Project 59 contains a certain ever-present conceptual architecture. Consequently, some elements invariably play a clear and relatively unambiguous central role. But things become much fuzzier once we consider the contaminating influence of the continuum of lived reality. Could you please describe the role of parerga in Project 59? Answer 1: Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 4:05 AM Project 59 explores the relationship between “phenomena” and “noumena,” examining individuality through the subjective perception of objective reality. The individual self is often compared to a lens, each uniquely shaped by upbringing, psychology, and culture. For the impersonal framework, I chose a lens in the shape of an arbitrary number—the reversal of the last two digits of 1995, the year the project began—to interpret and analyze both major and minor occurrences in life. Project 59 operates in a multitasking mode, potentially reflecting life in all its aspects. It is both an experiential and experimental project-based existence. In 1998 and 1999 I established the parameters of Project 59 through the exploration of the natural elements: Water (59 Feet Under), Air (5900 Feet Above), and Land (the intersection of the 59th longitude and the 59th latitude). I am not sure whether there is a reachable parerga beyond water, air, and land. 59 Feet Under 5900 Feet Above Some projects derived from Project 59 have gained independence and can exist both within and outside the framework of Project 59. One example is the annual Alphabet Project, which began in 1996 after the discovery that the combined number of letters in the English (26) and Russian (33) alphabets equals 59. (Russian and English are the two languages I speak.) Every year since then, for 59 days, I eat only foods that begin with the same letter, first following the Russian alphabet and then the English alphabet. In 2022, the Russian alphabet was replaced by Ukrainian, which also contains 33 letters. Since then, the Annual Alphabet Project has been based on the English and Ukrainian alphabets. In the beginning, the alphabet diet was intended to connect different systems of measurement by reducing my weight from 159 pounds to 59 kilograms. After a few years, when friends joined the project, the diet evolved into a feast. F-Day Question 2: Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 9:12 PM Your description appears to encapsulate Project 59's raison d'être well. I tend to broadly understand culture (that which is produced in the inextricable tension between individual self and the collective) as a consensually contested fictional projection that we superimpose over the continuum of objective reality. Of all the cultural ways in which to potentially think through this relationship between "phenomena" and "noumena", you have chosen to engage in this expanded discursive aesthetic realm we (still) call "art". To what extent does Project 59 rely upon a particular consensual understanding of culture, and consequently, "art"? Answer 2: Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 3:44 PM This series of questions evokes Ulay’s famous statement: “Aesthetics without ethics is cosmetic.” Experimental art, however, by definition goes beyond established norms. In the 59 Brides project, Hiram Levy and I intruded upon random wedding ceremonies, while in the People 59 collection I approached strangers to ask their ages. When I measured the Western Wall in Jerusalem—which turned out to be 59 meters long—I was surrounded by people praying, some of them crying. The line between ethical and unethical behavior in art is thin and largely depends on the perspective of the individual artist. While creating art, I may not always choose the most ethical course of action, but there are limits to this kind of exploration for me: it must not cause harm. Question 3: Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 8:02 PM Very interesting. So, does this "aboutness" somehow possess an essence that is independent of ideology? Is it "anti" or "meta" ideological? Or is it something else? Answer 3: Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 7:12 AM Anti-ideology is also an ideology. Even “meta,” while implying transcendence, still presupposes a relation. I played with this idea in the very beginning—humorously and in an absurdist manner—but the objective was to exclude ideology altogether. The random numerical substitution suggests that the place of ideology is empty. It was not only my profound aversion to ideologies, shaped by my time in the Soviet Union, that motivated this approach. One of my goals is to emphasize the significance of what we do over why we do it. Ideas may come and go, but actions are irreversible. This project also advocates for people who were deceived by ideological systems, who held false ideas yet remained decent in their actions. The flexibility and universality of an ideology-free project were conceptually crucial and have proven valuable ever since. There is another reason I remain distant from ideology: it categorizes, divides, and separates. Question 4: Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 4:50 PM I agree that ideas can come and go but deeds (and actions) do not. Naturally, any claim of the end and/or transcendence of ideology runs the risk of becoming an ideology. One of the illusions that many currently live under is the idea that we somehow live ideology-free lives. Ideology also homogenizes as much as it splits and separates. In 1989, Francis Fukuyama made his infamous declaration of the so-called global triumph of free-market liberal democracy over communism and the consequent end of ideology. What kind of alternative do the reiterative actions that characterize much conceptually-based art offer in the face of this kind of folly? Is it aesthetic, political, or something else? Answer 4: Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 1:29 PM Everyone was excited in 1989 when such a powerful barrier collapsed, yet money within a free market can also function as a weapon of ideology. In a sense, everything in life is ideological. One can only hope not to succumb to any single ideology. An ideology-free project is experimental, but it does not advocate for an experimental lifestyle. I hope it is absurd enough not to resemble a life, even though I live it. I find it surprising when people try to interpret a randomly chosen number. It demonstrates the enduring human desire for ideology. Thus, totalitarian ideologies should not be placed under the same heading as ideas that are not imposed through aggressive propaganda, psychological manipulation, or coercion. It is better to live without totalitarian ideology, yet ideologies are everywhere, and art is no exception. I think the reason lies less in ideas themselves than in human nature and the need to belong among like-minded people. It is amusing how a discussion about this ideology-free project leads us deeper into the nature of ideology. Question 5: Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 10:12 PM Is Project 59 aesthetic? If so, how? If not, why? Answer 5: Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 3:44 AM I do not care whether my works are aesthetic or not, although some of my projects are purely aesthetic. One of them is the year-long photo series All the Shit of the Year (May 1997–May 1998). It explored everyday accidental aesthetics as well as stereotypes of perception. Similarly, in the City Drawings project, I am interested in discovering hidden aesthetic values and new types of urban character within different cities. When pursuing a universal aesthetic not oriented toward beauty, a random number helps determine choice. For example, from restaurant menus, I usually choose dish number 59. On the other hand, every artist develops their material or idea toward a certain form of satisfaction that can ultimately be measured aesthetically. City Drawings Question 6: Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 6:04 AM Can or should Project 59 be evaluated ethically? Answer 6: Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 1:50 AM This series of questions evokes Ulay's famous saying, "Aesthetics without ethics is cosmetic." Although, experimental art, by definition, goes beyond the norms. In the "59 Brides" project, Hiram Levy and I had to intrude into random wedding ceremonies and in the "People 59" collection, I had to ask strangers about their ages. When I measured the Western Wall in Jerusalem, which turned out to be 59 meters long, I was surrounded by people praying (some crying). The line between ethical and unethical behavior in art is thin and largely depends on the individual artist's perspective. While creating art, I may not always choose the best ethics for my actions, but there are limits for me to this kind of exploration: as long as there is no harm. 59 Brides Question 7: Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 6:07 AM Ok, let us assume that art is an arena for experiencing ideas and that it is meaningfully distinguishable from other realms of cultural activity. Yet like other socially-constructed projections within human culture (such as nations or corporations), art does not exist in the continuum of physical reality. Being a consensually projected myth, it arguably only exists (somewhere, but where exactly?) to the extent that people agree that it does. Perhaps most importantly, art is a fictional space that enables us to experientially reflect upon other fictions permeating our collective cultural existence. Artists routinely claim that there is something profound about this self-referential point of difference not easily put into words. Although at least some attenuated variation of this belief is necessary in order to maintain the slippery delusion that is art, many artists nonetheless acknowledge a deep ambivalence. Do you believe or not believe in art? Or do you prefer to maintain a deep ambivalence? Answer 7: Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 2:19 PM Since art has become a vast and increasingly fluid territory, it is difficult to step outside it—there is no longer a clear boundary between art and non-art. In my view, the difference lies in intention. An artist may pursue an ethical or aesthetic goal, or even the goal of having no goal. Art now enters any other realm, and other realms enter art. The 59 Seconds International Video Festival was, for three years (2005–2008), an art project in the form of a video festival. Its goal was to create an ideal festival for everyone and to explore the international non-commercial (then emerging) media art field. We did not rent any of the 59 screening venues around the world; everything was free for artists and for most audiences. This project ran entirely on interest. Every submitted video was included in the screening at least once. All 59 audiences were invited to vote, and as new works arrived, some were voted out. Each screening featured 59 videos, each video 59 seconds long. We also brought the festival to communities of leading video artists. In the end, we developed counting systems to determine the 59 best videos. Ultimately, it was about being 59% ideal—because an ideal version remains ideal. 59 Seconds Video Festival Thinking about the future, as long as people seek amusement, the art industry should continue to flourish. Since thoughts and perceptions have no boundaries and reality is continuously evolving, experimental art should continue to flourish as well. Question 8: Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 12:33 AM This is certainly a fascinating example of the breadth of possibility for Project 59. I am now wondering how important the overall Project 59 backstory and any project specific paratextual information is for new audiences for a Project 59 initiative? Answer 8: Fri, May 15, 2015 at 11:32 PM There is a substantial amount of unwritten information related to Project 59. For example, the 59 Seconds Video Festival contains, beyond its conceptual structure, a parallel backstory in its development. It began with a single screening in 2005 at 59 Franklin Street. We collected approximately 30 videos. We then decided to reach 59 submissions, but received far more.. We subsequently took the festival on a West Coast tour, allowing audiences to select the best 59 videos. This, in turn, encouraged many artists to submit their work, requiring additional screenings so that audiences could continue selecting from an expanding pool. Originally, the number 59 was chosen to replace the absence of a thematic framework - it was intended to substitute an intrinsic meaning. And yet 59 happens to correspond to a significant unit of time. As a time-based project, the video festival addresses that fact. The key challenge is determining how much of each project’s internal narrative should be communicated to the public, and how that narrative should be conveyed. Question 9: Tues, May 19, 2015, at 11:24 PM Yes, it certainly is a very familiar challenge for any artist working within visually-centred cultural formations. Extending upon this fascinating thread, I would now like to discuss the way in which the extensive online documentation of Project 59 functions to extend the works across time and space (and potentially to new audiences that have not directly experienced the works). Is the online documentation a direct extension