Twitter: Performance art for the common man
Weekly Rondo: The Twitter edition where Elon Musk explains pictures to dead rabbits.
If you're a regular reader, you probably know I put my heart into these essays. I am a freelance writer and content marketer, and Substack is one of my revenue streams. I am also working on bringing new features to this publication, like guest authors, editors, etc. Thanks to Substack, I can write and work independently, so if you appreciate this post or anything else I write, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
As usual, the Weekly Rondo links are at the bottom of the essay.
Elon Musk's hostile takeover of Twitter has been a flirtatious, will-he-wont-he affair for some time now. And just like a camel innocently sticking his nose into the tent, he shocked everyone by buying it outright — because you can do that when you have $200-something billion lying around.
(He's still the richest man in the world. Let that sink in.)
But this isn't an essay about Elon Musk's approach to business; how this multi-billion-dollar purchase will affect social media and content moderation; or the current debates surrounding freedom of speech, even though I have plenty of opinions on those.
No, this story is about the intimate relationship between Musk, the artist, and us — his canvas.
Join me in the Salon
Let's rewind by taking you back to the inception of the "Salon" of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1667. Its creation was intended to allow patrons to see the best up-and-coming art students France had to offer.
By the 18th century, the annual Salon was held in the Louvre; the École des Beaux-Arts was producing court painters; and this artistic community established the reigning aesthetic for the period. There were strict standards for the art that would be displayed. They had to follow certain stylistic tastes as well as fit into one of the following categories: Historical (or mythological) scenes, religious art, portraiture, landscapes and still lifes.
According to art writer and critic Balasz Takac:
"With a tradition of almost one hundred and fifty years, The Salon de Paris nurtured an array of talented artists and made quite an impact not only on French art but also internationally, by practically dictating the stylistic tendencies and taste for visual arts at the time. The Salon was an important site for presenting different approaches, but mainly it served as a catalyst for the traditions of academic art dating from the Renaissance, and gradually it became immensely conservative."
That was until some rabble-rousers like Édouard Manet started rocking the boat with this controversial beauty.
If you look at the type of artwork created between when the salons started showing artists' work and when Manet and the impressionists began to break off into the Salon des Refusées ("Salon of the Refused"), it all looks very much the same: very naturalistic, very grand, very French. The painting above was rejected by the Salon's jury because it was considered improper — not because a naked woman was sitting with fully-dressed men, but that she neither looked sufficiently ashamed nor calm, but rather, annoyed the viewer interrupted her lunch.
Manet and others flipped the bird to the stodgy jurors and instead hung their works in the Salon des Refusées to let the people judge whether or not their work was worthy.
The emperor’s new clothes
The impressionists were responsible for one of the largest turning points in art history. Since then, the world has witnessed countless art movements, from realism to expressionism to neo-Romanticism to post-modernism.
While I love art, and I love contemporary art, but there are times when I really think we are just being trolled.
For example, I attended an art exhibit with my mom in college to fulfill a cultural requirement. The majority of the exhibition was brilliant. One part of the exhibit was by an artist who did some sort of ambient found art installation with random objects strewn everywhere. Some uncultured swine threw a banana peel in the middle of the floor. After clutching my pearls, I stooped down to pick it up when my dear mother — who was actually reading the placards — dashed around the corner to warn me that it was part of the exhibit.
I still wish I had thrown the banana peel away.
For some artists, art isn't the thing they produce but their personality. Take Andy Warhol, for example — while he created some magnificent work, his awkward public persona was his masterwork. His trolling of this poor journalist is a stroke of genius.
This video reminds me of Musk. Most people think of Elon Musk the Business Man, Elon Musk the Genius, Elon Musk the Troll, Elon Musk the Harbinger of Doom, but I view him as…
Elon Musk, the Artist
For someone as smart as Musk, you would never expect him to be the shitposter he is. Nevertheless, he somehow finds time in his busy schedule to take to Twitter, post dumb memes and harass his detractors.
But there is something so brilliant in the nothingness of his posting. People either love it or hate it. No one can seem to pin down whether he is brilliant or just a rich idiot. Certainly, these masterpieces say more about the viewer by how they react to them than they say about Musk himself.
Truly, he is the Marina Abramović of his generation.
By the way…
Have you heard of The Sample? If you're looking for interesting new content by independent writers, look no further! Sign up, tell them your interests, and you'll get emails from some of the best up-and-coming writers Substack has to offer.
And if you have your own fine writing you want to promote, you can publish through The Sample and find new subscribers!
(This ad is a cross-promotion with The Sample)
On the internet, no one knows you’re not Marina Abramović!
Performance artist Marina Abramović is a polarizing figure in the art world. She is one of the biggest names in the performance art movement. This avant-garde art form relies on the performer's body, often putting the viewer in an uncomfortable situation. Here are some examples from Abramović's body of work:
Imponderabilia, 1977: Abramović staged this with Ulay, her then partner, in Bologna, Italy, wherein they stood naked on either side of a doorway into a gallery. This forced the viewer to decide which gender of performer they were most comfortable facing while they squeezed their way through the door.
