9 - perros negros

EASY DICIPLINE:
I CHING
The I Ching’s other name is ‘the oracle’ but I don’t like to call it
that. There is nothing prophetic about it. It does not project into the
future at all and it has no knowledge of my past. Rather it dumbly
and intuitively activates and excavates the present like a drug, releasing crap buried deep in the questioning, throwing, reading subject. The lines it makes are coded tire tracks indexing the screeching course of seemingly irrational factors and random events that
make up the always singular, always changing perpetual present.
It prefers solitude, sequestering the user into indulgent isolation
where self-involvement and self-analysis can blossom unabashedly.
It is solipsistic, operating, often unconsciously, on the uplifting but
dubious conviction that all the information you need is already inside you. My favorite user, Lee Lozano, filled her time asking questions, throwing coins, and drawing lines dreadfully alone on the
verge of both stoned epiphany and bored-anxious self-destruction.
It works by reflecting pieces of our own selves back in elliptical lyric
form. John Cage would like that it’s built on an effortlessly random
act, but its randomness enables people’s irrepressible narrative and
interpretative drive. The hexagram you get has a text attached to
it, a judgment and an image. This is your wall to push off against.
A mark to respond to. A glass to see oneself in. A text in need of
reading, the reading of which is (or involuntarily becomes) a generative writing by the Blanchotian reader.
It is a relational tool that makes self-definition easier, and defining
oneself (especially as an artist) is hard work. So every bit of help
is welcomed. The way it, the oracle, seems to tell you what to do
is comforting. Like a full tank of gas or a checklist, or a schedule.
The Book of Changes could be a life coach or personal therapist,
but it would be better as a work consultant, a manager or executive.
It would be a great boss, like the kind Andy Warhol dreamed of:
“The hardest thing is when you have to dream up the tasteless
things to do on your own. When I think about what sort of person
I would most like to have on retainer, I think it would be a boss. A
boss who could tell me what to do, because that makes everything
easy when you’re working.”
It gave Lozano structure and ease, discipline and relief, impetus
and stillness:
ANY DISCIPLINE CAN BE
HELPFUL, BUT THE KEY
DISCIPLINE IS THE EASIEST:
I use it as an excuse. (SARAH LEHRER-GRAIWER)
F IA B A C K S T RÖ M
e D A NNA VAJDA
ON C O NT E NT
FB: Are we on the record now? Well good, so now
begins the production of content. Let’s start in iSpace
DV: This re-naming works well because of our prosumer culture as
opposed to a space you could say is in fact mine.
FB: ...the production of a meaningful intimate space. With the sex
scandal of New York Governor Spitzer, the journalists didn’t need
much research, they basically got the story reading straight off of
one of the luxury prostitutes he hired’s mySpace page.
DV: Everyone is happy to put their story out; luxury prostitutes
on mySpace, American soldiers in Iraq on Youtube talking about
“fucking in Hajji churches”, the Al Qaeda counter forces posting
martyrdom blogs, and FaceBook groups for everything else all
equalized in the same field of information. We’re living an intensive
culture of self-explication.
FB: …the prosumer definition of a self-producer of content.
DV: With these endless self-productions of content we tend to avoid
attribution of real meaning and evacuate analysis, the type of
meaning that is produced in searching and investigating, a process
of moving towards it, as if collaborating with a mystery.
FB: Instead of that temporary fix of the feeling of understanding,
rather to introduce a halt in an eternal flow of signification. The
focus is on the frame; a desperate search for the next format in a
flow of new models for everything. There is a constant restructuring
of the organization as a stand in for organized activity or coming
together to affect real change? It all gives a faux feeling of change
just the way the flow of information provides a satisfying sensation
of meaning production.
DV: Rather than the possibility of change, with a potential of a palpable result, these new formats give the semblance of new content,
which might give the lip service to change. Of course a familiarity
with flux makes us less reactive to turbulent change, the causes and
effects appear as if in a vacuum.
FB: Yes, this classic split between content and frame obscures
this difference in gradation between the content inserted and the
frame, such as mySpace. We are unable to see that the frame
is also content, and not simply innocent background noise, as if
beyond ethics.
DV: Aha, but what is more important is to work with logics implicit
to the frame: the logic of content as the deferral of content.
FB: If content producers, including artists, do the micro management or the dirty detailed work, is that what we’re doing for
Afterall? At some point content providing was seen as an important
activity to prevent vapid products, a fear of emptiness, now we
may approach strategic brand alliances in content programming.
DV: Artists put things together, more importantly they attribute
things with an excess of cultural meaning in the “art-ness”. In other
contexts this activity arouses suspicion; it is the essential role of the
paranoid, who in the film thriller trope would say: “It’s all connected!” while attributing relational meaning and an overarching
narrative. How different is this from the activity of analysis?
FB: The frame sets up a breeding ground for this suspicion with its
super parallax image.
DV: Yes, the frame operates to categorize and keep content in
motion. It provides infinite connection without attributing meaning
or an overarching narrative so that content appears separate and
what you have is the infinite production of micro frames without a
larger frame to understand this continuum. We are moving beyond
tribal knowledge into a solitary knowledge of separate individuals,
leaving behind a collective production of knowledge.
F: On Facebook individual pages connect to each other through
networks formed without exchange
You can go to any page and ask anyone to be your friend - it’s a
question of quantity.
D: You look up their page to check who they know, what music
they listen to, what kind of pictures they have and the way they’ve
dressed up the page. You base your decision upon style alone, it’s
an economy of surfaces with which we’re exchanging – a very funny
interpersonal shift.
FB Rather than core constituted individuals of a capital I with responsibilities and rights towards the larger collective of society, the
contemporary individual articulates in iLife- lower case i - as in little
individual. Our desire moved to the frame, to be connectors, cruising
with an iPod content recording. So we have turned from an industrial
logic of transformation of raw materials, into an archival one where
content only shift in location and new categories for it’s storing are
created. Funnily, our-sourcing or purchase of content can only be
done as long as content has value. We’re all a bit too eager to produce it’s there for grabs
DV: Ultimately it is a question of time and commitment to do anything
with the content. It’s materialization into a record of itself doesn’t
inherently produce more understanding. The scarcity of debate and
friction in it’s production, does it devalue the currency of content?
Maybe we ought to stop producing to re-elevate it’s status?
COLLECTIVE MONUMENT
There is a kind of monument that we will call “collective monument.” In this case, it is an element that has been chosen by the
people, not unanimously, but rather based on small signs that
accumulate around the object, in which it is possible to follow an
entire conversation. Near the plaza of Coyoacán in Mexico City,
there is a tree that leans a particular way, so that a passerby
must duck his head to walk past on the sidewalk. No one knows
the person who began to stick chewinggum on the trunk of this
tree, but what is known is that today the bark of the tree is completely covered with used chewing gum in different colors. An
example of collective monumentality that is worthy of admiration.
Continuing on our theme of collective monuments, we have endless constructive elements that are featured along the length and
breadth of the country’s highways. Constructionsthat could well
have been houses, community centers, or schools. These concrete
ruins take on a new use as chalkboards or backing for publicity,
mainly of two kinds: political propaganda and advertisements
for concerts given by bands. Collective monuments? Memories
of past events? The fact remains that these architectural elements
remain in a state of ruin, and the propaganda is not
updated regularly. So we might find an ad for a concert of the
Banda el Recodo, dating to 1987, next to a political slogan for
the PRI campaign dating to three presidential terms ago. “Pedro
Was Here”
F: Just as information no longer is about facts, but this ubiquitous
lubricant, we as assigned content producers are given the feeling of
options, but we can’t opt out of the global community of prosumers,
everything we do leaves traces.
To make this type of monument, one needsa characteristic object
or particular dimensions,for example an extremely large boulder.
The procedure is similar to that of the
chewing gum: a person arrives and etches his name in the stone,
then another and another, until the object becomes a collection
of names and dates.
D: The way the dominant idea of free will is that it is working best
when not everyone uses it. Are these prosumer traces a distraction
from free will or its emerging potential? It’s hard to storm the gates,
they are soft and constantly moving. Most often what holds us back
is fear of foolishness, which perhaps is were agency or a sense of
freedom lies.
All of this goes without mentioning the legendary tradition of
engraving the name of the bride on the fleshy leaf of an agave
plant,or on a tree trunk. In this case, we can also speak of
organic monumentality in a state of continuous transformation,
for the size of the name of the aforementioned increases as the
agave plant grows. (MARIANA CASTILLO DEBALL)
F: …and in guarding the right to misunderstand! So to transgress
through folly?
I watch these movies for their things, the massive accumulations
of things, abandoned things, useless things, new things made old,
turned instantly into archeological artifacts. Put into this context, the
things of daily life are not as I remembered them, they are slightly altered, slightly wrong, off. In this world, it’s as if things could present
themselves anew, their values transformed, their histories expanded,
their secret lives revealed. This is the kind of history I am speaking
about, a history of the present.
Dr. ABRAHAM : Una especie de hipnosis …
ROBERT: Estoy de acuerdo con usted, una especie de hipnosis , pero
no un hipnotismo, por que mire , aquí esta una foto…..en blanco y negro de esta misma frase, tomada por mi mismo un poco después(…)
THE SECRET LIFE
OF THINGS
SAGITARIO
Eres optimista y lleno de entusiasmo. Tienes una dependencia
total de tu suerte debido a tu falta de talento. La mayoría de los
sagitarios son alcohólicos. No vales nada
Speaking to you gives me a history. I have no understanding of
history, no words for it, so I find myself talking about it, like I’m
talking to you now. That’s not a matter of choice. I think things
were always like this. But I’m not sure. That’s history again, and
that’s the problem.
CAPRICORNIO
Eres del tipo conservador y tienes miedo a correr riesgos.
Prácticamente estás como una cabra. Nunca ha existido un
capricornio de importancia. Deberías suicidarte.
One thing I can say about myself: I have trouble recognizing cities. It’s a strange thing, a kind of inverted talent. Nobody forgets
a city like me. Occasionally my lack of recall fails me, and I’ll
identify a place, but never fully, like a half-remembered song that
you hum instead of sing.
