10.17.2010

Interlude: Art Placebo

Don't you think the pharmakon library would be a perfect addition to their research 'hallway'?

Behring | Institute for Medical Research
CALL FOR: PLACEBOS FOR ART.

--I'm very confused by this CFP.

--I checked the medical references. They appear to be fictitious. The institutes, medical schools etc mentioned do not seem to exist. The pharmaceuticals don't exist. There is a Dr. Kristina U. who is a prof at University of Puget Sound, they mustve picked her name out of random searches for a cool doctor name.

-- I especially appreciate how close 'Behring' is to 'Schering,' which does fund a lot of art in their own self-interest. It's also amusing how the title is "Placebos for Art" but is asking for "Art Placebos." The latter is certainly more innovative. The world is full of 'placebos for art.'

--They at least have enough funding to buy an e-flux ad...

--very amusing! now what if e-flux is yesman-ized...

-- was seriously considering entering the pharmakon library. i mean. Get down.

-- ‎...by rich Dutch medical students who are tired of their government giving so much money to art...

-- I can't imagine a better placebo.

-- did you check out their 'research facilities' photo? it's called hallway.png.

-- After all the Museum of Hygiene is in Dresden, for real. Maybe that 's where "Mrs. Andersom" did her post-doc fellowship.

-- That hallway is great. Imaginary researchers sunning themselves in the hall... And they have an alliance with the "Banned Substances Control Group." What a riot!!

--AKA BS Control Group.

--I think the term "Paramedicine" is too good to be left to languish on a hoax website. I'm gonna resuscitate that one sometime...

-- Okay okay... one last thing: "Nocebo is used to label the harmful, unpleasant, or undesirable reactions (or responses) that a subject manifested (thus, "nocebo reactions" or "nocebo responses") as a result of administering an inert dummy drug or placebo, where these responses had not been chemically generated, and were entirely due to the subject's pessimistic belief and expectation that the inert drug would produce harmful, injurious, unpleasant, or undesirable consequences. "

-- The. Best.

-- "Exclusions (conditions that would prevent a volunteer from participating in this study):
Persons taking Rosiglitazone, Popglitazone, steroids, and immune suppersants."

Popglitazone!!! who knew??

4 comments:

kidNeutrino said...

hmmm, damn! I love the idea of this call. A whois query seems to reveal that is was only registered 13 days ago. This seems unlikely for an institute existent from 1997, but I suppose this could be a new registrar for the institute.
Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

Domain Name: BEHRINGINSTITUTE.COM
Registrar: ASCIO TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Whois Server: whois.ascio.com
Referral URL: http://www.ascio.com
Name Server: NS01.ONE.COM
Name Server: NS02.ONE.COM
Status: ok
Updated Date: 05-oct-2010
Creation Date: 05-oct-2010
Expiration Date: 05-oct-2011

>>> Last update of whois database: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 02:45:02 UTC <<<

kidNeutrino said...

so with a little more research, I have discovered that the address for sending in entries appears to be have a couple of arts organizations in the building. (search: Herenmarkt 93F, 1013 EC Amsterdam, The Netherlands).

the most suspicious of the two, a certain satellite01, is only one letter different in the address (93E vs. 93F). a search of "sattelite01 + Amsterdam" leads me to a site named zedz.org which is a portfolio site of a 8-bit inspired graffiti artist/painter.

kidNeutrino said...

one more and then i will step back. these sites also lead me to visualdata.org which links to a behance portfolio for Ronald Wisse, Amsterdam based designer/artist...

that was great fun.

Patrick Collier said...

After receiving a .pdf of the new brochure for the Placebos for Art, now Art of Healing, I wrote to them, as I did when I first saw the initial ad. All of my questions have been regarding the issue of subjectivity when approaching something presented as art. How does one know? Ever since the readymade, right?

I have tried to get them to address these issues and get rather insipidly agreeable responses, all from this "Mrs. Anderson." It feels like I'm being blown off and I am very tempted to call them to see what happens.

In that I am an artist who does a fair amount of art writer, my interest has been peaked, and one way or another they are getting written about.