Scott Foust
Stranded: a series of short essays presented
on ten postcards (EP1, 2008)
Scott Foust is a true outsider artist. Unlike most outsider artists, Foust has
a clear world view grounded in reality. For three decades Foust, now 50,
has pounded away at The Spectacle, employing a wide array of aesthetic
approaches with neither public nor financial support. Foust’s hermeneutics lie
at the strange crossroads between Guy Debord and Oscar Wilde. If Foust’s
ideas seem idealistic and impractical at first, it is only because being against
power and for beauty is always idealistic and impractical. His Swill Radio
record label, founded in 1983, has released not only his own work, but LPs
by The Shadow Ring, Asmus Tietchens, and Ralf Wehowsky among others.
His longest running musical project, Idea Fire Company (founded with
long time associate Karla Borecky in 1988) — while not having the bloated
catalogue of many contemporary bands — produced three of the finest,
if still unknown LPs of the last decade: Anti-Natural, Stranded, and The
Island Of Taste. In 1997 Foust, along with Borecky and Dr. Timothy Shortell,
founded the Anti-Naturals, an art and theory group which has few but
dedicated members worldwide.
Some excerpts from Stranded:
Gods, god, or higher consciousness, it is now and always has been an
easy way to control the rubes, keeping the ‘faithful’ opposed to practical
investigation of the actual lives we lead. — from The Age of Reason
My worry is that this temporal distortion, induced as another diversionary
tactic by The Spectacle, will further diminish the already diminished ability
of most people to concentrate. The ability to concentrate and to make
aesthetic and scientific decisions is the most dangerous thing of all to
Power. — from Speed and The Decline of Aesthetic Judgments
No matter how ‘well-meaning’ the dogma, it always amounts to a willful
ignorance, and stupidity has never been a good problem-solving mechanism,
except, of course, in service of the world’s owners (at your expense).
— from Believe Results
The idea that there is an ‘authentic self’, yearning to be removed from the
poison of society, just waiting to escape and express itself, is a ridiculous and
worthless fallacy. — from How To Turn Yourself Into An Art Object (Part 1)
Other titles include: Melancholy Index, Smoking is Green, Abandon Ship!,
How To Turn Yourself Into An Art Object (Part 2), Join The Team!,
and Stranded.
See also Idea Fire Company (E51)
First edition of 100 copies
£6