Lala Rascic

Even though I have been informed that Google research is no research at all, I stand behind my opinion that it is. A solid base for furthering the field of knowledge – at the least. I know that many publications haven’t gone digital and that much of the information is kept for members and subscribers only – I feel that if a sensationalist information from the late 90’s is not to be found on the net, then it didn’t happen or that the information has been removed from public access (as sabotage). That is the case of a giant flag of Tibet presented in Calais, France. I call it my “ghost flag”.

God knows I am not the scholarly type and all I ever have researched is how to get high by domestic cleaning products – still my (by some) half -ass Google reseach has yielded fantastic results. In the two weeks in which I had with total dedication been surfing the net trying to find leads on my subject: GIANT FLAGS.

On Saturday, 12.12.09 I have presented the results of my research in the form of a lecture/performance in The Good Childeren Gallery.

The results are compiled in a document that served as a script for my artistic performance. I am posting it below. If anyone has searched the Internet for flag superlative information, they will agree that what follows is the most informed document on the subject available.

Based on this information I have produced a graph as well. A detail of the graph is posted above.

(Continued)

Now in New Orleans I’ve been graciously invited to participate in a show that is loosely grouped around the topic of flags due to open mid December in Good Children Gallery. I’ve been thinking of statistics, of numbers and abstract facts. Mentioning  a flag is always so loaded. Especially in the US. Especially everywhere.

I appreciate flags as fashion, on t-shirts, hats, shoes, bags. Tattoos? I love it when the potency of the meanings loose and we can just play with the patterns. Would one wear stars and stripes just for the graphical quality?

Ginger Spice rocked the Union Jack in the mid 90’s, yet I haven’t seen the equivalent ease of “wear” for the stars and stripes. That got me to wondering: is it all post 9/11 or maybe this big U.S. flag cult had existed before. What I was struck with most is the huge, enormous flags flown by car dealerships and malls. After just scratching the surface of the issue I discovered that there is a big flag fad here form way back. Heck, I had stood in school in Middle Village, Queens saluting the flag as a kid.

That reminds me: The other day Tim n I went to a school and we got there just in time for the salute to the flag. I haven’t recited those words for more two decades yet I stood there and recited the pledge word for word.

Anyway, I really got into this big flag research and it soon took me away from the US and to the Guinness Book of Word Records. The US has fallen off the record breaking flag in 2007 when a Philippine woman commissioned a 5.2 ton flag of Israel that was twice the size of the American “Superflag”. God spoke to Grace in thunder and lightning ordering her to make a flag of his people.

This all opened a very interesting subject where my main concern is not in the meaning of the flag but of the micro story behind it and it’s area and dimensions and how it was made. I am interested in the factual materiality of the flag, not it’s significance, symbolism or political history.

One of the most striking images of the monumental flags I have found with a light browse on the net is the one I posted above. It was at the time, a second largest flag in the world.

Somehow the nature in this photo both emphasizes the grandness of the flag and undermines it at the same time. The flag her is like a  lobster bib for the mountain. In terms of fashion, its neutral colors work well with the red. I love the giant scale of the flag. Notice those dots – they are climbers who set the flag up!

After four months in New orleans all I haveto show for is is this one minute video made for the City One Minutes project.

The video is shot in New Orleans Lower Garden District, on the corner of Camp and Thalia streets, on what is left of an old movie theater that burned down some years ago. The lot has been for sale for some time. The debris of the building has long been cleaned up and the only indicator of that it was once a theater are the masonry steps of the former entrance that now resemble a mini stage with an auditorium on the street corner. The empty lot being a common sight of the New Orleans urban landscape. The storyline also relates to New Orleans – as it tells of a place that is under constant threat of a flood while  the video gives a portrait of a quiet street corner in the utilized as a stage for a performative act – reminding of the site’s former function. Even though it was hard to jam the hole narrative into the short one minute format, I hope that one senses the storyline that tells of urgency in the face of a pending catastrophe.

Camera and Editing: Lala Rascic
Performers: Generic Art Solutions (Matt Vis, Tony Campbell)
Thank you: Daryn De Luco

Let us suppose that everyone has his private madness. Knowledge without truth would be the labour or the attention of an intense singualrity analogous to this “private” madness – for everything private is madness to the extent at least that we seek, though it, to communicate.

Maurice Blanchot – The Writing of the Disaster

I have no Idea if I have met the objectives I have set before myself upon my arrival in Vienna. One thing I can say for sure is that I have set upon an open ended journey…The show is on 09.12. I am preparing a new performance.

So, went to see a pretty good show yesterday “A Question of Evidence” at Thyssen-Bornemisza. Apart form being interesting just because  it maps and talks of difficult issues in East Asian countries like Burma, India, Tibet , China (issues that are being totally overseen and forgotten because all our media are ga-ga for Obama) I loved how all the works in the show worked with the document. I loved how most of the works actually fabricated narrative by usage of documentary footage and artefact. The show did need a  level of concentration and patience just to go thru all the text and context written in small letters on the wall. Wish those text providing context were a bit more easier to see, well, it was an opening.

Why am I writing this? Well, the biggest problem I have encountered in this new process of mine is talking about myself, displaying subjectivity. I feel somehow that in light of social circumstances, current events, foreign affairs, etc., my inner world really is a second-tier issue. I am so afraid to talk about my own world – directly – that I have chose to hide behind a paravan for the performance I plan to deliver.  I started reading R.Barthes’ “Camera Lucida”, I much appreciate his theory of photography based on a totally personal and emotional and individual perspective – how he relates to the photograph of his dead mother. All the work yesterday – based on “evidence” also – a display of multiple perspectives that are -in fact – subjective. I am a bit reassurred that what I am pursuing is no totally worthless.

In any case content is one thing – form is the other. Issues of form now are how to make theater out of the personal and make it funny and interesting and entertaining in the process.

I will be publishing more about that project here on the blog.