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Pamela Valfer
453 Plays2 years ago
Pamela Valfer still has my mind reeling on questions of space, time, art, philosophy and history. Check this episode out. Bonus: a lovely Kitty Craft song at the end.
Valfer's statement:
"In my creative work I am interested in the politics of Space. I use a multidisciplinary approach (performance, installation, video and drawing) to reveal constructions of post-truth and our unconscious participation in mediated spaces. I actively draw upon historical moments to allow the viewer to unlock historical ideas, conflate them with similar political propositions being propagated today, and question their own role within these systems."
https://pamelavalfer.com/home.html
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Something Rather Than Nothing'
00:00:03
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Ken Zalante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
Are People Born Artists?
00:00:17
Speaker
Normally it's when you were born where you're an artist but um
00:00:22
Speaker
What I'm trying to get is what people see as like, in your origination, are you born into this world of artists? As an artist, it's an identity question. So I usually try to get at like how you see yourself as an artist or when you saw yourself as an artist.
00:00:38
Speaker
I think, you know, there's different stages. So was, you know, when did I identify as an artist? Probably in junior high, high school.
Choosing Art over Conventional Careers
00:00:50
Speaker
I mean, my students always ask me, how did you know you wanted to study art? I'm like, I'm all like goth out. I'm like, really? Was I going to go study like accounting? Like it just, it just was like an obvious choice. There wasn't like a decision to be made. But like as a kid, I, I,
00:01:08
Speaker
I remember the first time that I thought I was an artist. Remember Highlights magazine? Sure do. And remember in the back, they used to have like activities that you could do, like art projects. And I always thought I wanted them to be like, you know, I'm like, I want to sculpt, you know, I want to use clay. I don't want to cut out. I just thought they were so not
00:01:32
Speaker
challenging enough for me as a young, like, I'm like, you know, I want to make something like I think I. So obviously, from an early age, I had a propensity for such thinking and also being a double Virgo criticizing when it didn't live up to my expectations.
Meet Pam Balfour: Multidisciplinary Artist
00:01:53
Speaker
yeah that's a that's a it's that that that that instinct that highlights did not did not uh prompted you to to search uh for more um hey everybody we're talking with pam valfour so excited to be talking with pam
00:02:09
Speaker
We're reaching her from California. Very talented, multi-disciplinary artist. She is the band Kitty Craft. She does art. She teaches art. She's a union rap. We got a whole bunch of stuff to talk about.
00:02:33
Speaker
And just wanted to welcome you onto something rather than nothing. Well, thank you, Ken. Thank you for having me. And I appreciate your kind and your introduction. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So it's definitely great to have you.
00:02:51
Speaker
One of the things in art I become fascinated with are folks like yourself who kind of live art and kind of transform and move through art and create and use your mind in different
Art's Role in Society: Political and Social Impact
00:03:11
Speaker
ways. And I think we're going to get into talking about space and time and sound and disruption.
00:03:21
Speaker
Before we dig too far there anything, I want to start with a big question about what it is that we're talking about and what it is that you do. For you, Pam, what is art? What is this thing that you spent so much of your time and life trying to grapple with and create? What's art for you?
00:03:47
Speaker
Are you asking what is art for me personally or what do I think about art philosophically? I'd like to know what art is for you personally.
00:03:57
Speaker
I mean, in a way, my answer is somewhat similar in that I think art is not a static idea. So depending like historically, art has been representative of a culture in different ways. Like the way art operates today is very different than the Renaissance and the ideals of art today are very different than the Renaissance, perhaps. So I think it's a mirror of its time and I think my art is a mirror of
00:04:27
Speaker
myself, my internal state, my time. So art has definitely shifted and changed throughout the years for me, for sure. I've gone through many stages, visual art, doing music. What is art?
00:04:54
Speaker
I mean, well, when you're when you're when you're when you're students, you had students coming into the class, right? They've taken and they've taken an art class and, you know, you work hard and you got to you live this and you're trying to for many of them, you might be bringing them along or introducing them to it. What is it? What is it? What is it that you wish to convey to them about about art?
Teaching Philosophy: Deconstruct and Analyze
00:05:20
Speaker
you know, when they've gone through your course and be like, all right, here's what I tried to do. And here's, here's what she was teaching me. And here's what I did. Like what, what's, what's that process?
00:05:29
Speaker
Well, that's interesting because I feel like the older I've gotten, all parts of me have kind of, there's a synergy between me as an artist, me as a teacher, me as a person in the world, like all those things don't feel like disparate. So I see my teaching as an offshoot of being an artist. And the reason that I work at a community college in particular
00:05:57
Speaker
is I feel like, first of all, I love the dialogues I have with my students there. It's just such a, it's far more well-rounded, and I've worked at both art colleges and different colleges, but I really appreciate working at a community college, and I feel like teaching art can be a very politically subversive act, and I'd like, and let me explain that. I think that in teaching
00:06:27
Speaker
people to deconstruct what's in front of them, even through just learning how to draw a cup. You're deconstructing something. You're looking at it long enough to look at pieces of it and question pieces of it. And I've noticed that as I teach a drawing class in particular,
00:06:48
Speaker
Um, you know, I've asked students, they've come up to me and they're like, you know, I do this run every day. And now I notice all these things that I never noticed. And it's just to me that act of slowing down and looking
00:07:04
Speaker
and is so meaningful as a human on the earth. So if these people never make another drawing again or whatever, that's fine by me. I think this is something that is a great skill set for life, for your own life, for politics, for just any aspect of life if you can sort of slow down and deconstruct what's in front of you.