of the project, a paratextual element, or a "second-best" experience? How important is direct (visual) sense perception in facilitating an experience of Project 59? Answer 9: (congratulations! we got through 5 and 9!): Wed, May 27, 2015 at 12:01 AM It depends on the project. For some, photographic documentation and online presentation pale in comparison to the live work; however, since access to the physical work is often very limited on a global scale, documentation still plays an important role. At the same time, works created in photo, video, computer, or internet-based formats translate effectively into online environments. I have also had several experiences with works transitioning between virtual and physical forms (and vice versa). The purely virtual outcome of CityDrawings eventually became an installation. For this project, we used one of the first and only open-source tracking programs available in 2009, Instamapper, which stored data for only one month. We worked quickly to preserve the project’s results, downloading drawings at different scales—sometimes capturing hundreds of screenshots per drawing. The resulting installation was based on this process of data preservation. CityDrawings Installation Several of my works were also transformed from installations into digital formats. The first instance occurred during a Longwood Art residency in 1999–2000, when studio spaces were converted into virtual studios. The internet was still relatively new at the time. During this residency, I created interactive virtual versions of my installations. One of them, The National and Geographic Project, exists as an animated online version and as physical installations created in 1996 and 2000. National and Geographic Project I hope one day to create a 3D version of the installation Between 5 and 9 that could better express the spatial experience lost in photographs. Between 5 and 9 Some projects are less transferable. The World Poetry Book, where each page is numbered 59, loses an important dimension online. Without physical pages, its impact is reduced. World Poetry Book I am relieved that we have managed to make it through 5 & 9! Fortuitously, this realization segues nicely into my next question. Will there be/is any kind of meta mirror logic to Project 59 as a whole? Assuming that you can somehow neatly compartmentalize each tangential iteration of Project 59, what happens when you reach 59? Answer 10: Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 1:22 AM There are three kinds of projects within Project 59. 1. The number 59 as a subject is open to infinite variation. For example, the photographic documentation of “59” may continue indefinitely. Collection 59 2. Artworks inspired by the number 59 that do not require counting or accumulation—for example Smile 59 (a mileage sign modification) Smile 59 3. In addition to infinite and uncountable projects, there are serial works that aim toward a defined total of 59. These include the 59 Seconds Video Festival, 59×59×59×59 e-performances (59 emails to 59 recipients, 59 words each, sent every 59 hours, referencing related to number 59 events in 1996 and 2011), and Dinner 59 (59 dinners every 59 days, prepared from recipes on page 59). These projects concluded once the quantity of 59 is reached. Dinner 59 I am always 59. Each year on my birthday I celebrate a new year of birth. Question 11: Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 7:38 PM Can you name 59 things that could not possibly be part of Project 59. Answer 11: Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 11:07 AM You got it, Sean—you nailed it. There is nothing under or above the sky, recognized by the human brain—practically or theoretically—that could fall outside Project 59. Even the absence of this number is, by definition, its presence. I cannot speak for parallel worlds (if any), but this one is fully booked. Question 12: Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:12 AM I love it! On the moment of 1:36pm, June 15, 1969, Robert Barry nominated: “All The Things I Know But Of Which I Am Not At The Moment Thinking”. Would you consider including 59 things that cannot be recognized or possibly borne of mind by the human brain, either practically or theoretically? Answer #12: Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 12:32 PM Just to be clear, you asked me to identify 59 things that the human brain would not be able to recognise. You want me to list things that my brain cannot imagine or recognise, in other words. Here is an unrecognizable by the human brain answer: “ ”. Question 13:Q Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 11:42 PM Wonderful. That was the answer I was hoping for! The Robert Barry work refers to the task of nominating the existence of things that you are not currently thinking about. By extension, can you nominate the potential existence of 59 ideas for Project 59 that you have never considered and/or will never consider? Answer 13: Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 1:10 AM 59 is a good number to explore. At the beginning, there is the initial creative stimulus; then (around #25–45), a period of struggle; and finally, bliss toward the end. I first experienced these stages while walking up 59 floors of the MetLife Building in Manhattan in 1995 (a project-adaptation to the city of high-rises during my first year in New York). MetLife If I list an idea I never considered, it becomes a considered idea. Project 59 is a never-ending and overwhelmingly fruitful project. I never consider killing (except insects), stealing (though there may be minor variations), desiring my neighbor’s wife (or any wife, for that matter), and so on. Some law-related regulations connected to #59: Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 59 South Carolina Code, Title 59 Russian Criminal Code, Article 59 Question 14: Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 8:15 PM OK. Now we turn our attention to the existence of experiential, meaning the minds of perceivers (artists and audience). What are the minimum requirements for constituting "audience" for Project 59? Answer 14: Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 1:37 PM Project 59 is open to everyone, but there is a catch. In my view, art does not differ from other disciplines (science, for example). Although it may appear more accessible, art still requires knowledge and experience. Art is a dialogue that cannot exist without a common language. It is hard to overstate the significance of a “like-minded” audience. Question 15: Sun, Jan 17, 2016 at 1:28 AM Are you suggesting that Project 59 essentially operates on at least two levels and for two potentially very different audiences? Answer 15: Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 4:35 AM Audiences seem to differ in more than just two ways. I do not mind different interpretations of my works (except incorrect ones). An open mind is always a plus when we are talking about experimental art. While the audience is usually associated with post-production events (even when the work is social, interactive, or about the audience itself), the artist and the audience can also be the same person. The environment — the audience — may shape the production process. Anyone can potentially participate in Project 59 because the number itself is a common connecting factor. This conversation is an example. Question 16: Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 9:27 AM Indeed. It is an honor to be "inside" a Project 59 iteration. I am now wondering - to what extent does the documentation "perform" the work for the posthumous/new (main?) audience? Answer 16: Thu, May 5, 2016 at 10:11 AM It depends on the artwork and its documentation, which may be edited to make it more engaging. The documentation may become an art medium itself. On the other hand, whatever appears on the screen can only suggest what happened in reality. Nevertheless, it is very important to give an idea of what was happening. I am pro-documentation, at least for the sake of education. There are artists who deliberately avoid documentation as a statement. Although I respect everyone’s artistic freedom, I still wish there were photographic or video records. The live experience of events is unique and some projects are accessible only to participants. For example, I do not make video documentation of Dinner 59, preserving it as a free, spontaneous, and intimate group experience. Dinner 59 Some projects, however, are designed to be documented. One of them is US59, our journey from Laredo, Texas, to Winnipeg, Canada, along Highway 59. While gathering photo and video documentation is part of that endeavor, the essence lies in being present in each location at that particular moment. Documentation may also become artistic material. For one of the pieces in the current exhibition in Germany, I collected 59 photographs of local occurrences of the number 59 and arranged them into the shape of the city’s name, KIEL. In some cases, documentation becomes the artwork itself. For example, I climbed the 59 floors of the MetLife Building holding a VHS camera to create the video documentation of that mono-performance. Overall, I remain open to documentation in art. Whether or not I document a project depends on the character and logistics of the work itself. Question 17: Thu, May 5, 2016 at 10:11 AM Certainly, the presence of an embodied audience at a real event or exhibition, or even the historical occurrence of a purported event or exhibition, is not mandatory. All that is essential is the existence of some type of perceptual object through which to access the work. Documentation—whether fictional or factual, or both—that is presented, at some point, as a public perceptual object to an audience primed to interpret this documentation, is potentially enough to "perform" the work. As Philip Auslander puts it – [The] pleasures are available from the documentation and therefore do not depend on whether an audience witnessed the original event. The more radical possibility is that they may not even depend on whether the event actually happened. It may well be that our sense of the presence, power, and authenticity of these pieces derives not from treating the document as an indexical access point to a past event but from perceiving the document itself as a performance that directly reflects an artist’s aesthetic project or sensibility and for which we are the present audience.[i] To what extent can we exploit the way in which aesthetic experience is produced both within and beyond direct sense perception? Is this question, by virtue of being within a Project 59 iteration, performing an example of what we are talking about? [i] Philip Auslander, ‘The performativity of performance documentation,’ PAJ: a journal of performance and art, Vol. 84, 2006, p.9 Answer 17: Sun, May 15, 2016 at 9:34 AM Performing an example? Why not? I had never thought of it that way, but it could also exist as a version. It is like searching for a particular stream within the ocean. For me, art itself is a form of documentation — of perception, skills, thoughts, ideas, and experiences. Question 18: May 26, 2016, at 9:25 PM What are the minimum medial ingredients for exceeding arbitrariness? To what extent does the work need to be noticed? Answer 18: Sat, May 28, 2016 at 8:35 AM Experimental art demands the same level of consideration as other ground-breaking concepts. Project 59 has various experiments in various areas, but it also continuously generates life experiences. Compared to Fluxus events, which were designed as precise instructions (“Make a Salad"), Project 59 can generate an unlimited amount of spontaneous events conceived by accidental realizations, for example, encountering the number 59. In this sense, Project 59 functions as a generator of life events. I call it Coincidental Art. Question 19: Tue, Jun 14, 2016 at 4:54 AM Great! Can you give me a quick definitional manifesto for Coincidental Art? Answer 19: Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 9:35 PM Project 59 as an Event Generator and Coincidental Art. The Manifesto of Coincidental Art can appear only coincidentally. In the last century, life was brought into art: ready-made objects, sleeping in galleries during exhibitions, and other gestures that dissolved the boundary between artistic practice and everyday existence. Life was documented and meticulously counted by artists such as On Kawara, challenged by figures like Tehching Hsieh and Oleg Kulik, and transformed into an art event in itself through Fluxus. Life was turned into art, but art was never turned into life. Life has many faces and phases in which events and coincidences emerge and stand out. Project 59 is intertwined with life and, because of its numerical nature, for the first time in art history, it creates new events and induces coincidence. For example, my husband, Hiram Levy, and I recently returned from this year’s exploration of Highway US-59 in Iowa. In four days, we advanced a little more than 59 miles. (Since 2003, Hiram Levy, NOAA senior scientist, became a collaborator in many of my projects within Project 59.) This project comprises of: 1. Americana - an expansion of exploration of my new country. US-59 travels the United States through its center, from south to north. 