//

//

THE AGE OF THE UNDERSTATEMENT (The Last Shadow Puppets, 2008)

THAT'S HOW WEIRD IT WAS. (II)
2010

Put down the glue gun. And the noodles. And Andy. Put. Andy. Down.

#manifestomonday









MY 2nd GRADE ART TEACHER WOULD GIVE ME AN A+*
*ONLY I AM NOT IN 2nd GRADE.
noodles, metallic spray paint, a poster and doodling on canvas
30x40cm
2010
(pixeled, blown up and edited, 2010)

Actually, this is the perfect Andy-quote as a comment on Mr. Brainwash. Isn't it?
And I wanna see this atwork of yours in the flesh before I say any more about it. (d.g.)

Watching EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP reminded me of the fact that I still had that poster somewhere and that it was in dire need of some proper framing. Yet, it's hard to contain. For what does the 'getting away with it' actually entail? The neatandtidy answer being soup as canon ///
Institutionalisation/commodification/commercialisation/etc.. R€nt mon€y. Uncle artcrust. A write-up in LA Weekly. A quote by Banksy on your art. Noel Gallagher at the opening of your show. ///
MindMangling – your own (self-medication) and that of others – preferably Carl Barât's, on the Arsenal's rooftop terrace, in green shiny pants /// /// (a.h.)

Put the shiny green pants back in binary babblin.

//















//


Alright then: I was told that Vaginal Davis is looking for a new flat. (Contact her via her blog if you know anything up to 250 Euro warm.) Why though, I do not know. Maybe a rent increase?

Two thoughts to this news: I am awfully sad about the prospect of losing Miss Davis as a neighbour and shopping companion. And: Has gentrification reached die Rote Insel already if such a famous queen of the glittering world like her has to leave it? (d.g.)

Scrapbook. part 2

I get paid to look at art.
Well, not exactly to look at it. Rather to watch it. To watch over it.
Because, you know, the art needs to be protected from its visitors. They threaten it.

#1
Mind your step, please!
Ooh, you stepped on the art. Haha.
-The art? Oh ... Sorry.

But mind you, in that same exhibition, there was also some art to step on!

Sometimes though, it rather feels as if I was some kind of caretaker for the visitors themselves.

#2
Excuse me, where is the exhibition?
Right here. You are already in the middle of it.
Oh. Aha? Thank you.

And sometimes I simply don't know what went wrong.

#3
Sagen Sie, sind das alles echte Filme hier?

The woman asking me this was at that moment visiting an exhibition devoted to art films.
Mhhmh.

In fact, I'm not really sure who or what I am protecting.
It's probably my own sanity. Or is it insanity?

In lieu of a cake: lying in the bathtub with Bill Hicks, increasingly pruny.

How does the saying go about history and farce? History, history, beware of your farciness? I have been listening to Bill Hicks' ARIZONA BAY album, his tales about surviving Bush and the Fundamentalists in the White House. About dinosaurs as God's way to test their faith – God, the old prankster, burying bones all over to be dug up and sow doubt in the belief of the non-believers of evolution. About how the Democrats won, finally, after having aimed at the Republican elephant for so many years. The elephant that sold the weapons to Iraq and as soon as the cheque cleared went on to test the quality of its products. Only Hicks is talking about the early nineties. Clinton is president, pre-Bush II and pre-Iraq II. Now, another Democrat is sitting in the White House, and it looks as if the elephant might win over Congress in November – again. Meanwhile, the Fundamentalists are tea-partying and that freak parralel universe in which Sarah Palin might run for president is actually our own.
What would Bill Hicks say if he were alive today? Bloody murder? Or would he put his head under water – if we gonna get all pruny, then at least evenly?
In face of it all Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are going to RALLY TO RESTORE SANITY AND/OR FEAR next weekend in Washington. In face of Germany's own autumn of discontent – the Leitkultur-debate is making its reappearance (aka how to keep the 'German' in German angst) – Christine Lemke-Matwey called out to Germany's own Dichter/Denker to get their heads out of the bathwater sand, and say something. If Christoph Schlingensief were alive today, as she suggests already nostalgically, he surely would have to say something – and clear the air, hopefully.
Living abroad in 2008, I was pondering upon that German angst myself and wrote about Schlingensief's WIEN-AKTION (BITTE LIEBT ÖSTERREICH), his 2000 Austrian take on this season's debate:

