in case you missed it, I was officially dubbed/knighted as The Father /Godfather of Performance Art! Of course it is absolutely meaningless and historically inaccurate... But who am I to correct the myth? I have long claimed I am the hardest working shaman in show business!
Oh, Monday I am lecturing to a performance class at the University of North Carolina via online video phone. The class is full of southern Baptists... They tell me. This will be fun!
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
My lecture: without typos
Hi, Frank,
Hope you don't mind my angle. I think it gave a lot of room for everything else I wanted to write.
Peace! Shannon
Based on my lecture 03/27: My thoughts and an introduction to Frank Moore
Frank Moore: The Father or Grandfather of Performance Art
Why does performance art oftentimes highlight the bizarre, or even the grotesque (not Moore's work necessarily but such as Nick Zedd's piece, War is Menstrual Envy-- http://www.ubu.com/film/zedd_war.html )? This is because much of performance art is produced by those who are marginalized (such as with Zedd's piece which is possibly a commentary on queer bodies largely affected by the AIDS epidemic from the 80's--90's) Some other examples of marginalized performance art is Frank Moore's work and much of the feminist performance art that we saw. The daily experience of women, queer, or disabled people is of the "other" meaning they are stigmatized, ignored, or misrepresented by society. The way to counter this is through a representation of this daily "othering" that, for our purposes comes in the form of performance art. Oftentimes perceived as "shocking," performance art is merely a radical representation of bodies, possibly with the intention of how those with "othered bodies" might feel misrepresented on a daily basis.
For Frank Moore, he mimics the everyday--just as we saw with Third Rail who performed at lunch hour at the World Trade Center for 30 days straight. These performers infiltrated the business world, then used the everyday gestures, speech, and mostly movement to act as a bridge into beautiful, largely ignored, whimsical, or subtle "undercurrents" of movements to create dance. For othered bodies, people such as Moore experience a very different everyday. This tradition of working with the everyday or the world around you continues with Moore's work, but with his emphasis on his perspective as a different body with unique vision/capabilities.
In this way, Moore communicates beyond what we might consider a "norm" of speech. He speaks, rather than verbally with words, through his headband laser, sounds, and expression. Most importantly, he communicates through his art and music. His art serves as commentary against the disabled who are stigmatized (or othered bodies, or ALL of us who have ever felt isolated and ignored in today's society). The most sacred art, Moore considers to be the art of intimacy, of touch, and sensuality in which he performs in group performances. As a shaman, Frank feels that he is transforming his body into the one he sees everyday, as beautiful, sacred, and perfect. I see this as extra powerful also because it allows for othered bodies to be represented in a pleasurable state. In mainstream culture (such as fashion magazines, mainstream movies--Hollywood, and TV) usually the image of two bodies coupled intimately is reserved for the "cosmetically perfect," those who are young, thin, manicured, and/or synthetically airbrushed into perfection. These figures are unreal representations of the bodies that we can never attain. Without noticing it, we are overwhelmed with an influx of these images every day. We might feel, as do those with othered bodies and those of different sexual orientations, as if we cannot enjoy intimacy in the same way. In this way, Frank's art of intimacy is a device for all of us up against a repressive society that replaces healthy intimacy, community, touch, and loving touch between people oftentimes with synthesized gratuitous sex.
Lastly, I see Frank as a very spiritual person. I feel that he is a remarkable person for the committed strenuousness of his life (getting around is much more difficult for Frank) and the way in which he still carries himself with Pure Joy, grace, and compassion.
And, finally--lastly (really lastly this time), I want to say that despite your initial response on the content of Frank's work, I hope you will recognize the value and merit of his work based on what he does for people of othered bodies, those disabled, and for all of us who have ever felt in need of more community, intimacy, and spirituality in our lives. Frank is one of the most open, joyous, approachable, and kind people I have ever met. My mom and I visited him in his Berkeley home, and we were welcomed by him, his partner Linda, and Mikee, an artist and friend. My mom, from an occupational therapist's perspective was very open and receptive to Frank's work. She also considers his work to be a breakthrough for those with disabilities, as well as for humanity as a whole.
I told the class and Frank that I had remarked that he is the "Father or Grandfather of Performance Art." Acclaimed by Richard Schechner (the author of our text book, Performance Studies--an Introduction and the founder of performance studies from NYU), Frank Moore is one of his favorite performance artists. Frank also has also lectured at NYU, written numerous articles, and books, continues to perform, and has a 24 hour radio station called http://www.luver.com and a TV show.
We are very lucky and blessed to have this visit from him. I hope you will take advantage of it with your most pressing questions about his work, performance art, and the connections to your work!
Much excitement and love from your instructor,
Shannon
FRANK'S BIO: From Frank
Although he has painted bright oils and created shamanistic rituals since the late 60’s, Frank Moore first came to be known in the late 70's as the creator of the popular/infamous cabaret show, The Outrageous Beauty Revue. Moore is known as an artist who playfully explores beyond taboos. In the 80's he became one of the U.S.'s foremost performance artists. In 1985 Moore received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Performance Art. In 1992 he was voted Best Performance Artist by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. In the early 90's he was targeted, along with four other performance artists, by Senator Jesse Helms as an “obscene” artist. His casts have included the likes of Annie Sprinkle, Linda Montano, Linda Sibio, Nina Hartley, and Veronica Vera.
Between 1992 and 1999 Frank Moore was the publisher and editor of the acclaimed underground zine, The Cherotic r(E)volutionary. In addition to his book, Cherotic Magic and numerous other self-published pieces, Frank Moore has been widely published on the subjects of art, sex, magic, and cultural subversion. He also teaches/lectures on these subjects. Annie Sprinkle lists Moore among her “sexual/performance teachers”.
Since 1996, Moore has run a large, extensive web site, http://www.eroplay.com , which features his and other artists' audio, video and visual artwork. In 1999, he founded http://www.luver.com , a 24/7 webstation which has become the home for voices for change, including Dr. Susan Block. Moore has two popular shows on Public Access Television, B-TV, in Berkeley, California, Unlimited Possibilities and Going Deep to the Core at Ramen with Frank Moore. In 2007 he started campaigning to become President of the United States.