00:07:30
Speaker
So in a way, I feel like when I teach that, I'm almost teaching, you know, to, to, hopefully, questioning little humans that go into the world and really break down what's in front of them. Critical thinking. Yeah. So that's a big part of my art.
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. And on that point too, I like what you had to say. And I think there's this massive intention in art, usually when you bring it up to folks about whether it's reinforcing or whether it's deconstructing. I think we can obviously see a lot of artists who, by the disruption of what they do, either it's by the message or however they do it, can be
00:08:14
Speaker
uh very disruptive and there's also the kind of force of art or what art is um that feels heavy uh for folks of the of of uh of the tradition um of art you know and what needs to be upheld or who you never see as artists historically because of what art was um defined as what do you think uh the role of art uh is and i think we've gotten into a bit of
Art Reflecting 2022's Political and Cultural Discourse
00:08:44
Speaker
of your thinking, but what is the role of art? And right now, in 2022, in California, United States, or United States, what is the role of art? What is it supposed to be doing, do you think?
00:09:01
Speaker
Well, you're right. I sort of touched on it earlier is that, you know, throughout history and it's always been something different, right? Like, you know, Caravaggio's paintings served a purpose, very specific purpose. In a way, I would say the similar thing would be that it's communicating.
00:09:26
Speaker
I think that might be a thread that runs through it all. You know, Caravaggio was hired by the churches to do these epic paintings of scenes out of the Bible. And you have to think about it like most of the people of that time probably were illiterate. And so they would, to illustrate that into these paintings that were very dramatic to, you know,
00:09:53
Speaker
impose the importance and the strength of God to the common man. So there is an element of communicating. And in the same way, I think it is that way today. Now, I mean, the state that we're in now where everything is being questioned. So I think art has become overtly political, not that it hasn't been in the past. But I think it's particularly having a moment
00:10:25
Speaker
do I think like someone who's painting a painting, I think that can be political. Like I don't think you need to be necessarily doing these immersive political interruptions through art to necessarily make it a political act. I think if anything, specifically the pandemic,
00:10:51
Speaker
That's when I think it really, I think it started earlier than that, but I think the pandemic was a time when people really were looking at what they're doing and they're like, why does this matter? So if you choose, if you actively choose to make a painting, you're doing it with a sense of self-awareness, of your place in time and what is going on around you.
00:11:20
Speaker
You know, I've heard people say there is no non-political art. And I kind of tend to believe that right now. Now, that's not necessarily something that's going to be
00:11:32
Speaker
prop forever, you know, it's the pendulum swings, right. And right now, this is where the pendulum is. And I think it's, you know, so it serves a very important social, socio cultural, political critique at this moment in time. That's where I think we are at this time. Yeah, yeah. And I know
Politics of Space in Art and Architecture
00:11:55
Speaker
I know when art can appear, as it appears in time, I think what you're talking about is that at least external to the artist and the piece of art that in charged times would be like,
00:12:12
Speaker
the question of like, hey, you're painting a banana, like shit's going down. You know, there's this sense and it doesn't mean that that person doing art isn't doing something that's useful or necessary. It's just there's a lot of pressure to be like, particularly folks who are saying this is crucial, what's going on in importance, but everybody has different roles. But I think you're right that people will feel a little bit more of
00:12:42
Speaker
Well, I hope I hope they would. I think, you know, if someone isn't if someone isn't aware of their place in the conversation, that makes me concerned a little bit. Yeah. No matter what it is, I think.
00:13:01
Speaker
It's part of being an artist is being self-reflective. I think that's a built-in aspect of it. From looking aesthetically and technically at what you're doing and having self-reflection to content and meaning having self-reflection. Some lean more to the left, some more to the right on that. But I think if nobody was affected by what's been happening politically and culturally, I mean,
00:13:30
Speaker
God bless you, you live in a box. I don't know how you could be. And it makes me suspect that I would want to unpack with somebody as to how they would be outside of it. Yeah, you'd want to understand. You mentioned in the artist statement the phrase politics of space, of dealing with and interrogating politics of space.
00:14:00
Speaker
with your particularly installation. What's that mean? What's that mean? Well, it means that how, I think it's evolved for me, but always the center theme has been like space and its uses or its projected uses.
00:14:31
Speaker
I think one of a critical texts that really made a difference for me, it's a fairly common text, but is simulacrum and simulation. I think that one, I think it's a fairly common one, but it's really led me to think about how culture is author space and who authors space.
00:15:02
Speaker
We should know who is authoring space because I got really interested a few years ago in architecture and in Corbusier and these ideas of utopic architecture. I got interested in the failure of utopic architecture. It's a bunch of guys sitting around going, this space could be better used this way.