// Is this real? Is it real theater? Real art? Or indeed real life? For those who witnessed Schlingensief's work BITTE LIEBT ÖSTERREICH commissioned for the Wiener Festwochen festival in Austria, it was in fact difficult to decide upon the nature of the spectacle: the work featured a large container installed on a square next to the opera house in Vienna. In line with the concept of the Big Brother TV program, twelve participants, who were announced by Schlingensief as seeking for asylum, moved into the container for one week, being under video surveillance on a 24 hours basis. The public could follow the life of the container inhabitants on television and the Internet and were asked to vote for the candidates, whereby those two receiving the most votes would not only definitely have to leave the container, but also putatively have to leave the country, having lost the competition of seeking for refugee. Whereas this account frames the work as a rather straightforward piece of performance art, the introduction of elements such as a banner stating 'Ausländer Raus' ('Foreigners Out'), a slogan used by neo-nationalist parties in Germany, and flags alluding to the right-wing populist Austrian party FPÖ rooted the work within the current political discussion, pointing to its potential as being an actual political campaign.
Hence, interpretations of Schlingensief's work indeed ranged from it being a critique of policies towards asylum seekers and the populist strategies used for their implementation to being a meta-critique on the increasing event character of all politics and the crucial role of the media apparatus. Criticism towards the WIEN-AKTION ran on the very same axis: Schlingensief's re-enactment of the spectacle of politics through yet another spectacle turns artistic practice into an act of populist event management, which dismisses art's potential to say something meaningful about reality by turning it into a piece of virtual reality itself.
Yet, within the framework of this exhibition [MARTYRS. CLOWNS. BIOGRAPHICAL EXORCISMS] the term virtual reality seems the least appropriate to describe the nature of Schlingensief's artistic project, which is marked by his ever-lasting possession by the demon called Germany. His works then appear as performances of political introspection which insist on a place for his own biography within, against, towards and in spite of the reality of German history – PLEASE LOVE AUSTRIA is after all a call for subjective engagement. The audience in Vienna reacted to the initial display of the 'Foreigners Out'-banner with applause – Art, life and true romance are never virtual. //

I don't know if Schlingensief would want to participate in the current debate, too. Or if he would feel that you can only state the obvious for so many times. I don't even know if I want to. The fact that to Seehofer and company the Leitkultur-debate is no farce at all (and that they are not asking to Please love Germany either) leaves me a bit breathless. I think I'm already holding my breath under water with Bill. 'Germany', neat and tidy within its lovely 'borders', home of the 'Germans' and their 'Christian-Jewish tradition', reading Grass or better yet, watching TATORT on Sundays. I have no clue.
I am German, yet nothing but a patchwork, my biography a succession of actual physical and/or cultural displacements, migration, refuge, adaptation, weirdness. My grandmother was born in a country that doesn't exist anymore, my parents were, I was. Germany just turned twenty. Or two-hundred, but then again, I have no idea either way. I'm living in Kreuzberg now, where nobody is from here, everybody came from somewhere, including patched baggage.
The only time I ever got a glimpse at what that concept 'Germany' might mean (that icing apart from the actual cake, the Grundgesetz) was when I lived abroad back then in 2008. And then I only realised it in the way other people looked at me and told me, that yes, I am German, even if in denial. And in the way the Germans at the Goethe-Institute in Amsterdam explained it to my fellow Dutchmen. I listened to Feridun Zaimoglu talking about GERMAN AMOK, I read Christian Kracht's FASERLAND, I found Schlingensief in a dark room at the De Appel gallery. I even enjoyed the familiarity of their geographies, Heimat. But then again, they looked a lot like Kreuzberg.
So I have an idea after all. Last week I asked for political and cultural asylum again nevertheless. Not that I'm headed for greener pastures (see above). Just pastures. If L.A. has fallen into the ocean by then, I'll be heading out to ARIZONA BAY.

A little death behind the eyes.