GÉMINIS
Eres de pensamiento rápido e inteligente. Agradas a los demás
debido a tus tendencias bisexuales. Tiendes a esperar demasiado
por poco o nada, lo que significa que eres un pinche tacaño,pero
lo barato sale caro. Los géminis sobresalen por ser producto de
incesto.
Take this one here. That’s Paris. Easy. But this one? No idea. Even
the cities I do recognize are not as I remember. They have more
monuments than I remember, although it’s the monuments I remember best. These cities seem to be little more than a collection
of national landmarks, a crowded shelf in some ruinous tourist
shop.
I should tell you what I do. I watch movies. I watch 6 or 7
features a day. It’s my job. I don’t get paid for it. At least not in
money. I get shelter, food, care. That’s all. Because I get these
things, I feel I am a professional, a professional spectator.
The kind of movie I watch is a rare species with maybe only a
dozen members. They often begin with a man waking up, sometimes in a hospital, alone, disoriented. He wanders from his room
and he realizes the world is not as it was. Things have changed
for the worse. In the new world, people are absent, traffic has
stopped, communications have closed, debris is accumulating.
Westerns have tumbleweeds. These films have newspapers.
1
-Mom, at school they say i am Crazy!
-Who Pepito?
-The squirrels!!
This world is reductive. A metropolis diminished to a single wild
child. If there is any indication of social life at all, it is that of the
tribe. If there is social thinking, it is Darwinist. The Origin of Species as adapted by Roger Corman.
2
-Están dos pachecos fumando mota y uno le pregunta al otro:
“Oye, traigo los ojos rojos?”, y el otro le contesta “Pues si,
traítelos…”
This is Paris. Maybe I said that already. What I do vaguely
remember that that man is the caretaker of the Eiffel Tower. One
morning he rises to find the entire city frozen in time. His watch
has stopped. The denizens of Paris are immobile as statues. I’ve
wondered if there is such a job, whether anyone really sleeps
alone in the Eiffel Tower at night, but it doesn’t matter.
(MARIA DANIELA)
Has anyone noticed the opening of The Last Man on Earth? Is this
the opening of a vampire film starring Vincent Price?
ROBERT : (…) Entonces abrí mi cuaderno, y escribí al azar una frase
que me pasaba por la cabeza . En el momento preciso en que mi
lápiz trazaba la primera letra , el bambú cortado que descansaba sobre la
arena, se enderezó y siguió exactamente los movimientos de mi
lápiz
sobre el papel.
Al dejar de escribir, encontré sobre la arena, palabra por palabra
la
frase que había escrito en mi cuaderno.
ASTROLOGY
4
-Como llama un vaquero a su hija
-HIIIIIIIIIIJAAAAAA!!
I’m not very good with time. Maybe you’ve come to understand that
already. Sometimes I repeat myself. Stop me if I do.
Marie de Bregerolle : Si, del “De toutes les Coleurs”, extracto de la
transcripción de la pieza :
F: Who is the client of whom? For an ad, somebody is going by or
do something, you outsourced it to me, I’m sourcing it back to you,
these constellations are really confusing.
3
-Momma! at school they call me a back street boy,
-Who?
-“EveryBODYYEEEEEEEEEEE”
This movie too is a survivalist film -- perhaps the first. Dead horses
are torn apart in the streets; scarcity makes everyone a
common criminal; and Social Darwinists wait in the wings,
hoping to eliminate the weak. All characters must face a moment
when their own moral natures are stripped away. This is especially
true the American variation of these films, where survivalist beliefs
easily mingle with dystopian science fiction.
Virginie Bambou: Tendrás un extracto de alguno de los textos de Guy
e Cointet para leernos ?
D: Yes, in our self-oriented contexts, how do we poetically use selfishness towards co-operation.
JOKES
Where was I? Oh, that’s right, I wanted to talk about this movie set
in Germany after the war. I don’t understand anything about the
war, I don’t have the mind for it, but I think I understand something
about this film. It is an impossibly singular movie, more than real
-- it is science fiction set in the present. The director didn’t need a
soundstage for his Martian landscape. He had everything he needed
in post-war Berlin.
GUY DE COINTET
F: To continue our figuring out relations between a marketing jargon
and a political/critical agenda with an emancipated rhetoric, we
could call this conversation a collaboration, which sounds cute, but
we can also say that we are strategically positioning ourselves. Afterall you and Willie Brisco invited me for this Werner Whitman ad as a
content producer. I am positioning you right back onto this surface,
which gets us to the final topic of how we can think about the next
mode of co-existence?
LEO
Te consideras un líder nato. Otros piensan que eres un vil engreído.
La mayoría de los leo se dedican a estar chingando a los demás.
Eres una persona vana y no soportas la crítica. Tu arrogancia da
asco. Las personas bajo este símbolo disfrutan más la masturbación
que el sexo.Nadie los merece. (ARTEMIO)
The watch makes a comeback, this time in 1985, this time as an amulet. A frustrated housewife also realizes the benefits of frozen time,
and she freezes her world in order to escape it. But her utopia is a
prison. Freezing time in the moment before a Soviet nuclear missile
strikes, she realizes she must choose between solitude and death.
Loop back to the start. (JOHN MENICK)
D: Yes, to misunderstand the system of rules in which you are engaged, to play the fool and be naïve. We ought to operate from the
rule that everything is allowed and all is true. All it takes is simply to
play the part.
The contemplation of the sky is the grace and the curse of mankind.
(...) Luminous points are captured in a wordly image that enables
us to understand the infinite- an infinite we are incapable of
understanding unless we enclose it. (Aby Warburg in a lecture on
Serpent Ritual, 1923)
I noticed this wasn’t the last time time would freeze. It seemed to
happen again in the 1960s, 1963 to be exact. Unlike Paris, time
doesn’t stop the clocks, but a clock stops time. A man runs into a
stranger in a bar who possesses a stopwatch that magically freezes
time. Where exactly this useful device comes from is never explained. Our American friend is industrious, and almost immediately
he begins to plan a bank robbery, but, since this is America, everyone gets what they deserve in the end.
What does matter is that we’ve had this dream before, the dream
where we are alone and the world has somehow become ours,
not the world we knew, but it’s double, frozen like a video still
frame, one we can still wander through, manipulate at will, without notice and without consequence.
I watch for patterns. The patterns help my memory. When I focus
on the finite hours of these films, things stick. They gain definition.
At first I noticed the patterns because I am always confusing one
film with another. Slowly, I realized this is intentional. The repetition and confusion is the beginning of memory, memory working itself around the narrow confines of a limited and fictional
universe. In the end, I only have a memory for films, the history
of films.
I’ve come to remember that all survivors in these films owe their
existences to statistical improbabilities, an accidental arrangement of their lives or genes. Their advantage is purely Darwinian,
accidental. I’ve also come to remember that for the survivors
time is frozen. Clocks and machines become useless. Immobility
reigns. If society reconstitutes itself at all, regular schedules and
mechanical efficiency never fully recover. Here, of course, the
idea is literal. But it’s the same elsewhere. What is so strange, so
reassuring, is that flesh-eating zombies or power-hungry cult leaders don’t fill all this immobility. For these revelers, the greatest
menace is boredom.
VB :Marie , ¿A qué se debe este nuevo interés que ha surgido en
torno a Guy de Cointet, artista según tú, esencial para la escena
de Los Ángeles en los años 70?
MdB: Descubrí a Guy de Cointet preparando “Fuera de límites , el
arte y la vida” en el Pompidou en 1994, exposición para la cual fui
curadora adjunta. Desde entonces no dejé de hablar de él y a pesar
del interés de ciertos curadores del Pompidou en torno a su trabajo,
la primera exposición global de este artista, tuvo lugar en MAMCO
, Ginebra en el 2004 .Es tiempo de que las instituciones francesas se
den cuenta del trabajo que los artistas y los investigadores hacen,
y que no volvamos a esperar 20 años antes de realizar una exposición importante de Guy en Francia. Me tomó 10 años hacer la
de MAMCO, espero que la siguiente se geste en dos años.
VB: Guy de Cointet influyó profundamente en la obra de Allen
Ruppersberg, Mike Kelley y Paul Mc. Carthy entre otros . ¿Podrías
explicarnos como ? y ¿Qué tanto ha
Influenciado a las nuevas generaciones?
MdB: El impacto de Guy fue directo para Paul y Allen, . Por un lado
por que Allen frecuentaba los círculos cercanos de Guy, eran amigos. Paul por su lado, asistió a algunos performances, también estuvo en el homenaje que le rindieron sus amigos a su muerte. Mike
nunca vio directamente sus performances, pero su aproximación al
objeto escenográfico, a las formas del teatro futuristas y la manipulación del lenguaje para crear sentido de forma mnemónica, son
bastante parecidas a los juegos del trabajo de De Cointet. Las primeras esculturas de Mike como el Presectáfono de 1978, son bastante
cercanos en un sentido formal. Mike llega a California en 1976 y
comparte junto a Guy una relación cercana con Raymond Roussel.
Al igual que él, van a adentrarse en el lenguaje hablado. Es debido
a su acercamiento no lineal a aquellos autores que jugaban con las
palabras como Roussel, o Borges para Guy, que la obra de estos
artistas tienen elementos en común. Con Guy de Cointet hay una
verdadera materialidad de las palabras, el impacto de lo popular o
de la publicidad son algunas de las particularidades que se pueden
encontrar en su teatro. Su influencia en la obra de Paul Mc Carthy
y Mike Kelley es lo que denomino como “objeto escénico” y como
éste pasa de status de accesorio a personaje. “Los mismos objetos
podrían perfectamente representar diferentes cosas o conceptos
según las frases del performance: el mar del lenguaje transformaba
la naturaleza de su realidad” , decía Mike en una entrevista que
tuvimos acerca de Guy y creo que entre otras cosas comparten
precisamente esto.
V.B.: ¿Que te impulsó a hacer resurgir esta obra hoy en día, aparte
de la injusticia que representa su invisibilidad actual ?
