Production – Destruction = Expenditure
Saturday 1 May 2010, from 6pm onwards
5 Lancaster House, Rushcroft Road, Brixton, SW2 1JS
Free Admission

Spool pool and The Sinai Desert Canoe Club present: Production – Destruction = Expenditure

“A discipline concerned with movement of energy on earth: from geophysics to political economy by way of sociology, history and biology. Moreover, neither psychology, nor in general philosophy can be considered free of this primary question of economy. Even what may be said of art of literature of poetry has an essential connection with the movement I study: that of excess energy translated into the effervescence of life” (Georges Bataille, Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy, 1976)

Of course we are merely scratching the surface. Nevertheless, we feel it is important to stop ‘production’ for one day, May Day, in order to creatively consider our own ‘expenditures’ to symbolically celebrate an inversion of the work away toils of quotidian international workers. There is no need to perceive of our efforts through the presentation of these works and films as some sort of ‘romantic idealism’ since, the artists and curators who bring forth this event are themselves subjected to the absurdist daily grind of the graft and time based rotas, and not purely privileged cultural workers. When our working day comes to an end, the Spool pool and The Sinai Desert Canoe Club engage in the practice of subjective methodologies as a liberated means of production. We temporally remove the ‘Master slave dialectic from the capitalistic reality of our existence, in a bid to emphatically ensure that our discourses and manifestations evoke the absolute certainty that we orientate and follow the poetic of the unknown.

“The announcement of a large project is always its betrayal”

This screening and exhibition marks the beginning of a new group project Production – Destruction = Expenditure realises itself as a proposed series of screenings – Spool pool – exhibitions and serialised pamphlets – The Sinai Desert Canoe Club – exploring a wide range of phenomenological matter, not as a pseudo academic conceit, but rather as an exploratory journey enriched by conviviality, humour, and social consciousness, without disregarding formal artistic concerns.

We do not mind in the slightest if The Sinai Desert Canoe Club project fails, if need be we will “fail again and fail better” this ‘nihilism’ or ‘negation’ is born from a re-enchanted faith in the radical subjectivity of individuals whom only wish to try an experiment whereby “Something being of interest too everyone, could well be of interest to no one”.

Event compiled by Louis Benassi, Marie Canet and Hector Castells.

Screening Programme

- Big business (James W Horne & Leo McCarey, 1921, 19 min (on DVD))
Laurel and Hardy are Christmas tree salesmen in Carlifornia. Business is slow and a simple disagreement with a grumpy customer escalates from a simple argument into a full scale potlatch of mutual destruction.

- Gustav Metzger meets The Who (Spool Pool appropriation, 2010, 5 min (on DVD))
Metzger is known as a leading exponent of the Auto-Destructive Art and the Art Strike movements. He was also involved in the Fluxus movement. Metzger also lectured at Ealing Art College, where one of his students was rock musician Pete Townshend, who later cited Metzger’s concepts as an influence for his famous guitar-smashing during performances of The Who.

- Midnight – De-Construction (Louis Benassi, 2009, 20 min (on DVD))
What to do when one already knows what the thing is going to look like even before it is made. The suspension of disbelief through a fine art practice does not always work or provide satisfaction even if within the studio manifestations there is a somewhat pleasing aesthetic.

- Splitting (Gordon Matta-Clark, 1974, 24 min)
This film conveys the act of building, especially, the violence. The physical process becomes more important than the final perfected vision. Shirtless and sweating Matta-Clark and a labourer are shown rhythmically hammering away at the house’s foundation and straining on the lever of a jack, as one side of the house is gently lowered, a split appears down its centre pierced by a narrow beam of light.

- Homage to Jean Tinguely Homage to New York (Robert Breer, 1968, 10 min)
An expressionist documentary of Swiss motion sculptor Jean Tinguely’s auto-destructive sculpture as it is assembled and then self-destructs at The Museum of Modern Art. Tinguely’s sculpture is an eclectic, conglomeration of wheels, bathtubs, pulleys, and aircraft parts, constantly in motion. Breer overlays segments of the Homage being set on fire with scenes of the original drawing plan and welding, and extends his portrait by manipulating his imagery in kinetic collages which reflect the energy of Tinguely’s work.

- The point (Spool Pool appropriation, 2010, 8 min)
Upon the sight of a young native American housekeeper in the hallway Daria leaves without a further word. She drives off but stops to get out of the car and look back at the house, imagining it blown apart in billows of orange flame and flying consumer goods. Zabriskie Point was an overwhelming commercial failure and panned by most critics upon release. The film has been called “one of the most extraordinary disasters in modern cinematic history.”

Production – Destruction = Expenditure
Exhibition of works by Louis Benassi, Hector Castells and Benjamin Sabatier
Downstairs from the screening room