in medium flow
(Oktober 5, 2024)
Week 40/2024:
SOLVITUR AMBULANDO.
Skill, art, labour, effort (192 walks). A remote controlled poop camera? Unexpected customs that emerge during a period of technological transition. “How much CO2 would we save if all extractive and exploitative business activities of billionaires were completely stopped?” Days are knirschy, walking is transgenerational. “I had an image file stored overseas inserted in place of the signature, which was actually a handwritten signature with my full name that I had had specially designed by a full-time graphic designer over a year ag40/2024: SOLVITUR AMBULANDO. Skill, art, labour, effort (192 walks). A remote controlled poop camera? Unexpected customs that emerge during a period of technological transition. “How much CO2 would we save if all extractive and exploitative business activities of billionaires were completely stopped?” Days are knirschy, walking is transgenerational. “I had an image file stored overseas inserted in place of the signature, which was actually a handwritten signature with my full name that I had had specially designed by a full-time graphic designer over a year ago.” I consider this a delightful alienation. “Je suis profondément joyeux lorsque j’imagine que je vais mourir à ce moment précis.” Social remembering (Barbara Misztal) There will be no translations. There’s always this particular scent, though. “My suffering is utterly, inherently, fundamentally, meaningless. It is not a cosmic punishment for anything. It is also not a challenge thrown before me to improve my character. It offers me no moral authority, and it does not morally degrade me in any way. It just is. I have no motivation to lean into it or to continue to suffer.” (Jonathan Sterne, Update and a Brief Detour into Existentialism, October 2, 2024, https://superbon.net/2024/10/02/update-and-a-brief-detour-into-existentialism/ ) Disappearance, destruction, dispossession (we formed a temporary community of meaning). I was deeply pleased by having the chance to opt out of a so-called national holiday. Textiles that brush against sensitive skins: Queer Silesia, sensory gentrification.
o.” I consider this a delightful alienation. “Je suis profondément joyeux lorsque j’imagine que je vais mourir à ce moment précis.” Social remembering (Barbara Misztal) There will be no translations. There’s always this particular scent, though. “My suffering is utterly, inherently, fundamentally, meaningless. It is not a cosmic punishment for anything. It is also not a challenge thrown before me to improve my character. It offers me no moral authority, and it does not morally degrade me in any way. It just is. I have no motivation to lean into it or to continue to suffer.” (Jonathan Sterne, Update and a Brief Detour into Existentialism, October 2, 2024, https://superbon.net/2024/10/02/update-and-a-brief-detour-into-existentialism/ ) Disappearance, destruction, dispossession (we formed a temporary community of meaning). I was deeply pleased by having the chance to opt out of a so-called national holiday. Textiles that brush against sensitive skins: Queer Silesia, sensory gentrification.
Week 39/2024:
DEN SIDSTE FUGA SLUTTER BRAT.
The sheer joy of creating all of the new chapter files for a book that I am starting to write today. “Really, I’m honestly just sad about my shoes.” We moved and grooved like a flock of birds around this edifice: one of the oldest structures of humanoid origin. “Früher begann der Tag mit einer Schusswunde.” AKADEMISKE FLAGELLANTERI? Archive material on display: a bewildering complex of borrowed motifs. “I had just dropped orange acid and was tripping pretty heavy.” A major overhaul of the entire website, including the system behind it. “The book which you are reading at the moment is a book on a nook, which is a book on a book, which is a book on a subject, which is a subject on a subject, which is a subject on a subject. Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, Baidu, Tencent, Tesla, Uber, Airbnb, Twitter, Snap, Alibaba, WeChat, Slack.” (i.e.: the music of my people) My shit was starting to connect. “J’ai perdu tout espoir depuis un peu plus de quarante ans.” The evening will be paid on the night. Gilli og Gobs. “Can’t do it. Can’t do it. Can’t do it good. Do it hard. Do it hard.” (fuck dat shit’up). Mann, ich bin da schon gewesen und ich fands nicht so toll.
Week 38/2024:
THE TERMS GOOD AND BAD HAVE NO PURCHASE HERE.
It’s getting hotter and hotter and the polar icecaps are melting: capital-efficient content creation opportunities. Tremors offering a delicate empiricism. “I like to dance when I party! I like to kiss everybody!” Fragments, traces, variations. Stasis & destabilization. “FUCK YOUR RULES.” I felt very well nourished, sensorially, affectively, and epistemically. “They are getting wiser and sexier.” The openings in failure and all of our other friends. Reinforcing contradictions because they are objective (their tinnitus was, apparently, located within the coffee machine). “Listening to incomprehensible yet intriguing utterances.” Last night I ate a sunflower. This is the final paragraph.
Week 37/2024:
KOREAN SNACKS.
