On Thursday evening, Torontoist broke the news that Wednesday's bomb threat at the Royal Ontario Museum was OCAD student Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson's final project for an advanced video class. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp's readymades (like Fountain, pictured above), Jonsson told us that the piece was about recontextualization, the idea that context changes art's meaning; in this case, something that is, he said, "quite clearly not dangerous, but when you put it in a different context the viewer recontextualizes it": a fake pipe bomb, and fake YouTube videos showing its fake explosion.
Two hours after our interview, Jonsson turned himself into police and now faces a charge of common nuisance and mischief interference with property. Two teachers were suspended from OCAD in connection with the piece, while Jonsson himself was suspended for non-academic misconduct––even though the piece was for a class, and even though he (as he told us) didn't let his professors know about it beforehand because he was worried about getting them in trouble.
One question hangs over this whole mess: all things considered––execution and outcome; the whole ongoing process, after all, qualifies as recontextualization––is it art?
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If you go by the late 20th century definition of art where anything can be art, then sure, it's art.
Publicity stunts and gimmicks like this, intentional or accidental, are to the art world what Britney/Lohan antics in the entertainment news are to music and film. Is Britney flashing her kootch to paparazzi some kind of performance art? If you want it to be, and enough people agree with you, then I guess it is. But then the word art no longer has any useful meaning.
Personally, I choose to have standards. To me it's not art, and the word art still has meaning.
The OCAD president said on CBC radio One (on both Ontario Today and Here and Now if I recall correctly) yesterday that the video was the only part of the school project. The fake bomb may have spinned off from the video but was the student's own doing (not part of the project).
Also the OCAD president said that the suspension of the two profs were part of their internal investigation and not to assume that they did not act ethically.
This is not to suggest that OCAD is blameless but merely that the link between the fake bomb and the school is not direct (if there is one).
A couple years ago my friend and I found a large piece of luggage in a garbage bin at the food court in the Eaton Centre.
We were both a bit freaked out because it seemed so out of place and the first thing that came to our minds was that it could be a terrorist bomb. We debated whether we should notify mall security about the suspicious luggage, fearing overreacting to a simple bag, but also fearing the possibility of guilt in the event that it actually was something more than a simple bag.
Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that this luggage in the garbage bin at the Eaton Centre made me think about our "culture of fear" a lot more than the fake bomb planted at the ROM ever could. I'm sure it wasn't planted by an artist, but if it had been, I would be less hesitant to call the luggage art than the ROM bomb.
The fake bomb was so explicitly real looking that it could never be considered a sculpture and I really don't see how that is recontextualization. What is the usual context for a fake bomb?
If it was a piece that could truly cause an overreaction, then maybe it would force us to look at the root causes of our overreactions and maybe I would call it art. However, I don't think anyone could say that the police overreacted in evacuating the surrounding area because of the presence of something that was made to look as much like a real bomb as possible, and that was planted in an extremly suspicious way, mysterious bomb-threat phone call and all.
Definitely not art.
According to Jonsson, everything––the fake bomb included––was part of the project. OCAD's deniability, justified or not, is pretty much expected.
My understanding is that the bomb-planting was something that was in no way required as part of the project, which was creating a video.
It was just something that he decided to do as an extra part of his project.
So really neither Jonsson nor OCAD are lying.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Whether or not the concept of recontextualizing qualifies as art, the fact remains that (a) the fake bomb looked like an actual bomb, and (b) hanging a sign on something saying "this is not what it looks like" is pretty weak by way of recontextualization.
If he were more clever about it, it might qualify as recontextualized art. However, there isn't the slightest hint that any actual thought went into this "project". Including the ramifications of doing something like this in a public place.
There are plenty of instances where stupid has qualified as art, but this, unfortunately is just stupid. Sometimes a bomb is just a bomb.
Bad art can still be art.
A friend of mine raised an interesting point: "Also the English language thing is a factor, maybe he really thought 'this is not a bomb' was a serious and legitimate caveat."
It's only art if someone in nice clothes pays for it.
