Fillip 15 — Fall 2011

A Productive book, measuring Notes

Irritant
: tape, and a cam-
1. Michel Serres, The
Parasitical era. Posing as an Parasite, trans.
Inhabitations in eager student, he Lawrence R. Schehr
Contemporary Art returned on a (Baltimore: Johns
Post Brothers and regular basis, Hopkins University
Chris Fitzpatrick pretending to Press, 1982), 293–94.
study the 

The parasite is an museum’s collec- 2. Rosalind Constable,
infectant. Far from tion when, in fact, “The Longest Running
actually trans- he was surrepti- One-man Show in
forming a tiously measuring Town,” New York, June
system’s nature, and photograph- 28, 1971, 56–57 

its form, ele- ing various fea- 3. For Brian O’Doherty,
ments, relations, tures inside and even a fire hose
and paths, the outside the mu- presents “an esthetic
parasite makes conundrum” within the
seum in order to
the system white cube, which
make an artwork.
operates parasitically,
change its condi- Later that year,
subsuming anything
tion in small steps. after printing over
that enters its space—
It introduces a tilt. three hundred of symbolically divorcing
It brings the the photographs it from the exterior
system’s balance he had taken—of world its architecture
or the distribution light switches, serves to hide. Brian
of energy into keyholes, bricks, O’Doherty, “Notes on
fluctuation. It irrit- air vents, and so the Gallery Space,” in
ates it. It infects on—Stromberg Inside the White Cube:
The Ideology of the
it. . . . brings us printed the pho- Gallery Space
close to the subtle tos out at a 1:1
(Berkeley: University of
balances of living scale of what they California Press 1986),
systems.— Michel depicted and 15.

Serres 1 
 backed them with 4. Serres, The Parasite,
In 1969, artist adhesive. In a 293–94.

Harvey series of visits to
Stromberg the museum, he
walked into the attached his pho-
Museum of Mod- tos to the walls,
ern Art in New floors, and other
York with a note-
surfaces—subtly, of “parasitical in- 5. Some parasites draw
and without au- habitation.” 
 so ravenously from
thorization from their hosts that they
can debilitate them to
the institution. Al-
An Irritant
 the point at which they
though they were cannot protect or feed
often found and A parasite is
defined as an or- themselves adequately
destroyed by mu- (e.g., mites causing
ganism that lives
seum employees, mange in dogs). 

Stromberg was in or on another
organism, ex- 6. Jean-Luc Nancy,
never caught.
 “The Intruder,” in
Rosalind Con- tracting what it Corpus: Perspectives in
needs from its
stable noted in a Continental Philosophy,
host without giv-
1971 issue of New trans. Richard A. Rand
York magazine ing anything pos- (New York: Fordham
itive in exchange. University Press, 2008),
that Stromberg
originally ex- We consider 161–62.


ecuted this solo Stromberg’s pro- 7. Ibid., 163.


ject parasitical
exhibition an- 8. Serres, The Parasite,
because, like a
onymously, but 64–65.

after two years, parasite, he
9. William S.
decided to claim entered his Burroughs, Naked
authorship of the target’s body Lunch: The Restored
through a point of
work in order to Text Edition, eds.
weakness, ex- James Grauerholtz and
make “people be
aware there are ploited its fac- Barry Miles (New York:
conflicts between ulties and facilit- Grove/Atlantic Inc,

museums and ies, and thereby 2001), 38.


showed the
artists,” 2 namely 10. The small, almost
museum’s impen- translucent fish
around who is al-
etrability (its cur- normally hides in mud
lowed to exhibit
atorial selection, and attacks the open
and who is not. cavities of larger fish
accessions com-
By humorously (most often the gills),
mittees, etc.) to
inserting his own eating its flesh and
be, like his photo-
work directly into blood.

graphic illusions,
the interior and 11. The urogenital
a facade. He
exterior architec- surgeon Anoar Samad
walked in the
ture of the mu- attended to a man
front door. When
seum, Stromberg from Itacoatiara on the
artists are work- Amazon River who
confused what
ing parasitically, sought medical
the institution
context (the site, attention for
had sanctioned
its history, its obstruction of his
and what it had
claims to author- urethra.
not. 3 Stromberg “Trichomycteridae
ity, its funding
inhabited the mu- candiru,” Oregon
and organiza-
seum as a foreign Piranha Exotic Fish
tional structures,
agent, adopting Exhibit, last modified
and its habits) is
tactics that July 7, 2009,
perhaps the http://opefe.com/candi
offered practical
primary material ru.html. 

and conceptual
being occupied
strategies of
and consumed.

artistic produc-
tion through acts
 When we speak Serres, these lin- 12. The development of
of parasitical guistic significa- surplus goods left
practices in art, tions are not dis- humans open to
macroparasites—to
we must first tinct, but interre-
thieves, then warlords
refer to the work lated. Serres
who levied taxes in
of French poly- breaks away from exchange for
math Michel conventional no- protection, shaving off
Serres, whose tions of parasites, the surplus while
book The Parasite arguing that leaving enough behind
(1980) discusses parasitism is not for producers to
its namesake as a merely antagon- continue. This process
vehicle for intro- istic, but that its of parasitism evolved
into vast divisions of
ducing “irritants” effects are pro-
labour and value. 

to any given or- ductive, not solely
der, causing reductive; its dis- 13. If microparasitism
may be likened to a
subtle changes ruptions are in-
nether millstone,
that can be pro- dicative of com-
grinding away at human
ductive and cu- plex yet funda- populations through
mulative. 4 mental relations time, human-to-human
Through a discip- between people macroparasitism has
linary promiscuity and between been almost as
akin to the things, whether universal—an upper
parasite’s ability sentient or not.
 millstone, pressing
to trespass cor- For example, in heavily upon the
majority of the human
poreal boundar- its most tradi-
race. Between them,
ies, Serres’s text tional conception,
the two forms of
investigates the the biological parasitism usually
appearance of parasite enters a tended to keep the
parasitical activ- target host’s body peasant majority of
ity in literature with the aim of civilized populations
and science, diverting and close to bare
bridging the do- feeding off the subsistence by
mains of biology, host’s energy. systematically
withdrawing resources
anthropology, Along this line of
from their control. Just
and information thought, there
as microparasites have
theory to arrive at would be no mu- circulated throughout
a conception of tual exchange. the globe via trade,
how systems op- With Serres’s no- macroparasites have
erate. Serres tion of the social likewise evolved in the
breaks down parasite, however, form of war, agents of
three familiar which may be theft who steal the
uses for the word analogous to an resources and
identities of whole
“parasite”: the uninvited guest,
nations. W. H. McNeill,
“biological” para- an exchange oc-
The Human Condition:
site, the “social” curs that is un- An Ecological and
parasite, and the even and com- Historical View
parasite as com- plex. For instance, (Princeton, NJ:
municative in this scenario, Princeton University
“static” (derived the guest takes Press, 1979), 8.

from the French hospitality and
word for noise, food from the
parasite). For host without giv-
ing an equivalent there is always a 14. Georges Bataille,
back. Yet there loss in any act of The Accursed Share,
are other forms of exchange, but vol. 1, Consumption,
trans. Robert Hurley
exchange: con- also something
(New York: Zone Books,
versation, pleas- gained. The para-
1991), 21.

antries, and hu- site is not any one
15. Seth Price,
mour are on offer of these phenom-
“Dispersion,”
for food, drink, ena but is actually
Distributed History,
and temporary all three (biolo- 2002,
shelter in an im- gical, social, http://distributedhistor
material-to-ma- noise) in constant y.com/Dispersion2008.
terial transaction. play. In each in- pdf (PDF), 14. 

In doing so, the stance, the para- 16. 9 at Leo Castelli was
social parasite re- site intercedes in on display from
directs the sur- exchange, but December 4–28, 1968
plus energies of Serres shows us at the gallerist’s
the host, similar that the parasite warehouse, then
to the biological is not any single located at 103 West
108th Street, New York,
parasite. Finally, conception or
New York.

Serres’s notion of phenomenon, but
the parasite-as- rather operates in 17. Annie Cohen-Solal,
noise introduces constant Leo and His Circle: The
Life of Leo Castelli (New
interference into negotiation.

York: Alfred A. Knopf,
communications Stromberg’s in-
2010), 507.

—disrupting, habitation is sim-
18. Astrid Ilhe, “Andre
feedbacking, and ilarly complex.
Cadere: Interventions
dispersing in- While he may
in the Public Domain,”
formation as it have exploited in André Cadere:
moves between both MoMA’s Peinture sans fin, eds.
messages and prestige and Karola Grasslin, Fabrice
their reception.
 space to create Hergott, and Alexander
Throughout his work of art, van Grevenstein (Koln:
Serres’s discus- wasn’t the Verlag der
sion, these three museum’s status Buchhandlung Walther
Konig, 2007), 43.

conceptions of in turn reaf-
parasites operate firmed, having 19. In a sense, the
neither as been targeted by intentional error
ensured that each
autonomous nor Stromberg as a
Barres de Bois Rond
distinct entities. host endowed
arrived with its own
Rather, they are with resources to parasite, a thing both
mutually defined spare? The po- in and out of place.

in that there ex- tential and actual
ists always a level results that can
of static, so to be and have been
speak, in social achieved by
relations. In other artists working
words, Serres ar- parasitically is but
gues that there one interest we
are always dis- have in the
turbances in bod- strategy. In addi-
ies, human or tion, the com-
otherwise. And, plexity of the re-
lations that lead this stream into 20. Cadere presented
to such gestures its host. Its oper- his rods throughout
and actions is of ations provide us Europe and in New
York, bringing them to
significance. The with a model to
opening receptions for
figure of the think about the artists such as Robert
parasite extends forcefulness of a Ryman, Daniel Buren,
to artists a means parasitical intru- and Barnett Newman,
of surveying, ar- sion, and how the or to biennials.
ticulating, ques- detection of However, he also took
tioning, and con- weaknesses in a them on the subway
taminating rela- potential host can and to cafes, parks,
tions, a tool to lead to tangible and other public
spaces. 

determine loop- access otherwise
holes, interde- impossible to 21. Karola Grasslin,
pendencies, dif- achieve. Second, Fabrice Hergott, and
Alexander van
ferences, and po- in Cymothoa
Grevenstein, eds.,
sitions within af- Exigua (The
“Interview with Linda
fective relations. Tongue-eating Morris,” in André
Through this ob- Louse), we follow Cadere: Peinture sans
servation and re- a crustacean fin (Koln: Verlag der
distribution of parasite that Buchhandlung Walther
component logics latches onto a Konig), 17.

and positions fish’s tongue, 22. Mark Godfrey,
within systems, drains it of blood, “Andre Cadere:
the parasite be- and then effect- Staatliche Kunsthalle
comes an expert ively replaces the Baden-Baden,
in its host’s pat- host’s tongue Germany,” Frieze,
March 2008, 181.

terns and can with itself. Re-
then subvert and lated to artists 23. Birnbaum is
redirect them. working in more referring to Cadere’s
With Serres’s dis- discursive modes, intervention into an
exhibition of Valerio
cussion of para- the parasite of-
Adami’s paintings at
sites in mind, in fers a model for Galerie Maeght in
the following es- considering Paris, which he cites in
say we have artists who mir- “Andre Cadere:
chosen three ror, redirect, or Staatliche Kunsthalle
forms of biolo- overtake the Baden-Baden,
gical parasites as voice and author- Germany,” Artforum,
models through ity of their hosts, January 2008, 271.

which contem- and who insert 24. Ihle, “Andre Cadere:
porary artistic “static” into com- Interventions in the
practice can be munications of Public Domain,” 55. 

considered.
 which they would
First, in Candiru otherwise not
(Invasions Up- have access. Fi-
stream), we will nally, in part
look to the can- three, Toxoplasma
diru (Vandellia cir- Gondii, we will
rhosa), a freshwa- consider a feline
ter fish that de- parasite that has
tects urine and infected over half
then swims up of the earth’s hu-
man population. into parasites, but 25. Cadere was keen to
Spread through the alterations keep his contrived
contact with cat caused by the outsider position, a
position that is echoed
feces, this parasites reveal
by Nancy: Once [an
strange parasite that their hosts’
intruder] is in, if he
is notable for the statuses were remains a stranger, and
way in which it already parasit- for all the time he
affects its host, ical. 
 remains, instead of
changing its be- It is not our in- “naturalizing himself,”
haviour, but also tention to sug- his arrival does not
for the manner in gest a canon of cease: he continues to
which it is spread parasitical prac- come and never stops
being an intrusion; he
(and how easily). tice. Nor should
continues to be without
Through relating this be misunder- right and familiarity and
Toxoplasma stood as a com- habits, but he remains a
gondii to artistic prehensive his- disturbance, a
practice, we can torical survey. turbulence amidst the
see that the en- Rather, we aim to intimacy. Otherwise the
tire field of rela- proffer certain extraneousness of the
tions is always artists’ parasitical stranger is eliminated
already parasit- operations as ef- before he walks over
the threshold. Jean-Luc
ical—a key point fective strategies
Nancy, “The Intruder,”
made in The Para- for the manipula- 166.

