Remotism is: I went to New York looking for the new Dada or new-Surrealism or some important movement people are going to be writing about 100 years from now in regards to the ‘20s and didn’t find it. I felt so close. I looked and looked, but was quite disappointed. I won’t give up. I felt that feeling in the air back in 2019 at the House of Wax Bar when Brittany Markert gave a lecture there, and I haven’t felt it in New York since then... In 2022, I encountered a lot of gloating masquerading as art, which is generally how I feel about comedy and the majority of comedians. The most important movements are, for me, happening in isolation... They are born from desperation and necessity.
In New York I found people fooling around, I found ubiquity (I even mocked what I saw in a painting about it, which I’ll probably never see again), and I found the kind of people who can afford to live in New York... who among you is actively breaking rules or irritating critics or truly being vulnerable with your live audience? From hauntology’s perspective, I am watching a new ‘Roaring ‘20s’ while still very interested in the pandemic, what it reduced each of us to—specifically the term working ‘remotely.’ What did we become remotely in order to persevere and survive? What can we learn from that? Where did we find hope?
This is what I have to say to New York: You all live in probably the most talked about big city in the world. If you spend any amount of time there as a contemporary artist, you’ve ample opportunities to make a great impact on the world around you, simply by being in New York. So stop wasting your time there!
You have a responsibility to make your stay count! To lead the world, and create some manifesto of significance! The rest of us are working remotely—while you are at center of the cultural hub. When a total nobody like me visits New York, it is not lost on me the magnitude of how little time I have to make any kind of impression or difference. I am expecting the same from everyone else—do something that will be worth talking about 100 years even 1000 years from now!
Who are you? Are you just another person acting out for attention? Then show us your attention wound! Wear it proudly! And if you are insecure about your wound—show some curiosity in the wounds of others! Where do you come from beyond the facade you’ve worn? Make a thing worth remembering, and if you are going to do bad drugs, then say something actually worth saying about those drugs! You must see yourself from outside of your time or you will be nothing noteworthy! See how you relate in the big picture. Of course you must find a way to make it fun for you and engage your captive audience, but you must never forget that the person you are doing all this for is as young and impressionable as you once were! What do you have to say to them? Do you want them to suffer as you once did? I want to believe all of you have something worthy of saying to the young, but I’m not terribly convinced. Make them believe in you. Make us fall in love with your own struggle—with your personal story. I must be asking a lot, but considering where you live, I don’t think it is unreasonable. Anyways, I doubt I’ll be back for a very long time…
Rosemary
Spokane, Washington at 2:33 AM
March 23, 2023