*'Toilets not Temples" by artists Will Benedict and David Leonard. Shot in locations in France, Norway, India and the USA, it explores the transnational politics of food distribution through reportage, interviews and analysis, with various protagonists including a talking dolphin, giant rats and human rain.
Author: S.T. Lore
Client: Minerva
Artists: Will Benedict & David Leonard, Fiona Connor, Joshua Petherick, Puppies Puppies
Format: Catalogue, Web
Year: 2015
THE KING & THE RUSSIAN
'Polish-born Władysław Ziembicki (belonging not to one system, nor to any nation) re-entered the government building at exactly 11.23pm on the 31st of December. Using a pocketknife to force the locks, he quietly navigated to his desk and logged onto beige PC desktop: Number One. His profile — WZ — prefaced by an obscure quote (never referenced): ‘In the din of language, in the millions of words per minute, in the excrescence of press, film and television, there looms another, unmediated reality; and the first, which is mediated, cannot keep pass with the second, ever less so in the last century.’
Now in the near darkness, his belly distended by KFC Zinger burgers, Big M flavoured milk, and ENDONE® prescriptions, he posted to the World of Warcraft forum: ‘A nimbus of evil surrounds Blizzard Incorporated. Single crimes are no longer distinguishable from bureaucratic cruelty. I have been here 8 years and taken issue with every single expansion. The traditional ways of making gold (on top of questing and dailies) was to hone a crafting (or gathering) profession. It required at least a month to make any money, and yet old characters, rich from the previous expansions, wouldn’t know anything about the misery of starting afresh. No doubt those closest to the original hoard, as with many other ancient coin hoards, put out false information claiming: ‘that all things ancient, found in their part of the realm, belong to them!’ But to me, this only leads to further secrecy and misinformation. On top of all that, the old world mats have been disposed of and I could tolerate the world up-dates if they weren’t such an annoyance to navigate: unable to fly, doomed to hug the mountain passes, forced to struggle down perilous rope ladder descents. I mean I enjoy playing the monk and the holy priest (yet am only passably proficient at shadow). If only my shield, my sword, and my helmet were intact to protect from the unswerving arrows. Sadly, Blizzard has limited the ability to customize our armour and characters and cheapened the entire experience. The heraldic symbols that once distinguished armoured participants in combat (their faces hidden, their identities enclosed, their individual features masked forever). The bend sinister drawn crossways from right to left, crossing the centre and angling downward, featured on banners and flags, banderoles and pennons, pinsels and gonfalons, indicated a company disgusted with ‘formal rules’. Yes, I know these posts are usually met with, “K, bye” and “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out” but I’ve taken another wrong turn and figured I’d share what I feel. Yes, maybe I stayed too long and my chaos bolts are limp: the rest I’m sure you can guess. The game is no fun anymore.’