2. Artwork that focuses on life as it is in time and place - everyone and everything encountered on the road becomes part of this project. We stop occasionally to speak with people we meet along the way. 3. Performative documentation — while documenting our travels wearing US-59 uniforms, we ourselves become performers, sparking curiosity in local communities and generating new events. This year in Shenandoah, Iowa, we met a man who within fifteen years had lost two family houses to tornadoes. Both homes were on his farm on US59. We visited Iowa's longest continuously operating community theater, ate at venues located on US 59, and stayed in hotels on US 59. Alongside many meaningful events on the road, several memorable coincidences occurred this year. Our flight number was 8596, the airport shuttle train car was number 59, and we rented a car whose license plate included the number 59. The motel room we booked online during a promotion — featuring a red heart-shaped Jacuzzi — turned out to be room 159. The hotel had only two Jacuzzi suites: 159 and 259. The farming couple we met, Derry and Phyllis, who survived two tornadoes, will celebrate their 59th wedding anniversary this November. Just up US 59, about 300 people live in the town of Macedonia, Iowa. Its short main street contains two museums, a pub, a gallery, and a community theater that stages four plays annually. The day we arrived, the theater was presenting the musical "From 9 to 5". Events and coincidences generated by a conceptual project are passive interactions that must be discovered or noticed. These parameters introduce a new aspect of art capable of fostering new art. Today we will perform Couple 59 for 59 minutes on 59th street in Manhattan as part of an International Unnoticed Performance festival. Couples 59 The current art exhibition Clinic in Nizhniy Tagil, Russia, features my suggestion to expand the human smile to 59 teeth, including a tooth of wisdom, a tooth of creativity, a tooth of kindness… as well as a sweet tooth. Another installation produces a tuning sound of 59 heartbeats over 59 seconds — an excellent heart rate for women and an athletic one for men — synchronizing with the audience’s heartbeats through chronometric synchronization phenomena. 59 heartbeats Question 20: Mon, Jul 4, 2016 at 7:59 AM So, how would you characterize the relationship between art and life? Do they need therapy? Answer 20: Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 6:40 AM In 1995 (the inaugural year of Project 59), for one of my first shows, I developed a statement "Art is not Life but Life is Art". This statement also works in reverse: "Art is Life but Life is not Art". It is not simply about the relationship between life and art, but rather about the tension between two controversial axioms. How can therapy help here? Recently, I participated in a project by the late artist Maria Alós, initiated by Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful in Queens. Stickers bearing the phrases “This is art,” “This is not art,” and “Is this art?” were placed throughout public spaces. I placed the sticker “This is not Art” next to a “Danger” sign on electrical equipment because I believe art should not place anyone in danger. Addressing the relationship between money and art, I attached “Is this Art?” to a real estate advertisement. I felt that the sticker "This is Art" was unnecessary because everything has the potential to become art. It is like labeling a drop of water in the ocean with the word "water." In my work life simultaneously functions as a subject, setting, tool and condition. Question 21: Jul 30, 2016, at 4:36 PM Mmm...very interesting. So, is "meaning" located in the object/gesture or in the contingencies of its context in relation to life? Or does it assume a doubled ontological status (i.e. simultaneously occupies two states of being)? Many of the gestures, objects and activities that you describe can be simultaneously understood as being at once as art and an actual activity in life. Is its "success" therefore determined according to the criteria of life or art? Answer 21: Aug 1, 2016, at 1:33 PM I am making experimental art, not experimental life even though life is the source material of my art experiments. As I mentioned before, for me art and life experiences are different even when they occupy the same "territory". The meaning of the projects is totally artistic even if it is in the form of a life event. It could be compared to language: words may be used spontaneously in everyday conversation or carefully composed into a book. The words themselves are the same, yet their structure, intention, and context transform their implementation. Question 22: Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 2:20 AM I am also interested in the difference between words about art and words as art. At 1:36PM, June 15, 1969, for example, Robert Barry wrote ALL THE THINGS I KNOW BUT OF WHICH I AM NOT AT THE MOMENT THINKING. In what kinds of ways have you distinguished between words about art and words as art in Project 59? Answer 22: Mon, Sep 5, 2016 at 1:38 AM Your question has 59 words! With words about art, everything is relatively simple, while words becoming art is no longer new — as seen in the work of Barbara Kruger and Lawrence Weiner. In my case, words used as art eventually transformed into words about art. Project 59 began during my graduate studies at the School of Visual Arts between 1994 and 1996. While creating the self-performance Narcissism — 59 self-portraits drawn in a single day — I placed one word on each drawing, forming for the first time a 59-word statement. In this way, words became an integral part of my artwork. At the end of graduate school, I wrote 59 theses about Project 59: 59 paragraphs, 59 words in each. Let's use Barry's line to establish a syllogism: The floodgates to every possibility in art and literature have now been fully opened by alternative movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The year 1959 was a barrier. Any writing has the potential to become literature. As Marcel Duchamp stated in the late 1960s, if an artist declares something to be art, it is art. What artists choose to do with that freedom is another matter. It is an era of pluralism. Metaphor, humor, comparative analysis, linkages, and endurance are important to me in art, and I find them equally compelling in literature. Do I look for new art forms? Not on purpose but it is boring to make something that is not new or unique. Being free does not mean trying to prove it; proving freedom means the absence of it. Queston 23: Mon, Sep 5, 2016 at 2:25 AM How might these relationships be understood in relation to Maciunas’s insistence upon ‘concretism’ (materiality) in fluxworks and his criticism of ‘illusionism’ (representation)? Answer 23: Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 1:11 PM I may not be able to explain George Maciunas. Even his close friends did not always know exactly what he was about. I see myself, however, as a conceptual realist. My first work within Project 59, the traffic sign Speed Limit 59, stands as enduring proof of that position. At the time, I often traveled between New York and Cleveland, where my family lived. In Pennsylvania, the official speed limit was 55 miles per hour. Yet everybody drove 59 miles per hour — the highest speed one could maintain before being fined. Question 24. Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 8:39 PM I understand that you encountered both Fluxus and comparable conceptual art practices after you were already well underway with Project 59. Can you please reflect upon the experience of retrospectively contextualizing your practice in relationship with these seminal historical threads? Answer 24: Mon, Oct 10, 2016 at 5:09 Although I cannot recall when I first heard the word “Fluxus”, I always associated it with some abstract revolutionary actions and fully learned who the Fluxus artists were and what they had actually done only around 2010–2011. Thus, it may not be fair to search for the influence of Fluxus in my work, since my early Fluxus-like pieces were developed independently from knowledge of Fluxus. In the Soviet Union, information about the outside world was extremely limited, and it is difficult to reconstruct all the elements that eventually led me toward postmodernism, contemporary art, or whatever term might best describe it today. Here is my path: My first art teacher in middle school was the first dissident I ever met, so I learned to associate art with being radically different. At 15 I entered an art college. Next year I dropped it to go to the Academy, but on the way found myself pregnant. Life penetrated my art back then. From my 16th year it was quite a mix. That probably was a major foundation of life-art symbiosis that later emerged in my work. Socialist realism was totalitarian, and we tried to avoid it in every possible way. Instead of Fine Art, I entered the design department of the Art Academy and, after graduation, never worked as a designer. During my student years in Kharkiv, Ukraine, an underground drawing teacher, connected to the time of constructivism, delivered the first taste of "modernity". I didn't go to his classes directly, but I learned through those who did. In the Kharkiv art scene, everything new or “alternative” remained highly aestheticized. Immediately after finishing the Academy, I moved to Moscow. Soon afterward, Perestroika began, and underground artists started to appear. My years in Moscow were turbulent, influential, and eye-opening — perhaps the best several years in Russian history. In Moscow, I began participating in exhibitions with expressionistic paintings and drawings that appeared quite alternative compared to the works of the majority of Soviet artists. Yet a very small part of the underground art world had already moved far beyond. It felt like fresh air, although at the time I did not know how to catch up. I am not sure how my artistic development would have unfolded had it not been for a very strange and abrupt turning point in the spring of 1989, when I experienced a near-death event followed by surgery and a very slow recovery. After that, painting and poetry disappeared from my life forever. I began making collages, objects, and installations, using recycled materials and catching conceptual ideas. I always was an intuitive artist where knowledge affirms not initiates. The transformation also came from within. In 1990 I spent the summer with my sons in Germany, where I was exposed for the first time to Western museums and galleries. My move to the United States in the Fall of 1992 became the next major eye-opening event. From childhood, I was deeply influenced by a quotation from Jorge Luis Borges. He claimed that a work of art is effective only if it contains a component of destiny. Another lasting influence was the famous motto of the Russian writer Yury Olesha: “No day without a written line.” I understood it not simply as advice for writers, but as a model for a life project. Question 25: Wed, Oct 26, 2016 at 9:10 AM Wow. Thank you very much for sharing your art/life story! Do you recognize any specific relationships between the way in which you now retrospectively interpret your art/life story and the way in which we all participate in retrospectively interpreting art histories? Answer 25: Sat, Nov 5, 2016 at 9:00 AM If you are referring to the progression of my artistic styles, my path somehow followed the sequence of art history itself: beginning with representational realism, moving into expressionism, then toward collage, readymades, installations, and conceptual art. What is interesting is that I did not experience the same objective historical conditions that originally produced those movements. I am not sure my own experience alone can support the idea that this progression represents a natural course of artistic development independent of broader historical processes, but it might still be the case. At the same time, I have observed the opposite movement among some of my colleagues. Artists who studied in the United States in the 1970s and began with conceptual art eventually found their way back to representational realism. Question 26: Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 7:26 AM Does the sheer abundance of seemingly contradictory artistic trajectories (i.e. from conceptualism to representation etc) that we now encounter across our increasingly obese present make it harder and harder to make sense of our times? Answer 26: Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 3:13 AM The twentieth century was a century of confrontations. I hope that in this century artists will respect, admire, and understand all paths of art, regardless of how “old” they may appear. As for the present moment, we are still actively exploring what may have been the last major achievement of the twentieth-century: that art can be anything. Experimental art today literally steps into different subjects and situations, testing itself here and there — DIY culture, wonder, design, decontextualization. Art behaves almost like a liquid, slowly spreading into every possible territory. Multiple ideas coexist simultaneously, along with countless regional interpretations and variations. For better or worse, this plurality defines our time. Question 27: Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 8:15 AM If advanced artistic speculation of the twentieth century was dominated by various iterations of the question "what is art?", the twenty-first century has arguably given rise to a broad repurposing of such contestations within multiple iterations of a new question — "where is art?" Given, as you say, that "art is like liquid, slowly filling every territory," do you think that it is getting harder to locationally identify a work of art? Answer 27: Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 10:45 AM The question remains the same: Will art create something original or merely rehash old ideas? There is a qualitative change in the conversion from the question "what is art?" to "where is art?": "what" is philosophical and "where" is geographical. Art permeates various subjects. Science, for example, becomes very popular within art - although not art within science. These new territories provide enormous amounts of theoretical and practical material, making such expansion entirely worthwhile. Life and technology continue to evolve, and art evolves alongside them, no longer an icebreaker in the way it once was, but it remains productive, even if not always revolutionary. I am amused by the fact that as soon as art became completely free, art professionals began imposing new kinds of limitations. It is no longer enough to be an artist. One is expected to be a writer, philosopher, and entrepreneur as well. Artistic language is often replaced by fashionable terminology that can feel insincere or unnecessarily inflated. Since many artists are known to struggle with dyslexia, the growing popularity of PhD programs in art appears unreasonably discriminatory. Artworks are not taken seriously without a philosophical platform and “good writing.” Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? There are two major approaches in art: logical and intuitive. The logical artist resembles a fish moving through a river, making decisions in art consciously and analytically. The intuitive artist may not fully realize themselves what they are doing. Interpreting such work should be the task of theorists and critics. The PhD may simply be another territory into which art is expanding. I fully support exploration while opposing any snobbish hierarchy surrounding it. At the same time, I am not convinced that development is possible without limitations. Perhaps the ultimate logic of the creative process lies precisely in the violation of constraints. Breaking news: There are 59 steps from the front entrance to the exhibition floor at The Cloisters. Question 28: Sat, Mar 11, 2017 at 11:08 PM Mmm...very interesting. Do you think that we can still defensibly maintain the intellectual/intuitive binary? Doesn't all art more or less play somewhere in that continuum? Answer 28: Tue, May 16, 2017 at 9:35 AM Yes, intuitive could be also intellectual and intellectual could be also intuitive. I was literally talking about a shift to a verbal theoretical field, that is great, but only if it is not snobbishly prioritized. Artists can communicate verbally and nonverbally until they can't or don't want to. There is a reason someone chooses art itself as a language. Recently, I attended several conferences on experimental art and was astonished by how few artists used their own artworks in their presentations. Unfortunately, I missed most of the Art Anywhere conference, although one presentation I attended was quite memorable. It was a young woman from a northern European country, presenting a large telescopic image of some kind. She spoke about a hiking trip with her boyfriend along a mountain trail. During the presentation, she mentioned that it took six hours to climb up and five hours to descend. Those numbers triggered memories of a journey I made in 1999 with a local guide into the deep Siberian wilderness. We traveled for six hours to reach the intersection of the 59th latitude and 59th longitude — a location hidden in the forest approximately six kilometers from the nearest country road. There was no path. We crossed enormous fallen trees, walked through marshes, and relied on a Magellan, pre-GPS device, which could only provide coordinates when manually requested rather than continuously. Bears, elk and wild boars, massively presented there by footprints, for some lucky reason ignored us. When we finally reached the destination, the weather briefly held long enough for us to install a marker identifying the intersection point. Immediately afterward, a violent thunderstorm erupted. The Magellan device and even the regular compass stopped functioning, and for five hours we ran through torrential rain without knowing exactly where we were or how to escape the forest. Emerging from those accumulated memories, I found myself carefully examining the telescopic image, which turned out to be a photograph copied from a poster the presenter had seen hanging inside a log cabin during the trip. There were no posters and no log cabins in the Siberian wilderness. I doubt that anyone had ever been at that exact location before us. We eventually emerged from the forest onto a dirt road several kilometers away from the point where we had entered. I am seriously concerned about art becoming random and boring. Well, there is freedom. Art can be anything. It can be boring too - preferably on purpose. At the same time, art is still amazing, disregarding art market gimmicks, politics and popular trends. Website of 59x59, image of 59x59 Question 29: Mon, May 29, 2017 at 9:56 AM As Peter Osbourne recently put it, art can be "anywhere or not at all". Sure, art can be anything (including potentially boring). What, in your estimation, are some of the reasons that people might choose, as you put it, "art as a language"? Answer 29: Thu, Jun 1, 2017 at 11:04 PM This quote is perfect for your Project Anywhere. I considered it as a potential fit for a branch of experimental art that may be produced irrespective of location or in certain uncommon places/spaces. There are new territories in art that are "anywhere" by definition. With a total freedom in art, it is potentially everywhere anyway. When I wrote about the unfairness of the recent snobbish emphasis on verbal perfection in art, I was referring particularly to dyslexics, who often experience difficulties with verbalization. One of the most fundamental forms of dyslexia involves nonverbal thinking — thinking through images. That is a very different kind of language. Art as language, in general terms, is almost self-explanatory. Visual expression — art — is one of the most immediate ways to transmit an idea. Verbal expression can also be artistic, but it remains time-bound. Do you know of any lifelong art projects prior to the mid-1980s that did not involve traditional media such as painting, drawing, or printmaking, as was the case with On Kawara and Roman Opalka? Question 30: Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 1:20 AM I have been racking my brain to think of any life long art projects prior to the mid 1980s. Even Teching Hseih didn't go that far! My first thought was to wonder whether an artist such as Daniel Buren could be understood as engaging in a life long project. There are of course endless examples of life long careers (that are not necessarily discrete projects). Here, there are obviously many projects that renounced traditional categories but post-historically were labelled conceptualist, would fit the bill; Richard Long's walks, Lawrence Weiner's text works, Roelof Louw; Keith Arnatt; Bruce McLean; Braco Dimitrijevic; Vito Acconci; Paul McCarthy; Joan Jonas; Helio Oiticica and Lygia Clark. And in Japan, before On Kawara there was Saburo Murakami and Kazuo Shiraga and Shozo Shimamoto. I'm not certain of the lifespan of their practices. The only candidate that I can really find is in literature - Marcel Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time. Where would you place Project 59 in the context of these histories? Answer 30: Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 12:52 AM Most of the artists you mentioned created their own life-long signature styles. In my project, the number 59 is an ironic reference to the expectation that artists should produce work in one recognizable style. I allow my works to take on different styles. Instead of a recognizable style, I have a recognizable device: number 59. Gutai Art Association artists were highly alternative and experimental, yet they still worked within traditional art media such as sculpture and painting. Here are some artists associated with lifelong projects (rather than lifelong styles): On Kawara; Roman Opalka; Dan Flavin — “Tatlin Monuments,” 39 works over 26 years; Carl Baden — “Every Day,” a self-portrait each day since 1987; Tehching Hsieh — not lifelong, but a pioneer of life-as-performance practice; Linda Montano — paused after 14 years, then resumed; Jorge Selarón — in ceramics; Josef Albers — through his lifelong color theory research; Harvey Fite — in sculpture; Tom Phillips — in books; André Cadere — performances involving his sculptural stick works; Jerry Gretzinger — endless cartographic constructions; Vagrich Bakhchanyan — daily shows; Richard Long; Mierle Laderman Ukeles — maintenance and cleaning activism. Project 59 is a lifetime commitment. It is a collection of different projects. There are several serial, annual or life long projects within Project 59. A few days ago at a restaurant in Buffalo, where Olga Zaikina, Alex Kondur, and I had dinner, the bill came to exactly $59. It happened in Buffalo on “B-day” of my annual Alphabet Project (pure chance — the day was chosen by my friends). We ate blueberries, bananas, butter, beef, and bread. In a sense, Marcel Proust is the opposite of Project 59. Aleksandr Genis wrote: “Proust was looking for unique moments in the past; Borges was looking for the universal and timeless.” I am with Jorge Luis Borges. Question 31: Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 5:17 PM That is wonderful and thank you! A very rich response. Now, I would like to turn our attention toward a reflection upon this interview. I see Project 59 as both a consistently identifiable entity with an "art world" ontology and something that is utterly continuous with life and broader related and (directly) unrelated systems. This interview is taking place with some proximity to a so-called "art world". I would therefore like to ask you, within its remit, to what extent and in what ways do you see this interview as another iterative play within Project 59? Is this also a creative work, and assuming that it is, do we create a feedback loop by discussing its contribution to Project 59 within its bounds? Answer 31: Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 10:58 AM The 59 questions about Project 59 is a unique part of Project 59, initiated by you. You were the first, although another similar proposal appeared surprisingly within the first year. Nicolás Estévez Raful offered to ask 59 questions about Project 59. At first, I was going to refuse, out of loyalty to this conversation, but curiosity won, and I do not regret it. The project with Nicolás turned out to be completely different. His idea was not based on the format of conversation. Instead, Nicolás sent me all 59 questions at once. I proposed that he ask the questions in his native language, Spanish, while I answered in Russian. I gave 59 short answers, each exactly 59 words long. 59 Questions From Nicholas A project within the project — that is precisely how Project 59 functions. It contains many different projects within itself. This conversation is a unique opportunity to speak about it. P.S. When I climbed 59 floors, it was around the 31st floor that I began to feel tired and confused. If you feel the same way now, more than half of this project has already been accomplished. Question 32: Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 5:49 PM Your point about getting tired or confused is a fascinating one. Our readers (of this interview) will certainly note that the lapsed time between email correspondences has certainly begun to slow down. In the spirit of fostering a feedback loop, perhaps this would be a good time to ask you about how you manage to consistently generate new conceptions within Project 59? I suspect that you will simply say that the source material is all around us! Your recent compilation of 59th Annual General meetings in 2017 is testament to this fact! You have no doubt become more and more attuned to the task of where and how to look. Answer 32: Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 10:58 AM Every year, there are several “59th Annual” commemorating events that occurred 59 years earlier. However, only in 2018 did those 59-year-old events originate in 1959. Regarding the mid-crisis of my serial projects, I must say that ascending 59 floors was one thing, but participating in 59 City Drawings or Dinners 59 is quite another (endurance versus adventure). I enjoy the serial nature of my projects all the way through and often run several projects simultaneously. There are different stages of being within a time-elapsed series, and they are remarkably similar to the stages of life. They begin unexpectedly. Then comes a stage in which you are fully immersed in the project, and it becomes part of your routine. Toward the end, there is both a sense of nostalgia and a deeper understanding of the