MdB: Desde que vi una pequeña imagen de un performance de
Guy , “Que No Misxdodm” que tuvo lugar en 1973 en la Cirrus
Gallery con el actor Billy Barty, me quedé impresionada e intrigada,
la imagen estaba en un libro de entrevistas entre Mike Kelly y John
Miller. Había en esa pequeña imagen un concentrado de todo lo
que me interesa: los juegos de palabras, una puesta en escena
familiar y a la vez absurda, la creación de personaje , la cuestión
del paso de persona a “persona” y humor. Y todo esto me parecía
que estaba fuera de esta historia de “la salida del cuadro” y del
performance que intentaba luego comprender. Después el hecho
de que tan pocas cosas existen me motivó también, fue entonces
que me pregunté :¿Quién es Guy de Cointet?, fue de esa pregunta
de donde sacamos el nombre de la exposición de MAMCO “Who
is that Guy”. Después tuve la suerte de conocer a su sobrino quien
tenía los derechos de su obra, me abrieron todos sus archivos y me
dieron la exclusividad para trabajar sobre Guy. Así fue como pude
reunir un gran cuerpo de obras.
VB: Como historiadora de arte que eres , ¿Cómo fue que aprehendiste el trabajo de De Cointet para mostrarlo de nuevo ?.
M de B: Hubo principalmente un largo período de investigación
, de buscar contactos, entrevistas con sus círculos cercanos, sus
coleccionistas , sus amigos. Se necesitó convencer a todo el mundo
de su importancia, pese a su fragilidad, logré reunir sus objetos,
diseños y dibujos, todo lo que la gente a su alrededor conservó. En
varias visitas a Los Ángeles y Nueva York, me permitieron organizar
gran parte de sus cosas . Es por eso que deseo también que salga
a la luz una publicación, es esencial para conocer y comprender
su obra. Invité a varios autores y especialistas a contribuir y ahora
sólo estamos a la espera de un editor, Por otra parte me encuentro
dirigiendo la realización de su catálogo razonado. Guy de Cointet
es importante no sólo como eslabón perdido de la historia del performance y como elemento transitivo del surrealismo, sino también
en su acercamiento a los objetos y al lenguaje , es completamente
contemporáneo.
Vincent Pecoil : ¿Qué otros proyectos tienes alrededor de su trabajo?
M de B: “La escenografía de Etiopía”, una pieza del 76, acaba de
ser reconstruida. El Museé de l’a la compró para su colección. Lo
que sigue es mostrar su teatro pero de una forma viva. Estoy en
contacto con Valere Novarina con el fin de poder establecer algún
diálogo . También una exposición que muestre su trabajo en París y
los Estados Unidos, asociándolo con artistas vivos . Paul Mc Carthy
me ayudó a hacerle un pequeño homenaje en Magazin. Quiero que
artistas como Mike Kelly y Catherine Sullivan puedan igualmente
contribuir . De hecho ya platiqué de esto con Catherine cuando nos
encontramos en el 2002.
Me gustaría también que se pudieran mostrar sus dibujos tanto
en París como en Nueva York. Todo ese cuerpo es importante y
representa una parte esencial de su obra. Son dibujos de tinta
sobre papel , siempre de textos encriptados en los que el código se
descubre en la frase. ‘Palabras dichas en imágenes’ entre visibilidad
y legibilidad . Por otro lado por su sentido del color y de línea son
también muy bellas ….
V.P. : Fue asistente de Larry Bell por un período corto, ¿No es así ?
¿Acaso su predilección por los objetos escénicos del tipo de “Primary Structures”, tiene algo que ver con un juego alrededor de esta
famosa noción de la teatralidad que fue central en las discusiones
sobre el minimalismo ?
M de B.: Sí, es uno de los ejes esenciales en los cuales se mueve su
trabajo, a partir de la autonomía del objeto que postula la escultura
post minimalista el hecho de que una cosa exista por nuestra mera
presencia , ¿Cómo podemos ver entonces la humanización de los
objetos ? Estas eran las discusiones que tenían Mc Carthy y Kelley
, muñecos o peluches por ejemplo. Después vemos un pasaje del
objeto accesorio a una concertación nueva del tipo “persona”. Esas
son las preguntas contemporáneas que hacia Guy de Cointet. Por
otra parte ,el uso del lenguaje como un “sistema de creencia” es
totalmente actual. Igualmente su utilización de la luz como en la
pieza “Five Sisters”, donde la escenografía es creada básicamente
por los efectos luminosos del escultor Eric Orr, revela preguntas
cuyos inicios se gestan con Larry Bell, pero que se harán desde un
acercamiento al que llamo la “mirada periférica “ que influencia
directamente a Dan Graham. El efecto mnemónico y su investigación
acerca de la manipulación de las masas, son muy cercanas a las virtualidades de un “Johnny Menmonique ”sin ser el alpha y el omega
de todo el arte actual, creo sinceramente que De Cointet merece el
apodo de “ El Duchamp de LA”.
V.P: De Cointet puso en escena a Roussel, quien era parte del
panteón surrealista. ¿Crees que su trabajo jugó un rol estructuralmente comparable con algunos de los artistas americanos de los
años setentas, que Roussel con relación a los artistas parisinos de
principio de siglo XX?
M de B: El otro día releía el excelente libro de Marc Decimo, acerca
de Duchamp. En él hablaba de la “impresión simulante” de “Impresiones de África” que Duchamp vio en París en 1912. El hecho de
ver esos objetos animados , lo insólito del ensamblaje heteróclito
lo marcó fuertemente y será muy importante para la genealogía
del ready-made. De igual manera Duchamp lee , “Cómo escribí en
algunos de mis libros”, obra póstuma de Roussel que explica su
proceso casi analógico del cut – up. Creo que el trabajo de Guy
era conocido por todos los actores de la escena californiana de los
setentas. Tras haber interrogado desde Baldessaria, Ruppersberg,
o Mat Mullican, Mc. Carthy , Mike Kelley , Morgan Fisher o Jeff Perkins (quien trabajaba con Yoko Ono en Nueva York como parte de
Fluxus ), y después de recolectar testimonios que no fueron del todo
admirables, puedo constatar formalmente que aquello que encontré
en común era el hecho de un impacto real, sino es que directo,
por el rumor. De hecho en la obra de De Cointet existe un arte del
lenguaje y una distancia vía la desestructuración de códigos, vía el
objeto, algo que oscila entre la abstracción y la representación que
encuentro en artistas como Jack Goldstein, quien dice a propósito
de sus películas : “La pared se convierte en objeto por contener imágenes(….) Las imágenes de las películas se convierten en objetos
en la sala que ocupa el rectángulo blanco”(entrevista con Morgan
Fisher publicada en el catalogo de Magazín 2002) . También muy
cercano otros dos artistas igualmente desaparecidos, Bas Jan Ader y
Wolfgang Stoerchle.
Diría que el impacto de Guy se sitúa más del lado de la puesta en
escena que de los objetos. He citado a Haim Steinbach ,sin embargo pienso que una relectura acerca de la cuestión de la teatralidad,
después de la apropiación, será uno de los ejes fundamentales de
este principio del siglo. Un pensamiento de objetos desmitificados
que utilizan y reemplean los códigos prefabricados del cine y de
la historia del arte. Es lo que encuentro en el trabajo de Catherine
Sullivan entre otros. Creo que el eco de la obra de Guy sólo tendrá sentido en generaciones venideras y lo que la exposición de
MAMCO mostró, son obras atemporales. Muchos artistas jóvenes
de Estados Unidos y Francia esperan ansiosos poder ver la obra de
De Cointet y tener un acceso directo a ella, espero que esto suceda
pronto.
QUERIDO A.
Me he prometido muchas veces de empezar este ejercicio y cada
vez algo me ha interrumpido. Sin embargo lo que me interrumpe
está en el origen mismo de la necesidad de este ejercicio. Por lo
tanto me perdonarás por el texto lleno de fracturas, lleno de de
tropiezos, pobre en solucciones.
Otra vez estoy parada, esta vez intelectualmente, frente al mismo
obstaculo que nos detiene en la acción: necesitaríamos de estructuras para atraer y no disolver nuestras fuerzas, aunque para construirlas habría que tener las energias que las luchas cotidianas desorganizadas nos despojan.
Necesitamos urgentemente algo de afuera aunque sea mínimo para
apoyar las manos mientras intentamos levantarnos, juntos y cada
quien por su lado.
Este algo de afuera lo llamamos, lo evocamos.
Como en una invocación a los muertos estudiamos los levantamientos del pasado para acercarlos a nuestro vocabulario y a nuestros
cuerpos, aunque se queden lejos de los ojos y del corazón.
Para escribir este texto que habla de las relacciones entre el arte
y la lucha necesitaría de un idioma extranjero en el idioma, de un
idioma de saltabanco que materialize materialice la posibilidad de
danzar sobre la cuerda tensa y de combatir. Mientras tanto solo
tengo pedazos de palabras desgastadas que tengo que cocer alrededor de los problemas.
Como por ejemplo el problema de no poder ni siquiera pensar en
atravesar el puente que junta el arte con la vida, siempre que uno
haya existido alguna vez, sin caer entre las manos de la ley.
Y de no poder admitir este estado de las cosas sin resbalar en la
cobardía o en la depressión.
Cuando se acostumbraba nombrar al enemigo (capitalismo, impe-
rialismo, patriarcado, globalización) se inventaba una alteridad
binaria y tranquilizadora.
Nosotros participábamos para no tomar parte ( A las luchas y
no al trabajo, a las dinámicas militantes y no a la sociedad de
clase.) Querríamos ser otro para lo que odiábamos se convirtiera
en algo distinto de nosotros. La desuu-bjetivación era un proceso
de distanciamiento lógico y performativo.
Si no podíamos cambiar los aspectos de la realidad que más nos
herían, nos transformábamos en algo inasimilable, sobrepasando
las moralejas y revelando el aspecto político de la ilegalidad.
