previous issue. portal. search. recycle. map. next issue.
27 July 2002
party navigation
19 July 2002
overthrow
Texting, 'Urban Depressive Signals', always more thoughtfully and honestly reflective than depressing to me, but for this time, when it makes my stomach fucking turn around, raising issues worth as much subversiveness as we can whip ourselves to, including hacking and other sabotage, violent street protest and what had you in times of political disaster. As Heather summarizes right on:
The expectation that your hard drive is private, that the software on it is yours to use as you choose, and that your relationship to (Microsoft, Intel, Adobe, etc.) its manufacturer is a clean, one-time transaction (like buying a leaf-blower), are all compromised. (my italics)
As with my notion yesterday, the telecommunications network is an infrastructure, like any other public facility, open to anyone at any time to anonymously connect to and transmit and receive data, through a service provided by a commercial party exploiting the traffic on that network. In different times and political systems that service would be a government controlled basic right for any citizen, but no one's complaining too loudly about privatization anymore around here. Other powers have come to offer our social and cultural, including political, desires new possibilities of expression and expansion. This service will probably not be forever, since the Information Revolution hasn't nearly started now that there's only some far-from-perfect technology in place to get those connections working for us. Instead of accepting more fairy tales about the information era, sentiments of control with large players are pressing to raise awareness of their interests with the suppression of fundamental rights (anonymity, privacy, equal network access, information education), stealing content for their own benefit.
The media establishment, slow to understand the new model, have finally caught on that control will have to mean control over the network, in other words, control over individual computers and their connectivity. I welcome you all to visit the source links and press coverage, and to consider researching and writing about this issue. I promise you it will soon be hot, hot, hot.
Sober but no less pertinent warnings for the dangers of oppression of our communication over the network are as old as is the public Internet. They have been voiced by EFF and the like. A 'media establishment, slow to understand the new model', I would read as multiple commercial powers, controlling already quite some media outlets and content, all the while, as has to be feared, definitely not understanding/accepting multiple new modes of communication and expression like as many models for information citizenship, based on shared learning and entertainment, and cultural political organization.
When driving the public road in my car some forces can identify me by my license plate. I have heard of no objections against that system of surveillance and control. In an ideal world we would have no need for identification at all, anyone would be the one who s/he introduces her or himself as, and mean no harm to anybody else. All tools would be used to act constructively and legally—while such world would not have any laws, but some convivial 'rules', which everyone adhered to. In a real world unfortunately airplanes are used for terrorism, guns for murder, photography for porn, family relationships for incest, shops for shoplifting, cars for road kill, factories for pollution and the Internet for the support and organization of all above crimes, and major intellectual property theft. Not.
How long will we bear those lies before we get organized for an overthrow of the powers that introduce and exploit them? Definitely to be continued.
18 July 2002
A network does not do anything. Traffic does not do anything, except occupying the network, slowing itself down. To regard a network or traffic 'doing' things, being forces by themselves, borders on magical thinking.
17 July 2002
let me try to rephrase that
Information sharing and law of volume and traffic... later, first:
at Le Moulin du Merle young friends are having a ball (to be added to over the summer)
holding Rolf turning 9
His friend Linde just having celebrated her 9th birthday last Saturday and leaving the next day, Maarten, Rico and Kas having also visited last week, today Rolf's birthday is spent playing baseball, hoping for ducklings, throwing darts, spotting bats, more baseball, hanging out with Tijl, Adinda and their parents, Gil's brother Erik and wife Marjan. Hans and Rini do a flash visit this morning, Joke and Karin step by unexpectedly for a drink late afternoon.
After a short break to the South to visit John and Kristi at their new place in Ganges, next week, also finally visiting the Bambouseraie de Prafrance, more young friends age 6-16 will visit R+r and feed us.
NQPaOFU summer 2002 <IMG SRC>
12 July 2002
the sharing business
'For better understanding'—the lie of information sharing is propagated as the mode of post-industrial yet industrious-to-no-limit commodity production for an age to come, serving the traditional economic need for ever increasing volume and traffic, only.
re-reading
Emanuel Levinas' La Substitution, published in 'Revue Philosophique de Louvain' issue 66, in 1968, in a Dutch translation, acquired 22 July 1989, its year of Ambo publication.