I admit I did not make it any further than 20 minutes into the pilot the first time around before I decided that yes, I am a bit bored, so why not leave it for another rainy day. I had been rather reluctant to watch the meticulous re-creation of N.Y.'s advertisement industry in the 60s in the first place. Why the past anyway? What I wanted to see was a meticulous depiction of the ad business in N.Y. in 2010. However, as a fellow pop culturaphil reminded me, it's not about the past and even when it is about the past it's actually about the present. And, you can only ignore such a big chunk of pop culture for so long. So, I sat myself down again and finally caught up on MAD MEN.
Yet, even after having watched it all and the series' fourth season finale this past Sunday, I am still not sure what's actually going on, what the series – and the fuss – is about (except for the obvious meticulous part). For it is not about mad men. The pun doesn't work, or rather it ends where it started: on MADison Avenue. These men are not mad, they are complacent. They aren't jumping from the roofs of downtown skyscrapers (as the title sequence suggests) and land in their office chairs. They had already been sitting there, and have continued to do so for the series' past 4 seasons, albeit in different offices - somewhere in between pantyhose campaigns, in between Lucky Strikes, in between drinks, in between marriages, in between secretaries. Yes, there is nothing wrong with that as a plot – or a philosophy (I have written a 'maximum of pleasure, minimum of bullshit' defense for another cable TV ad man, Brian Kinney – forthcoming in CQN # 3). Only why bother if you don't seem to be having any fun, if you couldn't care less?
And Don Draper, leading man, creative hotshot and womanizer (or so he's called), is not having any. Or maybe he is, but you can't really tell as the series' immersion in everything white straight upper middle class 1960ish also applies to its cinematography: it sticks to the kiss&pan-rule, and no taking off of tights during sex.
When Don Draper is not piling up secretaries, wifes, ex-wifes and children like ties (you just buy one after another, more of the same because you like the pattern and one can never have enough accessories for that matter), he is alternating between trying to stay sober enough (or get drunk enough) to come up with one of his hotshot ideas and indulging in introspective swimming. Not that it gets him any further than feeling a bit sorry for himself, a bit alienated from his womanized women, a bit empty. His favorite line in that case: You don't really know who I am! (Yes, he's not Don Draper, and no, he did not kill Don Draper to become him. It's not that bad.)
I have been watching MAD MEN together with the fifth season of DEXTER these past few Mondays: If you want to see a man with truly alienating secrets, try Dexter. Likewise Don, he has also diagnosed himself with being a bit dead behind the eyes. Unlike Don however, he's no longer too complacent about it - as it dawns on him that it doesn't go together well with having some things in your life that you can actually be bothered about.
Watching Don moping around, I find myself reaching that state of mindless cotton wool complacency, too, interrupted only from time to time by pointless rampages towards the screen: Don, come on! Aren't you living in New York in the Sixties? Isn't Andy Warhol sitting in his factory three blocks down the street, re-writing the history of something. Isn't there a revolution underway? Don, come on! Stop impregnating your secretaries and let's go get screen-tested!
But we know how the story ended, I'm only waiting for Don to catch up, too. Don won't have changed the face of anything, his children did. Those children I yelled at him not to have, my parents' generation - I stand corrected (for that part anyway).

// I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
[...]
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don't do it--she's the wrong woman,
he's the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
[...]
but I don't do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips like chips of flint as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.//
(Sharon Olds: I GO BACK TO MAY 1937)

Men, desks, paper dolls.

A little death behind the eyes: Don Draper (MAD MEN), Brian Kinney (QUEER AS FOLK), Dexter Morgan (DEXTER).

Put the babblin back in binary babblin.

THAT'S HOW WEIRD IT WAS. (I)

2010

Put the binary back in babblin.

Afterthoughts, on what will be and the things that are

not waiting outside
on whom they are not waiting for
on bubble wrap
on the way out
on the effects of baseball bats on art
on the history of brainpicking
on Church Builders
on obituaries
on remnants
on resilience
on the effect of concrete drywalls
on the effect of concrete.

In CINE QUA NON #2, Ana Luisa Valdeira da Silva reviews the 2009 Young Creators Show, organized by the IPJ-Portuguese Institute of Youth and the CPAI-Portuguese Club of Arts and Ideas in Évora and Portel. She asks:


