kagablog

kaganof writing on the wall at the muti gallery (photo guto bussab)

this photo appears in
living library by wiel arets
just published by prestel
www.prestel.com
copyright urecht univesity library info@library.uu.nl

ten monologues from the lives of the serial killers (photo mies rogmans)

Scumbag Super Everything
Ian Kerkhof dissected by Dee Rimbaud

I happily caught up with Ian, after he sent me a copy of his latest film which is a 25 minute reflection on the work and wisdom of California-based veteran performance artist Ron Athey. I knew Athey’s work from his harrowing autobiographical piece Four scenes of a Harsh Life one of which The Human Printing caused the battle between Senator Jesse Helms and the MEA, (who had sponsored him) because of the fact that Ron is HIV positive and he had cut a fellow performer on stage and there was a question of blood mixing and other shit as “blood-letting” is very much part of Ron’s act. I don’t want to banalise either the film or Ron’s performance here as I have reviewed both in more depth on page 47 of this issue. However, receiving the Athey video made me sit up and remember the cosmic nights I’d spent over the years watching Ian’s films. Even Ian himself, thinks I must be the only person on the planet to sit through The Mozart Bird twice.
In fact I loved the story and action for all its weirdness, destructiveness, depravity, morbid sexuality, crass dialogues, even if the acting sometimes needed to be turned up a notch or two, it was provocative and an interesting supra-real reflection on an Amsterdam brain-, heart- and genital-fucked relationship.

Ian was born in South Africa in March 1964. He read Political Science at the University of Natal, Durban and left the country as a conscientious objector at the age of nineteen. He received political asylum in the Netherlands in 1984 and worked at the Dutch anti-Apartheid Movement and the Committee on South African War Resistance until 1986. From 1986 to 1988 he was a programme maker for the Amsterdam pirate radio station 100. He enrolled in the Dutch Film and Television Academy in 1990 and within a short period he had written, directed and produced some ten short films. His first feature length production Kyodai Makes the Big Time was shot in 14 days during the summer vacation period after the first year at the academy.
Since then Ian has produced some great award-winning stuff. Using Super 8, 16mm, 35mm and video his work is always harrowing and infectious, depicting his own brand of celluloid sin. Predominantly, edgy, alternative / underground and often transgressive, it has none of the ritualised gore often associated with this genre of film-makers, preferring to seduce his audience by pressing social alarm bells, by using expose-style images and sound architecture that underpins the ugliest, psychotic nature of varying human conditions and situations at the end of the twentieth century. He often mixes documentary footage with the fictional sections in order to intensify the shock and authenticate the reality.

Two such feature films Nice to Meet you, Please Don’t Rape Me (1995) and Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers (1994) aptly demonstrate this style. The former is described as the world’s first rape musical. It deals with a morbid trinity, made up of a black man, an Afrikaner and an Englishman who make a descent into hell and meet up with the obsessional world of the film maker, who explores the ins and outs of a society still sick within itself with apartheid. South Africa is exposed in its ugliest, most shameful feature: female rape. This ubiquitous parable takes on all forms: political, sexual, verbal, moral, psychological. The musical theme for the title of the film is hummed incessantly throughout the film, only interrupted by the action and a torrent of obscenities. Paradoxically, the film is a hymn to love. Raping in order to die, forgiving in order to love, living in order to be born again. It is a harsh, jarring, caustic film about the absurdity of a society in which the only genuine victory today over apartheid is the fact that a black or white woman is raped every 83 seconds. The film is brutal, but at times disturbingly, satirically funny. Unusual musical form is used to juxtapose the themes and particularly the ostensibly separate worlds of politics and sexuality. The resulting hybrid is terrifying and unconventional.

The structure of Ten Monologues from the Lives of Serial killers is literally that of its title: ten monologues adapted from various fiction and documentary sources which combine to produce an unsettling work that does not pretend to analyse or understand the serial killers. The scripts were developed by Ian from original sources by Charles Manson, J.G. Ballard, Roberta Lannes and Henry Rollins.

The central theme of this film about serial killers is motivelessness. A film organised around an individual protagonist would have invariably led to specific psychological reasoning and our obsession with motivation. Ian deliberately avoided such conflicts, in order to dramatise the phenomenon of the serial killer in the context of an end-of-the-millennium syndrome. The serial killers are not just portrayed as sick individuals, but a reflection of the end of the Judea-Christian epoch. They are the last folk heroes in a rapidly vanishing teleology: the myth of purpose. Their motivelessness fascinates us. It mirrors the ever diminishing faith in the grand narratives of politics, religion and philosophy. By dislocating sound and image from their original context, the taken for granted assumptions that govern our experience of the real are undermined and subverted in order to bring the audience closer to the experience of rupture. The serial killers embody this rupture.

In addition to his feature films, Ian Kerkhof directs and produces numerous short films, including documentaries on artists, performers, personalities that are critical to contemporary cultural evolution. This has included work on Stelarc, Masami Akita (Merzbow, see article on the New Japanese Psychedelic in this issue), Scanner, Ginsburg and the techno scene, and he is just off to Germany to work with Blixa Bargeld of Nick Cave / Einsturzende Neubauten.

In a relatively short time Ian Kerkhof has made a significant contribution to contemporary Dutch cinematography, by showing a fearless disregard for the conventional, boring, even unsuccessful norms and adding a fresh dynamic and vision to the study of social depravation.

this article originally appeared in fringecore 2

The Mental Mask

or

Birth of the Many-One

by Ramon dos Santos

1 This is the age of Identities.
Of lifestyle, logos and intentions.
This is not the age of ideologies or a belief in something outside the Self.

1.1 In the past century Man has fought himself a path from the ideological to the conceptual.
And from the conceptual into the virtual.
Now, at the beginning of a new millennium, the only logical next step for man is to venture into the Mental.

2 As the universe expanded through time, so did man’s brain.
On scale, the human brain expanded with the speed of light.

2.1 During the last century, while the universe kept expanding at its steady pace, reality has exploded into multiple Big-Bangs of facts, images, recorded time and space.

2.2 The Big-Bang was not a moment, or the beginning of time. The Big-Bang is a continuous proces. It is time.

2.3 The phrase Big-Bang unwillingly gives it away: the universe is a highly explosive chemical symphony, heading for the Big-Silence.

3 With every picture taken, with every sound recorded, reality doubles.
For even if this picture is one of the smallest detail, the humblest grain of sand, we cannot think this grain free from its surroundings, and thus not disconnected from the reality it represents.
3.1 So with every picture taken of a reality of which already pictures have been taken, reality quadruples. This gigantic multiplication of realities has already long ago reached its perceptional limit. And so it became fashionable not to think.

3.2 The more we copy reality in art or thought, the less reliable she becomes.

3.3 Perception is a parasite of the senses.
As reality doubles, so does perception.

4 Perception defines who we are. Or who we think we are. Or who other people think we are. If perception doubles, so does our identity. We are no longer One. We have never been just One. “Being oneself” is either a technical, psychological and philosofical impossibility or just a plain lie.

5 On occasions, in history, it became fashionable to be smart.
To think and act accordingly. We now live in a time in which the fashion is to be stupid. To not think and act accordingly.

5.1 Swooshtika.

5.2 In the shadow of Nike’s proud and boisturous JUST DO IT! slogan, three other words, essential to this philosophy of action, are in hiding.
Those words are: don’t think comma.

6 A true philosopher, cannot be a person.

6.1 A true philosopher questions the manifestations of reality. And thus, a true philosopher does not think with his mind.
For his mind is full of fixed ideas that do not represent reality, but a mental mask blocking the true philosopher’s view and thoughts.

6.2 A true philosopher therefore, like a true artist, thinks with his eyes and genitals.

7 I can be anyone I choose to be. In fact I am many. I can say fart and kill and tender things on the side and see no conflict in their assembly.

7.1 The moment I became many-one, I went big time into the Now.

8 As morality is tightly connected to the notion of identity and perception, it changes as the latter two change. The fact that we are more than one identity suggests that we also have more than one morality. This cannot be. For a moral is always on its own. Therefore, once we recognize our other identities and let them grow, we have to abandon every notion of morality.
8.1 This is how we will learn to understand the universe. For there are no conflicts in the universe. There are no opposites, and no ‘forces’ or counterforces. There is no morality in a supernova.
The true universe is what is not. The vacuüm. The stuff we are, mainly, made of.
Only the tiniest percentage of the space we occupy with our bodies is not one hundred percent vacuüm.

8.2 Imagine two bottles. One is filled with wine. The other only carries the tiniest - actually invisible - drop of wine.
When the question is aked: “Which one of these two is a bottle of wine?” everyone will give the obvious and correct anwser.
Yet, when the same question concerns the so-called reality that surrounds us, we always choose for illusion.