A gentle drizzle sprinkles the canopy of leaves in the courtyard, steadily lowering the temperature outside. “People, product, planet?” – “Aha, sha-la.” – “So let’s talk about the fifth or sixth dimension, shall we?” – “Whatever drugs were scored with the leftover money…” Two young men are waiting at the traffic lights so that they can carry a small white table over there straight away. “This was more blissful than anything.” – “I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice. ” Holding a paper cup full of Doppio, I strolled down Josefstädter Straße, humming the soulful AI song “Betrayed by This Town.” “The science behind this isn’t really there.” – “Une conversation est possible quand beaucoup de choses sont oubliées.” – “Telepathie, ich sags Euch, Telepathie!” A man with a beer belly is happily filming two pigeons in the driveway to the backyard with his cell phone camera. “What happens when we create these psychospiritual entities?’ – “In other words, what are safe spaces for you? Where you can breathe out because they let you be? Where you can actually relax?” The policeman on duty in front of the synagogue orders two cups of ice cream in the midday heat, one full of chocolate ice cream, the other full of vanilla ice cream. “You, the pee, and the river.”- “Cute, but a bit tedious.” – “Are you just trying to provide an example of overinclusive thinking?” The laundry is washing, I’ve started the rye sourdough. “Une accumulation constante de boucles de rétroaction, de petits circuits d’interprétation et de décision qui s’assemblent en un vaste tissu.” -“You will hear from us in the next period between 18 to 75 years or seconds.” Champagne mood at the Psychosoma. „If this song goes number one, it‘ll be the first time since I think 2009, that a song that‘s number one has a key change.“ (Rick Beato on Sabrina Carpenter‘s Please Please Please) A tale of three cities (leaving those loops playing). Let these good photons rain down upon me.
Week 36/2024:
ROCKS, FIELDS, SEAS, AND FORESTS.
Contrast creates focus. „If you can‘t do it good, do it hard!“ (Lydia Lunch) Within the margin of error (the link is in the description). “There are also people out there who have been working on this.” De bobler syder og knager. Standing roll down: 17 minutes, 1,030 steps. “We deal with that as we get there.” PTERIDOPHILIA (Zheng Bo). They have 23,328 biological sexes. “Ce sont toutes des compositions qui viennent du fond du cœur.” If you can‘t do it good, do it hard.
Week 35/2024:
AUTONOMOUS UNITS.
It’s Ska-Saturday at the KGB today. Yesterday, on my way home, I received all the reviews for the book on Meme Music. Marzipan pistachio & Dulce de Raspberry. 25 songs, 31 minutes and 45 seconds. I was rather pleased. To see the lake, they cut a hole in the hedge. We’re on our way. THE DEMIURE DEMIURGE. The day’s first 24 correspondences are behind me. “l’m so depressed, I act like it’s my birthday, every day. […] I cry a lot, but I am so productive, it’s an art.” Fisher’s capitalist realism in Swift’s interpretation. Eels of Ska. Eels of Dub. Eels of Hyperdub. Their addenda tended to be a little more disturbing than the official version. MICROPLASTICS TRANSLOCATE. “Excelente profundidade e bom comprimento.” Self-optimization is not normal. In three areas, however, the reviewers noted potential for further development at the manuscript stage. A very active rye sourdough. CAJU.
Week 34/2024:
EPISTEMIC DISOBEDIENCE.
With the scent of sea water and Catalan spices on my skin, I asked myself: What sensibilities are stifled, suppressed, suffocated by a sense of urgency? Swans, Crime & The City Solution, Low, PJ Harvey: the whole sort of rhizomatic apparatus. “Doctors raise a patient from a deathlike state with electronic music.” This is not a puzzle – but a mosaic (as a social movement, as a practice, as a legal tool). COLLECTIVE EFFERVESCENCE. “Will organisations wash their hands?” Grüner Veltliner Urban, Catarratto Orange Wine, Grahams Natura Reserve Port: they felt towards openness. “The self can be a lot of things.” (Wark, Love and Money, Sex and Death, p. 6) . A moth is still sitting on my curtain rod. “All the events are real.” (Rosi Braidotti) First times do not exist. PSOAS MUSCLE: MUSGRUS FUSTUS (I’m gonna say it one more time: I’m not gonna stop!).
Week 31-33/2024:
LET’S WORK THE SURFACES.
I had slept like a piece of osmium. “Books were either chewing gum or unexplored wastelands.” (Singh, Club Ded, 2020, p. 157) Ventilator Nights. Warm water gushes over my feet and ankles. Neuromuscular Interactions (nunc stans). In a way, we are talking to each other on a telepathic level. BOOMBAYAH! Field recordings of Gamelan. To differentiate is a form of tenderness (pineapple, mint, cardamom, citrus fruits, lemon, pink pepper). “Babycakes, we’re ready to rumble!” Awesome cypresses, emergent pattern possibilities. In the age of depaving. 40 tunnels, 400 vertical meters. Muscle memory. A highly developed ability to phrase while maintaining group cohesion. VROOM VROOM. Ah-oh, ayy! That’s that me Espresso. “Let’s work the surfaces!” (Wark, Love and Money, Sex and Death, 101) “Most people have weird brains.”(Wark, Love and Money, Sex and Death, 147)
Week 30/2024:
THE GREAT BLUE OFFLINE.
