The sublime

I declare an end to the sublime. It's a bourgeois and escapist concept. I meant it when I said that we should just get over it. It had its share. It is over. Especially in connection to religion and nature. It signifies nothing else but nostalgia. I don't want to spend any more time thinking about it. And how to embedd it/not in my practice. I will also not integrate it in my common use of language. Neither in English–That's sublime, dude!–nor in German–Oida, des is erhaben!–not even in an ironic way.

inverted fall mirage

an autumn heatwave is hitting los angeles. today it had 108 degrees fahrenheit–that is 42.2 in celsius, leute!–and it hasn't been this hot since 1877.

and governor schwarzenegger postponed an execution by 48 hours.
but I guess this was not due to the heat.

nachschlag, nachtrag, exercise

Schleis, 25. Juli, 2010

Ein Gesicht wie Samuel Beckett. Zwei Spazierstöcke, ein schwarzer Anzug. 'Pfiat eich.' Pfiat di.' Oder doch dunkles Blau? Eine Brille mit Goldrand, braun getönte Gläser, ein ebenfalls dunkler Anzug, eine Krawatte mit diagonal verlaufenden Streifen in gelb und dunkelbraun. 'Pfiat eich,' 'Pfiat di.' Der dunkelbraune Kleinbus fährt vor und hält vor der Infotafel, die leicht für eine Bushaltestelle gehalten werden könnte. Er hält am Dorfplatz, der keiner ist, sondern eine Straßenkreuzung gegenüber vom Gasthof. Der richtige Dorfplatz wird wohl weiter hinten im Dorf sein, bei der Kirche, gegenüber vom zweiten Gasthof, vom Kirchenwirt.

Achtung! Achtung! This is a transmission by the IAEI!

The Department for the Diversity of Desire was found in 2009 to bundle creative thoughts and actions. For those who are easily distracted by an ever increasing audi-visual landscape where hi is next to low and avant stuck behind garde and everything sampled and mixed and mashed together into something yet to be named. For those who cannot focus on one academic discipline or on one cultural phenomenon, who get excited by the pure thought of formulating a new theory, of connecting images and words and thoughts that haven't been related before. For those who never get to the point of formulating a consistent line of argumentation because there are thousands and thousands of plateaus and things to research and photograph and think on the way there. For those who are full of contradictions and inconsistencies but can live with them quite happily, who know everything a little bit but nothing completely but know whom to ask about it. Here is the Department for the Diversity of Desire. and it is for you.

p.s.: of course the department is for correct labeling (and it's ach so passend): A. Rodchenko, Lengiz Books On Every Subject, 1925.

Der Nachschlag

Bertolt Brecht

Meine Sätze spreche ich, bevor
I speak my sentences, before
Der Zuschauer sie hört; was er hört, wird
The viewer can hear them; what he hears, will be
Ein Vergangenes sein.
Something past.
Jedes Wort, das die Lippe verlässt
Every word falling from his lips
Beschreibe einen Bogen und fällt
Is going to describe a curve and then falls
Dann ins Ohr des Hörers, ich warte und höre
Into the listener's ear, I wait and listen
Wie es aufschlägt, ich weiss
How it strikes, I know
Wir empfinden nicht das nämliche und

We do not feel the particular

Wir empfinden nicht gleichzeitig.
We do not feel the same.


(aus: Gedichte 1941-1947)

reports from Vienna, # 5, 96.8 degrees fahrenheit

... is 36 degrees celsius, there were thunderstorms yesterday and today. still hot. and humid. and though it is not the first time that it was this hot in the city–actually I remember quite a few summers in the past 15 years that were equally hot–there is always a collective amnesia about it during the rest of the year. the same with the first snow in winter. or mosquitos. this year it also hit me as I was pondering air-conditioners and forgot about simple ideas: the fan and the fan.

awaiting the next thunderstorms that should bring crisper weather, I recall places and things that have helped through the Viennese heatwave: air-conditioned are: public buses–not the metro,–flower shops, some museums–not simple exhibition halls, unless they are underground, or artists' associations, little black boxes for displaying video art are extremely dangerous!!–ice-cream/gelato parlors, expensive restaurants, butcher shops. you can never expect shops and museums to be air-conditioned. my favorite thing right now is to open the fridge and stick my head in, I place my facial spritzes and my lotions in the fridge (old trick), I sit at the table (while I am typing, yes) with my feet in a bucket with cold water, I sleep with open windows and doors, public pools are nice, when they are not in the sun. yesterday two men, 21 and 55, died of a heart attack in the Moskow metro, it is equally hot there. the continental climate seems to be even harsher than the desert climate. we are so close to Russia. I cannot post anything more challenging than this and a cute slide show. the dog is alive. all the theoretic concepts blur into each other and in a delirious mirage about this city, its art world and its museum-directors.  I have to stick my head in the fridge again. there I find a kinder-bueno and a strawberry-banana smoothie. the storm is coming ...

reports from Vienna, # 4, Facades

simplicity, horizontal layers, very reduced ornamentation, subtle logos and typos (sometimes almost invisible as in the case of the bakery). one could call that snobbish–as the subtlety is sometimes not too inviting–, ascetic, distant. the Apollonian. modern. this is definitely not learned from Las Vegas, but this is the first district and somewhere else you get a different picture ...