00:15:23
Speaker
It seems a bit like a agenda, like space can be very agenda without consideration of how the people that use the space might feel about your agenda. So that's, I think, where the politics of space started getting really interesting for me. And I think it expanded out into less object-based work and more
00:15:52
Speaker
working within the environment. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned something there, and I hadn't thought about it for a while, but it was about space and the author intent of it. And very first episode of this podcast I had a while back was with Hannah Hull, and she, with others, created
00:16:17
Speaker
an asylum for mental health, but that was derived and created from the patients and their needs rather than the external and the kind of radical transformation of space that happened there. Yeah.
00:16:41
Speaker
So with more of a focus now, you've gone deep into both visual and audio with the music.
Music vs Visual Art: Connection and Immediacy
00:16:55
Speaker
Can I ask you a question? What I wanted to know was with your intent and what you're trying to do with those two forms, did you find that your experience of
00:17:07
Speaker
whether you achieved what you were trying to do or maybe proof from the audience that you were understood or accomplished. Did you find a very different reality with creating songs and sound versus some of the more physical pieces as far as understanding that what you've done has been received? I think, you know,
00:17:36
Speaker
There's never a guarantee. And I think I can speak for myself that I think the difference between music and art in communicating, I think art is more opaque. And I think music is more immediate and accessible. And it's like an easy, or not easy, it's a more immediate affect on the body. And so it can really,
00:18:04
Speaker
create connection and emotions. And I think art can do that too, obviously through the visual and sometimes other aspects too. But I think it requires more of you. Visual art requires more of the viewer, a bit more of the viewer. So
00:18:28
Speaker
It can be more difficult to have that back and forth with the viewer. I honestly accept the fact that people come to what I do from different experiences and different points.
00:18:48
Speaker
And I don't necessarily expect this sort of like 100% exchange of understanding and ideas. I try to set up a proposition that wherever you're at, you can walk away with some aspect of what I'm putting out. So I'm not
00:19:11
Speaker
I mean, I am concerned and I'm not concerned. I'm very concerned with how my work is communicating, but I also accept the X factor that people are going to come in with their own thoughts and feelings. I actually, you know, that's really funny that you asked that. Can I tell a story about like when I had a nervous breakdown about that?
00:19:34
Speaker
Store stories are the that's that's that's the butter I think I was out of undergrad. I graduated with a BFA and I was just I was I was a painter as a very committed painter and I was since I was out of school I was just kind of making these paintings knocking them out doing another one and I
00:19:58
Speaker
I had done this, like, I was very interested in my subject was I was collaging images into the sort of this one, believable, I'm doing hand quotes, believable scene, you know, I'd sort of cut do cut ups and stuff and then do kind of a realistic space.
00:20:16
Speaker
ish. And I had done this one painting, which when I look back is kind of ridiculous, but I'd done this big of this like big rubber duck in a bath with like a baby. And I thought it was like super creepy. Yeah.
00:20:30
Speaker
I've always had a little of the darker overtones in my creative output. Well received here. Keep going. I remember I had the painting up. This was in Minnesota somewhere. I can't remember who even said this, but a friend came over with another friend who wasn't an artist.
00:20:53
Speaker
she said, oh, that's a great painting. That would be really great in a baby's room. And I like it just flung me into the universe of like, of like, oh, my God, what am I doing? Am I making art for for baby rooms? And I really, you know, and everyone's like, oh, you know, they didn't know it. But it's those comments that have had a real
00:21:20
Speaker
Deep impact on me. Cause then I start to, I go, wow, what does that mean? And I really don't push it away as, Oh, they don't know my brilliance and what I'm up to, but I really sit with it. I do really sit with it. And I think it's an opportunity to see how things are being received. Yeah. And I think that's a gift. I think that's a gift. And I think people should run towards that and not away from that.
00:21:47
Speaker
Um, because if your work is being received in a certain way and it's, I mean, it is very different than you intended. Then I think that's a moment where you need to sort of take stock and go, okay, well, how, how am I doing? What, what, and so I think that shifted me into a new direction. And I think that's happened.
00:22:07
Speaker
twice in my life as a visual artist where a comment seemingly benign would happen to me and I'd be like, holy shit. It would just melt my brain and I would just like my eyes roll back in my head and I'd just be like, I just have to sit with this. And you know, I'm human too. I remember when those comments happened.
00:22:32
Speaker
was very offended. But the longer I sat with it, it like twisted my brain. And it led me to richer grounds, ultimately, I think. Yeah, I love that. It is a tough spot for anybody to hear how something's seen. And sometimes the reactions can be incredible. Sometimes you laugh because like, oh my gosh, I didn't see it. Or sometimes you're like,
00:22:57
Speaker
There's none of that in there and it's a, it's a, it could be a fruitful interaction. If you get to have it, like you said, it could be a gift that can be.
