Alternate Title (A): "Who's In Charge of this Ephemeral Self Expression?"
Alternate Title (B): "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About How To Hang Out With Your Friends On Campus Without Having It Go Horribly Wrong"
Alternate Title (C): "Who's The Man Now Dogs?"
Alternate Title (D): What's Okay and Not Okay and The Good People Who Will Remind You If You Forget
The Art School was recently asked what its policy was regarding Musical (or Otherwise Amplified) Performances that happen on campus, outside of the gallery context. The short answer was "We don't have one", the long answer was "We support everything, but maybe we should make one of those policy things..."
And we came up with some new ideas, some of which I think are really excited but which aren't really hammered out yet so I won't get into.
FOR NOW I'd like to address the Art School's policy regarding unplanned, spontaneous musical performances. I wrote this. Ahem...
The School of Art permits School of Art students to hold informal musical, sound, or art performances in School of Art areas, as long as those events do not violate pre-existing CalArts and School of Art policy (including health and safety standards).
Pretty straightforward right?
But the devil is in the details.
What exactly is "pre-existing CalArts and School of Art policy (including health and safety standards)"? you might ask. Well, there's a lot of policies and health and safety standards, but in general it's like this----you can do whatever you want as long as you don't (A) endanger yourself or others, and (B) don't make too much noise and (C) aren't drinking alcohol.
Let's go over those one at a time...
(A) Endangering yourself or others....
If your unplanned art performance idea is to crawl along the exterior of the building wearing a suit covered in broken glass, you are endangering yourself (you could fall off the building, you could cut yourself) and others (you could fall off the building onto someone else and break their legs, then cut them with your broken glass suit in the ensuing struggle). CalArts will use any means at its disposal to stop this unplanned performance as it is happening, even if it is the best art you can make, because it's very dangerous.
(B) Don't Make Too Much Noise
All your best friends think you are sick on the axe. They love to hear you wail. You have impressed them so much, they tell you it is your one redeeming quality. The reason why they put up with your terrible personality. You don't know what those jerks are talking about but you like the part where they say you are good at guitar. You want the whole world to hear your guitar. You sit out on the C-Dock at 11pm and start playing this Randy-Rhoads-meets-Hot-Rats-era-Zappa thing you've been working on. It's not THAT loud, you're only using a practice amp. Meanwhile, someone trying to get some sleep in Ahmanson Hall is going out of their minds and calls Campus Safety to complain about open-ended quasi-metal noodling without benefit of a rhythm section, and the Campus Safety guy at the desk relays that into his walky-talky and the Campus Safety Officer near the C-Dock is like "I just walked right by that guy, he was playing something sounded like a 'Crazy Train' and 'Willie The Pimp' mashup, I'll ask him to stop or use headphones or something."
And guess what? He's allowed to ask you to stop, and you're supposed to stop. Why? Because you are Bothering People. And they complained.
You might be tempted to bark something like "Do you have any idea how much I pay to go to this school!!??" at this guy, but I wouldn't because he probably does, or maybe he doesn't, nobody cares, but whatever it is, it's pretty much what the four people who called to complain about you paid, so don't get bent out of shape, pal. It's okay. Take the high road. Lower the volume, or better yet, plug some headphones in that practice amp and just chill out. Then you can add "patience" and "empathy" and maybe a dash of "maturity" to your list of redeeming characteristics. I'm proud of you!
(C) Don't Be Drinking Alcohol
If you're doing any of the above and are drinking you've got no claim to any high road. I get it. Everyone gets it. Drinking is fun. But you're not supposed to do it on campus unless you're getting it from a can or a plastic cup from a Student Affairs bartender. If you're not, you got no case! So don't get all bent out of shape. Just forfeit right there.
And even though drinking can be fun, you don't HAVE to drink to have a good time, right guys?
The only people who are allowed to drink on campus are graduate MFA's within the confines of their Annex, Broad, A403 and Butler Building studio areas. And that was only permitted with the expectation that their gatherings would look like this...
Not This
OKAY, so that's that.
NOW, all the examples I made above are kind of assuming that these unplanned events are happening on a regular day when nothing much else is going on. As we all know, most people on campus all want to strut their stuff at the same time: Thursday Night.