They had turned into a Scandi-Gringo. Deep cleansing and repersonalization were taking place. Their frequency range was still between 36 and 16,625 Hertz. Not too bad for their age. “Attempts at price increases were unsuccessful due to customer resistance.” The sunlight feelt so real. It began with deep relaxation. “You’re reasonable.” Hardly anyone remembered what had happened 15 minutes ago. Pacific surf lapping against the shoreline. “Why did Foucault shave his head?” We laughed out loud while lying down. But yes, their numbers weren’t insanely great. “You have become the seascape itself.” Nursing a shattered rib. Life in times of the CrowdStrike Outage. “Annual reports on the world hop market.” Weaving mesh into the unimaginable. “You are pookie to me.” They missed a semitone. A white robot was moving on rails through a high rack of shelves. “Il n’y a pas de nouveauté.” – “You don’t need to: if you don’t want to.” This meshwork will be replaced. Understand and take action.
Week 29/2024:
HABABA GOOBY.
The day passes in a funk. “A gooey blanket of consumer desire and its online fulfilment” (Voegelin, Unperforming the Dream House, 2023, p. 23) Everything used to be everything (Douglas Kahn: “First law of Holgerdynamics.”) Egon Müller & Marianne Fischer Perform the Compositions of Egon Müller & Marianne Fischer. “Smarter, baby, smarter!” Evangelical protestants are handing out blocks of cocaine with the flag of Israel on it. Läderach & Laederach sing: “Sugar, sugar!”. Are key changes making a comeback? “A profusion of forms performing their capacities in a situation.” (Berlant & Stewart, The Hundreds, 2019, p. 109) Mobile phones, stage technology and gold. “These are images you should not masturbate to.” FAT CAPS. Once again, I lie down in the resonance chamber. “Smarter, baby, smarter!” So far, I had spent 19,725 days in the Orion Arm. “Hababa Gooby!” Prepare to be amazed. Hope and despair are pointless categories in terms of existence. “When in doubt, frolic.” We are now waiting for the first draft version of this chapter. The exit is soundless.
Week 28/2024:
WEEKENDS ON MARS.
For twelve consecutive months, the Earth’s temperature has reached or exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Atlantis is just outside of town. Their identity is fire: „It isn‘t all peach flambé in the navel chakra.“ (Nikhil Singh, Club Ded, 2020, p.101) A subtle yet powerful shift, inter-relating seemingly discontinuous events. Just marveling at this string of words. Nostalgia is a very dark feeling. “It’s the microplastics talking!” Their personas are created by pyrolysis. Again and again they fall into rooms, a pomegrante lined passage. Otiocracy or: a defeated decline and a bold proposal. Days of a slowed brain. “It’s just method shit to me.” Emphasis on hip and butt movements with each step. Never will a neutron star’s temperature go above 1.2 trillion kelvin.
Week 27/2024:
HYPOTHERMIC CURRENTS.
Squinting in the glare, a quiet show of defiance. Time flies like a hedgehog. They ususally refuse to answer. “Is it the schlageresque non-abrasiveness, the anti-provocation, and the intentionally flawless hypersmoothness on so many levels? That rarely goes down well with passionately contrarian critics who excel and build their identities on finding the most original takes on any musical phenomenon.” A sounding of waters, followed by plausible escape. Intestinal bacteria predict the match result. Fantastic electricity. “No, I’m just making it. No, I’m just making it. Okay. No, I’m just making it.” Husserl goes Berserk. A salami is being called back. You will receive a body. “Just invent problems so you can fix them.” Dub Techno throbs relieving and cooling. “Should we be happy not to experience too much of the impending future?” There is no better than here. “Vote for fascism, you get fascists.” – “No, I’m in the control group.” Yesterday morning my toothbrush was still in Warsaw, shortly afterwards in Pabianice and since yesterday evening it has been in Parzniew.
Week 26/2024:
URUGUAYAN STREET FOOD.
People did stuff. “Pick from this wide range of fascists in your region!” A pulley on the neighboring house sang a syncopated melody. 1,000 elephants a day. „i am principally interested in sound because i am interested in love“ (ameia camielle smith) AGFA Ferrum, BASF Ferro Super LH, TDK MA-XG Metal. The prospect of reduction. We’ve been eradicating the rhythm of language. “More than one song per second.” (Rick Beato) A garland of frangipani flowers. Born to frolic since we left the spa. You will forget all of this. “It is time to accept that it was not our parents or grandparents who lived under fascism – it is us and our children.” Whitelabel Error Page. They drift into idols. “As soon as I hear the word elite, I reach for my revolver.” A wall decoration of squatting scribes was found in the tomb of the court official.
