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The door is a threshold and it becomes a way to structure the whole show, a central node that you’re drawn to, or have to pass through, as from the front end of the website. And once you pass, you’re on stage, or, if you like, the back end of the website. The place where you have actors; some good, some nefarious.
TIM WAGG
I’m video calling from inside your exhibition Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop: seating proposals for a Grantmaker at Michael Lett’s East Street gallery. The sun has not yet risen but it feels important to conduct the interview from inside the exhibition, to keep the encounter with the sculptural objects as a central element of the conversation.
MICHAEL STEVENSON
I’m in Berlin, at home … It’s the evening here now. It’s great to see this view, actually, even if only on camera. I was in Auckland earlier this year but haven’t been present for the install or the exhibition.
As you first enter the exhibition space you come across five central soft-sculptural objects—four are blue and one is a deep red.
I imagined soft furniture in cubic form on the ground floor of the hall, a space where an audience once sat, or a group of believers gathered. I was interested in putting furniture back into this space. So these are seats, in the form of soft sculptures or beanbags. And what’s surprising now, as I see you with them, is how oversized and overstated they are, like Rosetta Stones.
Moving closer, you can see the velvety surface and you notice text etched into the fabric. What is the source of the text?
Each cubic form is named for and printed with text taken directly from a heading on the main menu of the now-defunct Future Fund website, a philanthropic charitable fund. The idea was to take this online content and turn it into something physical as an offline archive. Scrolling online now finds its equivalent by physically flipping the faces of these cubic bags so new content—a new page—is revealed as you manoeuvre the object.
They’re incredibly comfortable to lie on, perhaps while contemplating a potential proposal. But because of their weight and unruly shape, when it comes to flipping them to read all the sides, it can be quite difficult …
It’s physical … so no longer a frictionless online experience.
What is the Future Fund and how did you come across it?
The Future Fund was the philanthropic arm of the now collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. The board members of FTX (all currently under legal investigation for fraud) and the team members from Future Fund were closely affiliated with effective altruism (EA), a twenty-first century charitable movement. Key here is the principle of earning to give (E2G)—followers are encouraged to look beyond traditional careers in the non-profit sector toward lucrative higher-earning industries where salaries are much more scalable. Donating a significant portion of this premium is their stated aim; it’s backed up by a lot of data to prove their model is a more cost-effective, efficient path toward a better future.
I’d been tracking Future Fund from quite early on, but there was never much information available, just a simple website and the now-dead Twitter feed. At first, I was intrigued by the name … I mean, it’s an incredible name; it says nothing at all, but also everything. It seemed like it was trying to be something it was not.
When you first saw it, was it still an active website?
It was. I felt it had a lot of resonance for the cultural sector. Artistic life involves a lot of time spent applying for funding. This website was dedicated to informing people or future grantees how to apply, so it was familiar territory, but because of where it’s coming from and what it was attempting to do, it was also new, and the approach differed from the usual go-to funding options.
That is something I am struck by when reading the chairs. I feel like I am taking up the character of a hopeful applicant ‘scrolling’ through in preparation of an application.
Exactly. That’s also why, in a sense, it transforms this mundane activity. Wouldn’t it be great to have The Apply Chair (2023) at home, for some support and comfort as you write?
It would be.
And, when deadlines loom—time is short— maybe the engraved text can still yield useful advice … together with quite a few caveats.
I’m interested in what you think about the language and prose used on the Future Fund website.
Right now, you’re seated in this archived website, the front end, the normal point of interaction between user and fund. The language has a very particular tone to it; it’s very upbeat, casual and straightforward; it reaches out to the user, not untypical of the way a lot of online services communicate with clients or customers.
Currently, I’m looking at one of the sides which reads, “It’s okay if you think your project will probably fail, as long as the upside is big enough if you do succeed.”
This goes back to their philosophical approach, it’s definitely coming from a start-up position, a position built to create change. So seeing value in things that other people have not seen value in as yet. Taking risks, making bets.
It seems as if it was written quite quickly.
I think you’re right, the whole thing seems rushed. One of my interests is its brevity. The speed of its launch, and the speed of its demise. It was only live for around seven months in 2022, but it represents the bigger cryptocurrency ecosystem at the time, at an apex moment, as change takes place.
I’m interested in pivots—in the ways industries, ecosystems, cultures and so on change. Sometimes this happens quickly, and this was very quick; it happened in only a few weeks.
Do you think those at the Future Fund were acting in earnest? What was the philosophy driving the Future Fund’s decisions and behaviours?
I think this goes back to the culture of effective altruism, which has been this kind of moveable feast. EA began as something very earnest but shifted its focus in lots of ways, they now have huge stadium events, they’ve invested in significant real estate and have moved away from trying to save lives directly in the here and now—probably best summed up in their mosquito-nets era, nets being the most effective way of reducing the spread of malaria—to a greater focus on existential risk, coming up with solutions to future catastrophes.
Also, E2G shifted their whole idea of labour, away from direct participation to earning money in the most high- paying industries and then donating. It’s a shift that subtly begins to steer their version of moral philosophy toward a collision course with moral hazard.
