This is the ENDD logo by Nick Bastis
This event has occurred, for documentation of the entire program click here.
NJOYs. Blus. Smokefrees. V2s. All manner of customized vaporizers. This is the moment of the e-cigarette, or more precisely, the Electronic Nicotine Delivery Device (ENDD). Day by day, the broader public is learning (and contesting) what it means to "vape": how one does it, where one can do it, and what it means to do so. As individuals, industries, and governments stumble towards definitions, Rhizome has commissioned a group of artists and critics to present analyses—historical, political, social, anticipatory—of this technology and the discursive field that is emerging around it.
Rhizome is dedicated to art and ideas that create richer and more critical technology cultures. With this program, we continue our examination of influential, technological objects from interdisciplinary points of view, in the context of artistic research practice.
HIGHLIGHTS
The ENDD past & present:
- Artists Mathew Dryhurst & Brian Rogers present "A Treatise on Efficacy", a lecture performance that delves into the history of the electronic cigarette, from its origins with Chinese pharmacist Hon Lik, the technology's maturation through Dutch company Janty, and the controversial role of Chinese companies like Joyetech and Dekang in its wider adoption and distribution.
- As municipal governments race to legislate the act of vaping—not least New York City with its public ban—health education professional C.A.B. Fredericks assesses the risks associated with e-cigarettes, and the technology’s fractious reception in his field.
- Art critic (and Rhizome contributing editor) Orit Gat addresses the vape shop experience, by way of the French e-clopinette, and its relationship to The Apple Store.
The demise of cigarette monoculture and its image as epitome of sex, death, style:
- Re-thinking psychological drives after the cigarette, Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal presents a new performance from the perspective of a descendant of Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis, and his nephew Edward Bernays, pioneer of public relations who famously sold women on the virtues of smoking.
- Reading the physicality of the cigarette and its smoke against the wispy white of the vaporizer, 'Pirate utopia' presents a video intervention, a recreation of a billowing 1980 interview of Jean-Luc Godard on The Dick Cavett Show.
New aesthetic and experiential possibilities:
- Dutch artists/trend-forecasters Pinar & Viola, long interested in vaping’s future, create an exhibition for Rhizome’s front page: a customizable, interactive smoking room.
- A collection of artists and musicians like Aaron David Ross (Gatekeeper), Holly Herndon, Alex Gvojic, and others release the #VapeCru Mix Tape, an attempt to form a new style of "music to vape to." The mix will be available online, and presented live at the program after-party at Beverly’s, 21 Essex St New York, NY 10002.
Saturday, February 22, 3pm
at the New Museum
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002
Tickets: $10/$8 Rhizome/New Museum members