00:23:04
Speaker
You know, it can put you to the, you know, onto your, onto your next step. I love, uh, I love your mention of Baudrillard and, uh, Samuel Lacra simulation. And, uh, um, I think a lot about that. I think a lot about that too. Um, one of the things I wanted, um, one of the things I wanted to ask you a bit about is, um, something I had mentioned at the beginning that, um,
Advocacy: Giving Voice to the Voiceless
00:23:31
Speaker
you teach art, it's community college. And you also do union work around like sticking up for folks who are doing that work, which is really difficult to do. I think generally, you know, the university college structure is based on a old system, sometimes feeling medieval. And worker issues are,
00:23:59
Speaker
are prominent and there's the crass necessity of having to live, work, survive as an artist. As an advocate, trying to help people who want to teach get what they deserve and also the freedom to
00:24:19
Speaker
to do it. What is that experience like? Does it help? Does it complicate things? Does it open things up fundamentally as far as your advocacy, your wanting to change things side? Well, I think my greatest gift and my worst quality are the same, which is I do not suffer fools well.
00:24:44
Speaker
And it's been a great, like I said, a great thing and it's been an albatross around my neck. I really feel passionate about representing and people who feel that they don't have a voice. And so working with an institution as a union rep is,
00:25:15
Speaker
Very frustrating. You know, the optimist in me sees it like, you know, change happens like you turn a cruise linership where it's like a slow, and I do emphasize slow turn, slow bend. That's the optimist in me. The pessimist is like, we're all fucked.
00:25:43
Speaker
And feeling very, what's the word I'm looking for? Feeling very discouraged by the red tape and politics of it all and the, it just, it's, you know, nothing is perfect, you know? I mean, I love the union, it's not perfect.
00:26:10
Speaker
And that's okay. That's, that's just the way it is. That doesn't mean it should go away. Like certain groups of people believe it should, you know, um, I, I, I picked my battles wisely and I always ask myself, is this the hill I'm willing to die on? Yeah. Yeah. Cause you can't die on every hill. No. And I just want to thank you for that, for that, for that work. I mean,
00:26:37
Speaker
I think a lot of times people look at the labor movement and think it should look like or should be functioning as some sort of highly efficient corporation or some sort of business model, but it's complicated because it's
00:26:52
Speaker
largely a volunteer organization of people volunteering time after they've worked long shifts, after they've done all the things they're supposed to do, and then be like, here's the union meeting, let's solve all the, you know, working conditions issues that we just experienced. And it's fundamentally a tough road, but I do find
00:27:14
Speaker
you know, inspiration and then small victories and also honestly inspiration outside the labor movement where some of the real organizing is going on right now. Amen. Yeah. It's one part of a whole organism. And I think you think of it as the you're going to put all your chips on that corner of it. I think you're going to be sorely disappointed. I think it's you know, I think you're really if you can take what the unions
00:27:43
Speaker
stands for and apply it through your life in other ways, not the organization per se, but what you think the union should stand for. I keep saying synergy. I think things are really in a good place if you have this synergic energy to who you are as a person, who you are as a wife, as a husband, as a girlfriend, as a partner.
00:28:13
Speaker
to what you do externally. That's when you're in the pocket to me. And that's where I feel the older I get, the more I feel that interconnectivity. And also understanding you can't put your eggs in one basket, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for your thoughts on that. Everybody, we're talking with Pam Balfour, and it's a great chat with you, Pam, talking philosophy, politics, union stuff, art, Baudrillard, birth, embarrassing moments, whatever.
Rediscovering Music with Kitty Craft
00:28:53
Speaker
I wanted to ask you a bit about
00:28:58
Speaker
your incarnation within music and in kitty craft. And as I mentioned to you, I
00:29:09
Speaker
I adore your music. And one of the pieces I was thinking of when you're answering the kind of audio visual question, I was thinking about the role of movement and dance, and just drawn to movement with your music. Oh, wow. Yeah, I just am. And so I think of like some of those
00:29:35
Speaker
physical responses to what's going on with music that you might not find in other places of movement. So there's been this, I don't know how to say it, but rediscovery of some lost tracks and things. So you've had things released on streaming
00:29:57
Speaker
over the past couple of years, lost tapes and mew or you supposed to say mew or meow, mew. Meow is M E O W.
00:30:09
Speaker
so it is right thank you i i mean i i i got this down so now i know exactly what to say when this happens but what is what what the heck's this been like uh for you you know you're doing your thing this is an era this was you doing music and now it's it's popping up again and surround you what's that experience like it's very surreal um
00:30:33
Speaker
I feel blessed. I feel honored. I also feel like I'm watching it happen to somebody else.
00:30:46
Speaker
Really, who I have designed for that, my partner and my boyfriend, he has experienced that. When we started going out, I had this record, unreleased record, which was Lost Tapes. I never released it. He's like, let's just put it up on Spotify. Let's put your catalog up. He's really been the main engine in the wind beneath my wings on this, if you will.
00:31:10
Speaker
And helping helping and I'm like, yeah, you know, I'll put it out for free and you know, whatever and people should just hear it. And it's just sort of snowballed from that. And that was, I mean, a bit unexpected. It's really the people that write me are just so gosh darn sweet. I mean, the fans are just melt your heart delightful. And yeah,
00:31:37
Speaker
Uh, so good on you, good on you. Like this, this, a lot of, a lot of my fans are, you know, under 18 between like, you know, 25 and eight and 15 or something. And just the really heartfelt notes that I get are just really moving. But yeah, I mean, I think for me, I have a bit of an internal struggle because you know, I'm working on these visual art projects.
