EASY DICIPLINE:

I CHING
The I Chings other name is the oracle but I dont 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, re-
leasing crap buried deep in the questioning, throwing, reading sub-
ject. The lines it makes are coded tire tracks indexing the screech-
ing 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 in-
side you. My favorite user, Lee Lozano, flled her time asking ques-
tions, throwing coins, and drawing lines dreadfully alone on the
verge of both stoned epiphany and bored-anxious self-destruction.
It works by refecting pieces of our own selves back in elliptical lyric
form. John Cage would like that its built on an effortlessly random
act, but its randomness enables peoples 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 gen-
erative writing by the Blanchotian reader.
It is a relational tool that makes self-defnition easier, and defning
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 execu-
tive.
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 youre 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)
FIA BACKSTRM
e DANNA VAJ DA
ON CONTENT
FB: Are we on the record now? Well good, so now
begins the production of content. Lets 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 didnt need
much research, they basically got the story reading straight off of
one of the luxury prostitutes he hireds 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 feld of information. Were living an intensive
culture of self-explication.
FB: the prosumer defnition 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 fx of the feeling of understanding,
rather to introduce a halt in an eternal fow of signifcation. The
focus is on the frame; a desperate search for the next format in a
fow 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 fow of information provides a satisfying sensation
of meaning production.
DV: Rather than the possibility of change, with a potential of a pal-
pable result, these new formats give the semblance of new content,
which might give the lip service to change. Of course a familiarity
with fux 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 manage-
ment or the dirty detailed work, is that what were 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 flm thriller trope would say: Its all con-
nected! 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 infnite connection without attributing meaning
or an overarching narrative so that content appears separate and
what you have is the infnite 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 - its 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 theyve
dressed up the page. You base your decision upon style alone, its
an economy of surfaces with which were exchanging a very funny
interpersonal shift.
FB Rather than core constituted individuals of a capital I with re-
sponsibilities 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 its storing are
created. Funnily, our-sourcing or purchase of content can only be
done as long as content has value. Were all a bit too eager to pro-
duce its there for grabs
DV: Ultimately it is a question of time and commitment to do anything
with the content. Its materialization into a record of itself doesnt
inherently produce more understanding. The scarcity of debate and
friction in its production, does it devalue the currency of content?
Maybe we ought to stop producing to re-elevate its status?
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 cant opt out of the global community of prosumers,
everything we do leaves traces.
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? Its 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.
F: and in guarding the right to misunderstand! So to transgress
through folly?
D: Yes, to misunderstand the system of rules in which you are en-
gaged, to play the fool and be nave. We ought to operate from the
rule that everything is allowed and all is true. All it takes is simply to
play the part.
F: To continue our fguring 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. After-
all 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 fnal topic of how we can think about the next
mode of co-existence?
D: Yes, in our self-oriented contexts, how do we poetically use selfsh-
ness towards co-operation.
F: Who is the client of whom? For an ad, somebody is going by or
do something, you outsourced it to me, Im sourcing it back to you,
these constellations are really confusing.
COLLECTIVE MONUMENT
There is a kind of monument that we will call collective monu-
ment. 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 Coyoacn 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 com-
pletely 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 end-
less constructive elements that are featured along the length and
breadth of the countrys 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 fnd 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
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.
All of this goes without mentioning the legendary tradition of
engraving the name of the bride on the feshy 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)
THE SECRET LIFE
OF THINGS
Speaking to you gives me a history. I have no understanding of
history, no words for it, so I fnd myself talking about it, like Im
talking to you now. Thats not a matter of choice. I think things
were always like this. But Im not sure. Thats history again, and
thats the problem.
One thing I can say about myself: I have trouble recognizing cit-
ies. Its a strange thing, a kind of inverted talent. Nobody forgets
a city like me. Occasionally my lack of recall fails me, and Ill
identify a place, but never fully, like a half-remembered song that
you hum instead of sing.
Take this one here. Thats 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 its the monuments I re-
member 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. Its my job. I dont get paid for it. At least not in
money. I get shelter, food, care. Thats 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, some-
times 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, traffc has
stopped, communications have closed, debris is accumulating.
Westerns have tumbleweeds. These flms have newspapers.
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 Spe-
cies as adapted by Roger Corman.
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 fnd the entire city frozen in time. His watch
has stopped. The denizens of Paris are immobile as statues. Ive
wondered if there is such a job, whether anyone really sleeps
alone in the Eiffel Tower at night, but it doesnt matter.
What does matter is that weve had this dream before, the dream
where we are alone and the world has somehow become ours,
not the world we knew, but its double, frozen like a video still
frame, one we can still wander through, manipulate at will, with-
out notice and without consequence.
I watch for patterns. The patterns help my memory. When I focus
on the fnite hours of these flms, things stick. They gain defnition.
At frst I noticed the patterns because I am always confusing one
flm with another. Slowly, I realized this is intentional. The repeti-
tion and confusion is the beginning of memory, memory work-
ing itself around the narrow confnes of a limited and fctional
universe. In the end, I only have a memory for flms, the history
of flms.
Ive come to remember that all survivors in these flms owe their
existences to statistical improbabilities, an accidental arrange-
ment of their lives or genes. Their advantage is purely Darwinian,
accidental. Ive 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 effciency never fully recover. Here, of course, the
idea is literal. But its the same elsewhere. What is so strange, so
reassuring, is that fesh-eating zombies or power-hungry cult lead-
ers dont fll all this immobility. For these revelers, the greatest
menace is boredom.