8.3 In making art we learn to recognize the vacuüm as the main substance of reality.

8.4 This recognition leads to the inevitable conclusion that there has never been, nor ever will be, a Big-Bang. We were never on our marks, ready and set to go.

8.5 We were always Now and Many-one and Everywhere in the Nothingness of All.

9 Beauty is the gravity of all art. Beauty is the visual equivalent of silence, which is the vacuüm of being.

9.1 The centrepoint of all my compositions is silence, caged- and protected by a wall of sound.

10 You cannot think about writing and write at the same time. You cannot make music and think about making music at the same time. The writing is the thinking. The music is the thought.

10.1 All art is recorded thinking.

10.2 All art is pain, in search for its cause.

Incest  a collaborative poem by Dick Tuinder & Aryan Kaganof

My mother called me last night to make her apologies
Asking if I still intended to hit her
I said I would like to hit about 90 % of her real hard
But that I would not like to hurt the other 10%
That is attached to that evil 90%
And so I was in a terrible dilemma
(secretly thinking: This is a great line!
I should write it down! etc.
Well, you know how we poets are:
- vultures of reality.)

first published by admit two, jan 2006

ARYAN KAGANOF CURRICULUM VITAE
KAGANOF WAS BORN AGAIN IN RANDBURG ON 28 MARCH 2001.
HE FOUNDED THE ABRAXAS YOUNITY MOVEMENT IN HOUT BAY IN 1999.
HE STUDIED AT THE NETHERLANDS FILM AND TELEVISION ACADEMY,
MAJORING IN SCREENWRITING AND DIRECTION. KAGANOF WORKS IN
MANY MEDIA. HE DRIVES a 1966 valiant 200 automatic AND HE SHOOTS GLOCK.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
sanctuary (nov 2004) mutic gallery, johannesburg
LOGOFF LOGON LOGOS (JULY 2001) ASSOCIATION FOR VISUAL ARTS
(AVA), CAPE TOWN
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
post sms, (dec 2003) illuseum, amsterdam
SMS: SANCTUARY MENTAL SPACE (NOVEMBER 2003) CENTRAAL MUSEUM,
UTRECHT (WITH DICK TUINDER, NICOLA DEANE, PHILIPP VIRUS,
TOMOKO MUKAIYAMA, MILIJANA BABIC, ALEXANDRA KALLOS AND CATHERINE
HENEGAN)
87978.25 (OCTOBER 2003) BELL-ROBERTS GALLERY, CAPE TOWN (WITH
STAN ENGELBRECHT)
VIRGINS: THE STAGING OF THE ARTIST AS THE WORK ITSELF (AUGUST
2002) NSA GALLERY, DURBAN (WITH HELGE JANSSEN, NICOLA DEANE
AND CATHERINE HENEGAN)
MANUSCRIPT THREE (JULY 2001) GRAHAMSTOWN FESTIVAL, ART ON
PAPER, JOHANNESBURG (WITH GAIL IRIS NEKE, ALLAN KOLSKI HORWITZ
ETC)
GLOBAL GHETTO (JULY 2000) AKADEMIE DER KUNSTE, BERLIN (WITH PHILIPP
VIRUS, MIRON ZOWNIR, CHRIS CUNNINGHAM ETC)
RESIDENCIES
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS, SAN FRANCISCO, WATTIS ARTIST IN
RESIDENCE 1999
NSA GALLERY, DURBAN, ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 2002
FILM
WESTERN 4.33 (2002, 32MIN, NAMIBIA-SOUTH AFRICA-NETHERLANDS)
WINNER FIRST PRIZE 12TH AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL MILAN
WINNER FIRST PRIZE REUNION DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL
WESTERN 4.33 IS AN EXPERIMENTAL DOCUMENTARY WHICH DEALS WITH
THE GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMP ON SHARK ISLAND, NEAR LUDERITZ,
WHERE THOUSANDS OF INDIGENOUS HERERO PEOPLE WERE INCARCERATED
FROM 1905 TO 1908. THE JURY REPORT DESCRIBED THE FILM AS ‘A
REFLECTION RECORDED IN PHYSICAL PAIN AND IN THE MEMORY, WHERE
IMAGES AND SOUNDS, THE PHOTOGRAPHY AND EDITING, COMBINE TO
BUILD UP A GREAT SENSORIAL AND POLITICAL EXPERIENCE, FOR A NEW
WAY OF OBSERVING AND EXPERIENCING THE RELATIONSHIP WITH TIME
AND SPACE.’
VIDEO
A FUNERAL (2003, 45MIN, NED-SA)(MUSIC BY RAMON DOS SANTOS)
A RITUAL (2003, 14MIN, SA) (COLLABORATION WITH STANDISH LOWDER)
A SACRIFICE (2003, 11MIN, FRA) (COLLABORATION WITH RON ATHEY)
A VIRGIN (2003, 3MIN, SA)
(THESE FOUR VIDEOS TOGETHER COMPRISE THE TRYPTYCH THREE
VISIONS OF THE APOCALYPSE)
KAGANOF’S OTHER WORK IN VIDEO IS LESS NARRATIVELY DRIVEN AND
MORE CONCERNED WITH ISSUES OF FORM. THESE SHORT PIECES HAVE
BEEN CONCEIVED AS A MASSIVE INTER-CONNECTING MOSAIC AND EACH
PIECE IS PART OF A SET OF PARALLEL SERIES.
SERIES ONE: THE SNUFF COLLECTION
IN ORDER TO BE REBORN KAGANOF NEEDED TO DIE. HE KILLED HIMSELF
REPEATEDLY IN A SERIES OF RUTHLESS AND EXCORIATING JOURNEYS
INTO THE UNDERWORLD OF THE PSYCHE. THESE ARE THE SICKEST FILMS
EVER MADE. THEY TELL THE UNFLINCHING TRUTH ABOUT OUR CULTURE
OF GARBAGE ADDICTION.
WHAT IS METAPHYSICS? (2001, 3MIN, SOUTH AFRICA)
IT’S THE CHILDREN (2001, 5MIN, SOUTH AFRICA)
THE CHILDREN: INCEST (2001, 3MIN, SOUTH AFRICA)
THE CHILDREN: SNUFF (2001, 3MIN, JAPAN)
THE MAN WHO MEDIATED HIMSELF TO A CLIMAX (2001, 3MIN, S. AFRICA)
MERZBOW BEYOND SNUFF (2001, 25MIN, JAPAN)
KAGANOF AND FEMINISM (2001, 7MIN, SOUTH AFRICA)
MEDITATION ON VIOLENCE (2001, 4MIN, S. AFRICA-NETHERLANDS)
MEDIATION ON TORTURE (2002, 6MIN40SEC, SOUTH AFRICA)
KAGANOF DISEASED (2002, 3MIN40SEC, NED-SA)
SERIES TWO: VIRGINS
AFTER HIS DEATH AND MOURNING PERIOD ‘IN HIS ASHES,’ KAGANOF
WAS REBORN A VIRGIN. HIS VIRGINITY INVOLVES A CONSTANT STRUGGLE
WITH MADNESS AND THE HORDES OF VAMPIRE NYMPHOS WHO DESIRE
HIS SPERM AND BLOOD. KAGANOF’S ENCOUNTERS WITH VIRGINS OCCASSIONALLY
RESULT IN A GEM OF FILMED INTIMACY THAT WOULD MAKE
DAVID HAMILTON BLUSH.
HOTEL AVA (2001, 4MIN, GREECE) (WITH RAMON DOS SANTOS)
NICOLA’S FIRST ORGASM (2002, 5MIN33SEC, SOUTH AFRICA)(NOMINATED
FOR THE BRETT KEBBLE ART AWARD, 2003)
PRIMAL SCENE (2002, 4MIN40SEC, SOUTH AFRICA)
MARIE MASTURBATES (SLOWLY) (2002, 4MIN20SEC, NED-SA)
MARIE MASTURBATES (VERY FAST) (2002, 1MIN38SEC, NED-SA)
MENKE DANCES WITH THE DEVIL (2002, 5MIN20SEC, NED-SA)
VALERIE ON FIRE (2002, 4MIN10SEC, NED-SA)
BERRY (2002, 3MIN33SEC, SOUTH AFRICA)
GABRIELA TAKES HER TOP OFF (TWICE) (2002, 3MIN33SEC, NED-SA)
PORTRAITS OF A MIDDLE-EASTERN JEWISH ORPHAN GIRL (2003,
3MIN,SA)
SERIES THREE: THE VELVET COLLECTION
