A recent post to an art educators list I subscribe to got me thinking about art and action, and when the risks artists take cease to be acceptable modes of expression. The case in question is a Toronto film and video student who carried out the following action:

A 24-year-old student, Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson, at the Ontario Academy of Art and Design built a fake pipe bomb, put it in a bag, labelled it “This is not a bomb” and hid it in the lobby of the Royal Ontario Museum. He called someone (he picked a random extension) at the museum to tell them that he had left something that “was not a bomb.”

Jonsson went to class at 5 p.m. and revealed his project to his class and teachers. He then posted a video on YouTube showing an explosion inside the museum. The video was called “The fake bombing at the ROM, Toronto.”

The writer didn’t disparage the work per se, but seemed to suggest that it might have been the product of a “privileged” upbringing. This got me thinking…

In response, I wrote the following:

…this is a great topic and touches our notions of safety and fear, public and private, freedom and responsibility, power and powerlessness, performance and art.

i think there is a line between dangerous as “subversive” and dangerous as in “a public threat.” one of the hallmarks of our age is that we, as society, have lost perspective. “self-correcting” incidents like “dangerous” art reveal just how ill-prepared insular Western culture is to handle potent art in the age of terrorism.

the only failure in Mr Johnsson’s stunt is his incapacity to take complete responsibility for “success.”

art, by definition, exploits the sensitivities of its audience, and by extension society. the artist chooses his relationship to those sensitivities. too often, that relationship is defined by the artists need to exploit his/her craft for economic gain, and by extension what the market (read “society”) will tolerate. in my view, an independent cultural movement is one of the safe guards of any free society. even when some of its contributors have enjoyed, “privileged upbringing.”

Related, should only Hollywood have a monopoly on the power to simulate the destruction of public spaces (think of blockbusters like “Arlington Road”)?

Also related, “art” today is often criticized for not being “authentic,” for [failing to] “touch” the soul. Fear is a part of the same soul, but is generally considered “off limits.” Artists like Banski have skated in this same thin territory. I encourage you to browse the UK artist’s site – his manifesto and such films as Disneyland: http://www.banksy.co.uk/films/index.html:

LonelyGirl15 was one of the first YouTube channels to exploit the tender fears of the public – with what turned out to be a clever ad test by marketers.

No one likes to feel scared, then duped. Its an old con, isn’t it?

I think the most important question to me – even more than “Is is art?” – it clearly is, and stands ignobly as you like, in a long tradition – is the implication of the project as a challenge to “free speech.” here is an apt summary, from Wikipedia:

[Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell] Holmes, writing for a unanimous majority in the United States Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States in 1919, ruled that it was illegal to distribute fliers opposing the draft during World War I. Holmes argued this abridgment of free speech was permissible because it presented a “clear and present danger” to the government’s recruitment efforts for the war. Holmes wrote:

“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”

Holmes wrote of falsely shouting fire, because, of course, if there were a fire in a crowded theater, one may rightly indeed shout “Fire!”. Falsely shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater, i.e. shouting “Fire!” when one believes there to be no fire in order to cause panic, was interpreted not to be protected by the First Amendment.

Schenck was later overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio, which ruled that speech could only be banned when it was directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. a riot), the test which remains until this day. Some now see the Schenck argument to be mistaken, contending that the pamphleteer’s actions were more like yelling fire outside a building to prevent people from entering, rather than trying to encourage people to stampede out.

I think the parallels are clear. How would you approach this topic in your class? Please have a look at the very healthy, very creative discussion that has been generated on YouTube:

• The original film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olYjeFFnKFY
• One viewers response: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW8O-_3Smxg
• Another viewer’s recorded ‘social critique’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2kAkPgtU8c (and check out the comments)
• And the kind of reporting that makes it all relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S79GgX71C8