By Corydon Ireland
How long, exactly, is 2 minutes and 37 seconds? If you run the 100-meter dash, it feels like several eternities. If you’re watching an episode of “Breaking Bad,” it seems a nanosecond.
But if you’re among an audience of hundreds waiting for a lecturer to start speaking, and he doesn’t, and he doesn’t, and he just stands stock still at the lectern for 2 minutes and 37 seconds, that is both a very long time and an attention-grabber.
That inventive silence drew the audience in, put it on edge, and was lesson No. 1 from theater and visual artist Robert Wilson. On Friday evening, before a capacity crowd in a darkened Piper Auditorium at the Graduate School of Design (GSD), he delivered a dramatic and discursive talk on how during his years of art-making he has jumped out of the box that long traditions of theater design and direction had set for him, like a trap.
“The reason I work as an artist,” he told the audience, “is to ask questions.” He tries not to follow rules but to crack them open over the knee of imagination.
The 72-year-old Wilson is an experimental theater producer, director, and designer. His list of collaborators includes William S. Burroughs, Susan Sontag, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Allen Ginsberg, and Philip Glass, with whom he created a signature work, “Einstein on the Beach.” Along the way, Wilson has also been a painter, a sculptor, a video artist, and a lighting designer who worked with light as if it were paint.
As a relentless experimenter, he started his lecture off with no lecture at all, just the minutes of silence. You might not be surprised that such an artist has cast people off the street for plays, or that in his work “A Letter for Queen Victoria” (1974), his 90-year-old grandmother from Texas played the queen. He once directed an overnight production 12 hours long, and another that lasted seven days and had a cast of 580. During the shah’s rule in Iran, Wilson directed 5,000 soldiers to whitewash a hilltop, simulating snow.
In “The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud” (1969), the man playing Freud was a retired housepainter whom Wilson had met in Grand Central Station. The set included a hanging chair; the action called for a turtle to take 37 minutes to walk across stage. “Many people said the work had nothing to do with Freud,” Wilson told his GSD audience. But he disagreed, seeing it as a parable of the psychoanalyst at age 68, when he fell into a depression and was diagnosed with cancer. “It’s not the kind of story you’re going to get in the history books,” he said.
Similarly, Friday’s two-hour talk was not the kind of lecture you would usually get at Harvard. Aside from the prefatory silence, the audience also got shouts, red-faced fits of coughing, and mimed threats to kill. No one coming out of theater or music school, he complained, knows how to walk while on stage, or simply stand still.
Wilson’s appearance was the third in a series of “sensory media platform” public lectures that began last year. The idea is to invite practitioners to remind students that what they do demands art as well as technology.
“What we would like to bring more to the foreground is imagination,” said Silvia Benedito before the lecture. She is an assistant professor of landscape design at GSD and a member of an informal sensory media platform committee at GSD. “Wilson is so demonstrative,” said another committee member, Allen Sayegh, an associate professor in practice of architectural technology. “There is no doubt [the audience] will get something out of this.”
During the talk, what the audience got was a pingpong summary of Wilson’s career in theater, from the days he arrived in New York from Waco, Texas, to study architecture at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute. Wilson had strong opinions right away. Broadways shows, mainstream opera: no. George Balanchine, Merce Cunningham, and John Cage: yes. They created staged movement and light and sound that expressed “so much freedom,” said Wilson.
His early experience with dance led him to a core idea. “I start with movement,” said Wilson, “and from the movement I let the sound come.”
Doing the unexpected was inspired early too. Wilson had one favorite professor at Pratt whose lectures were accompanied by a slideshow of unrelated images. He recalled the final exam, with the professor saying, “Students, you have three minutes to design a city.” (Wilson drew an apple; within it was a crystal cube, “to reflect the universe.”)
There was another lesson in the exam, he told the audience of student designers: “The most important thing is, you have to think quickly.”
The crystal sphere was an emblem of another core idea to Wilson, that light can make or break a play, and that it has to be designed as if with a brush, and with movement too. (“Light,” he told the audience, “is like an action.”)
Then there is “mega-structure,” the grand spatial idea behind planning anything complex. “How do you write a play that is seven hours long?” Wilson asked. “How do you design a city?” You start with a structure, which for Wilson consisted of the grids and fast sketches he made for the audience. In writing the music for “Einstein on the Beach,” Glass worked for months with Wilson’s drawings, one by one, propped up before on the piano. From structure, said Wilson, comes content, like Glass’s music. “Without structure, I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I am lost.”
