THE NOVA EXPRESS CAFE HAS DEPARTED FROM PLANET EARTH!
Why was it here? Where did it come from? What did it mean?
Opened in June of 1993, Nova Express Cafe was meant to be a fun and welcoming artistic social space where people would be inspired to feel a heightened sense of their own individuality and to experience a deeper sense of the possibilities of life.Basically a walk-in sculpture that served pizza , the cafe was meant to provide an experience of art that would unfold over time and become an important element of people's lives; to function as a living, socially integrated, art form. For fifteen years, Nova was a venue for experimental music and performance, poetry readings, rock bands, storytelling, and art events. And also the cafe was a unique place for people to enjoy conversation and a meal with friends.
I chose the outer space theme because I enjoy being reminded that, amazingly, that's where we live: we live in outer space! We live on the surface of a small terrestrial planet that is actually floating in outer space!
Outer space' is also a good metaphor of consciousness. It is actually not 'space (that is) the final frontier', as in the Star Trek opening sequence, but the medium of consciousness itself that is the true 'final frontier'. Consciousness is the strange exotic world of science fiction.
The function of art is to reveal a phenomenology of meaning that includes the experience of consciousness as an essential element of reality. By this I mean that art is an open-ended conceptual structure capable of modeling a context of reality that actively comingles the 'subjective' and 'objective' domains. Art, as such, can be understood as experiential phenomenology. Perhaps the subjective-objective dichotomy is a cultural fiction that needs to be questioned. How can there actually be an objective world that is separate from a subjective knowing mind? How can reality 'be' without consciousness? How is reality experienced by consciousness? Art is, I believe, in a unique position to provide a way of seeing directly into the interplay of this 'world and mind' dynamic.
As an artist, this project was also a way for me to explore an alternative sociology of art. A core issue for me was to challenge the gap between what artists do and the reception of that activity by the general public. I chose to focus on developing a new way to be an artist rather than to focus strictly on developing a new style of art. This was because I believe the humanizing benefits of art are profoundly important and I think that there should just be more art in the world. My hope was to present art under conditions that were open and direct; as part of what it would mean to live in a more open society. Nova Express Cafe was meant to illustrate how art might function in a more democratic, evenly distributed and less exclusive way.
The socialization of art and the artist is a strangely under-discussed topic. I think there need to be alternative models of art practice. Artist-operated enterprises are a viable solution to the problems of obscurity and misunderstanding faced by many artists because, in essence, projects such as these are genuine parallel 'art worlds'. It is my hope that, to this end, other artists might be encouraged by the Nova Express Cafe project to consider the possibilities of creating their own parallel art worlds. I'm currently building another art enterprise, an art production facility, called Robot Iguana Studio.
The cafe's interior furnishings, kitchen and sculptures were built on a limited budget almost entirely from second-hand and discarded materials. As both an unusual business and an unusual art project, Nova existed outside the normal channels of either capital investment or art world patronage. Finally, Nova Express Cafe succumbed to economic pressure and was closed Wednesday, March 5, 2008.
A project is underway to put together a documental about the Nova Express cafe, both on its website and in a book form. If you would like to contribute please let me know or send photos, memories and stories to novanews@novaexpresscafe.com. Please put "alien intelligence" on the subject line.
Thanks for an exciting and meaningful fifteen years!
Cary Nova