//- Can I get inside one? Yes - // In a giant object that was also intended to be alive, in the work The Way Out is Through by Manuela Pacheco, a selection in the visual arts area. An enormous plastic bag keeps itself inflated through the airflows that enter it. There’s a hole through which you can get in, dressing yourself as a bubble, and inside it a realtime projection of what’s happening outside. We’re inside, cocooned inside the bubble, watching what’s going on outside on a canvas of living plastic. // [...] //- Can I crush it? Yes - That was André Neto’s suggestion when he talked about his work Branco Esterilizado (Sterilized White). And so I did or at least I tried. I step into his structure made of drywall with an edge of about 8.2 feet, pick up a baseball bat that was resting on a corner and hit one of the walls pretty hard. There’s an audible blast which reverberated for quite a few seconds. Lots of sound but the structure, already full of holes, made to represent a sort of an art gallery space, didn’t even suffer a dent. It turns out I didn’t apply enough power to it. Right away, the lady that was supervising the exhibit looked at me with astonishment on her face and said: only the author can destroy it. The young creator wasn’t there neither to allow me to destroy it nor to destroy it himself, there was only me trying to punch a hole through the drywall in front of the Creator, right at the altar of St. Vicente's Church. //

cf. CQN # 2, p. 94ff.

Sunday, February 14, 2010.

// it's Valentine's Day and Christoph Schlingensief is performing, HAU, Berlin, the Berlinale program says he's showing L'INFERNO, commenting on it, he's commenting on it alright, I don't know if he's showing it, he says Ulrich and Erika Gregor wouldn't call that showing a movie, at least not properly or cinephily or, he's fast-forwarding through the opening credits, then rewinding the whole thing, I don't know, is he giving in, he's showing that one frame with the director's name in it, smugly perhaps, here you go, proper and all / he's fast-forwarding again, all the while reviewing what he's not going to show us, then a sudden halt, he's showing a scene now, he's mixing sounds to go with it, then, is he losing faith in the act, he's turning down the volume, he's commenting on it again, or rather, telling an anecdote about some gallery opening in Berlin, only it's not an anecdote, but a lecture, or a parable perhaps, on the state of Berlin's art scene, I'm thinking L'INFERNO alright, he's fast-forwarding again /
first balcony, knees up to my chin, I'm euphoric, he's getting away with it, he came to do what, infuriate, agitate, convince, self-indulge, ask for money for his opera house in Africa, and he does it and he's going to get it, why, because art history and the art market have long decided, yes, we let him get away with it, but well, the audience came in disbelief of it all, smugly too, so he is performing and he's mangling minds and he's getting away with it, the audience is going away with their minds mangled /
I'm sitting in the bleachers, I am sad, there is something so utterly sad about him on stage, he's so done with cancer, he says it, I'm done with you, cancer, I think he always was, even when he was still showing off his X-ray images / he's done with the name-calling, and maybe that's what is so utterly sad, that there is still that fierceness with which he stated, cancer, you are an asshole, I refuse you, but something else is creeping in, something desperate, desperation, he says it, straightforwardly, it's so plain it hurts, he says, I want to be well / I want to be alive
there's no point in being dead, there's no point in being a dead artist /
the next day, I'm talking to Delphine, I'm telling her about the sadness and the desperation, I ask her, what will happen to his art, what does it mean to be a dead artist, a dead performance artist, a dead biographical exorcist, what will be, she asks me, are you of little faith, I shrug, his art, it will be, it is now with him and in spite of him, it will without him
there is consolation in there, somewhere //

Christoph Schlingensief died on Saturday, August 21, 2010.

of the frozen things like fountains in public spaces in june

I am still not done with the color of concrete.

through the bent backed tulips

Public service announcement

The other gingerbread left for Happy Communist Country two days ago.
This means I should do my best to keeps things tidy in here.
I will.

sneakpeek

forthcoming in CINE QUA NON #3

the blinding

concrete, brownstone.
(a.h. 2010, acrylics on canvas, 70 x 80 cm)

d.g.: "...it seems possible that they are in fact looking at the source of the light, their features maybe even erased by its intensity."

- - -

On a rooftop, in between the concrete and the brownstone, they are standing, the wings of their paper clothing fluttering around their backs. A throat is cleared, then "I guess we didn't get the eyes so we stop argueing whether or not we're a bit dead behind them - and get on with it."

7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art

12.06.-9.8. 2011

-- -- -- -- --

Venues:
Oranienplatz 17
10999 Berlin

Artists:
Vincent Vulsma

Vincent Vulsma

ARS NOVA E5305-B, 2009
Spray paint on shrink film over pre-fabricated canvas

installation view (general design),

oranienplatz 17.

Public Talk (tba):

Manierismen der Abgewracktheit.

