DOUBLE HAPPINESS SOLUTIONSrye-zone proposal commission 2009
Double Happiness is a research institution dedicated to constructing new frameworks for the artifacts of failed systems of logic.
Our current operations center around a collaboratively produced website, Double Happiness, where members contribute content individually that together forms the unified editorial voice of the group. Our research concerns the fusion of peoples who, having resorted to not giving a fuck, subsequently spawned every deli awning in the world.
For this Rhizome commission, we propose to expand Double Happiness' borders. We will survey the United States, collecting artifacts and creating outposts throughout the country. The findings from this trip will yield Double Happiness Solutions, a new set of media prototypes, and our first efforts to re-calibrate the culture lag that creates a disconnect between virtual and physical creations.
This tour will be our first major survey of second-rate zones, shitty cities, and cultural de-centers in the United States. In translating surfing on the internet into discrete linear travel, group auto touring becomes the venue for a heightened version of our online Double Happiness discourse. Instead of making asynchronous discoveries online, we observe from the same perspective, concurrently confronted with the input that becomes the subject matter of our work. Physical proximity is the catalyst for metabolized creative and linguistic development.
IRL and online, outposts are centers that share aesthetic and psychic sympathies with Double Happiness. Outposts range in form from circumscribed internet artifacts to a kind of localized imperialism - mark-making, small scale construction, flag-putting, territorial musk-spreading - focused on branding and claiming the local environment for the spirit of Double Happiness, and injecting a new vitality into these un-miraculous places.
Establishing Outposts as signal relays in this psychic network, our Roving Focus Group will perform a Lewis and Clark-like expansion of what we know to be Double Happiness. On the road, in between outposts, we will undertake the first steps to generate new media prototypes in the form of DVDs, videos, installations, and products that will promote the new flavors of Double Happiness. Immediately upon our return to New York City, we will enter a quarantine period to put in place the final elements of these media products.
Using Double Happiness as an easy tool for appropriation and recontextualization of existing culture online has generated our excitement for the prospect of continuing this process offline; we hope to preclude the need to distinguish between our identity on the internet and elsewhere. The costs of materials and traversing real space are the main obstacle preventing us from extending online geographies into the real world, and this grant will provide an important opportunity to pursue our hypothesis.
Work Samples
Double Happiness Outposts: East Coast's Largest Sand Dune, 2008
the Hydrox Letter, 2007
Dear Mr. Warren "Oracle of Omaha" Buffett,
It has come to our attention that the original black and white sandwich cookies known as The Hydrox have seemingly dissapeared from the local American convenience store. Hydrox was the first of its kind a true innovator. Its popular cousin, the Oreo, is nothing but a cheap imitation. For a long time, Dairy Queen seemed to be the last stronghold for the beloved Hydrox, but in recent years even Dairy Queen has stopped using Hydrox in its blizzards.
As the number one share holder of Berkshire Hathaway Co., a company with a controlling interest in Dairy Queen, you have the power to resuscitate the Hydrox cookie. We can't emphasize enough that now is the time to tell America the story of the original black and white sandwich cookie. Let's bring the Hydrox back to Dairy Queen!
Thank you for any help you can give to one of our favorite cookies.
Sincerely,
Eric Laska and Jeff Sisson
ADDRESS REDACTED
Brooklyn, NY 11211 (but sent from Omaha, NE)
Footlong Hoagie, 2008
Workout Video, 2008
How to Curate Yourself into the New Museum, 2008
STEP ONE: Figure out how to navigate from one of the following projects [ (1) (2) (3) ] to your website using only a single button mouse.
Suggestions:
1. From Guthrie's project; scroll to the bottom, click "home" then go to "my links" which takes you to his del.icio.us. If you've saved one of the same links he has up, you can easily navigate to your own delicious (via the "saved by X other people" link). And from there you can go anywhere you want, provided you've saved the link in advance.
2. From Jessica Ciocci's Page; scroll to the bottom, click "Ancient & Accurate" then find the link that says "http://www.houstonraves.com/art.html". This will take you to a 404 page with a Google search field. By highlighting and dragging the other text on the page, you can essentially type whatever you want into Google. Every letter of the alphabet is represented on there, barring J, Q and Z, but you can prolly get by without them anyway.
STEP TWO:
Avoid this lady:
STEP THREE:
Make sure you got your BLING on
project page up HERE.
Everyday Life Practices, 2008, Excerpt
Collective CV
Double Happiness is Eric Laska, Evan Roth, Borna Sammak, Jeff Sisson and Bennett Williamson
Selected Press
Even Boring Blogs Are Things of Beauty In Some Artists' Eyes by Andrew Lavallee
A New Kind of Landscape, Net Art 1.0 Definition Reconsidered and Consumer Media Format Logos by Tom Moody
Let It Spin by Marisa Olson
Beyond Art and Design by Haydn Shaughnessy
Solo Web surfing evolves into a full-on super fun sleepover by Helen A.S. Popkin