I noticed this wasnt the last time time would freeze. It seemed to
happen again in the 1960s, 1963 to be exact. Unlike Paris, time
doesnt 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 ex-
plained. Our American friend is industrious, and almost immediately
he begins to plan a bank robbery, but, since this is America, every-
one gets what they deserve in the end.
The watch makes a comeback, this time in 1985, this time as an amu-
let. A frustrated housewife also realizes the benefts 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.
Where was I? Oh, thats right, I wanted to talk about this movie set
in Germany after the war. I dont understand anything about the
war, I dont have the mind for it, but I think I understand something
about this flm. It is an impossibly singular movie, more than real
-- it is science fction set in the present. The director didnt need a
soundstage for his Martian landscape. He had everything he needed
in post-war Berlin.
This movie too is a survivalist flm -- perhaps the frst. 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 flms, where survivalist beliefs
easily mingle with dystopian science fction.
Im not very good with time. Maybe youve come to understand that
already. Sometimes I repeat myself. Stop me if I do.
Has anyone noticed the opening of The Last Man on Earth? Is this
the opening of a vampire flm starring Vincent Price?
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 al-
tered, slightly wrong, off. In this world, its 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.
Loop back to the start. (JOHN MENICK)
GUY DE COINTET
Virginie Bambou: Tendrs un extracto de alguno de los textos de Guy
e Cointet para leernos ?
Marie de Bregerolle : Si, del De toutes les Coleurs, extracto de la
transcripcin de la pieza :
ROBERT : () Entonces abr mi cuaderno, y escrib al azar una frase
que me pasaba por la cabeza . En el momento preciso en que mi
lpiz trazaba la primera letra , el bamb cortado que descan-
saba sobre la
arena, se enderez y sigui exactamente los movimientos de mi
lpiz
sobre el papel.
Al dejar de escribir, encontr sobre la arena, palabra por palabra
la
frase que haba escrito en mi cuaderno.
Dr. ABRAHAM : Una especie de hipnosis
ROBERT: Estoy de acuerdo con usted, una especie de hipnosis , pero
no un hipnotismo, por que mire , aqu esta una foto..en blanco y ne-
gro de esta misma frase, tomada por mi mismo un poco despus()
VB :Marie , A qu se debe este nuevo inters que ha surgido en
torno a Guy de Cointet, artista segn t, esencial para la escena
de Los ngeles en los aos 70?
MdB: Descubr a Guy de Cointet preparando Fuera de lmites , el
arte y la vida en el Pompidou en 1994, exposicin para la cual fui
curadora adjunta. Desde entonces no dej de hablar de l y a pesar
del inters de ciertos curadores del Pompidou en torno a su trabajo,
la primera exposicin 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 aos antes de realizar una ex-
posicin importante de Guy en Francia. Me tom 10 aos hacer la
de MAMCO, espero que la siguiente se geste en dos aos.
VB: Guy de Cointet infuy profundamente en la obra de Allen
Ruppersberg, Mike Kelley y Paul Mc. Carthy entre otros . Podras
explicarnos como ? y Qu tanto ha
Infuenciado a las nuevas generaciones?
MdB: El impacto de Guy fue directo para Paul y Allen, . Por un lado
por que Allen frecuentaba los crculos cercanos de Guy, eran ami-
gos. Paul por su lado, asisti a algunos performances, tambin es-
tuvo en el homenaje que le rindieron sus amigos a su muerte. Mike
nunca vio directamente sus performances, pero su aproximacin al
objeto escenogrfco, a las formas del teatro futuristas y la manipu-
lacin del lenguaje para crear sentido de forma mnemnica, son
bastante parecidas a los juegos del trabajo de De Cointet. Las prim-
eras esculturas de Mike como el Presectfono de 1978, son bastante
cercanos en un sentido formal. Mike llega a California en 1976 y
comparte junto a Guy una relacin cercana con Raymond Roussel.
Al igual que l, 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 comn. 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 infuencia en la obra de Paul Mc Carthy
y Mike Kelley es lo que denomino como objeto escnico y como
ste pasa de status de accesorio a personaje. Los mismos objetos
podran perfectamente representar diferentes cosas o conceptos
segn las frases del performance: el mar del lenguaje transformaba
la naturaleza de su realidad , deca Mike en una entrevista que
tuvimos acerca de Guy y creo que entre otras cosas comparten
precisamente esto.
V.B.: Que te impuls a hacer resurgir esta obra hoy en da, aparte
de la injusticia que representa su invisibilidad actual ?
MdB: Desde que vi una pequea imagen de un performance de
Guy , Que No Misxdodm que tuvo lugar en 1973 en la Cirrus
Gallery con el actor Billy Barty, me qued impresionada e intrigada,
la imagen estaba en un libro de entrevistas entre Mike Kelly y John
Miller. Haba en esa pequea imagen un concentrado de todo lo
que me interesa: los juegos de palabras, una puesta en escena
familiar y a la vez absurda, la creacin de personaje , la cuestin
del paso de persona a persona y humor. Y todo esto me pareca
que estaba fuera de esta historia de la salida del cuadro y del
performance que intentaba luego comprender. Despus el hecho
de que tan pocas cosas existen me motiv tambin, fue entonces
que me pregunt :Quin es Guy de Cointet?, fue de esa pregunta
de donde sacamos el nombre de la exposicin de MAMCO Who
is that Guy. Despus tuve la suerte de conocer a su sobrino quien
tena los derechos de su obra, me abrieron todos sus archivos y me
dieron la exclusividad para trabajar sobre Guy. As fue como pude
reunir un gran cuerpo de obras.
VB: Como historiadora de arte que eres , Cmo fue que aprehen-
diste el trabajo de De Cointet para mostrarlo de nuevo ?.