THE MUSIC OF THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND THE FACTORY OF ANDY
WARHOL HAVE BEEN A CONSTANT SOURCE OF INSPIRATION AND IN THIS
COLLECTION KAGANOF PAYS HOMAGE TO HIS SOURCES.
VENUS IN FURS (2001, 7MIN, NED-SOUTH AFRICA)
PALE BLUE EYES (2002, 6MIN33SEC, NED-SA)
EUROPEAN SON (2003, 5MIN30SEX, SA) (COLLABORATION WITH KENDALL
GEERS)
HEROIN (2003, 8MIN, SA)
A REASON (2003, 5MIN, SA) (WITH NICOLA DEANE)
SERIES FOUR: THE PARAMETRIC FORMALIST COMPOSITIONS
PARAMETRIC FORMALISM IS THE METHOD OF FILM-MAKING WHICH IS ENTIRELY
CONCERNED WITH EXPLORING ITS OWN MEDIUM-SPECIFIC PROPERTIES.
THESE COMPOSITIONS ARE REMINISCENT OF THE MATERIALIST AND
STRUCTURALIST FILM MOVEMENTS OF THE SEVENTIES BUT KAGANOF PREFERS
TO CALL THEM ‘ONTOLOGICAL CINEMA’
NUMBER ONE (2001-2002, 12MIN42SEC, SOUTH AFRICA)
NUMBER TWO (2002, 1MIN40SEC, SOUTH AFRICA)
NUMBER THREE: BAUDELAIRE IN HEAVEN (2002, 16MIN33SEC, NED-SA)
NUMBER FOUR: ON THE SIMULTANEOUS PARTICLE AND WAVE NATURE
OF LIGHT (2002, 6MIN33SEC, NED-SA)
SERIES FIVE: THE SUPREMATIST COMPOSITIONS
THESE COMPOSITIONS ARE CONCERNED WITH THE NATURE OF DEITY AND
ARE KAGANOF’S OWN PERSONAL FAVOURITES OF HIS VOLUMINOUS
WORK. CLEARLY INSPIRED BY THE WORK OF KANDINSKY AND MALEVICH.
NUMBER ONE: ON GOING OUT THE BODY (2002, 7MIN33SEC, NED-SA)
NUMBER TWO: THE DIVINITY IS EVERYWHERE AND NOWHERE (2002,
3MIN33SEC, SA)
NUMBER THREE: ON THE RELATION OF INDIVIDUAL SOULS TO THE
YOUNIVERSAL SOUL (2002, 12MIN47SEC, NED-SA)
NUMBER FOUR: ON THE RETURN OF BEINGS TO THE FIRST (2002,
7MIN33SEC, NED-SA)
NUMBER FIVE: TIME CONSIDERED AS A HELIX OF SEMI-PRECIOUS STONES
(2002, 21MIN, SOUTH AFRICA)
NUMBER SEVEN: THE ONE POSSIBLE BASIS FOR A DEMONSTRATION
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD (2003, 7MIN30SEC, NED-SOUTH AFRICA)
SERIES SIX: THE REMIX SESSIONS
KAGANOF WAS CO-FOUNDER, WITH FRANK SCHEFFER, OF THE SONIC
FRAGMENTS AND SONIC GENETICS DIGITAL RE-MIX POSSE, WHO REVITALISED
THE EXPERIMENTAL AND AVANT-GARDE FILM SCENE IN 2000 AND
2001. THEIR MANIFESTO, ‘THE DIGITAL FUTURE IS NOW’ SET THE TONE
FOR ALL DIGITAL ART AND TECHNOHYBRIDIZATION MOVEMENTS IN THE
NEW MILLENIUM. SCREENED AT MORE THAN 65 FESTIVALS AND SYMPOSIA
ACROSS THE GLOBE, THE REMIX SESSIONS HAVE BECOME SOMETHING
OF A CROSS FOR KAGANOF TO BEAR AS HE IS CONTINUALLY BEING
ASKED TO REPLICATE THEIR SUCCESS AND WORK AS A ‘VEEJAY’ AT SOCALLED
‘HOUSE PARTIES’ WHERE THE TEENAGERS LISTEN TO AWFUL
DOOF DOOF MUSIC AND TAKE HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS MIXED WITH
BAKING POWDER
NUMBER ONE: NOSTALGIA FOR THE FUTURE (2000, 24MIN, NETHERLANDS)
NUMBER TWO: THE SEVEN LAST WORDS OF JESUS CHRIST (2001,
7MIN, NETHERLANDS)
NUMBER THREE: ‘MOMMY, WHAT IS METASONICS?’ (2002, 6MIN04SEC,
SOUTH AFRICA)
SERIES SEVEN: THE ETHNOGRAPHIC FORGERY SERIES
THIS SERIES IS QUITE UNLIKE ANYTHING ELSE KAGANOF HAS EVER DONE
AS THERE IS A NOTABLE LACK OF NUDITY AND NO FOREGROUNDING OF
FORMAL DEVICES TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE NARRATIVE.
NUMBER ONE: CASBAH AND BACK (2002, 7MIN33SEC, SOUTH AFRICA)
(WITH NICOLA DEANE)
NUMBER TWO: IN BROOKLYN (2002, 15MIN33SEC, USA)
NUMBER THREE: ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT (2003, 5MIN, SOUTH AFRICA)
NUMBER FOUR: SHARP SHARP! (2003, 26MIN, SOUTH AFRICA)
NUMBER FIVE: BANTU CONTINUA UHURU NIHILISMUS (2003, 25MIN,
SA) (MUSIC BY RAMON DOS SANTOS)
NUMBER SIX: A FIRE DANCE ECSTACY (2003, 5MIN,SA) (WITH LEFIFI
TLADI)
NUMBER SEVEN: I AM AN AFRICAN (2003, 4MIN, SA) (WITH MOEKETSI
KOENA)
SERIES EIGHT: DOCUMENTS OF THE HISTORICAL AVANT GARDE
IN THE YEARS LEADING UP TO HIS REBIRTH KAGANOF SPECIALISED IN
INTIMATE AND REVEALING PORTRAITS ABOUT THE LUMINARIES OF THE
UNDERGROUND AND AVANT GARDE PERFORMANCE WORLD.
NUMBER ONE: STELARC’S TOKYO PERFORMANCE, 1997 (16MIN, JAPAN)
NUMBER TWO: MATTHEW BARNEY AT THE BOOYMANS VAN BEUNINGEN
MUSEUM, ROTTERDAM, 1995 (24MIN, NETHERLANDS)
NUMBER THREE: RON ATHEY’S FREAKZONE PERFORMANCE, 1997
(24MIN, FRANCE)
NUMBER FOUR: RON ATHEY’S PARIS PERFORMANCE, 1998 (14MIN, FRA )
NUMBER FIVE: ACEPHALE’S FIRST RECORDING 5/2/1974 (14MIN, USA)
NUMBER SIX: KENDALL GEERS’ PRODIGAL SON OPENING, 2003 (7MIN, SA)
NUMBER SEVEN: NICOLA DEANE’S HOME ECONOMICS PERFORMANCE,
PARIS 2003 (9MIN, FRA)
SERIES NINE: THE ABRAXAS YOUNITY MOVEMENT SERIES
KAGANOF’S FINAL WORKS BEFORE HE DIED AGAIN OF MYSTERIOUS CAUSES.
ABRAXAS OPUS ONE (6MIN, SA)
ABRAXAS OPUS TWO (5MIN, SA)
ABRAXAS OPUS THREE (3MIN, SA) (WITH PHILIP VIRUSS)
NOVELS
KWELA BOOKS CONSIDERED KAGANOF’S DEBUT NOVEL ‘TOO SHOCKING’
TO PUBLISH IN SOUTH AFRICA.
HECTISCH (2001, PUBLISHED BY PODIUM, NETHERLANDS)
HECTIC! (2002, PUBLISHED BY PINE SLOPES PUBLICATIONS, SOUTH
AFRICA)
JAMES JOYCE USELESSLY (2003, PINE SLOPES PUBLICATIONS)
CITIZEN KOHEN (2004, PINE SLOPES PUBLICATIONS)
CORTADO (2005, PINE SLOPES PUBLICATIONS)
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
SUGAR MAN & OTHER BITTER STORIES (2002, PUBLISHED BY PINE SLOPES
PUBLICATIONS, SOUTH AFRICA)
NOWHERE (2003, PINE SLOPES PUBLICATIONS)
SEX AND DEATH IN AMERICA (2003, PINE SLOPES PUBLICATIONS)
POISON (2004, PINE SLOPES PUBLICATIONS)
SHORT STORY
HAPPY SUSHI (2002, PUBLISHED IN AVENUE, NETHERLANDS)
A FILM INDUSTRY MEETING (2002, PUBLISHED BY THE LITERATE GYMNAST)
JIHAD (2002, PUBLISHED BY THE LITERATE GYMNAST)
PARTY AT WESTERN (2002, PUBLISHED BY THE LITERATE GYMNAST)
THE DRIVING LESSON (2002, PUBLISHED BY DIGITAL HAMMER.COM)
KAGANOF VS. KWAST (2003, PUBLISHED BY PASSIONATE, NETHERLANDS)
THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE ADVENTURES OF MR. K IN SAN FRANCISCO
(2003, PUBLISHED BY SOMA LITERARY REVIEW, USA)
JOBURG CONVERSATIONS (2003, PUBLISHED BY MUSE APPRENTICE
GUILD)
POETRY COLLECTIONS
DRIVE-THRU FUNERAL (2003, PUBLISHED BY PINE SLOPES PUBLICATIONS)
ABANDONMENT BOULEVARD (2003, PINE SLOPES PUBLICATIONS)
TOMBSTONE DUES (2004, PINE SLOPES PUBLICATIONS)
