Originally appeared in Issue 10: Misinform of Cantanker Magazine
MISINFORM
I'm going to start this out and end it in the same way:
I've been misinformed.
I've been misinformed by the media, by people in the rural Missouri where I grew up, by teachers at schools I attended, by friends and family members I know and once knew and society in general. How was I misinformed? There are, of course, specific instances where I realized I'd been misinformed, but I've learned that the most damaging type of misinformation has come from me. As I've processed years of ideologies, actions and reactions to the world I created my own ideas about how things are and how they should be. This amalgam of pieced together experiences, facts, hearsay, rumor, fiction and presupposition can create a toxic mess when you start to learn, as I am, that there is not necessarily a pattern to follow: you can only predict so much and life, the longer you live it, seems to be more of a surprise than anything else. I wake up in the morning sometimes and think: how did I end up here- in this place, this life that wasn't ever anything like I imagined?
It's easy to be a zealot about your beliefs – to proclaim the truth as you know it. Easy, but oftentimes, stupid. Knowledge is changeable – what was true once won't always be true. If you're going to stand on a soapbox make proclamations about the world sooner or later there will be a contradiction, a mistake, a change that turns your truth into an untruth.
In this issue of Cantanker Clarke Curtis' Inadequate Inhabitants create mysterious conversations through information that is seen and not said. Justin Cox and James Huizar created posters based off grammatically incorrect Tea Party protest signs and pasted them throughout Austin. Joshua Saunders' juxtapositions of vintage images confuse information about source and purpose of original material. Saunders' works, coupled with texts created by Austin Nelsen create an even more confusion about the source material and artist intentions. We also explore misinformation on the internet through the constant updating of Cantanker's Wikipedia page and Thax Douglas' experience with death on Facebook. In John Mulvany's telephone project, the classic children's game is taken to a new level through artist collaboration. In this issue we also feature a photo essay by Suzanne Koett, a linguistic project by Richard Fetchick and theatrical texts by Ben Pickle.
So I'll close with this: when I started this life, no one properly explained to me how all this stuff was supposed to work. I've been misinformed!!!
Enjoy the issue-
Debra Broz speaking for John Mulvany, Shea Little and Sean Gaulager whether they agree or not.
MISINFORM
I'm going to start this out and end it in the same way:
I've been misinformed.
I've been misinformed by the media, by people in the rural Missouri where I grew up, by teachers at schools I attended, by friends and family members I know and once knew and society in general. How was I misinformed? There are, of course, specific instances where I realized I'd been misinformed, but I've learned that the most damaging type of misinformation has come from me. As I've processed years of ideologies, actions and reactions to the world I created my own ideas about how things are and how they should be. This amalgam of pieced together experiences, facts, hearsay, rumor, fiction and presupposition can create a toxic mess when you start to learn, as I am, that there is not necessarily a pattern to follow: you can only predict so much and life, the longer you live it, seems to be more of a surprise than anything else. I wake up in the morning sometimes and think: how did I end up here- in this place, this life that wasn't ever anything like I imagined?
It's easy to be a zealot about your beliefs – to proclaim the truth as you know it. Easy, but oftentimes, stupid. Knowledge is changeable – what was true once won't always be true. If you're going to stand on a soapbox make proclamations about the world sooner or later there will be a contradiction, a mistake, a change that turns your truth into an untruth.
In this issue of Cantanker Clarke Curtis' Inadequate Inhabitants create mysterious conversations through information that is seen and not said. Justin Cox and James Huizar created posters based off grammatically incorrect Tea Party protest signs and pasted them throughout Austin. Joshua Saunders' juxtapositions of vintage images confuse information about source and purpose of original material. Saunders' works, coupled with texts created by Austin Nelsen create an even more confusion about the source material and artist intentions. We also explore misinformation on the internet through the constant updating of Cantanker's Wikipedia page and Thax Douglas' experience with death on Facebook. In John Mulvany's telephone project, the classic children's game is taken to a new level through artist collaboration. In this issue we also feature a photo essay by Suzanne Koett, a linguistic project by Richard Fetchick and theatrical texts by Ben Pickle.
So I'll close with this: when I started this life, no one properly explained to me how all this stuff was supposed to work. I've been misinformed!!!
Enjoy the issue-
Debra Broz speaking for John Mulvany, Shea Little and Sean Gaulager whether they agree or not.