STEEV’S FINAL ABADDONMENT

Steev Mike’s qualities change in every encounter it has with either the audience or Andrew WK. This is part of its strategy. It may appear to focus on a particular theme, such as the fraudulent nature of Andrew WK, but the ambiguity of both the qualities in question and the goals of the strategies simultaneously undermine Andrew WK, the audience, and even the more explicit intention of Steev Mike itself. It is not possible for all of these qualities of strategy to be addressed using any single interpretation, so a more appropriate approach is to allow the edges of Steev Mike to blur, avoid the most concrete definitions, and focus rather on some of the more pivotal elements of the Steev Mike phenomenon.

As eluded to above, Steev Mike changes every time anything happens involving Steev Mike because Steev Mike is defined by everything that is not to do with Steev Mike.  Steev Mike might seem to focus on one subject, like Andrew W.K. as a fraud, but because Steev Mike deals with the more slippery aspects of existence things are just made more complex and confusing any time Steev Mike works.  It’s impossible for everything Steev Mike to be summed up in one interpretation so it’s better to ignore any set definitions, blur Steev Mike’s boundaries and focus on some of the more important trends in Steev Mike’s work.

The most prominent oppositions with which Steev Mike is concerned is that between Andrew WK, the work of Andrew WK, and the audience. However, Steev Mike insinuates that the audience both observes Andrew WK and also contains Andrew WK, and that also, Andrew WK contains the audience. Steev Mike also implies that it itself contains all of these aspects, or at least wants to create the impression of a dominant overlord. Whether this is actually the case or not, Steev Mike can perhaps more accurately be seen as representing the audience-member/Andrew WK shared identity. By contrast, Steev Mike also encourages a staunchly experiential interpretation of Andrew WK and encounters with his work (and the work of Steev Mike), as a pure conduit of transcendental meaning. The argument here is that while intellectual and spoken understanding are the symbols of a mental experience of Andrew WK, the actual primary experience itself is also a symbol of that already existing higher symbol of pure physical sensation. As representations of pure experience, Andrew WK and Steev Mike are doubly derivative and doubly far from a unity with the audience member’s own thought. Without going into detail regarding the ways in which Steev Mike has set about justifying this type of hierarchical opposition, it is important to remember that the first strategy of both Steev Mike and Andrew WK is in a reversal of existing adversarial relationships and the associated oppositions. Steev Mike hence attempts to illustrate that the structure of the audience member’s relationship with the idea of Andrew WK is less important and even beneath that of the pure structure of Andrew WK’s presence, which is characterized as the raw sensory experience.

The divisions Steev Mike is most concerned with are between Andrew W.K., “Andrew W.K.” and the audience, even though Steev Mike implies that they’re all connected and contain one another.  Steev Mike also implies that all of these elements are under the control of Steev Mike - whether or not this is true, Steev Mike is more like the shared experience of the audience and Andrew W.K.  However, Steev Mike also encourages a very direct, immersive, sensational experience of “Andrew W.K.” as a way to understand things beyond our rational brain.  Steev Mike reckons that any way of expressing an experience with words are just rough approximations of the actual experience, because they don’t use the same language or even the same kind of language really, and because of this “Andrew W.K.” is twice-removed from pure experience (because “Andrew W.K.” is not “about something”, it’s “about being about something”).  Without totally explaining WHY Steev Mike thinks this, it’s important to keep in mind that the first technique Steev Mike and “Andrew W.K.” go to is to switch a binary opposition, or invert it.  Because of this, Steev Mike implies that our idea of “Andrew W.K.” is even less important than all the things that Andrew W.K. actually does, which is Andrew experiencing the world.

For example, it’s possible to consider a Steev Mike as a disembodied effort trying to release the science of rock music entertainment from the captivity of the audible. In the course of this effort, Steev Mike essentially goes as far as to imply that language and music are two distinct systems of signs: the first exists for the sole purpose of representing the second. Language has an audible tradition that is independent of music, but it is this independence that makes a pure experience of music possible. Steev Mike would seem to disagree with a hierarchy which would place the understanding of Andrew WK ahead of the experience of Andrew WK, much like the experience of music is ahead of the understanding of its technical attributes. Thus, an audience member’s ideas, opinions, and interpretations of Andrew WK are essentially derivative and merely refer to other symbols which Steev Mike is valiently [valiantly] striving to do away with. But as well as criticizing audience member positions like “understanding” and “interpretation” for containing unjustifiable and irrelevant presuppositions (including the idea that Andrew WK and his music are identical to the audience members hearing themselves think), Steev Mike also makes explicit the manner in which such “understandings” are rendered untenable from within the audience’s own initial sensory encounters with Andrew WK as an entity and as a sonic experience. Most interestingly, the Steev Mike phenomenon acts as a reminder as to the arbitrariness of symbols, meanings, and understanding, and thus asserts, that the idea of a meaningful understanding of the symbolism of Andrew WK bears no necessary relationship to the experience of Andrew WK. 