site. 
 tion of context,
26. The inclusion of an
When Serres the introduction
artist’s work in
argues that the of unsuspected
documenta could be
entire field of re- tactics, the iden- seen as the ultimate
lations is para- tification of symbol of acceptance
sitic, what in- weakness within and appreciation of
terests us is that seemingly taut that work, but such an
what parasites and enclosed sys- invitation would
actually attack tems, and the present a negation of
are, in fact, those ability to disguise that artist’s parasitical
status.

relationships. In one’s appearance
other words, what or to take on that 27. The artist was
is useful is not of one’s host. To asked to produce a
new work for an
just the opera- ride communica-
exhibition at the Centre
tional modes to tion vectors and
d’Art Neuchâtel. Motti
be gleaned from exploit the logics went to a Swiss first
parasites, and not and surplus of division soccer match
just the antagon- their targets, between the
ism or exploita- these artists em- Neuchâtel/Xamax and
tion of the host, bed themselves Young Boys football
but how parasit- within a system clubs at the La
ism is causal; to reveal the Maladière stadium
instead, targeting a
parasites offer system’s depend-
significantly broader
tactics, but their ency on logics of
public than an art show
tactics create exclusion. 
 could provide. 

legible effects. Our interest in
Moreover, para- candiru and
sites appear to Cymothua exigua
turn their hosts (as parasites and
as frameworks) I. Candiru 28. ONU, intervention
lies less in any (Invasions at the 53rd session of
antagonistic pos- Upstream) the Commission on
Human Rights, UN,
ition or romance Although their
Geneva (1997).

of transgression operations and
and more in their specific condi- 29. Perhaps the most
overt example was in
strategic implica- tions vary widely
2004 at the semifinal
tions. With Toxo- and they can, at
of the French Open
plasmosis we are times, be benefi- tennis championship
especially con- cial to their hosts, during a visit by the
cerned with the parasites are American president
way in which the generally thought George W. Bush. Gianni
parasite affects of as unwanted, Motti, sitting in the VIP
the behaviour of harmful invaders. stand opposite live
its host. In gen- They exist television cameras,
wore a hood on his
eral, our interest through external
head and kept his
in parasites is in attachments to,
hands behind his back,
how they negoti- or physical infilt- alluding to the
ate their sur- rations of, a host controversial images
roundings and organism’s body. taken of prisoners by
the ways in which Once inside, the soldiers at Abu Ghraib.
their presence parasite draws While this event
brings about re- energy from its injected politics into
sponses—how new environment, sports, such a gesture
also brought excluded
certain implic- but generally en-
views into a site
ated foundations sures that it does
already for protest.
can become pro- not take too Robyn Whitlaw had an
ductive for much, as this “appearance” in a 1972
change; how cer- might run the risk Life magazine
tain infiltrations of depleting the photograph by Arthur
by those routinely vitality both para- Schatz, which shows
excluded can in- site and host re- the artist holding up a
terrupt the status quire to live blank white sign above
a packed street of
quo; how specific (though in many
umbrella-toting SDS
hosts call for pre- cases, the
anti-war protesters.
cise manoeuvers parasite’s host is Her gesture was an act
and offer discrete a vessel to be ex- of protest and a forfeit,
potentials; how tinguished before an elaboration of the
an outside moving on to an- impasse of dissent and
operator’s ability other host). 5 
 the invisibility and
to intrude and If the word silence of numerous
use the system’s “parasite” is al- voices within the
movement. Whitlaw’s
nomenclature most always a
action protests the site
can divulge an pejorative, it is of protest itself,
infrastructure’s perhaps because intervening into the
integral aspects; the parasite’s protest’s field of
and how to nego- identity is contin- relations rather than
tiate and disrupt gent on it being a the content of the
such naturalized nuisance—a demonstration. 

or stratified rela- stranger to the
tionships. 
 host despite their
intimacy. For
Jean-Luc Nancy, its harmful poten- 30. Additionally, since
it is crucial that tial? And, how 1985, Motti has
the parasite-to- does the act of claimed responsibility
for numerous eclipses
host relationship voluntary blood-
of the moon or sun,
is contentious. letting change falling meteorites,
Nancy, contem- the patient’s rela- earthquakes in
plating the para- tion to the leech, California and the Alps,
doxical experi- when that leech and even the 1986
ence of a human is put in service explosion of the
hosting an alien to medicine? Challenger shuttle
organ after a What do the pro- (Eclipses, 1986;
heart transplant, cesses of regula- Revendications,
Terremoto,
suggests that tion, invitation,
revendication, 1996;
such an “in- and control, AFP, 1986). An
truder” enters its therefore, render? autocratic
host “by force, As Serres re- proclamation, Motti’s
surprise, or cun- minds us, the claiming of
ning, in any case guest can dis- catastrophe and
without any right grace and abuse change renders the
to do so and the charity of a world readymade,
without invita- host. In doing so, parasitically inserting
6 himself into global
tion.” For Nancy, he notes the sim-
causation. 

that intruder’s ilarities and dis-
status is always sonances 31. One can say that
Motti resembles
bound up in is- between the in-
Woody Allen’s
sues of corpor- vited parasite and
character Zelig (from
eality and prox- the parasite as his 1983 movie of the
imity, for without unwelcome in- same name). The faux
“an element of truder, which of- documentary concerns
the intruder in the fers a nuanced Leonard Zelig, a Jewish
stranger” or the sketch of how New Yorker who comes
parasite in the parasites and to fame in the 1920s
host, the intru- their targets when it is discovered
that he compulsively
sion is without renegotiate their
imitates whatever
the necessary positions when
social milieu he finds
“strangeness” to confronting one himself in,
be perceived as another. 
 transforming himself
such. 7 In other For Serres, The both physically and
words, an invita- parasite is “next mentally into a
tion or any allow- to,” it is 
“with,” it reflection of the people
ance given to an is detached from, who surround him.

intruding force it is not sitting on 32. Similarly, the artist
would negate the 
thing itself, David Horovitz has
that very intru- but on the rela- been inserting himself
anonymously into
sion. When indi- tion. It has rela-
photographs appearing
viduals ingest tions, as 
one
in Wikipedia entries, on
roundworms to says, and turns
an ongoing basis. See
lose weight, for them into a sys- Jeff Khonsary, “The
instance, does tem. It is always Encyclopedia That
this willing intro- mediate and Anyone Can Edit,” Fillip
duction of the never immediate. 14, Summer 2011, 98–
parasite negate It has a relation to 103. 


the relation, it is the lavish open- 33. Can a parasite and
related to the re- ing dinner at- a host be one and the
lated, it sits on the tendees incon- same at the same time,
and in the same body?
channel. 8 Of spicuously


course, the host dressed as a
can also abuse waitress serving 34. Whereas Piper’s
previous public actions
the guest, but water. Donnelly’s
in the 1970–71 Catalysis
there can also be presence was works played out the
intermediaries barely registered relationship between
who add further by the guests. abject difference and
complexity to the Only curators public indifference or
field of relations. Laura Hoptman disgust, the Mythic

For example, and Liz Thomas Being series is
Trisha Donnelly were aware of the noticeably more
contributed a performance, and ambiguous. 


total of four pro- their collusion 35. To distribute the

jects to the 54th with the artist— fictional persona, Piper
Carnegie Interna- that is, their with- devised a complex
mathematical structure,
tional in 2004, in- holding of in-
like those she employed
cluding Dark formation from
in earlier works, through
Wind (2002), the guests—fur- which she would
which periodically thers the com- “isolate” and mine 144
sent the sound of plexity of passages from her
wind rustling Donnelly’s ges- diary, mount the same
through the gal- ture, while at the number of
leries, and Night same time allow- performances, then
Is Coming (Warn- ing it to occur. “publicize” and circulate
the same number of
ing) (2002), in Unlike
two-dimensional works
which the omen Stromberg, Don-
through a “widely
“NIGHT IS COM- nelly was invited distributed newspaper.”
ING,” appeared to into the institu- The artist did not follow
pulse, as it was tion, but once in- through with the strict
projected onto side, Donnelly in- numerical component
the wall. And, in filtrated the of the project. Cherise
Letter to Tacitus situation’s social Smith, “Re-member
(2004), she selec- and material rela- the Audience: Adrian
Piper’s Mythic Being
ted a museum tions (the class
Advertisements,” Art
guard who, and labour dy-
Journal 66.1 (2007),
dressed in an el- namics of the cel- 46.

egant suit, re- ebratory fanfare)
cited a letter by embedding
(written by Don- herself so mimet-
nelly) to the Ro- ically within the
man senator, opening’s context
consul, and his- —an act akin to
torian, Cornelius the artist’s invis-
Tacitus, each day. ibility in plain
As a far subtler sight. Would
contribution, many of the at-
Donnelly circu- tendees Donnelly
lated unan- served have inter-
nounced among acted differently
with her had they the candiru. Until 36. The first
known she was recently, its dis- advertisement
an invited artist turbing behaviour appeared in the
“Theatre” section of
and not a wait- has, for the most
the Voice; the
ress? 
 part, existed only
remainder was
in local legends published in the
and fiction. Wil- “Gallery” section
An Unattended
liam S. Burroughs roughly once a month
Exit, An mentioned the from October 25, 1973,
Unintended invasive behavior until February 2, 1975.
Entrance of the candiru in There is one significant
Donnelly’s ges- his 1959 novel exception: the ad work
ture shows that for June 27, 1974, was
Naked Lunch, de-
parasitism can be scribing it as “a censored by the Voice
highly nuanced, small eel-like fish because it contains the
but in its most phrase: “DON’T FEEL
or worm about PARTICULARLY
traditional con- one-quarter inch
HORNY, BUT FEEL I
ception a parasite
through and two SHOULD
elicits an image inches long” that MASTURBATE
of a forceful in- “will dart up your ANYWAY JUST
vader penetrating prick or your BECAUSE I FEEL SO
the body of the arsehole or a GOOD ABOUT IT. 6-6-
host (entering by 70.” A small,
woman’s cunt rectangular text
puncturing the faute de mieux,
skin, etc.) or advertisement
and hold himself appeared in its place
sneaking in there by sharp and announced that
through the spines.” 9 What the original
host’s day-to-day
makes the advertisement could
activities (in wa- be seen at the Jaap
candiru’s tend-
ter, waste, food, Rietman Bookstore on
ency to invade
etc.). Exploiting 157 Spring St. 

and parasitize the
the weakness of 37. Adrian Piper, “The
human urethra so
their targets, the Mythic Being: Getting
abject is that it
parasite finds Back,” in Out of Order,
exposes the vul-
channels by Out of Sight, Vol. I,
nerability of our
which to burrow Selected Writings in
most intimate Meta-Art 1968-1992
and feed, which
orifices. 10 
 (Cambridge, MA: MIT
the examples of
Ethnological Press, 1999), 117

both Stromberg
reports of the 38. Serres, The
and Donnelly
candiru’s attacks Parasite, 218.

support in an art
on human genit-
context. Yet to 39. Ibid.

als date back to
best exemplify 40. Since 1997, Lopez
the late nine-
the force behind has worked under the
teenth century,
Nancy’s ideas name A-1 53167, his
but the first doc- Guatemalan ID card
around an
umented case of number, as a gesture of
invader’s intru-
the candiru para- both erasing
sion, let us cite an
sitizing humans assumptions about his
overt intruder—an
was only in 1997. cultural identity and
Amazonian fresh- immersing himself
The fish penet-
water parasitic within a bureaucratic
rated the victim’s
catfish known as system. 

urethra while he
was standing in For historian 41. Like a parasite,
the river urinat- William H. Lopez terrified and
ing, where it ac- McNeill, however, threatened his host by
hijacking his victim’s
tually emerged it is a question of
reserves and diverting
from the water, distribution. In those resources into
travelled up the The Human Con- other uses.

urine stream, and dition (1979), he
42. Erin Starr White,
entered the man’s describes the his-
“Lifting: Theft in Art,
penis, filling the tory of civilization Fort Worth
entire anterior ur- through micropa- Contemporary Arts,”
ethra. 11 The rasites (micro-or- Art Lies, Winter 2008,
candiru’s agoniz- ganisms, fungi, 96–97.