Week 25/2024:
ROYAL EASE.
A muted screen spits out an aerial view of Seoul. A series of deep screams. “Technically, I only consume clowns.” Earth’s inner core slows and changes direction. Home of their souls. Interactive sound installations present themselves to me, wherever I go. „There is an abstract situation that goes into the concrete.” Most of the area is derelict. Walking past the sinks in the men’s room at a distance, I accidentally turned on all three faucets. “It’s pataphysical!” I had watched an eggplant rot. Awareness streams on chicken wings. „Why this obsession with public figures who seem to have just died?“ The water streamed in three voices. Music, spoken word, and nature sounds, a tree cricket trill. “Data confirmed perceptive hypothesis.” In the company of insects, stress and prosodic organisation. Grasshopper buzz. “Money is fake, societal structures are no natural order, and the sun is going to explode.” Meanwhile, certain encounters and discoveries, conversations and listening experiences. There is no file upload pending. I’m rinsing blood from my face. “It’s a brat summer!” The future has become the present. Erratically haphazard serendipity.
Week 24/2024:
THE TORQUE OF THINGS.
“Darling, they’re playing our song.” Life persists throughout moments. “Bumpin’ that! Bumpin’ that! Bumpin’ that!” 165 coconuts, 72 lemons, 31,199 cups of espresso doppio. “Norms are spongy” (Berlant & Stewart p. 114) Self-portrait as a Bösendorfer. “This essay raises interesting questions.” All life needs water. “Oh, is this your move? Is this how you do it?” The foregrounding music obscures what I am contemplating. “How does this artwork position itself in relation to issues of national interest? How does this artwork inscribe itself into my idiosyncratic sensibilities?” A kitchen is practiced universality. “Stonier. Much stonier!” These are the good days.
Week 23/2024:
BINDEVÆV OG FASCIER.
There are close to 760 billion different musical pieces. Dissonant chorality, diegetic exuberance, paranoid imagination. „Andromeda Marmelade?“- „It‘s everchanging!“ Laurie Anderson, Steve Martin, Frank Zappa, Martin Mull, Elvis Costello, Thelonius Monk, Clara Schumann, Miles Davis, George Carlin and several other people have been credited with concocting this extraordinarily popular and enigmatic simile. Gating the guitar to the hi-hat. Intersemioticity, ethical commitment, hybrid realism. “Bedroom design – for one billion children.” Doomscrolling as a musical performance. “Galvanized square steel and eco-friendly wood veneers.” Delay, bitcrush, rumklang og high-cut. Not to be used for any other purposes than: living (the groundwater is pressing from below). VERY SNACKABLE WAR PROPAGANDA. „Let’s brew tea, talk, and get to know each other!“
Week 22/2024:
FREEDOM. TRANSPARENCY. CRAFTSMANSHIP.
Nostalgia is self-delusion & a complete lie: The barbershopfication of the world. THE VIRGIL SUICIDES: “Pleasure on my mind.” This position has become increasingly important in recent years. “What influences have you been under?” (Berlant & Stewart, p. 58) Post-inebriated dizzyness. “Everyone should just leave everyone alone. How hard can it be!?” A discreet being, warm & rolling. “The older I get, the more all forms of religion seem to me, pretty much without exception, to be violent means of exerting power and control over as many people as possible – preferably in a sadistic and exploitative way.” SHELLAC DAYS.
Week 21/2024:
GETRÄNKE TABAK KOPIE.
Dear microorganisms: “I learned to write in thirty-minute episodes on my frail mother‘s dining room table with a three-year-old playing with old plastic toys underfoot.“ (Berlant & Stewart, The Hundreds, p. 10) Relevance Overdose Syndrome: One daguerrotype of his philistine grandparents. “Yoghurt in the Guacamole?” The climate catastrophe is a series of mobile phone videos that gets closer and closer – until you’re the one holding the phone. “So you gladly shared a war propaganda video? And yet – why should I?” There are some things we wanted to adjust. Humanitarian, ecological or otherwise. “Your saliva goes into the flute, and it builds these coatings.” (André 3000) They’re signalling a kind recognition. The dialectical relationship between mucus and tension. Let for evigt.
Week 20/2024:
EPISTEMIC DINNERS.
It‘s an interesting collage of things. Positionings and subjectivizations. „The opinionated personalities include: the historian, the linguist, the filmmaker, the journalist and author, the publicist, and the activist.“ Potentiality resonates in this scene. Shellac blasting loudly on loop. “He was your countryman and had something in common with you.” Circe took it to ethnographic writing. A.I. Ennui? Short answer: “Yes” with an “if”. Long answer: “no” with a “but”. The body returns to its ordinary buzz. GOD DROP.