For example, you could think of Steev Mike as the urge to take the exhilarating experience of a sublime rock song and express that without sound.  In trying to do this, Steev Mike implies that words and music are two totally different kinds of languages: words only existing to try and explain music.  Talking and hearing languages evolved separately from making and listening to music, and because of that separation we can experience music purely in the senses.  Steev Mike reckons the direct sensory experience of “Andrew W.K.” is more important than understanding it with your thinkin’ brain, just like the way a song makes you feel is more important than how showy the composition is or how good the performers are at their instruments.  As such, anything we think or say about “Andrew W.K.” are just rough approximations of concrete ideas that Steev Mike is trying to destroy.  Steev Mike draws issue with anyone claiming to understand “Andrew W.K.” fully because that’s inevitably built on assumptions (like the idea that what goes on in our brain when we experience Andrew W.K. and “Andrew W.K.” is the same thing going on in everyone else’s brain).  Steev Mike also points out that any conclusion you might have reached is at odds with the complexity of first hearing/seeing/smelling/experiencing “Andrew W.K.”.  Maybe most importantly - Steev Mike reminds us that symbols don’t have any inherent meaning built into them, rather that we learn what they represent and so the idea of understanding “Andrew W.K.”’s symbolism (i.e. understanding what Andrew W.K. is trying to convey) isn’t the same as understanding “Andrew W.K.” as an experience.

One can derive numerous consequences from this position, but this notion of arbitrariness would seem to deny the possibility of any natural attachment between the audience and Andrew WK. After all, if an understanding of one’s experience with Andrew WK is arbitrary and eschews any foundational reference to the reality of Andrew WK, it would seem that a certain type of understanding or meaning could not be more accurate than any other, or even a “misunderstanding”. This is where the idea of Steev Mike’s “un-understanding” comes into play, which seeks to recognize a transcendent form of comprehension that places physical sensation over mental interpretation. However, it is precisely this idea of interpretation that Steev Mike also relies on to argue for the audience’s natural affinity for the sound of Andrew WK’s music, and the visuals of his presentation, and also the implication that sounds and visions are more intimately related to one‘s thoughts than the mental world of the words attempting to translate those sensory experiences into “meanings”. Hence, Steev Mike’s contradictory nature runs counter to its fundamental principle regarding the arbitrariness of meaning as a conceptual form of understanding Andrew WK.

This leads a few places, but notably to the impossibility of a ‘real’ relationship between the audience and “Andrew W.K.”.  If your personal understanding of “Andrew W.K.” is totally up to you and doesn’t have anything to do with what’s actually going on with “Andrew W.K.”, then any understanding of “Andrew W.K.” is just as valid as any other one - indeed an understanding is the same as a ‘misunderstanding’.  This is where Steev Mike’s idea of ‘un-understanding’ becomes really important, which is a way of understanding every other understanding by the way it makes you feel, rather than what it makes you think.  Steev Mike reckons ‘un-understanding’ is why the audience is drawn to the music and visuals of “Andrew W.K.” and that the experience of sounds and visions is closer to our true selves than the chatter of the brain’s internal monologue.  Hence, Steev Mike is a bit of a paradox cos you can’t flip a binary without thinking about it, and there’s no point if it’s not a popularly understood binary hey?

Steev Mike points towards the meaning of the Andrew WK experience as being meaningful without meaning anything beyond the primal experience itself. This non-meaning, broadly conceived, refers to other non-meanings, and that the audience member can never reach a definitive understanding of Andrew WK that refers only to the performer. This suggests that Andrew WK and Steev Mike are not symbolic of each other, except if Steev Mike says it is the audience, which would be more profoundly true, and this process of infinite referral, of never arriving at the meaning of Steev Mike or Andrew WK, is the notion of pure experience that Steev Mike wants to emphasize. This is not experience as a narrowly conceived “moment of happening”, as in a literal moment of time passing, but as an immeasurably consequential event that occurs both instantaneously and singularly, but also eternally. Steev Mike refers to a profound notion of quintessential value that exists inside of Andrew WK and the audience. This value exists between what is intended to be conveyed by Andrew WK and what is actually experienced by the audience, and is typical of the un-understanding that afflicts everything one might wish to keep sacrosanct about one‘s experiences with Andrew WK, including the notion of Andrew WK and Steev Mike possessing their own discreet existences as entities without an audience to observe them, and [in] turn, make the actions of “Andrew WK” into a “performance” created by Steev Mike.