* * * * *
Shannon, this is very impressive and deep... And flattering! I don't mind your angle. You made it clear that I don't do "crip" art. When I was running for President, NYFA Current commissioned and published one of my campaign speeches. In it I wrote:
"I am a real, serious candidate. I’m just working outside of their boxes. Outside of boxes is where the new possibilities are. Inside the limiting boxes is where political power is created. This is why the normal politicians stay in the boxes. This is why fundamental, humane change rarely—if ever—has come from power politics. I hope they keep saying that I’m not a real and serious candidate because each time they say that our blip gets brighter and more intense. I also hope they keep saying I am the candidate of the fringe, of the margins. Consider who they have marginalized… the poor, the working poor. In fact, most of the labor force: the disabled, gays, seniors, the uninsured, women, the middle class, artists, family farmers, racial minorities, immigrants, etc. Hey, I may win by a wide margin!"
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
Hope you don't mind my angle. I think it gave a lot of room for everything else I wanted to write.
Peace! Shannon
Based on my lecture 03/27: My thoughts and an introduction to Frank Moore
Frank Moore: The Father or Grandfather of Performance Art
Why does performance art oftentimes highlight the bizarre, or even the grotesque (not Moore's work necessarily but such as Nick Zedd's piece, War is Menstrual Envy-- http://www.ubu.com/film/zedd_war.html )? This is because much of performance art is produced by those who are marginalized (such as with Zedd's piece which is possibly a commentary on queer bodies largely affected by the AIDS epidemic from the 80's--90's) Some other examples of marginalized performance art is Frank Moore's work and much of the feminist performance art that we saw. The daily experience of women, queer, or disabled people is of the "other" meaning they are stigmatized, ignored, or misrepresented by society. The way to counter this is through a representation of this daily "othering" that, for our purposes comes in the form of performance art. Oftentimes perceived as "shocking," performance art is merely a radical representation of bodies, possibly with the intention of how those with "othered bodies" might feel misrepresented on a daily basis.
For Frank Moore, he mimics the everyday--just as we saw with Third Rail who performed at lunch hour at the World Trade Center for 30 days straight. These performers infiltrated the business world, then used the everyday gestures, speech, and mostly movement to act as a bridge into beautiful, largely ignored, whimsical, or subtle "undercurrents" of movements to create dance. For othered bodies, people such as Moore experience a very different everyday. This tradition of working with the everyday or the world around you continues with Moore's work, but with his emphasis on his perspective as a different body with unique vision/capabilities.
In this way, Moore communicates beyond what we might consider a "norm" of speech. He speaks, rather than verbally with words, through his headband laser, sounds, and expression. Most importantly, he communicates through his art and music. His art serves as commentary against the disabled who are stigmatized (or othered bodies, or ALL of us who have ever felt isolated and ignored in today's society). The most sacred art, Moore considers to be the art of intimacy, of touch, and sensuality in which he performs in group performances. As a shaman, Frank feels that he is transforming his body into the one he sees everyday, as beautiful, sacred, and perfect. I see this as extra powerful also because it allows for othered bodies to be represented in a pleasurable state. In mainstream culture (such as fashion magazines, mainstream movies--Hollywood, and TV) usually the image of two bodies coupled intimately is reserved for the "cosmetically perfect," those who are young, thin, manicured, and/or synthetically airbrushed into perfection. These figures are unreal representations of the bodies that we can never attain. Without noticing it, we are overwhelmed with an influx of these images every day. We might feel, as do those with othered bodies and those of different sexual orientations, as if we cannot enjoy intimacy in the same way. In this way, Frank's art of intimacy is a device for all of us up against a repressive society that replaces healthy intimacy, community, touch, and loving touch between people oftentimes with synthesized gratuitous sex.
Lastly, I see Frank as a very spiritual person. I feel that he is a remarkable person for the committed strenuousness of his life (getting around is much more difficult for Frank) and the way in which he still carries himself with Pure Joy, grace, and compassion.
And, finally--lastly (really lastly this time), I want to say that despite your initial response on the content of Frank's work, I hope you will recognize the value and merit of his work based on what he does for people of othered bodies, those disabled, and for all of us who have ever felt in need of more community, intimacy, and spirituality in our lives. Frank is one of the most open, joyous, approachable, and kind people I have ever met. My mom and I visited him in his Berkeley home, and we were welcomed by him, his partner Linda, and Mikee, an artist and friend. My mom, from an occupational therapist's perspective was very open and receptive to Frank's work. She also considers his work to be a breakthrough for those with disabilities, as well as for humanity as a whole.
I told the class and Frank that I had remarked that he is the "Father or Grandfather of Performance Art." Acclaimed by Richard Schechner (the author of our text book, Performance Studies--an Introduction and the founder of performance studies from NYU), Frank Moore is one of his favorite performance artists. Frank also has also lectured at NYU, written numerous articles, and books, continues to perform, and has a 24 hour radio station called http://www.luver.com and a TV show.
We are very lucky and blessed to have this visit from him. I hope you will take advantage of it with your most pressing questions about his work, performance art, and the connections to your work!
Much excitement and love from your instructor,
Shannon
FRANK'S BIO: From Frank
Although he has painted bright oils and created shamanistic rituals since the late 60’s, Frank Moore first came to be known in the late 70's as the creator of the popular/infamous cabaret show, The Outrageous Beauty Revue. Moore is known as an artist who playfully explores beyond taboos. In the 80's he became one of the U.S.'s foremost performance artists. In 1985 Moore received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Performance Art. In 1992 he was voted Best Performance Artist by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. In the early 90's he was targeted, along with four other performance artists, by Senator Jesse Helms as an “obscene” artist. His casts have included the likes of Annie Sprinkle, Linda Montano, Linda Sibio, Nina Hartley, and Veronica Vera.