Week 19/2024:
ARTISANAL INTELLIGENCE.
The place is strangely gracious and homey. A charge passes through the body. “Drake and Kendrick, just kiss already!” A light contact zone, a sensory dream of seamless encounter. Epistemologies of Leisure: Consider the possibilities and limitations of the method. “The very notion of intellectual property is insane.” (Steve Albini) This is social homeostasis. Lossless. “Please coordinate yourselves – thanks (it didn’t work, but it almost did)!” Embodied sensibility of an excitable person adrift. “I will be speaking about the text that I am developing these days right here, still in the state of fragments and collecting material.” Back home, showering with a Steve Albini playlist blaring & then indulging in this lovely, quirky, little documentary. “Let us chat if more questions or doubts arise?” Dancing with bodily organs.
Week 18/2024:
AN OLFACTORY JOURNEY.
The Taylor Swift playlist is playing at the pediatric dentist’s orthodontist. A.I. means ad interim or artificial insemination. Seven huge sharks and six large turtles. “It is crucial not to confuse the civilian population of a state with its mob regime.” Listening to the vinyl record of a future PhD researcher: Emerging into possibility. Donghua Jinlong makes the best industrial grade glycine. “An escalating exchange is sparked by a visceral encounter.” The Bulgogi apparatus. The skin on my body had been thoroughly soaked in almond oil. The feathered dinosaurs chatter away. “Through fantasies of annihilation, the performer experienced a deep sense of pleasure.” A possible call I was asked to distribute that could be of interest for some of you. Admiration as a craft: care work, body work, skills of desire. Finalement, c’est un coup de dé. Strolling and indulging in encounters of various kinds.
Week 17/2024:
AFTER EXTENSIVE HARVARDESE COMMENTARY.
Shallow Listening, Shallow Time. “Encore une fois, une querelle des anciens et des modernes – encore et encore…” I was deluged with tapes. Shallow Ecology, Shallow Structure. „If you wave any flag in time of war, you are waving the flag of bullshit propaganda.“ I am very happy to have joined the team of nurturing this dialogue at the intersection of developing and showcasing together with our partners (composed in GarageBand on an iPhone). “Ignorance breeds bold claims.” Shallow Learning. I continued to groove.
Week 16/2024:
MENNESKER SKER.
Then a year passed. Two years. Commendable, innovative, meticulous, intricate, notable, versatile. Noble gases like you and me, always bastardo: a complex mixture of pain and joy. Consumer sentiment is up, a snackable distortion. We never had a contract. Just a handshake. It was pataphysical. It didn’t matter. Religion is crowd control. Come eat with us. At one point they turned to me and said: we‘ll do this as long as we feel good.
Week 15/2024:
LIEBE ARBEIT WISSEN.
Embarking on a new chapter of their healing journey: to transform their lives in radical ways. „Suit yourself, darling.“ I remembered the last solar eclipse I had witnessed in Berlin on August 11, 1999. “Cake for Comrades!” One had to make a choice between moving up fast and burning out in five years? – Or taking one’s time and building it slowly so you have a chance to make it for the long haul? Nada es lo que parece. “Feeling very Pestalozzi.” What do you want to be when you grow down? “Time isn’t holding up, time isn’t after us.” I understand we don’t know each other yet. But there is a serious proposal I want to discuss with you. “The argument as narrative.” (Subhashree Bhattacharyya) Self-portrait as a scandalous brioche. “We kindly ask you to share the following announcement through your channels.” YES THIS IS A REAL EVENT. They argued about concepts and who is right or wrong. Their tone was one of existential finality. “You don’t say nothing.”
Week 14/2024:
ATTITUDE AND ANTENNAE.
“It’s a bullshit tech hype, paired with theft and environmental waste.” Bonification, ossification, silification. The new, strategically cleverly placed media product of the famous and wealthy artist, advertised worldwide with a lot of capital, found a sufficient number of buyers who were eager to buy it and repeatedly and eloquently expressed their desire to do so. They wrote: “It seems that anything other than uninformed, biased, angry, hateful crap is really hard to formulate about this ongoing societal, intergenerational and planetary conflict, isn’t it? In the end it’s class war.” A song based on the writings of Didier Eribon in the style of Sesame Street songs. They continued: “Frankly, I find it impossible to understand why selected examples of hateful sadism, sexualized violence, even the execution of human beings, and the desire to exterminate an entire people are justified in one case and condemned in the other.” In this position, we greeted our interviewer. If you get my drift? “Everybody is illegal.” We then wondered about the conspicuously laconic use of the term “pre-war period” by some of those who call themselves ‘leaders” (an antisocial term that completely ignores the realities of conviviality). “It is imperative that you move to a much, much more comfortable zone as soon as possible!.” So please indulge in your various idiosyncrasies. Mezcal Meditations.
Week 13/2024:
LIQUID BODY PERCUSSION.
