American Spirit (white version)

 

 
   

 

 

What feels like only yesterday (the bio life)

The Xijing Men Chen Shaoxiong, * 1962 in Shantou, Guangdong (CN), lives and works in Guangzhou (CN)
Gimhongsok, * 1964 in Seoul (KR), lives and works in Seoul 
Tsuyoshi Ozawa, * 1965 in Tokyo (JP), lives and works in Tokyo 
Welcome to Xijing – Xijing Olympics, 2008

"The theme of 68: "We desire everything, now" was certainly poorly formulated, confused, or whatever you want to call it. But one must say that, on many points, it remains absolutely relevant. We want everything - that is another way of saying that it is urgent that we take account of the economy of desire. It is now, without delay, that we must construct a multi-racial society in France, and another form of sociality and citizenship. There will be needed ten million more immigrants in France to meet the future. I'm not the only one saying this, it is serious people, demographers. Without such an "importation" (and I apologize for the ugliness of the expression) in twenty years France will be a power of the tenth order. But what is it that resists understanding that? What is it that engenders the collective stupidity of a Le Pen? The fact that all the factors of alterity, all the factors of singularization, are systematically extinguished, falling back on social "normality" and the conformity of standard models. A small child sees a person of black or yellow skin in the street. That "interpellates" the child as they say? But how does he manage that singularity which is constituted in him? With the assistance of whom? In what context? There will be a massive rejection if he has been conditioned to negate anything that is different, anything that exceeds the norm. So, this becomes a problem that is not only that of black or yellow skin, but more generally of the type who limps, who has a strange nose or a strangely shaped mouth, or is old. A racism against the old has developed in our societies. Normal people - they are what we see on television (for example women announcers - but it is no longer necessary that they are beautiful!). It is necessary to keep alterity in its place [creneau]: the place of average infantilization. But infants, precisely they are the ones who are able to assume difference and singularity. It is the dominant adulthood that constitutes the royal road of puerilisation."

— Félix Guattari, Institutional Practice and Politics

School

"This is a transition that Peres notes as well in his decision to start working with Wadden in an artist-dealer relationship — for the past five years he had worked as a preparator at the gallery."

scene in the Barclays attic

Varda's Potatoes

"He called it the Sleet's crow's-nest, in honor of himself; he being the original inventor and patentee, and free from all ridiculous false delicacy, and holding that if we call our own children after our own names (we fathers being the original inventors and patentees), so likewise should we denominate after ourselves any other apparatus we may beget." —Herman Melville, Moby Dick

