Society is becoming increasingly regimented. There is a test which we all must pass to in order keep our freedom. I am part of a group of artists. People are lining up for the test. When I come to the test, it is this:
Four lines of people feed into a four lane test room. As one enters the room, the floor steps up several feet to a kind of platform that is covered with folding chairs (or light chairs) stacked 3 or 4 high for a distance of maybe 30 feet, making four lanes or rows of stacked chairs closely packed. The job of each person is to travel to the other end of their row at floor level, displacing the chairs as carefully as possible so that other rows aren’t disturbed, and everything is neatly restacked after they pass by. Clearly, this is excruciatingly tedious, and barely possible. The alternative is imprisonment.
I am angered at being presented with this dilemma. I progress quickly by pushing chairs up and ahead, before shoving the whole row of chairs off the platform in the direction of the pen and clipboard types who are monitoring us, shouting out a great big “Fuck you!” to the whole situation. As they move to have me arrested, I declare that what I have done is ART, and the state will have to deal with me as a national treasure.
In the next scene, I have split off (from fear?) and am now the observer of what becomes of the artist: The state has commissioned the artist to make a piece explaining his actions, and it is in a museum in a room by itself. We are going in to look at it. It is a portrait bust of John Lennon as the Mona Lisa, all encased in a shining brass helmet. There are holes for eyes, behind which are John Lennon’s eyes, dreamy and abstracted (you may say I’m a dreamer…) and mouth. The mouth is pursed in a smallish “o,” denoting careful and scrupulous attention. The helmet has a “visor” that folds down at the level of the mouth, more like a jaw bone. This has another, wider hole, behind which are John Lennon’s lips, looking like the Mona Lisa’s smile, only a bit too broad. The effect of folding the visor up and down is to alternate the two mouths while leaving the eyes unchanged. This has become a famous work of art, and people are lining up to see it.