«If
humans are not required to earn a living to be provided survival needs,
many are going to want to be productive, but not at those tasks they
did not choose to do but were forced to accept in order to earn money.
Instead, humans will spontaneously take upon themselves those tasks that
world society really needs to have done».
- Buckminster Fuller
Original post by the Zeitgeist Movement (26/03/2014)
Silly Walk march in Brno, Czech Republic (2014), inspired by the Ministry of Silly Walks by Monty Python
"Playfulness is what makes us human. Doing pointless, purposeless things,
just for fun. Doing things for the sheer devilment of it. Being silly
for the sake of being silly. Larking around. Taking pleasure in
activities that do not advantage us and have nothing to do with our
survival. These are the highest signs of intelligence. It is when a
creature, having met and surmounted all the practical needs that face
him, decides to dance that we know we are in the presence of a human. It
is when a creature, having successfully performed all necessary
functions, starts to play the fool, just for the hell of it, that we
know he is not a robot."
"Forget being the best of anything. That's the fruit of the action, and you do the work -they say- for the doing, not the fruit. You can never really know how it's gonna turn out in the world but you know if you enjoy doing it. And ideas start flowing and you start getting, you know, excited about stuff. Then you're having a great time in the doing and that's what it's all about. If you don't enjoy the doing, then do something else."
This action (performance + manifest), was developed in 2007. One year before, there was an embrionary work developed by me heading to it. The work of Johan Huizinga is fundamental for the comprehension of the importance of "play" in our culture. This was the main inspiration for the video art work "Homo Sapiens - Homo Ludens".
The performance background is the playground manifest. The video game Street Fighter 2 was used as a tool. It was being projected on one canvas which was always painted by the defeated player. This performance was a game. The video game was one part of it, which could be replaced by some other else (chess for instance). Street Fighter 2 seemed one good option. This action was not one attempt to imitate children. To be clear about that the element alcohol was included.