Last night I cycled to the opera wearing a blue suit and a dark green, asymmetrical turtleneck sweater. A complex system of variables relating to the production of sound. It was so sunny and so hot that I wore sunglasses and applied sunscreen. One swan, two ducks. A normal day on planet earth. It’s what they are doing down there, right? The Reformation was nothing more than scrambled eggs with cheese in some proportion to the child remained, this has all but ceased in our time. The blackbird yodels, sparkles and charms. Less programmatically pompous proclamations and more laconic, committed practice. LIQUID BODY PERCUSSION. Now the seagulls are squawking. This integration enables intelligent, real-time support for users to improve their creativity, productivity and skills. Once again, this exhibition space, which I’d never visited before, proved to be a very pleasant place, freeing and nurturing. A tiny glint of something new began to emerge in my life. A few nights later I grilled a bison shank and drank a carafe full of sauerkraut juice. This was once revealed to me in a dream. All of anything ain’t gonna work.
Week 12/2024:
THE AESTHETICS OF MIDI.
The more it polarizes a debate in the general public, the less interest it can arouse in me. “You know the moon never shines without the sun.” About whom not much is publicly known. THE AESTHETICS OF MIDI. “Are Champagne Problems leading to Cocaine Decisions?” The point is that the various possible truths were conjoined from the very beginning. “Field recordings, synthesised bleeps, processed vocals, mechanised singing bowls, self-playing gongs, bird whistles, wind-up bugs, and bespoke vinyl.” Green color behind a bare tree. A campy miscommunication. “Take your time, give them time, stay open, sharpen your senses.” It’s a job that embraces contradictions. “We are constructions of personal substance, our own absolutely and highly personal body of laws.” The song takes on a drumbeat “I feel air from other planets.” Dequantised percussion and pitch. Because whatever it is, it doesn’t stop. “I’m a million years old.” I was killing some darlings again. “The affective bloom-space of an ever-processual materiality.”
Week 11/2024:
EXPONENTIAL LIPS.
After teaching the four-hour seminar, the soles of my feet and calves vibrate. It never ceases to amaze. “At the mercy of an alien force.” Retrospective and anticipatory. My interest in this media product also declined sharply – with every insistent, urgent decree to see this movie that came my way (autotheory, autofiction). EXPONENTIAL LIPS. Even more so as scathing reviews were published, increasingly angry and apparently equally exhausted by the constant agitation in the run-up to the Academy Awards. “Swirling whirlpools of ambient noise.” People sent me entire, expansive descriptions via messenger services (fictocriticism, critical fabulation). The Vagina is the Third Ear (theory fiction, sonic fiction). “My compliments for the swift and expert workshop organization!” Finally, we’re going to read a lot less movie star bullshit again. I almost threw up in my mouth every time. “A high level of non-reporting.” Any belief in a meritocracy is evidence of a significant lack of understanding. “Ad-libbed into existence.” In praise of the indiscernible.
Week 10/2024:
REPLACING ALL QUANTA WITH QUINTS.
Je me compose de plus en plus d’espresso, d’armagnac et de Chilli. Against all logic. Wrapped in a biomembrane, we entered the tropopause. NO FATE. The word gets out. The physical effects of being clean: an eminently hyperphysical organ of cognition. Settantasette milioni di dipinti. REPLACING ALL QUANTA WITH QUINTS. I just made some edits, structured it, and shortened it a bit. Adrenalin receding. No allergies, no phobias. Imaginez qu’il s’agit d’un espace de haute dimension où toutes les possibilités sont envisageables. GUESS WHAT? These are just some things I know for certain. “The clouds don’t make mistakes.” Animalische Pingeligkeit oder barbarischer Monumentalismus? Fanget i vores egen net.
Week 9/2024:
UDEN TVIVL.
“Everything with a spa is good!” UDEN TVIVL. The bass was huge and elastic. “Everyone is damaged.” Music for giraffes on the octobass. “We’ve all collectively given up hope for the future, and we’re living in spite of ourselves until the abyss takes us, aren’t we?” The weightlessness of nothing is soothing. There is just one steady state that is evolving, almost frictionless, very hard to notice, into another steady state. “Be patient.” Walking into a field of ecstasy. “Or do you already have other plans for that day, September 4th, 2640?” Every Kali is a good one (both of these options are always meant).
Week 8/2024:
FORBRÆNDNING OG PROFESSIONALISME.
It smells of psilocybin. ICI EN FRANCE. “May you have a reincarnation upon your wish.” Language is my love language. “Now, I wonder about my world view…” (I tried very hard to avoid having to endure just a single artist talk after any of the two dozens film screenings I attended). FORBRÆNDNING OG PROFESSIONALISME. “Surely you see this much more clearly than I ever would?” Two female joggers in breathable black were each holding an aluminum-coated shawarma in one hand and, gorging themselves so ravenously, gazed at the film star photography spectacle that was taking place in front of them under the canopy and on the red carpet in front of the Zoo Palast. 233 DEGREE CELSIUS. No interpretation needed. No catharsis required. So prolific! “As hot as 500 trillion suns.” I wish you a very good projection.
