Who was the surprise guest?

[whitefork]

Please?

[SkepticScott]

Jose Alvarez (a.k.a. "Carlos") doing some performance art.

[UKBoy1977]

Hi, I'd be really interested to here everyone's opinions on this. I'm the British guy who spoke out and said I thought this was all a test because I genuinely thought it was and I wanted to be the first to speak out and say " Ah-ha! you can't fool me!" I expected any moment for Randi to stand up and say it was all a joke but it never happened so I ended the day feeling a bit confused and embarrassed that I may have actually insulted a genuine performance artist!!

So what does everyone think? Was it a joke?

[markb]

Originally posted by UKBoy1977
I expected any moment for Randi to stand up and say it was all a joke but it never happened so I ended the day feeling a bit confused and embarrassed that I may have actually insulted a genuine performance artist!!

Confused is the right word. I think we all felt that way. I don't think you should be embarrassed about it.

[Girl 6]

Originally posted by UKBoy1977
Hi, I'd be really interested to here everyone's opinions on this. I'm the British guy who spoke out and said I thought this was all a test because I genuinely thought it was and I wanted to be the first to speak out and say " Ah-ha! you can't fool me!" I expected any moment for Randi to stand up and say it was all a joke but it never happened so I ended the day feeling a bit confused and embarrassed that I may have actually insulted a genuine performance artist!!

So what does everyone think? Was it a joke?

Well, I knew about Carlos from previous videos that I had seen of him. But, I can totally understand if you were confused. I also think it was a sort of experiment on us to see how we would react.

I LOVED your response. It was appropriate and I felt that you did not insult him in any way. He should expect responses like this, after all.

G6

[Girl 6]

Here's some more info about Carlos:

http://skepdic.com/carlos.html

[RichardR]

Someone suggested that the whole thing was set up so that “Carlos” would have another publicity video, the way they originally filmed the Penn & Teller audience. I don’t think that was the point but I’d be interested in anyone else’s opinion on this.

I think it was just set up so that we would get a feel for the way it would have felt to people who went to see a “real” chaneller, but it was certainly confusing with that strange woo woo film shown [I]after[/] the hoax had been explained.

[dewalt]

First of all, a nod to Girl6, whose paper on the forum inspired me to stop lurking and finally start posting.

I live in new york city, and was lucky enough to get to the Whitney museum's biennial last year, which included "In Perpetuity Through the Universe, 2001," so maybe I can shed a little light on this... (go to http://www.whitney.org/2002biennial/index.shtml and look under "gallery works" to see more about Jose's piece.)

The performance at the meeting was not a joke, nor was it a test.... though at the risk of being obtuse, it wasn't entirely serious either. Jose is a performance artist; the Carlos persona is only part of a larger body of work where he explores all sorts of issues related to belief and religion. At the whitney, he had a bunch of video screens showing the Carlos news footage, but also the sort of "woo woo" empty desert/dancing girl/sybolic-looking bird stuff we saw at the meeting.

Frankly, I found the video Jose showed to be a little too, well, metaphorical for my tastes, and wasn't impressed. But the rest of the performance - the q&a, all the people running around him with cameras- was pretty cool. The idea here is that not only is Jose making art about the nature of belief, but that each performance of that art builds his legend and adds into the mythology. Remember all the people we saw in his video, sitting in that theater in NY or in Australia? Well, at some point we'll probably appear in one of those videos too, and the image of 300 skeptics staring quizically at a video screen will play like 300 believers gazing rapturously at their prophet.

It was a risky move putting some experimental, avant garde performance art in the middle of a room full of skeptics and left-brainers; i'm not surprised a lot of people didn't get it, or didn't like it. But I wouldn't worry at all that Jose was insulted or that you reacted inappropriately - the way the audience responds is all part of the piece.

[Girl 6]

Welcome to the forum, dewalt! :D I look forward to seeing more posts from you.

Thank you for joining us!

I have a question, though. I'm trying to wrap my head around this "body of work" as art concept. How long do you think that the Carlos persona would have to be enacted in order for there to be a definitive body of work? He is certainly stretching the limits of the definition, as far as I'm concerned.

Should look at all of the other "channelers" and so forth as people creating a mythology to be interpreted as art? Is this a new way to debunk these "channelers"?

G6

[dewalt]

First of all, I should say that I'm hardly an art expert - a semester of art history in college and the occasional gallery visit are about the extent of my experience. I base this analysis on the performance at the Whitney, the performance at the Amazing Meeting, and what I've read about the Australian hoax... I haven't seen any of Jose's other work, which I'm sure would help us all understand just what he's all about. But for what it's worth, my impression is this:

Jose Alvarez was a performance artist before he met Randi, but he was real young and hadn't really done much yet. Randi gave him the whole idea for Carlos, trained him to act like a prophet, and engineered the whole Australia stunt. When that was done, and the fakery was exposed, Jose was left with this great character, but he couldn't fool anyone anymore, since the whole thing made international news.