POETRY
CHOOSE TO BE USED (PUBLISHED IN WAX ET JARDINS, AMSTERDAM,
18/10/99)
THIS POEM WAS CONSTRUCTED DURING AN ACÉPHALE PERFORMANCE.
THE FINAL PUBLISHED VERSION WAS A RE-MIX OF AN AUTOMATIC WRITING
SESSION BETWEEN KAGANOF AND SIR DJEFF BABCOCK. THE BOOK IT
WAS PUBLISHED IN WAS AN ART PROJECT BY THE SPANISH ARTIST ALICIA
FRAMIS.
TOMBSTONE DUES (HOWLING DOG PRESS, 2003)
TENDERLOIN PASSAGE (SOMA LITERARY REVIEW, 2003)
INTERVIEWS
ARTHUR MAFOKATE INTERVIEWED ABOUT HIS SONG KAFFIR (PUBLISHED
ON WWW.DONGA.CO.ZA)
AUGUST HIGHLAND INTERVIEWED ABOUT HIS HYPER-LITERARY FICTION
(PUBLISHED ON WWW.DONGA.CO.ZA)
CD SOUND RECORDINGS
VIRGINS - MBEKI’S WARM JETS (CD SINGLE, 2001)
VIRGINS - THEFT (CD ALBUM, 2001)
VIRGINS - MONUMENTAL OLFACTORY WINDBREAK (CD ALBUM, 2002)
CD-ROM
KAGANOF COLLABORATED WITH GRAPHIC DESIGNER, TG ZEN ON THIS
DIGITAL EXHIBITION OF HIS LOGOFF LOGON LOGOS PAINTINGS.
THE WRITING’S ON THE WALL (JULY 2001, SOUTH AFRICA)
PERFORMANCE
DESPITE THE CLUB FEET, KAGANOF HAS NEVER BEEN SHY TO GIVE IT A
GO IN FRONT OF A CROWD. IN DECEMBER 1996 HE CO-FOUNDED THE
HEADLESS ART CULT ‘ACÉPHALE’ WITH SIR DJEFF BABCOCK. INSPIRED BY
GEORGES BATAILLE’S SECRET SOCIETY FORMED TO DESTROY FASCISM
WITH ART, KAGANOF AND BABCOCK PLANNED TO DESTROY ART WITH FASCISM.
THEIR FIRST PERFORMANCE IN AMSTERDAM’S ARTI ET AMICITAE
GALLERY GLEANED THEM AN INSTANT FOLLOWING OF SEMI-NEUROTIC
GIRLS WITH BOYFRIEND PROBLEMS. IT WAS ALL THEY HAD EVER DREAMED
ABOUT. LATER ON THE HEADLESS CULT EXTENDED ITS MEMBERSHIP
TO INCLUDE A SHIFTING ROSTER OF DYSFUNCTIONAL SO-CALLED
‘ARTISTS’ WHO VERY OFTEN CONTRIBUTED LITTLE MORE THAN HEADACHES
TO THE UNIT. DESPITE PLAYING SUCH PRESTIGIOUS EVENTS AS THE
HOLLAND FESTIVAL THERE WAS LITTLE MONEY TO BE MADE IN PERFORMANCE
ART AND SO KAGANOF ONCE AGAIN TURNED TO WHITE-COLLAR
CRIME AND BLACKMAIL IN ORDER TO SUPPORT HIS EXTRAVAGANT LIFESTYLE.
ACEPHALE, ILLUSEUM GALLERY, AMSTERDAM, FEB 2002 TRIO WITH SIRDJEFF
BABCOCK AND VJOLBJORG
VIRGINS, PURPLE TURTLE, CAPE TOWN, JULY 2001 DUET WITH STEVE
DRAKE.
KAGANOF CO-FOUNDED THE INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL COLLECTIVE ‘SONIC
GENETICS’ WITH DUTCH DOCUMENTARY MAKER FRANK SCHEFFER. THE
OUTFIT WAS A CYNICAL ATTEMPT TO CASH IN ON THE UNDERGROUND
REPUTATION OF AVANT-GARDE NOISE-MEISTER MERZBOW. HOWEVER THE
COST OF FLYING THE MEMBERS OUT FROM DIFFERENT CONTINENTS IN
ORDER TO PERFORM TOGETHER MEANT THAT THERE WAS LITTLE MONEY
TO BE SKIMMED OFF THE TOP OF THIS SHORT-LIVED SO-CALLED ‘PERFORMANCE
ART COLLECTIVE’ AND KAGANOF SOON LOST INTEREST AND
RETURNED TO SOUTH AFRICA IN ORDER TO FOCUS HIS ATTENTION ON
HIS MAJOR PASSION, TEENAGE GIRLS. IT WAS HIS BACK TO BASICS
APPROACH TO ART IN THE NEW MILLENIUM THAT BROUGHT HIM TO WORK
WITH THE TAX EXILES BUD MANARA AND TERRENCE OBARA, WHO WERE
BASED IN CAPE TOWN AFTER HAVING ACQUIRED SOUTH AFRICAN PASSPORTS
VERY QUICKLY THANKS TO THEIR CONNECTIONS IN THE SO-CALLED
‘PARLIAMENT’ OF THAT CITY. UNDER THE GUISE OF ‘VIRGINS’ THESE
HARDENED CRIMINALS HAVE PUT THEIR MARK ON THE FUTURE OF PERFORMANCE
ART IN THE NEW SOUTH AFRICA.
SONIC GENETICS, PA RA D I S O, AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND FESTIVAL, JUN 2001
QUINTET WITH MERZBOW, TOMOKO MUKAIYAMA, PHILIPP VIRUS AND
FRANK SCHEFFER
SONIC GENETICS, NEW YORK UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL, MAR 2001
QUINTET WITH KAAP, FRANK SCHEFFER, PHILIPP VIRUS AND DICK TUINDER
SONIC GENETICS, ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, JAN 2001
QUINTET WITH MERZBOW, TOMOKO MUKAIYAMA, PHILIPP VIRUS AND
FRANK SCHEFFER
ACEPHALE, DE BALIE, AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND FESTIVAL, JUN 2000
SEPTET WITH SIRDJEFF BABCOCK, VJOLBJORG BROCH, SANDY PETERSON,
MALTHE RADHAUS, MERZEDES STURM-LIE AND JADRIN STURM. LIE:
THE APEX OF ACEPHALE’S SOCIAL CRITIQUE. ADORNOESQUE THESIS ON
DUTCH COLLABORATION WITH THE NAZIS DURING WW2
ACEPHALE, ESCHLORAQUE, BERLIN, GERMANY, APRIL 2000 TRIO WITH
SIRDJEFF BABCOCK AND MALTHE RUDHART. IN DER HOLLE DER LIBERTINS.
CRASS EXPLOITATION OF DE SADE ANOPHELORASTIA
ACEPHALE, JULIETTES LITERATURSALON, BERLIN, GERMANY, MARCH
2000 QUARTET WITH BLIXA BARGELD, SIRDJEFF BABCOCK AND MALTHE
RUDHART.THE JUDAS KISS.A ROMAN SHOWER FOR A BUCKET OF SNAKES
WITH BLIXA BARGELD.
ACEPHALE, CBK MODERN ART MUSEUM, DORDRECHT, NETHERLANDS,
SEP 1999 QUARTET WITH SIRDJEFF BABCOCK, VJOLBJORG BROCH AND
SANDY PETERSON. JE SUIS MOI-MEME LA GUERRE. CO-OPERATIVE PERFORMANCE
AND INSTALLATION WITH ALICIA FRAMIS.
ACEPHALE, KOKOPELLI GALLERY, AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS, FEB 1999
QUARTET WITH SIRDJEFF BABCOCK, VJOLBJORG BROCH AND SANDY
PETERSON. LIVE SNUFF .TWILIGHT IMMOLATION CEREMONY FOR MAMMON.
ACEPHALE VS. MERZBOW, PARADISO, AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS, NOV
1998 SONIC ACTS. QUINTET WITH SIRDJEFF BABCOCK, MASAMI AKITA,
REIKO AND BARA.
THE 33 HOLY BOOKS OF THE ABRAXAS YOUNITY MOVEMENT
A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR (1999)
THE BALLROOM POET: HIS NIGHT OF LUNACY AND EXCESSIVE BRIGHTNESS
THE BALLROOM POET MEETS THE ANGEL OF ANTI-ANXIETY
BALLROOM POET IN THE CITY OF SIRENS
THE MAN WITHOUT NAUSEA
PHAEDRUS
ECCLESIASTES
FREESTYLE INNA JOBURG
THE REBEL
FROM SCRATCH
APHORISIBLES FOR CIGAR SMOKERS
KAPHORISIBLES
THE UNTITLED BOOK
SHABONDAMA ELEGY
CATHOLIC HEART
MARTIN HEIDEGGER’S WHAT IS METAPHYSICS?
THE DALAI LAMA
THE SONG OF SOLOMON
THE OXYRHYNCHUS SAYINGS OF KAGANOF
NINE ARCANA SYMBOLS
RED DRAGON AUGURIES
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ARYAN KAGANOF
UNTITLED BOOK OF BACKING PAPER
…IN SHORT
HOTEL BIJOU
THE CONCRETE CHANGES
ICH, JESUS JUDENSOHN
NEVER SAY NO TO DRUGS
41 DES MOINES, NEW YORK
THE ARYAN KAGANOF MANIFESTO
GLOSSATORIA, DIGESTA AND CODEX OF THE ARYAN KAGANOF
LETTERA RARISSIMA; HIS FOURTH AND FINAL VOYAGE
THE AUTHOR