HOLLOW EARTH

SUBTERRANEAN REGIONS OF THE continent excavated in cyclopaean caverns, cathedralspace fractal networks, labyrinthine gargantuan tunnels, slow black underground rivers, unmoving stygian lakes, pure & slightly luminiferous, slim waterfalls plunging down watersmooth rock, cataracting round petrified forests of stalactites & stalagmites in spelunker-bewildering blind-fish complexity & unfathomable vastness...Who dug this hollow earth beneath the ice foreseen by Poe, by certain paranoid German occultists, Shaverian UFO freaks? Was Earth once colonized in the time of Gondwana or MU by some Elder Race? their reptilian skeletons still mouldering in the farthest secret mazes of the cavern system? Sluggish backwaters, dead-end canals, stagnant pools far from the centers of civilization like Little America, Transport City, or Nan Chi Han, down in the dark recesses and boondocks of the Antarctic caves, fungus & albino fern. We suspect them of mutations, amphibian webbed fingers and toes, degenerate habits-- Kallikaks of the Hollow Earth, Lovecraftian renegades, hermits, skulking incestuous smugglers, runaway criminals, anarchists forced into hiding after the Entropy Wars, fugitives from Genetic Puritanism, dissident Chinese Tongs & Yellow Turban fanatics, lascar cave-pirates, pale shiftless whitetrash from the prolewarrens of the industrial domes along Thwait's Tongue & the Walgreen Coast & Edsel-Ford-Land- -the Trogs have kept alive for over 200 years the folk- memory of the Autonomous Zone, the myth that someday it will appear again...Taoism, libertine philosophy, Indonesian sorcery, cult of the Cave Mother (or Mothers), identified by some scholars with the Javanese sea/moon goddess Loro Kidul, by others with a minor deity of the South Pole Star Sect, the "Jade Goddess"...manuscripts (written in Bahasa Ingliss the pidgin dialect of the deep caves) contain mangled quotations from Nietzsche & Chuang Tzu...Trade consists of occasional precious gems and cultivation of white poppy, fungus, over a dozen different species of "magic" mushrooms...Shallow Lake Erebus, 5 miles across, dotted with stalagmitic islets choked with fern & kudzu & black dwarf pine, held in a cave so vast it sometimes creates its own weather...The town belongs officially to Little America but most of the inhabitants are Trogs living off the Shiftless Dole--& the deep-cave tribal country lies just across the Lake. Riffraff, artists, drug addicts, sorcerers, smugglers, remittance-men & perverts live in crumbling basalt-&- synthplast hotels half-encrusted with pale green vines, along the lakefront, an avenue of squalid cafes, gem emporia guarded by armed ninjas, chinese krill-noodle shops, the crystal-tinselled hall for slow fusion-gamelan dancers, boys practicing their mudras on sleepy electronic dark blue afternoons to the rippling of synthgongs and metallophones...& below the pier perhaps a few desultory bathers along the black beach, genuine low-budget tourists gawking at the shrine behind the bazaar where pallid old Trog pamongs tranced out on fungus drool & roll up their eyes, breathe in the fumes of heavy incense, everything seems suddenly menacingly bright, flickering with significance...a few cases of webbed fingers but the rumors of ritual promiscuity are true enough. I was living in a Trog fishing village across the lake from Erebus in a rented room above the baitshop...rural sloth & degenerate superstitious rites of sensual abandon, the larval & unhealthy mysteries of the chthonic mutant downtrodden Trogs, lazy shiftless no-count hicks...Little America, so christian & free of mutation, eugenic & orderly, where ev- eryone lives jacked into the fleshless realm of ancient software & holography, so euclidean, newtonian, clean & patriotic--L.A. will never understand this innocent filth- sorcery, this "spiritual materialism," this slavery to the volcanic desires of secret cave-boy gangs like laughing flowers jetting with dynamo erections pulsing up pure life curved taut as bows, & the smell of water, pond-scum, nightblooming white flowers, jasmine & datura, urine, children's wet hair, sperm & mud...possessed by cave- spirits, perhaps ghosts of ancient aliens now wandering as demons seeking to renew long-lost pleasures of flesh & substance. Or else the Zone has already been reborn, already a nexus of autonomy, a spreading virus of chaos in its most exuberant clandestine form, white toadstools springing up on the spots where Trog boys have masturbated alone in the dark...

—Hakim Bey

draw on the withdrawn

“The hardest question for me to answer was the one on methodology,” Christov-Bakargiev admitted. “In my experience, the best artists don’t really know or understand what they are doing. I tried to think about my relationship with artists as a kind of displaced Eros, about finding a place that is a fruitful contradiction and creates some kind of intensity.” As for what documenta is for, she is passionate. “documenta has from the beginning been an optimistic repositioning of art as a form of transnational connectivity,” she said. “I acknowledge the Cold War issues that were there in documenta in the 1950s and 1960s, but it’s not enough to just say ‘we’re free.’ It has to be more important than that—through art, we can construct an alternative world.” She added, “big temporary exhibitions like documenta may be obsolete from certain points of view, but I think it can offer a moment when art can function as a transitional object of sorts. With all the fear and trauma of our times, we need transitional objects—Donald Winnicott, influenced by Melanie Klein, describes them as things that help us when the mother’s breast is withdrawn—and I think that’s a good description of one of the roles contemporary art can play.”

What is necessary? “That’s a bad question,” she said. “The real question is: ‘what is to be done?’”

The Freudian Slipper's Freudian Slip

We have chosen to participate in the 7th Berlin Biennale for many reasons, some personal, some collectively shared. Above all, the KunstWerke provides us with a space to bring together participants from different countries around the world, to share our experiences from the last year and build new connections to bring our movements forward. The next two months will be a collective experiment, as we work together to transform the gallery hall into a space where we can discuss both political questions and organizational strategies, grow through public interaction, and engage in various forms of activism, from creative actions to mass demonstrations. 

Even as we come together during the Biennale, the right to public assembly is being threatened, both by the police and through legislative changes. Water cannons in Chile, tear gas in Oakland and police batons in Spain have been deployed against people raising their voice. The simple act of coming together in public to discuss our future is no longer possible in our famed democracies. The European Union is currently building task forces and legal frameworks to suppress the social uprisings that we saw in Greece or Spain more effectively, and more silently. Across Northern Africa, from Tunisia to Egypt to Syria, violent state repression has cost many people their lives. The gallery provides us with a temporary safe haven to engage in the work of political change, but the real struggle takes place in the streets.

