Ch. I: On the Origins and Fate of Berlin Limitism

It was some time in the year 2000 that John Thomas Mumm and the so-called TAR ART RAT, two little-known artists and art theorists, were first brought together by a developing vision of the future of the arts. Living in the vicinity of Berlin, the two young men were radicalized by their reading of Salvador Dali's outrageous Dali on Modern Art. Inspired by the Surrealist's feverish rantings, they sought to turn the tides of art history and liberate the 21st century artist from the grasp of the elite art establishment. It was in this spirit that they formulated a set of aesthetic principles that would later be codified in the "Limitist Manifesto," the founding document of what would eventually, for purposes of clarity, be known to outsiders as Berlin Limitism. This marked the beginning of a period of artistic and intellectual experimentation, with RAT working primarily in the visual and Mumm in the auditory arts. Third-party observers reportedly described the results of these relatively secretive experiments as "incoherent", "ahistorical", and "senseless".

As Limitism gradually solidified, attracting a loyal base of devoted practitioners, trouble was brewing in the upper echelons. The two founders had by this time returned to Seattle, Washington, and Mumm was falling under the influence of the principles of Kantian aesthetics, particularly Kant's account of aesthetic judgment. RAT, otherwise a relatively orthodox Kantian, fiercely believed that transcendental arguments had no place in a theory of art. The two soon became bitter enemies. RAT founded the splinter TAR ART RAT Foundation for the Aesthetic Continuation of Empirical Humanity (later altered by a broken typesetting machine to, simply, "The TAR ART RAT Foundation for the Continuation of Humanity"). Mumm fled Seattle for Bellingham and founded the Society for Research into Cosmic Reverberations and the Development of Occult Musical Technologies (known popularly as "The Music Society"). The two organizations pursued widely divergent goals, as evidenced by their official Statments of Purpose.

The T.A.R. Foundation: [Still verifying source]

The Music Society: "The Society is devoted to continuous research into the relationship between musical harmony and the structure of the universe itself. As a result, we have already yielded a great deal of information and have developed numerous techniques for manipulating the points of contact between sound and cosmos. We firmly believe that the resulting compositional methodologies will serve as a necessary counterpart to the scientific project in bringing about a perfect human society."

Although the Music Society was not officially founded until 2003, experiments along these lines were already taking place in the preceding two years. Mumm had met a like-minded researcher in Michael Ray Laemmle (of the famous Hollywood Laemmles). Together, they embarked on a series of sonic experiments aimed at altering the very fabric of reality. They first believed they had achieved success with the "Nephilim Funk". This unusual composition was reported to have caused one hundred drunken undergraduates to engage in uncontrollable dancing. However, subsequent studies demonstrated that, under the influence of alcohol, undergraduates were prone to this behavior regardless of the stimulus. Nevertheless, according to a secret dossier, this initial failure led to a string of minor successes which would lay the groundwork for future Society research. Few details are publicly available regarding the methods and results of Society activities, with the notable exception of some purportedly harmless popular music aimed at garnering interest among investers.

TAR ART RAT, meanwhile, was engaged in more radically public works of "transformative" art. He had come to believe that the public space itself was his personal canvas and the legitimate site for art in general. He was engaged with several art collectives and put on numerous exhibitions in Seattle but, still convinced by the original Limitist idea that art in the galleries is as good as dead, his primary concern was with his covert public works, many of them puzzingly interactive. In fact, it was around this time that RAT first espoused his theory that the artist has both a special right and a solemn duty to secretly place bystanders at the center of art events over which they would unknowingly preside. He argued that since contemporary society was no longer open to the voluntary experience of authentic art, and yet authentic art was necessary for the happiness of the human race, it was a kind of moral imperative for the artist to see to it that the public was at least exposed to the involuntary experience of such transformative art.

The observant reader might notice that these two splinter organizations stood in a kind of dialectical relationship. Whereas the Music Society was publicly creating art in secrecy, the T.A.R. Foundation was secretly creating public art. And as time began to heal the wounds of unsettled Kantian scores, these two rival groups began at last to realize that they still shared a common cause, more fundamental than either of their respective special aims.