A meditation on surrender, defense and impending nuclear doom, SURRENDER I blinks out over the Korean Friendship Bell, mediating the space between North Korea and the United States, Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump.

Installed at Angels’s Gate–formerly Fort MacArthur, originally coastal defense for the West Coast during the Cold War–the piece philosophically expands deterrence as an idea of conceding power (I SURRENDER)–and conceding the self (SURRENDER I).

SURRENDER I was part of the group show Herd, in which collaborator Maura Brewer and I created a taxonomy of Mutual Criticism: the practice, undertaken by a group, in which each member of the community is subjected to criticism by the collective.

By considering Mutual Criticism’s history, from its origins at the Oneida Colony in the middle of the 19th century, to its more recent versions in late 20th century psychoanalytic and cult models–we investigate it as a ritual of transforming the social body.

• 

• 

• 

Our print-it-yourself booklet tracking the history of Mutual Criticism was published by The Los Angeles Review of Books Print Quarterly, in their “Catharsis” Issue.