ing operations insects, small an-
resonate with imals like mice
many artistic and rats, and
practices that other organisms
transgress bor- that live off of hu-
ders—strategies mans specifically)
that are useful for and macropara-
entering pro- sites (humans
scribed zones of who feed off of
exclusion, while the labour of oth-
showing how ers). He argues
simply and eco- that, in the course
nomically it can of human devel-
be achieved. opment, micro-
Moreover, the parasites such as
candiru’s manner pests and disease
of travelling have thrived by
through waste re- infesting dense
veals how para- populations,
sites operate in serving as a
ecosystems more means of popula-
generally—their tion control. 12
specific role in For McNeill, the
the regulation of development and
surplus and ex- circulation of mi-
cess. Just as the croparasites and
parasite itself is macroparasites
that which the served not only to
host organism regulate and ex-
wants to expel, ploit surplus, but
the candiru remain, in fact,
enters in through the primary mo-
the organism’s tivation behind
system of exclu- clashes of civiliz-
sion, the surplus ation. 13 The
waste products parasite’s actions
that the host are, thus, seen
wishes to dispel. through a classic

 economic model
of scarcity—that
is, parasitism fol- completely ab- 43. Lopez’s work is in
lows a predatory sorbed in growth, some ways a
model where or- it must necessar- literalization of an
action Adrian Piper
ganisms vie for ily be lost without
performed as part of
limited resources. profit; it must be Mythic Being. Getting
Surplus appears spent, willingly or Back, a performance in
through the un- not, gloriously or collaboration with
equal distribution catastrophically.” David Auerbach, Piper
of biomass, and 14 
 described as involving
parasites serve to The “accursed my loitering on the
balance ecosys- share” is that ex- sidewalk reading a
tems over time newspaper, while David,
cessive and non-
a stranger, reads over
through recuperable part
my shoulder and tries to
homeostasis.
 of any economy strike up a conversation
But to under- that is destined to containing many of the
stand the one of two modes features just described.
parasite’s beha- of economic and I react with violent and
viour, it may be social waste: it is barely suppressed
more beneficial either spent anger, asking him to
to move from the through spec- please get out of my
idea of a “restrict- tacle, luxury, or face. Shocked, he
withdraws, having
ive” economy of the arts; or in the
appropriated the
scarcity, as destructive acts newspaper I’ve finished
McNeill proposes, of war and sacri- reading. But my hostility
to a “general eco- fice. A parasite hasn’t been fully
nomy” of surplus, and its host are expressed, so I decide
as Georges Ba- always at war. to mug him and steal
taille attempts in Like McNeill, Ba- his money. I follow him
The Accursed taille sees war as to the nearest park,
Share (1949). For a parasitical act, jumping him from
behind, throwing him to
Bataille, the infin- one that is meant
the ground, and making
ite outpouring of not to gain en- off with the newspaper
solar energy and ergy, but to ex- (he has no money).
its movement pend energy and Adrian Piper, Out of
through the eradicate surplus. Order, Out of Sight, 147.
chemical pro- Luxury, and espe- Whereas Piper’s
cesses of organ- cially art’s ex- performance was
isms creates a traneous and os- staged and included a
superabundance tensibly non-pro- knowing victim—and
thus an accomplice in
of energy that ductive expense,
reality—Lopez recasts
must be expen- is not grounded his audience as
ded. Unlike pred- in use but in a unknowing
ators, parasites production of accomplices in what is
do not play into a consumption. A a true crime, or so we
simple food chain society’s nature is are led to believe. In
of carbon distri- shaped by its use both projects, the
bution but extract of this excess: intersubjective game of
the excesses pro- how it expends, parasitical power
becomes apparent by
duced by these unloads,
making visible the
processes. For squanders, dis- ways in which one
Bataille, “If the charges, or de- position in an
excess cannot be fecates surplus in antagonistic relation is
various ways. Ba- works by artists contingent on its
taille believed Giovanni An- opposing force. 

that in order to selmo, William 44. Implicitly
undermine the Bollinger, Eva elaborating the
operations of re- Hesse, Stephen dependence of the
strictive econom- Kaltenbach, artist on the charity of
patrons, foundations,
ies, one must Bruce Nauman,
and governmental
enter through a Alan Saret,
bodies, Lopez
general economy Richard Serra, intensifies this
of abundance, Keith Sonnier, subjection,
uselessness, and and Gilberto exaggerating the
excess. Just as Zorio. Although servile relationship
the candiru ex- barely docu- between producers
ploits its host’s mented, 9 at Leo and funders into one
waste as a means Castelli was an where the artist
violently demands
of entry, parasit- important mo-
support rather than
ical artists use ment in the his-
waits for “grants.”

whatever tech- tory of exhibitions
45. Since we are not
nical systems or and the develop-
party to the exchange,
apparatuses they ment of anti-
we are left to assume
can find to enter form, particularly that the victim is either
into their targets’ for the way the a wealthy beneficiary
bodies through raw condition of of capitalist
excesses, draw- the site influ- exploitation, a victim of
ing on the hosts’ enced the ar- such a system, or, more
output, energy rangement and realistically, one who is
supplies, and composition of abused by both
inequitable economic
cycles. As Seth the works on dis-
relations and an active,
Price attests, play. Yet while the
interpellated agent
“Production, after exhibition offi- within those structures.
all, is the excret- cially included the Perhaps this is why the
ory phase in a works of only work is titled “the loan”
process of appro- seven artists (as and not “the theft” or
priation.” 15 
 the works of Gio- “the payment”: though
vanni Anselmo the money has been
and Gilberto taken from the patron,
Infiltration Zorio were not it will be returned in
An intruder dis- delivered in symbolic capital. 

rupted the neat time), 17 the artist 46. Serres, The
numerical order Rafael Ferrer also Parasite, 80.

implied by the participated, un- 47. Ibid.

title of the his- invited, by filling a 48. Ibid.

toric 9 at Leo Cas-
stairwell with 49. See Louis
telli (1968), as well fallen leaves dur-
Althusser, “Ideology
as the exhibition ing the
and Ideological State
itself. On display exhibition’s Apparatuses (Notes
at Castelli’s ware- opening.
 Towards an
house, 16 the ex- Although Ferrer Investigation),” in
hibition was or- knew Morris, he “Lenin and Philosophy”
ganized by artist remained an and Other Essays
Robert Morris and artist outside the (London: New Left
was to include Books, 1971), 121–73.

show. Ferrer
asked his stu- the display of 50. Ralph Rugoff,
dents to deposit “anti-form” Circus Americanus
the leaves quickly works, while per- (London: Verso
[Haymarket Series],
and without fan- haps implicitly
1995), 77.

fare. Arriving first mocking the phe-
at Leo Castelli nomenon that 51. If the museum is a
monument for “the
Gallery, two of such impover-
unknown artist,” then
Ferrer’s students ished and base
its existence is as a
poured four bags materials could trace marking the
of leaves into a be re-appropri- absence of those
mound on the ated for eco- excluded, unknown, or
gallery floor, nomic and sym- refused. A tool for
within an exhibi- bolic surplus. 
 critique and
tion of paintings Parasitical iconoclasm, Whitlaw
by Cy Twombly. Mobility
Like also advocated for an
alternative mode of
They then pro- Ferrer, Polish Ro-
interaction with
ceeded uptown manian artist An-
masterpieces, even
to the warehouse, dre Cadere is also encouraging visitors to
where they filled known for insert- appreciate the tactile
a staircase with ing his own work quality of a Jackson
the remaining into other artists’ Pollock painting by
leaves they had exhibitions, often feeling the surface. 

brought. By in- uninvited. Yet 52. Doris Somner,
serting his own whereas Ferrer Bilingual Aesthetics: A
work into these brought everyday, New Sentimental
spaces, Ferrer essentially un- Education (Durham,
tapped not only altered leaves in- NC: Duke University
Press, 2004), 60. 

the context of the side the white
exhibition itself cube, Cadere 53. BANK took its
and his exclusion brought art ob- name from the site of
from it, but also jects, crafted by its first exhibition,
which was on display
the spotlight ex- hand inside his
within a disused bank
hibitions afford, studio, outside in London. BANK
simultaneously and into public, or attempted to reclaim
bringing more at- inside another control over every
tention to his artist’s exhibition. aspect of its work by
practice in return. With these ob- inhabiting all of the
To return to Ba- jects, Cadere es- roles of presentation,
taille, perhaps the chewed the slick such as marketing and
abundance of fabrications and funding as well as
artistic and curatorial
leaves in Ferrer’s phenomenolo-
practice. 

gesture serves as gical aims of Min-
a sign of excess- imalism and also,
ive energy accu- as Astrid Ihle
mulated, used up, writes, “the hege-
and discarded by mony of the Ecole
an organism, and de Paris and of
Ferrer’s delivery the avant-garde
of the leaves, ref- movements of
erential as they Nouveau Real-
are, constitutes isme and Op
an addendum to Art.” 18 Cadere’s
objects were wanted them to 54. It is a common
portable and occur—an- complaint that
could be dis- nounced or not, interpretive materials
drain a work of its
played in any indoors or out. 20
“blood,” its “life,” which
conditions or Cadere stated, would then cast critics,
context. They did “My art is the curators, historians,
not need a pre- situation of my and other cultural
scribed gallery work in the art workers as vampiric.
space to exist; world.” 21 The standardized
Cadere author- Mark Godfrey proofreading marks
ized his objects to writes that “Ca- BANK employs are a
exist as artworks dere was one of means of imposing
upon and reforming
regardless of the first artists to the text, borrowing
context.
 realize that ob- from standardized
Cadere’s public jects were insep- institutional codes and
work sometimes arable from mar- personal regiments,
took the form of ket and institu- reopening whatever
serial colours, tional contexts: closure these
spray painted on half of his focus documents may imply
walls or curbs, was on the sys- or cause. Moreover,
but he is best BANK’s coded and
tems of distribu-
graphological
known for tion in the art inscriptions are
presenting Barres world.” 22 Even- themselves a
de bois rond—cyl- tually, Cadere’s parasitical language,
indrical, wooden presence became semantic and asemic
rods of different a common and alike. 

lengths, circum- well-known oc- 55. Grading the press
ferences, and currence, one releases issued by
weights. The that was not al- galleries on a scale of 1
Barres display ways appreci- to 10 and inscribing
varying chromatic ated. Daniel Birn- them with critiques
patterns accord- baum relays that ranging from coy to
ing to a system of during a 1973 scathing, BANK in turn
received letters and
Cadere’s design, opening . . . Ca-
answering machine
which contains an dere anticipated
messages from the
error that inten- that he would be galleries, which ranged
tionally obscures prevented from from calculated thanks
that system. 19 bringing a large to unmitigated anger.

But these phys- barre into the gal- 56. Roland Barthes,
ical objects were lery and so [he] Sade/Fourier/Loyola
only part of his hid a very small (Baltimore, MD: Johns
practice. For Ca- second rod in his Hopkins University
dere, galleries pocket. Cadere Press, 1997), 123.

were not sites of fought his host’s
display, but “sys- attempts to expel
tems of power” to his presence; after
be subverted. His being denied
exhibitions, entry with the lar-
therefore, took ger work, he
place wherever, smuggled in this
whenever, and miniature parasite
however he instead, and a tiny
striped rod soon Szeemann’s irate 57. The role of
appeared on the exclusion of the advertising in art’s
gallery floor” 23 artist. Cadere, of distribution and
constitution has
Birnbaum’s use of course, showed
become increasingly
the word “para- up anyway; disin- expansive throughout
site” is fitting (a vited by the cur- history, but the inflated
term also used by ator, his presence use of promotional
Astrid Ihle 24 ), as and that of his channels as the
Cadere’s Barres object became all primary site for art’s
not only became the more parasit- appearance or
a symbol of his ical. The artist’s existence may be an
inheritance of tactics
contention with uninvited self-in-
and aspirations from
the gallery sys- sertion into the
the conceptual art of
tems he entered, gallery exploited, the ’60s. Conceptual
but also one of like that of Ferrer, artists and entities
transgression or the fact that in such as Robert Barry,
trespass, navigat- order for galleries Bulletin, On Kawara,
ing around those to exist, they and Stephen
who would at- must be both Kaltenbach, among
tempt to block private and open others, used these
to the public.
 channels (press
his access.

releases, postcards,
By the mid subscription lists, mail
1970s, Cadere art networks) as sites
Appearances /
was increasingly for the materialization
Embodiments
invited to exhibit and movement of
An alien in an
his objects, which ideas, but also
alienated world, a
changed his depended upon such
parasite seeks formats to justify,
status within the
out its place by commercialize, and
system he occu-
relating itself to announce the very
pied. 25 When
others and im- existence of their
Harald Szeemann
mersing itself in ideas. Such gestures
invited him to dialectically
systems. The reg-
participate in emphasized the
ulated and form-
documenta 5, 26 correlation of “primary
alized operations
however, it was of exhibitions
information” (“‘the
under the condi- serve as both essence of the piece,’
tion that Cadere metonyms and its ideational part”) and
“secondary
must arrive in exaggerations of information” (“the
Kassel on foot,
political, cultural, material information by
with Barre in
or social arrange- which one becomes
hand. Cadere in- ments as a whole, aware of the piece, the
stead faked the and, accordingly, raw matter, the
voyage through a subversion inside fabricated part, the
series of post- and outside of
form of presentation”).
cards entitled such domains un-


