Jno Cook spent years tracking and participating in the Chicago Art scene via his website www.spaces.org. As an artist he was known for creating curious scientific investigations while using antiquated technology. Roughly a decade ago, Cook went into seclusion to focus on writing. Last month, The COMP Magazine caught up with Cook at his Ravenswood home to discuss the lost days of the Uncomfortable Spaces, his fascination with anachronistic technology, and his upcoming series books focused upon Saturnian Cosmology.
Jno Cook, NEA ID Card, circa 1990s
So, you’ve worn many hats – artist, editor, government employee, writer, etc., throughout the years. How have these experiences informed your artistic practice? Can you provide a little background on your relationship to art and Chicago?
Everything influences art production. As some painter wrote: Read everything. My gripe with most artists is that their work falls far short of providing any novel insight into society, culture or even themselves. Some of it is just pat. And a lot consists of obfuscation passed off as some conceptual novelty. But most times it is just empty ravings.
I see art as a critique of representation. Thus it is based on the past, but offers a new view in the present which takes the past to task. If it is topical or arcane, it only has a select audience. Not that it matters.
Jno Cook, When I was Two, (Baby Book), 1978-1998
I believe you̓ve been running the Spaces.org website for over 20 years? This online archive has tracked the obscure to higher profile visual arts events for the past couple decades. What was the impetus for the creation of the Spaces site? Has the focus changed over time?
Haven’t updated the Spaces (spaces.org) site since 2003 or so, with a few late additions in 2010 and 2011, because I have been typing and reading 7 days a week. I have typed all 700,000 words 3 or 4 times with one finger. And I can’t spell.
Jno Cook, from Diagrams, April 2000
What about the Uncomfortable Spaces? Younger artists are unfamiliar with these galleries. What role do you see former galleries like Beret International, Ten-in-One, Tough, and MWMW having on the history of Chicago art?
Totally neglected by the MOCA’s 1996 compendium exhibition “Art in Chicago, 1945 – 1995”, despite the fact that the Uncomfortable Spaces collected more reviews than all the other 200 galleries together in Chicago over the period of their existence.
Jno Cook, Rottweiler Camcorder, HWD: 25.5 x 21.5 x 24″ Video, Reclaimed Materials, 1990
In much of the work I am familiar with, at times, you employ what could be described as anachronistic technology laced with a touch of irony. Is this a correct assessment? How would you describe your personal focus or aesthetic?
I’ll buy that. Irony is the mild form of sarcasm that’s not abusive. Both express an intellectual attitude. That has been my form of a critiqe of representation.
Jno Cook, Waiting for Armageddon: Gravity Monitor, HWD: 72 x 34 x 39″ Reclaimed materials, 1990
You’ve been writing in-depth over recent years. I understand this is may be a lofty task, but can you provide a summary on Saturnian Cosmology?
I can quote the opening statement as follows:
“This book presents a cosmology based entirely on the supposition that our coherent worldwide mythology is history rather than creative fiction writing in antiquity.”
“As a result, this text is about the catastrophes experienced by Earth in remote antiquity and also in more recent times. Some have been unbelievably destructive, which has been recognized recently by archaeologists in their investigation of the event at the start of the Younger Dryas period.”
This site (saturniancosmology.org) is about the size of War and Peace. It also gets more file hits than the other dozen websites (in the world) dealing with catastrophism. I get about 2,000,000 file hits annually, sometimes 3,000,000. Must be doing something right. But you will find that my site is not linked to by the others. I think because I generally am an embarressment to their efforts. But also I have not promoted it at all, always thinking I need to complete the edits. And I suppose there is the remote possibility that they are right, and I am dead wrong.
There is a set of pdf files available, too, And there are some 9000 backup documents (saturniancosmology.org/files) that can be searched. There is an unattended forum run by somebody else (lostworldforum.org) which doesn’t get much play, since the traffic on this topic is primarilly on a private listserv (yeah, that is the correct spelling). At the listserv a dozen people ask questions and offer information. The listserv members have established four of their own supporting webpages, plus forums, Facebook accounts, and a very few youtube presentations.
There is a developing set of book reviews (contrarybooks.com), which presents resources in catastrophe. There is a compendium of comments (othergroup.net) dedicated to “the success and failure of arguments countering alternative cosmologies.” There is a mirrored set of discontinued newsletters “Thoth” originally by the competition (othergroup.net/thoth/index.htm).
And I still have Gravy magazine (gravymagazine.com), originally published by Adam Mikos. Still have on line Claudia’s home nursing efforts (care.spaces.org). I have crashed the art data bases (artchicago.org and artchicago.net) because it was too much work to maintain. And so it goes.
Jno Cook, Hard Copy: Endangered Species, HWD: 9 x 11 x 16″ Reclaimed materials, audio , 1992
What are you currently working upon?
A presentation at a conference on mythology and psychology currently planned (by other) for May of next year in Toronto.
And then there is the house and yard that require catching up. I haven’t raked leaves since heart surgery 5 years ago. Windows, doors, flooring, shelves, plastering, downspouts.
Chester Alamo-Costello, portrait of Jno Cook, 2002
For additional information on the work of Jno Cook, please visit:
Jno Cook: http://jnocook.net/
Artist portrait and interview by Chester Alamo-Costello