endeavor as a whole. I have to admit the reality of being swallowed by Project 59, although there are still non-Project 59 works under my creative belt. I can only speculate that within Project 59 there are countless ways of generating new ideas, because numbers are universal and can be applied to anything. I often wonder how objective the creative possibilities of Project 59 really are. If there is an infinite number of ideas, and if the project can be carried forward by different people, then it should be able to grow beyond my lifetime. To be literal about “looking,” I collect every occurrence of the number 59 that I find in my immediate surroundings. Some of them have resulted in projects. Question 33: Sat, Mar 10, 2018 at 11:29 PM Fantastic. This interview feels like yet another rich texture within the ever-expanding universe of Project 59. If you were allowed to talk about all and any iterations but only permitted to exhibit documentation from one iteration, which one would it be and why? Answer 33: Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 11:07 PM I had my first child at the age of 17, and since then my entire life has been a balance between parent/artist and artist/parent. I prefer being an artist within parenthood to being a parent within art. Project 59 is also a tool for easing decision-making (choosing dish #59 on the menu at a Chinese restaurant, for example). Let’s not turn it against itself. Question 34: Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 9:38 AM Indeed and of course. A nicely analogous distinction. That is a fantastic paradox. Could we not hypothetically turn it against itself x59? What are the outermost limits of its application? I am currently thinking about Robert Barry's All The Things I Know But Of Which I Am Not At The Moment Thinking (1969) Answer 34: May 1, 2018 at 4:15 AM The paradox is that a conceptual limitation to a certain number produces unlimited possibilities for art projects. If there is a limit, I would like to be the first to know. Robert Barry used the appropriate words from the perspective of the artist. Project 59 reflects our times from the perspective of the artwork itself. It includes various 59×59 projects and objects, but it is not limited to them. The 59×59×59×59×59 performance (1997) celebrated the arrival of e-mail on our planet. Every 59 hours, 59 emails containing 59 words each about the number 59 were sent to 59 people around the world. The project ran from May 5 (5.9.) into September — from the 5th to the 9th month. Having said all that, I still have to confess that the most important part of Project 59 is not the number itself. I compare the number 59 to protein. Everyone knows that muscles are made of protein, but no one thinks about protein when someone shows off their muscles. With each project, I am showing a different group of muscles — the body of my work. The number 59 is their protein. Question 35: Fri, May 25, 2018 at 9:07 PM Now—with some historical vantage over both Project 59 and some of the ways that we related to conceptually-based projects during the twentieth century—are there any significant differences in the way that you understand and relate to Project 59 in 2018 (as opposed to say 1997 or earlier)? Answer 35: Fri, Aug 24, 2018 at 5:06 AM During the early years of Project 59, I was creating artworks without explicitly showing the number. At that time, my resistance to exposing it was very strong. Except for the Speed Limit 59 sign, none of my early works contained the actual number visually. I climbed 59 floors; I led a trip on NY 59 aboard a bus numbered 59 traveling at 59 km/h; I traveled to the intersection of the 59th latitude and the 59th longitude; I began the Alphabet Project, which is based on the Russian and English alphabets that together contain 59 letters (33 in Russian and 26 in English). None of these works presented the number in an explicit visual form. I am no longer shy about revealing the number. One of the installations in the upcoming show “As Far As the Heart Can See” at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts gallery will feature a large number 59 drawn on the wall by an ivy plant. Nevertheless, works in which the number remains implicit are still my favorites. Another difference between the past and the present lies in my understanding of the project. As I mentioned before, I am an intuitive artist who needs time to realize what is actually happening. Every project begins with initial reasons and meanings, but some aspects reveal themselves only in retrospect. The final distinction is the growing weight of unrealized works, which becomes heavier with the emergence of each new idea. Question 36: Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 9:00 AM So, would it be fair to say that each iteration is ultimately materially finite but that Project 59 itself is at least hypothetically materially (and conceptually) infinite? Answer 36: Thu, Sep 13, 2018 at 11:17 AM I feel too finite to talk about the infinite, even if hypothetically. Also, it looks like before I say a hypothetical “yes,” there should be some equations or mathematical formula used on the probability of reaching something as infinite as pi=3.14159... I used to encourage friends to view life's misfortunes from the perspective of infinity; looking in the opposite direction is a bit more difficult. This project does seem to be universal with the hope for generations to come. In reality we are talking about two things: the project that profoundly affects life and is connected to it, and the numerical method as a guiding principle for creative activities. The numerical approach could hypothetically become widespread in the art world and contains an infinite number of possibilities, while its connection to life may be a unique aspect of this particular moment in the history of art. I want to believe that these two aspects are inseparable, but the ways of perception are truly unpredictable. It is “opti-mystic” to look into infinity, especially when it comes to its material aspects. Meanwhile, I jumped out of an airplane for the sake of this project. 5900 Feet Above P.S. Although infinity is impossible to observe, ascertain, or fully experience, I think it is closer than we think. By definition, the unknown seems infinite, and the more we transform the unknown into the known, the less infinite it appears. Here is the real challenge: to remain messy and feel the touch of infinity, or to become organized and say goodbye to it. Question 37: So, what is the strangest thing that anyone outside of the so-called art world has ever said about Project 59? Answer 37: Sun, Oct 21, 2018 at 3:13 AM Before answering this question, let me first elaborate a bit further on the infinity of Project 59: As soon as I immigrated to the USA, I had to obtain a Social Security number. There was no such thing in the USSR. The concept of a numerical existence that continues after death influenced my art, which has always been at the whimsical intersection of art and life. Once I acquired a Social Security number, my art acquired a number as well. Infinity is usually associated with the future, while by definition it also includes the past. By that same definition, reaching infinity in the past guarantees infinity in the future. Project 59 was established through 59 theses, each consisting of 59 words. The first three theses are: (1.) MANY THEORIES HAVE BEEN INVENTED TO EXPLAIN THE KEY IDEA OF OUR EXISTENCE, BUT MOST OF THEM ERR. THE TRUTH IS THAT THE NUMBER 59 STAYS IN THE CENTER OF OUR BEING. FIFTY NINE IS A MYSTERIOUS AND ABSOLUTE NUMBER WHICH IS A CODE FOR EVERY HISTORICAL EVENT. MORE PRECISELY THE YEAR OF EVERY HISTORICAL EVENT ENCODES NUMBER 59. (2.) FOR EXAMPLE, THE YEAR OF RUSSIAN REVOLUTION IS 1917. AT FIRST GLANCE WE CAN EASILY SEE THE "BEAR" 9. AFTER SOME MANIPULATION WITH THE REST OF THE FIGURES WE CAN GET A HIDDEN 5: 7-1-1=5. THE YEAR OF THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IS 1939. CHOOSE EITHER 9, MANIPULATE AGAIN AND FIND THAT 9-3-1=5. THE SAME RESULT. (3.) FIFTY NINE IS NOT ONLY A CODE OF WORLD HISTORY, FIFTY NINE IS ALSO UNIQUE AND THE ONLY STABLE NUMBER IN NUMERICAL ORDER. FIFTY NINE WAS THE FIRST NUMBER WHICH PEOPLE RECEIVED FROM SPACE AND ALL OTHER NUMBERS DERIVE FROM IT: 1= 5+5-9; 2= 5-√9; 3= √9; 4= 9-5; 5=5; 6= 9- √9; 7= (9+5)/2; 8= 5+√9; 9=9; 0=59-59;... As Project 59 progressed and permeated my life, my identification with the project’s number progressed as well. Project 59 stands apart from my other artworks. I use this random number as a lens through which to look at the world, and apparently it has also become a lens through which the world looks back at me. That added an ironic dimension to the common artistic desire for immortality through art work. Potentially, Project 59 can exist for as long as the number itself exists (and even if the number was forbidden, it would continue to survive in myths and legends). Answer 37: I was often mockingly asked, “Why 59 and not 69?” This seemingly frivolous question actually relates to a real story. Project 59 was conceived in 1995 as a one-year experimental graduate-school project. I simply reversed the last two digits of the year: 9 and 5. At the end of 1995 Project 59, instead of ending, continued to grow. Since the project was conceptually and numerically tied to the year, I did not know how to carry it into 1996. The well-known critic and curator David Ross gave our class an assignment based on Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. After absorbing a few bits of wisdom from page 59, I checked Beckett’s biography and stumbled upon repeated appearances of the numbers 6 and 9 throughout it. Samuel Beckett was born in 1906, went to school at the age of 9, and received the Nobel Prize in 1969. I then understood: 69 is a universal number, one of a kind — Yin and Yang, infinity… while 59 is clearly “in the image and likeness” of 69, yet not ideal — a “human” number. The project hatched from the shell of the year 1995, moved beyond the limits of numerological conformity, and has existed independently ever since. Question 38: Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 10:16 PM What are the social and economic conditions of production for artists working outside an explicitly commercial context today? How do they differ from conditions of production when Project 59 was in its infancy? Answer 38: Sat, Oct 27, 2018 at 7:57 AM After the cultural revolution in art that started around 1959, commercialism was reintroduced in the 1980s and by 1995 it was already firmly established. Although the art market then just began to consume noncommercial art, there were still two distinct artistic modes: commercial and noncommercial. Being a non-commercial artist today is only a lifestyle. There are no longer clear stylistic distinctions between commercial and noncommercial art. The art market became omnivorous. Question 39: Wed, Nov 21, 2018 at 1:25 AM Has the "Trump era" had any kind of substantive affect for you upon how you understand or experience the world of Project 59? Answer 39: Sat, Dec 1, 2018 at 6:27 AM I would rather focus on the positive than the negative. The midterm Senate elections felt like a small victory for us here. It is already overwhelming and there is 59: Democratic Party: 59,525,244 Republican Party: 50,516,570 This was the largest percentage-point differential in any recent midterm election. And yet there is no escape from the miseries of our times. Once, while on a plane preparing for an upcoming Dinner 59 (#40) performance at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, I was flipping through a cookbook by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti from the 1930s, filled with references to his fascist vision of a “new great Italian nation” — including the rejection of pasta, for example — while the man sitting next to me was watching propaganda videos about “Making America Great Again.” On one of the upstate highways, there is a sign for Donald J. Trump State Park. I proposed renaming the park using the existing signage — an innocent gesture entirely independent of Project 59. One of my favorite alternative names became “Old Rum State Park,” and since it was located near the French Hill exit, I found myself wondering when France had entered the rum business. What was waiting for me there? Of course — the year 1659. Question 40: Tue, Dec 4, 2018 at 12:30 AM Under what circumstances and in which situations have/do Project 59 break the law? Answer 40: Thu, Dec 13, 2018 at 5:20 PM; Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 3:33 PM Let’s see: In May 1959, the South Vietnamese dictator Ngo Dinh Diem passed Law 10/59, establishing military tribunals to search out Communists in South Vietnam… “3-59 (1) This rule applies to a lawyer when engaged in any of the following activities on behalf of a client, including giving instructions on behalf of a client in respect of those activities…” Law No. 59/2011 established the sources of revenue and property of decentralized entities and governed their management. “59 (1) In this section, ‘disposition’ does not include…” Law No. 59/2008 on the Prevention and Punishment of Gender-Based Violence. It almost seems as if every Law No. 59 somehow circles back to our president. Russian Laws No. 59 read almost in a biblical tone: УК РФ Статья 59. Смертная казнь (Death