Marcheur de Cas- veils the tenuous
sel (The Kassel ideological
Wanderer), and boundaries and
later announcing
functions of ex-
he would arrive
hibitions. Just as
by train, which Ferrer and Cadere
led to
execute both crit- rer and Cadere 58. Other activities
ical gestures and entered, the soc- included two days of
acts of wanting to cer field is a de- curator Raimundas
Malasauskas randomly
belong and parti- lineated zone for
calling a payphone in
cipate by invad- a limited group of the Armory from the
ing such sites, the approved agents Commander’s Room
Italian-born Swiss to act according and reading Tom
artist Gianni Motti to certain rules. Marioni’s Predictions
often enters into By simply appear- ’78 (1978) to whoever
generic scenarios ing, Motti broke answered.

outside the con- both the rules of 59. Adam Kleinman,
fines of art—in- who may appear “Dexter Sinister,” Bomb
cluding public and the sover- Magazine, March
events, political eignty of that 2008,

proceedings, and particular do- “http://bombsite.com/issues
mass media— main. The soccer 60. Kleinman, “Dexter
whereas Motti’s field is shown as Sinister.” 

structural ana- an ideological 61. Serres, The Parasite,
lysis of his hosts space, one where 216.

allows him to the invisible ac- 62. Carrie Lambert-
place himself into tions of a sub- Beatty, “Make Believe:
the world in un- versive artist or Parafiction and
predictable ways. the spectacle of a Plausibility,” October
In 1995, for ex- crazed fan breaks 129 (Summer 2009),
ample, Motti down the system. 51–84.


emerged on a Enacting the de- 63. This gesture of

professional soc- sire of the audi- modifying the body
cer field along- ence to identify through bureaucratic
procedures resonates
side players, with the players,
with an earlier but also
warmed up with Motti resists the
continuing project, Vo
the athletes, and limitations of Rocasco Rasmussen
took a seat on specialization and (2003–), where the
one of the team’s undermines the artist marries and
substitute integrity of the immediately divorces
benches. Entitled game. 
 several people (who
Ala Sinistra, La More activist have been in some way
Maladière Sta- than prankster, influential in Vo’s life) in
order to accumulate a
dium, Neuchâtel, Motti infiltrates
succession of last
National A League systems and
names. A response to
football match seizes opportun- debates in Denmark
(1995), Motti’s al- ities when they regarding homosexual
most unnoticed appear. In 1997, marriage (Denmark
parasitical action while attending was the first to legalize
was witnessed by the 53rd Session same-sex marriage,
several thousand of the Commis- but, until recently, did
spectators and sion on Human not allow same-sex
partners to apply for
recorded by tele- Rights in Geneva,
adoption), Vo’s gesture
vision and news- Motti noticed a
redefines the structure
paper vacant seat re- of marriage by
cameras. 27 Like served for parodying its formal
the contained ex- Indonesia’s del- protocols.

hibitions that Fer- egate and re-
placed the absent ible or hypervis- 64. If bodies are ruled
representative, ible (as he both by documents, the
voting alongside follows and un- artist asserts, then
“performance art”
the attending dermines the
today is not dependent
commission given protocols of on the presence of a
members. 28 participation) by body, but rather on the
When the time making a state- relationship between
came to vote on ment to an audi- social rites and their
the 48th resolu- ence that does certification. Vo
tion concerning not expect mentioned this line of
ethnic minorities, one. 30 
 thinking in a
conversation with Post
Motti rose and In his quest for
Brothers. 

made a speech recognition and
on ethnic divi- dispersal, Motti 65. John Searle, “What
sion, aesthetics, constructs his Is an Institution?”
Journal of Institutional
and human own self-identity
Economics vol. 1:1
rights. Represent- by proxy, using (2005), 15. 

atives of Indigen- events and their
66. Ana Teixeira Pinto,
ous Americans mediation as a
“Danh Vo’s ‘All your
and other mar- network in which deeds shall in water be
ginalized ethnic to place writ, but this in marble’
groups all rallied himself. 31 Over at Isabella Bortolozzi
to the words of the course of a Galerie, Berlin,”
the “Indonesian week in 2000, the exhibition review in Art
delegate” and more sensitive Agenda, October 27,
walked out of the readers of the 2010.

assembly in solid- Swiss daily news- 67. Carr, “Artists at
arity with Motti’s paper Neue Work: Danh Vo.”

position. 
 Luzerner Zeitung 68. When you look at a
Motti infiltrates began to notice a web page, you are
a host and takes surreptitious and seeing the data that is
responsibility for unknown figure assigned to it by a
actions not taking appearing in im- server. If you hit the
‘refresh’ button on your
place in the social ages accompany-
keyboard but nothing
body, introducing ing the articles. In
on the server has
ideas previously one report with changed, then what is
excluded from the headline seen on the screen
the “Eine Flugreise In appears to be the same,
conversation. 29 Die Bunten 60er- but in fact, this is a
Unlike the gallery Jahre” (A Flight whole new set of data
system Cadere Through the Col- retrieved from the
railed against and ourful ’60s), Motti server. Marisa Jahn,
“‘Refresh’: Versionhood
Ferrer trespassed appears entering
and the Multiplicity of
into, the primary a domicile the Self, An Interview
audiences for through a door with Kristin Lucas,” in
Motti’s interven- directly behind a Byproducts: On the
tions are com- woman posing on Excess of Embedded
pletely unsus- period furniture. Artistic Practices
pecting spectat- In another article, (Toronto: YYZ Books &
ors and agents, headlined “Der REV-, 2010), 113.

rendering the Restaurator Im
artist either invis- Ständeratssaal”
(Restorer in the an unnecessary 69. Because the judge
Senate Hall), two character, Motti ordered a court recess
people admire was subsequently for two weeks while he
determined the case’s
and point to a featured in other
legitimacy, the judge
wall fresco with newspapers for
was forced into a
Motti beside his actions, ex- philosophical and
them, looking panding his influ- methodological
curiously at the ence further, pro- paradox. 

images. While in liferating to infect 70. Jahn, “‘Refresh’:
most of the re- other hosts. 32 
 Versionhood and the
ports Motti Multiplicity of the Self,”
barges into the 114.

scene at the ex- Other 71. John Brown,
act moment the Embeddings Parasitic Wealth or
camera flashes, With the Mythic Money Reform: A
the image ac- Being series Manifesto to the People
companying an (1972–75), Adrian of the United States and
article on a Piper inhabited to the Workers of the
teacher’s meeting social conven- World (Chicago: C. H.

features Motti sit- tions, city streets,

Kerr & Company, 1898),
162.

ting alongside the and, like Motti,
participants in an the newspaper, as 72. Ibid.


act of solidarity. sites for dissem- 73. Ibid.


Motti’s seemingly inating the ap-
random, though pearance and ac-
in reality highly tions of her male
calculated, ap- alter ego, the
pearance in these “Mythic Being,”
images was both into the public
a form of an- sphere. This his-
onymous promo- trionic caricature
tion and the in- of a young black
troduction of a or Latino male
tangential narrat- appeared mus-
ive. As a witness tached and
to the events pic- afroed, smoked,
tured rather than wore shades, and
a maker of news, exuded an ag-
Motti’s position in gressive mascu-
the newspaper line persona, in-
constituted a ter- terrupting and
tiary position, exaggerating
which the artist deep-seated yet
occupied as silent unacknowledged
corroborator, a fears and stereo-
bystander. types of young
Moreover, by irrit- minority men.
ating the reader- Just as we are all
ship by offering constantly at
an unsubstanti- odds with our
ated pattern of personal identi-
appearance for fications and the
learned, indoc- same image of 74. Every living thing
trinated regimes the Mythic Being has at least one parasite
in which we oper- and a thought that lives inside it or on
it. Many, like leopard
ate, Piper stages bubble contain-
frogs and humans, have
identity as a para- ing different, many more. There’s a
site, foreign to brief, dated pas- parrot in Mexico with
the host she oc- sages culled from thirty different species
cupies; she is Piper’s personal of mites on its feathers
both within and diary. 36 Publiciz- alone. And the parasites
outside the cul- ing her private themselves have
ture to which she thoughts, these parasites, and some of
has been made to phrases were those parasites have
parasites of their
inhabit, and both treated as “man-
own… . Scientists have
within and out- tras” by the artist no idea just how many
side herself. How- by which she dis- species of parasites
ever, Piper’s ad- associated her there are, but they do
option of various voice and anxiet- know one dazzling
personae affords ies through an in- thing: parasites make
her a parasitical verted double. As up the majority of
means of inhabit- Piper describes it: species on Earth.
ing other per- According to one
“the experience
estimate, parasites may
spectives, how- of the Mythic Be-
outnumber free-living
ever disingenu- ing thus becomes species four to one. In
ously. 33 Like part of the public other words, the study
Cadere’s history and is no of life is, for the most
propensity for longer a part of part, parasitology. Carl
public display, my own.” 37 
 Zimmer, Parasite Rex:
Piper’s character Though Piper Inside the Bizarre World
would appear in herself was quite of Nature’s Most
Dangerous Creatures
both “culture-re- well known at the
(New York: Free Press,
lated locales” time of Mythic 2000), xxi.

(galleries, open- Being, her ges-
ings, concerts, ture spoke to the
etc.) and on the exclusion and
streets or on pub- conditional rep-
lic resentation of
transportation. 34 minority and wo-
Piper’s actions men artists.
were obliquely Working around
complimented by the same time,
the Mythic Robyn Whitlaw
Being’s concur- used her relative
rent appearance invisibility as a
within sixteen black woman to
single-panel traverse and hide
works, published behind the noise
as advertise- of culture and
ments in the Vil- politics through
lage Voice almost her In-Visibility
monthly between Project (1973–78).
1973 and 1975. 35 During this time,
Each included the Whitlaw exagger-
ated her own pro- revealed how 75. If the host is both
fessional obscur- such prohibitions eater and eaten, he also
ity by sending were generated contains in himself the
double antithetical
simple invitations ideologically and
relation of host and
for a number of reproduced. Us- guest, guest in the two-
her own secret ing a system of fold sense of friendly
exhibitions after authentication to presence and alien
they had closed. certify the exist- invader. The words
Whereas in the ence of her work “host” and “guest” go
1970s many con- and its pre-empt- back in fact to the same
ceptual artists ive dismissal, her etymological root:
were using the project’s power ghos-ti, stranger, guest,
host, properly
exhibition invita- lies in its ab-
“someone with whom
tion as a site for surdity, existing one has reciprocal
both their work outside the mar- duties of hospitality.”
and enhanced ket system’s logic The modern English
promotion, Whit- and expectations. word “host” in this
law questioned 
 alternative sense comes
the “publicness” Each of these from the Middle English
of publicity and artists use invis- (h)oste, from Old
the self-aggrand- ibility to accentu- French, host, guest,
from Latin hospes (stem
izement of artists ate the roles vis-
hospit-), guest, host,
by distorting both ibility and invisib- stranger. The “pes” or
temporality and ility play in the “pit” in the Latin words
the art proliferation and and in such modern
establishment’s reproduction of English words as
customary use of power, entering “hospital” and
advertising pro- into systems by “hospitality” is from
cedures. A com- either being too another root, pot,
ment on the sys- visible (hiding meaning “master.” The
compound or bifurcated
temic neglect of “behind the noise
root ghos-pot meant
non-white and and to-do of the “master of guests,” “one
women artists, devout,” 38 to use who symbolizes the
Whitlaw’s project Serres’s words) or relationship of
was based on her cloaked in incom- reciprocal hospitality,”
concept of the prehensibility. as in the Slavic gospodi,
“secret artist” (an Theirs is a game Lord, sir, master.
incorporation of of penetrating “Guest,” on the other
secret agent be- and exposing the hand, is from Middle
English gest, from Old
haviour and Wa- intersubjective
Norse gestr, from ghos-
tergate-era de- negotiation ti, the same root as for
ception and between indi- “host.” A host is a guest,
secrecy). Realiz- vidual and soci- and a guest is a host. A
ing the role invis- ety, interrupting host is a host. The
ibility played in the system’s re- relation of household
the manipulation gime of exclusion master offering
of power, she by swimming up hospitality to a guest
used clandestine the stream. By and the guest receiving
it, of host and parasite
strategies to in- forcing them-
in the original sense of
vade zones from selves into the
“fellow guest,” is
which she was host, they make inclosed within the
prohibited and their own pres- word “host” itself. J.
ence known and bery, as event, to Hillis Miller, “The Critic
show their tar- viewers by means as Host,” Critical Inquiry
geted systems as of a poster that III, no. 3 (Spring 1977),
440.