Mick Raubenheimer interviews Halim El-Dabh:

*It seems to me that you experience music, and
music-making, on a spiritual level.. is this
accurate? What does music mean to you?

Yes, my music expressions are spiritual. I feel like
I’m connected to the universe when I compose. Music,
to me, is like self-realization. It gives me a
self-awareness, a way to know myself in a deeper
sense. It is a form of self-discovery, and keeps me
in touch with the various pulses and rhythms that
people experience in daily life.

*Your and Pops Mohammed’s performance on Friday
evening was very mutually sympathetic – had you
performed together previously?

No, we did not. We met for the first time on the same
day as the performance. We did meet briefly to
rehearse. There was an immediate connection in the
sense that I felt that I had known him before.
Working with him was so normal and natural, as though
we’ve always performed together, especially when he
asked me, in the middle of his own solo performance,
to come to the stage and read a poem and sing with
him. I was very impressed by his incredible diversity
in performing on a wide array of traditional African
instruments. I was also impressed by his dedication
to preserve African musical instruments as part of the
creative scene of contemporary music.

*What were your highlights of the festival?

I guess I have several. One is the huge energy that I
sensed when I arrived in Johannesburg. During the
festival I felt a new sense of energy that I had not
experienced before, coming from the collective
activities of the participants and audiences.

I was amazed by Dimitri Voudouris, that he not only
organized such an undertaking, but also that he’s a
fine creative composer as well.

My other highlight, of course, was collaborating with
Pops Mohamed and George Lewis, and getting to know
Pauline Oliveros, none of whom I had met before.

*How do you feel about music today, in terms of its
possibilities, compared to, say, fifty years ago?

I think 50 years ago the seeds of contemporary thought
were already planted by many important composers of
that period. Then, somehow, the contemporary energy
and approach to music got dissipated and forgotten
into some kind of neo-post-Romantic style, probably
due to the successive wars that have beset the planet
since that time.
But now I feel that in the 21st century there is a new
awareness dawning on us, with new ideas and new directions
to bring music back to its full potential.

*Are there any specific artists/composers that had a
powerful impact on the shaping of your compositional development?

I studied privately with Aaron Copland, whom I admired
very much. I enjoy the music of Johann Sebastian
Bach, whose music I feel has a closeness to the music
of North Africa, specifically the suites called
“Nawba.” However, some of the most incredible influences
came from the music I heard while I was living in the Congo
among the Ekonda people; the polyphony of the Dorze people
of southern Ethiopia; and the Pygmies of the forest region of the Congo.

UNYAZI – ELECTRONIC MUSIC SYMPOSIUM AND FESTIVAL 2005

September saw the inauguration of South Africa’s first Electronic
Music & Arts festival. The first of its kind in Africa, Unyazi drew
talent from across the globe, featuring the gifts of Louis Moholo,
George Lewis, Zim Ngqawana, Halim El-Dabh, amongst dozens of others.

Hosted by Wits University, Unyazi is an off-shoot of New Music SA, the
local representative of the International Society for Contemporary
Music, which promotes and fosters the pursuit of new musical
languages, passion and innovation in composition. Unyazi focusses on
the increasingly powerful role electronic instrumentation plays in
imaginative contemporary composition.

Spanning four brimming days the festival included visual electronic art,
conferences, various workshops, and mind-blowing performances of man
and machine playing off each others’ possibilities.

A defining moment of the Fest occurred when I walked into an
auditorium, its stage occupied by what appeared to be some form of
exhibit – an array of traditional Classical and African instruments,
each on a mounting-block, each attached to various wires, nuts &
bolts. A Post-Modern museum exhibit?
Approaching the people seated around the exhibit, I noticed they were
all staring, transfixed, at the stage – which was when I realised the
instruments were in motion..
Suddenly it hit me that what I had thought to be a rather beautiful
backing soundtrack was in fact being played live on-stage, and no
musician in sight! Which was when Maxime Rioux strolled over to
introduce me to his self-conducting orchestra.

DAY 1.

“The present-day composer refuses to die!” Edgard Varese’

Arriving late, significantly so, having just missed the great Carlo
Mombelli (on bass & loops), who improvised with South American
multi-instrumentalist Joao Orrecchia, I sulked over to the Listening
Room.

Hosted by Darius Weinberg, the Listening Room presented pre-recorded
compositions to be experienced without visual distraction: enter
darkened room. Here various composers explore the divide between
instrumental, natural and digital sounds, with Eduardo Miranda’s
‘Robotapithecos’ re-processing samples of various monkey vocalisations
into humanoid singing and more abstract sounds. A highlight here was
Mark Applebaum’s funky remix of the legendary John Zorn’s Jazz-Metal
piece ‘Snagglepuss’. Although interesting, the Listening Room sessions
were too abstract to sustain my attention during the festival.

The three live performances that followed set the bar for the fest,
with the audiences volleyed between awe and delight.
My notebook contains the following scribble on the first performance:
‘Matthew Ostrowski conducts a hyper-detailed ocean of digital sound
and arranges its strings and belches of melody with some kinda
infra-sound glove, creating a self-improvising digital cosmos..’

Indeed. Mr Ostrowski, New York-based electronica artist, approached
his orchestra-pit – a lone table fitted with a single Apple laptop,
beside it what appeared to be a stylised mechanical forearm. Snapped
on his glove.
For the following half-hour the dumbstruck audience experienced less a
‘one-man band’ than a one-man galaxy of sound.
Armed with a lone digito-electronic glove, which he moves in front of
a digital sensor (the abovementioned ‘forearm’), to select and/or
suppress pre-recorded streams of sound and melody, Mr Ostrowski
conducted and improvised the seemingly infinite layers of digital
sound emitted by the Apple’s hard-drive.
At one point a hyper-pixellated burst of sound swoons into a school of
dolphin-clicks before shifting into digital birdsong; all the while Mr
Ostrowski’s gloved ring-finger harnesses, then redirects, and army of
percussion (its left flank resembling melody).
The conclusion of the 35 minute piece, aptly entitled ‘Insomnia’, was
met with significant silence before anyone had recovered enough to
begin clapping. And long was the applause.

Next up was Brendon Bussy, representing one of SA’s most
forward-thinking record labels, Open Record. Of his two pieces, the
first was the most exciting. Accompanied by a trumpeter, Bussy
improvised using his laptop: The trumpet’s melodies were sampled into
the PC, then manipulated in real time to accompany the trumpeter in
unexpected ways – now harmonising with, now challenging his melodies.

