Zardulu: the unearthly tale of a contemporary mythmaker
Is she a mysterious artist with an army of trained rats, using the media to create and perpetuate modern myths? or a fictitious persona who rides on YouTube’s latest trends, a sophosticated hoax that tells us something about the viral culture? The first interview with Zardulu
by Nimrod Zuk
[originaly published at Calcalist]
Searching for “Pizza Rat” on Google yields about 358,000 results, at the top of which is a popular 15-second video taken by a man named Matt Little on his mobile phone on September 21. The video shows a rat dragging a slice of pizza down subway stairs in New York City. To date, the clip got over 9 million views. It was shown on CNN, discussed on the Stephen Colbert and the Jimmy Kimmel shows and on endless newscasts around the world. It starred in thousands of websites and blogs. It has also inspired a Twitter account, a reenactment by a robot, a Conan O’Brien skit, and a cheesy costume for women available on the web for 63 dollars. For a few moment of glory, the “Pizza Rat” star became the most famous rat in the world and bred a spontaneous torrent of rat videos on the web.
The famous littler rat almost made it into the endless fields of the web’s Valhalla of eternal fame, when the story encountered an unexpected twist: the popular New York blog Gothamist published a story on a mysterious artist by the name of Zardulu who was believed to be responsible for staging some of the more popular rat videos, according to several fringe theater actors, who claim that trained rats were used to make the videos. One of the actors, Eric Yearwood says he got 200 bucks from Zardulu to act in another rat clip called “Selfie Rat”, which shows the actor asleep on the station platform in the role of a homeless person, leaping up in a start when a rat jumps on his cell phone, and takes a selfie of itself. Yearwood claims to have visited the artist in her studio, where she told him that the clip was just the first step in a bigger plan to unleash a set of mysterious incidences upon New York City.
Although not as founded as the link between Zardulu and the other videos, there are clues that link her to the pizza rat video as well: Little, who allegedly shot and posted the clip, belongs to the very same theater group as Yearwood, the Upright Citizens Brigade, and the image of a rat holding its tail in its mouth appears regularly on the visual materials in Zardulu’s Facebook profile, which was created only a short while after “Pizza Rat” was posted. Zardulu avoids refuting any connection to the videos and posts obscure statuses on the issue on her Facebook page. One reads: “They’ll never prove that I’ve created anything and they’ll never prove I haven’t created everything”. Since then, her name has been linked to some other viral events such as an image of a pigeon with a bagel around its neck from October 2015. Last week, the web has been set abuzz about Zardulu, with an active discussion on Reddit and a podcast on Reply All.
But who is Zardulu and what is it that she wants?
“My primary focus is the discussion of creating myths, or urban legends, as an art movement I call Zardulism. Continuing the work of the surrealists, it uses the unique environment of the viral age to bend reality” says Zardulu, or the person behind the persona and Facebook page, in a first interview (published originaly at Calcalist) to the media after turning down numerous interview requests once the buzz around her began.
As part of the interview she sent me a 10-page document titled “The Zardulism Manifest”, which contains deliberately obscure texts on the movement’s agenda, such as: “Zardulism is a form of poetry written by the Zardulist and quoted by those eager to capitalize on any trivial topic or sensational headline that may achieve a viral audience”. These texts appear alongside a series of medieval-looking prints depicting a woman wearing a mask and holding a large key, an hourglass and a skull and of course — a rat.
Why do you refer to yourself as The Mythmaker?
“In their classical sense, myths are dead. We have rejected any connection to the mythology of the uncivilized world. However, the same archetypes of our primitive subconscious continue to reaffirm themselves in modern traditions. The relevance of these archetypes has not escaped the attention of those who wish to exploit us. They have appropriated themselves into the role of the storyteller. They now write the myths that define our values and world views.
“Myths were once messages in bottles from shores our ancestors visited, how they made the passage and what beauties awaited us along the way. We no longer gain these valuable lessons from our mythology. It is produced to influence our every choice and has stripped our lives of substance and forced us into a repetitive and automated process of life.
