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EAT MY CAVIAR. DRINK MY CHAMPAGNE.

FAILED GENTRIFICATION/SABOTAGING GENTRIFICATION N�stetorget in Bergen is as shitty a place today as it was the day we arrived with our art initiative. The �liveliness� produced by Bergen Museum for Samtidskunst during its period at N�stetorget has had no demonstrable synergetic effect on the area surrounding it. N�stetorget in Bergen is, as we can see from recent pictures, still no profitable place for investment � cultural, economic or social.

JOHN Here we could recall the joke about John, who decides to pay a visit to a psychiatrist because he wets his bed every night. He explains to the doctor that every night, a dwarf appears in his dream, saying to him: �And now, dear John, we are going to pee�. And John duly pees in his bed. The psychiatrist advises him to respond to the dwarf�s invitation with a determined �NO!� John goes home, but returns the next day. �I followed your advice,� he says to the doctor. �When the dwarf appeared, and encouraged me to pee, I firmly said NO! But then the dwarf replied: Very well then, in that case we are going to shit�.(1)

POSTER EXHIBITION We once produced a poster exhibition at Bergen Museum for Samtidskunst. The poster was just a list of names of the participating artists plus the name of our self-organized initiative. The exhibition was the poster. The poster was spread around Oslo and Copenhagen in semi-public art related places.

On one hand we intended the poster exhibit to be our approval of the exhibited artists without having to deal with works of art. We just wanted to �show� people with the �right attitude�. On the other hand we saw this as an opportunity to be an integrated part of the art world�s circulation of names but without being tied down to a space, a certain city part or even a city or country.

This poster exhibit as a culmination of the art scene�s distinctive marks � the institution, the names, and the circulation � also included the idea of the art exhibition as a pure cv-filler, for institution as well as for artist. The fact that Swedish-born artist and S/M-fantast Tommy Olsson probably didn�t include the show on his cv, does not rule out the fact that this was and still is the best exhibition he ever took part in � and that the absence of his work is his best work to date.

COLLABORATION OVER DISTANCE Collaboration over distance makes localization of the energy of idea exchange difficult. This has both advantages and disadvantages. When an initiative is not tied down to a specific site/place it shirks its potential as a gentrifier/ gentrifying force. This again opens up for the possibility of leading a (bohemian) life that maintains the �life� of bohemia without being reduced to a cash magnet/an orientation point for real estate agents and landlords.

ANTI-PROPERTY Once actor Charlie Sheen spent $6,537 to purchase all 2,615 seats behind the left field fence at Anaheim Stadium in order to improve his chances of catching a home run ball at an Angels-Tigers game. (2)

KUBRICK ON ACTORS Some actors are very amusing and pleasant and always cheerful. They are, of course, more pleasant to have around than those who are morose, vacant or enigmatic. But how they behave when you're not shooting has very little to do with what happens when the camera turns over. (3)

TO NOT ACT IN ONE�S OWN INTEREST Louise Lawler took some photos of our �museum� collection in 1999 (a cardboard box with some leftovers from the exhibits we had arranged).

GENTRIFICATION This summer Vito Acconci had to move out of his old studio in DUMBO as the entire building was being turned into luxury condos. As the garbage of all the businesses and studios in the building was piling up in the hallway the next door neighbour produced an enormous pile of material all relating to paedophilia, but safely within the law. Material ranged from Chickenhawk: the NAMBLA Journal, The intimate Diaries of Paul Gaugin and (of course) Nabokov�s Lolita to Vogue Bambini. He was the only one in the building who recognized Vito Acconci as a famous artist.

KUBRICK AGAIN: There is no positive evidence that violence in films or television causes social violence. To focus one's interest on this aspect of violence is to ignore the principal causes, which I would list as:

1. Original sin: the religious view. 2. Unjust economic exploitation: the Marxist view. 3. Emotional and psychological frustration: the psychological view. 4. Genetic factors based on the 'Y' chromosome theory: the biological view. 5. Man, the killer ape: the evolutionary view.

Furthermore to attribute powerful suggestive qualities to a film is at odds with the scientifically accepted view that, even after deep hypnosis, in a posthypnotic state, people cannot be made to do things which are at odds with their natures. (4)

THE KEBAB EATER One of our first visitors decided to bring his kebab into the �museum� and mess up the floor with kebab sauce, corn and kebab pieces falling from his mouth as he shouted about reporting us to the police for exhibiting this kind of work.

ARTHUR C. CLARKE�S DIARY May 28, 1964. Suggested to Stanley that �they� might be machines who regard organic life as a hideous disease. Stanley thinks this is cute and feels we�ve got something. (5)

NOTES:

1) The Shortest Shadow: Nietzsche�s Philosophy of the Two, Alenka Zupancic, MIT Press, Cambridge, London, 2003 2) High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess, Charles Fleming, Bloomsbury, 1998 3) Mankind on the Late, Late Show, Penelope Gilliatt, The Observer, September 6, 1987 4) Interview with Stanley Kubrick regarding A Clockwork Orange, Philip Strick and Penelope Houston, Sight and Sound, Spring 1972 5) The Lost Worlds of 2001, Arthur C. Clarke, Signet � New American Library, 1972