PERROS
NEGROS
M de B: Hubo principalmente un largo perodo de investigacin
, de buscar contactos, entrevistas con sus crculos cercanos, sus
coleccionistas , sus amigos. Se necesit convencer a todo el mundo
de su importancia, pese a su fragilidad, logr reunir sus objetos,
diseos y dibujos, todo lo que la gente a su alrededor conserv. En
varias visitas a Los ngeles y Nueva York, me permitieron organizar
gran parte de sus cosas . Es por eso que deseo tambin que salga
a la luz una publicacin, es esencial para conocer y comprender
su obra. Invit a varios autores y especialistas a contribuir y ahora
slo estamos a la espera de un editor, Por otra parte me encuentro
dirigiendo la realizacin de su catlogo razonado. Guy de Cointet
es importante no slo como eslabn perdido de la historia del per-
formance y como elemento transitivo del surrealismo, sino tambin
en su acercamiento a los objetos y al lenguaje , es completamente
contemporneo.
Vincent Pecoil : Qu otros proyectos tienes alrededor de su tra-
bajo?
M de B: La escenografa de Etiopa, una pieza del 76, acaba de
ser reconstruida. El Muse de la la compr para su coleccin. Lo
que sigue es mostrar su teatro pero de una forma viva. Estoy en
contacto con Valere Novarina con el fn de poder establecer algn
dilogo . Tambin una exposicin que muestre su trabajo en Pars y
los Estados Unidos, asocindolo con artistas vivos . Paul Mc Carthy
me ayud a hacerle un pequeo homenaje en Magazin. Quiero que
artistas como Mike Kelly y Catherine Sullivan puedan igualmente
contribuir . De hecho ya platiqu de esto con Catherine cuando nos
encontramos en el 2002.
Me gustara tambin que se pudieran mostrar sus dibujos tanto
en Pars 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 cdigo se
descubre en la frase. Palabras dichas en imgenes entre visibilidad
y legibilidad . Por otro lado por su sentido del color y de lnea son
tambin muy bellas .
V.P. : Fue asistente de Larry Bell por un perodo corto, No es as ?
Acaso su predileccin por los objetos escnicos del tipo de Prima-
ry Structures, tiene algo que ver con un juego alrededor de esta
famosa nocin de la teatralidad que fue central en las discusiones
sobre el minimalismo ?
M de B.: S, es uno de los ejes esenciales en los cuales se mueve su
trabajo, a partir de la autonoma del objeto que postula la escultura
post minimalista el hecho de que una cosa exista por nuestra mera
presencia , Cmo podemos ver entonces la humanizacin de los
objetos ? Estas eran las discusiones que tenan Mc Carthy y Kelley
, muecos o peluches por ejemplo. Despus vemos un pasaje del
objeto accesorio a una concertacin nueva del tipo persona. Esas
son las preguntas contemporneas que hacia Guy de Cointet. Por
otra parte ,el uso del lenguaje como un sistema de creencia es
totalmente actual. Igualmente su utilizacin de la luz como en la
pieza Five Sisters, donde la escenografa es creada bsicamente
por los efectos luminosos del escultor Eric Orr, revela preguntas
cuyos inicios se gestan con Larry Bell, pero que se harn desde un
acercamiento al que llamo la mirada perifrica que infuencia
directamente a Dan Graham. El efecto mnemnico y su investigacin
acerca de la manipulacin de las masas, son muy cercanas a las vir-
tualidades 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
panten surrealista. Crees que su trabajo jug un rol estructural-
mente comparable con algunos de los artistas americanos de los
aos setentas, que Roussel con relacin a los artistas parisinos de
principio de siglo XX?
M de B: El otro da relea el excelente libro de Marc Decimo, acerca
de Duchamp. En l hablaba de la impresin simulante de Impre-
siones de frica que Duchamp vio en Pars en 1912. El hecho de
ver esos objetos animados , lo inslito del ensamblaje heterclito
lo marc fuertemente y ser muy importante para la genealoga
del ready-made. De igual manera Duchamp lee , Cmo escrib en
algunos de mis libros, obra pstuma de Roussel que explica su
proceso casi analgico 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 Per-
kins (quien trabajaba con Yoko Ono en Nueva York como parte de
Fluxus ), y despus de recolectar testimonios que no fueron del todo
admirables, puedo constatar formalmente que aquello que encontr
en comn 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 va la desestructuracin de cdigos, va el
objeto, algo que oscila entre la abstraccin y la representacin que
encuentro en artistas como Jack Goldstein, quien dice a propsito
de sus pelculas : La pared se convierte en objeto por contener im-
genes(.) Las imgenes de las pelculas se convierten en objetos
en la sala que ocupa el rectngulo blanco(entrevista con Morgan
Fisher publicada en el catalogo de Magazn 2002) . Tambin muy
cercano otros dos artistas igualmente desaparecidos, Bas Jan Ader y
Wolfgang Stoerchle.
Dira que el impacto de Guy se sita ms del lado de la puesta en
escena que de los objetos. He citado a Haim Steinbach ,sin embar-
go pienso que una relectura acerca de la cuestin de la teatralidad,
despus de la apropiacin, ser uno de los ejes fundamentales de
este principio del siglo. Un pensamiento de objetos desmitifcados
que utilizan y reemplean los cdigos 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 slo ten-
dr sentido en generaciones venideras y lo que la exposicin de
MAMCO mostr, son obras atemporales. Muchos artistas jvenes
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
est en el origen mismo de la necesidad de este ejercicio. Por lo
tanto me perdonars 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 accin: necesitaramos de estructu-
ras para atraer y no disolver nuestras fuerzas, aunque para constru-
irlas habra que tener las energias que las luchas cotidianas desor-
ganizadas nos despojan.