Week 7/2024:
QUARZITBLOCK.
37 trillion square light years. “Logic was this little stuffed animal I carried with me everywhere.” (George Clinton, Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You? A Memoir, 2014, p. 207) Jesus wearing an Adidas tracksuit is sitting in front of a plate of cevapcici. ANTI-DÉCLINISME. There is also a bottle of rakia on the table (vibrating bones and muscles). “I can’t take it seriously unless it’s at least a little silly.” Le charme persistant: qu’est-ce qui est inépuisable?
Week 6/2024:
ENTELECHY PLACEBO.
Seven menu courses, seven erratic boulders. “What exactly is your problem with consciousness?” Nel complesso, molto piacevole. “Ownership struck me as vaguely silly.” (George Clinton, Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You? A Memoir, 2014, p. 173) A Valhal of soulfully connected moments “through a science of sensitive knowing” (Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Theoretische Ästhetik, § 1, p. 3) ILLUSEUM CALIGULA. “Funkathon: a rambling, open conversation about the ideas circulating that would eventually produce an album.” (George Clinton, Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You? A Memoir, 2014, p. 178)
Week 5/2024:
LOB DER LANDSCHAFTSMALEREI.
Intrinsic pleasure is an often neglected – but nevertheless essential epistemological force within historical as well as contemporary methods of research. “Stretching out, kind of hanging loose, in a rubber band.” (Bootsy’s Rubber Band 1974, track 1) But to me it was just another mythology to draw on. Organs & hands. “And who are those dudes in the back seat of Calvin’s car?” Shit was always evolving (highly recommended). MARTIN BUBER ARENA. All authority is shamanic in nature. “Read the room!” PØLSEHORN (Noise Metal). Breathing & lying. “It never ceases to amaze.”
Week 4/2024:
DEFAULT MODE NETWORK.
A mouthful of Kimchi, feeding its bass through it. “It is so new that your imagination cannot deal with it.” (Michael Armitage). My epidermis is sensing microcontractions as well as interstitial zones of hightened corporeal sensibilities. “Whose doesn’t?” Giornata nazionale dell’abbraccio. „I Echoplexed everything back on itself four or five times.“ (George Clinton, Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You? A Memoir, 2014, p. 103f.) DEFAULT MODE NETWORK. They were popular at the time. “Put a wiggle in your stride!” Cognitive embodiment through responsive plasticity: intensified percepts, mutating postulates of reality. “Out on the horizon / Colors hypnotize and fade” (Jonny Kosmo, Figure it Out, track 12 on: Jonny Kosmo, Pastry, Dinosaur City Records 2021)
Week 3/2024:
PROXY TERRORISM.
Ihre Fälschungen unterscheiden sich in nichts vom Original. PROXY TERRORISM. They always brought along every class of freak. “Is productivity a good way to evaluate anything?” (Joanna Walsh, Girl Online, 2020, p. 58) The spectre of dissonant post-hardcore once again emerges. “The Psychology Behind Why You”. A state of stagnation is manifested as hectic activity. Man kan ikke sige mere om det nu. And then there was a sea change. “My vision of the future sharpened.” (George Clinton, Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You? A Memoir, 2014, p. 82) We were on the road pretty much all the time. “Dopo tutto, la vita è ricca e piena di molteplici eventi!” We were tripping like this. Good beyond good.
Week 2/2024:
BITCOINS FROM BUTHAN.
Sådan fungerer Modern Living. “Very juicy!” Mambo was our universal language. “Not the sound, but the listening is the piece” (Ablinger) It doesn’t sound like much, but it took off like a rocket. Larmens Kirke-Øde. “Very bouncy, I would dance to that!” Mine fodsåler er meget varme og kribler beroligende. ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MAJORITY: Avant, c’était plus difficile – maintenant, c’est plus facile. SOUL FIRE SOUL FIRE. Mandalas of Interpenetration.
Twenty-four Movies
(Berlin International Film Festival, February 16-25, 2024)
I had the opportunity to attend twenty-four screenings at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.
I did not write actual reviews this year.
After each screening I did however jot down at least one sentence to capture the film’s effect on me.
I left detours while speaking of monsters by Deniz Simsek, smiling happily and feeling reassured.
I left Grandmamauntsistercat by Zuza Banasinska, feeling refreshed and as if I had spent a whole day with it.
I left I Don’t Want to Be Just a Memory by Sarnt Utamachote with a deep feeling of love – and a crushing sense of doubt.
I left A Different Man having been sufficiently amused and only momentarily bored by it.