-- -- -- --

Re: suresafecomfortable Re: tales from beyond the bubble wrap, part 2.

there are no tales from beyond the bubble wrap I can't tell them.
there are tales from beyond the bubble wrap I can't tell them.
there are tales from beyond the bubble wrap I can tell them

from inside the bubble wrap out.

there are no tales from beyond the bubble wrap I can't tell them.
there are tales from beyond the bubble wrap I tell them

from inside the bubble wrap out
of fear of pretty houses and their porches.

there are tales from beyond the bubble wrap I can't tell them

from outside the bubble wrap in.

there are tales they tell me

from inside the bubble wrap out
// patriarch on a vespa //.

there are tales I tell them
of the effect of concrete on bubble wrap
of the effect of bubble wrap on bubble wrap

Scrapbook. part 1

#manifestomonday

#1
The doors are barred with boards. Enter through the cellar.
A supporting construction hovering above me. Is it supporting, itself? Or is it supported? - Enter: Two hens. Bourgeois hens, I'm told.
The smell of fresh paint. White. And black.
The windows are barred, too. But I'm inside, not even seeing the boards.
Noise, a naked man sleeping. He's just pretending, I'd say.
Photographs, photographs, projections.
My head has started to ache.

#2
A decaying building.
A Former department store. Former furniture store. Former "Real" market.
A real market of the real again now.
A mock wardrobe which is not a mock wardrobe. Or is it?
Beautiful black paintings which are not paintings but pretend to be hidden behind curtains.
Remnants of an old pleasure ground seen from the staircase.
A carpet made of salt and one with words and some more carpets above.

#3
A dark and empty salesroom.
I'm standing with my back to the window, looking out of a window, seeing pedestrians passing.
An artist's flat and workspace.
He is absent.
Lots of knives. Two old sausages. A caligraphy letter.
Now my back is aching, too.

To be continued.

tales from beyond the bubble wrap. part 2

I've been travelling by train, too.
Travelling at 210 km/h. Made me think of Virilio and his screens once more. But I will probably talk about this some other time.

I've been travelling to a ritualistic celebration held by people I do not really know. Sun and hills and church bells, you know.

I've been watching. But I've been also taking part. Wrapped by arms that wanted to include me right away. Friendly and warm. I liked it, the way you like to look at the screen (Oh, there it is already again, I couldn't help.): Tell me a story. And it gets even better if I find myself in it, in any way.

Still, I am not inside the bubble wrap. Can't be. Those people are! I am outside. - No, this is no post-puberty lamentation about me being the misunderstood outsider. Come on! I'm past that. -
They do everything to be sure and safe and comfortable. Somehow, I would love to be/think/live this way, too. But this safety wrap obscures your vision, doesn't it?

Boo, I'm getting banal and cheesy again. Can't help. Not that my vision is un-obscured. No.

Btw: It's not a new thought, this. Not at all:

/ Wenn jemand eine Reise tut, /
/ so kann er was erzählen. /

And in the end:

(...)
/Und fand es überall wie hier,/
/Fand überall 'n Sparren,/
/Die Menschen gradeso wie wir,/
/Und eben solche Narren./

Matthias Claudius: Urians Reise um die Welt. 1774.


Addendum:
Saturday morning.
I'm sitting in my Berlin flat, looking outside at swirling particles.
I'm under water. Rays of sunlight passing through the glass that separates me from the outside. Little bubble passing by and up.
If I open the glass, they'll come in and will be soft and gentle.
Now, that's my kind of bubble wrap!

Today Infringing Upon: // Korrupte Parallelmontage // Geschichte als Verunreinigung //

Disclaimer I:
I stole the term // Korrupte Parallelmontage // corrupt parallel montage // from Lukas Foerster and his intriguing text on MANILA IN THE FANGS OF DARKNESS, because it's lovely, and it opened up like a flower or a fist, and then I went all awww! and stole grabbed it.

Disclaimer II:
I stole the term // Geschichte als Verunreinigung // history as contamination // from him, too. He coined it during his introduction to the TRACES OF A THIRD CINEMA film retrospective, which is currently shown at the Zeughauskino, Berlin. - - The history of a curatorial concept - - from trace as past and present -neat and tidy- to trace as past and present -corruptive, disruptive, contaminative-.