Between 1992 and 1999 Frank Moore was the publisher and editor of the acclaimed underground zine, The Cherotic r(E)volutionary. In addition to his book, Cherotic Magic and numerous other self-published pieces, Frank Moore has been widely published on the subjects of art, sex, magic, and cultural subversion. He also teaches/lectures on these subjects. Annie Sprinkle lists Moore among her “sexual/performance teachers”.
Since 1996, Moore has run a large, extensive web site, http://www.eroplay.com , which features his and other artists' audio, video and visual artwork. In 1999, he founded http://www.luver.com , a 24/7 webstation which has become the home for voices for change, including Dr. Susan Block. Moore has two popular shows on Public Access Television, B-TV, in Berkeley, California, Unlimited Possibilities and Going Deep to the Core at Ramen with Frank Moore. In 2007 he started campaigning to become President of the United States.
* * * * *
Shannon, this is very impressive and deep... And flattering! I don't mind your angle. You made it clear that I don't do "crip" art. When I was running for President, NYFA Current commissioned and published one of my campaign speeches. In it I wrote:
"I am a real, serious candidate. I’m just working outside of their boxes. Outside of boxes is where the new possibilities are. Inside the limiting boxes is where political power is created. This is why the normal politicians stay in the boxes. This is why fundamental, humane change rarely—if ever—has come from power politics. I hope they keep saying that I’m not a real and serious candidate because each time they say that our blip gets brighter and more intense. I also hope they keep saying I am the candidate of the fringe, of the margins. Consider who they have marginalized… the poor, the working poor. In fact, most of the labor force: the disabled, gays, seniors, the uninsured, women, the middle class, artists, family farmers, racial minorities, immigrants, etc. Hey, I may win by a wide margin!"
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
David Steinberg has a new blog on SF Gate
Frank,
Good to get your note. It will be interesting to see what happens with this mainstream blog. A chance to talk to a wider audience. The rest remains to be seen.
Thanks too for publicizing the Lovers Guide site. Tuppy Owens put them in touch with me and they've been very good to deal with -- honest, straightforward -- and I'm plased with how the photos look there.
Hope all is well with all of you.
David
* * * * *
we keep popping up everywhere!
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
Good to get your note. It will be interesting to see what happens with this mainstream blog. A chance to talk to a wider audience. The rest remains to be seen.
Thanks too for publicizing the Lovers Guide site. Tuppy Owens put them in touch with me and they've been very good to deal with -- honest, straightforward -- and I'm plased with how the photos look there.
Hope all is well with all of you.
David
* * * * *
we keep popping up everywhere!
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
Re: an interview from the past!
Hi, Frank, Mikee, and Linda,
I can hear something, but no picture. Thank you for doing this for us. I gave a wonderful and assessable introduction for my students today mostly centered on the transformation of the "othered body" through shamanistic performance art and in particular, your sexual/intimate performance art. I think I set it up quite nicely for the students, who as I said before are a particularly conservative bunch. I told them about what it was like for you before you started performing (your isolation), and the fact that you could not communicate. I told them about your headband pointer that you invented and the laser pointer that followed. I then spoke more about the stigmatization of "othered" bodies and how this identity politic is oftentimes the theme of much performance art. Sexuality/intimacy gets to the heart of a healing process to reverse or address this stigmatization. I used Annie Sprinkle as an example, Linda Montano, Carollee Schneemann, and other feminist performance artists. I think it was a good way to set up your work, and again, approachable for the students. I will use the Vinee piece. If they like, I told them to explore your site further to see your other work.
I look forward to this, Frank and with this unique learning experience for my students...and presenting your work in person hopefully sometime through the university/other venues.
Warmly and with gratitude,
Shannon
* * * * *
yes, it will be interesting to expand their minds!
BTW, Linda Montano was in my cast and in her book she has an interview with me.
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
I can hear something, but no picture. Thank you for doing this for us. I gave a wonderful and assessable introduction for my students today mostly centered on the transformation of the "othered body" through shamanistic performance art and in particular, your sexual/intimate performance art. I think I set it up quite nicely for the students, who as I said before are a particularly conservative bunch. I told them about what it was like for you before you started performing (your isolation), and the fact that you could not communicate. I told them about your headband pointer that you invented and the laser pointer that followed. I then spoke more about the stigmatization of "othered" bodies and how this identity politic is oftentimes the theme of much performance art. Sexuality/intimacy gets to the heart of a healing process to reverse or address this stigmatization. I used Annie Sprinkle as an example, Linda Montano, Carollee Schneemann, and other feminist performance artists. I think it was a good way to set up your work, and again, approachable for the students. I will use the Vinee piece. If they like, I told them to explore your site further to see your other work.
I look forward to this, Frank and with this unique learning experience for my students...and presenting your work in person hopefully sometime through the university/other venues.
Warmly and with gratitude,
Shannon
* * * * *
yes, it will be interesting to expand their minds!
BTW, Linda Montano was in my cast and in her book she has an interview with me.
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Fw: an interview from the past!
(from Annie Sprinkle:)
Ahh, memories. Or should I say mammaries?
Yes, Frank and Linda took NYC by storm.
One correction, Karen was already very well known before I got into doing performance art.
YOU (Frank and Linda) and company would stay in my manhattan apartment when in town. That was fun.
Maybe you can one day post the photos and interview I did of you for some sex magazine. I think it was ADAM mag.
Mondo New York was a fun film.
KEEP IT UP.
Annie
PS-- Beth and I will move back to San Francisco in July, which will be nice. Would love to get to one of your performances soon. I could use a hit.
* * * * *
Annie, I would love if you two come!
I have fond memories sitting around your dining table talking intensely to a parade of interesting people.
We have to search the archives for that Adam interview.
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
Ahh, memories. Or should I say mammaries?
Yes, Frank and Linda took NYC by storm.
One correction, Karen was already very well known before I got into doing performance art.
YOU (Frank and Linda) and company would stay in my manhattan apartment when in town. That was fun.
