I've been working on this performance art piece where I text pictures to a core group of friends and family (individually) to see what kind of text threads I can engender. It's a lot more fun and effective than just texting "What's up?" The pictures are primarily mundane images of views around my apartment, and so I call both the photo series and the performance piece naked lunch, stylized lowercase.
It all started when the management company for my apartment building cancelled a scheduled inspection, which was supposed to include checking the status of our appliances. After they cancelled, I took a picture of my lunch with my stove in the background. No reason. The composition just caught my eye. I texted it to a friend from high school just for grins. (It was only later that I thought maybe subconsciously I felt the need to show my appliances to somebody, anybody.)
My friend texted back, "What is this?" which could mean two things: what is the dish? and/or why are you sending me a picture of your lunch?
"I call it chicken casserole," I texted back, which also has a double meaning: the dish is chicken casserole, and the photo is "Chicken Casserole."
Click on images to enlarge them.
I then decided to text the image to my closest friends and family members. Most of them texted variations on "Whatcha cookin'?" Here's a good thread:
She: Nice! What are you making?
Me: Chicken casserole!
She: Yum. I made a chicken dish this week, too. With broth, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, over gluten free pasta. Very tasty. Having leftovers for lunch today. What’s in your casserole?
Me: Chicken, cream of broccoli soup, some onions and quite a lot of pepper! [I left out egg noodles]
She: Cool. Cheese!
Me: No cheese.
She: When you make a casserole do you make it for one meal or do you have leftovers?
Me: Excellent questions! It makes 4 meals. [I reheat the other portions for lunch on subsequent days]
She: Excellent planning!
Me: I’m an experienced bachelor.
She: Haha
[new text] I need a cook.
Me: I need a woman.
Another thread:
He: Whatcha making
Me: Chicken casserole!
He: Nice, I made pecan chicken the other day. Learned that you can add frozen veggies to the rice cooker halfway through - game changer!
Me: Gnice!
[new text] Did that sound like Borat?
He: I haven’t seen that movie in 10 years+ and I can still hear it crystal clear in my head lol
Me: He owned it!
And:
Another she: "Lotta cooking happening there? Cool photo!"
I have always said that the best response you can get to an artwork is "Cool!" At least one person probably looked at the Parthenon and thought, "Cool." After a few more exchanges, this friend wrote, "It’s so cool. I’d love to see this in a collection. What would you call it and what other subjects/scenes would you choose?" Eventually I started calling it naked lunch.
A few days later, on Christmas Eve, I caught a glimpse of my shower in the dark down the hallway of my apartment and texted this picture out:
She: Hey!! Where am I?
Me: My apartment!
She: [sent a picture of her sister holding a dog standing in front of a Christmas tree] Oh cool!! Here’s -------- with new puppy --------!
Me: That is the best picture I have seen in a really long time!
This person eventually picked up on what I was doing and started sending me pictures from her own life.
One friend usually responded by providing captions for my pics:
She: The Hallway as Interpreted by the Academic and Musician.
Another she: Not a creature was stirring
Me: Nice!
The day after Christmas I sent an image of the Christmas cards I had received:
She: It looks like an exhibit!
Me: The internet is the largest art gallery in the world!
She: But the word museum back there! What’s that?
Me: [misunderstanding what she meant] It’s similar to the way we click on a floppy disk icon to save a file.
She: [loved “It’s similar to the way we click on a floppy disk icon to save a file.”]
Me: [smiley face emoji]
Later in the thread, it dawned on me that she was referring to the words on the poster behind the Christmas cards.
Me: I was going back over this thread and I realized you were asking about the word “Museum” on the poster behind the Christmas cards. I thought you were commenting on my reference to the internet as the world’s largest art gallery.
She: Yes!!! The word museum!!!
Me: The poster is from a Jackson Pollock exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.
I like the way it says “The Museum of Mode” behind the cards.
She: [loved “I like the way it says ‘The Museum of Mode’ behind the cards.”]
