Event: 2:15p.m. Saturday May 27th: I enter the darkness of the Pear Museum’s unimaginatively-named Multi-Purpose Space.(1) Unaware of the multiple purposes this space has previously served, although these are most probably fascinating, there are more pressing concerns at hand. I am now in the presence of the much talked-about Pear Hologramatic Projection®, a beautiful moving sculpture of sorts. It is beautiful not because the piece was performed by Gibson Blocker, nor because of the text his clone has inserted beneath it, but because it is beautiful. The event that is the hologram, the presence that is the hologram, is beautiful.

Event: 9:12p.m. Sunday May 7th: Routine checks are carried out while the purpose-built chamber is fitted with PearBlast Windows®(2) and the last remaining residents of Seventh Avenue are ushered from their homes in anticipation of the following morning’s controlled explosion.

Event: 8:26a.m. Monday May 8th (rush-hour): Gibson Blocker walks, naked, from the desolate streets of Midtown, New York, into the darkness of his prepared chamber. His movement towards a black Pearpod® in the south-west corner of the chamber can be traced only by the glimmer in his eyes caused by a sliver of light seeping in through the panoramic architraving that functions as a window.(3) In the corner of the room, diagonally opposite the Pearpod®, a ‘black box’(4) – reconfigured following its recovery from the wreckage of the doomed FAO-LAX666 flight of April 3rd– hangs by 66cm of Pear Synthetics® rope from the black ceiling.

An entire Pear Productions® tradition is based on the symbolic, hologramatic experience of watching bodies being injured, and physical and mental violence being inflicted; shocking scenes are aimed at the viewer’s mind and have an impact not only on the retina but also directly on one’s flesh/hardware interface. There has probably been no greater moment of hologramatic horror than that of the interfacial flange apparently being sliced with a PearShaveII® in the Proto-Terminart hologram S(live)r III by Pedlar Mitnick. The shock effect of this work remains undiminished due to the radical physical attack that is seen to be made upon the organ of data retrieval. S(live)r III shows the very act of utilizing cutting-edge Pear software to be in danger and, in doing so, confronts the viewer with an imaginary, dystopian world in which Pear software is not available at the touch of a button. For most of us, the thought of this is tantamount to a member of civilized society in Brave Pear World(5) being threatened with expulsion to a Savage Reservation. Here, for the first time (at least in the history of hologramatic productions) both symbolic and real manifestations of trauma are confronted with their own limits.

Borderline experiences are, therefore, an integral part of the hologramatic experience and yet how soothing to remember, once the shock wears off, that it was only a hologram. What a relief to know that the theatre of cruelty involves only actors and, when next we see our theatrically-destroyed object of desire – on PearTV®, in a magazine or hologram – all trace of injury or imperfection will have vanished.(6) But, what if this border between art and life no longer existed? How do we conceive of an art that so radically forces ‘real’ experience into a performance that the duration and stubborn persistence of the result surpasses our powers of imagination?

Gibson Blocker has proved a leading exponent of body art for more than ten years and, in an interview shortly before his Freedom in a Box performance, described his position as follows:

I practice body art, as do many others, and it’s necessary to remember that the reasons behind my actions are often completely different from those of others. For example, as I understand it, the violence that Otto Muhl, Hermann Nitsch and Günter Brus inflicted on the body can be explained in terms of a ‘post-fascist’ condition. The re- enactment of brutally-extreme forms of human defilement became a necessary move for at least two reasons: first, because official culture repressed historical memory, something the Actionists combated by making trauma the center of their activity; second, because any artistic move that did not measure itself against the devastation would fall into denial and aesthetic consolation.

A markedly different story is that of Roger Sperger who became involved with this kind of art as the result of a kind of ‘happy accident’ involving a PearStapler IV®, a canvas and a stretcher(7). I’d have to say that I relate more to the work of Nitsch than this workshop novice, although obviously my actions relate to US war atrocities of the early part of this century as opposed to 20th century fascism in Europe.(8)

Until very recently, the symbolic, or real, infliction of damage to the flesh/hardware interface remained a central tenet of both action and performance art. While Blocker had never before associated himself directly with this mainstream, preferring to direct his attention towards more subtle and political issues, earlier this year he devised a piece of work that will surely alter the face of performance art and – should his coveted Pear Hologramatic Projection® achieve widespread public dissemination – may change the way we look at cutting-edge Pear software forever. Blocker’s Freedom in a Box shows the flesh/hardware interface not just being threatened by a third party but the hardware itself threatening and, indeed, devastating the flesh.