Maybe you can one day post the photos and interview I did of you for some sex magazine. I think it was ADAM mag.
Mondo New York was a fun film.
KEEP IT UP.
Annie
PS-- Beth and I will move back to San Francisco in July, which will be nice. Would love to get to one of your performances soon. I could use a hit.
* * * * *
Annie, I would love if you two come!
I have fond memories sitting around your dining table talking intensely to a parade of interesting people.
We have to search the archives for that Adam interview.
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
an interview from the past!
This is the transcript of the video of the interview I did with the N.Y.C. public access channel in 1987 in Annie Sprinkle’s apartment. The video is up at http://www.eroplay.com/intimatetheater/intimate.html. We will link this transcript to that.
This needs a set up. The interview took place the day after the performance we did at The Sixth Sense Galley in the East Village and we had done our first performance at Franklin Furnace the week before. The crew was at the Sixth Sense and did an impromptu interview at the end of the performance as Veronica Vera and I sat nude together. It was a great ending to the three hour performance. But they were not the only film crew filming that performance. The other crew was for the film, MONDO NEW YORK.
I got in that film by a fluke. They were thinking about having Annie in it. She was in my cast for Franklin Furnace. She talked me up to them. They decided to film my performance. I made sure she was in my cast.
They wanted to film my Franklin Furnace piece. But that was a five hour performance with over fifteen people in the cast… A complex ritual. I had experienced big movie crews shooting my OUTRAGEOUS BEAUTY REVUE in the late Seventies and how they change [to put it nicely!] the experience in the ritual. So I did not let them shoot at the Furnace. But we set up another performance at Annie’s friend’s intimate gallery for them to shoot. This was a good call! As we were setting up for the show, the film‘s director and the producer tried to bully Linda into changing things for the film. She just directed them to talk to me. I matched their N.Y.C. energy and had them carefully eating out of my hands. They agreed to no bright lights. But then when the performance started, they blasted the lights, washing out the slides projected upon the nude bodies, not to mention the dreamlike quality of the performance. But after ten minutes they turned off the lights and packed up and left. So the audience settled back for the three hour experience! When you watch that movie, you now know the real story!
Back to the interview. For years I had been pissing off “the art world” by warning that the political correctness pressure put on artists by other artists would invite outside censorship. This was years before Senator Helms targeted us artists for doing “obscene” work. Funny, it was the script of my Franklin Furnace performance that got me on the targeted list. Reporters from a N.Y.C. Moonies’ newspaper got into the Franklin Furnace’s archive looking for sexy hot pieces for their expose on the n. e. a. And they found my script! Not only erotic, not only nudity, but shamanistic! Also funny… In the next room Annie was interviewing Karen Finley for an adult magazine. So in the apartment that afternoon there were three of the original five Helms targeted performance artists. At the time Annie was seeing herself as just an adult star… Even when I predicted that she would become an important performance artist. It would be little more than a year before she would do her first one-person show. Karen was known as an underground artist. But it would take her a couple more years before she would break through to fame. By the way, it was Karen who got me the Franklin Furnace gig.
Well, that is the historical context for this interview. Enjoy!
Linda: To clear up his problem was to stop drinking coffee for a while. He said it wasn’t forever.
Q2: Right. It’s very hard.
Linda: Frank said fine. He just stopped right away. He said I won’t drink it until I get back. So he hasn’t had coffee for a couple of months.
Q2: That’s good. I have a pre-ulcer condition.
Linda: So you don’t drink it at all?
Q2: Well, the last 2 weeks it’s been acting up, ever since we started this video business, and the strain. Going shooting at midnight is not exactly good for your health if you have ‘til 2 or 3 in the morning tapings.
Linda: That’s what it’s been like for us all week.
Q2: Yeah, running around. New York is conducive to a certain unhealthiness.
Frank: Media blitz.
Linda: Yeah, we’re just adjusting to it. It’s just different than what we’re used to. Is this half inch?
Q2: It’s half inch. Everything’s auto on it but we found out the auto functions don’t work so well.
Linda: Why’s it so big?
Q2: For stability. We could’ve gotten one of the smaller ones but they don’t…this can go on the shoulder, it can cradle a camera. It’s a little more stable for shooting. It’s also very low light. You can shoot under a candle light, a single candle light. It’s very good and it’s got stereo sound.
Frank: Last night all the lights they put on.
Q2: They didn’t need that. We knew that that would happen and we thought it would upset him.
Linda: He told them no lights. We told them just a slide projector and they said fine, but when the performance started they started putting the lights on. They’re bad.
Q2: Yeah, they are. They’re film people. I’m rolling. You can just talk. We’re just having a party here.
Q: Frank how long have you been in New York
Frank: One week.
Q: And how long are you going to stay? Do you have any more performances?
Frank: No. Tomorrow we leave for Philadelphia for a performance there.
Q: How many performances do you have in Philly?
Frank: One.
Q: Who are you going to stay with in Philadelphia, friends?
Frank: Yes, she’s a friend and she’s also the person that booked us at the gallery there.
Q: Can you tell our viewers about your theory of eroplay? What is eroplay?
Frank: Playing physically but not sexually.
Q: When does it become sexual and how to you keep it from becoming sexual?
Frank: What your intention is, is how you keep it from being sexual?
Q: Is that your intention to keep it from being sexual?
Frank: When I eroplay, yes.
Q: When you eroplay then you eroplay. When you have sex then you have sex.
Frank: Yes.
Q: How do you think eroplay can be helpful to others?
Frank: In a lot of ways, like before people just had sex. If they wanted to be at all physical with another person their only option was to have sex with the person, so they just jammed all their needs for intimacy and play and physicalness into sex even when sex did not satisfy those needs.
Q: Have you ever read a book by Wilhelm Reich called The Function of the Orgasm?
Frank: I have heard about it and read about his theory.
Q: In his book, The Function of the Orgasm, he talks about the orgasm in relation to a bladder. You fill the bladder up and you have tension then you release the bladder and it’s fulfilled and happily satisfying. He got to the point where he said that fascist Italy was a lack of satisfying orgasm. What do you think of those things? He said that if you weren’t satisfied then you had what he called a secondary impulse.
