*Temporary Installation. Parking Garage Elevators, CSUF
Ohi Rucecky Collective
"man ain't meant to work / come on build a machine" -Jane's Addiction
let's be honest.
if every person used their bones and atp like they could there would be an entire legion of lift operator, service crew, fabricator, engineer, architect, physical plant, turn screw, turn key, business, bureaucracy, genius out of work.
as society becomes more complex, the basic tenets of a human - human relation to others and the environment changes. cooperation becomes necessary only insofar as it is required to procure a more efficient, pragmatic, utilitarian, calculated hedonism. the close relations once relied upon are now a mere formality in regards to each individual's potential to murder their neighbor and make use of resources. this is heightened in situations of dense population. as survival becomes simpler, larger groupings of individuals create a "social"/"civil" rhizome from the primitive roving-pack seed. distance travel becomes possible. high density populaces call for more complex organization in order to maintain its present operational capacity without caving in.
as numbers increase, physical surface area becomes crucial. room necessary to accommodate the actual spacial volume which a larger population necessitates is directly related to its relative increase in demand on the physical resources necessary to sustain it. power becomes important and necessary as a means of gaining and maintaining control of resources necessary for existence. as technology advances, so does the ability to direct a population's biopower. this is necessary to ensure proper use of available resources in relation to the vast masses which surge against them in a constant vacuum of utilization.
as agrarian society grinds its last plow for the portions of the world which will morph into super power "civilizations," we no longer need to hunt the meat and gather the rest. we have the silicone chip, silicone flesh, modern logic, nuclear fission and apposable thumbs. "you said you wanted evolution / the ape was a great big hit."
the monkey. the man. then the gun.
an old man told me a story once:
with the advent of a less "primitive" warring state of existence, agrarian society ushered in a new era of human prosperity. tools are fashioned to till the earth and make it bountiful. soon, the industrial revolution allows for the mechanization of anything, allowing for more efficient work and machines like tractors. more leisure time now exists. naturally, this portion of solace will be exploited as another means of deriving from the individual. some nights at the end of the week, there's a small gathering at the town hall or some other central locale of the populace where food, music, some form of entertainment and socializing is present and encouraged. and some times, travelers pull into town with odd things not from those parts. and sometimes, there's a special bear that a ringleader has trained to stand on its hind legs and dance through positive reinforcement, behavior modification, and a ring through its septum.
eventually, technology allows humanity a means to procuring much more leisure time as well as a means to answer that void. eventually, crucial skills for the basic security of survival become diminished in a haze of trivial, vacant, expendable tasks and experiences provided to great masses as a means to tranquilization, control and a cognitive buffer against revolt. the dancing bear becomes any great superstar celebutant and the great public a slack-jawed, open-mouth breather scraping their substance from the planet only to hand it back to the man in the top hat holding the reigns. and periodically throughout the eons this carefully manicured machine grinds itself down, and those with the ability necessary to basic survival will be the great achievers for the world ahead. given the opportunity, a mammal has been known to stimulate its pleasure impulses to the point of self-destruction. and while there certainly is a sucker born every minute, an entertaining actor will still be a dancing bear with shit dried to its ass and a ring though its nose as the public gapes upward in amazement and throws coins at it.
rome wasn't burnt in a day, but it owned slaves like the breath drawn through the dust of existence it smashed, and also apparently murdered the world's hope for a creative hero taken too seriously in renovated shipping warehouses, households, beds, hearts, minds and weekdays off. if god came to earth, we told told it to get in line, have the i.d. ready, sign the form, get back in line, and then smashed its head in on the way to the parking lot because it invented the cure for cancer and no one cared about joe dimaggio or fiber optics. human blood is usually dripping from the sharpened finger clenched behind the back of its greatest achievements.
hunt, gather, hut, clan, village, burg, township, polis, city, county, metropolis, eat, sleep, procreate, war, control.
and for fuck's sake, take the goddamn stairs once in a while.