Nightsea Crossing, 1981: She and Ulay sat across from each other — in complete silence — for seven hours. They did this 22 times over six years.
Spirit Cooking, 1996: An effort to create and perform a "cookbook" of "aphrodisiac recipes" which acted as instructions for actions or thoughts. It included phrases like, "With a sharp knife, cut deeply into the middle finger of your left hand. Eat the pain." And, "Fresh morning urine. Sprinkle over nightmare dreams."
As you can imagine, much of her work leaves people scratching their heads.
Nevertheless, one work that strikes me as profound and relevant: Rhythm 0. The Rhythm series was a group of performances that Abramović did throughout the '70s, where she did a considerable deal of harm to her own body. Rhythm 0 was the most terrifying, and probably most dangerous, of the entire series. She stood in a room for six hours and gave simple instructions:
Instructions. There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired. Performance. I am the object. During this period I take full responsibility.
The table included innocuous items like rosemary, perfume, lipstick and cake. It also included a kitchen knife, a whip and a loaded gun. The performance started in a tame manner, with people moving her body around like a doll.
Halfway through the performance, her clothing had been cut off. Someone used a knife on her neck and drank her blood. She was sexually assaulted. Someone put the loaded gun in her hand and started to work her finger around the trigger. The audience finally lost it and began to break off into factions.
Once the performance was over, the audience disappeared. They couldn't even face her after what had happened. She later said, "The experience I drew from this piece was that in your own performances you can go very far, but if you leave decisions to the public, you can be killed."
We are the blank canvas
One could definitely argue that Abramović was the canvas in Rhythm 0. I would argue that the audience was the canvas, and the same dynamic exists within Twitter. We tend to think of Twitter as a canvas where we post our thoughts when it is a mirror that — in aggregate — reflects who we really are.
Much of the criticism of Musk's takeover of Twitter has revolved around the idea that he's letting all the Nazis, MAGA types and homophobes back on to harass people. I view it as throwing open the doors to a more liberal salon — one where we aren't reliant on the opaque processes of the old guard but one where we show responsibility as a group to decide which ideas matter and which do not.
Like Abramović's audience, we have the power to stand up to the evil we see when it runs rampant. We can intervene, or at the very least, not throw gasoline on the fire. Instead of cancellations, shaming and incuriosity, we can engage in dialogue, ask questions, and not engage with stupid and inflammatory ideas.
Welcome to the new salon
Just one week ago, we lived in the Twitter equivalent of the salons of stuffy, 18th-century Paris. Yes, the content was highly curated, but there was a high barrier to entry, stifled creativity and a lack of forward momentum.
Musk is turning Twitter into something better than the Salon des Refusés. Instead of a stodgy institution with strict codes of conduct that admit the peasants — with their unwashed faces and greasy hands — only to put them in the stocks, mock and ban them, we are seeing the dawn of a new liberal era where all voices will get the chance to decide which ideas are worthy and which ones are not.
Or at least, I hope.
There are always inherent risks when an eccentric billionaire starts tearing down the temple. Until then, I remain cautiously optimistic.
The Weekly Rondo
Here's your roundup of some of my favorite reads this week. By way of an update, I'm back in Salt Lake City after almost three months in Massachusetts. I loved it out there, and if anyone knows of a reasonably-priced apartment in the Boston area, will you pass that info along?
Saddle up because I have a TON of reading for you to do:
🎨 First, I really enjoyed some of the articles I used to research for this essay. You can read them in full here, here, here and here.
🤯 Speaking of Twitter, has anyone read Lee Fang and Ken Klippenstein's earth-shattering reporting on Twitter's collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security to suppress information? It's a long article, and I've barely scratched the surface of it, but I'm excited to dig in.
🦠 Another one that I've slightly chipped away at (because it's practically a tome) but want to dig right into is this ProPublica piece on the origins of the Covid-19 Pandemic.
🐦 Are the fact checkers getting fact-checked? Twitter released a new feature called Birdwatch that allows users to fact-check tweets, similar to Wikipedia or Reddit. Again, I'm cautiously optimistic. You can sign up here.
😱 On Halloween, a couple of teens in Cedar City, Utah, dressed up in prisoner garb and blackface. If that wasn't horrifying enough, the online mob looking to burn the witches somehow got redirected to the wrong school in Alpine, Utah (230 miles away) and began to harass and threaten a bunch of bewildered kids there. My colleague at the Deseret News, Kyle Dunphey, wrote an incredible story about it here.
🦹🏻♂️ Are men villains, or can they be saved? Meghan Daum spoke with Richard Reeves about his new book "Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why it Matters and What To Do About It." It's a great conversation.
📝 Substack Co-Founder Hamish McKenzie made a compelling case that the problem with Twitter is not that Elon Musk owns it but that we don't.
👖 Tara Henley (seriously, if you're not following her, please do) had a great conversation with Jennifer Sey about her ousting from Levi's.
🐒 Rob Henderson (another person I'm shocked you're not following) summarized his doctoral thesis about the psychology of morality.
💃🏻 And last but not least, I started Louise Perry's "The Case Against the Sexual Revolution." I'm only a few chapters in, but it draws you in from the first sentence and is incredibly well-written.