Penalty) УК РФ Статья 159. Мошенничество (Robbery) Law No. 259 concerns violations involving the preservation of species listed in the Red Book. Law No. 359 prohibits the use of mercenaries — a law that, in my opinion, has been grossly violated on a daily basis along the Ukrainian border. Those are laws, and here is my confession: While documenting the number 59, I have often ignored photography and video restrictions or unintentionally crossed boundaries of privacy. Several times I was caught and had to delete images. There was, however, one occasion when we carefully tried to comply with the law. In 2012, the Vilcek Foundation selected my project Citidrawings for its Digital Artist of the Year award. Before publishing the project on their website, they requested permission from Google to use their maps, since the drawings had been created through navigation software layered onto those maps. In order to obtain permission, we consulted a lawyer, studied Google’s copyright regulations, attempted to follow them precisely, and contacted Google by phone, email, and even indirectly through my son, who knew someone working there. The employee simply waved him away. The project was so far beneath their radar that nobody seemed to know how to respond. I am not sure we ever received actual permission, but we certainly managed to annoy a few people there. Vilcek website If anything ever goes wrong, I may still count on Rule 59: “New Trial; Altering or Amending a Judgment.” Or, in the spirit of Project 59, perhaps every mistake simply remains subject to conceptual reconsideration. Rule 59 — Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute Question 41: Tue, Jan 1, 2019 at 5:36 AM Do you see Project 59 as a form of knowledge production? As a long form research project? What other kinds of ontologies does it potentially straddle in addition to being art? Answer 41: Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 10:00 PM The answer to Question #41 has several different aspects. Here are three that come immediately to mind: Project 59, as a numerical probe within art, is an innovative ongoing experiment that, by definition, participates in the production of new knowledge. Many projects within Project 59 take the form of research and generate additional knowledge. For example, City Drawings revealed unforeseen visual characteristics unique to each city. So far, none of the projects rely on specific scientific discoveries. Instead, they produce parallel knowledge within the field of visual art, while many of them employ a kind of scientific method. Here is an example of how it works. At the end of 2018, Scott Duke Kominers, Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and faculty affiliate of the Harvard Department of Economics, wrote: “For math geeks like me, 2018 was a banner year: not only was it a year in which the field’s top prize was awarded, it was the only year in this century featuring days lining up with both the Golden Ratio, an elegant proportion found throughout art and nature, and the mathematical constant e, which is at the core of calculus. But the mathematician in me also can’t help but note that the number 2018 has some ominous properties: it’s deficient, meaning that the sum of all its positive divisors is less than itself.” This is precisely the kind of parallel knowledge that interests me: numerical characteristics migrating into culture, perception, symbolism, and interpretation. “And it is also odious,” he added, “meaning that it has an odd number of ones in its binary expansion: 11111100010.” He further noted: “This year is pretty cryptic, as well — it features prominently in the first of the three Beale ciphers, an 1880s cryptographic puzzle that supposedly describes the location of a multimillion-dollar treasure.” That was the scientific and mathematical side of his observation. Here is where Project 59 would begin to extend beyond it: Scott Duke Kominers mentioned several remarkable numerical reasons for the uniqueness of the year 2018 — the year when everyone born in 1959 turned 59 — including the appearance of the number 2018 within one of the Beale ciphers. The next comparable year will not arrive until the middle of the twenty-second century. Perhaps by then the entire puzzle will finally be decoded. Here is what I can add regarding the Beale treasure ciphers, supposedly connected to a $59 million treasure hunt: The first cipher — the one containing the number 2018 — also includes a single appearance of the number 59, supposedly indicating a specific place. The second cipher, the one describing the treasure itself, contains five occurrences of the number 59 as well as the number 159. The final cipher, concerning names and locations, contains three appearances of the number 59. I suspect these correspond to three names and three places. The numerical pattern itself becomes intriguing: 1, 3, and 5 are successive prime numbers. The first cipher contains one occurrence, the third contains three, and the treasure cipher contains five. The structure becomes almost excessive in its elegance. After all, 5 + 3 + 1 = 9. Therefore, within this interpretive framework, the number 59 appears to function as a circumstantial key to the Beale puzzle. Beale Ciphers - Buried Treasure Great Year to Be a Math Geek Project 59's contribution consists of new information that would not have been possible without it. However, it only makes sense in the context of visual art. If we were actually to go and dig up the treasure based on my discoveries, it would be a performance. You are welcome to join. Even if we find the treasure it will still be part of the art. My initial impulse was a numerical game — art — not a treasure hunt grounded in reality. Question 42: Wed, Feb 27, 2019 at 3:50 AM Brilliant! Now, what would happen if I asked you to list 59 things that are not (and could never be) part of Project 59? Is this possible, or paradoxically self-defeating? Answer 42: Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 2:39 PM To compile a list of 59 such items is perhaps the only thing I can imagine being absolutely impossible within Project 59. Question 43: Sat, Mar 2, 2019 at 8:44 PM Is there any room in a Project 59 sequence or arrangement for favorites? Or is the act of nominating favorites and therefore privileging one element amongst many ultimately antithetical to the nature of Project 59? Do you, for example, have a favorite recipe? Answer 43: Mon, May 13, 2019 at 2:17 PM Dinner 59(42) has just taken place, and we are happy to report that every recipe turned out remarkably well. In previous dinners, some dishes were better and some worse, but this time — despite an unusual combination of ingredients — everything worked. Dinner 59 (42) I rarely remember the food and we almost never cook the same dish again. Each recipe remains inside its particular project, belonging only to that event. Since most of the projects contain some kind of story or conceptual structure, my preferences toward them are essentially all the same. I would begin with the projects that come to mind first and that have, over time, become something like classics within Project 59: climbing 59 floors; traveling to the intersection of the 59th latitude and 59th longitude; diving 59 feet underwater and jumping from 7,590 feet above with documentation of 5900 feet filmed during free fall; the 59 Seconds Video Festival; 59 Brides; a trip around the world in 59 hours of air travel; traveling along US 59. These are the projects I most often mention when introducing Project 59, although all others are as loved even if forgotten. Around The Globe In 59 Hours 59 Seconds Video Festival 59 Brides 59 Feet Under 5900 Feet Above Apparently, endurance-based works tend to raise my adrenaline level the most, although adrenaline can also emerge from an initial idea, from an unexpected turn, discovery, or coincidence encountered during the process. A ratio between anticipation and implementation may exist, but it does not determine the value of the work. I learned to respect the final result regardless of how closely it matches the expectation. Since most of the projects remain open-ended, I simply follow wherever they lead me. I cannot believe I never sent this letter after writing it 59 days earlier. We have just finished Dinner 59 (43) Well, it is still in sync: the 43rd answer. We also just returned from US 59’2019 with a remarkable incident: in Minnesota — the final US state on our route — we met a man on the last day of being 59 years old. In Texas, the first state of the journey, we met a man on his 59th birthday. Quite symbolic, isn’t it? Question 44: Fri, May 24, 2019 at 7:54 PM What are the ethical limits of Project 59? Have you ever, upon reflection, made a decision not to proceed with a particular iterative variation of Project 59 when a hitherto unexpected ethical implication arose? Answer 44: Fri, May 31, 2019 at 12:21 AM I collect all numbers 59 I find and it is always an ethical dilemma when 59 appears in a negative context - the number of victims, for example. While number 59 is entirely a project number, such tragic events cannot truly become part of Project 59. Nevertheless, there were fatal instances that stayed within the project. Ten days ago a friend of mine, Julia Tulovsky, lost her father, Aleksander Konstantinov - a prominent Russian artist, mathematician, architect and also a friend to a sudden heart attack. When Julia wrote to me that he was buried in grave No. 59, it felt almost like his message from beyond. We have very limited senses: hearing, vision, touch, smell, and taste. Life in general, as great and rich as it is, still is a quite minimalistic event with a restricted range of perception. Project 59 can be seen as an additional antenna, channeling the unknown and unreachable. Question 45: Mon, Jun 3, 2019 at 8:11 PM Are numbers an abstraction? If so, in what kinds of ways does numerical abstraction differ from art as an abstraction (of life)? Answer 45: Mon, Aug 12, 2019 at 4:07 PM I am very realistic in relation to abstraction as a style of art. In my view, abstraction is a genuine model of intuition — not to mention that the earliest abstractions often originated from quite realistic sources. It can be compared to mathematics that operates through numbers as abstract notions, while every operation is rooted in some form of reality. I picked the number 59 as an abstract notion for being free of any other possible notions. The only reality for that number was a reversed year, that made sense initially for a one year project that simply never ended. Question 46: Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 4:24 AM Given that this interview is both in and about Project 59, I think it would be nice to begin to discuss its possible points of exhibition and dissemination both in and about Project 59 within the context of the interview as medium. Your thoughts? Answer 46: Tue, Sep 24, 2019 at 10:12 PM One of my projects takes the form of a short interview. I collect people who have turned 59 by video-recording their answers to only two questions: “What is your name?” and “How old are you?” Regarding this project, your unique idea of conducting 59 questions about Project 59 is, de facto, a project in itself and a part of the greater Project 59. Only you — and later Nicolás Estévez Raful — approached me with the idea of such an interview, though his version resulted in a very different format. Since you and Nicolás had a mutual friend at the time, it remains unclear whether he knew about this interview. In both cases, the idea for a 59-question interview emerged during Dinner 59 (perhaps I should check the ingredients of those recipes): on November 2, 2014 — 59 days before 2015 — with you and Magda; and on May 9 (5.9.), 2015, with Nicolás. I treasure the conversational, free, unstructured and open nature of our interview. As a book, it will become the first comprehensive collection of information about Project 59 written to date. Question 47: Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 8:17 AM I am so delighted that this will be the fullest informational account of Project 59 to date. I would now like to try and imagine 59 different ways to exhibit / disseminate this interview once completed. Once imagined, and then transmitted through this thread, they will all (at least in a minimum medial sense) actually exist. I will begin with 5 and then 9, (just to get things started): 1. Printed in a pile. 2. Printed and placed across a wall from left to right. 3. Printed and placed on a wall from top to bottom in 5 and 9 rows. 4. Printed in a book. 5. Published on a website. 6. Performed as a score. 7. Read aloud. 8. Read by a bot. 9. Read as whispers. 10. Played backwards as a recording. 11. Performed in mime. 12. Placed in a box and never opened. 13. Placed in a box and opened after 59 weeks. 14. Tweeted in fragments over 59 days. Now it is your turn!! Answer 47: 16 Oct 2019, at 3:27 pm My motto is "quality into quantity" rather than the other way around. The number itself was never a main character; what matters most is what is done with it. I will keep in mind the challenge and will have my eyes open for the situations and ideas. Below are my remarks: 1. Printed in a pile. If the pile version is included in the larger display, it may make sense as an installation. 59 papers would not make an impressive pile though. 