- - -

CorruptParallelMontage (1)



This is not a one way street. This is not a film by Khavn. This is not James Dean.
This is not a one way street. Nevertheless, he only goes in one direction. Where does it take him? To a woman?
Where does it take me? (d.g.) Me, CPM (1)-(4). d. g., where does it take you?
This is not a one way street. This is a one way street. This is not a one way street. It's the sign that's wrong, you'd have to behead that arrow. He's going nowhere. Or, a 90 degree turn, he's going sideways. He ends up with the back against the wall, facing his flagellants, where he had been standing all along. Yet, this is not a circle. This is a one way street. (a.h.)
Alright, this seriously was some kind of brain wreckage on my part. In fact, I don't think the sign is wrong. He's not going sideways, but straight down till he reaches the end of the road. With nowhere left to go to. (d.h.2)

Stills from (left) MANILA IN THE FANGS OF DARKNESS (Khavn, RP 2008) and (right) MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF NEON (Lino Brocka, 1975) and (left/right/center) MANILA IN THE FANGS OF DARKNESS (not a film by Khavn, RP 2008).


CorruptParallelMontage (2)

„What's it gonna be“, he says, „art or revolution?“ Every Monday at noon. He enters the office. He stares at the coffee pot, „What's it gonna be“, he takes a cup from the rack. He fills his cup. He turns towards the desk. He lifts his cup. He pauses. He blinks. He motions with his right hand. He enunciates the options, „art or revolution?“. On days, which never fall on Mondays, it is not a question, but a corrupt parallel montage. He rephrases a lot on Mondays. He reads Taylor Mead. A lot on Mondays: // The movies are this exciting thing, you see. The movies are a revolution. //

Art and revolution, two paranoids in stand-off:
A: „You talkin' to me?“
R: „You talkin' to me?“


CorruptParallelMontage (3)

The contamination of the present by the past - like oil in water, you send in Greenpeace, but it keeps on lurking about, actually it's just swimming. In After the wood, after having chopped down the trees with Deleuze, the rhizom, nature's corruptparallelmontage? Corrupt as in (bad word) paranoid, (good word) schizophrenic?


CorruptParallelMontage (4)


In Major Kontra's lair: ??, Rambo, Jesus on the cross and a star-spangled banner.


In Major Kontra's lair II, preaching to the rebels: Who's it gonna be who saves your soul, Jesus or America?

Stills from ORAPRONOBIS (Lino Brocka, RP 1989) = MANILA IN THE FANGS OF DARKNESS (not a film by Khavn, RP 2008).

Revolution as corruptparallelmontage: Vigilantes who were rebels now fighting rebels who were fighting dictatorship now fighting for human rights who vigilantes call phoney intellectuals. I am not even pretending that I got any of it right.
This is not about revolution. This is about an angry man, involuntarily walking in circles. Repeating now non-revolutionary movements of the past which maybe were revolutionary then. Trying to break the circle into a spiral to advance to anywhere. (d.g.)
I disagree about the angry (yet, I can't think of a better word, so maybe I agree after all), the involuntarily and the circles and the breaking (see (1)), and it is about the revolution (in terms of the oil swimming along, see (3)).
d. g., I love your image of spiraling advancement - - I usually picture spirals as leading downward onto some hard ground or fluffy madness; and advancement sneaking up on you from behind, tapping you on the shoulder or kicking you in the knees - - -
So, we're dizzy, d. g., but for the better? (a.h.)
No, sorry. I don't think so. Just dizzy. No better. And that's my last word about this movie. (d.g.2)

All four stills have been screencapped from the World Revolution Media page whose tagline is „It's right to rebel.“ Rebel as in the neat and tidy living ideology of MarxismLeninismMaoism. Major Kontra, what are you pointing at now?
Anywhere! - No.
At a woman? - No.
With his back to a wall, facing a bunch of flagellantes.

Couldn't he be pointing only at them? (d.g.) - Yes. (a.h.)

and you're the one vanishing

I saw you /
you were dancing out the ocean
I saw you /
a car tire in the sand contortion
I saw you.
Goodbye my American friend

tales from beyond the bubble wrap

There are no tales from beyond the bubble wrap. I can't tell them. Yet, I can see, out there, there are people living completely different lives. I got on a train, if you want to see Germany, get on that train. I've been a tourist travelling other countries' countrysides, they look different. They are not Germany. It's something about the grass and the trees. Here There Here I am a tourist, too.
FITBW
I sit on a bench in Nowheretown, Germany, reading Rainald Goetz, Klage, from inside the bubble wrap, am I smiling, I am, I recognize the wrapping. My arm reaches out, I am trying to touch the clouds, the sky looks extremely close, close and squeezable. Ridiculously close, why is that, I am only 400 metres above sea level, here there here this is not the Alps.
FITBW
Back. On the train, Jason Schwartzman travelling through India in a perfectly tailored Marc Jacobs suit. I fell in love with a fox in corduroys. On Saturday. Familiar wrappings. I wrap myself in a train travelling through India Germany.
Back. There Here In Berlin. The sky far up, my hands rest in my lap, not tempted. Skyscrapers never touch it, too.
FITBW


foxfit, never touch ground:
saturday's corduroys through monday's slacks.