Time is a factor, too. Wilson and Glass created a structure for “Einstein,” and determined it would be 4 hours and 46 minutes long. At other times, said Wilson, he was faced with a production of 100 episodes, each 30 seconds long.
His experience in theater offered a lesson that spoke to student designers, who may be tempted to make buildings and landscapes that are works of art instead of art that works. “Ban the schools of theater decoration,” shouted Wilson. “We do not need them. Theater should be architectural.”
Artists of every stripe have to be ready for critics too, Wilson said. He recalled taking a seat next to Arthur Miller during a revival of “Einstein on the Beach.” The playwright, who had no idea who Wilson was, turned and said, “You know, I don’t get it.” Ten minutes later Miller walked out.
Artists have to be ready for a slump in confidence. “Nine times out of 10 you think: This will never work,” said Wilson, looking back over 50 years of art-making. “So you just keep working. Discipline helps.”
In times like that, being contrary helps too, he said, sounding just like a man who started a talk by not talking. “You think of the wrong thing to do,” said Wilson. “Then you do that.”
But if you’re among an audience of hundreds waiting for a lecturer to start speaking, and he doesn’t, and he doesn’t, and he just stands stock still at the lectern for 2 minutes and 37 seconds, that is both a very long time and an attention-grabber.
That inventive silence drew the audience in, put it on edge, and was lesson No. 1 from theater and visual artist Robert Wilson. On Friday evening, before a capacity crowd in a darkened Piper Auditorium at the Graduate School of Design (GSD), he delivered a dramatic and discursive talk on how during his years of art-making he has jumped out of the box that long traditions of theater design and direction had set for him, like a trap.
“The reason I work as an artist,” he told the audience, “is to ask questions.” He tries not to follow rules but to crack them open over the knee of imagination.
The 72-year-old Wilson is an experimental theater producer, director, and designer. His list of collaborators includes William S. Burroughs, Susan Sontag, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Allen Ginsberg, and Philip Glass, with whom he created a signature work, “Einstein on the Beach.” Along the way, Wilson has also been a painter, a sculptor, a video artist, and a lighting designer who worked with light as if it were paint.
As a relentless experimenter, he started his lecture off with no lecture at all, just the minutes of silence. You might not be surprised that such an artist has cast people off the street for plays, or that in his work “A Letter for Queen Victoria” (1974), his 90-year-old grandmother from Texas played the queen. He once directed an overnight production 12 hours long, and another that lasted seven days and had a cast of 580. During the shah’s rule in Iran, Wilson directed 5,000 soldiers to whitewash a hilltop, simulating snow.
In “The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud” (1969), the man playing Freud was a retired housepainter whom Wilson had met in Grand Central Station. The set included a hanging chair; the action called for a turtle to take 37 minutes to walk across stage. “Many people said the work had nothing to do with Freud,” Wilson told his GSD audience. But he disagreed, seeing it as a parable of the psychoanalyst at age 68, when he fell into a depression and was diagnosed with cancer. “It’s not the kind of story you’re going to get in the history books,” he said.
Similarly, Friday’s two-hour talk was not the kind of lecture you would usually get at Harvard. Aside from the prefatory silence, the audience also got shouts, red-faced fits of coughing, and mimed threats to kill. No one coming out of theater or music school, he complained, knows how to walk while on stage, or simply stand still.
Wilson’s appearance was the third in a series of “sensory media platform” public lectures that began last year. The idea is to invite practitioners to remind students that what they do demands art as well as technology.
“What we would like to bring more to the foreground is imagination,” said Silvia Benedito before the lecture. She is an assistant professor of landscape design at GSD and a member of an informal sensory media platform committee at GSD. “Wilson is so demonstrative,” said another committee member, Allen Sayegh, an associate professor in practice of architectural technology. “There is no doubt [the audience] will get something out of this.”
During the talk, what the audience got was a pingpong summary of Wilson’s career in theater, from the days he arrived in New York from Waco, Texas, to study architecture at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute. Wilson had strong opinions right away. Broadways shows, mainstream opera: no. George Balanchine, Merce Cunningham, and John Cage: yes. They created staged movement and light and sound that expressed “so much freedom,” said Wilson.