Personally, I choose to have standards. To me it's not art, and the word art still has meaning.
So what do you get out of your distinction? What use is it to you?
This reminds me of the guy who made the cat torture video.
You can claim that anything is art. You can rationalize and justify almost anything in the name of art and find at least one person who would agree. To a large extent there is no real definition of art ; you could say that art is practically indefinable. The question of whether or not it qualifies as art in this context is practically irrelevant; the bigger question is does art excuse liability?
I think that regardless of your stated motivation you are ultimately responsible for your actions and if they have a negative effect on other people's lives then you should be prepared to pay the price.
calling in a bomb threat and having an AIDS benefit canceled in the process, all for the sake of an undergraduate assignment, is not art.
this unbelievable lack of foresight cost thousands of dollars that would have gone towards AIDS research is nothing more than the dim-witted prank of a spoiled art brat.
It was art if he intended it to be art. Anything can be art if that was the original intent.
However, this "art" can still break the law. And it did in this case.
Is art illegal here? I suppose so, but in a democracy we create laws to protect people from the actions of others. In this case it happened to be an action caused for reasons of artistic intent, but it broke the law and harmed others in the end.
In the end, the question of whether or not it is art is moot. Whether or not it was illegal, and if the laws that were broken were worthy of keeping, is everything.
My answer is the same as I gave in BlogTO's poll the other day. It's art -- bad art -- because if he'd done just a few things differently, we'd be talking about how stupid the piece is instead of how irresponsible he was. As for recontextualism, he utterly failed to achieve that goal. So it's bad art.
It was never his intention to cause a scare and waste so many people's time and money. Unfortunately the whole 'terrorism' angle prevents people who would otherwise say it's (bad) art from considering it anything but irresponsible, intentional, prankery.
Done a few things differently? Like perhaps not placing a replica of a bomb in a public place.
This was simply a criminal act, and the arrogance displayed in his City TV interview, will no doubt serve the Crown well.
I think the "Is it art?" question is farthest from the best question to be asking. There are actually fairly few questions in my mind about this whole thing. I think that Jonsson is simply extremely naive about the consequences of his art and also hasn't really given it much thought to begin with.
Because the surface veneer of his concept is sound; we do like in a culture of heightened fear although that isn't really anything new in a historical context. But get past that veneer and you're into some particleboard flimsy thinking (sorry for mixing Icelandic with my Swedish Ikea metaphor).
As other have pointed out, for this game of "context" to have worked he would have needed to actually subvert what we would generally precieve to be a bomb or another similar threat. And even if that were the case -- let's say he had installed a plush bunny with the same "this is not a bomb" note -- I still don't really buy into the idea as anything more than a gimmick.
So, "art" vs. "not art" aside this whole thing sort of boils down to me thinking he needs to grow up a bit.
Some great points...but yeah, I think the discussion of whether it's art or not really isn't going to be resolved here. And Davin's point that it's not the best question is dead-on. Really, whether or not it's art is irrelevant considering the outcome of Jonsson's actions, even if it's *bad* art. But for the sake of discussion what if we assume that it is art...
One opinion on art (posed by somebody who thought about Art much more than I have) is that it's the quintessential output of a society's collective achievements and is effecively a mirror of that society's "soul" (or something to that effect). This has a number of interesting interpretations, of course, not the least of which might be that only a society that's as fat and rich as ours could support talentless artists...but I digress :)
A more relevant observation would be that art cannot exist in a vacuum. So what does it say about an "artist" who has no concept of what might happen if he plants a fake bomb in a museum? And what does it say about said society? Sure, he's a student, but still...
I don't understand why this poll exists... to subject things to such black and white accusations is what's 'moot' here.
The piece, in detail, doesn't resemble a bomb very acuratly either. People overreacted, that's not his fault.
The times we live in are rediculous and he was commenting on that. Using the appropriation of an object resembling something we're all so afraid of and placing it in a context which represents the institution, which is something we try so hard to protect.
It was/is functional as an art piece.
Also, who the fuck would bomb the ROM anyways?
