Social Maintenance:

Interview with Michael St. John

by Monica Moran 7/8/2025

Michael St. John discusses social media and keeping his place online.

MM: These paintings made me think immediately of the Duchamp readymades with a box and the ease by which they were installed in the online space as well as in the literal installaion. Do you think that the readymade for an online platform is too complex for the average user?

MSJ: I think online a readymade could easily go back to its original object. As in “just a picture of a shovel” as in “just one of hundreds of pictures of shovels posted”, not only by individuals but also in adverisements.

MM: A lot of people I spoke to in New York didn’t want to show here in Nevada, in this isolated place. Do you think it’s with the intent of dominaing a cultural conversaion or there’s no longer an “art for art’s sake” or something completely personal?

MSJ: The location is not part of a hierarchical structure for the viewing and display of art, making it a dare as opposed to a destination.

MM: Are you saying, for instance, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, the tree doesn’t exist? That traditional allegory? Or that something that just shouldn’t be, as if “against nature”; and creates an anomaly rather than “an unheard tree”?

MSJ: If a tree falls in the forest, it probably fell. Whether I heard it or not. I see fallen trees all the time here, never heard them but see they have fallen, so they exist as much as I think I exist.

MM: I think therefore I am. Classic. Back to my question about the concept of the “online readymade” your series FLUSH seems to accommodate the online space perfectly. Was that your intent?

MSJ: Using the readymade space of the public bathroom, the toilet handle and graffiti usually found above it, was an opportunity to express the dissonance and dissatisfaction of current political discourse.

MM: What specifically about the current political discourse are you addressing? Do you think it’s a “fake” discourse or because that public space is invasive in an unnatural way? As if to seek a reaction? Or something completely different?

MSJ: Dissonance can make one stop and think or go up, explode and be gone like fireworks. As an artist sometimes you succeed and sometimes fail, doesn’t stop one from trying.

MM: Something like COVID was sort of “into the abyss” in terms of the cultural readymade. Like a complete breakdown of social norms on a global scale.

MSJ: I found COVID time very relaxing and freeing from the hullabaloo of everything. And now back to the tragedy of this country!

MM: That’s very poetic. It’s interesting to see how your mind works. You created the series with the idea of an online public bathroom? Or as the online platform as a metaphor for a public bathroom? Or as something else?

MSJ: Public bathrooms as online platforms.

MM: Do you think it’s significant that a shovel as in “one of hundreds of shovels” depicted online, would need an event to go with it? Or could it just exist as an object online?

MSJ: To answer your question probably, yes maybe.

MM: It’s kind of like for MIT professors. Do you think there’s a connection to this event forum and the political dissonance you mentioned earlier?

MSJ: (silence).

MM: Let me clarify. As online content. Do you think that it has increased that political dissonance you mentioned? Much of the work does utilize company logos that seem exclusive to social media or online venues like Amazon? I was curious if your use of them was a critque or just as in everyday things like Coca-Cola. Are you saying you are not really interested in an analysis?

MSJ: Online content like the Daily News is all dissonance. No? The logos are mostly MAGA voices, i.e., “flush”. Or MAGA donations.

MM: Do you see your work as a product of an AI agenda? Or a victim of an AI agenda? Like a poster child for AI? Like your earlier “Cancer Baby” work? Or, they were “cancer babies” now they’re COVID babies—I first heard that term at the University of Nevada-Reno.

MSJ: This series just uses the public discourse (graffiti, stickers) found above urinals in public bathrooms representing current discussion/viewpoints.

MM: Is there anything else you would like to add?

MSJ: No.

MM: I think we covered some important subjects. Thank you.

Photography by Monica Moran