00:32:07
Speaker
And this is, you know, I'm very aware of like where I put my time, right? Yes. And as I told you earlier, I still work with sound, but in a very different way. So for instance,
00:32:24
Speaker
in my art world, how do I work as a sound? I use it as a component of the concept of the piece that I'm showing. So I had a show in 2016, early 2016. Like I said, I was interested in the politics of space. You had mentioned that. And so I did a show where I was interested
00:32:51
Speaker
I could see it coming. I could see Trump coming. This was before Trump was really coming. He hadn't been elected yet, but I felt a call to duty to
00:33:01
Speaker
put out to start a dialogue about how history is replaying itself from like fascism and the 1930s, 40s in Germany and my family is Jewish and we escaped Germany. And so I felt really compelled in a personal way to connect what's happening now to what happened in the past and sort of like wake people up like, hey, it's happening now.
00:33:26
Speaker
And so I did that through an installation at a gallery called Elephant Art Gallery here in LA.
Sound and Space in Art Installations
00:33:35
Speaker
And basically I was researching, I was looking at, Hitler was a failed artist, right? And he was also very into architecture, which is interesting. If you look at his watercolors,
00:33:48
Speaker
Look at how he paints architecture versus how he paints people. The architecture has this fluidity, almost soul to it. And the people look like they're glued in there really ugly and just sort of like caricatures.
00:34:06
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah, totally. Like you could do a whole podcast on that alone. Anyway, I was looking at his art and I was looking at some of his earlier sketchbooks because he kept sketchbooks. So I think early into his fascist fanaticism, he designed furniture, he designed buildings. So what I found in one of his first sketchbooks was he had designed
00:34:30
Speaker
this idea for his first German National Art Museum. And he had done the blueprint, like a sketch drawing of how the footprint would look. And he had the galleries numbered. And then on the side, he had which artists would go in which gallery. And then within that picture, he also drew a line on how everybody was to walk and in what direction and what order in that gallery. And I was like,
00:35:01
Speaker
Holla, like that, that to me just is like, so fricking like a perfect, I wouldn't, it encapsulates the idea of the politics of space to me. Like he had already planned it out and wanted you to experience it in a certain way. And so what I did is I took one of the galleries from his sketch and I built it in the gallery.
00:35:28
Speaker
And I sheet rocked it, I sanded it, and so that you would, the show would happen in Hitler's gallery. And so I also, when you sand walls and it leaves all that dust, the drywall dust, I left that all on the floor. So actually as you walked through my show, it would make the line that Hitler drew in a sketch. So it'd be like a floor drawing.
00:36:00
Speaker
But back to the sound piece. So I was looking at Theodore Adorno at the time and his writings, oh my gosh, I'm totally blanked on his writing. The culture industry. I should be able to still in here, but what is it? The culture industry. I think he wrote it with Herb Porkemar.
00:36:28
Speaker
or worked with him anyway. So what I did is I found this algorithm that would turn text into music. And so I plugged in the culture industry by Theodore Adorno into this sound generator. And it just made these dulcet tones of like chimes.
00:36:46
Speaker
And so it took the text, turned it into notes. And then I put like a surround sound music thing in the gallery. So you'd be listening to the culture industry by Theodore Adorno. And for those who don't know, the culture industry was, it was a critique of, oh gosh, how am I gonna, hey philosophy professor, help me here. Help me explain this in a sound bite.
00:37:16
Speaker
goes through it, it's been a while for me on Adorno, but just, you know, layman's terms is totally fine. Layman's terms, Adorno came out of World War II and he was very concerned with the rise of fascism.
00:37:32
Speaker
moving forward and how the politics of the culture industry being like, oh God, it's been so long since I read it. But it's basically a critique of the aspects of culture that have propaganda and propagandists
00:37:55
Speaker
ways of controlling culture, ways of directing culture. And so it's kind of a bit of a treatise on deconstructing that in different ways. Directing how you go through, directing how you go through a museum, directing. Well, that's me, that's my take. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, just like a different
00:38:18
Speaker
different aspects of culture. In a way, it's almost like a little bit of a baby simulacrum simulation. I feel a connection there from Baudrillard. Do I need to explain Baudrillard in a sound bite? Heck, if I've landed the guest who can describe Baudrillard
00:38:42
Speaker
here right now then i've landed the guest and you are the guest oh that's so nice um gosh again been a while since i read it but what i found interesting about baudrillard and um how it was written in the 90s i believe or 80s yeah i think it was written you could say a while ago but it seems to be ever more present and ever more
00:39:09
Speaker
appropriate to how we're living today. And he talks about simulation, simulacrum. I think like, you know, you might have heard it in The Matrix, the brothers that made that were really into this book. It's about constructed reality. It's about how he talks a lot about Disney World being like this constructed reality and how when
00:39:37
Speaker
It's a simulation of reality and the experience that you have in Disneyland, which is like this very orchestrated. Experience is almost more representative of America in this very controlled, happy, you know, very deliberate, very deliberate and very illusionary.
00:40:08
Speaker
way that that is more that experience explains America in a very apt and direct way. So these these sort of constructions become real.