Yes, DaveH, if he'd done a few things differently. For example, got the ROM's permission. Or made it not look like a bomb. Or put the sculpture in a display case and presented it as a work of art (Banksy style) rather than a suspicious gym bag. Do you see what I'm saying? If it still managed to get the attention of the city blogs we'd be panning the work and not the student.
It wasn't simply a criminal act. That sort of glibness only serves to reduce complexity to kneejerk black and white absolutes.
My glibness was art.
glib these nuts
I think the question is not "Is it art?"
Just like graffiti, it's obviously art. The question is "Is it good?"
Personally I don't think so, in this case.
F_L_EE says:
I'd venture that 99.9% of people have never seen a bomb which is beside the fact since he left the faux-bomb in a bag with a note on it. And as I mentioned before, to suit his stated goal of recontextualization, the "bomb" should not have looked anything like a real pipebomb and it's been demonstrated by others that it looked damn close enough.
This all boils down to an art project which is the equivalent of pulling the fire alarm while wearing a beret.
We live in a "la-la-land": to pose this question proves it. Anyone who has been to any of the major cities in Europe over the last six years knows that if this idiot had pulled a stunt like that in any of them, he'd be behind bars. Oh, and ask the hundreds of people he screwed over for his school project if they thought it was "art". Christ!
[15] hit the nail on the head first. Asking ‘Is it art?’ is as lazy and demented as the stunt itself. The real question looming over this is ‘Should 'art' excuse responsibility for one’s harmful actions?’
To me, his lack of shame for such an inconsiderate act is disgusting.
A likeminded application of martial arts sounds like a suitable penalty. I hope he is trampled as someone shouts fire in a crowded theatre.
I think only things that require talent can be called art.
your post says "quite clearly not dangerous, but when you put it in a different context the viewer recontextualizes it"...my observation is that the OBJECT was CLEARLY dangerous, it was meant to imitate and look like a bomb and left in a place of certain importance in TO...so in my submission, it wasn't art....it was crass PLAGIARISM, or a sorry imitation of other tragic events...the object, sadly, WAS in context, you did not need to recontextualize...the student gets a D- for this assignment, he clearly did not understand what it was about...
I'm with Davin & Kevin Bracken.
It can be art and still be stupid, poorly thought-out, and unnecessarily dangerous.
Try going to any airport with a plush bunny holding it up in the security line and saying out loud "this is not a bomb"... you will findo yourself pretty quickly bent over a table...
The class project was for a "film" he made the film and from what I have seen on youtube you do not even see the bomb. So what pert did it serve leaving it at the ROM?
Also on a night where a 1,000 of the cities wealthiest elite would be attending a charity function for a controversial (yes AIDS is still conroversial) cause ANY out of place package would have been treated the same. I think he should be charged with terrorism. Do you not think the employees and guest of the ROM were not terroized that night?
I find it odd that he said the fake bomb was part of his project as he left it then went to class to do his presentation. If this was part of his project, wouldn't he have wanted to witness the outcome? Not that it really matters either way, I'm just wondering.
"The times we live in are rediculous and he was commenting on that. Using the appropriation of an object resembling something we're all so afraid of and placing it in a context which represents the institution, which is something we try so hard to protect."
So, you're suggesting that at any other point in history (within the realms of when pipe bombs existed) that people wouldn't react the same way?
I highly doubt that. If someone in the 1980s came across this at the pre-rennovated ROM, the reaction would be much the same.
If someone did this anywhere else in the world (assuming they knew what a pipe bomb was), you'd get the same reaction.
And finally, since when does a note that says 'This is not a bomb' negate any security threat? That's ridiculous. If you're robbing a bank at gunpoint and a police officer walks in, do you really think telling them 'It's okay officer, I'm not robbing a bank, it just looks exactly that way' is any sort of defense?
There is no recontextualization here. In no other context is a pipe bomb something other than a fucking pipe bomb.
Take a closer look at the situation. This kid is OBSESSED with destructive images. 9-11, Terrorist attacks, Hitler, etc.