Back in the Main Theatre, Yannis Kiriakides, successful international
DJ and composer, presented his six ‘Portraits’.
The ‘Portraits’ are compositions based on six very different
interviews/conversations, where the nature of a given interview, and
its protagonists, define the composition. Using the mood and emotional
setting of a given interview, Yannis structured melody and beats
accordingly: An interview with a 7-yr old European boy, on his
ambitions in life, conducted in the city, becomes infused with the
rhythms of a child’s wonder and excitement – city-sounds, now distant,
now menacingly Huge, inform the composition.
The twist to his approach was that Kyriakides employed only the human
sounds occuring between words to lead his musical accompaniment. The
‘human’ element was reduced to the sounds surrounding, anticipating,
and following actual speech: Extra-linguistic sound becoming the
emotional cues for his compositions. So in the stand-out ‘Portrait’, a
child interviewing a pensioned clerk, we listen to geriatric breathing
becoming a drummer’s brush-strokes: The aged pensioner’s wheezing
pauses and gulps become an orchestra of skin, coloured by child-like
glints representing the interviewer’s youth.. Masterful!

The debut evening was rightly concluded by Warrick Sony, aka Kalahari
Surfers, considered the the godfather of South African Electronica.

Generally associated with suave production skills and inventive
composition, Mr Sony’s audacious improvisation, utilising three
turn-tables simultaneously, took me by surprise. The fifteen minute
‘Continental Drift’, which would explore the harmonies between
avant-garde European Classical and traditional African music, which I
naively anticipated to be a pre-recorded song, turned into a masterful
improvisation.
Juggling two vinyl- and one cd-turntable effortlessly, or so it
seemed, Mr Sony sculpted Karlheinz Stockhausen (icon of early 20th
century electro-classical music)’s abstract staccato and Ladysmith
Black Mambaso’s creamy ululations into unlikely unison. At one stage
slowing Ladysmith down to warbled rhythm, Sony tweaked Stockhausen’s
crude angles into melody, dropping in a Fish-Eagle’s cry as trumpet,
for good measure.

The festival’s tone was set.
And set for explosion into unexpected melody..

BUT WHAT IS UNYAZI, AND WHY?

“Composing is the act of decorating Time” Frank Zappa

Unyazi promotes an appreciation of music seated in that original
aboriginal value – music as interaction with gods, as language of
passion and the profound. For the last century African music’s
spirituality has been hitched and hiked into American superficiality,
Britney Spears’ beats blasphemically appropriated from the original
sexual thump of divine drum.. even 2 Pac’s virile frustrations
couldn’t transcend the inherent materialism of thug ‘n bitch Gangsta
Rap..

The supposed abstractness of experimental composition is nothing but a
symptom of our conditioning to the vulgar superficiality of popular
music. Unyazi seeks to re-acquaint music with its roots: The
spiritual, the striving-beyond profane communication – and to ground
this passion in the contemporary.
As Pops Mohammed has said, “Fusing new futuristic sounds with ancient
cultures is about one of the only ways I know that can take these
beautiful African sounds into the next century.”

Dimitri Voudouris, festival organiser, asserts that the event is
geared not at commercial entertainment, but the promotion of
passionate, original composers:
“The festival will only take place every 2 years as this will allow
for development at ground level in South Africa, giving composers and
musicians alike an opportunity to create high quality work.”
Unyazi is therefore simultaneously a celebration of music’s higher
aims, and fertile workshop for dedicated, if under-nourished, aspirant
composers.

DAY 2.

“Computers don’t have enough Africa in them” Brian Eno

Several conferences and discussions took place on Friday. Lukas
Ligetti, world-renowned percussionist and experimental performer,
whose extensive musical travels and collaborations throughout Africa
have promoted the creative relationship between contemporary
electronica and traditional African musics, chaired a discussion on
the aforesaid relationship and its possibilities.
Maxime Rioux, creator of the automaton, a collection of Classical,
African and ‘found’ instruments (eg. tin cans, Coca Cola bottles),
which play themselves via electrical currents stimulating precise
movements, discussed his personal approach to music. Travelling
between countries, Maxime adapts his automaton to incorporate the
given culture’s traditional instruments, in this way his travels shift
his personal musical language in a way that channels directly into his
self-performing compositions.

Later that night Maxime tells me that he has spent the last decade
crafting his automaton, and informs me that his new interest lies in
the concept of ‘inaudible sounds’, and the various psycho-musical
possibilities of incorporating such ‘invisible’ sounds into
composition.
Invisible music played by invisible musicians, cheers Maxime.!

At the Viewing Room I was introduced to our very own Digital Arts
terrorist, Aryan Kaganof. Kaganof is a prolific film-composer, winner
of various awards both locally and internationally, whose digital
works question and interrogate the bounds between visual, aural and
conceptual languages: always stimulating, often controversial. But
more on Kaganof later.

The centre-piece of Unyazi was the performances of Halim El-Dabh. His
very presence capturing the spirit of Unyazi, and blessing it, the
84-yr old Egyptian composer and multi-instrumentalist was the first
African to utilize electronic sounds in composition. Globally
considered Egypt’s foremost living classical composer, Mr El-Dabh has
personally worked with Igor Stravinsky, and had close associations
with pioneers of avant-garde classical music like Aaron Copland and
Edgard Varese’. Utilizing wire-recorders for electronic composition as
early as 1944, Mr El-Dabh is renowned both for his expertise in
ancient Egyptian language and musical notation, and his consistent
promotion of musical exchange across cultures and historical divide.

His first performance aptly featured Pops Mohammed, who opened on
mbira and vocals, soon joined by Mr. El-Dabh on various African
instruments and voice. But it was the next performance that stole the
show.
‘Michael and the Dragon’, created in 1959, was originally composed as
an electronic piece, where white-noise elements violently interact
with horn-like segments, depicting a battle between Archangel (horn)
and Dragon (white-noise). For this performance, the brilliant George
Lewis improvised over the original – his trombone improv, violently
reacting to sudden assaults of electronica, harmonising inventively
over calmer segments, brought an authentic immediacy to the original
conception.
A Tour-de-Force of virtuoso playing and Halim El-Dabh’s fertile compositions!

DAY 4

“What was wrong was not me, but the piano..” John Cage

Despite the fact that no events overlapped, allowing one to catch
everything Unyazi had on offer, the sheer intensity involved meant
that one simply could not absorb all one saw and heard. I gave myself
a breather, skipping Saturday, returning for Sunday’s culmination of
Unyazi.

Kaganof’s second set of films were extraordinary, to say the least.
The first film, ‘Two heads are better than one’, was a visually
stunning contemplation of the divide between sexual beauty and
pornography. A world premiere, completed just in time for Unyazi, it
was also attended by electronic composer Joel Assaizky, who created
the soundtrack.

A visual remix of Guto Bussab’s short film ‘The Incubus’, the film is
based on footage of Czech porn actress Sylvia Saint performing
fellatio. Now, before everyone runs away screaming.. all the
pornography was kept off-screen, digitally silenced. The entire film
consists of medium close-up shots of Sylvia, manipulated in
split-screen to become a liquid rhythm of feminine beauty in duet.
While the nature of her movements betray the actual event, the
audience is visually presented with nothing but a beautiful woman’s
head, neck and shoulders in sensual motion. A thought-provoking,
visually gorgeous piece, executed with a musician’s sense of rhythm
and harmony.

The most powerful film in this set was an open-ended documentary
called Merbow beyond snuff, moving from the Japanese ‘Noise DJ’
phenomenon, where audiences gather in grimy neon-lit clubs to listen
to DJ’s compete to make the most creative, abrasive collage of noise
possible, to controversial film-maker Masami Akita’s documentation
of painfully beautiful, painfully young Japanese women committing
‘Hara Kiri’, politely described as suicide by disembowlment. A piece
conceptually based on Kurt Schwitter’s Merzbau, a house of illusions,
flights of stairs leading into nowhere and corners turning back on
themselves; a philosophical query into the meaning of position, boundary and
presence, the culminating footage plunged me into an appreciation of
well-aimed censorship.
Always stimulating, often controvertial. Kaganof’s best works only
really kick in after the credits roll.

george lewis and zim ngqawana

George Lewis, virtuoso trombonist and experimental composer,
decades-long member of the famed AACM (Association for the Advancement
of Creative Musicians) in Chicago, was once again involved in a
highlight of the festival. Appearing with legend Louis Moholo on
drums, Lewis describes their 20 minute performance as “human
improvisors engaged in dialogue with a computer-driven, interactive
‘virtual pianist’”.
Had these giants appeared in free-form improvisation with each other
alone, the performance would have been awesome. Louis Moholo radiates
percussion, one imagines him hitting a single downbeat and inspiring
his kit to play on for another ten minutes. Seeing him reminded me of
first hearing Tony Williams circa Miles’ ‘In a Silent Way’ sessions,
seemingly playing five kits simultaneously, in crisp economy.
Incredible stuff.
Their ‘virtual pianist’ is a program designed to analyse the
musicians’ playing, and respond based on perceived structural
possibilities – at times it seemed the virtual improvisor was leading
Lewis and Moholo. A mind-blowing set, and engaging throughout, no mean
feat for a robotic pianist!

