The Art in Milwaukee Survey

I used to do obnoxious, absurd surveys on the streets of milwaukee. This was before there was a theatre company, and then during and immediately following a lag in the theatre company's existence (after Tracy and I broke up, but before we knew we still wanted to do theatre together) anyway, current events have led me to do a more serious survey. A case study of art in Milwaukee.

THE QUESTIONS:
What forms of art interest you?
Where do you get your information about art?
What is the current major exhibition at MAM? (follow ups: did you see it, what'd you think?)
Name a play shown recently in Milwaukee. (follow ups: did you see it? What did you think?)
Name a gallery with a recent exhibition. (follow ups: what artists work was shown? Did you see it? What'd you think?)
Name a visual artist working in Milwaukee. (follow ups: how do you know them? Have you purchased any of their work?)
Name a movie showing at an independent or art-house cinema. (Have you seen it? What'd you think?)
Do you care about art in Milwaukee? (optional follow up: what should be done to improve things?)

THE RESULTS:
So far we've surveyed 22 people at bars or cafes (fuel cafe, and ART bAR) and catagorized respondents into three classifications: Involved, Informed, and Ignorant. Involved people know about and have seen or otherwise participated in more than one form of art on the list. The informed people were able to answer some of the questions but had actually done little more than stumble drunkenly into a gallery, or shown their own work. The Ignorant might have answered one or two questions with some level of accuracy, or seen Batman at the Oriental (which given it's current programming choices obviously CANNOT be classified as an art-house cinema anymore).

THE BREAKDOWN:
Involved: 6
Informed: 5
Ignorant: 11

almost everyone catagorized as Ignorant replied in the affirmative to the final question (Do you care about art in Milwaukee?) in spite of having just demonstrated the opposite. One group of young men outside Fuel admitted "well, i guess not. Shit."

more survey stories

a few memorable events from recent surveying.

in chronological order:

3 am corner of brady and oakland, friday night. A man named Tyson with a pink feather boa dancing on the corner. I gave him the survey and he fought against every answer, repeatedly interrupting to accost passing women. by the time we were finished (took like, half an hour) he was calling me Perplexin Rex. We got into talking about communism, indie rock, etc. He rejects indie rock absolutely, insisting that Madonna is truely revolutionary. Then we discuss my theory that Madonna is the Nietzschian ubermensch. Finally, we get to OCCUPATION, and he's a special ed teacher. What an awesome guy. I left him to finish his ritual end-of-the-night dance and surveyed a lonely Argentinian linguist who is stuck in milwaukee for a couple months to make a film of some kind.

saturday night, the cactus club, ifihadahifi show. the hifi guys were ecstatic to see me with a survey. "old school!" it was fun Mike is a child taxidemist who's reason for being is to stuff children. Josh is a wageslave who lives for idle thoughts. their set was amazing for the first half, then the last two songs were like, kinda repetitive and almost minimalist, which doesn't look good on those guys.

saturday night, later on: the feminist mystique, before my eyes. So, i surveyed a young couple and, (i think, but i could be totally wrong) her parents. I'm assuming the husband, (lets call him dick) dragged his wife, (jane) and her parents (bob and martha) to the show. Bob didn't participate, he just sat back and laughed. He likes my dancing though, so he's a good guy. Dick was the only one who seemed to be enjoying himself, anyway. He answered opposite the rest of them on almost every question. When i got to the demographics section, things got fun. When Dick answered "atheist" Jane got pissed. "you know what that means, right? God, what is wrong with you?" Then she says xtian, but a different denomination than her mom. For occupation, Martha (the mom) said "housewife" Jane: "what did you say?" Martha: "housewife, that's what i am." Jane rolls her eyes. I ask Jane her occupation. "domestic engineer" full of forced pride. When i ask raison d'etre Jane is so bent out of shape i feel like the frown on her face will NEVER leave. her response: "none."

saturday night, later on. The singer/guitarist for The Dials (http://thedials.us/) made an argument for why love makes the world go round that was based on observable facts. i won't say i agree with her, but i have to admit i am intrigued. Too bad they're the touring band.

Sunny days, warm nights, surveys.

I have begun conducting my first survey. I need to get some software and decide on a sample size. But, really the actual survey itself isn't all that important.

In fact, I think i am opposed to record keeping on principle. I stand in front of photographers and video cameras at shows. I only video tape my plays as an afterthought. When someone says: my raison d etre is to document my life i feel immense waves of pity and disgust. the word "documentary" offends me. I want the experience, not the record of the experience. but finding correlations with this survey will be fun!

the important thing about the survey, and the part that i am most interested in is it's utility as a promotional tool. the only way i can gauge this is to see if i recognize anyone coming into the show.

see, the past is dead.

Last night i encountered a surly french alcoholic with his polish mail-order bride. (i joke, though they did keep her occupation overtly secret.) When i told them it was an existential survey they got all kinds of excited. Him in his i'm-way-too-cool-for-you sort of way and she in her bubbly polish whore way. (Again, joking, but that's what you get for being intentionally mysterious.) Then, upon completing the survey (they both enthusiastically answered "true" for the "you are alone, utterly alone" she wanted more questions and he was outraged at the fact that the survey didn't mention JP Sartre (over-emphasizing the "tre" like a true jackass)
I tried to explain that Sartre wouldn't want to be on the survey, did not self-apply the existentialist label. He screamed that Sartre was the godfather of existentialism as though i was a 4 year old. So, foolishly stooping to his name-dropping level, i said: "sure, along with Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Kafka, Dostoevsky, etc..."

"fuck Nietzsche" he says.

Then she goes into a delightful (if somewhat repetitive) long story about Dostoevsky's dad's balls, which he apologized for, "she's a bit of a talker." As though somehow, he thought I should be discussing dead white guys with a condescending prick rather than genital torture with his cute, intense and friendly "fancy lady" companion.

After walking away i realized what i ought to have said, rather than proving that i'm not ignorant of the history of existentialism. I ought to have said: SarTRE is not on the survey because SarTRE is dead. The survey is about things that exist and dude doesn't exist anymore, sorry.

This is why i think i hate record keeping. People fetishize and add legitimacy to something from the past (on a more superficial level, the rare funk and soul music played at dance parties) while ignoring the experiences of the present.

Meanwhile, others fetishize the future. They record and document the present in order to make it legitimate to future retro-enthusiasts. Why can't we just enjoy the now right now?