“the location rel- summarized what
ative to which the transpired and his 76. Bob Dylan,
included and the motivations for Chronicles, vol. 1 (New
York: Simon and
excluded will committing the
Schuster, 2004), 66. 

define them- act. It also noti-
selves.” 39 
 fied the audience 77. Serres, The Parasite,
17.

that the liquor
and food they 78. Miller, “The Critic as
Parasitical were enjoying Host,” 442.

Implications / was courtesy of 79. Jacques Derrida
Complicity that crime. With offers the term
A parasitical only the poster as “ipseity” to describe
gesture sharing a evidence, one can the twin poles of
certain visceral only speculate hospitality and
quality with the about whether or hostility, which he sees
candiru is an eth- not the heist ac- as a kind of
choreography of
ically complex tually occurred, complicity and
project called El and those in at-
intersubjective
Préstamo (The tendance were negotiation between
Loan) (2000) by forced either to multiple entities.
Guatemalan artist disregard or to Jacques Derrida,
Aníbal Lopez acknowledge and Monolingualism of the
(a.k.a. A-1 accept the pro- Other; or, the Prosthesis
53167). 40 Lopez fessed offense of Origin, trans. Patrick
robbed an unsus- responsible for Mensah (Stanford:
Stanford University
pecting passerby the exhibition’s
Press, 1996), 24. 

in Guatemala City manifestation. 42
at gunpoint and Anyone who has 80. Toxoplasma can be
deadly, however, for
used the pillaged been mugged will
those with depleted
money to fund an surely attest that
immune defenses,
exhibition at Con- there is a pro- particularly afflicting
texto space. 41 found ethical and fetuses that haven’t
Thus the victim experiential dif- developed defense
was unwillingly ference between mechanisms and
turned into a pat- an actual and fic- people with AIDS. In
ron, funding the tional robbery. this sense, Toxoplasma
invitations, in- becomes also an
Regardless, as illustration for how a
stallation, and viewers cannot parasite can be benign
costs associated independently in some circumstances
with the verify it, the af- (in carriers with
exhibition’s open- fect of the rob- adequate immune
ing reception, im- bery is palpable defense), but deadly in
plicating the whether the ac- others. The same
spectators and tion happened or strategy can yield
exhibition space not. 43 
 different effects
as accomplices in With El depending on the host
and how the parasite
the crime. 
 Préstamo, an un- positions itself along
Lopez commu- equal relation the chain. 

nicated the rob- between each
party involved in change value” 81. See Carl Zimmer,
the work (artist, with the term Parasite Rex, 92–94; E.
victim, witness, “abuse value,” Fuller Torrey and
Robert H. Yolken,
audience) exists, which he defines
“Toxoplasma gondii and
and Lopez tra- as “complete, ir- schizophrenia,”
verses this chain revocable con- Emerging Infectious
of asymmetrical summation” that Diseases 9, no. 11
exchanges and only works in (November 2003),
induces a volte- “one direction.” 47 http://cdc.gov/ncidod/
face in regards to Abuse value “pre- EID/vol9no11/03-
the funding of the cedes use- and 0143.htm Jaroslav
artist—taking a Flegr, “Effects of
exchange-value,”
Toxoplasma on Human
system in which according to
Behaviour,”
the artist seems Serres, because Schizophrenia Bulletin
to be vulnerable “exchange is al- 33, no. 3 (January
to the whims of ways weighed, 2007), 757–60; Kevin D.
foundations, col- measured, calcu- Lafferty, “Can the
lectors, and gov- lated, taking into Common Brain
ernments and account a relation Parasite, Toxoplasma
making society without ex- gondii, Influence
itself vulnerable change, an abus- Human Culture?”
Proceedings of the
to the artist. 44 ive relation.” 48 

Royal Society B 273
Each subject pos- (2006), 2749–55,
ition in the act is http://werc.usgs.gov/c
taking without II. Cymothoa
his/pdfs/Lafferty06tox
giving, complicit Exigua 
(The oPRSLB.pdf.

in the field of re- Tongue-Eating 82. Elisabeth
lations. 45 In tak- Louse) Wetterwald,
Consider the
ing money from a “Consumption and the
odd crustacean
victim, who the Self: 
Elisabeth
artist rendered a parasite known as Wetterwald Interviews
Cymothoa exigua, Joe Scanlan,” in Rue
patron, Lopez
demonstrates the the tongue-eat- Sauvage (Dijon: Les
ing louse. Enter- press du réel, 2003),
degree to which
Serres’s assertion ing through a
http://thingsthatfall.co
fish’s gills, this m/interviews/dispersio
that “exchange is n.php.

always danger- parasite attaches
itself at the base 83. Ralph Rugoff,
ous” can be true, Circus Americanus
of the fish’s
and that the “gift (London: Verso
is always a for- tongue. Extract-
[Haymarket Series],
ing blood, the
feit.” 46 In this 1995), 77.

parasite causes
conceptualiza- 84. Serres, The
the fish’s tongue
tion, all exchange Parasite, 55.

to atrophy from
is predicated on 85. Pierre-Joseph
lack of blood, al-
abusive relations, Proudhon, No Gods, No
lowing the para-
exploitation, and Masters: An Anthology
site to attach its
unequal bal- of Anarchism, ed.
own body to the
ances. Serres ex- Daniel Guerin, trans.
muscles of the
plains this idea by Paul Sharkey (San
fish’s tongue stub Francisco: AK Press,
replacing Marx’s
and effectively 2005), 55–56.

concepts of “use
replace its host’s
value” and “ex-
tongue. While the duced to yet an- 86. Whitlaw’s meta-
inhabited fish other vehicle for appropriation calls into
continues to use the language and question the
authorship and
its tongue as be- operations of the
ownership of the
fore, the fish host (whether a
imagery those artists
tongue—now em- big fish or a small used to call into
bodied by the fish). Fish cannot question the
parasite—is no speak as humans authorship of others,
longer a tongue do, of course, but while also
exactly, but a by anthropo- appropriating the
functional pros- morphizing the imagery from the
thesis and a hy- fish’s tongue, the dealer who would
claim to have owned
brid organism. operations of
those objects, and thus
That the tongue Cymothoa exigua
the stolen imagery they
specifically is the yields questions contain. In the end, the
site of this concerning the dealer opted not to
struggle—and is codes and press charges in order
also a key muscle formats of insti- to save himself from
of human speech tutional address, further
—has symbolic the role of para- embarrassment. 

significance when sitical noise in 87. Serres, The
considering the communication, Parasite, 5. 

many discursive and the intercon- 88. To be a parasite
and informational nected relation- means to divert food,
modes of parasit- ship between the money, energy—
ical practice, as host and anything material—
does the verb parasite.
 from its destined path.
Once at the host’s
form of the word For theorists
table, the parasite in
“louse,” which like Jacques
return … must regale
tellingly means to Lacan and Louis the other diners with his
ruin or spoil. Althusser, 49 the stories and his mirth. To
A tongue-eat- voice is an object be exact, [the parasite]
ing louse of interpellation exchanges good talk for
presents a model by which the sub- good food; he buys his
for the possibilit- ject is entered dinner, paying for it in
ies and problems into the signifying words. It is the oldest
profession in the world
raised when an order and posi-
(Serres, The Parasite,
artist appropri- tioned according 34). In other words,
ates the figurative to the determina- when an artist is
“tongue,” or tions of ideolo- invited into the home
voice, of a tar- gies. The tongue of the art institution,
geted institution. can therefore be the unspoken pact is
It also introduces seen as a vehicle that the artist must be
heightened po- for authoritative thankful and exchange
tential for parasit- hailing. The voice the benefits of
financing and
ical artists to be of the institution
resources for the
instrumentalized beckons its pub-
symbolic capital of
by the institution lic and, in doing their works.

—used, in reverse, so, simultan-
as the mouth- eously brings that
piece of its tar- public’s existence
get, and thus re- into being—re-
producing the the violence of 89. Vaccination, Serres
ideological net- the Vietnam War, reminds us, is based
work of policies, “cleverly upon this principle: the
parasite that enters the
tastes, positions, recontexualiz[ing]
body as contaminant
and actions to culture itself as a
then protects it against
which one must battleground further contamination:
subscribe as a strewn with casu- These logics shifting
constituent. alties.” 50 By cov- around minimal angles
These claims are ertly replacing are at work in other
circulated by an the customary systems as well.
institution’s in- audio guide tapes Parasitology, as we shall
ternal agents soon realize, uses the
available for
vocabulary of the host:
through a variety MoMA visitors
hostility or hospitality.
of structures; in with a revisionist
First of all, the parasite
art such forms rereading of is always small; it never
range from press MoMA’s galleries, exceeds the size of
releases, publica- she accentuated insects or arthropods. In
tions, wall texts, the absence of fact, the most
and other di- work by “un- numerous are protozoa
dactic materials known artists,” or bacteria or viruses.
to events and Their small effects are
primarily African
usually well-tolerated
educational activ- Americans and
by the organisms, which
ities, as well as women. 51 By quickly rediscover their
the normative verbally decon- health, that is to say,
curatorial pro- structing the es- their silence (at least
cesses of includ- tablished mean- relatively). This
ing, excluding, ing of the works equilibrium that is well
and arranging ob- on display and taken care of, thanks to
jects within asserting that the the defense systems, is
exhibitions. more solid than the
works played to
preceding one. With the
Reversed Lip- elitist ideological
expulsion of Tartuffe,
synching
Just desires, Whitlaw’s
Orgon’s fly is
before Stromberg substitution artic- vaccinated against the
began his illu- ulated a message next devout man. In
sionistic inhabita- counter to the vaccination, poison can
tion of MoMA, voice of the insti- be a cure, and this logic
there was a clear tution, parasitic- with two entry points
appropriation of ally appropriating becomes a strategy, a
the institution’s care, a cure. The
her host’s mode
parasite gives the host
voice in Whitlaw’s of address to
the means to be safe
Monument to the both expose and
from the parasite. The
Unknown Artist derail the func- organism reinforces its
(1968). Through tion of that one- resistance and
this work, a sub- way system of increases its
versive gallery communication adaptability. It is moved
tour through from art institu- a bit away from its
MoMA, Whitlaw tion to equilibrium and it is
drew connections audience.
 then even more
strongly at equilibrium.
between the Like
The generous hosts are
struggle for re- Stromberg’s pho- therefore stronger than
cognition in the tographs, the bodies without
artistic canon and Whitlaw’s tapes visits; generation
were uninvited Critical increases resistance
irritations to the Echolocation right in the middle of
gallery. Security While endemic diseases. Thus
parasitism contributes
officers eventu- Stromberg and
to the formation of
ally found and Whitlaw each
adapted species from
destroyed the entered their the point of view of
tapes, presum- voices into an in- evolution. Michel
ably because stitutional frame, Serres, The Parasite,
ventriloquizing the institution’s 34. 

the institution voice can also be 90. Benjamin Buchloh,
compromised the replaced when it “Allegorical
authority of the exits the space of Procedures:
museum, effect- the museum or Appropriation and
ively overriding gallery. For ex- Montage in
the official code ample, rather Contemporary Art,” in
Art after Conceptual
such that “one than locate its in-
Art, eds. Alexander
tongue invades tervention at the
Alberro and Sabeth
another.” 52 Just source of institu- Buchmann
as Lacan and tional communic- (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Althusser de- ation, the British Press, 2006), 29.

scribe the artist collective 91. One can hardly
subject’s anxiety BANK intercepted consider GELITIN’s
that the voice and redirected clubhouse parasitic, as
coming from outgoing mes- they were invited to
one’s mouth is sages within the create it, and context
not one’s own communicative does not really provide
(but rather that of channels of sev- GELITIN’s primary
material. However, if
the ideological eral hosts, spe-
one considers the
state apparatus), cifically press re-
balcony the group
such gestures of leases from com- created behind the
inhabiting the mercial galleries. clubhouse, a more
tongue frustrates Formed in 1991, complex set of
power positions BANK spent relations emerges:
and exposes the nearly a decade between
tenuous authority presenting sim- inside/outside,
of the institution’s ilar, critical par- guest/host,
guests/other guests,
language. Inhab- odies of the art
visible/invisible,
iting the tongue market through a support/risk, etc.