His early experience with dance led him to a core idea. “I start with movement,” said Wilson, “and from the movement I let the sound come.”
Doing the unexpected was inspired early too. Wilson had one favorite professor at Pratt whose lectures were accompanied by a slideshow of unrelated images. He recalled the final exam, with the professor saying, “Students, you have three minutes to design a city.” (Wilson drew an apple; within it was a crystal cube, “to reflect the universe.”)
There was another lesson in the exam, he told the audience of student designers: “The most important thing is, you have to think quickly.”
The crystal sphere was an emblem of another core idea to Wilson, that light can make or break a play, and that it has to be designed as if with a brush, and with movement too. (“Light,” he told the audience, “is like an action.”)
Then there is “mega-structure,” the grand spatial idea behind planning anything complex. “How do you write a play that is seven hours long?” Wilson asked. “How do you design a city?” You start with a structure, which for Wilson consisted of the grids and fast sketches he made for the audience. In writing the music for “Einstein on the Beach,” Glass worked for months with Wilson’s drawings, one by one, propped up before on the piano. From structure, said Wilson, comes content, like Glass’s music. “Without structure, I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I am lost.”
Time is a factor, too. Wilson and Glass created a structure for “Einstein,” and determined it would be 4 hours and 46 minutes long. At other times, said Wilson, he was faced with a production of 100 episodes, each 30 seconds long.
His experience in theater offered a lesson that spoke to student designers, who may be tempted to make buildings and landscapes that are works of art instead of art that works. “Ban the schools of theater decoration,” shouted Wilson. “We do not need them. Theater should be architectural.”
Artists of every stripe have to be ready for critics too, Wilson said. He recalled taking a seat next to Arthur Miller during a revival of “Einstein on the Beach.” The playwright, who had no idea who Wilson was, turned and said, “You know, I don’t get it.” Ten minutes later Miller walked out.
Artists have to be ready for a slump in confidence. “Nine times out of 10 you think: This will never work,” said Wilson, looking back over 50 years of art-making. “So you just keep working. Discipline helps.”
In times like that, being contrary helps too, he said, sounding just like a man who started a talk by not talking. “You think of the wrong thing to do,” said Wilson. “Then you do that.”
I WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK AT YOUR EVENT!
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Basil Venitis speaks up for liberty and tax revolt at events around the world. At the podium, Venitis criticizes the dysfunctional kleptocracy that exists in all countries today and highlights the need for anarchy, abolition of taxes, especially VAT, privatization of everything, and unlimited personal liberties.
Venitis captures the attention and hearts of conferees by relating the current issues such as debt, depression, privacy, and freedom to political corruption. His unwavering passion leaves conferees motivated to speak out, revolt, and let kleptocrats know what they want.
Venitis captures the attention and hearts of conferees by relating the current issues such as debt, depression, privacy, and freedom to political corruption. His unwavering passion leaves conferees motivated to speak out, revolt, and let kleptocrats know what they want.
Smart words are more effective than smart bombs. For your conference, get a dynamic keynote speaker who can transform your people and your world. Take advantage of a unique libertarian orator, Basil Venitis. As many associations, colleges, industry groups, companies, political groups, lobbyists, professional congresses, and speakers bureaus have discovered, speeches by Basil Venitis add immeasurably to the enduring value of a conference.
Venitis doesn't restate what you can learn from regular sources, but he stretches your imagination to new horizons. Venitis is extensively involved in policy issues and the tax revolt. He is often a part of the process, working to shape and direct critical components of libertarian issues. Venitis is a master of a colorful rhetoric enriched with alliterations, metaphors, heightened imagery, and emotional effect.
Speeches by Venitis enable audiences to truly learn, and provide fascinating, provocative insights and analysis, getting to the heart of the matter. It's no wonder that Venitis is so often called upon to present libertarian ideas and to clarify issues for the public. Your event deserves seven important comparative advantages, the magnificent seven:
* Value. A single speech of Basil Venitis will be cherished by your conferees forever, guiding them at the crossroads of their lives and your organization, increasing their efficiency, and improving the good will of your organization.
