Sleep

"I like doing movies because they're easier than painting." Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol is one of the finest artistic minds that we have ever & will ever witness. It was more than just the replications in "Dypitche", Andy illustrated ourselves to ourselves (which is a very hard thing to do. It goes much deeper than that...

Andy had a skill I can only hope I will learn with even half of his grace. He was able to make anything seem interesting if not only by his very eccentricity than by his appreciation at noticing other's beauty. None of which was explained greater than when he constructed this well known private film. It seems that it is most well known in fact for its not being well known. It is infamous for playing in uncrowded theaters to merely a group of 2 or 3 art students.

But that was the part of it that is interesting. It is not only a strange piece that goes well with many of his other pieces but it is an obscure marvel in itself. It's several hours of a man sleeping & that is it. It is a great film to watch for the thrill of it. Give it a try. If you can find a copy or a showing i emplore you, give it a try. You'll most likely regret it, but you only live once.

This movie can take you to a completely different world. I've seen it in an empty cinema (Andy Warhol's exhibition in Vienna), with my girlfriend and our friend. He was the only one who didn't fall asleep there. I slept for a while not because it was boring but because I was tired from watching Andy Warhol's Empire (8 hours). It was really one of the most peaceful and clear movies I've ever seen. Watching all the small movements of the sleeping body (John Giorno), the shadows on it and all the details was a nice game that took 5 hours 21 minutes. At the beginning of the show a guy came in and fell asleep in the cinema. His loud snoring was the best soundtrack you can imagine.

The act of sleeping is not art - at least not for the one who is actually sleeping. But if this subjective process has an observer, it gets objective. The subject of the observer turns the subjective process of sleeping into an objective one. Moreover, this objectification works only because the observer is capable of observing. Observing is a form of interpretation, because we cannot perceive our world without using the filters of our senses. So, what we see when we watch a sleeping person (or a person sleeping, which is not the same), is by no means what he is actually doing, since our senses belong to us, and we cannot see with the eyes of the sleeper.

However, interpretation transforms the objective process (the former subjective process from the perspective of the sleeper) into a sign process. Since as observers we cannot perceive our world without our senses, these senses turn objects into signs. According to Sign Theory (Semiotics) of Charles Sanders Peirce, objects of arts are signs and the sign class of objects of arts hangs together with every other sign class, so that the semiotic universe is connected. Now, if by observing we interpret and by interpreting we transform an object into a sign, it follows that this sign class must be connected with the sign class that is reserved for artistic objects. From that, it follows by logic that also the process of sleeping is a form of art - qua sign processes. Actually, it even follows that everything that we observe is a form of art and that we live not primarily in a physical, but in an artistic universe. Andy Warhol's movies with such - at first sight - banal titles like "Haircut", "Blow Job", "Chelsea Girls " or "Sleep" (1963) are testimonies of a theory of semiotics which is far away from being banal.

This is why Andy Warhol is famous. Because he creates the most useless, vapid, meaningless pieces of "art" imaginable. But, people are so scared to admit that they don't like it or see what's so "powerful" about it. So, they rave about it so as not to seem unhip or unperceptive.

The Emperor has no clothes.

I feel sorry for the mindless fanboys that call this a work of art.