Frank: He was still influenced by Freud so he focused on the sex act.
Q: Rather than play.
Frank: But what he is saying is basically true. Look at Reagan, at what he is going after - any erotic.
Q: He has a lot of missiles.
Linda: What do you mean?
Frank: I mean Meese.
Linda: The anti-obscenity type panels? You’re saying that that kind of oppression, that there’s an oppressiveness coming out of the government from Meese affecting that, trying to repress any kind of release of anything that has to do with erotic or sex or physical stuff.
Q: Have you felt repressed at all in performing your pieces?
Frank: No, but I am waiting.
Q: You’re waiting for someone to come and nail on you.
Q2: Have you seen Paul Cotton? You know Paul Cotton’s performance?
Frank: Yes.
Q2: Paul has been arrested several times. I think they finally gave up. He was so persistent. Paul at Easter would do a performance as an Easter bunny with his genitals exposed and got popped a couple of times in Berkeley I remember.
Frank: We did a performance together.
Q2: Very good! I’d love to see that! What did you do?
Linda: Basically Frank invited Paul to be a guest at Frank’s series at UCB and he told Paul to use Frank as a prop and whatever Paul came up with was ok. So he used Frank as a prop. Paul came in with a costume he had made for Frank which included spaghetti hair and basically not much, just a few strips of things around Frank. He painted Frank’s fingernails and then he held Frank on his lap always dressed as his Easter bunny and they just kind of rocked there together, and Paul had some spiritual kind of speaker talking on a tape recorder.
Q: How do you think being in a wheelchair and not being able to talk has helped or hindered you?
Frank: It is one of my tools.
Q: I was thinking after I saw your performance last night, how would you feel if you came to a performance and you saw what I saw last night. What if you saw a fellow like yourself in a wheelchair, that couldn’t talk, or you saw a person like myself, that can talk and can walk, doing what you did and you were in the audience? What would you think of that?
Frank: I obviously would like it. I would no do it if I did not like it. In fact, I do it partly because no one else is doing it and I want to see it and so I have to do it myself.
Q2: That goes back to “if you want something done then do it yourself”.
Q: And what did you do before this? Why did you think of doing this?
Frank: To be with people, like I took an intensive film course.
Linda: He took an intensive film course and learned how to make movies and then when he was finished with the course he couldn’t afford to make movies. So he did what he called the non films before there was video stuff, and he would have people come over and he would do non films with them. That’s how he got started.
Q: So you liked to be with people. Before that you felt that you weren’t with people? You were alienated or alone?
Q2: You spoke about being a voyeur I remember. I thought that was nice though because I’ve always thought of myself as a voyeur, particularly when I’m behind the camera sometimes.
Frank: Not by choice.
Linda: You were a voyeur not by choice.
Q: How can you be a voyeur not by choice?
Frank: I did not have my board and pointer until I was close to 20.
Q: You had no way to communicate before that?
Linda: He could communicate with his family. They had their system of going through the alphabet which he uses even now at home when he doesn’t have the board and pointer on, but anybody other than his family couldn’t communicate directly to him, and if they wanted to then it had to go through his family, his mother or brother, and that didn’t happen.
Q2: That’s an amazing thing because even though you were a voyeur not by choice, within your body is an incredible person with this mind thinking and seeing and feeling everything that everyone else sees and feels. The difficulty is it might be frustrating to express that for Frank but it’s like one up. It’s all happening and yet you know it’s happening and no one else may know it’s happening.
Frank: It gave me a base so when I finally got into the action…
Linda: You had a lot of ideas about being.
Q: How did you create the board or did your family help you make it?
Frank: When I was 17 I had an idea for the pointer. The board was not the key. It was my pointer that was the breakthrough.
Q: When you communicated with your family, how did you do that before the board?
Frank: But they did not want to let me use a pointer.
Linda: When he was a child they wanted to make him normal and so they tried to get him to walk, they tried to get him to use his fingers to type. So when he was 17 and he had this idea of the pointer to learn to type because he saw that the other stuff wasn’t allowing him to communicate and it was just such a struggle. He didn’t really have any desire to be normal. He was more motivated by wanted to just be able to communicate.
Q: His family didn’t want him to use the pointer?
Frank: The doctors and the therapists were the ones that wanted me to be normal.
Linda: And they were the ones that were kind of encouraging his family to follow in that direction.
Q: If you couldn’t communicate with them then it must have been pretty frustrating for you Frank.
Frank: The school was about to drop me because I wasn’t able to keep up. Finally my teacher made them try the pointer and after 5 minutes I was typing. I should have typed “I told you so”.
Q: Those are the perfect words.
Q2: They thought he was a slow learner.
Q: How do other people communicate in your situation if they don’t use your system? What do they usually do?
Frank: It varies.
Q: None of those other systems of communicating were attractive to you? You didn’t like them? They didn’t work?
Frank: 2 years ago…
Linda: The computer board? 2 years ago the social workers and therapists came up with another idea for
Frank which was a computerized board that would talk and print out on a lighted screen and everything.
Q: Did you try that one?
Linda: Oh yeah.
Frank: Because this is too low tech.
Linda: So everybody spent all this money and bought him this board.
Frank: $5000
Linda: $5000 to get him this electronic board without him having a chance to try it. He tried it on and off for about a month and it was a lot harder. What would happen is that people would…like when you communicate with Frank like this you have to read everything aloud and you tend to guess and try putting it together. But with that board because it had this voice and everything, people would either get fascinated by the electronics and not pay attention to what he was saying, or they would figure they’d just wait until he prints out the whole thing and see it splashed on the screen so they’d stand there and meanwhile he’d have to work to print every single word out rather than having to have them guess.
Frank: And I had to aim.
Linda: And the keys were such that he had to hit them right in the middle so that was really hard.
Q: How did you meet your wife Frank? How did you meet Linda?