makes clear to variety of means,
the host not only including the ad-
that its own voice option of pseudo-
can be appropri- corporate identit-
ated, but also ies. 53 In BANK’s
that its authorit- FAX BAK project
ative communic- (started in 1998)
ation is not ob- and the related
jective nor indif- Press Release ex-
ferent, but rather hibitions (first
constituted by shown in 1999 at
ideological de- Gallerie Poo Poo,
cisions by spe- London), BANK
cific actors. 
 collected and ed-
ited publicity ma- leases to be in- 92. In fact, the group’s
terials issued by flated advertise- gesture would have
galleries, com- ments masquer- gone entirely
unnoticed had it not
menting on the ading as critical
published an account
grammar, con- commentary and
of the action in an
tent, tone, form, contextualization. artist’s book containing
and style of the Strategically, detailed sketches and
texts directly onto BANK’s position documentation. Some
the press releases as a collective have suggested that B-
in circulation at a limited any Thing was just an
given time. BANK individual’s liabil- elaborate hoax, a
then faxed the ity for the group’s fantasy produced
through
documents its actions, thereby
documentation.
members altered diluting any po-
Accordingly, witnesses
back to the gal- tential for re- and accomplices have
leries that issued course. 55 This wavered from
them, and later echoes corporate admitting to its
exhibited these structure, sug- fabrication to
documents as gesting another producing evidence of
works. 54 The at- parasitical inhab- this truth, suggesting
that the work is either
tention paid to itation—that of
a fake event made to
these generally the shielding
look real or a real event
one-way streams properties of in- cloaked in speculation
of information corporation. 
 in order to defer
was redirected in BANK’s responsibility. 

almost real-time, détournement of
93. Jacques Derrida,
away from the press releases Limited Inc., trans.
abstracted sub- was effective, for- Samuel Weber and
jects to which cing galleries to Jeffrey Mehlman
they referred and rethink the lan- (Evanston, IL:
back in on their guage they em- Northwestern
points of origin, ployed and the University Press, 1988),
stimulating re- curatorial and 90.


flections on not programmatic 94. Andrea Fraser,

only the signific- choices they “From the Critique of
ance of the press made, as well as Institutions to an
Institution of Critique,”
releases, but of the images they
Artforum, September
the artists, insti- projected, their
2005, 278.

tutions, and dis- graphic identities,
courses involved. and so on. BANK
BANK’s parasit- challenged the
ical methodology authority of the
sabotaged the institutions, as
institution’s rhet- well as the larger
oric by mirroring system in which
its voice and oc- they operate, by
cupying its phys- seizing the
ical circuits of tongue from
transmission. Ul- which they speak
timately, BANK’s to change the
interventions conversation.
showed press re- BANK’s parasitic
inhabitation af- dissemination in 95. Consequently, the
firms Barthes’s a globalized parasite reveals that
rhetorical ques- arena where it is ‘the body’ itself does
not exist as a proper
tion: “Does the possible to find
and proprietary given—
best of subver- out about almost that is, as a natural fact
sions consist in everything but —but rather
disfiguring codes, impossible to incorporates a scalar
not in destroying know and see narrative, a fiction, that
them?” 56 By loc- everything in its emplots us within what
ating its work entirety. 57 Nearly we call ‘a life’ by
within its hosts’ ten years after emplotting us within ?
it.’ What we name as
press releases, FAX BAK, the
the body situates us
BANK detaches American duo
within a life story that
the format from Dexter Sinister binds up space and
its parasitical de- engaged in a sim- time, suturing us to our
pendence on an- ilar form of para- ‘selves’ as the jealous
other and shows sitical practice proprietors of our much
the mechanism when they were coveted vital property.
of dissemination invited to parti- The parasite therefore
as the primary cipate in the addresses us as ‘an
enemy’ only insofar as
material, site, and 2008 Whitney Bi-
we identify the body
receptacle for ennial. Whereas
and identify with the
events and ideas. BANK used the body as the essential
The parasitic press release as psychological/political/
press release be- material and site, biological metonym for
comes a host for for Dexter Sinis- our life. By perturbing
another order of ter the press re- this putatively natural
parasites that lease offered metonymy, parasites
enters through more of a “frame reveal the underlying
paradox of modern
and appropriates of reference” and
political ontology—
the domain for a specific institu-
which perhaps explains
counter tional mode of in part why viral
messaging.
 circulation as op- epidemics seem to
posed to a spe- trouble us biologically,
cific generic politically,
A Slower, Parallel structure.
 economically, and
Stream
Collaboratively, psychologically. Ed
Today, discurs- Dexter Sinister Cohen, “The
ive and promo- Paradoxical Politics of
produced and re-
tional channels leased a rich
Viral Containment; or,
are often con- How Scale Undoes Us
cache of docu- One and All,” Social
fused as equival-
ments from the Text 106 (Spring 2011),
ent means of me- Commander’s
23.

diation. Some
Room at the 7th
forty years after Regiment Armory
the introduction
(the offsite mirror
of conceptual art of the museum
strategies, press
where most of
releases do the biennial’s pro-
sometimes oper-
gramming took
ate as the primary
place). In this
site for the work’s
context, Dexter
Sinister’s “press cessibility, brevity, 96. I love the fact that
releases” took the and time. 
 human genomes can be
form of general Unlike BANK’s found in only about 10
percent of all the cells
press releases, FAX BAK, Dexter
that occupy the
logos, re-typeset Sinister did not mundane space I call
versions of texts, launch “a direct my body; the other 90
essays, archival critique against percent of the cells are
documents and the institution, or filled with the genomes
memos, email ex- anyone else—at of bacteria, fungi,
changes, a loose least not primarily protists, and such, some
chapter of a or directly,” 59 but of which play in a
novel, re-released instead intro- symphony necessary to
my being alive at all,
magazine art- duced “forms of
and some of which are
icles, book re- communication hitching a ride and
leases, and much and noise” in or- doing the rest of me, of
more. 58 They der to examine us, no harm. I am vastly
also created an “the ways in outnumbered by my
alternative audio which informa- tiny companions; better
guide for navigat- tion is released put, I become an adult
ing the Whitney and human being in
company with these
Biennial, much distributed.” 60
tiny messmates. To be
like Whitlaw did Looking back to
one is always to
at MoMA. artist Hans become with many.
Whereas BANK Haacke’s well- Some of these personal
intercepted offi- known Shapolsky microscopic biota are
cial communica- et al. Manhattan dangerous to the me
tions, altered Real Estate Hold- who is writing this
them, and then ings, A Real Time sentence; they are held
rerouted them Social System, as in check for now by the
measures of the
back to their of May 1, 1971
coordinated symphony
sources, Dexter (1971), we see an
of all the others, human
Sinister joined artist invited to cells and not, that make
the publicity of- exhibit his work the conscious me
fice for the bien- at the Guggen- possible. I love that
nial, releasing in- heim Museum in when “I” die, all these
formation in par- New York, only to benign and dangerous
allel with and in have that invita- symbionts will take over
the same chan- tion terminated and use whatever is left
of “my” body, if only for
nels as their host, because of the
a while, since “we” are
yet distributing a implications of
necessary to one
very different that work. another in real time.
stream of inform- Haacke, in ex- Donna J. Haraway,
ation designed to amining the real- When Species Meet
expand and slow, estate business of (Minneapolis:
rather than con- Harry Shapolsky University of Minnesota
tract and exped- over a twenty- Press, 2008), 4.

ite, the superficial year period, re-
conclusions the vealed ties
biennial usually between Shapol-
disperses through sky and the
these channels museum’s trust-
for reasons of ac- ees. Whereas
Haacke was in- artifact to any 97. Donna Haraway,
vited into the mu- form of commu- “The Biopolitics of
seum but soon nication. There is Postmodern Bodies:
Determinations of Self
became an a direct correla-
in Immune System
overtly critical ir- tion between the
Discourse,” in American
ritant in that intensity of activ- Feminist Thought at
space—in other ity on the channel Century’s End: A
words, a guest and the commu- Reader, ed. Linda
turned intruder— nication of the Kauffman (Cambridge,
Dexter Sinister’s message, MA: Blackwell
response to their between noise Publishers, 1993), 199–
host was far less and information, 233.


intentionally ant- between parasit- 98. Cohen, “The

agonistic. They ism and Paradoxical Politics of
forced a slowness functionality.
 Viral Containment,”
23.

of reception and
a plurality of in- 99. As Steven Shaviro
formation, which Resembling the reminds us: My
Tongue intestines are on as
are, of course, an-
tithetical to what The American intimate terms with
artist group the their tapeworms as they
marketing chan- are with my mouth, my
nels generally Yes Men parasite
asshole, and my other
specific forms of
achieve. Turning organs; the relationship
address and as-
again to Serres: is as “intrinsic” and
“his parasites are sume the semb- “organic” in the one
lances of other
eating him up, case as it is in the other.
and their noise entities, which Just like the tapeworm,
grants them ac- I live off the surplus-
covers his
voice.” 61 
 cess to sites or value extracted from
contexts that are what passes through
Serres has ob- my stomach and
otherwise inac-
served that the intestines. Who’s the
cessible, such as
French word parasite, then, and
television pro-
parasite trans- who’s the host? The
grams, closed-
lates to “static,” internal organs are
door conventions, parasitic upon one
and the parasite-
and other speak- another; the organism
as-static is in fact
ing engagements. as a whole is parasitic
a paramount
Yet while they are upon the world. My
model for the
officially invited “innards” are really a
parasite’s inter- hole going straight
to speak, they do
cession into the through my body; their
so in disguise as
exchange of in- contents—shit and
their confused
formation. Both tapeworm—remain
hosts are not
Dexter Sinister’s forever outside of and
aware of who it is apart from me, even as
and BANK’s pro-
they are actually they exist at my very
jects introduce a
inviting. Whereas center. Steven Shaviro,
certain level of
BANK intervened “William Burroughs,” in
noise into the
in the communic- Doom Patrols: A
transmissions Theoretical Fiction
ations of others,
they hijack, but about Postmodernism
the Yes Men actu-
their productive (London: Serpent’s Tail,
ally communicate
ends show noise 1997), 101. 

as others: they
to be a necessary
pose as particular that a publicly 100. Fraser, From the
people or invent owned company Critique of Institutions
representatives of of anything near to an Institution of
Critique, 278.

existing compan- the size of Dow
ies. Whereas Dex- has performed an 101. Marissa Jahn,
ter Sinister intro- action which is “Byproducts and
Parasites” in
duced a parallel significantly
Byproducts: On the
stream of inform- against its bot-
Excess of Embedded
ation into and be- tom line simply Artistic Practices
side an authorit- because it is the (Toronto: YYZ Books &
ative institutional right thing to do.” Rev-, 2010), 12. 

stream, the Yes Dow Chemical 102. Michel Foucault,
Men, camou- stock lost value “The Subject and
flaged, become temporarily, and Power,” in Critical
an institution’s surely many vic- Inquiry 8, no. 4
mouthpiece.
 tims were dis- (Summer, 1982), 790.

In fact, the Yes heartened after 103. In Arthur Danto
Men’s Andy Bichl- BBC World TV and others’
baum posed as a later notified “institutional theory of
spokesman of viewers of the art,” artworks
Dow Chemical hoax, but, as Car- themselves can be
named Jude Fin- rie Lambert- seen as parasitic on
the ideological,
isterra on BBC Beatty writes:
symbolic, and
World TV in “For those two economic mechanisms
2004, on the hours, the world of the institution,
twentieth an- believed that which has the authority
niversary of the there would be to recognize an object
1984 Union something like as art. Conversely, the
Carbide chemical justice in Bhopal; institution itself is
spill in Bhopal, In- for that time, parasitic on its artifacts
dia. As Finisterra, there existed a to make an empty
room into a zone of
Bichlbaum an- different model
discourse. Equally, site-
nounced that for corporate de-
specific artworks often
Dow Chemical, cision-making, an are regarded as
the company that ethical as well as parasitic on the
took over Union financial bottom context of the site of
Carbide in 2001, line.” 62 
 display, where not only
was finally taking Just as Motti, is the work embedded
full responsibility through the spec- on or in the host, but
for the disaster, in tacle of the media also the project
extracts meaning and
which at least apparatus, took
materials from its
twenty thousand responsibility for
host’s reserves.

people died and horrible disasters
Image: Max Smith,
thousands more and inhabited the
Cymothoa Exigua (The
were made sick. voice of the ab-
Tongue-eating Louse).
Putting this land- sent Indonesian
mark announce- delegate to claim
ment into per- responsibility About the Authors
spective, Bichl- when it was not
Post Brothers is a crit-
baum explained being taken, the ical enterprise that in-
this was “the first Yes Men stand in cludes Matthew Post, a
time in history for their hosts, curator and writer cur-
making them ac- actors makes rently working from an
countable, speak- their decisions elevator in Oakland.
ing for them, as inviolable, and Post Brothers has re-
cently developed pro-
them, because therefore the ap-
jects at COCO Kustver-
the hosts refuse proval of the state
ein, Proyectos Mon-
to do so. The Yes is necessary for a clova, Yerba Buena
Men’s uncanny subject’s self- Center for the Arts, the
ability to trans- constitution (let San Francisco Antique
form—with the us not forget the and Design Mall,
aid of a business experience of Queen’s Nails Projects,
suit—into the people “without and the CCA Wattis In-
semblance of papers,” who, in stitute for Contempor-
ary Arts. Post Brothers’
their host, os- their exclusion
essays and articles
tensibly becom- from the system,
have been published in
ing the host’s rep- are therefore il- Spike, Kaleidoscope,
resentative, is a legal and thus Mousse, Pazmaker,
type of ventrilo- rendered invisible ArtSlant, Curating Now,
quism that forces and silent, though Woo, and Snowball as
the host to enun- this invisibility well as numerous artist
ciate against its can also be a publications and exhib-
will, or even form of ition catalogues.