Next up was the inventive, cheeky fusion outfit ‘Skid’, featuring
Jonathan Crossley on guitar. Chunky retro-funk riffs meet electronic
samples and drum triggers, ‘Skid’ create a climate where anything can
alter the course of their songs, without losing direction. Best bit
here was their epic fusion arrangement of B-grade 80’s TV show, ‘The
A-Team’s theme song, tongues firmly in cheek. Concluding their
performance was an ode to the 2010 soccer bid, kicking three
percussion-rigged soccer balls around in mock physical theatre.

Over the course of the weekend Luc Houtkamp, Dutch sax virtuoso and
electro-acoustic composer, had been utilising workshops to assemble a
group called POW, made up from Wits music students. POW did free-form
improvisation conducted by Luc. In one piece they transformed racist
censorship (a recording of PW Botha announcing the barring of the
ANC), into a stimulus for unrestrained musical expression; PW’s
remixed rants triggering the ensemble’s flourishes – a wonderful
statement. Next up Luc invited Mr.Ostrowski onstage for a highly
abstract laptop duet, soon augmented by Austrian guitar whizz Burkhard
Stangl’s acoustic contributions.

That one went way over my head – an intense conclusion to a
mind-blowing festival. Too exhausted to catch the finale of
sound-sculptors
James Webb and James Sey, I headed on home.

It would be difficult to overestimate the value of Unyazi, both as
fertile interactive classroom for tomorrow’s composers, and
hyper-stimulating showpiece for what can be done in the world of sound
and art.
My only complaint is existential.
I find myself wanting to revisit Unyazi, as one does a beautiful,
highly intricate Jazz composition – finding more layers, more melodic
and rhythmic relationships on each replay..

But, as with said composition, I find Unyazi still playing in the back
of my head.

mick raubenheimer

No language is the mother tongue. Writing poetry is rewriting it…. A poet may write in French; he cannot be a French poet. That’s ludicrous…. The reason one becomes a poet…is to avoid being French, Russian, etc., in order to be everything…. Yet every language has something that belongs to it alone, that is it…. French: clock without resonance; German—more resonance than clock…. French is there. German becomes, French is.

Marina Tsvetayeva

hoshino mai and thom hoffman in shabondama elegy (1999)

Ian Kerkhof was born in Johannesburg in 1964. He left South Africa to avoid military service in the apartheid army and received political asylum in the Netherlands in 1984. He studied film direction and screenwriting at the Netherlands Film & Television Academy. His debut feature was awarded the Golden Calf, the Dutch equivalent of the Oscar, for Best Film in 1992. He subsequently won many international awards at film festivals including Best Documentary for Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers (1994) at the European Film Salon, Berlin. That film also won the Best Film Prize at the Experimental Film Festival of Madrid.

Kerkhof made the first post-apartheid feature film in South Africa, Nice To Meet You, Please Don’t Rape Me! (1995). Its world premiere was held in Ougadougou at FESPACO where it was the first South African film to participate in the competition programme. The film starred Eric Miyeni and was described by the Dutch art critic, Anna Tilroe, as follows: ‘In this work we follow four men, three black and one white, who have found each other on the seamy side of life in South Africa and try to help each other out as best they can. None of them has an identity in the form of a legal name, a permanent place of residence, a wife, family or possessions. All we learn about them is that they are lost in a society that is marked by vengeance, moral degeneration, and spiritual and physical violation. Their mutual suspicion and aggression, often influenced by alcohol and drugs, lead to fierce outbursts of rage and violence that they are constantly struggling to keep in check with regard to each other by means of pacifying rituals. Each one perceives to a greater or lesser degree that he needs the other, not so much to survive in a desolate, bloodthirsty urban jungle, because these men don’t attach all that much to life. What connects them, rather, is a longing, the longing to preserve whatever shred of human dignity is left to them.’

Kerkhof went on to make the world’s first film shot on digital video tape and blown up to 35mm. The film was called NAAR DE KLOTE in the Netherlands and released internationally as WASTED! (1996). Kerkhof then travelled to Japan where he made the first Japanese film shot in this process, starring the famous porn actress Mai Hoshino and Thom Hoffman. SHABONDAMA ELEGY (1999) received a Golden Calf (the Dutch Oscar equivalent) and was highly controversial because of the many explicit sex scenes in the film and much other material considered blasphemous and indecent. Kerkhof’s last film was THE SEVEN LAST WORDS OF JESUS CHRIST (2001).

Is Kerkhof a moralist? You would almost think so to look at the sharpness with which he renders the moral decay of his characters. But morality as a system of ethical principles and norms is incompatible with what for Kerkhof constitutes the artistic vocation. For him, good and evil are concepts like identity: they lay down in the form of rules and regulations that which is essentially fleeting and mutable and, above all, infinitely nuanced. Morality is tantamount to a denial of the depth of the human spirit, a depth that, oddly enough, is mainly perceptible in what is generally regarded as evil. And that is the area in which Kerkhof chooses to be active.

Blind Date

    Herschell ushers Judith into his attic apartment on the Singel,
Amsterdam’s most elegant inner-city canal. She’s approaching thirty,
neurotically; he picks this up in an instant.

    “I have a Jewish tendency, it usually kills the atmosphere.”
There is considerable nicotine staining on her teeth and he notices
that she is already digging in her handbag for a pack.

    “Don’t look at my furniture.”

    In fact most of the items are covered by white sheets as if he’s got
something to hide or can’t afford to buy better.

    Judith sits down at the cluttered writing table, lights up her
Gauloises immediately, looks around for an ashtray.

    “So you don’t smoke?”

    Herschell rummages through a cupboard and finds her an ashtray, places
it on the table in front of her, next to her bag.

    “I stopped on the 4th of June.”

    “Has it paid off?” she seems irritated by his move away from tobacco
and cancer.

    He shrugs, “I do tend to have an impact on people.”

    Then they are both silent for a while. He moves across to the CD
player, pops Verdi in. Although the volume is discrete, the charismatic
Italian singing fills up the uncomfortable space between them. She
smiles at him, showing again those ugly stained teeth.

    “Time for a vodka young man!”

    He’s at least ten years older than her and enjoys being called “young
man”; it hasn’t happened in a while. He pours them both shot glasses
full of Stolichnaya.

    “Salut.”

    They both down their drinks. Herschell pours out another round. He
appreciates how she drinks, it’s very masculine. After the third vodka
Judith starts singing. He’s amazed that she knows Verdi, delighted,
feels the first stirring of desire for this unattractive blind date. He
hands her a blank piece of paper.

    “Would you care to draw me?”

    She’s surprised by the gesture. “Draw you what?”

    The vodkas have unblocked his flirting potential; he feels carefree
and very bold. “Nude.”

    She lights another Gauloise, pants at it ravenously, blows smoke in
his face. “I don’t like sensitive men.”

    He moves his head into the smoke cloud around her face, kisses her.
It’s a mild kiss but it warms up when she responds with great vigour
and she doesn’t taste at all bad and she smells in fact very good.

    “You’re pleasant.”

    “You talk too much.”

    “That’s my Jewish tendency.”

    He draws her instead of her drawing him, the lines on paper
complimenting her features which are stubby and plain at best. He’s
sly, gives her a fuller mouth and more sensual lips than nature did.
She recognizes and appreciates the flattery.

    “Actually I can’t keep still.”

    Another Gauloises. The ashtray is full. He unbuttons her blouse. Draws
the breasts fuller than they are, doesn’t go as far as to unclip her
bra. She laughs at the serious expression on his face as he draws the
breasts. “Why were you never married?”

    “Because I’m an abstract phenomenologist.”

    “You’re probably frustrated with your life as a love gangster.”

    He laughs loudly at this, pours them more vodka, is feeling quite
tipsy suddenly.

    “I’m just tired of being used as an object.”

    He has a deep, hearty voice, a voice one would associate with a man a
lot less delicate than he in fact is.

    “I think marriage should be mainly practical.”

Judith does the buttons of her blouse up, shivers slightly.

    “I like the idea of having only one woman.”

