I appear to be wiser… because I do not fancy I know what I do not know. — Socrates
With all of my friendship, Jean (Baudrillard), Cultural Theorist/Philosopher
In the tradition of Abraham, the iconoclast… Pier Marton. — Dr. Sander Gilman, American Cultural/Literary Historian
a reflective, thoughtful presence/intellectual rigor with unbridled creativity and curiosity/integrity and authenticity characterized by an inner strength…— Bill Viola, Leading and Pioneer Video Artist
He is ahead of us all and behind everything that is. — Tamiko Thiel, Artist (“The Female Supercomputer Designer Who Inspired Steve Jobs”)
PM rakes the virtual screens and the tablets of our hypocrisies with the sharp claws of the avenging angel. — Aribert Munzner, Artist/Dean Emeritus
His “visceral” pedagogy…an essential and exceptional being… generosity and tolerance. Most striking is his mixture of humanity and intelligence. — Robert Cahen, Leading French and Pioneer Video-Artist
You write from an estranged place... — Charles Bukowski, Poet
Glad you think the same… Dr. Frans de Waal, Primatologist/Ethologist
The Unlearning Specialist at the school is Pier Marton. After teaching media for more than thirty years at major U.S. universities, and three weeks in an I.C.U., PM “imploded” (cf. below) and realized the urgent need to teach unlearning, and to focus on key blind spots: what is NOT being taught and NOT being perceived. We may start with media and the visible, but extend quickly to our “core concepts” – the source of our permanent distractions.
The arrogance of normalcy. — PM
“I am the irritant, that grain of sand that will bother you enough so that in time you may produce a pearl.” – PM
PM has lectured with his work at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Carnegie Museum. Besides those museum collections, his work is also collected by Paris Beaubourg’s museum, Canada’s National Gallery of Art, and the Paris Mémorial de la Shoah. While his many peregrinations made him appreciate Artaud, Daumal, Grotowski, Jarry, Michaux, Gilbert-Lecomte, Porchia, Beckett, Voronca and many others,* his university teaching, and his “bleeding for art” (in his own work and in collaboration with Nitsch), have all prepared him to be fully receptive of the vacuum that awaited him following a brain hemorrhage with complications. Upon his release from the hospital, he could not not perceive “the arrogance of normalcy”; most human activity, short of the instinct to care, had become absolutely arbitrary – a point of no return to any kind of consensus or belief, however appealing or comfortable.
* like Álvarez, Anders, Barthes, Baudrillard, Berger, Borges, Brecht, Bresson, Cage, Larry David, Debord, Thich Nhat Hahn, Ivan Illich, Le Clézio, Marker, Lévinas, Melville (Bartleby), Morin, Naess, A.S. Neill, Rossellini, Rimbaud, Shalamov, Tarkovski, Tati, Turrell, U.G. and Watts.
The John Cage of the classroom. — Ann Hirsch, Artist
Intelligence, patience and kindness, an unmatched passion as an educator. — Aaron Duffy, Artist/Director
I have never met anyone who was born to teach as Pier is. — Paola Laterza, Artist/Educator
Your class was the one useful course I took in my whole college career and the one class I still use in my daily life. — MK, Composer/Entrepreneur
Individual identity, individual healing, individual transcendence are his subjects. — John Russell, The New York Times Nightmares, he insists can only be dreamed by a conscious mind. — Douglas Blau, Flash Art & Arts Magazine
Sometimes a little brain damage can help. — George Carlin
If only this were only a matter of aligning words or arguments the proper way… Rather, it is a matter of a knowLEDGE, in the flesh.
2 of 3. Every age has its icons: photographers freeze that moment, cinematographers capture that movement. The traces of those fetishistic rituals are revered in museums, theaters and online. Media has already transformed society; can visual artists, besides “doing it their way,” provide more than an ever expanding sensory massage?
We stop everything – We reflect – And it’s not sad [from Year 01/An 01 by/par Gébé]