Necesitamos urgentemente algo de afuera aunque sea mnimo 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 invocacin a los muertos estudiamos los levantamien-
tos del pasado para acercarlos a nuestro vocabulario y a nuestros
cuerpos, aunque se queden lejos de los ojos y del corazn.
Para escribir este texto que habla de las relacciones entre el arte
y la lucha necesitara 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 alred-
edor 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
cobarda o en la depressin.
Cuando se acostumbraba nombrar al enemigo (capitalismo, impe-
rialismo, patriarcado, globalizacin) se inventaba una alteridad
binaria y tranquilizadora.
Nosotros participbamos para no tomar parte ( A las luchas y
no al trabajo, a las dinmicas militantes y no a la sociedad de
clase.) Querramos ser otro para lo que odibamos se convirtiera
en algo distinto de nosotros. La desuu-bjetivacin era un proceso
de distanciamiento lgico y performativo.
Si no podamos cambiar los aspectos de la realidad que ms nos
heran, nos transformbamos en algo inasimilable, sobrepasando
las moralejas y revelando el aspecto poltico de la ilegalidad.
Nos convertamos en proscritos, drogadictos, prostitutas, perverti-
dos, violentos e inevitablemente ladrones porqu la propriedad
privada y los afectos las personas queridas que la conservan
son justifcacin a todas las otras opresiones. La crcel era una
etapa necesaria porqu infingida desde siempre, y porqu de
cierta forma, ella misma parte de una separacin 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 haban elegido politicamente su
exclusin, pero la sufran -porqu haban sido escludos excludos
hasta de la eleccin inicial de tomar una posicin- Este modo
dejaba mucho que desear.
En realidad, no es que dejara algo que desear, era verdader-
mente inaguantable, para nosotros como para ellos.
Totalmente insufciente.
Porqu los otros-escluidos excluidos continuaban a sentirse otros
de alguien, y aunque con el derecho de hacernoslo pesar, siem-
pre con el deber de llevar el peso de lo que nos separaba, que
en lugar de ser motor de la revuelta, se converta en un factor
de detencin cintica. Quien sufre es menos productivo, hasta
de subversin social, as decan los movimientos, as decan la
psiquiatria psiquiatra y los maestros. Amen.
All tocbamos el lmite de nuestras capacidades, de nuestra
libre voluntad nutrida de dogmas, secretamente democrticos en
el fondo, la que era el lmite 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 com-
paracin idiota y brutal, esa polica de las conductas.
Rechazar la participacin en los procesos revolucionarios como
obligacin algo que deba ser era una adquisicin de los aos
70s. No obstante eso, el diferimiento permanente de la satis-
faccin en un mundo que ya ofreca pocas oportunidades de
provocar placer, haba transformado los militantes en fguras
ascticas e incapaces de contaminar.
La eleccin del Margen como lugar para difundir el empeo
terminaba por convertirse en un deber ser simtrico del que
rechazbamos y quizs ms insidioso.
A veces la nica reaccin a nuestros gestos que certifcara su
carcter poltico era la repressin.
La sociedad se haba como plastifcado, y no solo era no-impreg-
nable, si no que cambiaba ms de lo que nosotros pudieramos
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, porqu sabe que sus
compaeros 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
fume in piena de los movimientos, ramos de las presencias
aisladas, prisoneras de sus identidades de naufragos, ramos un
episodio que se olvida.
Si no haba placer en el estar en el espacio que habamos elegi-
do era culpa de los unos y de los otros, nunca del enemigo que
nos cazaba en tneles sociales sin oxigeno y nos condenaba a la
endogamia. Sobrevivientes de un accidente no registrado, vet-
eranos de un Vietnam imaginario, llenos de historias que no le
interesan a nadie y oprimidos por la necesidad de acomodarse
con el presente para destruirlo mejor, en coexistencia forzada.

(Perdoname por todas estas metforas, y por las que tampoco
luego podr limitarme en hacer: se que hacer metforas es ex-
poner la insufciencia de la lengua recontruiendo histrias donde
hay necesidad de lgicas. Hacer metforas es estar corto de
ejemplos concretos e incmodo con la histria.
O tambin es nada ms un pudor burgues de decir las cosas
como son, no siempre literarias, no siempre linguisticas.)
La conclusin a la que ramos forzados a llegar es que los
privilegios no se anulan renunciando a ellos. La separacin se
queda y permanece ligada a la eleccin misma de esa renun-
cia, una eleccin 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, capitali-
zan durante esta experiencia de extraamiento y a menudo, ms
fuertes y ms 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 podr luchar tan sinceramente como
un proletario) lo hace vacilar peligrosamente.
Porqu 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, tambin es verdad que la alegra y los
privilegios de los que se puede gozar en un mundo que queda
siendo capitalista son placeres basados en la submisin y en el
saqueo de los otros, placeres insociables y separadores. Plac-
eres bestiales en ltima analisis, por cuanto puedan pretenderse
refnados.

El Margen de las luchas, con todos sus defectos, es un espacio
mejor, una fuente de creatividad, una forma de lujo, un Eldo-
rado perdido a posteriori para quien ha regresado a casa pero
no puede volver a recorrer el camino hacia atrs sin hacerse
rechazar.
Sin embargo el problema es que si el fn es deshacerse del bur-
gues que est en nosotros, o del pequeo-burgues para ser ms
precisos, esto no se hace mimando su contrario y gesticulando
el autolesionismo social. No se puede hacer pensando en la
pequea burguesa como platea de espectadores distrados 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 situacin similar a la que vi emerger la abstracin
en el paisaje en la histria del arte.