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* Insight. Given Venitis's great experience in speaking across the globe, and with his unparalleled knowledge of politics, economics, finance, sciences, philosophy, and spirituality, he can help you determine the keynote for your event.
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* Affordability. The cost of having Venitis speak at your conference is 5,000 euros plus travel expenses.
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themostsearched
themostsearched is a new libertarian paradigm which integrates politics, economics, ethics, and spirituality:
Black Hole: Taxation is armed robbery that feeds the black hole of political corruption; it's the perfect index of corruption and tyranny. Only evil governments tax citizens and companies.
Constitution: The only purpose of a constitution is to protect citizens from government abuse. Reform treaties of a confederation, such as the Lisbon Treaty of EU, not voted by the citizens are null and void.
Corruption: Political corruption is proportional to the square of the size of the government.
Democracy: Every democracy is eventually hijacked by rabblerousers, pullpeddlers, clans of kleptocrats, bumptious bugaboos, busybodies, butterbabies, nabobs of nepotism, cranks of cronyism, pusillanimous pussyfooters, riffraffs of rascals, socialist sophists, and Machiavellian mafiosi. Democracy tends to kleptocracy. Anarchy should replace democracy.
Depression: Only governments can cause economic depressions and funny money. Lower tax rates, a reduction in the burden of government, and elimination of kleptocracy and VAT are the only way to boost growth.
Education: There is no direct relationship between education and schooling. You might be schooled but uneducated, and you might be educated but unschooled. Schools are concentration camps for the drones of society. Unschooling is much better than schooling. Internet is the best source of knowledge and information, replacing schools, libraries, media, parliaments, and postoffice.
Environment: The best way to save the environment is vasectomy. Deadly viruses are Gaia's antibiotics against the cancer of overpopulation.
Equality: Death is the only equalizer. Egalitarianism brings death to society, transforming citizens to zombies.
Evolution: The ultimate phase of human evolution is the complete domination of soul.
Faith: Faith is retarded thinking that keeps you away from God. You have to become faithless, in order to start your journey to God! You have to discover God your own way without intermediaries. God's truth should replace faith. You might discover that God is the universe!
Government: The only purpose of government is to protect citizens from criminals. Public services, central banks, and fiat money should be abolished.
Heroism: Entrepreneurs, innovators, anarchists, and heretics are the real heroes.
Insurance: Citizens with proper individual retirement accounts and health savings accounts should be allowed to opt out of State Insurance.
Intervention: Any government intervention deteriorates an existing trend. Laissez-faire is the only progressive policy.
Laws: All laws that citizens are required to know should not exceed 300 pages of type size 12. When a new law is born, another law must die.
Legislature: Parliaments should be abolished, because they continuously create laws that enslave citizens, constrain economic activity, loot producers, reward drones, and encourage political corruption.
Misery: Throwing money to misery brings more misery.
Money: A deluge of fiat money brings financial plague and haemorrhage of economy. Real money is tied up to precious metals and strategic metals.
Patriotism: Patriotism is addiction to local hysteria.
Privacy: Nobody, including your government, has the right to break into your home, your land, your accounts, your computer, your files, and your secrets. You have the natural right to protect your privacy from intruders. Molon Labe!
Property: Governments should not own or regulate any property, including electromagnetic waves. The first individual who improves or cultivates any unclaimed property is entitled to that property. Governments cannot own, allocate, regulate, or manipulate frequency fields and media. Eminent domain is null and void.
Religion: Religion is spiritual slavery. Church is the business of religion. Religious monopoly turns bishops to ayatollahs, and churches to Sodom and Gomorrah. Spirituality, pantheism, and metaphysics should replace religion. Most scientists are pantheists!
Selfownership: You own your body and your soul, and nobody should dictate what you take in and what you take out. Speech, education, heresy, habeas corpus, military service, mating, healthcare, food, abortion, cloning, drugs, guns, and euthanasia should be personal choices.
Style: Your soul needs to resonate with mighty words and unique acts that express your style and destiny. Your government cannot dictate your language, your words, and your culture. Resonate now and sing your song!
System: The most efficient political system is anarchy, where everything is private, there are no taxes at all, there is no government, and there is no parliament.
Taxes: Taxes destroy the economy. Raising tax rates is masochism. Smart stimulus is to cut tax rates. Stupidus stimulus is to increase spending, which stimulates the cancer of statism!
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