Linda: I was working in a travel agency and he came in to get some flight information. The way he tells the story is he looked down my shirt and said “You’d be great in a play I’m doing!”
Q: You were type casting?
Frank: Puff Puff
Linda: Puffing on his cigar. And then we just started hanging out and doing projects together right away.
Q: This was in San Francisco?
Linda: Berkeley. He had just moved to Berkeley.
Q: Where did you live before that Frank?
Frank: New York city.
Q: How long were you in New York?
Frank: For 9 months.
Q: Why did you move back? You didn’t like it?
Frank: I could not get in.
Q: Could not get in where?
Linda: Just get in, like into something that was going on, hooked into something.
Frank: Like here you read about things after they happen.
Linda: So he’d read about something after it happened but he wouldn’t know about it before it happened.
Q: And you feel that in San Francisco, in Berkeley, you are more in?
Frank: Yes. In New York city I did a workshop and 2 performances during that time, but no root.
Linda: Didn’t get rooted.
Q: So, a lot of who you are, your work your play, everything who you are is important for you to be in, be intimate with people.
Frank: Yes.
Q: I think you’re doing a good job at it.
Q2: How is it, you mentioned when I was reading the book about artists like Chris Burden and where do you see yourself in that? You referred to him as the older. Chris has moved onto video. Chris is actually mainstream at this point.
Frank: Head of the department at UCLA.
Q2: Success has gone to his head.
Frank: I am still a rebel, like I am more tied into the young artists.
Q2: Did you see any of the performances early works by Terry Fox in Berkeley at all?
Frank: No.
Q: Have you seen Karen Finlay?
Frank: Yes.
Q: What did you think of that?
Frank: Which time?
Q: The last time? What did you see the last time?
Frank: She is in transition. She now has to deal with fame to make sure fame don’t take her power away. Like before she famous she could focus on the magic, the shock.
Q: Why can’t she do that now?
Frank: They accept everything she does.
Q2: That’s true.
Q: That reminds me of something Kurt Vonnegut said. He said something like “In America it’s almost worse than being in a repressive society because anything you do is leveled.” You know if you were to be put in jail or suppressed at least it meant something, but if anything you do is just water off a duck’s back it doesn’t mean anything.
Frank: Yes. That is the plot.
Linda: Frank often refers to the plot that we’re all victims of and also perpetrators of the plot at the same time. It’s the thing that kind of keeps us out of touch with our own power and our own uniqueness and keeps suppressing them in a very tiny little way so you can’t quite put your finger on it.
Q: Do you see that happening to you Frank? I mean since you’ve been in New York people have been interviewing you and filming you.
Frank: They try but I am like Zorro. They can not quite peg me.
Q2: Good. Let’s hope they never do.
Frank: That is my job. Keep it un-pegged so it cannot be muted.
Q: I can’t think of anymore questions. What’s your area code?
Linda: You can tell we’re local. I can just put one on there now. 415
Q2: Thank you Frank.
Q: Do you have anything to say in parting?
Frank: No. It is your job to get me to say something in parting.
Q: I guess there is one question I did forget. What’s your favorite fruit juice?
Frank: You are doing a shitty job of getting me to say something in parting.
Q: You’re not going to tell me what your favorite fruit juice is then?
Frank: For money I will make something up.
Q: Thanks a lot Frank.
L: That was fun!
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
This needs a set up. The interview took place the day after the performance we did at The Sixth Sense Galley in the East Village and we had done our first performance at Franklin Furnace the week before. The crew was at the Sixth Sense and did an impromptu interview at the end of the performance as Veronica Vera and I sat nude together. It was a great ending to the three hour performance. But they were not the only film crew filming that performance. The other crew was for the film, MONDO NEW YORK.
I got in that film by a fluke. They were thinking about having Annie in it. She was in my cast for Franklin Furnace. She talked me up to them. They decided to film my performance. I made sure she was in my cast.
They wanted to film my Franklin Furnace piece. But that was a five hour performance with over fifteen people in the cast… A complex ritual. I had experienced big movie crews shooting my OUTRAGEOUS BEAUTY REVUE in the late Seventies and how they change [to put it nicely!] the experience in the ritual. So I did not let them shoot at the Furnace. But we set up another performance at Annie’s friend’s intimate gallery for them to shoot. This was a good call! As we were setting up for the show, the film‘s director and the producer tried to bully Linda into changing things for the film. She just directed them to talk to me. I matched their N.Y.C. energy and had them carefully eating out of my hands. They agreed to no bright lights. But then when the performance started, they blasted the lights, washing out the slides projected upon the nude bodies, not to mention the dreamlike quality of the performance. But after ten minutes they turned off the lights and packed up and left. So the audience settled back for the three hour experience! When you watch that movie, you now know the real story!
Back to the interview. For years I had been pissing off “the art world” by warning that the political correctness pressure put on artists by other artists would invite outside censorship. This was years before Senator Helms targeted us artists for doing “obscene” work. Funny, it was the script of my Franklin Furnace performance that got me on the targeted list. Reporters from a N.Y.C. Moonies’ newspaper got into the Franklin Furnace’s archive looking for sexy hot pieces for their expose on the n. e. a. And they found my script! Not only erotic, not only nudity, but shamanistic! Also funny… In the next room Annie was interviewing Karen Finley for an adult magazine. So in the apartment that afternoon there were three of the original five Helms targeted performance artists. At the time Annie was seeing herself as just an adult star… Even when I predicted that she would become an important performance artist. It would be little more than a year before she would do her first one-person show. Karen was known as an underground artist. But it would take her a couple more years before she would break through to fame. By the way, it was Karen who got me the Franklin Furnace gig.
Well, that is the historical context for this interview. Enjoy!
Linda: To clear up his problem was to stop drinking coffee for a while. He said it wasn’t forever.
Q2: Right. It’s very hard.
Linda: Frank said fine. He just stopped right away. He said I won’t drink it until I get back. So he hasn’t had coffee for a couple of months.