without its know- agency). 63 
 Chris Fitzpatrick is a

ledge. 
 In the flow of San Francisco based
detached bureau- curator who has organ-
ized exhibitions and
cratic exchange
A Silent Tongue events for Artissima 18,
there are often
To parasite a Fondazione Sandretto
hiccups or mis- Re Rebaudengo, the
channel of au-
takes that defer Oakland Museum of
thoritative com-
the normal pas- California, Palazzo
munication is not
sage of informa- Ducale, Proyectos
only to make vis-
tion through the Monclova, and Yerba
ible the falseness Buena Center for the
appropriate chan-
of an institution’s Arts, among other ven-
nels to open up a
voice, but also to ues. His writing and in-
space for artists
show that these terviews have been
to enter, where
contrived path- taped to the feet of
proclaimed im- carrier pigeons and
ways have real-
partiality can featured in a variety of
world effects. As
force the state to publications, including
arbitrary as an
unknowingly ac- The Baltic Notebooks of
institution’s voice
cept false claims. Anthony Blunt, Cura,
may seem, the Mousse, Nero, Paz-
For instance, the
symbolic pro- maker, as well as ex-
Vietnamese Dan-
nouncements ar- hibition catalogues and
ish artist Danh Vo
ticulated in bur- books.

has a curious on-
eaucratic docu-
going project
ments regulate
through which he You Might Also Enjoy
the movements,
constructs the life
behaviour, and 1. Re: The Serving
story of a fictional Library


self-identification
son by way of
of subjects. The
bureaucratic re-
power granted in
cognition. 64 In
law to certain
this work, a ficti-
tious birth certi- Vo’s work that “in 2. Conversationally
ficate begets a the staged clash Arresting: Ethics,
chain of events between bureau- Empathy,
and Identification
and procedures cracy and bio-
that constitute graphy, the dis- 3. Impossibility of
the experience of maying outcome an Island
the absent son, is not that bur- 4. From Yosemite to
presumably ter- eaucracy might the Group of Seven,
minating with an impair biography with Some Flatness
in Between
official death cer- but that bio-
tificate. In rela- graphy is an ef- 5. Arriving at Nowhere:
tion to Vo, the fect of bureau- Reflecting on Chris
documents he cracy.” 67 Vo him- Kraus’s
Radical Localism
collects and ap- self has conjec-
propriates ex- tured that his 6. Judgment and
press, through an strategies and Contemporary Art
Criticism: Panel One
official tongue, creative negoti-
the determination ation of social ap- 7. Farm Arugula with
of people’s move- paratuses may be Figs: Bay Area Bazaar,
The RED and the
ments and ac- an outgrowth of
GREEN, and Ripe
tions and are co- his experience as
Family Supper
difications and an immigrant,
8. On Second Thought:
traces of such perhaps similar to
Looking Back at the
transactions. the way in which
4th Berlin Biennial
Thus, a child ex- Cadere viewed
ists because the himself as a mar- 9. Lettre de Paris

documents say ginalized outsider 10. (Find us at the

so. 65 By using for being part Ro- kitchen door)
at unitednationsplaza
the language and manian. 68 Nev-
formats of official ertheless, Vo’s
documents, Vo is work shows that
subversively play- constraining sys-
ing with what tems can be and
John Searle are often under-
refers to as the mined, but also
institution’s that these codes
“status are social and
indicators”—“poli historical con-
ceman’s uni- structions. 

forms, wedding There’s a sim-
rings, marriage ilar sentiment in
certificates, Kristin Lucas’s
driver’s licenses, Refresh (2007).
passports, On October 5,
66
etc.” —that 2007, the artist
serve as markers officially changed
of power, permis- her name from
sion, obligation, Kristin Sue Lucas
and to Kristin Sue Lu-
authorization.
 cas in the Super-
Ana Teixeira ior Court of Cali-
Pinto observes in fornia in Oakland.
Trading in her a new lease on
name for the ex- life.” 71 Lucas
act same name, entered, irritated,
the artist asser- and provoked the
ted that she mouthpiece of
wanted to “re- the institution to
fresh” her identity question its own
as though she regimes philo-
were a Web sophically and, in
page. 69 Divor- doing so, forced
cing the particu- the court’s voice,
larity of the name the judge, to not
from the body, only acknowledge
even temporarily, her, but to accept
questions the her existential
construction of change. In its
subjectivity in re- noisy obstruction,
lationship to the parasite rein-
formal measures vents the host,
and therefore becoming an in-
demonstrates the tegral part in the
contingency and system by forcing
artificiality of it to reorient
identity. Lucas whatever mes-
petitioned the sage the host
court for a name transmits. 

change in the
standard proced-
ure, and after III. Toxoplasma
Gondii
some delibera-
tion, it was even- It is perhaps
that we, like
tually granted.

everything else,
Lucas put stat-
utory procedure are parasites. On
parasitism John
into a feedback
loop, forcing ad- Brown writes:
“Nature is not
ministrators into
a double take of without a parallel
strongly suggest-
the system they
invest in and ive of our social
perversions of
maintain. 70 Her
justice, and the
deference to the
comparison is not
legal system “is
without its les-
both crediting the
sons.” 72 Indeed,
government with
more power than parasites operate
with a brutality on
it actually has,
and tacitly raising par with humans,
a brutality well
the question of
whether, in fact, beyond the viol-
ence of Lopez’s
the judge has the
authority to grant previously men-
tioned robbery. at some point,
On a certain level, without giving
separating back. And every
ourselves from living thing is in-
parasites is as fu- fested with para-
tile as distin- sites, which fur-
guishing the ther contain their
“built environ- own unique spe-
ment” from “the cies of parasites;
natural world.” 
 as each parasite
For instance, has its own para-
Brown notes that sites, parasites
the ichneumon fly make up the ma-
is parasitic in the jority of life on
living bodies of earth. 75 Para-
caterpillars and sites are catalysts
the larvae of other in evolution, their
insects. With cruel adaptability to
cunning and in- the conditions of
genuity surpassed their hosts forces
only by man, this the hosts to
depraved and un- transform. The
principled insect same can be said
perforates the for artists work-
struggling cater- ing
pillar, and depos- parasitically.

its her eggs in the Deconstructing
living, writhing the notion of the
body of her parasite by re-
victim. 73 Of versing and
course, Brown is breaking down
using hyperbole, the fictitious op-
but if we read him position of
literally, his state- “host/parasite,”
ments unfairly Jacques Derrida
anthropomorph- and J. Hillis Miller
ize and moralize each unmasks
the behaviour of the paradoxical
parasites, citing etymology of
the “innate “guest” and
cruelty” with “host” (where
which they “eat parasite implies a
their way into the host, and guest,
living substance host, hospitality,
of their unwilling and hostility, all
but helpless host, derive from the
avoiding all the same root, the
vital parts to pro- French hôte). 76
long the agony of For both writers,
a lingering parasites under-
death.” 74 Every mine the integrity
living thing takes, of social, sym-
bolic, and lin- Curiously enough,
guistic systems she makes an ap-
by elaborating pearance in Bob
endless chains of Dylan’s memoir
dependence, Chronicles (2004),
citation, and in- where he tells the
fluence—the vari- story of meeting
ous ways ideas, the “outlaw artist”
ideologies, and at a dinner party.
institutions host After describing
contradictory her as walking “in
concepts they’d a motion like a
prefer to exclude. slow dance,” the
The host’s hospit- singer/songwriter
ality toward the recounts asking
guest is contin- Whitlaw, “What’s
gent upon the happening?” Her
host being, first, a response, in true
guest in its own parasitical fash-
domain, with ion: “I’m here to
each position de- eat the big din-
pendent on one’s ner.” 77 An unwel-
acknowledgment come guest that
or exclusion of gobbles the sur-
the other’s right plus of her host,
to be there. Their Whitlaw positions
mutual determin- herself as a social
ation illustrates parasite. As
the impossibility Serres reminds
of sustaining the us: “To be a para-
host position as a site means: to eat
controlling sub- at somebody
ject on which the else’s table.” 78
principle of hos- The host and the
pitality is based. parasite share the
When brought to food at the table,
bear upon the but the host is
formations of so- also the food, “his
cial systems and substance con-
particularly art in- sumed without
stitutions, theor- recompense, as
ies that stress the when one says,
interrelation and ‘He is eating me
interchange out of house and
between parasite home.’” 79 The in-
and host offer a truder arrives as
nuanced way of an affront to the
thinking through host’s home (hos-
interventionist tility); the gra-
strategies. 
 cious host wel-
Let’s return comes the para-
again to Whitlaw. site in (hospital-
ity). She takes pass and trans-
from the table gressions, the
and gives nothing most gifted and
in return. In this effective para-
way, hospitality sites are those
begets hostility that possess the
and vice versa. 80 ability to make
Extracting sur- their hosts come
plus from the to them. Where
host and exploit- the candiru loc-
ing the hospitality ates an opening
on offer, Whitaw and enters
was at the dinner through its po-
not only to pro- tential host’s
cure sustenance waste, other
parasitically, but parasites operate
also to interrupt with an even
the structure of more complex
affairs where mode of infec-
manners govern tion. One such
behaviour, revers- parasite is the
ing the hierarchy single-celled
of inviter/invited parasitic proto-
by making visible zoan Toxoplasma
an unsaid and gondii. While
corrupt social Cymothua
contract.
 exigua’s manner
Tag
If of replacing its
everything is al- host’s tongue
ways already with itself
parasitical, then demonstrates an
why is it that impressive mi-
when artists work metic corporality,
parasitically they Toxoplasma actu-
are able to ally manipulates
achieve percept- the functions,
ible results? What even the minds,
is it about the of its host, for-
conditions of art cing it to act
practice and in- counter to its own
stitutions today self-interest. Tox-
that compel oplasma replaces
artists turn to the mind from
such a strategy? within and, in a
Let’s look once way, remotely.
more to biolo- Like parasites
gical parasites for that inhabit inter-
guidance. After mediate organ-
all, it could be isms in order to
that, for all of enter another,
their creative and more desirable
industrious tres- host down the
line, Toxoplasma Some parasites
rides a chain of can only survive
mammalian and in specific hosts,
avian interactions but Toxoplasma is
in order to enter astonishingly ver-
its preferred host: satile; it is able to
the cat. 
 live in thousands
Sexually repro- of species—in-
ducing in the cluding humans,
belly of felines, with over half of
Toxoplasma the global popu-
spreads through lation playing
processes of di- host. In most hu-
gestion and de- mans, the para-
fecation. When site remains
prey, such as a dormant, forming
rat, comes into a silent pact with
contact with the its intermediate
predator’s feces host by symbiot-
(or contaminated ically sharing
soil, water, or space with the
meat), it picks up body’s
the parasite, defenses. 81 Re-
which alters the cent studies have
behaviour of the found, however,
infected, redu- that even the qui-
cing its ingrained escent Toxo-
cautionary fear of plasma may af-
cat waste, and fect human beha-
causes it to be- viour, connecting
come more likely its prevalence to
to be captured by everything from
its predators. schizophrenia, to
When the cat increased risk-
eats the rat, the taking and ag-
cat ingests the gression, to cul-
parasite as well— tural
Toxoplasma has differences. 82 In
thus completed terms of cultural
one cycle, and the production, Toxo-
process may be- plasma can be re-
gin again. The cat lated to artist Joe
becomes a ma- Scanlan’s state-
chine for the pro- ment that “suc-
duction of para- cess is not a mat-
sites, as well as a ter of status, but
channel for their of circulation.” 83
dissemination Its distribution is
(defecating them almost incompre-
on one end, re- hensibly
ingesting them at widespread.
the other). 

