"To prevent undue wreckage in society, the artist tends now to move from the ivory to the control tower of society."
– Marshall McLuhan
The US Department of Art & Technology is an artist-led, virtual government agency. The US DAT functions as a conduit between the arts and the broader political and economic culture for facilitating the artist' need to extend aesthetic inquiry into the social sphere where ideas become real action. The Department proposes and supports the idealized definition of the role of the artist in society as one whose reflections, ideas, aesthetics, sensibilities, and abilities can have significant and transformative social impact on the world stage.
Capital Vision
When freedom needs defending, America turns to its artists. It's our job, it's what we do.
Nomination
President Bush issues Executive Order to form US Department of Art & Technology and names Randall M. Packer as first Secretary.
Swearing In
Randall M. Packer is sworn into office at an official ceremony pre-sided by Alice Denney, founder of the Washington Project for the Arts, with Phyllis Hecht and Jack Rasmussen as witnesses
Official Seal
Symbol of Virtualization
USDAT Headquarters
The Department established its headquarters at a site formerly housing the US Department of the Interior, the agency that paradoxically oversees the management of the physical space of America.
Office of the Secretary
The Office of the Secretary has a commanding view of the US Capitol, but it is also an Office of the amorphous, the elusive, the impenetrable, and the secretive. It is a space where the Secretary might contemplate new forms, or dream of a new society, or perhaps devise plots against the Government.
Role of the Artist
The artist functions as a vehicle for translating ideas into active models that take shape in the outer world, where they engage the viewer, manifesting what Joseph Beuys called, “the social organism… how we mold and shape the world in which we live.”
Mobilizing Artistic Forces Internationally
At the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Transmediale Festival of Media in Berlin, I stunned the audience in my now infamous statement, “In this city of decadence, Dada, and indulgence… ich bin ein Berliner kunstler!” Paradoxically, following the speech, I was accused by a prominent art critic of being a government official posing as an artist.