This is not an art project or a publicity stunt, nor is it a substitute for the occupation of public space. Although we may be in a gallery in Berlin, we are not a static movement on display. We are part of larger actions unfolding across the planet. In the United States, Occupy Wall Street has called for a general strike on May 1st, a call that will be answered enthusiastically in cities across North America and Europe. Following a year after the emergence of the movement in Spain on 15M, May 12 will be another major day of international demonstrations. In Berlin, demonstrations growing out of neighborhood assemblies will converge from five different points of the city, building an Agora at Alexanderplatz to serve as a two-week hub for networking and an exchange of ideas. On May 16 to 19, a broad international coalition will travel to Frankfurt for Blockupy, an action to blockade the European Central Bank and demand an end to the undemocratic crisis regime of the European Union. Like these major actions, the occupied Berlin Biennale is only a step in the long process of building a successful movement for social, economic and environmental justice. We invite you to join us.

The Pastrami Drawer

Talked with C.H., a roofer who had worked at Sellafield, had been fired (for taking materials, possibly, and worked in various places including Saudi Arabia 3 yrs ago (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology), mostly in aluminum, and re-hired at Sellafield as subcontractor. Because of security and rules, he said it is impossible to take anything out of the fence surrounding Sellafield. But on the other hand he said today nothing is impossible. How?

1. Money
2. Violence
3. Sex

He mentioned someone who had used company materials (from Sellafield?) to build two houses and was now a millionaire by selling them. He would say no more on the issue. When first asked about homers (conversationally, maybe circuitously) he said, "Everyone does it." But maybe he had not completely understood what was being asked. He gave the example of a large wooden spool that would be used for holding cable, especially heavy gauge, and how that would quite easily be used for making a table. Whether or not the material is rough, it can be planed, or covered. In this case C.H. was talking about making things that could be produced with recycled materials. Had he ever made anything with the materials he works with (for home), namely aluminum sheeting, for example a barbecue—well, he has designed a barbecue with some friends, one that could serve 40 people, but that was never built.

Several methodological problems present themselves here: being itinerant; not being professionally related to the man; the question being asked is sensitive; the man is not sure how we are using the "research." (although later he appreciated—in rather drunk state—the "program" as contributing to learning, citing his daughter's new Ipad in terms of the building of knowledge and education, and gave us his name and phone numbers, saying he would do anything to help us.) Plus the fact of our being in a pub and some of us (including the researchers) being a bit drunk—is this part of the research process? Is the problem of obtaining information, and what can be considered information? (must it be corroborated by the subject?)

—Knowles Eddy Knowles sociological research notes after an evening spent in the Kings Arms Pub in Egremont, UK, January 28th, 2012

I'll be watching you

"The story of computer networks, BBSs and various other experiments in electro-democracy has so far been one of hobbyism for the most part. Many anarchists and libertarians have deep faith in the PC as a weapon of liberation and self-liberation--but no real gains to show, no palpable liberty.

I have little interest in some hypothetical emergent entrepreneurial class of self-employed data/word processors who will soon be able to carry on a vast cottage industry or piecemeal shitwork for various corporations and bureaucracies. Moreover it takes no ESP to foresee that this "class" will develop its underclass--a sort of lumpen yuppetariat: housewives, for example, who will provide their families with "second incomes" by turning their own homes into electro-sweatshops, little Work-tyrannies where the "boss" is a computer network.

Also I am not impressed by the sort of information and services proffered by contemporary "radical" networks. Somewhere--one is told--there exists an "information economy." Maybe so; but the info being traded over the "alternative" BBSs seems to consist entirely of chitchat and techie-talk. Is this an economy? or merely a pastime for enthusiasts? OK, PCs have created yet another "print revolution"--OK, marginal webworks are evolving--OK, I can now carry on six phone conversations at once. But what difference has this made in my ordinary life?"

—Hakim Bey Temporary Autonomous Zone

re-living the trauma of abandonment (regional road #7)

WE WENT TO INSTALL AN ART INHIBITION

Squat

Gandhi chair at Occupy Central in Hong Kong, April 28, 2012.

MANIFESTO

FOR MAINTENANCE ART 1969!

Proposal for an exhibition “CARE”

MIERLE LADERMAN UKELES

______________________________________________________________

I.

IDEAS

A.