The reason the School of Art was asked to come up with a policy regarding performances & events is because we had a number of such things going on and they caused some unfortunate confrontations and hubbub. THEN we started to get requests for the art school to officially sanction the use of specific areas for music performances ON THURSDAY NIGHT. The school of art does not want to discourage anyone from expressing themselves in any way they please. Honestly, nobody on campus wants to do thatt. But doing things on Thursday night, through official channels or spontaneously, is ALWAYS problematic because there are usually SEVEN OTHER ART EVENTS that night---namely ALL THE ART OPENINGS. So if there are seven art openings, with 4-to-7 bartenders there, then the obligatory "unofficial" (and often not staid-wine-and-cheese-affair-style) after-party in the Broad/Annex area, and THEN a punk rock show at the dock, PLUS whatever naked gamelanning and whatever other stuff happens to be going on that night, all happening within about six hours' time, all having to be monitored by like four over-burdoned campus safety officers, the campus safety officers' nerves will be a wreck, the safety and general well-being of everyone involved in all this can't really be monitored in any kind of effective way, there will inevitably be confrontations and bad things happening, and everything negative that happens that night will be perceived as the art school's fault. So I'm really in a position of having to strongly discourage any more THINGS happening on Thursday nights.
Phew.
And so if you want to have a PLANNED performance, where someone from the Art Office signs off on your location and time, I'm going to Generally Discourage planning that stuff for Thursday Nights. There are all the reasons listed above, and there are often a lot of other events on campus on that night too, and it's really hard for the Institute Coordinators to juggle all the needs of all these different people on this one night. Again, it's also very difficult for Campus Safety to monitor all these different concurrent events.
IN CONCLUSION:
Unplanned, spontaneous performances are fine, as long as no one complains and you're not doing anything illegal. If you're causing noise complaints or your gettin' dangerous then you're going to be asked to stop and you should stop.
You can plan your performance ahead of time and the art school will likely support the event, BUT if you're planning on doing it on Thursday night, you may not get clearance from me if there are too many other events going on that night.
(C) Don't Be Drinking Alcohol
If you're doing any of the above and are drinking you've got no claim to any high road. I get it. Everyone gets it. Drinking is fun. But you're not supposed to do it on campus unless you're getting it from a can or a plastic cup from a Student Affairs bartender. If you're not, you got no case! So don't get all bent out of shape. Just forfeit right there.
And even though drinking can be fun, you don't HAVE to drink to have a good time, right guys?
The only people who are allowed to drink on campus are graduate MFA's within the confines of their Annex, Broad, A403 and Butler Building studio areas. And that was only permitted with the expectation that their gatherings would look like this...
Not This
OKAY, so that's that.
NOW, all the examples I made above are kind of assuming that these unplanned events are happening on a regular day when nothing much else is going on. As we all know, most people on campus all want to strut their stuff at the same time: Thursday Night.
The reason the School of Art was asked to come up with a policy regarding performances & events is because we had a number of such things going on and they caused some unfortunate confrontations and hubbub. THEN we started to get requests for the art school to officially sanction the use of specific areas for music performances ON THURSDAY NIGHT. The school of art does not want to discourage anyone from expressing themselves in any way they please. Honestly, nobody on campus wants to do thatt. But doing things on Thursday night, through official channels or spontaneously, is ALWAYS problematic because there are usually SEVEN OTHER ART EVENTS that night---namely ALL THE ART OPENINGS. So if there are seven art openings, with 4-to-7 bartenders there, then the obligatory "unofficial" (and often not staid-wine-and-cheese-affair-style) after-party in the Broad/Annex area, and THEN a punk rock show at the dock, PLUS whatever naked gamelanning and whatever other stuff happens to be going on that night, all happening within about six hours' time, all having to be monitored by like four over-burdoned campus safety officers, the campus safety officers' nerves will be a wreck, the safety and general well-being of everyone involved in all this can't really be monitored in any kind of effective way, there will inevitably be confrontations and bad things happening, and everything negative that happens that night will be perceived as the art school's fault. So I'm really in a position of having to strongly discourage any more THINGS happening on Thursday nights.
Phew.
And so if you want to have a PLANNED performance, where someone from the Art Office signs off on your location and time, I'm going to Generally Discourage planning that stuff for Thursday Nights. There are all the reasons listed above, and there are often a lot of other events on campus on that night too, and it's really hard for the Institute Coordinators to juggle all the needs of all these different people on this one night. Again, it's also very difficult for Campus Safety to monitor all these different concurrent events.
IN CONCLUSION:
Unplanned, spontaneous performances are fine, as long as no one complains and you're not doing anything illegal. If you're causing noise complaints or your gettin' dangerous then you're going to be asked to stop and you should stop.
You can plan your performance ahead of time and the art school will likely support the event, BUT if you're planning on doing it on Thursday night, you may not get clearance from me if there are too many other events going on that night.
Does that make sense? I hope so.
COMING SOON...
My exciting post that is devoted ENTIRELY to explaining Campus Safety and its Procedures to you! I've already started working on it. It's epic.
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