    The music stops. Neither of them is ready for silence. Herschell
stands behind her, rubbing her shoulders, and then he returns to the CD
player.

    “Shall I put on some Shostakovich?”

    “It’s a delicious vodka, very soft.”

    He kisses her neck and nuzzles the lobe of an ear, whispering into it.
“Vodka is only delicious if you drink a whole bottle.”

    “What actually is a love gangster?”

    He kisses her again but she’s slightly resistant. “Don’t hold your
breath.”

    He returns to the blank white paper. Another portrait, this time of
the ashtray.

    “Some technique.”

She’s impressed.

    “That’s cross-hatch. My father taught me.”

    She stands up unexpectedly, throws her almost empty Gauloise pack into
her bag.

    “None of this makes any sense to me.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “You’re the most solo person I’ve ever known.”

    He pauses at this. She’s a perceptive woman, more clever than
beautiful, he’s been waiting for a decent conversation for what seems
like way too long, is scared of how he will feel when she leaves, knows
that she’s about to leave.

    “Yes. Yes I’m indeed very solo.”

    “I’m actually quite tired.”

She walks towards the front door.

    “You can stay if you like.”

    “No, I’ll go.”

    They kiss again at the door, it’s the best of the three kisses. She
ploughs her Gauloises tongue into his mouth, stands on tip toe and he
can feel her breasts nuzzling against his broad chest and he wants her
to stay so very badly and is almost willing to say it but his erection
says it for him and then she leaves anyway.

    The night tastes acrid now that he is on his own again. He places
Faure’s Requiem in the CD player, rolls himself a pencil-thin hash
joint. Sits at his window overlooking the Singel canal that is
reflecting an impatient moon back up at him. The moon seems lonely too.
He used to worship her back in the days when he still believed in
poetry. She misses his faith, his nightly attentions. The moon
remembers him and a myriad like him, who have all become cluttered by
the weight of their everyday lives, working in the real world. Middle
age is death. The real world is death.

    Herschell stands at the open window listening to the Offertory while
the moon begs him to come back to her. “O lord, deliver the souls of
the dead from the mouth of the lion, lest hell seize them and they fall
into darkness.”

    Then he jumps.

first published by underground voices, feb 2006

Dear Aryan

I hope you have a great year as well and that all your dreams come true and
that malls no longer rule the consciousness of the human collective. Am
starting to wonder why there aren’t any more independent thinkers?
I have really learnt a lot from your writing these past months. I just
thought I’d say that.
from
Abigail George

Sometimes the line works as a focusing device, sometimes as a framing. A straight line is as close to virtue as the artist can get. And by virtue I mean clarity. Although diagonals are my favourite lines I do suspect them of having certain qualities that would, in earlier times, be described as devilish. Diagonals dance too readily and their dance is always an invitation to join them. For this reason one must approach diagonals with one’s eyes closed.

for more great art by dick tuinder check out his website
and alter ego sally de winter

aryan kaganof and leigh graves in sms sugar man (photo eran tahor)

aryan
it’s half past four in the morning,
how can one sleep?
last night i’ve witnessed the most exciting thing: the beauty of these sumptuous, evocative images penetrates the walls of defense and goes straight into my gut
this is a raw, vulnerable and most powerful cinema
thank you for including me in your dream, your project, your film
your friend
eran

herman hesse, flying - world premiere in paris during the 7th festival of cinema differents

La séance Kaganof du 11/12/05.

Ce soir, dans le cadre du 7e Festival des Cinémas Différents, nous allons vous projeter dix films réalisés par Aryan Kaganof. Le premier « La séquence des barres parallèles » est déjà un classique du cinéma alternatif contemporain, avec la victime de l’intégrisme Theo Van Gogh, arrière petit neveu de Vincent et véritable héros de la liberté d’expression. Ce film a été déjà projeté récemment à Paris mais une relecture s’impose. La musique de bruits du compositeur japonais Merzbow crée des sensations poétiques fortes sur cette histoire simple d’une jeune femme qui vient assouvir ses penchants fétichistes dans une usine abandonnée mais toujours surveillée par un gros gardien, Theo Van Gogh, dans un univers purement hallucinatoire. Très librement inspiré d’une nouvelle de Pierre Klossowski, le film de Kerkhof est plein de symboles psychanalytiques allégés par la touche drôle du cinéaste.

« Minnamanna » serait une chorégraphie impossible, noyée par l’interprétation hystérique de l’actante, une chorégraphie pleine d’une grâce féminine incompréhensible et démesurée. Le titre est une référence indirecte, par le biais d’un jeu de mots, à cette coexistence du bien mesuré et de l’excessif.

« Les enfants » est une adaptation récente d’un film ancien du même auteur «Le chemin de la Croix ». Il s’agit d’une performance inspirée par les supplices du Christ, par sa crucifixion. La musique de bruits composée par Kaganof lui-même crée une tension métaphorique autour d’un événement dominé par les chahuts. Et Kaganof dans le rôle du Christ supplicié est une pure merveille.

« Kaganof et féminisme » est un détournement ironique et métaphorique de la théorie «féministe » dépassée. Ce n’est pas du tout un film misogyne. Si les slogans hétéro-sexistes comme «le viol est la force » font leur apparition tout au long du film, c’est pour perturber le status quo «politiquement correct » d’une société faussement «militante ». Le «féminisme » serait juste un exemple parmi tant d’autres. La musique bruitiste cette fois vise à détourner les rassemblements «militants » des années ’70, dominés par le bruit de la foule frustrée.

« Western 4.33 » a déjà été projeté par nous lors des «jeudis du CJC », le 27/11/03. Peu de temps après, il entrait en section officielle à la Berlinale 2004. Le chiffre 4.33 du titre serait une référence directe à la composition éponyme de John Cage tandis que le mot «western » nous prévient de l’endroit désertique où se déroule l’action. Un désert qui n’est pas celui d’Amérique mais de la Namibie. Le monologue en afrikans, interprété par le célèbre chanteur sud-africain Zola, nous raconte comment notre héros camionneur a été abandonné par sa copine, qui revient en flash-back, et comment son grand-père a péri au camp de concentration qui sera la fin de son trajet. Cet ancien camp de concentration, en ruines aujourd’hui, avait bien existé entre 1904 et 1908 pour accueillir les révoltés contre les colonialistes allemands de la même époque. Le mixage musical énergique est vraiment très impressionnant et vient en contraste émotionnel avec le thème du désert, de l’abandon et de la mort.
« Portraits d’une jeune fille orpheline juive d’Europe de l’est » est un film très court, une confirmation de la possibilité de créer des chefs d’œuvres cinématographiques avec un budget inexistant. Le portrait charmant de cette jeune fille est sublimé par les incessants zoom-in et zoom-out pleins de tendresse sur son visage et son sourire discret. Sur une musique d’accordéon. C’est un film- portrait, un film–rêverie qui n’a pas d’équivalent contemporain dans son contenu formel et symbolique. Ce n’est pas une déclaration d’amour mais une brève minute d’admiration de la beauté et du côté noble de la nature humaine.
« Composition suprématiste numéro 7 » a déjà été projeté par nous à la date indiquée précédemment. C’est un film de combinaison allégorique du nouveau et de l’ancien. Sur une chanson célèbre des années ’60 du groupe Velvet Underground, les trucages informatiques ultramodernes viennent créer une dialectique et une tension onirique et puissante, pleine de métaphores corporelles et biologiques.
« Autoportrait avec la nourrice » est un petit bijou de l’année dernière. Les images fanées de Kaganof bébé en relation avec une musique rétro et burlesque font référence au cinéma muet du premier temps. Encore une fois Kaganof rend hommage au cinéma populaire puisque ce film serait un essai parfait sur la pérennité du temps cinématographique mais aussi bien sur la dimension autoréférentielle et égocentrique de l’œuvre de plusieurs grands artistes.
« Œdipe et punition » est une adaptation d’un sketch préexistant dans son film ancien « Dix monologues de la vie des tueurs en série ». Cette fois c’est la voix du cinéaste qui interprète un nouveau monologue. Un mafieux en prison nous parle de ses activités criminelles sur une musique douce qui vient en contrepoint, grâce à l’alchimie contrariée du grand maître.
« Hermann Hesse en vol » est le film - surprise de cette soirée qui sera projeté en première mondiale par notre festival. C’est pour ça que nous ne l’avons pas encore visionné. Nous allons le découvrir en même temps que vous. Nous allons seulement vous traduire une phrase du site personnel du cinéaste. « Un nouveau montage d’images filmées par Sagi Croner sur une musique de William Bolcomb interprétée par Tomoko Mukaiyama ».

Dionysos Andronis