00:40:24
Speaker
Yeah. You know what? Am I in the ballpark, Mr. Philosopher? Yeah, no, you are. And it's like what has to do with the person who's participating and how much that becomes the reality that they experience. You know what's strange about going to Disneyland, which I like for particular reasons for myself. We like to pour it into that machine, huh, Ken? It's like free chip the space for a little while.
Digital vs Real Spaces: Political Implications
00:40:54
Speaker
You're doing it as long as I know I'm doing it, but I I made everybody frustrated because Everybody around me or anybody knows me because when I went to Disneyland and I saw the statue of Walt Disney with Mickey It looks like Stalin to me and everybody got really frustrated. I'm like this looks like
00:41:20
Speaker
Why is Mickey Mouse with Stalin? I don't know. It's like authoritative. I couldn't get my head around it. And they're like, no, that's Walt Disney and his favorite creation holding hands together. It's not to butt up. Well, I don't think we're that far off, actually.
00:41:39
Speaker
I hadn't thought about that until what you were saying. Was I getting close there about what's going on in that dynamic? Yeah. He went on to say that then the simulation is the real. That's the real. It's revealing itself. That is the real. The illusion is real. He goes into far more detail that I'm
00:42:05
Speaker
not really capable of articulating at this point about the difference between simulacrum and simulation. But that's politics of space. Yeah. Yeah.
00:42:19
Speaker
I think nowadays too about that in space and I think of digital space and I was talking to folks about like take something like housing right now, right? Like this housing market thing that I don't think anybody, at least in the US right now as far as maybe speculative property going up in price, access to rentals, access to
00:42:43
Speaker
um you know uh to to to affordable housing and there's all these questions about space and then you have this digital realm of like real estate that is real in a sense like digital real estate like real estate that is yeah like on the metaverse and then you have speculative practices and then you have like
00:43:06
Speaker
massive expenditure on the simulation or the reality or whatever is a place to live is another market that's a viable market that duplicates or changes the real
00:43:22
Speaker
You know, and I find that, you know, for the person who really can't pay their rent in the real physical world and the person buying the $2 million mansion on the, you know, the meta real estate market is almost difficult to reconcile. But I believe that's a tension that that's in there and the real and the
00:43:44
Speaker
Yeah, believe you me, exploitation is gonna, you know, I know it's the wild west of the metaverse, but you know, exploitation is either here or not far behind. Yeah, why do people think, let me ask you this, then on this point, why do people think that there's liberation in these others? I mean, because you hear the libertarian argument, you hear people thinking, there's liberation, we can create our own systems, we can create our own rules. And for me, I share what you do. I mean, these systems are still
00:44:14
Speaker
Tangibly created with interests that are the same as that we have in the in the real world Do you think people have optimism around I don't but um, I Think that what we're going to see this is my sort of psychic Spidey sense is that in the coming years and decades you're gonna see society come into little
00:44:43
Speaker
little uh like uh areas of common interest like you see it now in what idaho where they're having some like crazy-ass right-wing community is like building up itself and they want to like be self-sufficient and self-governing and they're all yeah there's counties they're not sorry to jump in but there's counties in oregon that are southeast oregon that are that have held votes
00:45:06
Speaker
on succeeding. There's that movement. Yeah. I don't know how far into the rabbit hole that's going to go, but I do see even on a macro micro, so macro being Florida cutting itself off from the United States or Texas
00:45:24
Speaker
They've wanted to secede as long as the United States has been around, but now you're like, oh shit, is this really going to happen? That's the macro level. The micro level, I think you're going to see it in communities like you're seeing in Portland and this place in Idaho, but I think you're also going to see it on the left.
00:45:43
Speaker
And I think that, you know, I wanna live on a farm and I wanna raise, you know, alpacas and, you know, and hell, yeah. That sounds great for me. I'll have my garden. And I think we're gonna see these coming togethers of like-minded people. Now with that said, I think agenda is a equal word.
00:46:13
Speaker
Right? So systems inherently have a direction. Like they inherently have, you know, we believe in this. This is our, this is what the rights of this should be. And I think I don't know a solution. Like I don't have a better answer, but I think we should always be aware of the pitfalls within a rigid way of thinking. Yeah.
00:46:38
Speaker
I think in order for something to be healthy, there always needs to be reflection and readjustment. Yeah. Well, and one of the things I see is I think other countries have dealt with diverse political opinion by having diverse political systems or parties to express the will. I think there's been a massive amount of frustration clamped up.
00:47:04
Speaker
in the US systems because there isn't a popular expression of different modes of thought in the political realm. And I think that in the macro way, I think when you look at other countries or other type of systems with
00:47:23
Speaker
deep tensions, deep historical tensions, but still the ability to have things meted out on a political level. I don't see that as being, it doesn't seem to be quite possible presently in the US to have those large issues
00:47:40
Speaker
Settled in in our political arenas or it seems to me that it's I'm gonna challenge what you said Ken and I I think the places that have a Balanced back and forth are getting smaller and smaller like I don't think it's as common anymore even in what has been historically very Open liberal democracies like you're seeing it all across Europe. You're seeing it here. It's like there's a wave you know, obviously
00:48:09
Speaker
It's global. It's global. And so a limiting, so a general, a general limiting or the there in what I'm saying, which could very well be true, a little bit more of a nostalgic multi-party type of thing that there's been tensions, deep tensions on. Oh, as an artist, I am very, very critical of nostalgia. So the snap nostalgia is the base of all fascism. Yeah. Well, it's the longing, you know, I think going back into
00:48:39
Speaker
the root of the word, longing for home, the longing for home, the longing to go to a place that actually no longer exists. And that's some of the threat.