IntoxicatingMe, IntoxicatingYou

Apropos Christoph Schlingensief's INTOLLERANZA II, his music theatre opera performance at the Festival des Arts in Brussels:

„Der Künstler, hat Georg Seeßlen jüngst in einer Laudatio auf Schlingensief gesagt, sei ein Mensch, der Dinge tut, die ihm vollkommen entsprechen. Das stimmt. Die Frage ist nur, ob das, was dem Operndorf-Begründer und Lungenkrebspatienten Schlingensief entspricht, auch andere etwas angeht. Und ob seine Kunst Kunst genug ist, stark genug, poetisch und reich genug, dass diese anderen sich ein eigenes Bild machen, von sich und ihren Todesängsten, ihren Träumen.“
(Christine Lemke-Matwey, Tagesspiegel, May 17, 2010, p. 23)

Apropos Schlingensief's installation INNOCENCE 1965-2008 at the de Appel arts center in Amsterdam in Spring 2008, I wrote last fall:

„Let's chain the artwork to the artist and behold another therapeutic session...“

I did not answer the question, but merely rephrase it. The question being, again, Is his art art enough, is it strong enough, poetic enough to be more than sheer self-medication, more than a publicly exercised therapy session which does not have to, can't, won't be of anybody's concern because, not only in the end but from the very beginning, he is only talking to himself?

„...standing in front of the triptych, I could only gasp and utter Oh my God. Oh my God. This is pathetic. So it is then, truly is. Oh my God. For here, Schlingensief's insistence on the reality of the possession by one's own biography [...] has been turned into the insistence on the reality of the possession by one's own tumorous biology, leaving behind the exorcism's inherent oscillation between authenticity and spectacle, as its circular folly can once and for all be dissolved into a confirmed medical diagnosis – memento cancri.”
(CINE QUA NON #1, fall 2009, p. 14f.)

Did I imply no? Not art enough?

- - -

Later on, I did say yes, stubbornly. Yes strong enough, poetic enough, and I turned to my own therapeutic session. Its every frame an act of self-medication or an imitation thereof, intoxicating enough, I save myself.

Stills from EXORCISM OF THE LAST GAME I EVER PLAYED (D 2009, 10')

- - -
Last night on the phone, talking capitalism with my father, he is as agitated as I am. We are both shouting, then he says I should cancel that paper subscription. I say This is all so wrong, he says Why vote for one when you can start a party, I mumble uh huh.

Not enough, not nearly enough.

carpe diem (yeah I know)

show me the words that
reorder the world

and I spell check them in

my dictionary.

#manifestomonday


Colin Firth is trying to find a comfortable position for shooting himself in the head. Amongst them: in bed, wrapped inside of a sleeping bag. He lets the gun slide along his cheek, puts it in his mouth, readjusts the angle. The scene triggers a memory - Wednesday nights, watching suicide tales in a sticky seminar room. The outcome, an angry paper, angry at Alain, angry at the protagonist of Louis Malle's LE FEU FOLLET (I/F 1963). Warm summer days spent indoors writing agitated verses, after having read too much Sartre. Alain, you are objectifying yourself by your own gaze, you turn yourself into an easy prey to the judgemental eyes of your predators, Alain, I warn you, project yourself. Otherwise, Alain, the future is always already dead. Look, Alain, the past is chewing you up, it already ate the present. Sartre is angry: I am nothing but my own project, alive. Suicide is absurd (what good shall come from it, you gonna be dead) and btw, it's pathetic.
The warnings hit me right at the beginning, Tom Ford's A SINGLE MAN (USA 2009) might make my skin crawl. For one, there are fiddlers, fiddling a score without pause. For two, a protagonist voice-overing, dancing on the edge of the redundancy cliff. Maybe I just cover my ears and get by. But then again I would also have to cover my eyes, because three, there is beauty. Beauty everything. Beauty everywhere. Pretentious bullshit, anyone?
No. No, I get silenced. No need to be warned. Ford's gaze silences me. Its persistence to set the world on fire. Not burn down, but glow, simmer, gaze by gaze. It's hungry, tender, it zooms in. It looks, pushing back a past that is trying to suffocate the present. A gaze under which ballerina shoes turn ice cream blue (or is it summer sky pool water blue) and lips crimson red, skin gets sun-burnt. Under which James Dean is not dead. Nick Hoult's pullover one overflowing tactile sensation.
A gaze which says, matter-of-factly, carpe diem. And not because life is so thorougly short, but because. Because, look, // Awww! //.