Nos convertíamos en proscritos, drogadictos, prostitutas, pervertidos, violentos – e inevitablemente ladrones porqué la propriedad
privada y los afectos las personas queridas que la conservan
son justificación a todas las otras opresiones. La cárcel era una
etapa necesaria porqué inflingida desde siempre, y porqué de
cierta forma, ella misma parte de una separación del mundo de
empleados y del mundo mediocre del “bienestar” del Siglo XXI.
La manera en la que los otros-escluidos excluidos se mezclaban
con nosotros, aquellos que no habían elegido politicamente su
exclusión, pero la sufrían -porqué habían sido escluídos excluídos
hasta de la elección inicial de tomar una posición- Este modo
dejaba mucho que desear.
En realidad, no es que dejara algo que desear, era verdadermente inaguantable, para nosotros como para ellos.
Totalmente insuficiente.
Porqué los otros-escluidos excluidos continuaban a sentirse otros
de alguien, y aunque con el derecho de hacernoslo pesar, siempre con el deber de llevar el peso de lo que nos separaba, que
en lugar de ser motor de la revuelta, se convertía en un factor
de detención cinética. Quien sufre es menos productivo, hasta
de subversión social, así decían los movimientos, así decían la
psiquiatria psiquiatría y los maestros. Amen.
Allá tocábamos el límite de nuestras capacidades, de nuestra
libre voluntad nutrida de dogmas, secretamente democráticos en
el fondo, la que era el límite de no poder cambiarnos a nosotros
mismos en ausencia de un desbaratamiento social que eliminara
ese veneno del juicio y de la medida, ese morbo de la comparación idiota y brutal, esa policía de las conductas.
PERROS
Rechazar la participación en los procesos revolucionarios como
obligación algo que debía ser era una adquisición de los años
‘70s. No obstante eso, el diferimiento permanente de la satisfacción en un mundo que ya ofrecía pocas oportunidades de
provocar placer, había transformado los “militantes” en figuras
ascéticas e incapaces de contaminar.
La elección del Margen como lugar para difundir el empeño
terminaba por convertirse en un deber ser simétrico del que
rechazábamos y quizás más insidioso.
A veces la única reacción a nuestros gestos que certificara su
carácter político era la repressión.
La sociedad se había como plastificado, y no solo era no-impregnable, si no que cambiaba más de lo que nosotros pudiéeramos
cambiarla.
Quien rechaza la lucha armada empieza ya acostado en el
brazo de hierro militar contra la sociedad. Quien acepta la lucha
armada acepta estar solo en su combate, porqué sabe que sus
compañeros no solamente no aman a los brazos armados si no
que sienten horror de ellos.
Y nosotros, una vez fuera del rio en crecida ¿?”desbordamiento”
“fiume in piena” de los movimientos, éramos de las presencias
aisladas, prisoneras de sus identidades de naufragos, éramos un
episodio que se olvida.
Si no había placer en el estar en el espacio que habíamos elegido era culpa de los unos y de los otros, nunca del enemigo que
nos cazaba en túneles sociales sin oxigeno y nos condenaba a la
endogamia. Sobrevivientes de un accidente no registrado, veteranos de un Vietnam imaginario, llenos de histoórias que no le
interesan a nadie y oprimidos por la necesidad de acomodarse
con el presente para destruirlo mejor, en coexistencia forzada.
THE BEST OF (Y LO PEOR)
Editado por Perros Negros
en México D.F. en abril del 2010
Printed by REDCAT
Contributing editor: John Menick
Designed by Lara e Snowden
(Perdoname por todas estas metáforas, y por las que tampoco
luego podré limitarme en hacer: se que hacer metáforas es exponer la insuficiencia de la lengua recontruiendo histórias donde
hay necesidad de lógicas. Hacer metáforas es estar corto de
ejemplos concretos e incómodo con la história.
O también es nada más un pudor burgues de decir las cosas
como son, no siempre literarias, no siempre linguisticas.)
La conclusión a la que éramos forzados a llegar es que los
privilegios no se anulan renunciando a ellos. La separación se
queda y permanece ligada a la elección misma de esa renuncia, una elección noble que a pocos se da y que en virtud de
su nobleza es reversible. Los privilegiados que se exponen al
peligro de oponerse a la sociedad, al vivir en sus hoyos, capitalizan durante esta experiencia de extrañamiento y a menudo, más
fuertes y más capaces, pueden regresar al lugar social de donde
empezaron.
Este punto, en lugar de fortalecer el credo del determinismo de
clase (es.: un burgues nunca podrá luchar tan sinceramente como
un proletario) lo hace vacilar peligrosamente.
Porqué si es verdad que al desu-objetivarse en el Margen de
absencia de procesos revolucionarios no se logra cambiar ni a si
mismo ni a la sociedad, también es verdad que la alegría y los
privilegios de los que se puede gozar en un mundo que queda
siendo capitalista son placeres basados en la submisión y en el
saqueo de los otros, placeres insociables y separadores. Placeres bestiales en última analisis, por cuanto puedan pretenderse
refinados.
El Margen de las luchas, con todos sus defectos, es un espacio
mejor, una fuente de creatividad, una forma de lujo, un Eldorado perdido a posteriori para quien ha regresado a casa pero
no puede volver a recorrer el camino hacia atrás sin hacerse
rechazar.
Sin embargo el problema es que si el fin es deshacerse del burgues que está en nosotros, o del pequeño-burgues para ser más
precisos, esto no se hace mimando su contrario y gesticulando
el autolesionismo social. No se puede hacer pensando en la
pequeña burguesía como platea de espectadores distraídos que
hay convertir o escandalizar.
En el ‘68 se ha cerrado un ciclo de luchas, junto a un abanico
de sujetivaciones posibles, que no solamente se han convertido
en temas de venta para perfumes, ropa y otro, si no que nos han
dejado, desde el punto de vista del deber ser humano y no solo
social, en una situación similar a la que vió emerger la abstración
en el paisaje en la história del arte.
El caracter prescriptivo de cada teoria revolucionaria– y nota
que hago economia de cualquier citación para ponerme en sintonía con la pobreza que describo– suena a esta altura patético
e irrealizable porque siempre [[esta ]] en retraso respecto a las
multitudes de otras prescripciones inmediatamente efectivas,
impuestas a la sujetividad por las sugerencias comerciales. Las
“corporations” son productoras primero de mundos ya posibles y
segundo de las instituciones para su agradable uso.
La idea de una política de los medios sin fin que podría tener el
fin de reabilitar a los humanos y de descalificar a las maquinas
políticas que digieren la vida se ha quedado en el albor. Quizás
porqué una política que para levantarse propone el terreno de
la inmanencia pura, [[para desresponsabilizarse]] esconde el
hecho que este terreno esté colonizado por una mercancía cada
vez nueva, que ocupa todo el lugar para posar las manos, quita
continuamente la base sobre la que hacer fuerza, dejandola
aspera [[o accidentada]]aspera por por fetiches y abarrotada
por deseos equivocados.
El inconveniente económico y social ya viene de afuera, ya no
es, de momento, una zona energética que pueda generar luchas
para cambiar a los habitantes del planeta y hacer que el planeta
sea modificado. Saberlo nos provoca dolor, no fuerza. Y ni el agobio ni el dolor crean más mundo. En las democrácias liberales,
como ya había sido en los régimenes totalitarios, hemos salidos
del registro lírico y también trágico, hemos salido del expresionismo, estamos en la abstracción económica. Cada imágen
de exterminio es para el poder, y pronto será para nosotros,
figurativa tanto como monocromaun monocromoatica (I mean a
monochrome painting).
El realismo siempre ha sido una cuestión de traducción, una
construcción hecha de códigos, pero ahora para creer en la realidad nececitamos quizás de imágenes y palabras más libres del
presente, porqué el presente está constituido por las mercancías
y los sentimientos que estas provocan.
Otros problemas me bloquean y me paralizan y estos son aún
más peligrosos porqué habitan la relacción entre la subversión y
el saber. Si es sencillo criticar el concepto de cultura acumulada
y nemotécnica que informaba la buena vieja burguesía y las
escuelas, es en realidad dificil intender porqué los movimientos
politicos radicales no puedan pescar serenamente en el banco de
datos fragmentado y valioso de las vanguardias. (Continúa...)
NEGROS
ART CRITICISM
There’s an photo of a young man jerking off in a room in front
of a mirror. Soft focus: the young man is half-dressed, the colors
are muted. It’s a very contemporary image. The room is neutral
enough. It reeks of nothing but boredom. He’s jerking off pretty
hard, his face blurred on the dull edge of orgasm.
I make up a story about his life outside of the room. Nothing is
always a smokescreen. There’s always something inside the box.
The boy’s name is Derek.
Eight months before taking this photo, Derek was traveling. He grew
up in a backwater place (Perth, Australia) and travel was something
he always expected to do because most of the people he knew had
done it before him. He ends up in Mexico because it’s a cheap
third-world place and it’s close to America. He’s 23, and in a “relationship” with his ex-art school professor and this has fucked with
his head, and also his plans for the summer. She, Derek’s girlfriend,
(her name is Trina), is on some kind art fellowship junket in Europe
and she was supposed to send him a ticket for the end of the summer
when she got settled but so far she hasn’t. He doesn’t know what
he thinks about this, about Trina, except it’s making him crazy not
knowing what’s happening, and also it would be so nice to be in
Berlin, in Trina’s hotel room after living out of a bag and crashing
with people for weeks. But the friends-of-friends (actually, friends of
Trina’s) that he’s staying with in LA seem to be pushing him out the
door, talking about how great it would be to travel alone, how good
for his work, etcetera. They introduce him to some 40 year old rich
guy, a painter, Derek’s never heard of his work, who goes on and
on about his Travels in Mexico a decade ago, the missions, the ruins,
keeping a sketch-book.
When Trina’s Los Angeles friends can’t stand Derek hanging around
anymore, they drop him downtown at the bus terminal with a Rough
Guide to Mexico.
