#devin kenny

[contemporaryartdaily]

“LEAN” at Kunsthall Stavanger

[skowhegan]

Baseera Khan (’14), Devin Kenny (’09), Hank Willis Thomas (’05), Kambui Olujimi (’06), Jayson Musson (’11), Shaun Leonardo (’04) and others Wu Tang Clan x Absolut Art 555 West 25 St October 24 & 25

[voodoovoodoo]

[cod6tt6]

http://www.aqnb.com/2017/07/06/entangling-uncoded-realities-with-the-codette-presented-holons-night-of-readings-in-new-york-jul-6/

[criticalmethodsforfirdausi]

Short Writing: Devin Kenny's Talk at Strangers

In the Art, Theory, and Practice department's first symposium Strangers in May of 2015, Devin Kenny gave the first of many talks. Strangers was meant to emulate the space of an underground bar focused on illicit activity and the disruption of ideological narratives. Kenny's talk certainly did not disappoint in exhibiting this theme.

As introduced by his colleague Thomas Love, Devin Kenny is an artist who needs no introduction and assumes the role of a familiar, yet not wholly acquainted with friend. Love notes that Kenny plays with the boundary between idiosyncrasy and commonality—that is, he makes audiences question whether something was a cultural reference or something truly strange. This spirit of playfulness and commentary on mainstream institutions was certainly exhibited throughout Kenny's talk.

After taking the podium, Kenny opened by rapping to a song, in what felt like a disorienting and awakening experience. Kenny then discussed his history with the internet—as a younger artist, he was able to recall chatting on older Internet tools like Usenet and IRC as teen in the era of Web 2.0. Kenny expressed that his opening performance was a form of trolling, a nefarious activity particularly characteristic of Internet users like himself at the time. Indeed, Kenny's talk discussed at length what defined trolling by comparison with troll-like art forms and cultural production.

The first item trolling was compared to was art produced to shock the bourgeoisie. However, Kenny noted that this sort of art was explicitly created to form some sort of culture, unlike internet trolling. Kenny then turned to reference material, noting Wikipedia's definition of "bad faith" and Merriam-Webster's notes on "playing yourself." These concepts were useful in helping Kenny outline the unique experience of being on the Internet. Because of its lack of physicality and pseudonymity, users often engage in bad faith practices and act ambivalent to the concerns of the millions of other fellow users.

Kenny then discussed explicitly three types of internet trolling. The first one, which he discussed at length, is ad hominem attacks. This type of "argument" is often used in internet debates when the debater's platform is on shaky ground, leading them to insult their interlocutor's person rather than argument. As a non-internet example, Kenny presented a clip from Bill O'Reilly in which O'Reilly attacks a journalist for their manner of speech and old appearance. Kenny expresses disdain at the use of trolling even when the subject is of significant importance, like global warming, or a plainly factual nature, like the roundness of Earth. Certainly, in the era of COVID, anti-scientific debate is something the general public is now familiar with.

The other two forms of trolling Kenny explained were doxing and swatting. Kenny noted that doxing, the act of obtaining personal, sensitive information about an internet user, is distinct from blackmail in that doxers do not wish to bargain with their victims—the information is gathered and released for the sake of pure harm. Swatting is also a form of pure harm. In a swatting, trolls will call a false police report on someone, usually a person who is livestreaming a video game. The troll gains nothing other than the enjoyment of watching police storm the streamer and detain them.

Kenny goes on to explicate the nature of trolling as being an end in and of itself. After reciting the 12 Commandments of Flaming, Kenny discusses how trolls came to exist. After the rise of blogging, hacking as a form of sadism ceased to be popular, and trolling in comment sections and discussion forums became commonplace. Kenny notes astutely that trolling cannot exist where there is some hierarchy of power, otherwise it would simply be satire.

It is here that Kenny explicitly dives into the worlds of art and politics. Behavior like defacing street art or the work of the Church of Satan are expressly not trolling, even though they have a similar disruptive nature. These non-troll actions are meant to effect some change in the community or politics, whereas true trolling is done without any such motivation. After going through several more examples of trolling and almost-trolling, Kenny concludes the talk by once again singing a song before opening up for questions.

Another aspect of the talk I found interesting that occurred throughout was Kenny's fiddling with his MacBook. Rather than a curated slide deck, Kenny presented clips and images by searching through his file folders and opening them up individually. Additionally, he would sometimes pause to scroll through a set of images as he talked. If not for the subject of the talk, I would assume this was simply a case of lacking tech-savviness. However, as I am now familiar with Kenny and his style, it seems clear that the talk itself was an elaborate troll and an instance of his tendency to play with the boundary of idiosyncrasy and commonality. Indeed, the talk felt more like an art performance than any sort of lecture.

Overall, I thought Devin Kenny's talk was fascinating as someone more familiar with internet trolling than contemporary art. Seeing these defined in terms of each other gave me a deeper appreciation of both.

[henridelaposte]

Devin Kenny

I Do My Best Thing on The Bus (Part A)

2021

Found object and galvanized aircraft cable

35 x 35 x 3"

“The Rainbow Body Problem” is a phrase coined for this exhibition, a portmanteau of two concepts: the “rainbow body” of Tantric tradition, and the “mind-body problem” a term referring to conflicting ideas of human consciousness. In various schools of tantric thought, an especially enlightened practitioner is said to possess an etheric rainbow body; when they die their physical attributes quickly dissipate and rainbows are seen near the time and place of their death. Within philosophical thought, the mind-body problem alludes to the debate over whether human consciousness is dualist or monist in nature — Is the mind separate from the body, or are both things one? Using these ideas as inspiration, the Rainbow Body Problem explores how embracing beauty can be a vehicle for freedom or an escapist trap...In contrast, many of the other works take on a muted, spectral tone, but have transcendent currents in form and content: Lea Cetera’s endearingly decrepit prayer hands cast in wax and plastic bodega bags, Whitney Hubbs’ intimately ritualized B&W photo of her painted body taken during youth, Devin Kenny’s video installation of ascension and detached longing, Bob Mizer’s quiet studies of sublimated desire, Alan Vega’s descending sculpture of lights and iconographic detritus...Much of the work revels in the beauty of aesthetics but also takes heed to be suspicious of this power, evident in a common self-reflexivity in the process of creation. If the potential of the rainbow body lies in the clear light of unencumbered freedom, this show seeks to inquire into creativity’s destination, whether it be on earth or in the sky.

[jiahao-fu]

When I first saw this exhibition , I think it is really normal stuff. But he use lots of different object to communicate his idea such as music,sculpture,video, and installation. Read all his art background. Let me reconsider the Black people living actuality how these force shape racial politics and comminity. So the “rootkits rootwork” allow audiences to explore their genetic heritage and find their cultural identity.

[skowhegan]

Devin Kenny (A ’09), Mierle Laderman Ukeles (F ’00), and others
   A New Job To Unwork At Participant Inc 253 E Houston St #1 New York, NY 10002 Sep 9–Oct 14, 2018