Another she: [loved an image]
Beautiful! And I meant to tell you, my mother enjoyed reading your postcard folder as well
Me: omg, --------, that’s one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever received! [heart emoji]
She: [loved “omg, --------, that’s one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever received! [heart emoji]”]
Me: Give your folks my love. Happy Boxing Day!
She: To you as well!
That same day after Christmas I had a friend over for tea and conversation. Before she arrived, I prepared a cutting board of cheese and crackers:
She (not the friend who was coming over): That cheese looks good. What kind?
Me: Smoked gouda!
She: I was going to guess that! Yum.
Me: It’s my go-to.
With stoned wheat thins.
Another she: Oh yum!!!
[she sent a picture of her sister pushing a cat in a fuchsia cat stroller] our joint Christmas present from mom!
Me: Now THERE’S a picture!
I should mention that most of these threads continued on about different things, many of them still active when the next picture came up. Also, throughout these texts I was sprinkling in self-portraits, to give people an idea of what I was looking like these days (and to show off my updated wardrobe!). The last one I sent I call "Dress Blues":
She: [loved an image]
Me: I’m going out tomorrow night and I was putting together my wardrobe.
She: Very handsome!!!!
Me: [toothy grin smiley face emoji]
He: What’s up?
Me: I’m going out tomorrow night and I was putting together my wardrobe.
He: On a date?
Me: No, to check out a band.
He: Alright. Looking good for that. Enjoy!
Me: [toothy grin smiley face emoji]
Another she: Looking sharp, there! Off to somewhere fun or new clothes?
Me: Both! I’m going out tomorrow night and I was putting together my wardrobe.
She: We both give a thumbs up!
Another she: Going out?
Me: Mañana!
She: Looking Dapper!
Me: [toothy grin smiley face emoji]
Yet another she: hey!! i know that guy!
Me: I’m going clubbing tomorrow night and I want to look cool.
She: i think you nailed it!
Me: [toothy grin smiley face emoji]
One last she: Oh very nice look!!!! [five gold stars emoji]
Me: I’m going out tonight and I was putting together my wardrobe.
She: Ya look like a handsome devil!
Me: [heart emoji] I’ve been working on it!
She: [loved “I’ve been working on it!”]
At this point, I thought this piece might be over. But then in January we got a couple of snowstorms, and I sent out pictures from that, including this one:
She: Clever shot! Rothko-like
Me: Yes!
Another she: [loved an image]
Snow in the shade
Me: Precisely!
Another she: Like it!
Me: [smiley face emoji]
Another she: [loved an image]
Love!!
Me: [smiley face emoji]
He: What made the tracks?
Me: Human!
One of my neighbors.
He: [thumbs up emoji]
Me: [peace sign emoji]
She: That picture is cool.
Me: I have always said that the best response you can get to an artwork is "Cool!"
She: [loved "I have always said that the best response you can get to an artwork is 'Cool!'"]
Then I had the flu and was basically snowed in for a couple of weeks. When I finally started feeling better and the weather turned a little warmer, I left the door to my apartment open. I don't have a screen door, but there are no flies in the wintertime!
Me: Airing This Place Out
I don't usually give titles or captions to the pictures in this series, but I feared this one would be too random, even in a series of random photographs, and I wasn't sure how many people had picked up on the fact that this was a project, much less a work of performance art.
She: Looks great! Love the light in the rug and the perfectly framed tree outside
Me: You're the first to comment on the tree! I put it there!
She: Oh, you mean you cut and pasted it?
That kind of gives it everything. You have your interior and your exterior. There's a tension between them because both of them look beckoning.
Me: No, I placed it there in the composition.
Thank you!
She: Oh well, I felt it was very intentional
Me: Yes, indeed.
She: And I like it even more knowing that that was already there. Which is what I presumed. Until you said you put it there, ha ha
Me: I was being overly clever.
She: Would you have called it art if you had cut and pasted it?
Me: Absolutely.
She: I don't think you were being overly clever. I think you were being observant and that's wise we care nothing for being clever. We have a good sense of humor but as artists we're looking for truth with a capital T.