Derek catches a Greyhound from LA to the Mexican border. He has
No idea where he’s going, where he’ll sleep, how he’ll find a place
to sleep, when the bus stops in TJ. The change rate from his country
sucks and he resents this. It’s not as if he can wire his parents for
money and he’s heard nothing from Trina. Also, he doesn’t speak
Spanish.
Skipping Baja, he catches a bus to Hermosillo, finds a motel for
$20 a night, and then starts catching small local busses from town
to town, the kind that used to be school busses. Passing through
one generic Mexican village after another (goats, dust, diesel and
chickens) Derek considers his future. The thing with Trina seems to
be over. It’s not the first time he’s been used by a girl. Will it hurt
his career? Who has she talked to about him? Probably everyone
back in Melbourne already knows Trina has dumped him so he can’t
change his ticket and just go home early.
As he moves farther south, he starts finding youth hostels, not that
he meets anyone interesting but at least they’re cheap and they give
him some destination. But then his money gets stolen and he calls
up his friend Gilbert in Melbourne practically weeping and Gilbert
wires him $400. Somehow this calms him down, and he decides to
spend the rest of his time at the beach in southern Oaxaca. One of
Trina’s friends gave him a book about Puerto Angel about two guys
who went down there to stay in the early ‘60s and ended up taking
hallucinogens with an evil police commander.
In Puerto Angel, he finds a cheap guest house and there
are other foreigners here, other travelers. He settles into a pleasant routine of swimming and sunbathing during the day, and moving
between four or five local bars in the evening. On his fifth day
he’s lying out at Panteon Playa. The beach is pretty empty at midafternoon. There’s just one other guy snorkeling out by the rock
jetty. The locals are ok about sunbathing nude on this beach, and
Derek sits up on his towel watching the waves. While he’s sitting,
the snorkeler starts moving around fast in the water, not snorkeling
at all, but swimming against a rip-tide that’s trying to pull him out of
the bay. The guy’s ripped off his mask and Derek runs out on the
jetty. The guy is flapping around by this point. Derek’s still naked
from sunbathing and he crouches at the end of the rocks and he
doesn’t know what to do, he’s not much of a swimmer, and the guy
is looking directly at him. For the first time all summer Derek has no
thoughts at all. Finally, the guy’s head disappears under water.
Holy shit. Derek walks back to the beach and puts on his
cut-offs. There’s no way he can go back to sunbathing, the drowning has ruined the afternoon’s drowsy calm. Derek tells no one what
happened. He goes back to his room and packs up his things. The
next morning he catches a bus to Mexico City and changes his ticket
to go back to Australia.
The drowning is Derek’s secret. It becomes more than a
secret, it is The Secret, the most powerful law, we create our lives
with every thought every minute of the day. He came that close to
death but he just walked away. Whatever he is must be art because
he lives in the present. He is the subject. (CHRIS KRAUS)
DREAMS
Beach performance. I dig three deep holes in the sand with a thick yellow
tube. A wave rolls in, recedes, and I proceed to unearth treasures from within
the holes : three knives in amber and leather casing, a gold lion-headed beret,
silver pliers in a plastic snap sack, two perfectly intact white turn-of-the-century
woman’s frocks (one with lace, one without), among other things. Towards the
end, I declare that I will move to Australia. (EMILY MAST)
...FONTAINE.
CONTINUACION
DE LA PAGINA ANTERIOR...Las vanguardias (requiescant in
Una parte de su carrera depende de la clarificación y aplicación
de ideas del filósofo francés Gilles Deleuze. A pesar, pues, de ser
filósofo —inventor de explicaciones— se subordina a otro.
pace) con su cortejo actual de “museificación” y campanas de
vidrio, son desde hace cuarenta años (y quizás más) solamente
sinónimo de plusvalia sofisticada.
Me acuerdo ya la gran desconfianza con la que los autónomos
miraban a los post-punk en los años noventa, “todos hijos de
burgueses” se decía, como si la insurrección desfuncionalizada,
emancipada por el activismo y clavada en el espacio existencial
fuera un lujo inaceptable. Como si el rechazo del trabajo tuviera
siempre que convertirse en formas de lucha productivas de subversión y socializantes, como si trabajar para crear las condiciones de
la revolución fuera una actividad lineal y progresiva tanto cuanto el
trabajo salarial, solo despliegada en dirección contraria…
Sin embargo, a pesar de ser mexicano, crea énfasis o giros propios, como su insistencia en lo “no-lineal” y la idea de que existe un
umbral en que la realidad material se auto-organiza (desde el clima
hasta internet).
De hecho la letra de la vanguardia queda letra muerta, queda un
lujo no deseable porqué su valor de uso es desconocido. Como
decir que el único paradigma de transmisión del conocimiento que
sea familiar para nosotros es el de la universidad, con su sistema
cerrado de poder y arreglos, pero sobre todo con su acuerdo
tácito de no hacer nunca un uso efectivo de los conocimientos transmitidos, creados y acumulados.
De Landa es el primer filósofo post-mexicano. Su caso es apasionante porque señala, precisamente, el límite en que un filósofo
nacido en México decide salir de la esfera patria y, empero, preservar una marca de la tradición intelectual del país en que nació. De
Landa cambió a México por Deleuze.
Grandes barreras posicionadas entre el arte y la vida, entre el
saber y el vivir, catedrales eregidas a la gloria de la masturbación
mental, las universidades todavía desconectadas del mercado que
tenía que ofrecer asilo al infierno de la mercancía, por lo menos
durante unos años, a unos jóvenes en busca de búsqueda, ya no
hospedaban ningun conflicto entre sus muros productivos y golpeaban con porra la juventud que hacía demasiadas preguntas.
Las universidades después del ’68 se han monstrado por lo que
son: vectores de humillación y reproducción social, barracones de
policia para deseos del compromiso político, tumbas de los intelectuales militantes.
La transmisión, la discusión y el estudio han así dejado, empezando de cierto punto en adelante, de poder ser momvimientos
socializantes, reforzantes y no comerciales. Si en las facultades
han sobrevivido, han conservado ahí un pobre valor de intercambio y han perdido cada valor de uso.
El saber existe, muerto entumecido entre las páginas, pero no hay
nadie para a admirarlonimarlo, permitirle alcanzar y transformar
los cuerpos.
Se dice que caemos otra vez en el cubo de las escaleras de la
história para regresar al punto de partida. Desde este punto te
escribo o intento escribirte.
Me acuerdo que en un cierto momento, entre los años setenta y
ochenta, se perdió la noción de cultura. No que se haya perdido
el sentido, pero se han perdido las instrucciones de uso. Se ha olvidado que la cultura no se produce ni se asimila encerrados cada
uno en su propria fortaleza contemplativa, si no que solamente
interactuando en relaciones sociales compatibles con las verdades
políticas que la animan. Las culturas existen solamente a plural
y se activan no tanto estudiando sino teniendo hijos, enlazando
amistades, cultivando amores que nos hacen capaces de entender
y de actuar. Son nuestras acciones cotidianas reciprocas las que ya
no nos permiten pasar una tarde leyendo Lenin o Foucault y hacer
de eso algo de realmente e inmediatamente subversivo. La cultura
es la crítica permanente del concepto de “patrimonio”, entonces
porqué regresan la pertenecia, el Estado, la imposición cada vez
que se habla de esto? Más que un revolver, esta vez es un arsenal
nuclear lo que nos enfrenta.
laboratory coffee, too much time spent in too far away places such
as Ft. Sumner, New Mexico. It involves big trucks, DeWalt drills,
bad burritos, worse margaritas and just so so milkshakes. It involves
weather updates and wind vectors. It involves time, lots of time, and
in fact, when one comes right down to it, it involves, quite literally,
quite matter-of-factly, just about all of the time in the universe—and
it is because of this that its story also involves art. (JONATHAN T.D.
NEIL FOR NATHAN CARTER)
¡Él mismo es un ejemplo de la morfología no-lineal! Visto desde la
historia del pensamiento mexicano, De Landa se formó desprendiéndose y fugándose de su “tradición” nativa;
se desmexicanizó migrando a otro contexto de discusión y otra lengua, abandonando el viejo sistema para auto-organizarse habiendo
cruzado cierto nivel de complejidad de referencias, información y
problemas.
2. Deal thoroughly with your P.H.
3. When that ineffable compound of depression, sadness (these two
are not the same), anxiety, self-hatred, sense of failure and fear for
the future begins to steal over you, start telling yourself that what
you have is a hangover. You are not sickening for anything, you
have not suffered a minor brain lesion, you are not all that bad at
your job, your family and friends are not leagued in a conspiracy of
barely maintained silence about what a shit you are, you have not
come at last to see life as it really is, and there is no use crying over
spilt milk. If this works, if you can convince yourself, you need to do
no more, as provided in the markedly philosophical.
He who truly believes he has a hangover has no hangover.
4. If necessary, then, embark on your course of hangover listening
or reading or both in succession. Going off and gazing at some
painting, building, or bit of statuary might do you good too, but most
people, I think, will find such things unimmediate for this-perhaps
any-purpose. The structure of both courses, HANGOVER READING
AND HANGOVER LISTENING, rests on the principle that you must
feel worse emotionally before you start to feel better. A good cry is
the initial aim. (KINGSLEY AMIS)
MOLECULAR RECOGNITION OR THE SOCIAL
ENDEAVOURS OF MOLECULES
Although a single completely accurate definition of Sup
ramolecular Chemistry is not available, most chemists dwelling in
such areas of scientific research would agree that it is the field of
chemistry that focuses its attention on the intermolecular forces in
order to develop highly complex chemical systems from simpler
components. This is achieved by manipulating such non-covalent
intermolecular interactions. The overall motivation behind the
techniques employed regularly within supramolecular research is to
acquire the delicate selectivity and mimic the highly developed chemistry observed in biological systems, such as in enzyme-substrate
complexes, antibody recognition, or in the receptors for hormones
and neurotransmitters.