11 July 2002
live the biography
8 July 2002, 8-10 July 2002
08:15-12:45am
The TER regional train, throughout its carriages including the non-smoking ones, smelly with stale cigarette smoke that will never leave its 1970s orange curtains, pulls out of Laroche Migennes station 08:15 sharp, destination Dijon where I change for Avignon. From Avignon a bus will take me to Arles. I adjust my phone's clock. Thanks to provider Ben's lousy service ('ben onbereikbaar!') I have a new number, with Vodaphone. With getting the new subscription I like best to go through a pile of envelopes searching for a fancy 8 digit combination, this time settling with 21214379. See, I can already do this by heart. There's some 212 in there, which I like. No more 14658588 for me (but 58 is my department, Nièvre), please note. Numbers stick with me very well, long after their services have expired. License plate UX-60-75 was the Citroën Traction Avant my parents drove in 1960. Funny though my memory of it rather tends to show black type on a yellow background, while at the time these plates still were in white on dark blue. The car of my childhood had a windshield that opened and a funny choke, much like a toilet flush's pull: a white handle, dangling from a fine chain disappearing into a silver ringed hole in the dashboard. At the time it was just a used car, bought because we couldn't afford a newer model. Today it is, well, a collector's item I would not mind to have parked in my garage.
The distinction between remembering situations, discussions, interactions, even in great or intimate detail, and the memory of a distinct sensorial impression, like remembering a smell, a taste, even the visual/physical stimulation of a certain light on a scene, feeling the way it touches the eye when entering it, or a sound rippling your ear's drum, is striking. I would not even share the two 'memories' under the same name. One remembers an event, but brings back a smell, taste or touch—which is completely different from remembering a physical effect 'with' the event that at the time caused it. The idea of this kind of sensibility sends shivers up my spine.
I am on my way to the Arles photography festival. I hope to catch up on contemporary photography, and how we currently view historical photography: what is it that we focus, apart from 'photo-graphy' of course, 'the question of light', eternal return to our lenses. Because it is in Arles, this means I will see Francine again after a long time, since December 2000 more exactly, in Paris. In Arles she owes an apartment with a small roof garden if I do recollect well. No particular smell or taste comes back, but memories of a winding access and short cut from the house, across a busy market street, to the old town center which is particularly picturesque, très Sud de France, bordered by shady terraces, among them van Gogh's night café, which is another memory from childhood, when I could never make out the three dimensions of the yellow shape that is the awning. On trips like these I realize I do not live in France as much as that I live in Thurigny, St. Germain des Bois, or even the Moulin du Merle, while France is out there, closer by than any other nation, but a different story nevertheless. Am I really the enclavist that I would like to be?
Photographic memory, image memorization. In art school Gerrit Veenstra in my class claimed he painted a photographical realistic picture of the Dam Square Palace in Amsterdam by minutely counting and adding up all of its facade details that he managed to distinguish. The palace would be, let's assume, '34,176'. For him. YMMV. We didn't think of that at the time. But your memory, and imagination, totally depends of your perception of detail, to start with. Follows calculation, pattern, anticipation and some. With my memory for numbers I could stock quite some objects and events, if only I would care to keep on counting their details in form and color and other sensations, when I am too immersed in them to do so. All my events number 1: moi.
01, one number fits all. This one number with its limited lifespan, only energy to blow on infinite stories ('births, loves, deaths') enters Lyon, Lyon Part Dieu station. Wonder what got it that name. One hour to go with the convenience of a 220 power outlet and the inconvenience of no reservation, which turns every stop into a roulette. Travel light, so they say. I move my 01Book from seat 23 to seat 13.
mirror on the wall, who're the 1 if not all?
The stale tobacco express that carried me to Dijon did have these mirrored compartments which got me the multiple view of the one number, which illustrates this entry. Ever since 'Bruce's bathroom' I did an occasional mirror shot, never to pass my critical review. A propos find: 'train' 'mirror' 'shot'—what about that 1 junk who took a shot of heroin in the corner of his eye(!), using his mirrored reflection in the train window, at night, between Rotterdam and Dordrecht many many years ago, to focus where to direct the needle. Of that sight I have photographic memory.
Image abundance, lens saturation, infinite focus (Anselmo?).