Me: All man-made objects are works of art.
And, of course, scientists are looking for Truth, too.
She: I know you believe that and I tend to agree with you.
Everything we do is contrived as artists.
Me: It's complicated. [smiley face emoji]
She: But I find something particularly moving when it's already present in the world, and we simply reframe it without touching it.
We just show people something with fresh eyes that has been there all along.
And when I say we, I am very lightly talking about my artistry. I am not taking myself as a serious art critic.
Me: Wordsworth said that.
She: [like "It's complicated."]
Me: Or Coleridge.
She: I gotta go back and read those guys, ha ha!
I know they were so into nature
Me: Me too!
She: And the sublime
I think it's our natural state, to feel connected to nature
Maybe that sounded dumb, because I said natural and then nature
Me: The idea of the "artist" showing the masses what is right in front of their eyes.
She: Yes!
Me: Although, I don't think they'd have used the word "masses."
She: Hordes
Hoi palloi
Me: I'm sure you still have your Norton Anthology of English Literature.
She: I have both volume one and volume two
Me: Lay people.
She: Probably, they thought of them as the great unwashed
I'm just joking around
Me: I lost my volume one somewhere along the way.
She: What a shame!
I'm sure you could pick it up at any secondhand online bookstore.
Me: Yeah, I was gonna say "rubes," but that doesn't sound like them, either.
omg, I live on eBay!
She: Rubes is a good one.
Me: And Thriftbooks.
She: I think it's funny how many people think hoi polloi means hoity-toity or fancy folk!
Me: I was just thinking that!
She: I guess HOI makes them think of hoity
Come to think of it I wonder where hoity toity comes from
Me: I mean, I was thinking, "Isn't hoi polloi fancy folk"!
Shows how much I know!
She: That's OK! I love learning new words
I learn new words almost every day on spelling bee on the New York Times because the words I can't get are usually words I have no idea existed
Like TENON
That was new to me the other day
Me: I'll bet you've heard "mortise and tenon," and "tenon" just looked odd all by itself.
And I texted her a picture of mortise and tenon work on a piece of furniture my dad made.
Me: From the dresser my dad made for me.
She: Oooo I love that!!!!! He was an artist!!!
Me: Stop it!
She: You don't think he was? or are you kidding? because that is master craftsmanship.
Me: It's complicated!
She: It goes beyond technical skill. You have to have the heart for this work.
I thought you said everything man-made was art
So when you said stop it, what did you really mean?
At this point I called her on the phone to talk about this in depth. Because it's complicated!
Another she: Yes! You're supposed to for the Lunar New Year for good fortune, wealth and health
Nice photo btw!
Me: I knew that! (not)
Thank you!
Another she: That's probably a good idea after your illness! [toothy grin smiley face emoji]
Me: Exactly!
Another she: Beautiful sunny day! I'm stuck in bed with a cold.
Me: Oh, shoot. I had the flu over the holidays. It was brutal.
He: Looking good!
Me: Feels good!
This project is all about working within the format to create an entirely new art form. I feel like the recipients of the photos should be able to sell them as NFTs, now that the (art) world knows they're part of an art piece.
The next image in the series is actually a short video of me ironing a shirt that I posted on YouTube. If I'm honest, I must admit that I didn't realize it was part of the series until after I had finished it. But that's how art happens. You listen to the work and follow where it leads you. That's the beauty of it. I think it didn't occur to me that it was part of naked lunch at first because it wasn't sent via text. But it's definitely a mundane view into my apartment!
I sent the link to the group via email. I got a couple of comments and some long, thoughtful and often very opinionated email responses from other hard-core ironers, but there were few text threads because it didn't start out as a text. After a couple of days I tried to get text threads going by texting to some members of the group, "You've got to have something to say about my video!"
This also has two meanings. The primary meaning is, "I know you thought my video was odd, but you must have some thoughts about it." The subtext is, "I'm working on this performance art piece, and you need to say something about my video to continue to contribute to the narrative."