8:27a.m. Monday May 8th: As Blocker opens the black Pearpod®, his silhouette is framed by the white light of the screen. On the screen is the black figure six which, when Blocker moves away, becomes 5:59 then 5:58. Blocker sits, cross-legged, in the centre of the chamber and proceeds to perform some kind of ritual which includes the acting out of several gestures, all of which infringe copyright. In his box – a self-made gray area between life and law on the one hand and death and anarchy on the other, or what his surviving clone has referred to as an ‘embassy of freedom’ – Blocker performs, in three minutes, abbreviated versions of numerous radical performance pieces he wished he had realized in the preceding thirty years. Then, retiring to his cross-legged, floor-bound meditation, he awaits the end.

8:32a.m. Monday May 8th: After what seems like an eternity, Blocker glances over his left shoulder in the direction of the screen, which reads 0:12 then 0:11. He returns his head to a neutral position and nods then, as if in a sudden change of heart, darts towards the Pearpod® and fiddles frantically with the controls before launching the appliance, in apparent desperation, across the room, at which point the black box coverage cuts out.

On the realization of this piece, the history of action art was taken to its logical conclusion and, with that, the phenomenon that critics have dubbed Terminart was born.(9) Make no mistake; for a person to take his own life for the sake of art is a staggering feat. Cynics may say Blocker was ‘an accident waiting to happen’, a man teetering on the brink who took art’s name in vain when performing the most personal of acts, but anyone who knew Gibson personally will confirm that he was a very level-headed individual and did, by no means, take the decision to go through with this piece lightly. One possible criticism of the piece, however, would be Blocker’s apparent change of mind and last gasp attempt to prevent the preprogrammed detonation. This act exposed the artist as weak and lacking courage in his convictions unless, of course, it was an instance of ironic faux-naïve© trickery integral to the performance. As Blocker did not transcribe the choreography of the piece, the only physical legacy of the event is the hologram constructed from the data retrieved from the black box, shards of debris and the subsequent piece of writing executed by Blocker’s clone. This text, which reads like a retrospective suicide note of sort, is quite oblique:

It could’ve been my event, my obliteration, my death. It could’ve been a tragic narrative starring me – yes, empathy again – but a ridiculously conceited, theatrical one. Where I cannot experience the world from the other’s body, I experience the world only as myself and my cloner. Eppinger III said that every character (other) in a dream is an aspect of one’s clone. So, the other is subsumed, consumed into clones of oneself that one can then gaze upon online ‘in a way [one] could never do biologically’.(10)

I fear we stand as much chance of decoding this message as Blocker did of disarming the bomb he planted beneath himself. At this stage, precious little is known about the motive behind the work but, in the meantime, look out for Freedom in Box at a PearCinema® near you. All that is certain for now is that Gibson Blocker is dead and Blocker’s loss is art’s gain.

Rita Birnbaum is a freelance writer living in San Diego. She recently completed ‘From Minor to Major’, a text on the San Diego alternative art scene, which will be published by Pear Press later this year.