Intrinsically coupled to the emergence of nanotechnology, it is not
surprising that over the last couple of decades, “supramolecular
science and technology has become a broad multidisciplinary and
interdisciplinary domain providing a highly fertile ground for the
creativity of scientists from all origins.”1
At present, research in supramolecular chemistry is carried out
regularly in many labs where synthetic chemistry, catalysis, materials
engineering, crystal engineering, molecular and nano-device
fabrication, and applications in biosciences are of importance. The
potential applications of supramolecularly engineered systems range
from molecular sensing and recognition to information storage at a
molecular level and even working molecular machines.2
Self-organisation, or more specifically self-assembly, is a concept
that lies in the core of supramolecular chemistry. It is employed to
describe natural occurring processes involving the approaching and
non-covalent binding of at least two molecular species, into aggregates
of higher complexity or supermolecules. Basically all the variety in
shapes and forms in Nature proceeds from self-assembling processes,
even the formation of a cellular membrane is an example of selfassembly. A logical requirement for two species to self-assemble is the
complementarity of size and shape between them.
Self-organisation is employed as a wider term encompassing
the behaviour of systems that tend to organise spontaneously into
more complex structures, without being directed by an external stimuli.
Self-organisation processes are not uncommon in thermodynamics,
economics, social behaviour, bacterial growth, population distribution
and dynamics, and information networks.
Un amigo mio decía: el problema no es nunca la represión, el
problema es el miedo. El problema no es recibir el golpe, porqué
cuando has recibido el golpe eres bastante fuerte para aguantarlo,
el problema es vivir toda la vida evitando el golpe, intentando
escapar de él, sin embargo recibiendolo a menudo de todas maneras, y perdiendo no solo la salud sino también la dignidad.
The unifying element between all these different phenomena
is the quite recent understanding that they can be roughly described
with the same models, for example in maths, the cellular automata is
an old example of self-organising algorithm. The key element behind
self-organisation is the concept of information; it is when in-built
information expresses that self-organisation happens.
In supramolecular chemistry, the information is stored in the
building blocks (molecules) by means of design, pre-organisation and
topological arrangement of the molecule itself and the binding sites
through which the interactions will be established. This information
is then processed (and expressed) when the blocks interact between
themselves. This can be considered as an algorithm that is based
upon specific patterns of interactions amongst a specific set of blocks.
This algorithm is known as molecular recognition, and in the simplest
case it means the selective association of a molecule (receptor) with a
specific target (guest).
X
Claire Fontaine
EL FILÓSOFO MEXICANO
VIVO MÁS IMPORTANTE
No hay duda de que los filósofos mexicanos muertos más relevantes son Samuel Ramos y José Vasconcelos. ¿Pero quién es el
filósofo mexicano vivo más notorio?
La filosofía en México no ha tenido fortuna. Ni el pensamiento
indígena ni el colonial preponderaron la innovación conceptual,
dilucidar la diferencia específica entre un concepto y otro, tarea
propia del filósofo.
El marxismo aquí tuvo buena recepción no sólo por la desigualdad
social sino, sobre todo, por lo que tiene de acusador, resentido,
dogmático, evangélico y doctrinario. El marxismo mexicano es
cripto-catolicismo.
El intelectual nacional raramente conceptualiza. Y las instituciones
filosóficas no han perdido su Sumo Respeto al Libro y al Apellido,
¡parafrasear el concepto heredado!
Filosofar es transgredir la Idea previa. Uno se hace filósofo para
expatriarse.
Vuelvo: ¿quién es el filósofo mexicano vivo más importante?
Manuel de Landa, nacido en 1952 y en 1975 ya arraigado en
Nueva York.
Es significativo que su currículum omita su pasado mexicano y, en
su lugar, hable —mitificándolo— de su origen en el cine experimental (fuera de circulación).
Su obra la escribe en inglés. Sus dos libros más reconocidos son
War in the age of intelligent machines (1991) y A thousand years
of nonlinear history (1997), que lo ubicaron en el panorama filosófico global sin que México se enterara.
Dos obras recientes son Intensive science and virtual philosophy
(2002) y A new philosophy of society: assemblage theory and
social complexity (2006).
¿Por qué digo que De Landa es mexicano? Porque es deleuziano.
OUTERSPACE INTRO OUTRO
Cosmologists are after beginnings. Not beginnings such as “Where
do we come from?” or “How did we get here?” but beginnings on
the order of “How is there anything at all?” and “How did what
there is, itself, begin?” In this, cosmologists are the physical sciences’ metaphysicists. The are trying to get at the answer to what all
is out there, in and beyond the world, by getting at how it all began.
What they understand thus far is that, in the beginning, whatever
there was “out there” was very hot and very dense, so hot and
dense that matter and radiation were not yet separate things; there
was only a dense plasma of electrons, photons and baryons, but not
for very long. At a specific moment in the very early moments of our
universe, conditions cooled down enough for the electrons to combine with the baryons (to make hydrogen and helium atoms – a.k.a.
matter) and this left the photons free to scatter on their own (a.k.a.
radiation). The result of this “last scattering” is what has come to be
know as the Cosmic Microwave Background. Put plainly (but somewhat misleadingly), it’s the oldest “light” in our universe.
Ebex, the “E and B Experiment,” is a telescope that has been engineered to measure two different components of the polarization of
this light (called “E-mode” and “B-mode”—hence the “E” and “B”
of Ebex). In other words, its purpose is to get a better look at the
Cosmic Microwave Background, and thus a better look at the those
early moments of our universe and how it has evolved to the state
it is in today. To do this, it will be taken aloft into the stratosphere
above the south pole by a high-altitude balloon (the earth’s atmosphere makes it difficult to measure these polarizations from the
ground) where it will float for two three weeks, collecting the necessary data.
How it gets to that point, circumnavigating the southern pole, high
above the surface of the earth, is an entirely different story. It’s one
that involves gondola and sensor designs, cryostats, star cameras,
compression vessels, submillimeter filters and Fourier Transform
Spectrometers; it involves only somewhat more mundane things,
such as exploding bolts, foam insulation, reflective blankets and foil
sheeting—staple entries in the galactic logs of space trash. It involves
too many hours in front of computer screens, too many cups of
: noun
RM: It was an antic social club, with contributions from around 20
artists. Each night there was a set of behavioral rules, a conversation piece or object of conversation, a series of performances, and
a soundtrack, everything meant to serve as prompts for inventive
interaction between the guests. For example, one night Ian Monk, a
member of Oulipo, made a set of cards containing 50 or so conversational directives, like, “When speaking, always try and start by
using the last three words of what the last person just said, “ or, “Tell
someone about a surfing holiday you had last winter in Scotland
and the good side of global warming.” And the same night, we had
a Relational Psychoanalyst, that’s an actual school, by the way,
demonstrate the best technique for shutting up crying babies - to cry
exactly like them! And then Aki Sasamoto did a dance about donuts
and string theory while Momus gave her performance modifications
from Berlin over the PA.
Crypto-museologists2 lurk in the shadows cast by the museological
drive towards illumination, promoting speculation and absence,
multiplicity and potential. While “museology” traditionally refers to
the science, practice, or study of museums, the prefix “crypto” comes
from the Greek word “kruptos,” which translates to “hidden.” There
are countless fields and ideologies using the prefix—from cryptoJudaism to crypto-sporidium—yet crypto-museology is perhaps most
closely related to crypto-zoology. After all, the crypto-zoologist
searches for and studies marginal creatures—such as the Loch Ness
Monster, Bigfoot, Unicorns, and Jackalopes—whose existence or
survival remains unsubstantiated or disputed.
In fact, supramolecular chemistry has catalysed the evolution
of chemistry into an “information science through the implementation
of the concept of molecular information3 with the aim of gaining
progressive control over the spatial (structural) and temporal
(dynamic) features of matter and over its complexification through
self-organization, the drive to life.”3
Me puedes contestar que vivimos en un momento violento. Y que
la violencia baja el nivel de discusiones porqué usurpa el lugar de
la palabra, relata los cuerpos en primer plano, con su fragilidad
e insuficiencia, nos recuerda cuanto y como estamos gobernados.
Pero nos recuerda también que la abstracción no debería disfrazar
ni la urgencia de las necesidades ni las protestas del razismo, del
machismo, de la ofensa continua que cada día se perpetúa contra
la infancia y contra todos nosotros todos nosotros. La abstracción
nos debería permitir ver más lejos llevando con nosotros todo el
peso de nuestra insuficiencias pero sin ninguna verguenza, debería
luchar contra la fuerza de gravedad y no hacernos resbalar. Esto
quizás se juega – como los malabaristas sin experiencias lanzaban antorchas, según una lógica se sobrevivencia pero sin rigor
coreográfico-en el arte contemporaneo, esto intentamos hacer,
sin quemarnos. Pero el arte no es refugio, no es una posición, no
es una actitud, es solamente un oficio. Esto hay que acordarlo y
cuando se dice “los artistas”, se deberia de pronunciar así como se
pronuncia “doctores” o “obreros”.
MP: I’m gonna tell you but I’m gonna put it again where your words
go. (here i’m alluding, in an ambiguous way, to the fact that i’m
going to answer rai’s question, but that i’m going to put my words
under his name (i.e. the next entry), as if he said them. we don’t
want to make this very clear, though.)
DERIVATIVES
crypto-museological |-zēläjikl| adjective
crypto-museologist |-jist| noun
La filosofía mexicana del siglo XXI ya es deleuziana.
(HERIBERTO YEPEZ)
1. Keep the radio off, you don’t want it buzzing with world events.
Cryp•to•mu•se•ol•o•gy
|Kriptō-myoōzēäləjē|
The science, practice, or study of unverifiable and unsubstantiated
cultural and museological practices.1
De Landa es simultáneamente un filósofo (un innovador) y un mexicano (un seguidor).
THE METAPHYSICAL
HANGOVER
RM: I did not get to walk your wife home. What happened in The
Prompt, the five night program you curated with Sarina Basta for
Performa 09 in NYC?