“Zardulism is creating and perpetuating myths for the sake of art. Dramatic images and language created for the purpose of reawakening and following of genuine desires, experiencing the pleasure of life. The imaginary streams into the actual and sweeps over it, floods it until it has been engrossed. In a world where nothing is absolutely real, appearance becomes meaningless and the presumption of truth is lost”.
Who is it that’s trying to control us? The media? Big corporations?
“Though the primary focus of Zardulism is the bending of reality, it’s a poetry often recited for me by the media. Some journalists may consider me their enemy but, in truth, I’m their greatest advocate. Where journalism once looked into issues of great concern, they are now paid based on clicks and forced to write about trivial topics with sensational headlines. You can say that I am “conflict theorist” and believe that mass media is controlled by corporations with the intent of satisfying their own agendas.
“It’s the destruction of mythology that I resent.
“The civilization of Ancient Greece produced the greatest intellectual advancements in history. Not because they were absolutely rational as we are today, but because irrational belief in myth and legend was fluid with with the rational. Their imaginations were free”.
Can you give me an example of an ancient myth that you adore?
“I’d prefer to use a modern myth as my example. I have always been quite fond of folk art, the creative expression of people outside the conventional art world. When I view a Sasquatch video that is exactly how I interpret it. They may not have expressed themselves with a paintbrush but they are artists just the same. They built a suit, directed a video and then acted out a script on the news. It’s really quite a feat. It saddens me when Sasquatch videos get referred to as hoaxes or lies.
“Why are Sasquatch videos and similar work not discussed by the art world and why are these creators not revered as masters of their field? In an exhaustive search I found that there was not even a word for this type of art: the art of making and perpetuating modern myths. An art form that I have come to call Zardulism”.
Perhaps people felt duped when they realized the Sasquatch video was not real…
“Many times I’ve woken from a dream hoping to fall back asleep and return. I was never angry at my mind for producing the fantasy; instead I was grateful for the opportunity. I feel the same kind of gratitude for the myth makers before me, who offered such an escape. You see, mythmakers are our minds dreaming while we’re awake.
“Certainly, some will dismiss my work as lies. I think that is as culturally ignorant as calling a nude painting pornography”.
How many artists belong to the Zardulism movement?
“There are hundreds of Zardulists all over the world. We never come forward as it is a primary directive of the art. Doing so makes future work more difficult. I was forced into revelation so I am using it as an opportunity to discuss the art form.
I ask Zardulu if she’s referring to the rat videos. In line with her statement at the beginning of the interview, that she would not comment about specific pieces attributed to her, she abruptly informs me that the interview is over.
I’m left with a lot of questions: Who is the person I just spoke to? Is she really behind “Pizza Rat”, “Selfie Rat” and other viral videos, or are the videos authentic and the actual urban legend is the story about the mysterious person behind them? Could this be a plot by those who exposed the matter, aiming to test just how easy it is to fool the media and the social media?
Trying to solve the mystery, I send an email to Eric Yearwood who tells me he saw Zardulu again twice since the rat video shooting, the first one when one of her rats died. “She showed me the rat’s dead body. It was covered in flower petals, and laid out on a tiny gold platform. The platform was suspended a few inches off the table with magnets”, he writes. The second encounter, he claimed, happened in the woods in New Jersey where three figures dressed as Zardulu danced around a bonfire and asked him to point out the real one. But he don’t know where her studio is located and never saw her face or took any pictures or videos that can support his claims. The conversation just makes me more confused, suspecting for a moment Eric is behind all this, but with no solid evidence to prove it.
Perhaps — in line with Zardulu’s way of thinking — it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that this unusual and strange story exists, and by so, makes the world a little more interesting. As the Zardulist’s manifest proclaims: “myths came before art, before written word and even language. Myths are the building blocks of which imagination and creativity are built. Zardulism is the mystery we crave in attempt to counter our mastery and understanding of the world. It is an escape from our unnatural state of absolute rationality and the expectation that we function as machines”.