Appropriating volved a parasite.
Appropriation Attempting to ap-
In its host’s propriate from
house, a parasite the proprietor of
must be humble artists who ap-
and quiet, for be- propriate,
ing too visible can Whitlaw’s project
be fatal. Consider can be seen as
once more appropriately il-
Whitlaw’s lustrating Serres’s
stealthy chi- assertion that
canery. In 1984, “the parasite
while the “Pic- parasitizes the
tures Generation” parasites.” 85 If
of artists was other artists
reaching a pin- could benefit
nacle of success, from the theft of
Whitlaw was ap- cultural signs, ob-
prehended while jects, and images,
breaking into the then surely Whit-
house of a New law could con-
York dealer who tinue this chain of
represented colonization, ex-
many well-re- tending the logic
garded artists of exploitation
who use the back to the things
strategy of ap- themselves. As
propriation in the French an-
their own produc- archist Pierre-
tion. Ralph Rugoff Joseph Proudhon
explains that famously wrote in
“during a pre-trial 1840: “Property is
hearing, Whitlaw theft!” 86 The in-
maintained that if dividual expropri-
theft could be art ation of goods
—at least in the replicates the
hands of appro- general appropri-
priation artists— ation of labour
then her action, and resources in
and those of capitalism. If
thousands of artists, dealers,
other thieves, and collectors
should likewise could benefit
be judged by aes- from the theft of
thetic, rather than cultural signs, ob-
penal, codes.” 84 jects, and images,

 then surely Whit-
Whitlaw’s ges- law could con-
ture charts a tinue this chain of
chain of exploit- colonization, ex-
ive relations, call- tending the logic
ing each actor in- of exploitation
back to the things titioners have
themselves. 87 
 sought to circum-
For Serres, hu- vent since the
mans are the ’60s.

parasites of para- The mutualistic
sites, the grand parasitism that
parasites of all emerges from
nature. He asks, Serres’s idea of
“What does man dinner guests
give to the cow, suggests another,
to the tree, to the more homeo-
steer, who give pathic possibility.
him milk, warmth, Perhaps the host
shelter, work, and itself needs the
food? What does parasite, just as
he give? our bodies need
Death.” 88 As bacteria and
Marcel Mauss, other organisms
Bataille, Miller, to maintain
and many others homeostasis. The
have attested, the host uses the
gift always comes parasite to regen-
with a reciprocal erate and invigor-
obligation, an un- ate, inviting criti-
equal exchange cism in order to
that never finds a question, de-
balance and velop, and reify its
serves the in- status. 90 This
terests of the “impulse [for an
giver as much as institution] to cri-
the receiver. 89 ticize itself from
But traditionally within, to ques-
an artist becomes tion its institu-
an unwelcome tionalization,” is
guest when they not a defensive
abuse the hospit- strategy, but is, as
ality of his or her Benjamin
host, turning ma- Buchloh de-
licious or critical scribes, one of
intentions onto the “essential fea-
the institution it- tures of modern-
self. The artist re- ism.” 91 One can
mains at an im- see the evolution
passe located of “institutional
between the false critique” in the
distinctions of recent curatorial
opposition and trend towards
complicity, still “New Institution-
adhering to a de- alism,” which in-
pendency on the strumentalizes
very institutions certain forms of
that critical prac- critical practice
by inviting it in B-Thing (2000).
placidly. Still, Undetected, the
there are cases in group removed a
which artists, window and re-
aware of the placed it with a
shared benefits cantilevered bal-
for both the artist cony of their own
and the institu- construction. A
tion, inhabit that group member
mutualism, sub- stood upon the
verting the ex- platform for al-
change to disrupt most ten minutes
and expose it for and was photo-
what it is, but in graphed from an
doing so, also orbiting heli-
show that such copter flying a
mutualism does small clique of in-
not entirely sap the-know collect-
the potential it ors and dealers as
generates. 
 observing parti-
cipants in the
project. 

A Parasitical
GELITIN imme-
Precipice diately dis-
In the spring of
mantled its con-
2000, the Vien- traption and the
nese artist col-
project thus un-
lective GELITIN folded without in-
and fourteen
cident. 93 Still,
other artists were
while the group’s
invited to share
intervention
an official studio
shares some re-
residency on the
semblance to
ninety-first floor
those discussed
of one of the
in the Candiru
World Trade Cen-
section for the
ter towers in New
way in which ac-
York. GELITIN’s
cess is gained
contribution was
through subvers-
a “club house”
ively exploiting a
made of card-
weakness in the
board, which
autonomy of the
concealed the
host’s system, B-
group’s activities
Thing is slightly
from their hosts
different. Without
and the other res-
the building, the
idents. 92 Using
balcony would
this privacy pro-
fall. However, it
ductively, the four also seems to
members of the
suggest that in
collective realized
order for the in-
a project entitled
stitution to re-
main a unified regularized
body, it must operations.

have a parasite, This dilemma
an internal differ- between compli-
ence, which city and critique
forces the host to is even more pro-
reorient and de- nounced in art in-
fend its boundar- stitutions. Since
ies. Such inter- at least the ’60s,
subjective nego- practices vari-
tiation shows that ously described
the parasite is as “political art,”
never simply ex- “interventionism,”
ternal to its host, or “institutional
but rather en- critique” have re-
gaged in a recip- produced the fig-
rocal exchange ure of the artist
where not only as an antagon-
does the parasite istic, parasitic
“come to live off force that attacks
the life of the the stable object
body in which it of “the institu-
resides,” but “the tion,” either divul-
host incorporates ging the
the parasite to an institution’s latent
extent, willy-nilly and manifest
offering it hospit- ideological and
ality: providing it political inten-
with a place.” 94 tions, or seeking
The parasite then to eradicate the
“takes place”; it space entirely. As
ruptures the sov- the tongue-eat-
ereignty of the ing louse’s pre-
host’s domain, dicament attests,
turning the host’s co-optation may
hospitality to hos- be inevitable for
tility by confusing such attempts
and occupying and might there-
the space fore be seen as
between outside superficial ges-
and inside. Previ- tures lacking crit-
ously whole con- ical potential. For
structions are Andrea Fraser,
shown to be het- such gestures are
erogeneous, op- “victim[s] of [their
erating less as a own] success or
destructive move, failure, swallowed
and more as a up by the institu-
supplementary tion [they] stood
displacement, a against.” 95 While
shift in the site’s some may believe
parasites risk re-
ifying their host the parasite
systems, treating evolve to exploit
ideology and in- the habits of the
stitutions as host, or did the
static things, host develop ac-
parasitical prac- cording to the
tices involve de- terms set out by
familiarizing the the parasite? In
host, disrupting what ways does
normative pro- the parasite viol-
cedures, and ate the integrity
making clear that of the host’s ho-
systems of rela- mogeneous and
tions are exactly defended do-
that: contingent main, making
social models en- clear to the host
acted by the ac- that its sovereign
ceptance and ac- body was never
cordance to cer- its own? Perhaps
tain rules that are the tapeworm
not only artificial and the intestine
but made up of co-developed,
actors and asym- providing the per-
metrical relation- fect conditions
ships that are for both to ex-
performed in tract surplus from
specific ways. 
 nourishment. The
vast majority of
our bodies are
The Intestine or populated not by
the Tapeworm? our own genetic
A constructivist material but by
reading of
parasites. 96 Like
Serres’s work,
the fish and the
where the
tongue-eating
parasite’s inter-
louse, where the
ruption rejuven-
parasite is effect-
ates and forces
ively the same as
evolution in the
an organ, the
host, frustrates
host’s home is ac-
numerous cri-
tually already
tiques in that
populated by
such “interven-
functional diver-
tionist” gestures
gent
lack critical po-
organisms. 97 The
tential. To return
parasite is as
to Burroughs, a
much “you” as
useful question
you are yourself,
might be: “Which
and what consti-
came first, the in-
tutes “you” is the
testine or the
collectivity of
tapeworm?” Did
these internal and
external collapse of any
interactions.
 lingering semb-
The host’s de- lance of distance
fenses are what between “us” and
Donna Haraway “them.” In more
refers to as “bi- clearly institu-
opolitical tional terms, An-
maps,” 98 re- drea Fraser
sponsible for ne- states: It’s not a
gotiating chal- question of inside
lenges to the sov- or outside, or the
ereignty of the number and scale
self, identifying of various organ-
what belongs and ized sites for the
what doesn’t. As production,
Ed Cohen sug- presentation, and
gests, “What the distribution of art.
parasite reveals is It’s not a question
that the ‘life of of being against
the body’ also be- the institution: We
longs to life in are the
general, which is institution. 101 

why the para-site The parasite is
can eat both with entrenched in the
us (as guest, as system in more
commensal) and than one sense: it
from us (the lit- is lodged in its
eral meaning of host and it is a
parasite). In so trespasser. Intim-
doing, the para- acy and enmity
site confronts us are not antithet-
with the fact that ical but rather
life does not mutually defined
properly ‘take —a strategy of
place’ within a continuous asso-
proper body.” 99 ciation and disso-
“We” are no more ciation that al-
autonomous than lows critical posi-
“they,” and our tions to be estab-
parasites are on lished and shif-
as intimate terms ted. Marisa Jahn,
with our organs writing about
as our organs are “embedded prac-
to tices” that infuse
themselves. 100 into certain cul-
Of course, the af- tural, economic,
fective workings and social sys-
and effective dis- tems, suggests
persion of Toxo- that, due to their
plasma suggests proximity and de-
an intimacy of an- pendence on the
other sort—the host system, such
practices “there- off a system, but
fore signify not that through its
from a position of interruption, the
pure opposition- project lays bare
ality (antagon- the parasitical in-
ism), but one in terrelations
which the opposi- within the system
tionality is irre- itself. These com-
concilably bound ponent relation-
up with an em- ships are what
pathic relation- parasites feed on;
ship to the larger parasites exploit
whole systems of ex-
(agonism).” 102 ploitation, inter-
She raises the fering with per-
point that antag- ceived balances
onism depends by deferring the
upon an essential normal route. Un-
and static system encumbered by
to attack face to boundaries, such
face and destroy, cunning acts of
while agonism (a infringement
political doctrine enter into the un-
taken up by such acknowledged
thinkers as economies of the
Michel Foucault, host, the ex-
Ernesto Laclau, cesses and waste
and Chantal that it wants to
Mouffe) emphas- deny. When para-
izes the positive sites permeate
aspects of dis- paths of interac-
sent as a “per- tion and commu-
manent provoca- nication, they not
tion,” 103 one that only profit from
both recognizes modes of circula-
dependencies tion but also by
and differences manipulating and
without the delu- deconstructing
sions of con- crucial codes.
sensus. The host These efforts im-
is shown not as a part the role
stable, closed, or noise and inter-
homogenous en- ference plays in
tity, but rather a the transmission
body politic that of information.
is at constant While parasites
contestation with are dependent on
itself. 
 the context in
What makes a which they oper-
project parasitical ate, 104 theirs is a
is not only that it game of asserting
enters and feeds their presence in
the host while de- ing relations, then
ferring and dis- what can be
tracting the offered by identi-
system’s mechan- fying and naming
isms. Even when these positions?
invited into the What is at stake
dominant field of in a parasitic ac-
discourse, the tion? What hap-
parasite asserts pens when roles
itself as a are inverted and
stranger, one who dependencies re-
recognizes not vealed? Does the
only the hidden parasite reflect
pacts of hospital- an impasse in
ity and property, transgression
but also how the where there is no
host is only a po- longer an opposi-
sition that can be tional position
displaced. 
 from outside, but
Through many where change is
examples we’ve only conceivable
shown what para- from the inside?
sites can offer What can the
artists in terms of parasite tell us
models. And about the inter-
parasites tell us dependencies ne-
much about their cessary for social
hosts and the and communica-
systems in which tion systems? The
those hosts oper- intimate yet pois-
ate. But what is onous interaction
parasitism ex- between parasite
actly? Is it a and host surely
strategy of con- provides a more
venience, an op- nuanced way of
erational channel charting exploita-
for riding the tion between
waves of already parties, but does
established com- interrupting es-
munication in or- sentialist binary
der to exploit its models of abuse
scale and power? allow for identi-
Does the parasite fication between
identify with its others, or does it
host? Is its em- wipe away the
beddedness an problems
empathetic ges- between them?
ture—towards Does the parasite
identification or offer a model for
belonging? If host the host, a way of
and parasite are institutional ar-
constantly revers- rangement that
recognizes and visible. And yet
evolves through perhaps it is less
intrusion? Can an about why than
institution be what for. Both
built that reveres questions (why
and learns from and what) are, of
the parasite course, inextric-
without making it ably bound to
one of its own? Is how, but what
the parasite con- we’ve sought to
tagious? Can show is that para-
subtle interrup- sitical inhabita-
tions in specific tions are not
spaces effect simply a mode of
broader structural operation, a tac-
and ideological tic, or a medium
shifts? When for cultural pro-
some projects duction. Surely,
bring external or the most advant-
marginalized ageous factor in
voices into the in- using parasites as
stitution, what is a framework is
their dependence the way in which
on the parasites reveal
institution’s con- the complexity of
tradictions? Is all given relations
their inclusion between things
just a simple use (sentient or oth-
of a middleman erwise), as well as
so that the insti- how parasites
tution does not render binaries
have to confront worthless. What
its own exclu- emerges from
sions? In every this clarity of vis-
case of parasit- ion is the ability
ical practice, the to study and dis-
first question is, rupt those rela-
who is parasiting tions. How para-
whom? Though sites shift accord-
this is not the last ing to certain
question.
 rules and how
Perhaps to their hosts must
think through shift according to
parasites is to use their parasites is
the parasite as an the very point of
optical device parasitic gestures
with which to see —it is how para-
relations break sitic gestures be-
down; perhaps to come more than
work parasitically gestures. It is how
is to make those they effect
relations more change.