El caracter prescriptivo de cada teoria revolucionaria y nota
que hago economia de cualquier citacin para ponerme en sin-
tona con la pobreza que describo suena a esta altura pattico
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 poltica de los medios sin fn que podra tener el
fn de reabilitar a los humanos y de descalifcar a las maquinas
polticas que digieren la vida se ha quedado en el albor. Quizs
porqu una poltica que para levantarse propone el terreno de
la inmanencia pura, [[para desresponsabilizarse]] esconde el
hecho que este terreno est colonizado por una mercanca 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 econmico y social ya viene de afuera, ya no
es, de momento, una zona energtica que pueda generar luchas
para cambiar a los habitantes del planeta y hacer que el planeta
sea modifcado. Saberlo nos provoca dolor, no fuerza. Y ni el ag-
obio ni el dolor crean ms mundo. En las democrcias liberales,
como ya haba sido en los rgimenes totalitarios, hemos salidos
del registro lrico y tambin trgico, hemos salido del expre-
sionismo, estamos en la abstraccin econmica. Cada imgen
de exterminio es para el poder, y pronto ser para nosotros,
fgurativa tanto como monocromaun monocromoatica (I mean a
monochrome painting).
El realismo siempre ha sido una cuestin de traduccin, una
construccin hecha de cdigos, pero ahora para creer en la re-
alidad nececitamos quizs de imgenes y palabras ms libres del
presente, porqu el presente est constituido por las mercancas
y los sentimientos que estas provocan.

Otros problemas me bloquean y me paralizan y estos son an
ms peligrosos porqu habitan la relaccin entre la subversin y
el saber. Si es sencillo criticar el concepto de cultura acumulada
y nemotcnica que informaba la buena vieja burguesa y las
escuelas, es en realidad difcil intender porqu los movimientos
politicos radicales no puedan pescar serenamente en el banco de
datos fragmentado y valioso de las vanguardias. (Contina...)
ARTCRITICISM
Theres 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. Its a very contemporary image. The room is neutral
enough. It reeks of nothing but boredom. Hes 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. Theres always something inside the box.
The boys 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 its a cheap
third-world place and its close to America. Hes 23, and in a re-
lationship with his ex-art school professor and this has fucked with
his head, and also his plans for the summer. She, Dereks 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 hasnt. He doesnt know what
he thinks about this, about Trina, except its making him crazy not
knowing whats happening, and also it would be so nice to be in
Berlin, in Trinas hotel room after living out of a bag and crashing
with people for weeks. But the friends-of-friends (actually, friends of
Trinas) that hes 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, Dereks 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 Trinas Los Angeles friends cant 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 hes going, where hell sleep, how hell fnd a place
to sleep, when the bus stops in TJ. The change rate from his country
sucks and he resents this. Its not as if he can wire his parents for
money and hes heard nothing from Trina. Also, he doesnt speak
Spanish.
Skipping Baja, he catches a bus to Hermosillo, fnds 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. Its not the frst time hes 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 cant
change his ticket and just go home early.
As he moves farther south, he starts fnding youth hostels, not that
he meets anyone interesting but at least theyre 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
Trinas 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 fnds a cheap guest house and there
are other foreigners here, other travelers. He settles into a pleas-
ant routine of swimming and sunbathing during the day, and moving
between four or fve local bars in the evening. On his ffth day
hes lying out at Panteon Playa. The beach is pretty empty at mid-
afternoon. Theres 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 hes sitting,
the snorkeler starts moving around fast in the water, not snorkeling
at all, but swimming against a rip-tide thats trying to pull him out of
the bay. The guys ripped off his mask and Derek runs out on the
jetty. The guy is fapping around by this point. Dereks still naked
from sunbathing and he crouches at the end of the rocks and he
doesnt know what to do, hes not much of a swimmer, and the guy
is looking directly at him. For the frst time all summer Derek has no
thoughts at all. Finally, the guys head disappears under water.
Holy shit. Derek walks back to the beach and puts on his
cut-offs. Theres no way he can go back to sunbathing, the drown-
ing has ruined the afternoons 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 Dereks 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)
ASTROLOGY
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 infnite- an infnite we are incapable of
understanding unless we enclose it. (Aby Warburg in a lecture on
Serpent Ritual, 1923)
SAGITARIO
Eres optimista y lleno de entusiasmo. Tienes una dependencia
total de tu suerte debido a tu falta de talento. La mayora de los
sagitarios son alcohlicos. No vales nada
CAPRICORNIO
Eres del tipo conservador y tienes miedo a correr riesgos.
Prcticamente ests como una cabra. Nunca ha existido un
capricornio de importancia. Deberas suicidarte.
GMINIS
Eres de pensamiento rpido e inteligente. Agradas a los dems
debido a tus tendencias bisexuales. Tiendes a esperar demasiado
por poco o nada, lo que signifca que eres un pinche tacao,pero
lo barato sale caro. Los gminis sobresalen por ser producto de
incesto.
LEO
Te consideras un lder nato. Otros piensan que eres un vil engredo.
La mayora de los leo se dedican a estar chingando a los dems.
Eres una persona vana y no soportas la crtica. Tu arrogancia da
asco. Las personas bajo este smbolo disfrutan ms la masturbacin
que el sexo.Nadie los merece. (ARTEMIO)
JOKES
1
-Mom, at school they say i am Crazy!
-Who Pepito?
-The squirrels!!
