Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Kenny G Moor

I first began to realize the potential of boredom (as technique) during my initial visits with William Moor. The name Kenneth Goldsmith didn't stick with me at the time, but I certainly remember William telling me about his having (re)typed the entirety of an edition of the New York Times. Shortly after, William began to (re)type most of the (then) recent Harry Potter book into an amazon review of the book's listing. 

I just read something by Goldsmith to the effect of... If it doesn't exit on the internet, it doesn't exist. Which immediately brought to mind how much of William's work was nowhere, but on the internet: his amazon reviews, his endless email inquiries [what culminated as his thesis, which I believe he planned to submit as a forwarded email].

And yet, if you search for William Moor, you'll find his Amazon reviews, but you won't find, for lack of a better phrase, a poetic context. Whereas, Goldsmith's primary search results are overwhelmingly crowded by links to information, interviews, and 'works' hosted by academic and artistic institutions. Also, Goldsmiths works, a(bound) in books, recordings and video. Kenneth Goldsmith's work is Kenneth Goldsmith working. He seems to advocate to his readers/ listeners a desire to diminish, if not eradicate, the intellectual self, but his own practice undermines this impulse by (reluctantly or not) giving way to the cult of personality, which, in this case, strongly relies on his associations with academies and institutions. 

And yet, there is no inherent hypocrisy, in that he relinquishes the rights to his own name, his own personality, advocating a practice which he seems to earnestly act upon. 
 
William exists (on the interweb) as a phenomenon of manufactured normal thoughts on ordinary things. Goldsmith exists (on the interweb and elsewhere) as a practicioner of practicing the re-manufacturing of language. 

William is generally self-sabotaging as an artist, almost ensuring a certain level of anonymity in regard to his internet writings. There is, of course, no reason to NOT suspect Goldsmith of closet anonymity. Aside from his not-so-anonymous role as DJ Kenny G on WFMU, he may very well be functioning under a variety of pseudonyms, if not nameless (ala wikipedia, chatrooms, products reviews). Identity theft can be practiced among his students in the haven of his classroom, so perhaps he's found a similar haven for himself somewhere along the out rim(s) of the internet. 

I've only just begun to investigate the work and persona of Kenneth Goldsmith. I understand that tonight, across the country, he is reading at my former home, Mills College, in Oakland, CA. And two former colleagues of mine, Lara Durback and Greer Gainer, have collaborated with him on a 'broadside suite,' something I look forward to seeing. 

ALSO, he dresses very well.


 

2 comments:

Sky Jack Morgan said...

Kenny G. was pretty great, and William Moor is a hero.

Xoxofan Girl said...

Thanks for writing this.

 

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