The typical interactions that act as the driving force behind selfassembling processes are those that molecules establish commonly
with their surroundings: electrostatic interactions between charged
or polar molecules, hydrogen bonding, p-p stacking, etc. The most
widely used strategy when designing molecules with structural
information (receptors) is to provide them with donors and acceptors
of hydrogen bonds, as they are very strong (comparatively with other
supramolecular interactions) and intrinsically directional. In this way
the structural information contained in the design molecule is focused
through space beyond the molecule. In reality, most of the receptors
reported in the literature make use of several forces aimed at different
binding sites in the molecules in a cooperative fashion, and this
versatility nurtures the ever-increasing selectivity and complexity of
the receptors being synthesised.
A striking yet well-known example of what the cooperative effect of
a great number of hydrogen bonding interactions can accomplish is
the supermolecule of DNA: the two independent nucleotide chains
are held together by hydrogen bonding interactions between their
complementary bases. These interactions determine not only the
morphology of DNA but also the energy, and thus selectivity, to split
the chains and access the information contained in them.
Research groups all around the world are making use of this type of
example as a motivation to fabricate and study increasingly complex
systems where information can be manipulated at a molecular level
for different purposes. In the future, molecular devices synthesised
in a lab will be able not only to selectively self-organise in diverse
manners (depending of the stimuli we give them), but will also be able
to adapt and to absorb that information of diversity through time.
Those are the conditions for chemical evolution to take place, and we
are about to enter. (JORDI TOVILLA)
1. J.M. Lehn, PNAS, 2002, 99 (8), 4763-4768.
2 Further references in: J. Tovilla, PhD Thesis, ICL, University of London, 2006, p 14.
3 Molecular information refers both to the structural information (size and shape of the
molecule and the flexibility to bend, twist, etc), and to the electronic information (origin of
the chemical and physical properties) contained in the molecule. All that information can
be expressed and intensified by using the design molecule as a building block of a more
complex architecture.
By engaging with entities and bodies of knowledge that deny normative
ordering mechanisms, crypto-epistemological methodologies refute
the guarantee of an objective and decipherable world. A museological
display is generally considered to be complete3, with each observable
situated in perfect communication with another to generate a perceived
whole—a narrative gestalt. However, the crypto-museologist looks past
what is on display and through its concrete justification, to regard the
display itself as a series of mysterious traces charting hidden, missing,
remote, latent, or implied procedures that are navigable, fluid, and
virally exponential.
French theorist Jean Baudrillard is widely considered to have
inadvertently written the most appropriate manifesto for aspiring
crypto-museologists4:
“Cipher, do not decipher. Work over the illusion. Create
illusion to create an event. Make enigmatic what is clear,
render unintelligible what is only too intelligible, make the
event itself unreadable. Accentuate the false transparency
of the world to spread a terroristic confusion about it, or
the germs or viruses of a radical illusion—in other words, a
radical disillusioning of the real.”5
The word “cipher” has its origins in the numeral 0, which was once so
abstract a concept that it drifted to become synonymous with willful
obfuscation.6 Partly a response to the pervasiveness of information,
the crypto-museologist’s attraction to encryption is also motivated by
critical skepticism towards the notion of any fixed decodable meaning.
Relishing in uncertainty, this definition is inherently contradictory.
However, in self-defense, crypto-museology eats itself by repeatedly
rewriting its own fragmented and mistranslated definition. In parallax,
any comprehensive understanding of the field is dispersed and
disassembled beyond recognition. Of course, disappearance is merely
another form of appearance, but until everything is subsumed in 0,
the immaterial corporalities that remain form crypto-museological
dimensions to be mined. (POST BROTHERS/CHRIS FITZPATRICK)
1. For example: galleries representing non-existent artists; impostors performing artists’ lectures;
institutional memos written in urine, lemon juice, or other acidic fluids; pseudonyms that are really
anagrams formed from the hijacked names of other artists; the circulation of press releases to
exhibitions that will never open; paranormal galleries; shipping companies secretly hired to deliver
works as stolen; demonstrations that telepathically implant immaterial objects into the minds of
audience members; Balzac’s missing masterpiece; the oration of para-exhibitions located in museum
storage facilities; and other gaps and collusions.
2. After coining the term “crypto-museology”, Raimundas Malasauskas commissioned this definition
as part of Paper Exhibition at Artists Space, New York, 2009. However, each time it is published, the
definition necessarily changes.
3. It should be noted that, as Susan Stewart writes in On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the
Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, a collection can never be complete and that its content is defined
by what it lacks.
4. Baudrillard’s directives are also pertinent to the field of curatorial malpractice, which denotes
curatorial initiatives and operations that attempt to feed off of and counter historical models of
curatorial practice, while contemporaneously intervening in the development of curatorial practice as a
discreet discipline.
5. Baudrillard, Jean. The Perfect Crime (New York: Verso, 1996) p.105
6. For the crypto-museologist, any uncertainty about the authenticity of this fact is far more interesting
than the sense of finality certainty would bring.
RAIMUNDAS MALAŠAUSKAS e
MICHAEL PORTNOY
RM: Michael, what are you going to do tonight?
MP: I’m going to film the ordeal of my right index finger as it cuts
Montmartre to reach the ice rubber ins of a hold-light.
(With “ice rubber ins” the meaning is “icy rubber interior”, although
it’s expressed a bit ambiguously because of the improper grammar.
Would be good to find short words for “ice” and “ins” creating a
similar flow to the phrase, and preserving some of its strangeness.)
RM: Is your finger going to be separated from the rest of your body?
MP: The finger will deal the body. The body am be (“am be” is of
course, very bad English. It sounds like ghetto talk (“How you be? I
be good.”) but is a little more like if an alien tried to speak ghetto
slang. The meaning is “The body is a slave to the finger” Ideally the
translation would have 2 one syllable words for the “am be” from 2
different and incorrect tenses of the verb “to be”, but perhaps you
have a catchy alternative) a slave to finger as ma’am trek scribe
space (so the meaning is “as (the finger) travels, inscribing space”
i’m calling the finger “ma’am” a colloquial US southern abbreviation
for madam, as in “yes ma’am”. Trek, like a mountain trek, “scribe”
an incorrect abbreviation of inscribe. i like to use short words with
sharp sounds -”k”, “t”, “p”.) in a bone drama, bib-to-bib (by “bone
drama”, i’m implying a kind of drama that reaches to the core of
man. best probably to translate it literally or with a slang term for
bone. “bib-to-bib” is really just nice sounding nonsense, following
through with the “b” of “bone”. but the word “bib” means the thing
babies wear to catch food that falls out of their mouths. i suppose
it’s a distant play on the expression “cradle to grave” but here it’s
a progression from one type of infancy to another. the connotation
is also, perhaps, “primal”.) foreplay to light (here correct grammar
would have been to use the definite article “the” light, but i left it
out). And if finger prods light (again i left out the definite article),
will struct the light’s uppance to see-seem or make-seem. (by “struct”
(not a word), i’m implying both instruct and obstruct, “uppance” refers to “comeuppance”: a deserved punishment, but here it implies
RM (himself): Please stop it, I didn’t say that.
MP: Ok, sorry, I’ll talk now. I was the host, and walked around
facilitating interactions, making false introductions, and punching out
holes on people’s behavioral scorecards like a train conductor slash
drill sargeant. And tried to be a fucking curator.
KINGSLEY AMIS
KEITH ARTNATT
ARTEMIO
FIA BACKSTRÖM
POST BROTHERS &
CHRIS FITZPATRICK
NATHAN CARTER &
JONATHAN T.D. NEIL
MARIANA CASTILLO DEBALL
GUY DE COINTET
GINTARAS DIDZIAPETRIS
CLAIRE FONTAINE
CHRIS KRAUS
SARAH LEHRER-GRAIWER
RAIMUNDAS MALASAUSKAS &
MARIA DANIELA
MICHAEL PORTNOY
EMILY MAST
JOHN MENICK
JORDI TOVILLA
DANNA VAJDA
HERIBERTO YEPEZ
PAZMAKER
9
RM: But this being the fucking curator’ is just a character too. How
do you conceive your characters?
MP: They start talking. Like Kiffy.
RM: Kiffy?
MP: Yeah, he’s a professor of comedy, he presents experimental
jokes that he’s dug up or that colleagues have sent him, gives them
long set-ups or play-by-plays and (a “set-up” is comedy talk for the
beginning of a joke, or the premise of a joke, which sets you up for
the punchline. a play-by-play is baseball or sports talk for when the
announcer narrates step by step each move the player makes, “he
kicks it to the left, he’s running, he’s scores!”) the jokes ain’t jokes
but got the things jokes have in the wrong way-place. Smacks your
goose on the chase, not the end.
(“smacks your goose” refers to the expression “a wild goose
chase”, i.e. a long chase with no goose (reward) at the end of it i.e. a long-winded joke with no punchline. so i’m saying in the kind;s
of jokes he tells, there are all sorts of surprises along the way, not
just one big surprise at the punchline, but that still the joke really
has no point.)
RM: What is your biggest goof?
MP: It was the Super Bowl, like a hundred million people watching
on TV, the Patriots versus the Panthers a few years back in Texas. I
don’t follow sports at all, but a friend from the network was able to
get me some special package, this crazy thing where you got to go
in the locker room and talk to all the players before the game, so I
dressed up like a real American and went in and chatted them up,
joked around, and we locked the linebacker in a storage room...
RM: Linebacker?
a kind of eagerness of the light, to see or appear to see, or to make
something seen or appear.)
a battle, so it’s a battle between two awe-inspired killer, phonetic
geniuses.)
RM: What drives the finger?
RM: What was your genesis?