2
-Estn dos pachecos fumando mota y uno le pregunta al otro:
Oye, traigo los ojos rojos?, y el otro le contesta Pues si,
tratelos
3
-Momma! at school they call me a back street boy,
-Who?
-EveryBODYYEEEEEEEEEEE
4
-Como llama un vaquero a su hija
-HIIIIIIIIIIJAAAAAA!!
(MARIA DANIELA)
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
womans frocks (one with lace, one without), among other things. Towards the
end, I declare that I will move to Australia. (EMILY MAST)
THE BEST OF (Y LO PEOR)
Editado por Perros Negros
en Mxico D.F. en abril del 2010
Printed by REDCAT
Contributing editor: John Menick
Designed by Lara e Snowden
...FONTAINE.CONTINUACION
DE LA PAGINA ANTERIOR...Las vanguardias (requiescant in
pace) con su cortejo actual de museifcacin y campanas de
vidrio, son desde hace cuarenta aos (y quizs ms) solamente
sinnimo de plusvalia sofsticada.
Me acuerdo ya la gran desconfanza con la que los autnomos
miraban a los post-punk en los aos noventa, todos hijos de
burgueses se deca, como si la insurreccin 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 subver-
sin y socializantes, como si trabajar para crear las condiciones de
la revolucin fuera una actividad lineal y progresiva tanto cuanto el
trabajo salarial, solo despliegada en direccin contraria
De hecho la letra de la vanguardia queda letra muerta, queda un
lujo no deseable porqu su valor de uso es desconocido. Como
decir que el nico paradigma de transmisin 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
tcito de no hacer nunca un uso efectivo de los conocimientos trans-
mitidos, creados y acumulados.
Grandes barreras posicionadas entre el arte y la vida, entre el
saber y el vivir, catedrales eregidas a la gloria de la masturbacin
mental, las universidades todava desconectadas del mercado que
tena que ofrecer asilo al inferno de la mercanca, por lo menos
durante unos aos, a unos jvenes en busca de bsqueda, ya no
hospedaban ningun conficto entre sus muros productivos y golpea-
ban con porra la juventud que haca demasiadas preguntas.
Las universidades despus del 68 se han monstrado por lo que
son: vectores de humillacin y reproduccin social, barracones de
policia para deseos del compromiso poltico, tumbas de los intelec-
tuales militantes.
La transmisin, la discusin y el estudio han as dejado, empe-
zando de cierto punto en adelante, de poder ser momvimientos
socializantes, reforzantes y no comerciales. Si en las facultades
han sobrevivido, han conservado ah un pobre valor de intercam-
bio y han perdido cada valor de uso.
El saber existe, muerto entumecido entre las pginas, 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
histria para regresar al punto de partida. Desde este punto te
escribo o intento escribirte.

Me acuerdo que en un cierto momento, entre los aos setenta y
ochenta, se perdi la nocin de cultura. No que se haya perdido
el sentido, pero se han perdido las instrucciones de uso. Se ha olvi-
dado 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
polticas 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 crtica permanente del concepto de patrimonio, entonces
porqu regresan la pertenecia, el Estado, la imposicin cada vez
que se habla de esto? Ms que un revolver, esta vez es un arsenal
nuclear lo que nos enfrenta.

Me puedes contestar que vivimos en un momento violento. Y que
la violencia baja el nivel de discusiones porqu usurpa el lugar de
la palabra, relata los cuerpos en primer plano, con su fragilidad
e insufciencia, nos recuerda cuanto y como estamos gobernados.
Pero nos recuerda tambin que la abstraccin no debera disfrazar
ni la urgencia de las necesidades ni las protestas del razismo, del
machismo, de la ofensa continua que cada da se perpeta contra
la infancia y contra todos nosotros todos nosotros. La abstraccin
nos debera permitir ver ms lejos llevando con nosotros todo el
peso de nuestra insufciencias pero sin ninguna verguenza, debera
luchar contra la fuerza de gravedad y no hacernos resbalar. Esto
quizs se juega como los malabaristas sin experiencias lanza-
ban antorchas, segn una lgica se sobrevivencia pero sin rigor
coreogrfco-en el arte contemporaneo, esto intentamos hacer,
sin quemarnos. Pero el arte no es refugio, no es una posicin, no
es una actitud, es solamente un ofcio. Esto hay que acordarlo y
cuando se dice los artistas, se deberia de pronunciar as como se
pronuncia doctores o obreros.
Un amigo mio deca: el problema no es nunca la represin, el
problema es el miedo. El problema no es recibir el golpe, porqu
cuando has recibido el golpe eres bastante fuerte para aguantarlo,
el problema es vivir toda la vida evitando el golpe, intentando
escapar de l, sin embargo recibiendolo a menudo de todas man-
eras, y perdiendo no solo la salud sino tambin la dignidad.
X
Claire Fontaine
EL FILSOFO MEXICANO
VIVO MS IMPORTANTE
No hay duda de que los flsofos mexicanos muertos ms rel-
evantes son Samuel Ramos y Jos Vasconcelos. Pero quin es el
flsofo mexicano vivo ms notorio?
La flosofa en Mxico no ha tenido fortuna. Ni el pensamiento
indgena ni el colonial preponderaron la innovacin conceptual,
dilucidar la diferencia especfca entre un concepto y otro, tarea
propia del flsofo.
El marxismo aqu tuvo buena recepcin no slo por la desigualdad
social sino, sobre todo, por lo que tiene de acusador, resentido,
dogmtico, evanglico y doctrinario. El marxismo mexicano es
cripto-catolicismo.
