceived of and produced in Berlin - the reunification of Germany having both allowed and necessitated the political, industrial, and financial unification of the continent.

The anatomy of the union is really pretty banal. Driven more by bureaucracy than ideology, the union is one of complex treaties addressing such issues as allowable deficits, agricultural subsidies, and common law. The product of pragmatic politics, it facilitates European competitiveness in the global economy and prevents military conflict between previously fractious member nations. These nations are left to define themselves by their languages and cultural histories, a happy state of diversity within unity.

Utopia necessitates exclusivity and the removal or refusal of any subject that fails to meet its dictates. There is a reason that More's Utopia was set on an island; defense from outsiders was identified as a primary and integral aspect of that peaceable society, and punishments for any infraction were spectacularly severe. (4)

To maintain such a perfect state, lines must be drawn, choices made. Self-definition presents something of a problem in an alliance that has little capacity to foster a homogeneous concept of transnational European identity. The reasons for the inclusion or exclusion of a country from the union are many and complex, but there does seem to be a limit to accepted conventions of diversity.

[...]

1.Quoted by Klaus Theweleit in Male Fantasises, Vol. 1 1987, Minnesota 2. Thomas More coined the term in his 1516 book of the same name. It was one of only many puns and wordplays in the text: a combination of the Greek terms for "good place" and "no place." Thomas More, Utopia, current translation published in 1965, Penguin Classics, London England.
3. In Natur Beherrshung am Menschen, cited by Klaus Theweleit in Male Fantasies Vol 1¸ pp. 302, 1987 Minnesota.
4. In More's Utopia, "pre-marital sex is punished by compulsory celibacy for life, adultery by slavery and repeated adultery by death". Paul Turner, translator, pp. 13, 1965, Penguin, London, England.


2. FICTION | Markus Satelite (pt.1)
by Ryan English

From Penn Station Markus took the Uptown 2 to West 72nd Street. His life in Iowa was contained in a tattered chocolate brown Samsonite bag which he now carried wearily up the throat of Broadway. A plethora of others had revised themselves here. Perhaps here at this very newsstand that sold Markus' Lucky Strikes. They had changed form, escaped the eternal reference and scorn of their respective hometowns that bore the curse of type cast. New York City held a heart that offered colossal forgiveness to its newcomers and natives alike. Rumours of new skin lingered on the terraces of Brownstones in Greenwich, and flirted with rooftops like the steam from the sewers at West 75th Street outside the Fairway Market.

Markus was no different. An army of boys had come before him, their brains short circuited from the penetrative gloss of a Technicolor XY Magazine. The Elysium they were promised never came to pass; it only left their hopes to the winding concrete of the East village. Of course, there was the resourceful variety that had managed to swindle a loft on Spring Street with lawyers and real-estate tycoons alike. There were the trust funded who lived out a dual existence of ennui and debauchery in the hotel residences on West End Avenue, concierge and all. Or there were those who were the embodiment of irony, living it up in Williamsburgh and staying in with take-out sushi. What they all shared in common was that they traveled across the borders of their own history, across the borders of America's lonely and eccentric townships, and down the endless highways that seemed as though they would never find New York, in the prospect of transformation, personal liberty and a home in the Hamptons. Markus was no different.

He paused now half way down West 75th Street and gazed up at a five-story brick building. A canopy stretched half way out of the entrance of the building and lingered about two-and a half feet from Markus' head and maybe eight from the ground. Etched into the marquis was a tattered burgundy that read: "250 West 75th Street". Something about the etching made the muscles in Markus' stomach flinch. The assertion of addresses on buildings in Manhattan took a whole being unto themselves. It was as though every number on every street was a holy proverb, like they were the coordinates of some divine and glamorous jigsaw puzzle. He turned the key.

Markus' father owned property on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It was an inheritance from his mother who died rich and lonely and the space was virtually unused. At any rate Markus climbed the four flights to 407 and helped himself in.

The Richard Avedon on the white plaster walls were no contribution of Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy. Lily, Markus' grandmother had a penchant for fine art. Not the Baroque or gaudy variety you might expect from a woman her age; Lily had a taste for the avant-garde and all its mundane cache. And by that token had created a private permanent collection of sorts. She was a society lady and her taste for art went no further than the keen eye she held for fashion, intellectually or otherwise. Lily was a mystery to the McCarthy's. Her wit and hedonism dragged her to every hotel lobby in Manhattan, and into the arms of every senator and attorney. She was a professional. The McCarthy's inherited everything from her, but never directed any thanks openly or cited how a small fortune had found them all the way from New York to Osceola County, Iowa.