Q2: That’s good. I have a pre-ulcer condition.
Linda: So you don’t drink it at all?
Q2: Well, the last 2 weeks it’s been acting up, ever since we started this video business, and the strain. Going shooting at midnight is not exactly good for your health if you have ‘til 2 or 3 in the morning tapings.
Linda: That’s what it’s been like for us all week.
Q2: Yeah, running around. New York is conducive to a certain unhealthiness.
Frank: Media blitz.
Linda: Yeah, we’re just adjusting to it. It’s just different than what we’re used to. Is this half inch?
Q2: It’s half inch. Everything’s auto on it but we found out the auto functions don’t work so well.
Linda: Why’s it so big?
Q2: For stability. We could’ve gotten one of the smaller ones but they don’t…this can go on the shoulder, it can cradle a camera. It’s a little more stable for shooting. It’s also very low light. You can shoot under a candle light, a single candle light. It’s very good and it’s got stereo sound.
Frank: Last night all the lights they put on.
Q2: They didn’t need that. We knew that that would happen and we thought it would upset him.
Linda: He told them no lights. We told them just a slide projector and they said fine, but when the performance started they started putting the lights on. They’re bad.
Q2: Yeah, they are. They’re film people. I’m rolling. You can just talk. We’re just having a party here.
Q: Frank how long have you been in New York
Frank: One week.
Q: And how long are you going to stay? Do you have any more performances?
Frank: No. Tomorrow we leave for Philadelphia for a performance there.
Q: How many performances do you have in Philly?
Frank: One.
Q: Who are you going to stay with in Philadelphia, friends?
Frank: Yes, she’s a friend and she’s also the person that booked us at the gallery there.
Q: Can you tell our viewers about your theory of eroplay? What is eroplay?
Frank: Playing physically but not sexually.
Q: When does it become sexual and how to you keep it from becoming sexual?
Frank: What your intention is, is how you keep it from being sexual?
Q: Is that your intention to keep it from being sexual?
Frank: When I eroplay, yes.
Q: When you eroplay then you eroplay. When you have sex then you have sex.
Frank: Yes.
Q: How do you think eroplay can be helpful to others?
Frank: In a lot of ways, like before people just had sex. If they wanted to be at all physical with another person their only option was to have sex with the person, so they just jammed all their needs for intimacy and play and physicalness into sex even when sex did not satisfy those needs.
Q: Have you ever read a book by Wilhelm Reich called The Function of the Orgasm?
Frank: I have heard about it and read about his theory.
Q: In his book, The Function of the Orgasm, he talks about the orgasm in relation to a bladder. You fill the bladder up and you have tension then you release the bladder and it’s fulfilled and happily satisfying. He got to the point where he said that fascist Italy was a lack of satisfying orgasm. What do you think of those things? He said that if you weren’t satisfied then you had what he called a secondary impulse.
Frank: He was still influenced by Freud so he focused on the sex act.
Q: Rather than play.
Frank: But what he is saying is basically true. Look at Reagan, at what he is going after - any erotic.
Q: He has a lot of missiles.
Linda: What do you mean?
Frank: I mean Meese.
Linda: The anti-obscenity type panels? You’re saying that that kind of oppression, that there’s an oppressiveness coming out of the government from Meese affecting that, trying to repress any kind of release of anything that has to do with erotic or sex or physical stuff.
Q: Have you felt repressed at all in performing your pieces?
Frank: No, but I am waiting.
Q: You’re waiting for someone to come and nail on you.
Q2: Have you seen Paul Cotton? You know Paul Cotton’s performance?
Frank: Yes.
Q2: Paul has been arrested several times. I think they finally gave up. He was so persistent. Paul at Easter would do a performance as an Easter bunny with his genitals exposed and got popped a couple of times in Berkeley I remember.
Frank: We did a performance together.
Q2: Very good! I’d love to see that! What did you do?
Linda: Basically Frank invited Paul to be a guest at Frank’s series at UCB and he told Paul to use Frank as a prop and whatever Paul came up with was ok. So he used Frank as a prop. Paul came in with a costume he had made for Frank which included spaghetti hair and basically not much, just a few strips of things around Frank. He painted Frank’s fingernails and then he held Frank on his lap always dressed as his Easter bunny and they just kind of rocked there together, and Paul had some spiritual kind of speaker talking on a tape recorder.
Q: How do you think being in a wheelchair and not being able to talk has helped or hindered you?
Frank: It is one of my tools.
Q: I was thinking after I saw your performance last night, how would you feel if you came to a performance and you saw what I saw last night. What if you saw a fellow like yourself in a wheelchair, that couldn’t talk, or you saw a person like myself, that can talk and can walk, doing what you did and you were in the audience? What would you think of that?
Frank: I obviously would like it. I would no do it if I did not like it. In fact, I do it partly because no one else is doing it and I want to see it and so I have to do it myself.
Q2: That goes back to “if you want something done then do it yourself”.
Q: And what did you do before this? Why did you think of doing this?
Frank: To be with people, like I took an intensive film course.
Linda: He took an intensive film course and learned how to make movies and then when he was finished with the course he couldn’t afford to make movies. So he did what he called the non films before there was video stuff, and he would have people come over and he would do non films with them. That’s how he got started.
Q: So you liked to be with people. Before that you felt that you weren’t with people? You were alienated or alone?
Q2: You spoke about being a voyeur I remember. I thought that was nice though because I’ve always thought of myself as a voyeur, particularly when I’m behind the camera sometimes.
Frank: Not by choice.
Linda: You were a voyeur not by choice.
Q: How can you be a voyeur not by choice?
Frank: I did not have my board and pointer until I was close to 20.
Q: You had no way to communicate before that?
Linda: He could communicate with his family. They had their system of going through the alphabet which he uses even now at home when he doesn’t have the board and pointer on, but anybody other than his family couldn’t communicate directly to him, and if they wanted to then it had to go through his family, his mother or brother, and that didn’t happen.