I left Reproduktion by Kathrin Peschke with a deeper understanding of women’s and mothers’ intergenerational struggles with the patriarchy.
I left Myanmar Anatomy by Prapat Jiwarangsan with a much greater awareness of the multi-directional struggles for emancipation taking place on this tiny planet.
I left On the Battlefield, unsurprisingly, deeply satisfied by the political power of recordings.
I left Mit einem Tiger schlafen by Anja Salomonowitz with a greater appreciation for the humor, existence, and visual extravagance of Maria Lassnig.
I left The Wrong Movie by Keren Cytter with an impression of vacuous liars and their clueless, boisterous pathetic ramblings.
I left Hako Otoko by Gakuryu Ishii in a good mood, deeply satisfied & with a wide grin on my face after the end.
I left Henry Fonda for President by Alexander Horwath with a return to my general factualist conviction about the futility and desolation, the meaninglessness and hopelessness of all existence, all actions and endeavors. It made me smile, very slightly. It felt comforting, like coming home, somehow.
I left Il Cassetto Segreto by Costanza Quatriglio feeling so well entertained, informed and enriched that I asked myself: is this the best movie I will see in the next few days?
I left Dying / Sterben by Matthias Glasner realizing that I didn’t believe any of the actors’ words or actions & that I’m not made to appreciate how these German melodramas milk a series of existential crises at the same time and still end up with a largely hollow, boring movie (second half was at least lowkey funny & showed at least some minimal sense of desire and interesting inner contradictions; when this movie won the so-called “Golden Lola” at the German Film Award two months later, I was not surprised…).
I left Gokogu no Neko by Kazuhiro Soda with a deep appreciation for calm and open and detailed observation as an entirely sufficient path to creation. No interpretation needed. No catharsis required.
I left Scorched Earth / Verbrannte Erde by Thomas Arslan with the, well, unsurprising realization that even a very well done, cleverly crafted crime story ultimately bores me.
I left Deine Brüder by Helene Hegemann with the even less surprising realization that also a very well done, cleverly crafted crime story ultimately bores me.
I left Republic by Jin Jiang with a sense of plasticity and a smile, a certain serendipitous joy that attracts and encourages chance encounters.
I left Shambhala by Min Bahadur Bham with a much better understanding of constellations and landscapes, color sequences and dialogue, and the role of a limited use of song and instrumental music in filmmaking. Will I appreciate the films of John Ford more now?
I left Sayyareye dozdide shodeye man by Farahnaz Sharifi with a similar feeling of desolation, meaninglessness and hopelessness as I had felt four days ago immediately after attending the screening of Henry Fonda for President.
I left Yo vi tres luces negras by Santiago Lozano Álvarez with a calm, relaxed appreciation of the reality of death.
I left Memorias de un cuerpo que arde by Antonella Sudasassi Furniss with more insight and sadness and anger about all the continual and ongoing crimes and the destruction of bodies, sensibilities and desires that is actually at the thanaticist and sadistic core of patriarchy.
I left Averroès & Rosa Parks by Nicolas Philibert with a sense of respect, but also with a clear fear of all those worlds in which so many, if not all, people on this planet are imprisoned, more or less – depending on how direct one can be in conversation and exchange with a handful or even more other people?
I left The Human Hibernation by Anna Cornudella Castro with a deeper appreciation for an aesthetics and an ontology that assumes: there is just one steady state that is evolving, almost frictionless, very hard to notice, into another steady state. I feel at home and seen in this ontology and aesthetics.
I left Redaktsiya by Roman Bondarchuk with a sense of respect for its sardonic yet playful view of the world and his homeland – in times of a brutal war of annihilation.
In The Year of 2023
(as always: in alphabetical order;
January 4, 2024)
Words Of The Year
Hilton Als
My Pinup / White Girls / The Women
Miles Davis & Quentin Thorpe
Autobiography / Prince
The Beautiful Ones / Sly Stone
Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)
Juliet Jacques
Trans: A Memoir
Deborah Levy
Things I Don‘t Want to Know / The Cost of Living / Real Estate
Elliot Page
Pageboy
Sounds Of The Year
Band of Clouds
This is Tomorrow
Thomas Bangalter
Mythologies
Brian Eno
Top Boy
PJ Harvey
I Inside the Old Year Dying
Johnny Kosmo
Pastry
Performances Of The Year
100 gecs
Mission Ballroom Denver, April 13, 2023
Mark Rebillet
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Indio, California, April 16, 2023
100 gecs
Boiler Room Los Angeles, March 25, 2023
Mouse on Mars
Silent Green Berlin, September 17, 2023
Alex Tillegreen
Nome Gallery Berlin, September 16, 2023
Thoughts Of The Year
Samantha Harvey
The Shapeless Unease
Christina Sharpe
In the Wake
Stefan Tanaka
History without Chronology
Salomé Voegelin
Uncurating Sound
McKenzie Wark
Raving