Jesse Stecklow at Chicken Coop Contemporary
Adrian Piper at Hamburger Bahnhof
Hypertrophied conceptual art still flexing instructionals retains, at heart, an interest in poetics, the fissure in semantic conclusion, the discrepancy in language's overt clarity and concern for bureaucratic legalese and recipization standing in for that object, even the most bureaucratic language fails and is semantically open, poetic. Information is pleasurable, activating our brain's dopamine reward system, addictive, we consume it without need for it, lack of place to use it just silver information reflecting its space, "consciousness and experience can not be described in materialist terms" in Stecklow's terms. Piper's contractual better world exchanges real world ethics with paper versions, "each individual voluntarily commits to align his or her future deeds with ethical principles such as honesty and reliability. ... They form a community of people who are likely to be trustworthy in the future." Which like nuclear disarmament leaves one community at a disadvantage, obligatory trustworthiness advantageous to others lacking it, the trustworthy lose the tools maintaining MAD strategies pleasant standoff, lies at the ready, trying to replace the grey world with black and white text never quite as functional.