“Dumb dumb is rednecks and racists, football hooligans, gum-snapping marketing girls, and thick-necked office boys. Dumb dumb is Microsoft, Disney, and Spielberg. Smart smart is TED talks, think tanks, NPR news, Ivy League universities, The New Yorker, and expensive five-star restaurants. By trying so hard, smart smart really misses the point. Smart dumb is The Fugs, punk rock, art schools, Gertrude Stein, Vito Acconci, Marcel Duchamp, Samuel Beckett, Seth Price, Tao Lin, Martin Margiela, Mike Kelley, and Sofia Coppola. Smart dumb plays at being dumb dumb but knows better.”

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I’ve always striven to make and place my work squarely between smart dumb and dumb dumb. BC IMNSHO smart dumb is too “smart” these days. I’m on to you, smart dumb. So like, I make smumb dumb art. 

And yes, TED really, really misses the point. I spoke at a TEDx event some time ago, and as nice as the organizers and participants were, that whole format/culture has major problems.

Being Dumb is an essay by Kenneth Goldsmith, published today on The Awl. (via forwardretreat)