On an episode of the economics podcast Odd Lots last year, FTX’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried, also known as SBF, is asked about yield farming, a cryptocurrency version of what I understand to be accruing interest through holding cryptocurrency coins. Explaining what gives a coin value, he gives the analogy of a box. The box may or may not have a use-function, but either way it has a value, a value that is determined by how much those willing to buy in believe that the box has or will have at a future date, which is then amped up further by those fearful of missing out. The benefit (described as cynical by the hosts) that SBF sees in this is that, by having the value and money coming in, you can then create something useful in the future, perhaps the thing you said the box could do the entire time.
The action of reclining, falling backward (into the chair), entrusting your body to material properties for physical support, has been likened to baptism, but it’s also perhaps a description of yield farming, too.
Maybe we should be calling these cubic bags ‘boxes’. One thing about this form is that it’s got a large interior volume that is not revealed. The inner workings remain hidden.
There’s the moment when you alter the bag, or box, through your interaction.
The contents are part foam chip, part shredded documents … The foam gives it rebound, more bounce to the ounce. When you stand up again the form rises, too, ever so slightly.
Once you have moved through the bean bags you then encounter a doorway …
It’s a breach in the wall, a wall that’s part of the gallery refit. It’s referred to as the main display wall; it’s very large and white, and it sits very precisely between the stage and the space where the believers would gather.
And that’s exactly the position of the hypothetical structure known as the ‘fourth wall’ that is widely discussed and understood in theatre, also in film, which also has online application. It divides the stage and characters from the audience, and defines how they communicate.
I was fascinated with the idea that this could be, and was, physically built. As much as the space is a former revival hall, it’s also very theatrical. And then, of course, along with the idea of the fourth wall comes its breaking … in the Brechtian sense, like when characters on stage lose kayfabe, go out of character, communicate with the audience in another mode. I think we can see by the way you’re moving in the space, the door is a threshold and it becomes a way to structure the whole show, a central node that you’re drawn to, or have to pass through, as from the front end of the website. And once you pass, you’re on stage, or, if you like, the back end of the website. The place where you have actors; some good, some nefarious.
At the door, fixed to its surface, there’s this quite elaborate door knocker. Can we maybe double-click on that for a moment …?
[Two audible knocks are performed]
You could think of one of the origin points of effective altruism and also FTX and Future Fund as being Peter Singer, the moral philosopher, originally from Australia, who
now teaches at Princeton—a remarkable and also very controversial figure.
A lot of the moral philosophy deployed within these spaces is written using thought experiments. One of the most famous proposed by Singer is called ‘The Shallow Pond’—the protagonist is on their way to work, in their best clothes and, as they’re travelling, they pass by a shallow pond. A child is in the pond in desperate need of help. So, the question to the protagonist is: What to do? Do you sacrifice your best clothes, jump in and save this child, or not? Of course, there really isn’t an alternative here. We jump in and save the child.
The thought experiment is then expanded geographically to, say: What’s the difference if this child or person in desperate need is no longer on your way to work but living in another country? Are you still morally obliged to reach out to them and help or assist them in whatever way you can? So that is the foundation of a lot of Singer’s thinking. And it’s a basis for effective altruism, as well.
I was interested in developing this thought experiment as a door knocker. One element is this brass figure, deep in thought. To its right, there’s this other figure of a drowning child, scratched directly into the door surface, into the paintwork … and this is the point where you come in.
Yes.
It was quite an assignment to scratch a drowning child into a door. Thanks for taking this on.
Of course, I learn a lot from projects like this.
It was the unevenness I was after, between this considered brass figure, which is very finished, and something very quickly scratched to create a real dynamic between the two elements.
In pre-production, I think we both assumed that the paint on the surface of the door was going to chip off quite easily. When it came to it, there was something about this enamel paint that made it incredibly difficult to scratch off. I finally got the paint to come off using a sharp nail and by working at each line multiple times.
I had this fantasy that it would be an act made by someone at the door with a key … done in thirty seconds with a fleeting quality. When I first saw it, I was a little shocked. The scratching was much more laboured than I had hoped for, but since then it’s really grown on me. This labour became interesting, because, in reading a lot of these thought experiments, I also realised they’re not very nicely written; there’s a lack of craft in terms of their literary form. I love thought experiments but often they are very laboured: the choices, the reduction. Within the EA ecosystem they’re often repeated over and again, like rehearsing a play or reciting a parable, and something of this is in the scratching.
Leading up to the doorway there are these steps. I’m wondering what material they’re made of, because it’s quite incredible, this recycled plastic composite. When I look at it, I see labels, there’s remnants of an Instant Kiwi scratchy, lolly wrappers …
The door and porch are suggestive of a suburban home. And it has what I think of as moments of sentimentality, but as much as certain elements meld together, it also suggests something else.
I really wanted the thing that juts into the public space, the thing you literally have to walk on, to be a misfit from the rest of the other building materials. I came across this recycled plastic material, which is quite remarkable, it’s so incredibly raw, I’ve never seen anything like it. And what I became fascinated by is that it’s an archive of recent history. As you’ve just demonstrated, the individual items from which it’s composed are clearly identifiable. All from last year, all from 2022. I was interested in bringing back this trash, things thrown away last year, and to have the viewer literally walk over this to be able to access the door.