If he -really- wanted to do a piece on recontextualization then I doubt he'd create something that looks exactly like what most people think a pipe bomb looks like. Like so many other people have said in these discussions, if it was something that didn't look like a bomb it could be considered as a recontextualization. Taking something obviously harmless and getting an extreme reaction.
No, it appears to me that this kid, with his destructive obsessions simply wanted to live out his obsessions. Slapping the recontextualization tag on it was almost certainly an afterthought.
I take an art-related course, and I've seen this sort of thing before. In first year we had a student obsessed with anime. Everything they did had to have anime in it. If you looked at how they did their work, the anime came first, then they'd figure out how to make it work with the task at hand. The final result was always crap.
Not art.
Nobody has said he should be excused from what charges and sentence await him just because it was meant to be art. If you can't discuss this without inventing false dilemmas, why participate in this conversation at all?
Note [17], who said that people overreacted.
This just demonstrates the lack of serious in the crown prosecutor's office. This should have been charged as a full on terrorist attack. He needs to go to jail, forever. Allowing actions like this to get a slap on the wrist encourages more hoaxes and a lessening in the public's level of alertness. Jihadists, leftists, and separatists will then be better able to kill substantial numbers of civilians in their ongoing terror campaigns (ELF/ALF are part of the Left's active terror network, Toronto already has a substantial jihadi problem, and the FLQ remain sporadically active), not to mention the substantial danger of Tamil and Sikh extremist activities.
From living in too many terror targets and having many brushes with these bombings, I always alert security and call police about any unattended package anywhere. It's a small investment to avoid horrendous mass casualty events that are pervasive.
had the assignment been called "art imitating life" or "realism in the 21st century" the student could have gotten an A+ and then go to jail. in this case, however, the student should fail the course and GO TO JAIL...
call it art if you like, but its not good art. Its "exploring" contexts that are already well-traveled in terms of the Boston incident, or in New York. There's also plenty of precedents for this type of thing in internet acting and Alternate Reality Games.
"So, you're suggesting that at any other point in history (within the realms of when pipe bombs existed) that people wouldn't react the same way?"
No, I am not.
"the "bomb" should not have looked anything like a real pipebomb and it's been demonstrated by others that it looked damn close enough."
No, it did not.
rowasaur - It wasn't a bomb, so technically people did overreact to it. All the same, that's not saying he should be excused.
F L Lee - If we're talking about the object he's holding in the photo here then yes, it looks a whole lot like a real pipe bomb. Pipes. Wires. Circuit board. Looks a lot like this.
Technically, it was not an overreaction.
At the time the reaction was made they could not know that the bomb was fake. They reacted cautiously to a situation that could've had terrible consequences.
"who the fuck would bomb the ROM anyways?"
It would improve it, the addition tacked on doesn't suit the original building in my opinion. Let's call the act "deconstructionism" though, wouldn't want to get in trouble.
...and here we are again at the subject of "toronto the ugly"...the posting above demonstrates once more that no matter what the topic is on torontoist we somehow manage to get back to the ugliness...there actually is a trend in architecture called "deconstructivism"...
this is from wikipedia:
Deconstructivism in architecture, also called deconstruction, is a development of postmodern architecture that began in the late 1980s. It is characterized by ideas of fragmentation, an interest in manipulating ideas of a structure's surface or skin, non-rectilinear shapes which serve to distort and dislocate some of the elements of architecture, such as structure and envelope. The finished visual appearance of buildings that exhibit the many deconstructivist "styles" is characterised by a stimulating unpredictability and a controlled chaos.
Rowrasaur - It's still not the same as saying he should be excused, which was the point of even mentioning it.
Yeah, glad Rek beat me too it: F L Lee, its too bad your assertion that what the guy made looks nothing like a real pipe bomb completely renders your other arguments moot. Well, not too abd actually, just funny.
It looks a HELL of a lot like a real pipe bomb, obviously. What does F L Lee think a pipe bomb looks like?!
Like art.
Touche