«THE L MAGAZINE» ‘coLunns = aRr FAG CTY Sete, 208 Man Dresses Like Baby at Burning Man, No One Shocked tw aiyschnson aby IKKI's was ajoumey of self discovery and enlightenment, whatever that ‘means, Picture a diapered dudo in a motor home hurling dangerously towards {he New Agetraveler/radical self-expression festival Buming Man, and you've gota scene from Mike Kelley and Michael Smith's latest video collaboration. [Now on view atthe Soulpare Center, Voyage of Growth and Discovery includes six projection sersens amidst unpainted playground scaffolding, 2 tent filled with stuffed animals, anda large gong atthe back of the gallery. In ther words, thespacelooks like giant ne art carnival in whlch spectacle and the fantastical intermittently produce linear narrative. "Ws Uke a retreat for suburban Candy Ravers," Itold my frend, while watching three women wearing vampire teeth grind on Baby IKKI at one ofthe Nevade dessert raves or the largest splay of temporary public atin the eountrs,"he counted. He was probebly right, but the ert snob in me was running thick enough that hadn'tthought aboutit in thatway. Instead, ! mentally swept he festival ‘under the vagoe culture] heading “events piggybacking insubstantial rhetoric about personal growth on other ubious claims about the higher purpese ofan." [Baby TKKI "found himselfin the desect, Kelley and Smith's video ether isn't interested or the pracess was Incubstantial, andthe installation means to reveal the vacuity of Burning Man through the absence of Socummented self-discovery. At the vay leas, IKKI poses a challenge tothe festival, as the eollaborative places the most dependent of beings in the midst of an event celebrating self-reliance,‘The closest approximation ofa Burning Man “exploration” comes in the form of IKKI’sdream—a loop of 1KKI ‘watching warm milk stream down his mother's bare chest a flames licker around her. It's exactly the kind of strange vision you'd expecta child imagined by Kelley and Smith to have. Kelley, known for photographs of people humping staffed animals and Smith, with hs vido nightmares that tum life into a game show, were laaly the collaborative team to dream up this baby's slogping thoughts. Played by Michael Smith, baby IKKI acts just ike a one-and-a-half-year-old child, minus the eying. ‘Andiences watch him play with 2 gas range in the motor home, encounter vdeo games at aves, and jump on various temporary arehitecural structures. Asa Toto ts activity foils to fed particulary safeforaehild, the ideo evokes a range of feling, from anxiety to laughter. Some scenes oven border on the sublime. TKR! arrives after the majority of artistic endeavors and fee spaghetti eamps have already been built, Indicating the video's focus on viewing as opposed to making, A positive response to visu stimulus usually {involves Smith bopping up and down and sucking on his soother. Much like work made forthe festival, this Visceral reaction seems largely personal in nature. about art," my fiend said Gnally. We listened to some more tinny electronica and wateed an array of fires burning down temporary strictures before I concurred. Past focus on light, neither one of us ‘wore sure what the greater meaning ofthe piece was meant tobe. And that sits just fine with me. While ‘Burning Man ravers and the Now Age travelers may succeed in locating identity, IKK's reveals the odds of ‘nding oneself w be rather bleak, as unformed belngs don't have the tols todo so. Ifthe installation is a metaphor for the fine art world, the mysteriousness of where these tols lie els about right.