Make Yourself a Demon

Abstract

This is a work of research and an artwork. It explores antagonisms between frameworks and contents, broadly defined. Its own framework, academic research, is materially supported by public taxes and tuition from students. The university fulfills a responsibility to these stakeholders by publishing the work, and stands by the idea that it contains knowledge that will benefit the larger public. An additional framing is that the accompanying exhibition has been delayed for at least a year due to the impossibility of safely sharing space, a result of the U.S. government’s abdication of responsibility to anything other than extreme wealth. That this document now acts as the work sets up a tension in any knowledge that might be conveyed. Frameworks are in disarray and their mechanisms lie exposed. Some of them are earnestly asking for guidance. Structures and procedures that previously harnessed our energy have liquefied, and previously invisible structures are newly in play.