ALICE McCABE

These scenarios are contained within the PILOT EPISODE of

It’s ART BABY! The non-importance of being earnest

(A surreal sitcom set in a contemporary gallery whose Vermittlung team use Misunderstanding as a tool for interpreting art)

OPENING CREDITS – Visual

Each week a series of flashing images and a clue as to the death of the K.V. (kunstvermittler) will be shown. The death is a standard feature of every episode and the only image in the sequence that will change. The position of the ‘death clue’ in the sequence will also alter dependent on which episode it is.

Standard images

 It’s ART BABY! The non-importance of being earnest [white text constantly present at the bottom of the screen over the other images]

“Everything contained in this sitcom is based on the truth” [white subtitle on screen]

“SCREECH” [Green text arrives on screen ” then H then CH” then ECH” etc]

Shot of an elongating human face [natural contortion]

A fake eyeball falls against a white painted backdrop falls onto a polished wooden floor [the gallery floor] – pupil down – voiceover says “that’s a shame.”

There is a small plastic camel [handsized] showering on a white shower floor.

Death clue: View of an enormous pile of crystals (raw sugar) on the gallery floor. Shaken view of crystals like in a snow globe leads on to the TITLE of the first episode.

 INTRAPSYCHIC TOUR appears on the screen

[Times new roman, bold, white text on black screen]

 Both ‘It’s ART BABY! The non-importance of being earnest’ and ‘INTRAPSYCHIC TOUR’ fade at the same time.

“EXPLICIT VERMITTLUNG” typed on screen [bottom left corner] // courier typeface // appears in all the shots during the whole VERM THE WORM scene. Using an animation of a friendly worm we receive an introduction to Bourdieu’s concept of taste and an introduction to Kunstvermittlung. A worm’s head emerges but then moves back into a small log. It looks as though he is stuck at first, but he is working his way (albeit awkwardly) out of the log. 

He represents typical neo-liberal “funding form” worm talk. (This will be pointed out later in the series.)

Worm begins to speak. Head still out of hole in small log, body still within. 

VERM THE WORM: “Hello. I’m Verm the Worm. Special interest groups and non-special interest groups will find a friend in me. I’m employed by Government.”

Animation ends and changes to film of a room in a council building. It is slightly bleak, 60s, brown, there are about five people sitting in chairs around a table which has been enlarged by pushing four smaller tables together. On one side of the table is a wormery. In the background tacked onto a notice board is a banner in green and gold reading LOCAL COUNCIL. Camera zooms in – we see the people get out of their chairs to peer into the wormery – zooms in further – till we see a worm on a lump of mud. 

Camera still focusing on the worm we hear three separate voices:

POSH FEMALE: Oh that’s

VERM THE WORM: profound, staggeringly earthy

POSH MALE: Oh that’s

VERM THE WORM: rich in moisture and literary content

GANGSTA ACCENT MALE: Wha(t)’s tha(t)?!

Suddenly head back into the world of animation with a close up of VERM THE WORM who is speaking and has tiny teeth. 

VERM THE WORM: That’s art. [is chewing the earth and is a gross vision. Black sludge is spraying out of his little worm mouth.] That’s taste!

In the Gallery Director’s Office. Where a lot of nonsense is spoken as a consequence of arts/academic dialogue. 

A dark office with a thick carpet, minimal designer furniture, wooden panels and jungle-style frescos related to the sugar refining plants which the company previously owned in the colonies. Looks very old fashioned but is heritage protected, so even though the paintings depicting the subjugation of ‘tribes people’ are ‘bad taste’, they remain on the wall. The director hides some of the most offensive images with furniture and shelving units if someone other than Caucasian comes to visit. This is embarrassing for him so he normally asks Maxine to do it. 

A large sign reads “WELCOME TO THE KUNSTVERMITTLUNG DEPARTMENT” (it looks ridiculously long engraved on an official metal plate). It sways on the front door. It is hung in an embarrassingly easy way on string and this and the length of it looks incognito with its otherwise official making.

Inside the Education department (a classroom style room, no chalkboard [marks where it used to be] off-peach walls, desks have been moved to the edge of the room and form a ring around walls, there is a circular table in the middle of the room.) We see three women wearing togas [three MUSES] arms linked in the middle of the circular table, each using the other arm to make sandwiches, meat pockets. 

Paranoid cat tastes tinned fish:

DEAR COCO, I AM STILL TRYING TO WORK OUT WHAT YOU MEANT BY YOUR LAST EMAIL:

“MY POPS, YOUR BEHAVIOUR IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE AND DISRESPECTFUL. I NEVER HAVE TASTED SOMETHING SO HORRIBLE IN ALL MY LIFE. I AM NOT STUPID. TAKE CARE. BYE.”

SEA OF CHILDREN: YEAH! [The children are now so overexcited to be addressed in this manner that they start welling up…. The kids’ eyes begin to sparkle – it causes a bizarre chemical reaction with the humiliation, misunderstanding, sweets and art THEY begin to produce crystals.]

MUSE OF SCULPTURE: When what to your sparkling eyes do appe…

“sparkling eye syndrome” (MÖRSCH, 2013: 12)