El intelectual nacional raramente conceptualiza. Y las instituciones
flosfcas no han perdido su Sumo Respeto al Libro y al Apellido,
parafrasear el concepto heredado!
Filosofar es transgredir la Idea previa. Uno se hace flsofo para
expatriarse.
Vuelvo: quin es el flsofo mexicano vivo ms importante?
Manuel de Landa, nacido en 1952 y en 1975 ya arraigado en
Nueva York.
Es signifcativo que su currculum omita su pasado mexicano y, en
su lugar, hable mitifcndolo de su origen en el cine experimen-
tal (fuera de circulacin).
Su obra la escribe en ingls. Sus dos libros ms reconocidos son
War in the age of intelligent machines (1991) y A thousand years
of nonlinear history (1997), que lo ubicaron en el panorama flos-
fco global sin que Mxicoseenterara.
Dos obras recientes son Intensive science and virtual philosophy
(2002) y A new philosophy of society: assemblage theory and
social complexity (2006).
Por qu digo que De Landa es mexicano? Porque es deleuziano.
Una parte de su carrera depende de la clarifcacin y aplicacin
de ideas del flsofo francs Gilles Deleuze. A pesar, pues, de ser
flsofo inventor de explicaciones se subordina a otro.
Sin embargo, a pesar de ser mexicano, crea nfasis o giros pro-
pios, 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).
l mismo es un ejemplo de la morfologa no-lineal! Visto desde la
historia del pensamiento mexicano, De Landa se form desprendin-
dose y fugndose de su tradicin nativa;
se desmexicaniz migrando a otro contexto de discusin y otra len-
gua, abandonando el viejo sistema para auto-organizarse habiendo
cruzado cierto nivel de complejidad de referencias, informacin y
problemas.
De Landa es el primer flsofo post-mexicano. Su caso es apasio-
nante porque seala, precisamente, el lmite en que un flsofo
nacido en Mxico decide salir de la esfera patria y, empero, preser-
var una marca de la tradicin intelectual del pas en que naci. De
Landa cambi a Mxico por Deleuze.
De Landa es simultneamente un flsofo (un innovador) y un mexi-
cano (un seguidor).
La flosofa mexicana del siglo XXI ya es deleuziana.
(HERIBERTO YEPEZ)
THE METAPHYSICAL
HANGOVER
1. Keep the radio off, you dont want it buzzing with world events.
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 fnd 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)
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 sci-
ences 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 specifc moment in the very early moments of our
universe, conditions cooled down enough for the electrons to com-
bine 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 some-
what misleadingly), its the oldest light in our universe.
Ebex, the E and B Experiment, is a telescope that has been engi-
neered to measure two different components of the polarization of
this light (called E-mode and B-modehence 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 earths atmo-
sphere makes it diffcult to measure these polarizations from the
ground) where it will foat for two three weeks, collecting the neces-
sary data.
How it gets to that point, circumnavigating the southern pole, high
above the surface of the earth, is an entirely different story. Its one
that involves gondola and sensor designs, cryostats, star cameras,
compression vessels, submillimeter flters and Fourier Transform
Spectrometers; it involves only somewhat more mundane things,
such as exploding bolts, foam insulation, refective blankets and foil
sheetingstaple entries in the galactic logs of space trash. It involves
too many hours in front of computer screens, too many cups of
a kind of eagerness of the light, to see or appear to see, or to make
something seen or appear.)
RM: What drives the fnger?
MP: Willy! The step-to-step willy-ways, (here willy refers to will
but turns it into a little boys name) complicates (meaning complica-
tions, 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 grammati-
cally 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 com-
plex interior of a thing. The term is something an engineer or air-
conditioner 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.
RM: To not approach the idea?
MP: The idea is to approach a full, top connect from motion of fnger
(again, im leaving out the defnite article the, for fnger and
wrongly abbreviating connect from connection, speaking like a
Russian might), voice and the bones of drama. Willy! Im gonna sing
the balls, the moment to moment balls and steam of the fnger, the
diff-cuts (here, an invented word combining diffculties with the fn-
gers 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: Its 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, Ive spread in people
for dance molds (implying ive 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 [Backstrm] and I put on exchange sys-
tems. Specifcs: relation between stock market and kill-and-carry bar-
ter 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, im 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
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 universeand
it is because of this that its story also involves art. (JONATHAN T.D.
NEIL FOR NATHAN CARTER)
MOLECULAR RECOGNITION OR THE SOCIAL
ENDEAVOURS OF MOLECULES
Although a single completely accurate defnition of Sup
ramolecular Chemistry is not available, most chemists dwelling in
such areas of scientifc research would agree that it is the feld 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 chem-
istry 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
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 complexifcation through
self-organization, the drive to life.3
Self-organisation, or more specifcally 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 self-
assembly. 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.
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 specifc patterns of interactions amongst a specifc 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
specifc target (guest).
The typical interactions that act as the driving force behind self-
assembling 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 fexibility 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 intensifed by using the design molecule as a building block of a more
complex architecture.
Cryptomuseology
|Kript-myozlj|
: noun
The science, practice, or study of unverifable and unsubstantiated
cultural and museological practices.1
DERIVATIVES
crypto-museological |-zljikl| adjective
crypto-museologist |-jist| noun
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 prefx crypto comes
from the Greek word kruptos, which translates to hidden. There
are countless felds and ideologies using the prefxfrom crypto-
Judaism to crypto-sporidiumyet crypto-museology is perhaps most
closely related to crypto-zoology. After all, the crypto-zoologist
searches for and studies marginal creaturessuch as the Loch Ness
Monster, Bigfoot, Unicorns, and Jackalopeswhose existence or
survival remains unsubstantiated or disputed.
