MOO As An Artform

If you're looking for Moo-Cow Gamma-13, you've come to the wrong place.
This is a reasonably serious explanation of how MOOism is like an artform.
Quite serious.
Honest.

MOOism is the first experiment, so far as I know, in the use of religion as an artform. It is an entirely new medium: until now, religion has been the CONTENT of some artistic media, but never a medium in itself. But as McLuhan says, the medium IS the message. The message of MOOism is therefore that religion can be a medium for expression IN AND OFF ITSELF. If the medium is the message, then the content is the audience. Those who listen to MOOism are the point of what we do. The effects created in their minds are the genuine content of what MOO is: it is what you THINK it is. Nevertheless, MOOism has much in common with previous forms of art...
MOOism is like music... From Jazz we get our sense of improvisation, of making up new variations on the theme on the spot, making every instance of MOOism a unique and different one - sometimes even apparently contradicting what we said before. This is what makes spontaneous explanations, rants, ridiculous rituals, and even outright lies (like this article), a valid part of our artistic expression. The fact that not all MOOists believe the same things, or act the same way, is similar to the multi-instrument orchestration of a great sympohny - not every instrument plays exactly the same tune... In fact, the greatness of the symphony comes from the harmonics, the counterpoint, the fact that the instruments seem to play against each other, just as MOOists disagree on interpretation of the religion, or even outright contradict each other: this is counterpoint, the exploration of apparent opposites making up an aesthetic whole. Which is different from an aesthetic hole, which our critics seem to see gaping the sides of our doctrines. They also criticize us for stealing sections of our religion from the Church of the SubGenius, from Discordianism, from the Temple Ov Psychick Youth, or from the local five-and-dime. In fact, this is no different from the common musical practice of "sampling", in which sections of someone else's work are recontextualized and incorporated into a new peice, with its own artistic integrity. Our art simply deals with beliefs and ideas, rather than sounds and rhythms. In this respect, MOO is heavily influenced by Negativland and Meat Beat Manifesto.
MOOism is like literature... We use fictional characters and stories to deal with the themes and concepts we deal with. In fact, we frequently BECOME fictional characters in the myths and legends developed for MOOist purposes - such as "The 83-Fisted Tales of WOMBAT", in which fictional versions of prominent MOOists like Floyd Gecko, Half-Mad, Hellhound 101, and Shredded Flesh Restorer With Extra Wave play out a post apocalyptic drama against the Evil Undead Skinless Wombat. But not just fictional characters and events make MOOism like literature - the sheer depth of exploration of the themes and ideas in our Sacred Scriptures makes it something far beyond music, drama, pig-upholstery, or any other popular form of artistic expression. MOOism reaches the level of serious (and not-so-serious) literature. Sometimes.
Mooism is a kind of performance art... We've justified many of the strange activities of MOOFests by calling them performance art. From public rituals invoking peculiar and somewhat annoying Gods, to speeches and rants on street-corners, to the ever-popular Parliament Hill ritual invoking the great God "Bong-Bong-Bong-Bong-Bong-Bong" at six o'clock. These things are Art - the Art of What People Do, even if it can't, by any stretch of the imagination, be called "Acting". And, like much of Performance Art, MOOism is designed to challenge your conceptions about what Art is, what Religion is, what what Reality is. Or, for that matter, what Sanity is. But let's not talk about that.
As Floyd Gecko said: "What's the good of Art that doesn't challenge your ideas? I'm challenging your notion of what's Art, and what's ethical, by using unsuspecting fools AS Art... Including YOU!".

Now that I've made a brief attempt to justify MOOism as an art form, maybe you can start to see some of the wonderful complexities I enjoy discovering in this Artifact that isn't mine any more.
MOOism is unpredictable, wild, self-directed. If I was ever the artist, it's left my hands and gone on to better things by now. But even then, when Jackson Pollack made paintings by throwing paint at a canvas, he rarely knew where the paint would land. He knew how to incorporate unpredictability INTO THE ART ITSELF. Uncontrolled chaos is a valid form of Artistic Expression, as long as it Means Something. MOOism challenges even that assumption - why does Art have to Mean Something? Why can't it just be Aesthetically Pleasing? For that matter, why should it have to be Pleasing? Why can't it simply Exist? Why, come to that, should it have to even Exist? Much of what MOOism IS, many of our millions of members worldwide, are entirely IMAGINARY! That's part of what we are! Our few thousand REAL members are only part of the great mosaic that is MOO.
Some of those MOOists who were not part of the Creative Group that brought MOO into the world, kicking and screaming, still become contributors to the complexity of MOO... These are like actors, whose talents add something to a movie beyond what the scriptwriter put there. These are like the soloists in an orchestra whose creative interpretation of the notes goes beyond the contribution of the conductor. There is no SINGLE artist who makes MOO - it's a collective effort, in which the Art being created IS the group creating it.
All Art is, in some sense, in the mind of the observer, but with MOO, the Mind of the Observer IS the Art. That's why anyone who finds out about MOOism IS a MOOist, whether they want to be or not. They become part of the process, an observer of the grate Artwork that is MOO, and therefore a part of it. This kind of self-reference is new to Art, but the concept of self- reference isn't. The play-within-a-play in Hamlet, M.C. Escher's Drawing Hands... These are only two famous examples of level-crossing in Art. MOO uses that level crossing to not only SEEM to include the observer, but to actually do so. The distinction between Art and Life was always an Artificial one, an artistic creation in itself. With the advent of MOO, that border has been relegated to the scrapheap of history, along with Sanity, Sense, and Salami.
Anyway.
That's all I have to say about that.

This article has been cleared for Artistic Integrity by Ialdabaoth and His Invisible Choir, now performing live at a universe near you. The Author's Artistic Licence was granted by the Sirius-7 Partition Licencing Board, and is due to expire in March of 1994.