2. Printed and placed across a wall from left to right. This is feasible, though it might feel somewhat dull. It would require a wide wall, approximately 18 meters long. Pros: everything would be visible at once, and viewers could choose what they want to read. Cons: visually, it would amount to little more than sheets of paper, and it may involve too much reading for the occasion. 3. Printed and placed on a wall from top to bottom in 5 and 9 rows. As part of the previous idea for a “flat” presentation on the wall? Together with exercise options for the viewers. With a photo camera on the side, recording different reading positions. This reminds me of the very first installation of Project 59. In 1995 I worked as an assistant at the Rotunda gallery in Brooklyn as part of my graduate work-study. Rolls of unused paper wristbands had once been discarded there. I installed them on the wall in 5 and 9 columns, with 59 red paper wristbands in each. Then I noticed that some of the numbers printed on the wristbands contained number 59. When I marked them all, it turned out that there were 9 marked numbers arranged in 5 lines, and 5 instances of the number 59 arranged in 9 lines. 4. Printed in a book. Ideal! We should do it after we finish editing the text. 5. Published on a website. Why not? 6. Performed as a score. I did it once with Nicolás Estévez Raful. No more. The 59th Street Station as a backdrop was the only reason I agreed. I was not born to read aloud. 7. Read aloud. (slow, fast, diagonally, vertically, backwards... ) It could be done with any text. But I truly dislike acting and reading aloud. Let’s find a good reason for doing it. I tell my students that art is like cooking. There is already a soup — life, reality, the interview itself in our case. If they want to add something, it should improve, add something important to the flavor. 8. Read by a Bot. ok 9. Read as whispers. Why whisper? What secret? 10. Played backwards as a recording. This might work better with a classical text: “eb ot ton ro eb ot…” It is a playful manipulation that could be applied to any text, without relationship to this interview. It feels more like part of a game: “59 alternatives for what can be done with a text.” Well, in Russia we used newspapers as toilet paper. That could count as one. 11. Performed in mime. As an attempt to communicate with limitations? Intriguing as a challenge. I am not sure it is possible to keep entertaining through all 59. Some feedback from the audience might be important. It is hard not to end up acting though and that is a dead end for me. 12. Placed in a box and never opened. A good alternative to printing. This is practically what happens with most of my works. 13. Placed in a box and open after 59 weeks. Read every 59 weeks? 14. Tweeted in fragments over 59 days. Reminds me of 59x59x59x59 in 1997 and 2011 - using email and Facebook when they just appeared, respectively. How many words does Twitter allow? 59 characters? Kind of a climax for the "to be continued" series. Great idea for huge books, Moby Dick, for example - break into 59 characters and broadcast every 59 seconds. Broadcasting this text is a good idea. Maybe as in 59x59x59x59 performance - broadcasting one question and answer every 59 hours? Well done. So. What was question number 47? Question 48: (which now, by necessity, is a reiteration of Q.47): Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 2:11 AM Wonderful responses, although (obviously far too implicitly), my Q.47 was actually an invitation to simply add to my list of hypothetically possible exhibition formats in sets of 5 and 9 until we get to 59. In other words, 59 hypothetical exhibition iterations contained within this iteration/interview! Question 47 (take 2): Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 7:35 AM Ok, I am happy to have another go at this! You have clearly tested Project 59 across a broad range of artistic, curatorial and performative contexts and modalities. I am now wondering about ways in which the development of Project 59 has potentially informed your professional development (either directly and indirectly). To think of one possible example, given that you teach academic drawing in a professional capacity, can you identify any ways in which ideas developed through Project 59 have informed your pedagogy? Moreover, could this be a dynamic and mutually informing relationship - ie. Project 59 ⇄ drawing? Answer 48 or Answer 47 (take 2): Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 5:32 AM I have to admit that a workshop I held at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne had more to do with Project 59 than the 17 years I spent teaching academic drawing. My projects and my teaching are largely autonomous events. I teach what I do not do, and I do what I do not teach. Here are the reasons why: Knowledge: My extensive Soviet academic training: four hours a day, four times a week, for four years of rigorous realistic drawing classes. Passing that knowledge on is deeply fulfilling. Location: I teach drawing in the Drawing Studio, room S159. Continuity: Both in class and elsewhere, I remain attentive to the number 59. I recently had coffee with one of my former students whose family moved into the neighborhood in 1959. Concept: Teaching is conceptual. Methodology in general — and each class or lesson in particular — must be developed as a chain of consequences. With ongoing discoveries in the fields of psychology, deception, critical thinking, and related disciplines, the conceptual teaching of academic drawing becomes quite experimental. Skill: I teach drawing because it is the subject that conveys rules, tools, and skills in the most practical way. I consider myself an experimental artist, which by definition is not teachable: teaching implies repetition, the opposite of experimental. Personality: I firmly believe that personality is difficult to conceal while teaching any subject. In class, I often draw parallels to contemporary art and installations that are based on one or another element of study. Final Product: At one point, Project 59 led me to an additional teaching position: two years as a visiting artist at Pratt Institute (2008–2010), teaching 4D/video. The opportunity emerged as a result of the 59 Seconds Video Festival. The final assignment was a 59-second video about the number 59. At Kingsborough Community College, my design foundation students also become my collaborators by creating final design projects related to the number 59. Realistic Drawing as Part of Project 59: In the spring of 1995, I created 59 nonstop self-portraits, one after another, from 11 a.m. until 10 p.m. I did not reject any of them, regardless of the outcome. During the performance, I pinned the drawings to the wall and, at the end, added one word to each. Together, they formed the first 59-word statement, which later evolved into a series of 59-word texts. Question 48: Sat, Nov 2, 2019 at 12:17 AM Whilst we are on the subject of "drawing", I would like to introduce what I see as a core connective thread to the discussion—your "Project City Drawings"! This iteration was actually my first point of entry into the multiplicitous world(s) of Project 59. I have long been interested in the way in which the word "drawing" so intriguingly oscillates between functioning as both a verb and a noun within artistic practice. Moreover, it is the capacity of drawing (as a verb) to foreground the performative nature of generating art that makes it so ripe for thinking in radically intermedial and spatially diffused ways about works/projects whilst paradoxically maintaining a singular identity as noun (ie. as an identifiable work). Could you please talk a little about Project City Drawings as both action and outcome? Answer 48: Sat, Nov 16, 2019 at 12:23 PM My initial idea to make a drawing the size of a city dates back to 1998 when I wanted to spread a red thread by walking in different directions on the streets of New York City, thus making a giant city size drawing. Project City Drawings (2009-20015) was conceived as a one-time NYC event in which the process itself was a major component. People across the ocean followed online the trajectory of our drive. Navigation technology was very new then. The first City Drawing was created as part of the Interrupted Correspondence event organized by the Five Years art collective in London. On October 30, 2009, our neighbor David Ross, who owned one of the first iPhones, and I drove across Manhattan and Brooklyn while Hiram Levy monitored the process from Princeton. Participants in London followed the live tracking online during the drawing of the digit 5 in Manhattan. Taking advantage of the transatlantic time difference, the drawing of the digit 9 continued in Brooklyn after the London event had already concluded. The drawing began at the corner of Greenwich and Watts Streets — both British names — and completed the number 5 along 59th Street in Manhattan, foreshadowing the complete correspondence that had been interrupted: the number 5 for the Five Years Art Collective, and 59 for Project 59. After the drawing in New York, I began to wonder how it would look in different cities. Thus, City Drawings became a serial project with the ultimate goal of creating 59 drawings. My son, Ignat Ayzenberg, drove and drew more than 70 miles in Los Angeles and suggested limiting future drawings to 59 miles. Driving and drawing 59 miles — or 59 kilometers — became one of the project’s defining features. The last 59th drawing was made in Helsinki in 2015: the Finnish finish. Here is the outline of this project: New Tools: Instamapper was then the only available pioneering open-source online tracking program (it was discontinued in 2012). I did not yet have an iPhone, and about a quarter of the City Drawings in the United States were made using a Boost Mobile phone bought at Best Buy for $59. However, it did not work in other countries, and there were no maps — the only thing it could do was report the time since the last transmitted signal. In order to see what we were doing, we had to use a computer. That is why Hiram monitored the drawings online. Serial projects: The Citydrawings project evolved into a series because of a research component. Where Topography Meets Typography. City Drawings tested each city’s interconnectivity through traffic patterns, following the structure and shape of its streets. By outlining the same numbers with equidistant paths, the project revealed each city’s structure, unique character, and both physical and wireless connectivity. Question 49 (only ten to go!):Question 49 (only ten to go!): Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 9:51 PM The word “project” is seemingly ubiquitous in the language of contemporary art. Its applications are diverse and fuzzily demarcated. It is used to describe individual and collective bodies of work, installations, exhibitions, spaces, initiatives and research activities alike. What do you mean when you apply the word “project” to Project 59? Answer 49: Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 1:18 PM I prefer to think that it means “to project.” The number itself remains inessential. Everything else includes challenge, experiment, provocation, and discovery. Project 59 is an unlimited variety of projects. Project 59 also has a nuclear nature. I could not have imagined how much of it would become a collaboration with other people, the world, and the universe. Most of the project is transient, like life itself. Project 59 has also produced a remarkable chain of coincidences. I recently met an artist in the Village who turned out to live not only in my building, but also on the 9th floor. I live on the 5th. There are two large rooms in the Bronx River Art Center gallery for the upcoming 25 years of Project 59 exhibition, and it still feels claustrophobic for its representation. In 1996, I made a National and Geographic project, part of which was a presidential election (exhibited during the elections years 1996 and 2000). Hiram just found that in 2020 we will have the 59th quadrennial US presidential elections. The celebratory third installation of the National and Geographic project will be installed in January 2020 at the Bronx River Art Center. Question 50: Mon, Dec 16, 2019 at 3:38 PM Oh, if we are talking politics and election cycles we will need to talk money! To the best of your knowledge, how much money—if you combine all and any forms of funding, artist fees, residencies etc—has Project 59 generated? Once you have approximated this figure, I would like you to estimate how much money you have personally spent over the entire course of Project 59. Is fiscal transparency important in art (as it is in politics)? Answer 50: Sat, Dec 21, 2019 at 7:14 PM Money, money, money… I liked that song by ABBA. The Project 59 has some money-related works. In 1997, my older son, Aleksey Danilov, suggested producing a 59-dollar bill, and I did — both front and back. From the very beginning of the project, I have collected (taken out of circulation) dollar bills containing the number 59 in their serial numbers. Another collection - BEST BUY - the junk mail advertising 59 cents, 59, 159, 599 dollars products. My first flight 5,900 Feet Above took place in 1998 on the smallest rented airplane, departing from Augusta, Maine. The price was $60 per