July 10, from 08:46am
On lots of water I slowly re-emerge from last night's award ceremonies, which as things go leaves one wonder about preferences established, choices made, categories invented. The Arles Rencontres apparently craved an impulse after 32 years. This issue shows more diversity than previous ones, doesn't have a 'theme', introduces the awards and grows quantatively to 20 or so, some major like Josef Koudelka's, exhibitions.
The location for the awards night, the Roman arena, is well picked. In the partly nearly 2000 year old (75AD) oval, 600 are seated at tables for large screen presentations, selected from hundreds of portfolio's, books published, books to be published, projects to be supported, while wining and dining in the shimmering, photo-graphy escaping, ambience of the slowly darkening monument, which dissolves into its Latin past, if not for the soundtrack and other contemporary interventions to keep things here and now.
the way we screen
So Wednesday morning after, I roam Francine's appartment, again recognizing how comforting it is to live even if only for a couple of hours or days in somebody else's shell, taking another shower, flipping another magazine, listening to another tune, opening another fridge, closing another shutter to hide another sun. F. alas had to leave for Marseille yesterday afternoon like also left Claude Vèron, her other guest, for Avignon I believe. We are part of the huge flash crowd that hits the Provence's summer festivals, of which there are so many. Small cities like Arles (55k) have to temporarily raise the level of their convenience many times. They explode to expose.
Later, with Jurriaan, who's presence with the gallery, like in the upcoming Paris Photo fair this November from the 14th, is one of the reasons to come down, I am interviewed for Lyon RCF: Radio Chrétienne Française. My French is improving with every discussion. I know I should spend more time here and do some work to speed my abilities up even more. Well, we're advertizing.
random notes to self: Chen Zen, 'Résidence, Resonance, Résistance' in Tours, Centre de création contemporaine -10 November, T 02 47 66 50 00; 'Game over City' in Reims, FRAC Champagne -28 July, T 03 26 05 78 32; wind chime; chequered board; Mouvement 'revue indisciplinaire'; hereisnewyork; de Certeau; Houellebecq; Debray; trace effacing, 'blotting out'; re-read Levinas for spiritual guidance, and the other 1; ...
random links posted around town: http://www.photograph.fr.st; http://www.voiesoff.com; http://ville.invisible.free.fr
the way we screen
the problemsof 'image'
Whether made or found, constructed or scanned, composed or recorded, installed or laid out, isolated or copied, framed or posted, or all of the above in some mercurial media mix presence, all 'image' questions conclude in two major problems: the one of editing and the one of distributing, in infinite global production. What to post where, for who to see to what avail is the question—from none to post for none to see or learn ever, up to everything to be posted everywhere forever for all to access at any time, for all to know all. That is exactly the scope of choice that we are facing for cultural production today, in the Early Information Age. Each choice is 'image' content. The edit and distribution are the message.
near-none—one receptive eye all it needs
Our most disturbing images we receive when we are undisturbed by communication. They come from no direct source but from an incidental lucky 'pick', a moment of memory and experience. Such images are not 'ex nihilo' at all, but have an untraceable history, they occur in our dreams from an unknown desire, they occur in moments of forlorness, they occur when we actually imagine, for once. Such images will not be repeated but can be remembered, in ever different versions of an original appearance. These are the most daring, the least troubled by mediation, unconventional, true images—with that original image being a vision, a genuine visibility. Because of its undirectedness—since there is no sender, but a subject, a receiver who we can not name as such, because nothing was sent to, but simply arose in her or him—because of this unreasonable image lacking a destination, but to appear and disappear on one single site ever, at one moment, it's nobody's business, but the one.
All else is propaganda, poor pastime petty pastiche.
near-all—one productive screen all it gets
The more information we are exposed to, the more we (can only) hope to find direct content in a scene depicted, rather than in the depiction itself. Information of the image/object is replaced or taken over by information in the scene. A sentimental way of reading images is promoted here. Look at that...! Your selection of scenes from data is based on recognition of some striking situation/information, something you'd never had witnessed if not for the image that's taken from it. Certainly this goes for photography. And of course the photo-graphy of the image enhances a scene, heightening the contrast of this particularly picturesque with less dramatic events. You can not even try to look at this 'scene', without looking at the photo-graphy. It goes for any image. I'm not talking isolated images here, not the edited articulated isolated, but the spammed, industriously produced, networked endlessly flowing, in no particular direction, a product of 'information exchange'...