Then there is the mosquito net in its bag, hooked over the door knobs, blocking you from closing the door.
The door is always ajar, inviting entry in a certain way.
And so you take the invite, you break the fourth wall, you move to the other side of the door and wall, and there you are confronted by this final cube. Unlike those in the public space it is quite raw, without the plush outer layer of the others.
That bag you’re looking at there, it’s actually what sits inside all the other bags you were just sitting on. So now we know what’s in the box … a less inviting box! It’s made from an upholstery material used for the underside of sofas. We opted for the grey and it turned out to be a close match to the colour of the floor. I thought it would be interesting to build something drab that was invisible in plain sight. It’s also been inverted, so the seams stand out, making it a lot more cubic. It is quite a transition from what you’ve been sitting on. I also think it has a kind of violence, in the act of turning inside out.
I agree it’s less inviting than the others. You don’t really want to sit or engage with it.
And, since this is the back end, a space you normally cannot access, and you’ve
just breached the fourth wall, something normally only actors do, this chair and setting is therefore different. It’s not appearing on the main menu. It’s not clickable and it has a very different name. It’s called The Grantmaker’s Chair.
Is this an embodiment of the Grantmaker?
Yes, maybe. Or a place where the Grantmaker would sit and make decisions.
The bag features these tags that give the outcomes to those souls who have applied for grants from Future Fund. Like here … “We understand it, we like it, and don’t see the potential for major downsides.”
That would be the affirmative.
And then on the other side … “We don’t see an easy path or a strong fit.”
That would be the negative. Then there are responses between the two that are much more standard from within a peer- review process, like “revise and resubmit.”
This being a movable object, you get the sense that the outcome of your application is going to be based on chance.
It’s more cubic, more like a dice, something aleatoric. And each face suggests a different outcome, at least in casual Future Funds speak. The labels are orientated on this box in such a way that you could potentially read them as you sit.
Behind the tags you’ve been reading sit a whole bunch of others, five or six more, which are all the fine print. Together they form books or novellas. They indicate the contract you enter into with Future Fund if you submit an application, whether it’s successful or not. I think of them as the care labels, those after-purchase contracts you unwittingly enter into with the company making the thing you’ve bought.
The fine print from Future Fund is quite revealing, at one point it indicates that they are not intending to read all applications and you can’t respond to any of their decision making.
Which, as you brought up earlier, suggests a sense of deceit, of things not being above board. But I wonder how much is deceit and how much is immaturity, an outcome of those involved with Future Fund actually just not knowing how things work.
Those things are mixed together. I think you have to remember, this is private-sector philanthropy, so they can administer and distribute funding however they want. It’s just that they clearly want legitimacy, and they’re a charitable fund, which entails some regulation. And going back to the name, Future Fund, I always saw this as a start-up posing as a sovereign wealth fund. It’s play-acting as an important piece of public-sector infrastructure.
I was really taken by some comments you made about Philip Guston and was wondering if they’d also have relevance for this project. You talk about a spatial division between Guston’s studio and a lounge where he would watch TV at a time … a time of great political upheaval. As things went on, the outside world he was consuming through media started leaking into his paintings. Guston seemed to be grappling with the act of making and its relationship with the world.
I see this remarkable change as the result of Guston simply moving between the two adjoining rooms you’ve just described. It was fascinating for me when I understood it as a contiguous architectural space. Digital currencies were originally a rejection of connected centralised spaces, they built their own room—built their own firewall blocking government and corporate controls on finance and personal data. Over a brief few weeks in 2022, in its most baroque iteration, we saw this alternate world hollowed out. The box became a much less compelling space and any lingering urge to keep buying in gave way to absurd theatre.
This was the momentary state of play later last year, when all but a few actors were out the door. So the decoupling had already happened and eventually the EA community moved their feast, too, without FTX, without Future Fund, and emerged this year into a new space or room or box heralding … AI concerns.
Now if you go back through the door to the other room, into the front end … and go back to the main menu and then to The Project Ideas Chair: A Longlist (2023), preferences are listed alphabetically, so these AI concerns track across the opening pages and likewise they can be seen, and felt, as engraved text across three full faces of the chair.
That crossing between the two rooms, between the studio and this outside content, I think this is where it all becomes really interesting to me and where it becomes greater than the sum of its parts. I come away from these works not just knowing more facts about the world, but feeling like I have new tools to better move through it.
I would hope it’s a little like a thought experiment. Hopefully, it’s better written. And hopefully it invites the viewer to engage with multiple outcomes … or at least more than two.
Header image: Michael Stevenson, The Shallow Pond, 2023, scratched polychromed wood, steel, brass, glass, ceramic, recycled plastic, 232 × 126 × 101 cm. Photo: Sam Hartnett
Michael Stevenson, Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop: seating proposals for a Grantmaker, 20 June–5 August 2023, Michael Lett, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
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