Q2: That’s an amazing thing because even though you were a voyeur not by choice, within your body is an incredible person with this mind thinking and seeing and feeling everything that everyone else sees and feels. The difficulty is it might be frustrating to express that for Frank but it’s like one up. It’s all happening and yet you know it’s happening and no one else may know it’s happening.
Frank: It gave me a base so when I finally got into the action…
Linda: You had a lot of ideas about being.
Q: How did you create the board or did your family help you make it?
Frank: When I was 17 I had an idea for the pointer. The board was not the key. It was my pointer that was the breakthrough.
Q: When you communicated with your family, how did you do that before the board?
Frank: But they did not want to let me use a pointer.
Linda: When he was a child they wanted to make him normal and so they tried to get him to walk, they tried to get him to use his fingers to type. So when he was 17 and he had this idea of the pointer to learn to type because he saw that the other stuff wasn’t allowing him to communicate and it was just such a struggle. He didn’t really have any desire to be normal. He was more motivated by wanted to just be able to communicate.
Q: His family didn’t want him to use the pointer?
Frank: The doctors and the therapists were the ones that wanted me to be normal.
Linda: And they were the ones that were kind of encouraging his family to follow in that direction.
Q: If you couldn’t communicate with them then it must have been pretty frustrating for you Frank.
Frank: The school was about to drop me because I wasn’t able to keep up. Finally my teacher made them try the pointer and after 5 minutes I was typing. I should have typed “I told you so”.
Q: Those are the perfect words.
Q2: They thought he was a slow learner.
Q: How do other people communicate in your situation if they don’t use your system? What do they usually do?
Frank: It varies.
Q: None of those other systems of communicating were attractive to you? You didn’t like them? They didn’t work?
Frank: 2 years ago…
Linda: The computer board? 2 years ago the social workers and therapists came up with another idea for
Frank which was a computerized board that would talk and print out on a lighted screen and everything.
Q: Did you try that one?
Linda: Oh yeah.
Frank: Because this is too low tech.
Linda: So everybody spent all this money and bought him this board.
Frank: $5000
Linda: $5000 to get him this electronic board without him having a chance to try it. He tried it on and off for about a month and it was a lot harder. What would happen is that people would…like when you communicate with Frank like this you have to read everything aloud and you tend to guess and try putting it together. But with that board because it had this voice and everything, people would either get fascinated by the electronics and not pay attention to what he was saying, or they would figure they’d just wait until he prints out the whole thing and see it splashed on the screen so they’d stand there and meanwhile he’d have to work to print every single word out rather than having to have them guess.
Frank: And I had to aim.
Linda: And the keys were such that he had to hit them right in the middle so that was really hard.
Q: How did you meet your wife Frank? How did you meet Linda?
Linda: I was working in a travel agency and he came in to get some flight information. The way he tells the story is he looked down my shirt and said “You’d be great in a play I’m doing!”
Q: You were type casting?
Frank: Puff Puff
Linda: Puffing on his cigar. And then we just started hanging out and doing projects together right away.
Q: This was in San Francisco?
Linda: Berkeley. He had just moved to Berkeley.
Q: Where did you live before that Frank?
Frank: New York city.
Q: How long were you in New York?
Frank: For 9 months.
Q: Why did you move back? You didn’t like it?
Frank: I could not get in.
Q: Could not get in where?
Linda: Just get in, like into something that was going on, hooked into something.
Frank: Like here you read about things after they happen.
Linda: So he’d read about something after it happened but he wouldn’t know about it before it happened.
Q: And you feel that in San Francisco, in Berkeley, you are more in?
Frank: Yes. In New York city I did a workshop and 2 performances during that time, but no root.
Linda: Didn’t get rooted.
Q: So, a lot of who you are, your work your play, everything who you are is important for you to be in, be intimate with people.
Frank: Yes.
Q: I think you’re doing a good job at it.
Q2: How is it, you mentioned when I was reading the book about artists like Chris Burden and where do you see yourself in that? You referred to him as the older. Chris has moved onto video. Chris is actually mainstream at this point.
Frank: Head of the department at UCLA.
Q2: Success has gone to his head.
Frank: I am still a rebel, like I am more tied into the young artists.
Q2: Did you see any of the performances early works by Terry Fox in Berkeley at all?
Frank: No.
Q: Have you seen Karen Finlay?
Frank: Yes.
Q: What did you think of that?
Frank: Which time?
Q: The last time? What did you see the last time?
Frank: She is in transition. She now has to deal with fame to make sure fame don’t take her power away. Like before she famous she could focus on the magic, the shock.
Q: Why can’t she do that now?
Frank: They accept everything she does.
Q2: That’s true.
Q: That reminds me of something Kurt Vonnegut said. He said something like “In America it’s almost worse than being in a repressive society because anything you do is leveled.” You know if you were to be put in jail or suppressed at least it meant something, but if anything you do is just water off a duck’s back it doesn’t mean anything.
Frank: Yes. That is the plot.
Linda: Frank often refers to the plot that we’re all victims of and also perpetrators of the plot at the same time. It’s the thing that kind of keeps us out of touch with our own power and our own uniqueness and keeps suppressing them in a very tiny little way so you can’t quite put your finger on it.
Q: Do you see that happening to you Frank? I mean since you’ve been in New York people have been interviewing you and filming you.
Frank: They try but I am like Zorro. They can not quite peg me.
Q2: Good. Let’s hope they never do.
Frank: That is my job. Keep it un-pegged so it cannot be muted.
Q: I can’t think of anymore questions. What’s your area code?
Linda: You can tell we’re local. I can just put one on there now. 415
Q2: Thank you Frank.
Q: Do you have anything to say in parting?
Frank: No. It is your job to get me to say something in parting.
Q: I guess there is one question I did forget. What’s your favorite fruit juice?
Frank: You are doing a shitty job of getting me to say something in parting.
Q: You’re not going to tell me what your favorite fruit juice is then?
Frank: For money I will make something up.
Q: Thanks a lot Frank.
L: That was fun!
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)