Then, the prime appeal, that which raises your attention, to awake you from checking endless pieces of data with little information (no news for you), is that scene, posted before you, suddenly standing out.
now playing
Robert Wyatt's The End of an Ear. Later: Skip Spence's Oar.
6 July 2002 minus 3 days
A short drive in the Maastricht vicinity takes us to Dom Hans van der Laan's Benedictine Abbey in Vaals and after the visit to this austere place and its Noons sung at 2pm by some 20 or so monks old and some younger more like our age and my realization that this is as much outside of anything as it gets and a reality solidly sung together—soon we're back at the Bonnefanten Museum the world to see the small P. Guston show: 'Demo', Damnit, Dunno, Dawnin'.
Guston, Philip, The Studio, 1969. Oil on canvas, 48 x 42 in. Collection Musa Guston
Philip Guston is another enchanting experience. Seeing the 'demos' awakens a (another?) painter in me: by far the best effect any art can have, being to challenge one to take up that glove, to join in artistry. Word has it he left 'abstract' painting for the pictorial, in order to 'tell stories' So what kind of story does a picture tell? 'Pitcha' introduces one into narrative construction, inviting to witness shapeshift with the artist. Unlike a series of pictures, or words—time-based illusion of infinity, just repetitive start and end, starts and ends stutter, loves in-between, unless that kind of once-upon-a-time-they-lived-happily-ever-after narrativity loop folklore, the Picture, the One picture, that damn trace, a stain, a blunt move, some succession of movements never to be repeated again and never preceded by the same succession of movements for sure, that material, dead, end product, an object we like to play with, accepting even settling with the infinite illusions of more births and more deaths and more stories or loves in-between, that catalyst of sorts, that bone to chew, particularly delusive, wrings the guts out of you.
Touch wood. Touch base. Touch whatever material or object, stories spring up. 'You can't be serious', fair enough. The studio is that enclave of the mind where man is free to hesitate. Guston:
What is seen and called a picture is what remains—an evidence. Even as one travels in painting towards a state of 'unfreedom' where only certain things can happen, unaccountably, the unknown must appear... The very matter of painting—its pigment and spaces—is so resistant to will, so disinclined to assert its plane and remain still. Painting seems like an impossibility, with only a sign now and then of its own light. Which must be because of the narrow passage from diagramming to that other state—a corporeality. In this sense, to paint is a possessing rather than a picturing.
5 July 2002 minus 5 days
Roemer in sleep after allergic shock thus a dose of Apis Mellifica, to counter the bee sting
30 June 2002
les vacances sont partis
R+r's friend Linde arrives with parents Joes and Marjolein at 8:30am, after a night drive. The boys have just left for their last day at school, so all are united an hour later. In La Pouge, we say goodbye to Aude, Roemer's teacher, who has to return to one more year of study, much to the children's, the parents' and her own regret. After a week of pick-nicks, fishing, singing and preparation of today's kermesse, all are facing a 9 week hiatus, before the rentrée in September. Mr. Genty, Rolf's teacher managed to put up the school's web site just before summer leave.
Other web related news comes from Michael Samyn and Auriea Harvey, both currently researching under the wings of the Jan van Eyck Academie design department, who for their '8' game development put up Tale of Tales, both to share the progress of its design and to offer a forum to game designers. So please spread that link in your peer groups, artists and game enthusiasts! Also we are looking for another €20k in sponsoring, before the end of the year. So please spread that link in your peer groups, investment enthusiasts!
Oh and BTW, R+r passed their levels. Both are doing quite well, thank you. Et merci. Si vous voudriez les passer un petit mot, ils sont à r+r@nqpaofu.com, pour le moment (lemoulindumerle.com is on domain hiatus, due to a credit card change that happens just-in-time for my netsol payments to expire. They're quick to get you off... I've never looked into other complaints about the Verisign service and what alternatives are around).
Later this sunny day we celebrate St. Jean belated. Lots of kir and bonfire with more merguez, shared with the Thurigny community. Tomorrow I leave for one last trip before summer vacation up to NL and back, G. joining me to the JvEyck for the first time, to enjoy a couple of days Maastricht, where Sales! have started. She also never visited the Academie, where I've been disappearing every fortnight, since December 2000. Catching up.
nqpaofu.com 2002 jouke kleerebezem Notes Quotes Provocations and Other Fair Use *1998
