SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK AT #OCCUPYWALLST
…”There is a danger. Don’t fall in love with yourselves. We have a nice time here. But remember: carnivals come cheap. What matters is the day after. When we will have to return to normal life. Will there be any changes then. I don’t want you to remember these days, you know, like – oh, we were young, it was beautiful. Remember that our basic message is: We are allowed to think about alternatives. The rule is broken. We do not live in the best possible world. But there is a long road ahead. There are truly difficult questions that confront us. We know what we do not want. But what do we want? What social organization can replace capitalism? What type of new leaders do we want?”…
DIGGING THROUGH OLD FILES – ARTIST STATEMENT FROM 2009
Jesse Hlebo
4.23.09
There are consistent, reoccurring themes in my life involving obsession and necessity. Since I can remember I’ve always felt that these two things are integral to the decisions I make on a daily basis, and without them I know for certain I wouldn’t require nearly as much productivity.
The things that slapped me into recognition of my need to create aren’t completely conscious; the ones that are follow a list marked with pain and scarred with a deafening sense of my own mortality: the edge of suicide, mental incapacitation due to stress overload, the start (and continuance of) an intense questioning of everything I ever believed to be ‘true’ and everything I believed to have ‘value’, and the rejection of life altering ideologies and faiths. These situations have, among other things, taught me that I have no other choice but to rely on myself for anything I need. This pressure that I’ve bestowed upon myself requires my constant attention to process, something I feel I never escape and never distinguish, whether cleaning a toilet, writing a poem, or walking until my feet bleed.
The manner in which I work becomes supplementary to the environment in which I’m working in, through an overcrowding of time the work spawns less of a meditated creation and more of reactionary one. The pieces final form becomes representative of this space that is typically informed by such sources as weather, roommates, anger, hunger, sleep deprivation and loneliness.
Residing amongst all these things is fear. Fear I won’t do what I want to do, fear I won’t accomplish what I’m capable of, but most of all fear that at any moment I will die and all that will be left is what I’ve already accomplished. At this point in my life I have not reached a finishing point, though I feel one coming quickly, and this ‘point’, this thing I don’t know, yet think about so much, is the reason I wake up. If I stop then I stop.
CERTAIN DISTINCTIONS 2011 NYABF PS1 SWILL CHILDREN RIPPER YESS
Certain Distinctions is a show orchestrated and conducted by Jesse Hlebo.
Featuring sounds by Daren Ho, G Lucas Crane, Hisham Akira Bharoocha, Roe Enney, Sadie Laska, Sara Magenheimer and movement by Alaina Stamatis, Joe Ahearn, Tavish Miller, and Tenaya Kelleher.
The pieces essence can be defined as such:
The structure of a gradient
Freedom within structure
Freedom with responsibility
The performance will be conducted by the printing of a publication, of which attendees can assemble and take as their own.
Saturday October 1st, 1:30PM
“The Top of The Stairs”
The NY Art Book Fair @ MoMA PS1
2225 Jackson Ave
Long Island City, NY
GUARDIAN ALIEN RECORD RELEASE
Haven’t posted in a very very long time, though I should be… Too many thing’s going on, I guess??
I post more frequently on this cell phone Tumblr thing: MV T R LS T
Next Friday, 9/23, is the Guardian Alien record release at Shea Stadium. It’s the second 12″ I’ve put out on Swill Children, super psyched on it! Justin Sloane and I designed the packaging and stuff. He did the amazing cover graphic!
They’re all colored vinyl, alternating colors cause I asked the plant to press whatever colors they had extra of.
Discovered that some are brownish and some are greenish. Into it.
Tell yer friends.
HALIFAXED
Hamburger Eyes just published a zine of mine “HALIFAXED“. It’s comprised of work I made when I was in Halifax this past February.
41 STRINGS
I helped produce this project back in May. Check out the documentary hheerree.
My sister’s 18th birthday was last week and, unbeknownst to her or my mother, I came to California and this is how she found me.
SILENT BARN NEEDS MAD HELP!
The Silent Barn is most definitely one of the most positive and inspiring spaces / projects that I’ve found since moving to New York. The reaction I had to the news of the Police’s demand to shut it down, and the ensuing destruction that occurred, brought me to tears. However, I never doubted for a moment that Joe, Lucas, Kunal, or Nat, would respond in a defeatist manner.
They’ve helped foster a community of people who collectively have so much positive power to make changes in area’s that actually matter. Though this is a strong statement I truly believe it entirely. Seeing the responses this community, both local and remote, has made to the situation brought me to tears this morning. The Kickstarter has only been up at this point for several hours and has already gone well past the quarter mark.
It bring’s me so so so much joy to see an overwhelmingly negative event turn into a mass bonding, and further COMMUNITY, experience. It really is an example of how new technologies can be positively effective forces in our lives and communities.
You can donate to their Kickstarter here, and you can email them here. Please help out in any way you can!
leave a comment