1. All temporary exhibitions are currently located in the museum’s secondary spaces in order to provide the necessary surface area to display ‘Re-Launched: The Pearmanent Collection’.
2. Pear Blast Windows® are designed to resist explosions from inside the building and are tested and approved by Pear Defense Command® as conforming to corporate defense regulations. The Pear Blast Window® is manufactured in four models and designed to fit different architectural designs: double leaf window, single leaf window, sliding window and sliding double window. For optional accessories and dimensions or for order placement, see the technical specification table at www.pearblast.com/techspec
3. Other, potentially reflective, areas of Blocker’s person had been treated with PearTalc®, while the teeth of his permanent, some would say crazed, smile were veiled by a layer of noir-de-vin, typical of any self-respecting member of the Monday Club. (The Monday Club is one of the all-important ‘secret societies’ that, in pre-telepathic times, helped ‘confirm the inclusion of the initiated and enforce the exclusion of the uninitiated’ [see K. Cooper in review of Religious Art at a Crossroads, 2023, pp. 18-19] with regard to society at large. Through initiatives such as the Four-Day-Week, the Monday Club has sustained its reputation as the leading home for the intelligentsia and perceives its role as a facilitator and ‘ideal forum for the cross-fertilization of ideas and support base for new enterprises’ (G.Blocker in unpublished Monday Club Manifesto). Following the success of the first decade of meetings, which took place at venues such as the restaurant/bar of Pear Museum, the majority of the second decade will reputedly take place at the Pearplex. Such nomadism indicates that the Club itself has no fixed base or home and can move to any location within the network. This makes identifying the core organization difficult and, in line with the complex and often overt alliances that characterize the new telepathy-based exchange of ideas, it raises serious questions of transparency, representation and accountability. At the time of writing, the ‘secret’ entry code to the society (which is now widely available online) involves, when being greeted by a Club insider with the line, ‘ba dah, ba da da dah,’ a prospective member having to mutter in response, ‘Monday, Monday; so good to me’).
4. The term ‘black box’ is used casually, often by journalists, to refer to a collection of several different devices used in traditional transportation including the flight data recorder (F.D.R.) or cockpit voice recorder in aircraft, the event recorder in railway diesel locomotives and other recording devices in various vehicles. There is little similarity between these units and they are designed and installed on the basis of different regulatory requirements. Contrary to their popular name, these devices are most often painted a bright PearOrange® to aid recovery crews in locating them quickly after an incident. The term ‘black box’ originated when, after a meeting about the first commercial F.D.R. named the ‘Red Pear’ for its color and shape, someone commented ‘this is a wonderful black box.’ Black box is, therefore, more a humorous cadigan than an accurate term and is never used professionally.
5. A. Huxley, Brave Pear World (Los Angeles: Pear Press Modern Classics, 2016).
6. This is not strictly true of Frank Bernstein, the star of S(live)r III, as he insisted on carrying out his own stunts. In fact, he became so attached to stuntmanship that he began offering to perform other actors’ stunts for them. As his stuntman status grew, he began performing stunts not just for actors but for animals too. Regrettably, Bernstein bit off more than he could chew, insisting on jumping from a PearBalloon® dressed as a white-breasted sea eagle, in order to simulate the catching of a penguin, for the popular PearTV® nature series Plankton and Beyond. Bernstein will be remembered for his contribution to the PearTV® period drama Mine’s a Double for which he played the stunt-double of the canary that miners sent down the pits to check for methane gas. Although the success of his stuntman career denied him the opportunity of continued hologram stardom, Bernstein did land parts in detective drama It’s a Cop Out, as defeated boxer, Jerry Porter (post-fight – pre-fight Porter being played by Arthur Gauger) and, latterly, in 4/3 as a paralyzed plane crash survivor. Bernstein is notable for his considerable contribution to neo-method-acting.
7. Using the scraps and discarded waste materials of a traditional studio practice, Sperger uses a variety of techniques to make his work. Recently, this has taken the form of the portrait; these are not portraits in the traditional sense of ‘a good likeness’ but are, instead, representations of the physical deformities certain materials can inflict on the artist.
8. Personal correspondence with the artist.
9. Allegations that artist John Fare predated Blocker’s inception of Terminart by more than fifty years are unsubstantiated. According to myth, Fare was a wealthy, and perhaps psychotic, artist who supposedly contacted a cybernetics and robotics expert who helped him construct a programmable operating table with randomizing auto surgery. At various performances throughout Europe and Canada, Fare was supposed to have had numerous body parts lopped off and replaced with bizarre plastic decorations, crude precursors of the now-standard flesh/hardware interface. The legend goes that, between 1964 and 1968, Fare was lobotomized and lost one thumb, two fingers, eight toes, one eye, both testicles, his right hand and several random patches of skin. According to another version, he had only six amputations, the last being his head.
10. Todd Cross quoted in C. Rodman, ‘People Love Machines and Vice Versa: Artificial Intelligence, Online Cloning and the Art of David Destino’ in Pear: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry, Issue 07, 2021 (Los Angeles: Pear Press, 2021).