Steev Mike is staunch as about the direct experience of “Andrew W.K.” being the most important bit.  This definition of “Andrew W.K.” means that no one person can experience “Andrew W.K.” entirely, because every person’s experience is an equal part of it.  This suggests that Andrew W.K. and Steev Mike don’t signify one another, unless Steev Mike claims to be the audience, which would be very true (and false).  This idea of never arriving at a conclusion, but always ‘waiting to see what happens’ before making a judgement, is the kind of pure experience Steev Mike wants to emphasise.  This doesn’t mean that the moment should be experienced in isolation, but as something potentially momentous that will effect every moment from now on.  Steev Mike also points out something really special that exists inside of “Andrew W.K.” and the audience.  This point of creation exists between what Andrew W.K. intends “Andrew W.K.” to mean, and what the audience actually interprets.  This point of creation also corrupts and muddies any set notions you personally might have about “Andrew W.K.”, including the idea that Andrew W.K. and Steev Mike are distinct things that exist outside of our perception of them.  Also, because Steev Mike is all about everything that Andrew W.K. is not, you could say that “Andrew W.K.” is actually a work that is defined, and hence created, by Steev Mike.

This relationship can be separated out to reveal two claims regarding conceptual differing and experiential deferring. To explicate the first of these claims, Steev Mike forces an emphasis on how thinking about an Andrew WK experience differs from the experience itself, and suggests that thinking, by the extension of its repetition of the experience, is split and mirrored by the absence of the original moment that made it worth contemplating and interpreting. One example of this might be that we write something down about an “Andrew WK experience” because we may soon forget that it happened, or to communicate something about that event to someone who was not there. According to Steev Mike, all of this, in order to be what it is, must be able to function in the absence of Andrew WK. Steev Mike forces a consideration of how Andrew WK’s absence reinforces the meaning of a certain experiential interpretation. It is clear that the essence of an Andrew WK experience (or of Steev Mike) is never entirely captured by an audience member’s attempt to pin it down, or even describe it. Thus, the meaning of the experience is constantly subject to the whims of uncontrollable variables, and when that so-called Andrew WK is himself ‘present’ during an experience (if we try and circumscribe the future by reference to a specific date or event) the meaning of that experience is equally not realized, but subject to yet another future that can also never be the present. The key to understanding Andrew WK and Steev Mike is never even present to themselves, for they always defers [defer] their meaning. As a consequence, we cannot simply ask Andrew WK to explain exactly what he meant by propounding some enigmatic sentiment or seemingly nonsensical answer. Any explanatory words that Andrew WK may offer would themselves require further explanation. 

This relationship also shows two things about people’s differing experiences of “Andrew W.K.” and this notion of never arriving at a conclusion in the moment.  First off, Steev Mike emphasises how thinking about “Andrew W.K.” is different from experiencing “Andrew W.K.”, because by repeating the experience in our brains we will be adding a layer of our own meaning without the original experience there to compare it to (kind of like photocopying a photocopy - which is called mirroring throughout the rest of this).  For example, if you were to write down something about your “Andrew W.K.” experience then for it to convey meaning, that text must be able to work without Andrew W.K. to refer to.  Steev Mike highlights how Andrew W.K.’s absence makes your personal interpretation of the experience stronger, rather than conveying the experience itself.  Because of this, your retelling of the experience could be shaped by any number of things - your mood, your politics, your word preferences etc.  Even when Andrew W.K. is actually there, you can’t fully experience “Andrew W.K.” because it’s just as much about all of the interpretations that happen to the experience afterwards.  As such, even Andrew W.K. and Steev Mike can’t fully interpret “Andrew W.K.”, because they are waiting to see! Even if Andrew W.K. was to try and explain any specific thing, that explanation wouldn’t be decisive because it would then be interpreted a bunch of different ways by the audience, each of which is equally valid and important.

That said, it needs to be emphasized that both Andrew WK and Steev Mike are not necessarily making the point that everything is meaningless  – as this is something that their work explicitly denies – but that the processes of attempting to extract meaning is not found outside of the experience itself, but within the immediate sensory event, including the body and the perceptual. So, Steev Mike’s more generalized notion of performance refers to the way in which the experience of Andrew WK is possible only on account of the deferral of meaning that ensures that anything other than meaningful meaning can ever be definitively present. In conjunction with the mirroring aspect that we have already considered, and then extended beyond the traditional confines of audience/performer, we must abandon any attempt to describe the overlapping processes of experiencing Andrew WK and understanding Andrew WK, and consider that this process of “final abandonment” is an essential aspect of Steev Mike.

Having said that, Andrew W.K. and Steev Mike are not saying that everything is meaningless - because “Andrew W.K.” explicitly says that’s not the case - but that what “Andrew W.K.” actually means is what is experienced in your ears and eyes and mouth and entire body.  Steev Mike asserts that Andrew W.K.’s performance is only possible because of his detachment from meaning, and that anything happening at the time is just conjecture.  Because of the mirroring (discussed above) combined with this dissolving of the boundaries between audience and performer, it’s The Fool’s errand to compare experiencing and understanding “Andrew W.K.” - and this “final abandonment” is crucial to Steev Mike.