hour. We spent 59 minutes, the total came to $59. Let’s put it this way: through our projects, we generated far less than $59,000 and spent far more. To the best of my knowledge, at least. As for transparency, I believe it is clear: personal information may remain personal. Money Best Buy Question 51: Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 2:43 AM Even the most conceptually abstracted art depends on something that is delineated, marked off or singled out from everything that is not, or there is no work to experience. This requires at least one (and potentially infinite material components). In your case, there are always at least 59 material components! Or is that a single group of 59 components? Anyway, such a delineation is an object – or as Jeffrey Strayer puts it, a public perceptual object – and when a subject attends to it and identifies it as an artwork, this results in an artistic complex. The constituents of an artistic complex are subject, perceptual object(s), and the subject’s consciousness of said perceptual object(s). For Strayer, it is not possible to conceive of an artwork that would not have a relation to consciousness. Consciousness is both a necessary condition of an artist’s effecting the identity of an artwork and of a subject’s understanding of that intended identity. Does this mean that Project 59 is limited to the human world? Answer 51: Fri, Feb 14, 2020 at 2:31 PM I guess we are talking about the recognition of an artwork among non-artworks that may not differ from artworks. I discussed this with Larry Miller and came to the conclusion that the key is context. The artist creates the context — and anyone could be an artist. Regarding non-humans, I was never interested in elephant paintings or monkey photography because there is no way to determine whether any context exists in such work, and in trying to analyze it, we inevitably humanize animals. On the other hand, there is a rumor that extraterrestrial beings have been drawing on Earth — in the Peruvian desert. Question 52: Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 10:34 PM If Project 59 is one possible answer to a question, what could that question possibly be? Answer 52: Tue, Apr 7, 2020 at 10:38 AM I do not think there is any question with only one answer. Even the question of time is relative. One of the defining characteristics of Project 59is its ability to address potentially any question. Lets try this: Q. Which project have I been working on for 25 years? A. Project 59. (Feb. 21, 2020) Still not entirely accurate: I was working on other projects during those 25 years as well. (April 5, 2020) Question 53: Thu, Apr 16, 2020 at 5:48 AM Thank you for the clarification. Those answers work for me! Now, as we start to see light at the end of this 59 mile tunnel, I would like to turn our attention towards possible exhibition/publishing outcomes for this wonderful extended asynchronous interview project. Apart from the obvious meta-pleasures invariably introduced through any discussion destined for public display musing upon its own destiny, I would like to propose the first of many possible exhibition/publishing outcomes. Once copied out of this email thread and edited for clarity and readability, we could adjust the font accordingly until the entire asynchronous interview fits neatly across 59 pages. Your thoughts? Answer 53: Sun, Nov 8, 2020 at 2:14 AM Can not believe this question was asked in April. What a time that was — so much stress: the death of my ex-husband, COVID, the urgent transition to online teaching. I spent a month in Moscow clearing out our studio, where I encountered everything I had left behind almost 30 years earlier: hundreds of books, at least a thousand works by my ex-husband, some of my works, my father’s works. There was a series of small collages I left for the show just before the departure in 1992. It was made from my father's collection of soviet newspaper headlines. He was a designer and collected fonts from different headlines. When he retired and left for the USA, he passed down the collection to me and I created about 30 short collage-stories from it. There was one loose headline left among the collages. It read: "Now and thirty years ago". I guess, I just got ready to answer your question: Great idea to manipulate fonts to fit the page. Recently, I digitized videos from my trip to the intersection of the 59th latitude and 59th longitude in the Perm region in 1999. Back then, on the way to Perm — coincidentally the 59th region of Russia — I stopped in Penza to give a lecture about Project 59 at the local Meyerhold Museum, located in building No. 59, where Vsevolod Meyerhold was born. I was amused to see the poster: “Irina Danilova. Project 59. Meaningless Art Project.” I had completely forgotten about the word “meaningless.” It was a revolt against any ideology in art, especially in the post-Soviet context. Early on, I also called the project “absurd,” although it never was absurd either. In order to create something new — to follow intuition rather than rationality — I had to strip away any fixed meaning and move boldly into the future. Now when the future has turned into the past, I can see the logic behind the project’s path. Everything suddenly falls into place, as it did in Moscow with that loose headline 30 years later. Question 54: Tue, Nov 17, 2020 at 12:14 AM Indeed. Readers of this increasingly temporally distributed interview will note that the most conspicuous absence straddles the clusterfuck that is COVID -19 (together with a constellation of other historically tectonic events in 2020 more generally). As you stand towards the end of this tumultuous year, what would you say to that person who left Moscow 30 years ago? What does this collaboration between your "older" and "newer" self now reveal about_________________ __________________ __________________ ___________ __________(PLEASE FILL IN THE BLANKS)? Answer 54: Thu, Jan 7, 2021 at 5:41 AM The biggest thing between me 30 years ago and now is the entirety of Project 59 that will not fit in two lines. When we finish this conversation, 59 answers may just open it a bit. There was a huge German catalogue, Kunst, Europa, in the former studio in Moscow, where, in 1991, one of my major works of that time was published under my ex-husband's name. Because his last name started with the letter "A,” it also became the first image in the Soviet section of the catalogue — which somehow felt symbolic of Soviet superficiality. One of 59 reasons for Project 59 was also the fact that the number worked as my identity stamp. As for speaking to my younger self, I would skip it entirely, since both art and life unfold on their own, and no words could truly alter anything. Question 55: Tue, Jan 19, 2021 at 12:27 AM That is fascinating. Thank you for sharing this story (and the catalogue). Now we will turn our attention to the near future. After a strong opening episode in the 2021 season in the poorly scripted but nevertheless utterly compelling ongoing dystopian drama that gripped us all throughout 2020, the world is once again looking towards the circus that is Washington DC. I am wondering what you think will happen in the first 59 days of the Biden/Harris presidency? Answer 55a: Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 5:57 AM Judging by the frequency of my answers, this is a very optimistic question. After the great outcome of the 59th U.S. presidential election, first let us get today through the 59th Presidential Inauguration, on the 1,459th day since the previous one. Answer 55b: Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 1:40 a.m. I hope that 59 days would be enough to begin restoring the nation after four years of shame. Question 56: Mon, Feb 1, 2021 at 12:58 AM Have you ever encountered a social or political context anywhere in the world in which the number 59 implicated an unexpected faux pas or antagonism? Answer 56: Tue, Feb 2, 2021 at 6:55 AM Way too many: COVID numbers may reach 59 in various combinations. In the first two weeks of this year, there were 59 gunshot victims in South Los Angeles. The Las Vegas shooting claimed 59 lives. Mike Pence was born in 1959 — which could, in a way, explain the final glimpse of his “human face” during the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Dyatlov Pass incident took place in January 1959. A random number is random. At the outset of this playful project, I made the decision to focus only on positive outcomes, and I would still rather do the same, because when there is a disaster, there is no place for a game. Question 57: Mon, Feb 8, 2021 at 11:38 PM The phrase "unprecedented event" has been used a lot recently. Perhaps it is not as if significance should necessarily be accorded to the unprecedented event itself but rather in that which it reveals and extends within preexisting conditions and structures. These are the real ruptures. Have any of the "unprecedented events" of the last year or so illuminated preexisting aspects of Project 59 in a clearer light? Answer 57: Thu, Feb 11, 2021 at 12:38 PM Some events are happening beyond our comprehension or knowledge. Recently, I realized that we missed the opportunity to celebrate the only multiple of 59 years in my lifetime: 2006 (59x34). Some events occur beyond our awareness. I recently realized that we failed to commemorate the only multiple of 59 years within my lifetime: 2006 (59 × 34). That also means we were born into the generation of 59 × 33 (Jesus’ age). Then I realized that, even without being aware of this fact, I had created my first New Year film for 2006, playing with the numbers of the year and 59. After that, I made New Year videos two more times: in 2015 and this year. I am not sure why 2015 but the number of this year is a multiple of 59 in the Bahá’í calendar (59 × 3), and before it expires in November, it will overlap on September 7 with a multiple of 59 in the Jewish calendar (59 × 98). Everything under the moon is unprecedented. We are now waiting for The New York Times No. 59,000 — on Saint Patrick's Day, 20??. Question 58: Sat, Feb 13 Yet at the same time, one can never reproduce the exact conditions under which something occurs. As Deleuze showed us, we can only recognise difference as a consequence of repetition. What is your understanding of the relationship between difference and repetition in Project 59? Answer 58: Mon, Feb 15, 2021 at 7:17 AM Multiples and repetitions (if repeated enough) are a definite part of Project 59. Repetition creates differences as light creates shadows. My online students now draw not only the same still life but also from the same angle (in online class: my video on their screen) and yet all drawings are totally different. Even though it is the same sound repeated, it is at a different time, and the same image is in a different place and light. It is an axiom (isn't it?) of our universe, our existence. We lack any better knowledge. There are 5 and 9 and 14, even if repeated fewer than 59 times. —-- Multiples and repetitions — if repeated often enough — are an essential part of Project 59. Repetition creates differences, just as light creates shadows. My online students draw the same still life from the same angle — they all see the same video on their screens — and yet every drawing turns out completely different. Even when the same sound is repeated, it occurs at a different moment in time, and the same image exists in a different place and under different light. Perhaps this is an axiom of our universe, of our existence itself. At least, we have no better knowledge. Therefore, by definition, there are differences without repetition. (Should we ask Gilles Deleuze how that is possible? :) ) City Drawings, Dinners, and all serial projects are based on the idea of repetition, with the goal of revealing new sets of differences, because differences are major sources of progress. P.S. Hiram mentioned the definition of insanity — repeating the same thing while hoping for different results. Question 59: Sun, Feb 21, 5:38 PM OMG, we are almost there! What a magnificent journey! I am now very sorry to report that there is only one thing left to ask! I now need you to systematically list 59 different ways in which we can potentially use/exhibit/publish this asynchronous interview. Answer 59: Mon, Feb 22, 2021 4:51 PM So far, lists have been successfully avoided, and giving up now would be a little too late. It was tiring enough to read 59 questions and answers. Limited-edition books could be published by 59 PRESS, a division of Project 59 Inc. Visually I like the way it was collected in an email format. It creates a kind of triangle, or upside down funnel, through which the information drops. If I were to make a wall installation, I would mimic this structure: one question and answer at the top, two beneath, and so on, all the way down to all 59 questions and answers on the bottom line. Let’s make a book, a website first. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- S.L.: Yay! We arrived! CONGRATULATIONS!! Starting with a book and a website after editing makes sense. I.D.: We finished a bit too early. Our conversation lasted exactly 55,728 × 59 minutes. A week later, it could have been 55,900 × 59… not to mention 59,000 × 59 in just four months. Such a rush. Mon, Mar 1, 4:35 PM 2021 S.L. Damn! We should add this information as a postscript! |