My notes unedited (except for spelling) from Nicolas Bourriaud¹s twenty minute lecture Arte Global o Turismo Artistico: La Ideologia de la Globalización (Global Art or Artistic Tourism: the Ideology of Globalization). for the Forum, Arte-Vida (Art and Life) as part of the 8th Havana Biennial. The forum provided simultaneous translation: Bourriaud spoke in French; I listened in English. JP

Aesthetic problem of common territory reflected through abstraction. Modernism = emergence of common commitment. Ended by an idealism - something valid for everyone & this is what over the last twenty years has... Now out of an ideological time - material occurs.

Idealist: train station - knows where it is going.
Materialist: train station - doesn't know where train is going. He sees the people and knows of the origin of the train.

Globalization = Essentialism
1) beauty can be found in everything and is circumstantial.
2) Making a judgement; common territory among different cultures; hand in hand attacks to globalism; Westernization of the problem.

Modern reflects new culture: globalization. What is it? It is an exchange; the chance of exchange.

Two terms of consensus:
1) technical field: visible in contemporary art; ie., video.

Godard: "Documentary is what happens to others. Fiction Happens to me."

Machine that produces scenes of others. Standardization.

I have always preferred the eerie glow of disco lights to that of the harsh reality of UV rays. Admittedly, I approach the night life with a certain "impress me" attitude after years of disco spelunking and hosting my own monthly club night in NYC. However, the radar is always scanning for something fresh and I will be the first to acknowledge innovation in the art of night vision. A gorgeous wave of lesbian chic is washing away exhausted gay boy drama. In recent months, girl centric-boy friendly-parties have made a mark on the early a.m. party horizon. These weekly and monthly parties are offering a much desired alternative to church street monotony and a male-stream underground. Don't expect any uniform code of fashion or conduct at these events. They attract a "we are here to party" cross-section of lesbians and their admirers. The only thing that really stands out is the lack of self-conscious reserve these women exhibit. They come to groove and the crowd is never static. If you suffer from any delusions of lesbian style deficit you will be corrected at the door. There is no archetype here, looks range from high lipstick gloss to raw diesel (and everything in between). The frequency is at full tilt in a most inclusive manner. These gals seem hell bent on one thing-having fun. Two current nights that exemplify this growing dance girl riot are Smooch and Juicy.

On the advice of a friend, Petra C, I attended Smooch one Thursday night at Liquid Lounge on College Street. I was greeted by a sexy kitten in a full body cat look brandishing a whip, meow! The smallish dance floor was drenched with style and rhythm. Smooch is run by the fabulous duo Michelle Mama and DJ Secret Agent-Kristy (whom, when not Dj-ing can be found slinging fashion at Holt's). Their night is a weekly lounge foil to the monthly party Juicy.

Juicy is a major affair. Held at the re-vamped el mo on Spandia Juicy attracts a youthful crowd craving old skool electro and funk. Juicy is thrown by a collective of stellar girls who recognized the need for girl sponsored music speed. In addition to a rotating line-up of all girl Djs hot new performs are regularly featured. November's party featured a wonderful drag-king cabaret number. Recently I had a chance to speak with one of Juicy's representatives, Holly Skinner. During a phone interview I asked her about some of the backlash from the lesbian community regarding the presence of men at Juicy to which she responded without missing a beat "When you are on the dance floor the only thing that should really matter is the music and who you are dancing with in the moment". Sing it Sister.

2.The International Space Station and the newsworthiness of Rex Harrington
by Timothy Comeau

Apparantly Bushy down south is going to soon announce a return to the moon. Like the weapons of mass destruction, I'll believe this big-election-next year-bribe when I see it. For the past while I've been content to make do with watching the space sation fly overhead every once and awhile. Now, it's not that big of a deal, but it is one of those things that most resemble art while making no pretense to be so. Like a conceptual masterpeice, it is rather banal and boring, but it can inspire much thought. Nothing else so reminds me of what Heidegger was talking about when he was going on about Greek temples. But I mean really, Greek temples...when we've been to the moon for god's sakes. Why should any of that classcism make sense to us when we have a space station orbiting the earth, and visable according to a schedule worked out using good old fashioned Newtonian physics and viewable using good old java applets and contempoary telecommunictation technology (links below).
Nothing so makes one so aware of how pathetic our attempts to go to space have been, then seeing this fragile light cross the sky. Rating: 9/10

Sighting oppurtunities by city
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/index.cgi

Real Time Orbital Data
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking/index.html

Rex Harrington's Retirement on CFTO News, Wed 19 Novembe 2003 11.20pm