00:48:55
Speaker
I hear you. Thanks for pushing back too because I do think, well for me, for me, just to dig in one tiny bit was it has to do like, for me and looking at systems looking on the macro system is that
00:49:11
Speaker
There's something to do about the expression of something that if people feel that they have voted or connected to something or that they have an option, people will do something, will do an act and feel that it's participated or had a meaning.
00:49:31
Speaker
that assumption or that belief or that reality that it will change something has really been under attack that absolutely that that it will make a difference that we can vote a certain way and just double down on that behavior and see the same results that are slipping away. So I agree. And not to be a Debbie downer. I think the damage is done. Yeah, I don't I don't think I mean, it can only
00:50:00
Speaker
move into more active believers of power in questioning the validity of free and fair elections, the damage has already been done.
Trump, Architecture, and Historical Fascism
00:50:18
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with that. And I think it was one of the things you
00:50:27
Speaker
that I think as citizens, I think once I saw January 6th, I felt I knew what was truly going down now and into the future, just that there was an outright conflict was coming.
00:50:57
Speaker
It's interesting, when Trump was just elected, I saw an interview with Masha Gessen, who's an amazing writer. She writes books, she writes articles on politics. She's originally from Russia, and she lives in the United States. Her writing has a very clear political lens, always has. There's an interview after Trump was elected, because she's lived through this sort of
00:51:25
Speaker
regime and Russia pushing down free speech. She said, know what your limit is and write it down because these things happen incrementally. It's boiling the frog where the water gets turned up so slow, you don't know you're being boiled. That's always been in my mind.
00:51:56
Speaker
I think when I really started freaking out, and I had been freaking out pretty regularly, but the sign to me, because remember I was interested in architecture and fascism and the science of space. It was a very unremarkable headline about Trump that he had ordered government buildings to be no longer modernist
00:52:21
Speaker
constructions and he wanted them to have more grandeur and historical
00:52:30
Speaker
I don't remember exactly, but it was it was basically right out of Hitler's idea of the theory of ruin, which the theory of ruin with Albrecht Spears and Hitler. He Albrecht Spears was like his architect, if you will, and they would bring things to the table. They collaborate on stuff. But his main thing was this this notion that a culture and a nation's strength can be perceived through their materials and their ruins and architecture.
00:52:59
Speaker
And so that's why Hitler was obsessed with the Roman ruins and the Greek ruins, because they had this real timelessness about it. So the theory of ruin was very much against modern building techniques, modern materials, but in favor of granite and things that withstand the test of time.
00:53:27
Speaker
Hitler was very into this idea. And that's why if you look at a lot of the designs that he did for architecture for his planned city, they're all very classical and very ornate because he wanted the Third Reich to be represented within this strength and everlasting material. And so this is what Albert Speers would do, Albert Speers would do is he would
00:53:56
Speaker
actually, but when he wanted to propose an idea to Hitler for a building, he would have it painted and draw or drawn as a ruin to show what it's going to look like after the thousand years of the Third Reich. Oh my goodness. And he would present it to Hitler and everyone's like, are you fucking crazy? What are you doing? And Hitler loved it because it showed him that the power and the strength of the Third Reich will outlast through
00:54:27
Speaker
the means. Yeah. So in space, I, in talking about architecture, I, my gosh, there's so much in what you said. I mean, it's really, it's really clicking for me. I mean, when I have a great friend of mine, his name's David, he's a
00:54:50
Speaker
architect architect down in San Francisco and he studied it and everything and you know my thinking is transformed by different ways of seeing and he was a he's a very good friend of mine and I would travel with him to different cities and I would start to link up into some of the way that you're talking about understanding space and how you navigate and what its intent was um where I didn't
00:55:17
Speaker
You know, it's all there, but I just didn't know how I was being led or invited or recalled. And it really helped me to understand cities, which I love, or space, you know, and navigating it and what my experience was, whether I created it.
00:55:38
Speaker
uh whether it was for somebody else's intended to be and I think about museums in particular about a the curated experience or when you're talking about like disneyland these are curated placed and and to move through uh in this way and there was something really startling when you were talking about trump I didn't know he had talked about buildings in that way I didn't
00:56:01
Speaker
And then Trump started to and I freaked the fuck out. I I would have like then too I Maybe it's better. I didn't encounter. Yeah, it was a small headline amongst all this shit that was happening But it was yeah, I was like, oh my god. Yeah, I um, uh, so, oh man, um architecture we're covering it all here
00:56:25
Speaker
Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Pamela. We're covering all. I got to ask you the big question before, you know, we end up exhausting you, although I don't think that would take, it might take a while because I know we can talk a whole bunch. But the big question, let's see you take a stab at it.
Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
00:56:48
Speaker
Pam, why is there something rather than nothing?
00:56:52
Speaker
Like, why? I'm going to politely push back on you on that one. Yeah. This is the second time. All right. I believe there is something and there is nothing. Yeah. So that's your answer. There's both. It's both. They both exist simultaneously. I think the pushback I get a lot too is my favorite pushback on the question is the folks will say it's the real question is how.
00:57:22
Speaker
How is there something around that? But that doesn't get to what you're saying since you're saying there is something in and nothing. It's happening concurrently. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of quantum physics, my answer. But yeah. Well, I know for one for one thing, Pam, having having you talking to you as a guest in the
00:57:44
Speaker
the push backs. Nobody, no, but check this out, Pam. Nobody ever knows that's what I'm looking for, right? Nobody knows that I feel like really good. No, it's really great. And I think it's like, you know, getting the questions right and thinking about
00:58:07
Speaker
you know, think about art in society. I'm listening to some lectures, you know, Plato's Republic, you know? Oh, yeah, that actually, that was, yes, the Plato's, that was another big thing that, again, it's all a thread to the, you know, the idea of illusion and believability and, you know, the Plato's, what is that one with the hand puppets on the wall?
00:58:37
Speaker
Oh, with the with the cave, the terrible at a cave. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's, if I was to look at everything at all kind of constellates around that idea. I'm sure there's other people are not
00:58:50
Speaker
No, I think your instincts are exact on that. And with the parable of the cave, the idea of the reflection of the images on the wall and those folks seeing those projected images, attaching them as being and as reality.
Plato's Philosophy in Modern Art and Politics
00:59:10
Speaker
And I think that's the question, at least within philosophy, about
00:59:14
Speaker
knowing things or knowing what reality is that's the fundamental question because right you know for for plato there is an ideal somewhere out there there is there is the form of the good there are these. You know there are these things that are real and you know the idea that things.
00:59:35
Speaker
on our realm, our copies has implications about what's real or what you strive towards. And I think thinking about politics and society, that is the work of Western literature where it's like, okay, society's fucked up. They killed Socrates. This is not the most erudite
00:59:58
Speaker
rendition of the republic. But, you know, Athens fucked up. They killed Socrates. Socrates was a really smart guy who was doing the right thing. How the hell we create a state that doesn't kill somebody like Socrates because he's pretty cool. So that's the that's the republic for me. So. But yeah, just thinking about and thought politics and systems and in the role of art, which was prominent.
01:00:26
Speaker
in the Republic, what should art be? That art should depict the gods behaving in a useful and good way, which doesn't sound that much fun. I mean, there's as many writers debating that topic as Heidegger and Kant and the nature of reality, the nature of aesthetic experience.
01:00:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And oh my goodness. Well, we have, I think sometime in the future, Pam, we're going to have to kind of try to give another go at it. Talk about the music. Well, no, no, no, not the music. Well, I adore the music. It's not that. About what we're trying to do, looking at it.
01:01:17
Speaker
the history of thought in trying to you know um to use some some great thinkers to try to to crack into things but um uh i um i just wanted to let you know uh uh p.m um i i i i i just really enjoy talking to you and um one of one of the i'll mention a couple hinky things just to reveal like it all out there i i think that
Understanding Fascism's Modern Implications
01:01:46
Speaker
I think that even something about like talking about Hitler and like having a conversation like what was this guy doing? What was that mind working like? It's super important. But I think a lot of people don't want to, you know, go into that era and see deeply what evil or bad thought or what was behind that. And I think that
01:02:12
Speaker
you know, reliving this phenomena, you know, and seeing this phenomena or the sensitivity that you had towards the Trump headline on page 12 about space in buildings. Right. Government buildings and epic architecture. Made was super important, like to, you know, to understand and to grapple with.
01:02:36
Speaker
No, thanks for coming on and talking philosophy unions.
Conclusion and Appreciation for Pam Balfour
01:02:40
Speaker
We have plenty more to talk about. I think we'll do a second part. And I just wanted to let you know, I really appreciate your time, the conversation, and just the thinking. It's been great to chat with you. Thank you, Ken. And thanks for inviting me to do this. This is great, even though I hate the sound of my own voice.
01:03:06
Speaker
No, your voice sounds nice. I like it singing and talking. Well, thank you. I appreciate the invitation and just a sensitivity to kind of what I'm thinking and what I'm putting out there and a curiosity about it. So thank you.
01:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. I got a lot to think about. You know, seriously, though, your your your critical mind and critical eye. I enjoy chatting about this stuff because it sparks and spurs me to get get my head, you know, always moving and thinking about things. So, Pam Belfer, thank you so much for coming on to something rather than nothing, as you could tell by the content of this conversation.
01:03:51
Speaker
Pam and I will be chatting again sometimes in the future if she's so willing. Thank you for your union work, Pam. Thank you for creating. Thank you for the music. And hope to chat with you again very soon. That would be lovely. Thank you. Thank you to Kim. Thanks, Pam.
01:06:18
Speaker
A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute, A minute by minute
01:07:14
Speaker
It's just about the amount that I can take
01:07:54
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.