The Death Instinct and the Life Instinct:

The Death Instinct: separation; individuality; Avant-Garde par excellence; to follow one’s own path to death—do your own thing; dynamic change.

The Life Instinct: unification; the eternal return; the perpetuation and MAINTENANCE of the species; survival systems and operations; equilibrium.

B.

Two basic systems: Development and Maintenance. The sourball of every revolution: after the revolution, who’s going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?

Development: pure individual creation; the new; change; progress; advance; excitement; flight or fleeing.

Maintenance: keep the dust off the pure individual creation; preserve the new; sustain the change;

protect progress; defend and prolong the advance; renew the excitement; repeat the flight;

show your work—show it again keep the contemporaryartmuseum groovy

keep the home fires burning

Development systems are partial feedback systems with major room for change.

Maintenance systems are direct feedback systems with little room for alteration.

C.

Maintenance is a drag; it takes all the fucking time (lit.)

The mind boggles and chafes at the boredom. The culture confers lousy status on maintenance jobs = minimum wages, housewives = no pay. clean your desk, wash the dishes, clean the floor, wash your clothes, wash your toes, change the baby’s diaper, finish the report, correct the typos, mend the fence, keep the customer happy, throw out the stinking garbage, watch out don’t put things in your nose, what shall I wear, I have no sox, pay your bills, don’t litter, save string, wash your hair, change the sheets, go to the store, I’m out of perfume, say it again—he doesn’t understand, seal it again—it leaks, go to work, this art is dusty, clear the table, call him again, flush the toilet, stay young.

D.

Art:

Everything I say is Art is Art. Everything I do is Art is Art. “We have no Art, we try to do everything

well.” (Balinese saying).

Avant-garde art, which claims utter development, is infected by strains of maintenance ideas, maintenance activities, and maintenance materials. Conceptual & Process art, especially, claim pure development and change, yet employ almost purely maintenance processes.

E.

The exhibition of Maintenance Art, “CARE,” would zero in on pure maintenance, exhibit it as contemporary art, and yield, by utter opposition, clarity of issues.

II.

THE MAINTENANCE ART EXHIBITION:

Three parts: Personal, General, and Earth Maintenance.

“CARE”

A.

Part One: Personal

I am an artist. I am a woman. I am a wife.

I am a mother. (Random order).

I do a hell of a lot of washing, cleaning, cooking, renewing, supporting, preserving, etc. Also, up to now separately I “do” Art.

Now, I will simply do these maintenance everyday things, and flush them up to consciousness, exhibit them, as Art. I will live in the museum and I customarily do at home with my husband and my baby, for the duration of the exhibition. (Right? or if you don’t want me around at night I would come in every day) and do all these things as public Art activities: I will sweep and wax the floors, dust everything, wash the walls (i.e. “floor paintings, dust works, soap-sculpture, wall-paintings”) cook, invite people to eat, make agglomerations and dispositions of all functional refuse.

The exhibition area might look “empty” of art, but it will be maintained in full public view.

MY WORKING WILL BE THE WORK

B.

Part Two: General

Everyone does a hell of a lot of noodling maintenance work. The general part of the exhibition would consist of interviews of two kinds.

1.

Previous individual interviews, typed and exhibited.

Interviewees come from, say, 50 different classes and kinds of occupations that run a gamut from maintenance “man,” maid, sanitation “man,” mail “man,” union “man,” construction worker, librarian, grocerystore “man,” nurse, doctor, teacher, museum director, baseball player, sales”man,” child, criminal, bank president, mayor, moviestar, artist, etc., about:”

-what you think maintenance is;

-how you feel about spending whatever parts of your life you spend on maintenance activities;

-what is the relationship between maintenance and freedom;

-what is the relationship between maintenance and life’s dreams.

2.

Interview Room—for spectators at the Exhibition:

A room of desks and chairs where professional (?) interviewers will interview the spectators at the exhibition along same questions as typed interviews. The responses should be personal.

These interviews are taped and replayed throughout the exhibition area.

C.

Part Three: Earth Maintenance

Everyday, containers of the following kinds of refuse will be delivered to the Museum:

-the contents of one sanitation truck;

-a container of polluted air;

-a container of polluted Hudson River;

-a container of ravaged land.

Once at the exhibition, each container will be serviced: purified, de-polluted, rehabilitated, recycled, and conserved by various technical (and / or pseudo-technical) procedures either by myself or scientists. These servicing procedures are repeated throughout the duration of the exhibition.

Frozen Yogurt

can you spot the sweaty punctum?