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
wholea narrative gestalt. However, the crypto-museologist looks past
what is on display and through its concrete justifcation, to regard the
display itself as a series of mysterious traces charting hidden, missing,
remote, latent, or implied procedures that are navigable, fuid, 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 illusionin 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-museologists attraction to encryption is also motivated by
critical skepticism towards the notion of any fxed decodable meaning.
Relishing in uncertainty, this defnition is inherently contradictory.
However, in self-defense, crypto-museology eats itself by repeatedly
rewriting its own fragmented and mistranslated defnition. In parallax,
any comprehensive understanding of the feld 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 fuids; 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; Balzacs 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 defnition
as part of Paper Exhibition at Artists Space, New York, 2009. However, each time it is published, the
defnition 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 defned
by what it lacks.
4. Baudrillards directives are also pertinent to the feld 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 fnality certainty would bring.
RAIMUNDAS MALAAUSKAS e
MICHAEL PORTNOY
RM: Michael, what are you going to do tonight?
MP: Im going to flm the ordeal of my right index fnger 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
its expressed a bit ambiguously because of the improper grammar.
Would be good to fnd short words for ice and ins creating a
similar fow to the phrase, and preserving some of its strangeness.)
RM: Is your fnger going to be separated from the rest of your body?
MP: The fnger 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 fnger 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 fnger as maam trek scribe
space (so the meaning is as (the fnger) travels, inscribing space
im calling the fnger maam a colloquial US southern abbreviation
for madam, as in yes maam. 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, im 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
its a distant play on the expression cradle to grave but here its
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 defnite article the light, but i left it
out). And if fnger prods light (again i left out the defnite article),
will struct the lights uppance to see-seem or make-seem. (by struct
(not a word), im implying both instruct and obstruct, uppance re-
fers to comeuppance: a deserved punishment, but here it implies
a battle, so its a battle between two awe-inspired killer, phonetic
geniuses.)
RM: What was your genesis?
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 frst
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 bodys move. Thats so
fucking contemporary thunder so fucking thunder! (In these last sen-
tences its 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 Gago-
sian. 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. Its 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 its 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 begin-
ning 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: 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: ones 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 others just a bucket of mold, skip-
ping down the street. If it aint overgrown, dont grow it.
RM: Did your grandmother agree?
MP: Excuse me?
RM: The last time we saw you, in Amsterdam, it was in this work-
shop of porno script writing called the Human Intwist Group that you
set up in the meeting room of a fve-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 frm. 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 flms that
would be set and shot completely inside their airplanes. You set us
up in groups of two and we devised porn flms in specifc genres like
mistake porn, ambiguous or fog porn, pedagogical porn, minimal-
ist porn, dry porn, waste porn, creole porn and crypto-absurdist
porn, the genre of our flm 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?
replica of his outft 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, Im sorry, on the feld, and I started biting out
chunks of the turf and then when the guys ran towards me I pulled
this lever on the outft and these super-sharp metal spikes rise out
from underneath, like a huge porcupine! Like so even if theyd want-
ed to remove me from the stage, they couldnt physically touch me,
without a fucking magnetic crane. But then I blacked out! And if you
look at the footage, I dont know, do children read this magazine?
RM: No.
MP: They dont? Oh, then I shouldnt say what happened.
1
4
7
10
11
12
15
16
18
20
22
19
17
14 13
9
8
21
23
24
3
5
2
6
KINGSLEY AMIS
KEITH ARTNATT
ARTEMIO
FIA BACKSTRM
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
CROSSWORLD
ACROSS
4 A mixture of Berber, Arabic, and Northern African rhythms and religious
songs that combine prayer, acrobatics, and Suf trance music.
6 Originating from the Dominican Republic, this overly romantic music fea-
tures 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 fow
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 infuential 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 ruffan. 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, theres 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 mi-
crosong, with tracks that are only seconds in length.
21 Originally a term to refer to sensitive hardcore infuenced 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 Trini-
dad and Tobago that employs complex troubadour storytelling and jazz.
DOWN
1 African and Caribbean infuenced British 2-step house music named for
the smell its parties produce. god made me.and Im glad he made me that
way.
2 Both a place one puts their car and a subgenre of electronic music frst as-
sociated with American paradise and then developed in the UK in the 1990s
as a distinctive syncopated shuffing 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 infuenced 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 infuenced 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.
RM: I did not get to walk your wife home. What happened in The
Prompt, the fve night program you curated with Sarina Basta for
Performa 09 in NYC?
MP: Im gonna tell you but Im gonna put it again where your words
go. (here im alluding, in an ambiguous way, to the fact that im
going to answer rais question, but that im going to put my words
under his name (i.e. the next entry), as if he said them. we dont
want to make this very clear, though.)
RM: It was an antic social club, with contributions from around 20
artists. Each night there was a set of behavioral rules, a conversa-
tion 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 conver-
sational 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 surfng holiday you had last winter in Scotland
and the good side of global warming. And the same night, we had
a Relational Psychoanalyst, thats 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 modifcations
from Berlin over the PA.
RM (himself): Please stop it, I didnt say that.
MP: Ok, sorry, Ill talk now. I was the host, and walked around
facilitating interactions, making false introductions, and punching out
holes on peoples behavioral scorecards like a train conductor slash
drill sargeant. And tried to be a fucking curator.
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, hes a professor of comedy, he presents experimental
jokes that hes 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, hes running, hes scores!) the jokes aint 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 im 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
dont 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?
MP: Yeah, I forget what they do, but wed made this souped-up
(POST BROTHERS)
Malcolm McLaren
1946 2010
R.I.P.