John Hurrell – 16 August, 2026
So what does experiencing its many charcoaled drawn-on posters, read aloud projected texts, obstructing wire-netting barriers and pulley-hauled mobile loos reveal today? Is political comprehension actually ‘refreshed' in some way; made for our particular time as something revitalized? Earnest yet also comedic—celebrating love of repetitive mechanical processes as metaphors for channeled significance?
This twenty year old work in the AAG Collection was initially presented by the controversial et al. artist(s?) in the 2005 Venice Biennale, so with its (then) high profile the overt time gap gives viewers the chance to now evaluate the alleged potency of Aotearoa’s avant-garde, and perhaps the elastic properties of time itself. For me it is clearly good to have the chance to think about this crafty multivalent installation again, available in a new iteration for two rooms of the AAG’s first floor.
So what does experiencing its many charcoaled drawn-on posters, read aloud projected texts, wire-netting barriers and pulley-hauled mobile loos that seem like giant metronomes reveal today? Is political comprehension actually ‘refreshed’ in some way; made for our particular time as something revitalized? Earnest yet also comedic—celebrating love of repetitive mechanical processes as metaphors for channeled significance?
And, can fundament as a pun also mean backside, bottom or anus, as well as alluding to issues of survival? Are sitting or shitting appropriate interpretations; ‘sitting one out’ or the act of defecation resulting from the terror of nucleur annihilation? Is this a provocative snatching at an unusual theme of alimentary meaning? Or an eloquent cry of despair?
John Hurrell
Recent Comments
John Hurrell
Thank you for your (as always) eloquent comments on et al., Ralph. Nice that you incorporated Beuys, Pessoa and Twombly. ...
Ralph Paine
A low-grade purgatory. Very Junkspace… And/or Jankspace. But certainly not CUTE. Is ‘avant garde’ now another et al. heteronym? Whereas ...
Two Rooms presents a program of residencies and projects
Advertising in this column
This Discussion has 2 comments.
Comment
Ralph Paine, 11:05 a.m. 18 August, 2026 #
A low-grade purgatory.
Very Junkspace… And/or Jankspace. But certainly not CUTE.
Is ‘avant garde’ now another et al. heteronym?
Whereas Ferdinando Pessoa’s various heteronyms wrote poems in different styles and with different themes, affects, etc., et al.’s heteronyms all combine to produce a MONOTONY of style and affect, and have done so for decades. Efface difference, increase homogeneity.
GREY EMINENCE >>>> ADMIN >>>> STYLE MANUAL >>>> BRAND.
It’s not paranoia—it’s marketing.
Contemporary art? A long-running game that binds players into commitments and communiques that outlast the platform’s intended use.
A German vibe... Is this what et al. owes to Joseph Beuys?
Perhaps et al.’s adoption of their NAMELESS name was a response to Roland Barthes’ famous essay ‘Death of the Author’: “We know that a text does not consist of a line of words, releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the AuthorGod), but is a space of many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds of writing, no one of which is original: the text is a tissue of citations, resulting from the thousand sources of culture.”
5G, 5 EYES—AAG should issue tin foil hats at the entrance to the exhibition.
“Groups are only good for betraying what caused them to be formed in the first place.”—Anonymous, ‘Conspiracist Manifesto.’
Of all the other scrawlers, Cy Twombly comes to mind: the anti-et al.
We’re fu_ked. Nothing gets outta here alive.
Pathological Projection as a Defence against Narcissistic Regression of Libido.
Utopia/dystopia: a binary machine is fully operational. Nothing ‘untimely’ to be seen here, no ‘aternal’ vibe to puzzle over. Only the ceaseless drone of the contemporary, of presentism, eternally returning gaze of the present, the Rerun: we are the embedded.
Nothing is swept away, re-rigged, transformed—matter is not liberated from judgement, the passwords are impossible to discern beneath the order-words: to the answer already contained in et al.’s question, one has gotta respond with the question from another answer…
Contra Conland: “Individuation in its collective aspect makes a group individual, one that is associated with the group through the preindividual reality it carries within itself, cojoining it to all other individuals; it individuates as a collective unit.”—Gilbert Simondon, ‘The Genesis of the Individual.’
et al.’s legacy? Abjection.
John Hurrell, 9:52 a.m. 28 August, 2026 #
Thank you for your (as always) eloquent comments on et al., Ralph. Nice that you incorporated Beuys, Pessoa and Twombly. 'Pathological projection' indeed.
Participate
Register to Participate.
Sign in
Sign in to an existing account.