Pretentious bollocksPossibly the worst event I ever went to was an evening of turntablists in London. The lights went down, the first guy put a cymbal onto a turntable, dropped the needle on it and left it making screeching noises for ten minutes.
When the lights came up, half the audience had snuck out.
What's the most pretentious rubbish you've ever been to see in the name of art?
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chthonic, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 14:19)
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"The artists need to take back computers from the scientists!"My other half did a masters degree in Intelligent Systems at Brunel Uni. One of her lecturers told her about a presentation and discussion on Women in IT that was taking place in London. I think it was in Islington, I can't really remember. He asked her to present something there, and she agreed.
After preparing a series of overhead projector slides and donning a nice summer dress, she went along. I went too, just for the experience, and the potential free wine.
We got to the place - a converted town house / art barn thing. She was introduced to the organiser, a butch lass with a leather waistcoat on and nothing else on top. Squidgy leather clad breasts seemed to be the order of the day at this place, and there were a number of them around. We started to get a vibe that a light summer dress wasn't quite the scene.
The organiser was really happy because they had managed to get a BT Videophone, and were connecting to Australia where 'her lover' was. She told all and sundry this, but we kinda got it already. The fact that she hit on my wife suggested that she had an open relationship, however.
After mingling for a bit, the presentations started. One featured a 'famous' artist who had set up several infra-red cameras in a graveyard and had filmed several people sitting around in the dark. She used the technology to highlight how spirits move amongst us, or some bollocks like that.
At the right time, a nice structured introduction to Artificial Intelligence was delivered, complete with slides and talk of 'hard AI' versus 'soft AI'. All very nice. Then the questions started. They didn't want to hear about the details of AI, they started with the pretentious bollocks about how computers are taking over the world, and how one day they may be more cleverer than us, and all that stuff.
The moment at which we realised we'd overstayed our welcome was when one little oik said in a laconic manner "The artists need to take back computers from the scientists!". Fucking wanker.
We left. I think she got the number of the organiser, too.
(, Tue 4 Oct 2005, 17:08, Reply)
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