“Shrine of the Desiccated Rats” by LadyBee

“Shrine of the Desiccated Rats” by LadyBee (Christine Kirsten)

Burning Man Archivist and arts curator, Christine “LadyBee” Kirsten, will install her assemblage piece, “Shrine of the Dessicated Rats”, in the “Catacombs of Curiosity” (the network of odd and mysterious rooms lurking behind the Institute of Crazyology).

Peter Shaw “Sides of Barn” opening with Inaugural Ball

The Institute of Crazyology is very pleased to present new paintings by Peter Shaw. These will debut at the Crazyology Inaugural Ball on Sunday, June 20th.

MENDOCINO’/‘RedwoodDuff’2020-2021 environmental-painting series
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The ‘MENDOCINO’/‘RedwoodDuff’2020-2021 environmental-painting series artworks are typically made outside and are made with paint on-paper and paint on-canvas utilizing the organic plant materials that comprise the natural ground-covering of the California Coastal Redwood Forest ie. redwood-duff.

Currently, Shaw is making 2-108”x114” on-canvas ‘MENDOCINO’2021 artworks; ‘LavenderMendocino’2021 and ‘BoogieMendocino’2021 as unique large-format environmental-paintings, on white/raw canvas.

Cathenge Installation in Progress

Over the weekend of June 5th and 6th we made a lot of progress on the Cathenge installation at the Institute of Crazyology. Graphic artist and “Emoji Jedi”, Yiying Lu, came by and took these photos showing the installation in progress.

The Institute has beautiful tiled floors arrayed in squares around the stately pillars of the old art deco Cadillac showroom. The atrium gallery has 6 squares formed of bricks and tile to match 6 Catoliths – divinely ordered it would seem. A just so story in architecture that dictated that we place each Cat Goddess in the center of her own square. Thanata, Erotica, Fortuna, Lyrata, Lunata, Solara – the names of the six Catoliths that comprise Cathenge. Each cat is paired off facing another, like Pharaonic statues at Karnak.

The above photos show the process of installation: First, the bases were moved into place using a gantry crane. Then the Catolith spines and the cats were placed on the bases. The next stages will

Lighting in Progress . . .

Arranging lighting for the Institute of Crazyology. Ron Halbert and Maitland figuring it out. That’s an Asmat tribal war shield on the wall. With the uplighting the relief in the carving really pops beautifully.

Ron Halbert experiments with LED uplight as Maitland considers the effect.

On Saturday we will move the cat bases into place and on Sunday we will stand the Catoliths on their bases.

We’re making solid progress at the Institute of Crazyology, and if you like what you see then please don’t hesitate to support the effort:

https://gofund.me/4377e315

We’ve raised $600. so far, and we’re very grateful for the support.

Cathenge Trailer Load-In (5/22/21)

Cathenge moved from storage in Alameda at Astra Aerospace to the Institute on May 22nd. It was a big day! Below are some photos documenting the move:

Many thanks to Chris Kemp for keeping the trailer at Astra since 2019. Special thanks to Cheryl Edison for making it all possible to begin with!

Cathenge Load in Crew included:
Akshay Patel
Artur Pyrogovskyi
Barney the Theremin Wizard
Cheryl Edison
Helena Hahnbasket
Jose Van Ness
Liam McNamara
Mark Wurtzel
Samuel Cloud
Tom Breen

Thanks, Everybody!

Credits

Institute of Crazyology is a project initiated and led by David Normal.

Collaborators and Crew, Contributors and Supporters include:

Aaron Spaz
Akshay Patel
Andrew Spalding
April Lelia
Artur Pyrogovskyi
Barney the Theremin Wizard
Cheryl Edison
Chris Kemp
Deborah Sciales
Helena Hahnbasket
John Law
John Martinez
Jose Van Ness
Kal Muller
Kalman Muller
Kathryn and Lewis Shepherd
Kevlar
LadyBee
Liam McNamara
Lukas What What
Mark Wurtzel
Neil Martinson
Paul Koudounaris
Roger Mihalko
Samuel Cloud
Steve Mobia
Suci Li
Tom Price
Walter Funk
Yulia Pinkusevich

. . . I hope I haven’t left anyone out!!

Updated 3D Viz for Cathenge at Crazyology

These renders show Cathenge in its definite placement within the Institute. The hall is composed of 6 squares defined by the spacing of the pillars as well as the tile work. There are six cats to center naturally in these six squares.

The renders also show the deployment of the platform triangles into 3 separate two tiered triangular stages. Twelve of the 24 platform triangles made by Andrew Spalding were loaded into the Institute, and all that’s needed is to place them and put legs on them as seen here (and I think I have just enough 4x4s for the legs).

CRAZYOLOGY 101

The proverbial “method to the madness” and the essential “madness of the method”

Institute of Crazyology where the lunatics run the asylum!

Crazyology is the crack in reason where the light of the imagination shines through! Re

  1. Concepts of Crazyology
      1. Pseudocism
      2. Crappicism
      3. Cornography
      4. Sleazometry
      5. Animalgamation
      6. Icongruity
      7. Blobularism
      8. Photophilia
  1. Why Crazyology? To what ends?
    • To define intuition as a cognitive and cultural zeitgeist informing civilization.
    • Explore and celebrate the power of Human Imagination
    • Unifying/synthesizing disparate intuitive movements into one eclectic mutant alliance
      1. “New Age” (Urrgh!)
      2. “Occult”
      3. “Fringe”
      4. “Countercultural”
      5. “Psychedelic”
      6. “Sci-Fi”
      7. “Fetish”
    • Renewing Surrealism
      1. Surrealism without Communism/leftist pretensions
      2. Jungian Surrealism vs. Freudian Surrealism
    • Renewing Psychedelia
      1. Genre free psychedelicism
    • Renewing Festival Culture
      1. Returning to inspirational origins
        1. Happenings
        2. Acid Tests
        3. Cabaret Voltaire – DaDA
        4. Lightshows+Rock’n’Roll+Eastern Mysticism+Circus+
        5. Feasts of Fools/Carnivale/Saturnalia

The Institute of Crazyology; the gallery, studios, and forthcoming cafe at 1000 Van Ness, provide the vital forum for tangible, physical, real-life experiments and inquiries into the nature of Crazyology, and a venue for expressions resulting from such enterprising inquiries.