Uncontrollability or Paranoid Production and Perception or You’re So Paranoid You Probably Think This Project Is About Me
2021 | Sculptures, performance, evaluation forms, installation, movie.
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What does it take to succeed? And how does one survive evaluation and critique? The project looks at the paranoia which I perceive as present in the field, the relationship between work and parawork, my own inferiority complex(es), and criticality vs. criticism.
In an attempt to gain control over the exam-situation, I made an analysis of previous projects from the department, and used the insight I gained to construct three projects (see the following pages) under false narratives. To be prepared for all scenarios I created projects aimed for both success and failure. Statements about the projects were written according to the common lingo, referring to graduation catalogues from previous years, and assessment forms were written in the voice of the institution. Finally all three projects were presented as the works of someone else entirely, giving me the role as both creator, presenter, evaluator and spectator simultaneously.
But why did it feel safer to take on the strenuous endeavour of producing three projects under false narratives rather than to take an honest stand and manifest an opinion? In an attempt to break the circle of critique and critical projects, challenge the ideas of an evaluation process and save my own skin, the project reproduces the systems of which it aims to critique. But is that my fault? Or am I simply a (damaged) product of the systems I address?
In the words of Nadine Botah: “Why would it be easier to produce three convincing projects under false narratives than manifest a single project based on actual conviction? Self-declared “paranoid practitioner” Maren Bang depicts an undefinable, rootless and paranoid field shaped by inferiority complexes that use intellectual, wordy, complicated criticality in an attempt to make itself appear relevant and important. The fake projects are based on previously successful graduation projects and evaluated on the institution’s shadow standards. Through this performative deconstruction, the project demonstrates how following the recommendations of criticality and self-reflexivity only reproduces the systems being critiqued. Is it easier to dismiss the project as cynical than recognize it’s about you?”
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