The Laboratory of Feminist Pataphysics
Artist: Mireille Perron
 
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The Laboratory of Feminist Pataphysics

Introduction

Mireille Perron is the founder of The Laboratory of Feminist Pataphysics (LFP).

LFP made its first appearance in 2000 during a solo exhibition titled The Beautiful Pranksters/Les Belles Ratoureuses, curated by Christine Sowiak for the Nickle Arts Museum, University of Calgary, Alberta. In 2007, a survey of LFP's activities to date was presented by The New Gallery under the title The Laboratory of Feminist Pataphysics. In 2010, in collaboration with 13 emerging artists LFP presented: Ateliers of the Near Future at Stride Gallery, Calgary, Alberta.

Description

The Laboratory of Feminist Pataphysics (LFP) proudly presents its latest Emergency Mobiles Units as well as its three new auxiliary Institutes at The New Gallery from February 24 to March 31, 2007.

The Laboratory of Feminist Pataphysics is already world renowned for its Emergency Mobile Units — a series of social experiments that masquerade as works of art. So far, there are five mobile units in operation: Anatomy, Identity, Transgenetics, Incorporation, and Toxicology. Each mobile unit can easily be set up wherever there is an urgent need for feminist interventions.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Alfred Jarry* invented and described the indiscipline of 'pataphysics as the science of imaginary solutions. Like its companion —real physics— 'pataphysics remains a predominantly male domain.

*Jarry's most known character is Père Ubu, who became the subject of many theatre plays.

The Laboratory of Feminist Pataphysics is pleased to announce the launch of its three new auxiliary Institutes: The Institute for Corporate Pudding, The Institute for Cosmic Procrastination, and The Institute for Confounding Pretension.

The Institute for Corporate Pudding's Strategic Research Plan was recently endorsed by its Ouija Board of Governors. The ICP's Ouija BOG's mandate is to enforce the Institute's vision. The Plan calls for the replacement of senior researchers with sheep. While cost neutral, the goal of this restructuring is the completion of a corporate takeover that will insure the homogeneity of the corporate pudding. It was also noted, as a definite advantage, that sheep not being unionized can be forced to work around the clock and all year round.

The Institute for Corporate Pudding will be offering a newly discovered vaccine for Contagious Platitude. The Institute for Corporate Pudding is an auxiliary organization devoted to symptomatic absurdities.

The I.C.P.'s je ne sais quoi accentuates the tyranny of fiscal edits and corporate conformity.

The Institute for Cosmic Procrastination will be offering a newly discovered cure for Capricious Proliferation. Also of great interest is The Institute's Escape Unit, composed of an individual knitted escape pod attached to a hot air balloon. The renewed public interest in procrastination, was demonstrated recently, by the attention paid to University of Calgary professor Piers Steel's discovery. Dr. Steel made headline news with his Temporal Motivation Theory.

 

Dr. Steel calculates procrastination with a formula like Albert Einstein's equation for energy, E=MC(2). It factors the person's expectancy for succeeding at a given task (E) or self-confidence; the value of completing the task (V); its immediacy or availability (Gamma); and the person's sensitivity to delay (D) to come up with the desirability of the task (Utility).
The equation reads: Utility = E x V / (Gamma) x D

The Institute for Cosmic Procrastination's laissez faire engenders arbitrary exceptions.

In honour of Pauline Butling and Fred Wah's 70th anniversaries, The Laboratory of Feminist Pataphysics' Institute for Confounding Pretension is pleased to announce its newly discovered remedy to promote joie de vivre in older adults. The Laboratory 's ICP studies the effects of anarchic curiosity and its link to various degrees of joie de vivre in various aging populations. ICP is dedicated to prohibited impulses.

The Institute for Confounding Pretension's joie de vivre conjures anarchic curiosity.

List of the side effects expected from joie de vivre:
    1.  cheerful pandemonium
    2.  casual profusion
    3.  calamitous prognostic
    4.  capricious precarity
    5.  corrupted probability
    6.  cunning perversity
    7.  candid pedantism
    8.  cacophonous parodies
    9.  crippled prohibition
   10.  credible pageantry
   11.  controversial prediction
   12.  crappy peculiarity

Membership

Everyone is welcome to become a member of The Laboratory of Feminist Pataphysics. The Laboratory doubles as a Recruiting Centre. New recruits only need to follow three simple rules to become statutory members. Firstly, through a playful sense of the uncanny, recruits meet to seduce one another (quoi d'autre?) Secondly, recruits pledge to individually or collectively perform at least one feminist pataphysics intervention annually. Finally, recruits acquire membership status by recounting their intervention to a statutory member. The statutory member evaluates if the recruit's narration 'feels good', if confirmed, member status is automatically granted to the recruit.



> Read Dick Averns review of The Laboratory of Feminist Pataphysics for Canadian Art


© copyright: Mireille Perron, founder of the Laboratory of Feminist Pataphysics and its auxiliary Institutes.