Where does this leave a young artist looking to make an impression on the world? He decided to build on the Carlos legend, not neccessarily by continuing the hoax, but by examining what happened, by using images from it in his future work, and by continuing the character within the larger context of todays world.

So just like another artist might use pictures cut from a magazine to help illustrate his concepts of love and beauty, Jose uses images from the Australian hoax to help illustrate his concepts of faith and belief. If he'd never met up with Randi, he might just be making the "woo woo" videos. But since that is part of his history, he's able to turn that single hoax into the basis for a larger body of work, to make new art that ties into and embellishes that one performance.

Is he stretching it? In my opinion, maybe. He doesn't seem to be adding a lot of new material to the Carlos persona as much as he's milking it for material. But again, I haven't seen the vast majority of his stuff so I may be wildly off base.

Should we look at all of the other "channelers" and so forth as people creating a mythology to be interpreted as art? No way, they're still just hucksters. It's important to note that Jose no longer claims to be a prophet, he plays the Carlos character, but then talks about it as a performance and what it means.

Honestly, I don't know how successful this all is. It's not exactly my kind of thing. But the fact that he was included in the whitney biennial -a very prestigious exhibition of new American art- indicates that there may be something to it.

[Girl 6]

Originally posted by dewalt

{snip}
Should we look at all of the other "channelers" and so forth as people creating a mythology to be interpreted as art? No way, they're still just hucksters. It's important to note that Jose no longer claims to be a prophet, he plays the Carlos character, but then talks about it as a performance and what it means.

Honestly, I don't know how successful this all is. It's not exactly my kind of thing. But the fact that he was included in the whitney biennial -a very prestigious exhibition of new American art- indicates that there may be something to it.

Do you think that the Carlos act can backfire if used as a tool for debunking? For example, people may look at it and claim that it doesn't represent what channelers are all about or that it's a type of fraud (;)).

G6

[darling]

Originally posted by Girl 6
Do you think that the Carlos act can backfire if used as a tool for debunking? Somebody was saying that Jose is actually an employee of the JREF. If that's true, I don't think that Randi would employ someone he thought would harm his cause.

I didn't get the "art" part, but I got the intended result. Jose said himself that his goal was "ambiguity". And he certainly achieved that - along with the unstated objective of art as a thoght-provoking device.

[RichardR]

Originally posted by Girl 6


Do you think that the Carlos act can backfire if used as a tool for debunking? For example, people may look at it and claim that it doesn't represent what channelers are all about or that it's a type of fraud (;)).

G6 I don’t think so. He actually fooled a lot of people into believing he was a real chaneller, whatever anyone says now. The message is that an admitted fake was believed genuine by many people, and therefore many other seemingly genuine (not to us, obviously), mystics may not be (ie are not) real.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

If the idea was to get us all wondering and talking, it certainly worked!

~~ Paul

[Jeff Corey]

Paul,
You bet. It was "performance art" whatthefork that is. Like the movie, "When Jonny met Yoko".
I think it was there to fork with our heads and provide footage for his future exhibits.
I kept on trying to think of a good question, but words failed me. Something on the order of, "Great Guru, is the universe a great gerbril?
Answer, "For you, maybe. It is what it is and we each have our own reality."

I can't wait for the JREF to release the videotape of the convention. I have no clue what you all are talking about!

[Quinn]

Quite unexpectedly, I ended up having lunch with Jose immediately after his performance, and talking to him gave me a better grasp of his performance than I otherwise would have had. As others have said, it was really no more or less than a performance art piece, and its purpose was to be what it was and have people react however they would. There was no hidden point to it that people are missing. Personally I enjoyed it, but most of my enjoyment came from watching the audience's reaction both during and afterward. I commented to him that he could now add "Counfounded a room full of skeptics" to his résumé.

A couple points I got from speaking with him...

The three women dancing around him in the film were listed in the credits as "the Fox sisters," who perpetrated the hoax that gave birth to the spiritualism movement. (He said he chose three because, although there were only two Fox sisters, their "team" consisted of the two of them and their manager.) The deliberate ambiguity was whether Carlos was conjuring them, or they were conjuring him.

He still does full-blown performances as Carlos from time to time, although now he condenses the process of the original hoax into a single presentation, first establishing the mystic character and then revealing the truth behind it.

And yes, he does work for the JREF.

Also present at lunch was a friend of his who is working on a feature film that, without giving too much away, will be of great interest to skeptics. And if we're lucky, Randi will be part of it.

Quinn

I'm with UKBoy1977. I was not impressed. The acting was poor by both Jose and his flunkie cape-holder. The whole presentation was poor. This "performance artist" Jose Alvarez could take a few pointers from Hal Bidlack.

