Cameron Leggett

Artworks

Cameron Leggett, Bad Presentation, Performance Art, 20 Min, 2018. (Script)

(A pudgy bearded middle aged man sits down in a folding chair at a small black folding card table. The table has a digital projector and a laptop sitting on it, strewn around these are less identifiable objects and a mass of cables. Beyond the man and the table is an small old film screen, the type used to project home slide shows. The man begins to speak into a microphone that is amplified:)

I am a bad artist. I am sitting like a puppeteer, completely visible to this room, yet not engaging with the other gazes in it. I am about to give a small lecture with accompanying images projected digitally onto a small screen. Many of you in this room will no doubt have difficulty hearing or understanding what I’m saying. I am not a professional speaker. I am a bad artist.

I want to talk about bad art. It is a subject that as a bad artist I feel qualified to speak about. There are many categories that are useful for dividing and describing art that is not good. To remove bad art from the larger context of art as a whole is the first division that we need to make.

Not all art is bad. I think we should agree in this place and time, we can find examples of art that is not bad. I will not speak at any greater length about this art. I am here to speak about the other stuff.

Kitschy, amateurish, obvious, ill considered, sloppy, poorly conceived, carelessly executed, cute, cockeyed, overworked, plagiarized, basically unappealing, and beyond all of these uninteresting.

I am sitting here, speaking about that which is obvious. That I am sitting here with my back to you. This is not an accident. A bad artist, does not engage with his audience, he may not even care if there is an audience at all.

(The man turns on the digital projector. Gradually an image of the man sitting at the table in front of the projection screen is displayed on the screen)

In front of me is a small screen. I am going to project images that I feel illustrate the points that I’m trying describe.

(the word RECURSION is imposed over the image)

This act of illustration is also bad art. I am demonstrating something obvious and simultaneously relating an obvious fact.

(the word is replaced by the word ALEATORICAL)

I am going to make mistakes. I am a bad artist. I did not adequately prepare or rehearse this art.

(The words on the screen are replaced again with TOO SMALL)

I wanted to project this on a large empty wall. That part of the project was changed.

(PETTY AIN’T PRETTY is displayed on the screen)

I wanted someone else to do speaking part of the show. I just wanted to do the projection.

(LAZY is displayed on the screen)

Let’s move on.

(The text is removed)

(A package of some sort of cheesy snack food is displayed, as the man speaks the package moves in a talking head sort of motion.)

Anybody hungry? I’m serious. Bad art is cheesy. We eat it, even when we feel guilty about it. We know it’s not good. That’s why we love to talk about it. We are better than this. No really, we are. There is so much out there that is better than this. [inflected voice of a cartoon] “Hey look at me. I am bad art. I’m cheesy. You love it.”

(The word SCHTICK appears in front of the cheese snack image.)

(The image is changed to typical Mandelbrot fractal image which is still animated talking head style.)

We’ve all seen one of these. I don’t know what the first repetitive meme was, but this is one that struck me. I guess I’m kind of a nerd and a bad artist.

(image is changed to a Cat on a Synthesizer in space. The talking head motion is stopped)

I didn’t make this… but I always like these on my facebook feed. We’re all sort of over it now, but I like cats and I like Synths. What could go wrong, right?

Where do these things come from? I know they don’t come from space, I don’t think cats are doing selfies in space.

(The cat image begins to rotate and gradually fades to the image of a static television screen.)

Somebody has to make this stuff. Why?
Should we talk about the reasons we feel that things on television are more relevant than our real lives? Does human experience gain meaning through interpretation? Distillation? Compaction? Art?

(Image changes to a trash can filled with trash.)

Not all television is trash.

(colors start cycling on the trash image.)

It is pretty hypnotic though. Like a camp fire.

(The word PREDICTABLE is displayed in front of the color cycling trash which is now shifting between the TV and the full trash can)

Should I let this message sink in for you? I think you’ve had enough.

(The word PREDICTABLE is replaced with the word RECYCLED)

(the text is removed and the image is switched to the words BAD ART [in an outlined font stacked one word on top of the other.])

I was trying to say something about bad art, not television.

(New text appears in front of the static BAD ART it is swapped… ART BAD [still in an outlined font stacked one on top of the other])

Let’s do something literal. Bad art is very literal. You’ll have to trust me.

(The sets of text begin to rotate in opposing directions… at first in synch… then gradually out of synch.)

I guess that’s pretty nauseating…

(The BAD ART text gradually fades to an image of a person meditating.)

Should we try to transcend bad art, or bad artistry? Is bad art something to be avoided? Something we should aspire to move past?

Can we out think ourselves and ruin our bad art intentions, remove the purity of our own haphazard nature and execution? and replace it with something even worse.

(The word INTENTIONAL is displayed over the meditating person.)

Should we try to be either worse or better? If we try does it actually work?

(The word EXPERIENCE appears below INTENTIONAL.)

How would we know whether we are avoiding getting better?

Intentional experience is what artists engineer and design. We do it internally in response to our perception… and specifically in the case of artists… We do it externally by pushing our perceptions, interpretations and experience out into the physical world to influence others.

(the image of a human brain is faded in over the meditating person. The Brain is animated talking head style by the man’s voice… growing larger and smaller responding to his voice.)

When this goes wrong we over do it. Our thoughts remain inside our brains and continue to evolve and become too complicated superseding our ability to adequately express them.

(Image of a trash can reappears replaces the brain. Still animated responding to the man’s voice.)

Bad Art can be a means of escaping this internal evolution, and self judgement. When one becomes a Bad Artist, they commit to inadequacy in both concept and expression. The escape is not permanent, but it can be exhilarating… for everyone involved. The perception of Bad Art gives the non-acting artist a sense of superiority, in recognizing it’s inherent and evident flaws. For the active Bad Artist the necessary escape from dogmatic traditions of quality, value, and the egotistical belief in one’s own self worth or ability, can be extremely satisfying.

(A Dollar $ symbol appears… growing larger and smaller responding to the man’s voice.)

Whether intentionally or not Bad Art has a lower or perhaps even negative monetary value. It is not made to be valuable in the immediate economic sense. It is probably not worth investing a lot of time or money in it. It will most likely not be an economically enriching experience. It’s merely an escape hatch. We look at Bad Art and speak about Bad Art even though it is not evolving or valuable in the traditional sense, because its value exists in one’s ability to recognize it’s devalued state as evidence supporting their own personal worth, or place on the evolutionary scale.

(Image of Ape silhouettes evolving into Human form appears in place of meditating person. $ is still present and getting larger and smaller.)

The evolution of a thing or an artist from trash or worthlessness, to cash or being saleable ; is certainly always interesting to a person who is expecting an investment of time and material to pay off. But a Pay Off isn’t always in cash. Bad Art is exceptional in its disregard for all value scales.

(Trash Can appears at the Ape side of evlolution… Dollar sign appears at the Man side of evolution. The position of the $ and Trash Can switch sides across the evolutionary scale.)

Unlike science Bad Art is an experiment that is not looking for a repeatable answer, that might serve humanity. Bad Art can be repetitive, iterative, recursive, calculated, and even quantified, but it does not have to be anything other than BAD in order to serve humanity.

(Human brain image is dropped over the whole screen.)

Is the brain that judges and enjoys the quality of BAD the actual originator of BAD? Is the brain the actual origin of ART?

(The words BAD and ART appear and begin wiggling over the brain image.)

We haven’t escaped anything.

(The image of a man sitting at a table in front of a projector screen is gradually faded in. The man turns off the projector, gets up and leaves without addressing the audience.)