carpe diem (top), project: the future is always already dead.

Alain, LE FEU FOLLET.

carpe diem (bottom), project: trigger, ignite.

Colin Firth, A SINGLE MAN.

Dis-count

#manifestomonday
Would have been yesterday.

Time for some official figures you need to have.

Devide the current number of hairs on your head by the sum of digits of your date of birth.
Multiply the minutes you slept last night by your working hours.
Take the result and add it to the last six digits of your account number.
Measure the length of your right index finger and multiply it by the number of appointments you have in your pocket diary.
Devide your social security number by the age of your firstborn child. But you mustn't devide by zero! Haven't you learnt anything at school?!
In case you don't have a child, simply devide the money your earn in halves. In case you don't earn any money,
Take your postal code and flip it backwards to get the approximate number of wrinkles you'll have on your forehead on the day you die.

End of line.

FAT€

I should burn the morning paper first thing in the morning. It had been Friday afternoon again and I am working myself up. Schicksalsgemeinschaft. Fat€. Oldgreekspoliticsinventors (the openoffice german abc suggestions are creeping me out), inventing politics to be done with fate B.C.. I taste the joke on the tip of my tongue and do not deliver it. Maybe I am already calming down or I just forgot at whose expense I am not not joking. 3 columns on paper, I squint. Fat€. Fat€. Fat€. Fat€. Fat€. Fat€. Take that, capital letters and exclamation marks. FAT€. CDS. FAT€. FAT€. POLITICS. CDS. FAT€. FAT€. WTF!! I am even worse at this than at arguing with the pope *death glare stand-off with the tv screen*.

d.g. You were right. I am going to hum that Bob Dylan song now, soothingly. It leads the way to there. Circularly thinking cylon. DylanRelaxant.

// I'll be with you when the deal goes down. //

RLBR

I could have been a painter/
I could have been a crook/
a real live bank robber/
cos is it that what it took.

#manifestomonday

I read about Damien Hirst's early days in Berlin. Before that auction that coincided with that Lehman Brother's downfall. Does it answer the question, the old one, about art changing the world, or merely the art world. Cut it out already.
I spent Friday afternoon trying to wrap my head around those 22 000 000 000. A man on the radio said that it is against the law. I don't know the man and I don't know the law. I nodded though for a bit until my head got dizzy. Maybe I had been shaking it after all.
In Greece, the Communist Party is sitting in the bleachers awaiting the pre-revolutionary collaps. Imploding Capitalism Inevitable. 0508110905072010
Somewhere I read that it took our dear Guido 20 semesters to finish his studies. (d.g.)
On Wall Street, internet porn is thriving amongst the employees of the SEC. // PornRelaxant // I hear about PIGS and haircuts and lobster ratings and ramschfilme and ramschstaaten and the tickling of the boiling water. Cock shots in a Jack Smith movie. // a fix of lust for a herd of impotent souls //

Disclaimer: I stole everything, especially // that last line // from Jorge Vaz Nande and his Spoiler in CINE QUA NON #2.

There's too much confusion,
I can't get no relief. (d.g.)

Stuffed fleas

This is not only the first test entry for this new blog of ours. This is also the very first blog entry I've ever written in my entire life. Therefore, it's going to be just plain boring. Promise!

Went off to the flea market at Betahaus today. Nice atmosphere. But found nothing special, though the two pairs of green sequin hotpants and glittery bronze leggings were really quite eye-catchy. Saw a lot of hip teens, surprisingly no familiar faces despite one girl whom I wasn't able to sort into any of my brain's drawers.

Strolled down the Oranienstraße afterwards, had burgers, fries and an ice cream. The sun's been shining all the time. A pretty day, wasn't it?