MP: Willy! The step-to-step willy-ways, (here “willy” refers to “will”
but turns it into a little boy’s name) complicates (meaning “complications”, but in improper grammar) and obstaccatos (a combination
between “obstacle” and “staccato”) it or the mind counters. You can
not imagine how hard it is to point things out these days, or even to
know what to point to. As long as the indexical function is held in an
increasing state of tension, the seeing apparatus is suspended and
glows, fed by its own knows (obviously here, “knows” is a grammatically incorrect abbreviation of “knowledge”, chosen to rhyme with
“glows”) and intake folds. (“folds” is again chosen to continue the
rhyme with “glows” and knows”. “intake folds” suggests the complex interior of a thing. The term is something an engineer or airconditioner repairman might use.”) Or as they say in your country,
“The louder you shout, the better the theater.” This relates to done
work I did on stretch him out, simple process-cesses, (this means:
“This relates to work I did in the past on stretching out simple
processes”. (identifying the processes as a “him”. By adding the
“done” i am overstating, with bad grammar, the fact that the work
was done in the past, like how an uneducated person might answer
to the question “did you do it?” -- “i done did it.”, a combination
of “i have done it” and “i did it”. ) came brought by Wise Men of
Schilda who, to seem naff to on-tossers (naff and tossers are two
borrowed British words signifying stupidity. “on-tossers” connotes
“stuipid on-lookers”), did the simplest things in the most labor-ly
illogical ways.
MP: First it was whip words and sound, the whole mouth. (by “whip
words” i mean words that have the power of whips. You could just
translate this literally, or you could choose another punchy word
for “whip” with similar connotation, and/or which has the same first
letter as the italian word for “word”) Then it was nailing whip words
and sound in drama tents, and but no room in tents. Naw. Had too
many arms - arm roots come veins, come veins! Needed to move!
So pure need is move! All the body in one body’s move. That’s so
fucking contemporary thunder so fucking thunder! (In these last sentences it’s important to preserve the messed up grammar, shortness
of words and abbreviated form of the sentences) But also while I
was doing dance, I was doing stand-up for chicken tit, combed comic
tit, (what i mean here is that i was doing stand-up comedy to make
enough money to buy chicken breasts (“tit”) for dinner - so a dirty
word for “breast” should be used, in the singular form. “combed
comic tit” suggests that i combed through the tits of comedy, i.e. that
i dug through the dirty guts of the art form) and then dropped me
off right around the corner from Laurie, Maury, and Shlomo Gagosian. Art curls if you make felt steel and hunt it. (“felt” here refers
both to “felt” the material and “steel that can be felt” Curls can
also be substituted for a punchy “k” word that implies “bends” or
“submits”.) Those kind of things. It’s all really about throwing people
over a rug. Shit, no, throwing rugs over, past and over a people. Or
like the rugs run past and back past their heads it’s been pulled so
many times. I really really like being an artist and am so so happy
for all the relations it brings and all those amazing, super amazing
processes and most of my work is really really like that (<-- the beginning of this sentence should sound like an exaggeratedly stupid
teenage girl) and putting lips on people and engendering things,
totally total things, and making them play with that, and the frame!
Fuck! I am the frame! And now I put you (“put” has the connotations
here of “put you in your place”, “order you”, “put energy in you”,
“sexually possess you” ) and put you on you in everything you do!
Put this! Most overtly with the abstract gambling works.
RM: To not approach the idea?
MP: The idea is to approach a full, top connect from motion of finger
(again, i’m leaving out the definite article “the”, for “finger” and
wrongly abbreviating “connect” from “connection”, speaking like a
Russian might), voice and the bones of drama. Willy! I’m gonna sing
the balls, the moment to moment balls and steam of the finger, the
diffi-cuts (here, an invented word combining “difficulties” with the finger’s act of cutting through space.) Like Milky Mouse (here Mickey
Mouse is deliberately mispelled) singing his own cartoon.
RM: As long as I remember, there is always this singing moment
where it is not clear anymore what language you sing.
MP: It’s gut.
RM: You have a method?
MP: I do! Grotowski, Bad Brains, Butoh and Golem. Ha! You wish!
Like to list your muscles? Naw, (“naw” is the way some backwoods
southerner might say “no”) not this ship. Naw, I’ve spread in people
for dance molds (implying “i’ve spread my teaching over people in
dance contexts”) and in a structor (again, an incorrect abbreviation
of “instructional” combined with “structure” - the implication is “an
instructional structure”) Fia [Backström] and I put on exchange systems. Specifics: relation between stock market and kill-and-carry barter systems (kill-and-carry is a made up expression referring to the
expression “cash-and-carry” (i.e. be able to pay cash for something
and then carry it away quickly), but here the implication is of killing
animals and carrying the meat in a primitive hunter-gatherer culture,
and the words chosen for their “k” sounds. so “kill and carry barter
systems” would refer to primitive tribal exchange systems) and and
tribal puts. (i like to use the “put”, because it is sharp and short and
because it sounds like my greek friend maria when i ask her “can i
try on this hat?” and she says, “yes, you put.” Here, i’m using “puts”
to refer to things that tribal people put, or tribal customs. see also
my last note on this page in reference to “put”.) Part put a full body
phoneme rush between two awe owls, a kind of metal terror take on
Waldorf eurythmy, scored to ticker signs of daily high performers. (i
liked the way “awe” and “owls” sounded together. by “rush” i imply
MP: Yeah, I forget what they do, but we’d made this souped-up
Malcolm McLaren
1946 – 2010
R.I.P.
RM: No.
MP: They don’t? Oh, then I shouldn’t say what happened.
CROSSWORLD
ACROSS
4 A mixture of Berber, Arabic, and Northern African rhythms and religious
songs that combine prayer, acrobatics, and Sufi trance music.
6 Originating from the Dominican Republic, this overly romantic music features arpeggiated guitar chords.
7 Sexually liberated hyper disco popular in UK pop, 80s Mexico City clubs,
and San Francisco gay bathhouses.
10 Ballad music from Northern Mexico that often consists of 1) a salutation
from the singer and prologue to the story; 2) the story itself; 3) a moral and
farewell from the singer. 11 A sub genre or description of polyrhythmic and syncopated electronic
music that crosses the threshold of the human drummer by fracturing the flow
of time, altering the perception of the percussive act.
13 Syncopated ballroom dance music originating among Europeans in
Argentina and Uruguay. It takes two.
14 This politically and culturally influential 70s rebuttal to soft/anthem rock
refers to “fungus that grows on rotten wood, a term used more frequently in
the United States than in Great Britain” or “a young male hustler, a gangster,
a hoodlum, or a ruffian.” It has died many times.
16 Nigerian genre fusing Juju and were which sounds like a photograph of
a Japanese mountain.
18 In the mountains of Norway, where the weather is cold, there’s nothing
to do, except kill each other, and play guitars in the snow. excluding the
scary paper make-up that they wear, they resemble ink and dagger, if ink
and dagger had long hair.
20 This comedic yet abrasive hardcore scene often has the infamous “microsong,” with tracks that are only seconds in length.
21 Originally a term to refer to sensitive hardcore influenced rock, the term
now is a broad description of whiny self-indulgence in youth culture.
22 “Soul calypso” known for its frenetic rhythm and sexy carnival aesthetics.
23 X-rated sub genre of dirty electo funk hip hop dance music originally
associated with Miami that emphasizes the positive aspects of the posterior
pelvic region.
24 Early 20th century Afro-Caribbean creole folk music originating in Trinidad and Tobago that employs complex troubadour storytelling and jazz.
DOWN
1 African and Caribbean influenced British 2-step house music named for
the smell its parties produce. “god made me….and I’m glad he made me that
way.”
2 Both a place one puts their car and a subgenre of electronic music first associated with American paradise and then developed in the UK in the 1990s
as a distinctive syncopated shuffling percussive rhythm and chopped up and
time-shifted vocal samples.
3 This absurd form of Dutch hard house music is named for the slang word
for “buddy” and known for its speed, up to 220 bpm.
5 A genre of hardcore punk music dealing with Islam and its culture.
8 Straight forward description for boring and groovy lounge music affected
by the pull of gravity.
9 Either a favorite kids’ candy or a South African dance-pop genre known
for its synth lines and its call and response vocals.
11 Jazz movement in late 50s Brazil influenced by Samba and European
love songs known for its cool leisurely delivery.
12 Thomas Mapfumo made this politically and socially charged Shona mbira
music famous.
15 90s disco influenced pop music from Poland that borrows from Russian
folk songs.
17 Debussy played this ornamental and orientalist piano music.
19 An American music popularized in Cuban and Puerto Rican communities
in NY that is a fusion of popular African American R&B and soul with mambo
and son montuno.
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RM: How do you think the type of gambling you introduce impacts
the growth of character or a personality in general?
MP: It forces character, Willy. My grandfather said there are two
types of character: one’s the type that crawls up the back of your
throat and reaches out the holes of your nose like some kind of lost
bungler, mad as thumbs, and the other’s just a bucket of mold, skipping down the street. If it ain’t overgrown, don’t grow it.
replica of his outfit and I got on stage, and they scream at you a
bunch of commands and I was just trying to act like I knew what they
meant, you know, 5 steps this way, hop to the left, and then I laid
down on the stage, I’m sorry, on the field, and I started biting out
chunks of the turf and then when the guys ran towards me I pulled
this lever on the outfit and these super-sharp metal spikes rise out
from underneath, like a huge porcupine! Like so even if they’d wanted to remove me from the stage, they couldn’t physically touch me,
without a fucking magnetic crane. But then I blacked out! And if you
look at the footage, I don’t know, do children read this magazine?
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RM: Did your grandmother agree?
MP: Excuse me?
RM: The last time we saw you, in Amsterdam, it was in this workshop of porno script writing called the Human Intwist Group that you
set up in the meeting room of a five-star hotel. You played this kind
of jackass, hip advertising guy and as the participants walked in, all
wearing nametags, as “Bill”, “Bob”, “Barb” or “Bell”, you greeted
us as members of your firm. You served us Armagnac and said we
should have a nice time, but that we just got a big new client, an
airline, who wants us to come up with a series of porn films that
would be set and shot completely inside their airplanes. You set us
up in groups of two and we devised porn films in specific genres like
mistake porn, ambiguous or “fog” porn, pedagogical porn, minimalist porn, dry porn, waste porn, creole porn and crypto-absurdist
porn, the genre of our film determined by the combination of our
new names on a grid. After 20 minutes we all stood and presented
our concepts and the one voted the best got to take home your wife,
or rather, walk her home.
MP: Your point?
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(POST BROTHERS)