[RichardR]

Originally posted by LukeT
I'm with UKBoy1977. I was not impressed. The acting was poor by both Jose and his flunkie cape-holder. The whole presentation was poor. This "performance artist" Jose Alvarez could take a few pointers from Hal Bidlack. Maybe, but a lot of people believed this “poor” performance was by a real psychic or chaneller (or whatever he was supposed to be). We’re just less easily impressed that the woo woos. (duh!)

[Segnosaur]

Ok, here's a question....

Before Carlos came out (and we knew who the guest was), we were told to move forward so that there were no empty seats in front. They said we'd understand why later on.

So, why DID we have to move forward? It wouldn't impact his performance if there were a few empty seats in the first few rows. Was it for the camera?

Yes, it was for the cameras. I learned that trick many years ago in politics. It looks bad for your candidate if there are empty seats on the news. Often, they will book a hall that they know is too small so that it is standing room only. If the media is slanted against the candidate, they will show any empty seats.

With every seat in the first few rows filled, and the right camera angles, Carlos can be made to look wildly popular.

RichardR, I agree with you. It doesn't take much talent to fool some people into believing you are a mystic. Like Carlos' video said at the end, half the magic is in the mind of the audience.

And like Phil Plait said, there is no idea so stupid that no one will believe it.

Sad, really.

I think it was the filming that bothered me the most. I don't like being used for the furtherance of some lame performance artist's work.

What Carlos did in Australia is commendable. But this is something else now. It is a form of art I don't particularly like, and I don't want to be a part of it.

We were disrespected, as far as I'm concerned. Jose Alvarez should have left the mask at home and talked to us as himself. I am sure he could have given us some valuable insight to the newage movement, instead of the flowery malarkey he passed off on us. It would have been nice to hear the exact process of how he acheived his success in Australia, and given us all the ins and outs of the hoax.

What we got instead was bullsh*t.

[UnrepentantSinner]

Originally posted by LukeT
We were disrespected, as far as I'm concerned. Jose Alvarez should have left the mask at home and talked to us as himself. I am sure he could have given us some valuable insight to the newage movement, instead of the flowery malarkey he passed off on us. It would have been nice to hear the exact process of how he acheived his success in Australia, and given us all the ins and outs of the hoax.

What we got instead was bullsh*t.

I have to disagree, but only within the context of the question I was going to ask. I just couldn't figure out whether to address Jose as Jose or Carlos and decided to keep my question to myself.

I thought it was cool that we had "Carlos" appear at TAM. The Carlos (not Swett) affair is IMO Randi's Magnum Opus. Jose and the JREF just gave us a taste - in real time - of the hoax that they perpetrated on the fine citizens of Australia. A bit confusing? Yes, but often times, performance art is. And that leads me to the question I didn't ask of Jose.

"At your heart, do you remain a performance artist, or have you dedicated yourself more towards skepticism?"

From his presentation, I'd say the answer is clearly the former.

[RichardR]

Originally posted by Segnosaur
Ok, here's a question....

Before Carlos came out (and we knew who the guest was), we were told to move forward so that there were no empty seats in front. They said we'd understand why later on.

So, why DID we have to move forward? It wouldn't impact his performance if there were a few empty seats in the first few rows. Was it for the camera? I thought it was to give us a feel for the tension that would have been created when Carlos was perpetrating his hoax on the woo woos in Australia. The crowd was being wound up to expect something big, and this was part of the technique to raise the excitement.

Of course, I could be wrong.

[Segnosaur]

Originally posted by LukeT
With every seat in the first few rows filled, and the right camera angles, Carlos can be made to look wildly popular.

Was this actually filmed for later use by Carlos or the JREF? (Not meaning a general video of the conference, but a special Carlos 'promotional' tape.) If so, I didn't think the JREF crowd would make the best audience, since our reactions would be quite a bit different than the woo woo crowd.

[bignickel]

When me and a few friends dropped by the JREF a few years ago, we were able to meet Jose. He was a very nice, subdued individual, and we chatted a few minutes with him.

Come to think of it, I can't remember if that was my first, or 2nd visit to the JREF. In any case, on my 2nd visit, the Amazing one himself was there - he even mystically bent a nail for us!

Which I still have, and wish to be buried with on the day I kick the bucket (I could insert a terrible joke about meeting Jebus and the ensuing conversation, but I'm not going to).

[Patricio Elicer]

Originally posted by RichardR
Someone suggested that the whole thing was set up so that “Carlos” would have another publicity video, the way they originally filmed the Penn & Teller audience.That seems to be the case. Let's remember that we were strongly encouraged, by Randi himself, to fill the front rows of the room. Then, the Carlos act was profusely photographed and videotaped. This showed as weird to me, also I recall someone asking why so much image coverage.

This is Randi lying in the ground taking pics of Carlos perfomance:

http://www.boomspeed.com/pelicer/randipic.JPG

The act itself was utterly confusing and incomprehensible to me. Just intended to create a mystical enviroment, perhaps a recreation of Carlos perfomance in Australia (?)