kagablog

We’re introduced to each other at the Color Bar. They dropped the “u” in “colour” to be different. Or it’s the American way of spelling. Either way it pisses me off. The name of the bar is meant to be an ironic reflection on how times have changed. Only times haven’t changed and there are no darkies or coloureds here. So the irony backfires kind of, except now I’m wondering whether they intended any irony in the first place. Then we’re introduced to each other. We both happen to know someone who happens to know someone and before you know it we’re on speaking terms. She’s one of those rof chicks that made good, got an education, became a lefty, landed up writing speeches for members of parliament. Her teeth are small and her lips are tiny but this doll can kiss hey! We duck out of the bar and round the back to where the fountain is. I’m fiddling and fondling, she calls me “my prince.” When it’s over we go back to the bar to our whiskys and she tells me about her life.
“We lived in Brixton. This oke was shooting pinks at Damelin. They were taking steroids and smoking buttons. Burry already had a glass eye at 21. He blew someone away at a robot. When they tried to break in to my porzie I called him on the cell. He happened to be up the road on a coke binge with five army generals. They rocked up wired and ready to kill. Within minutes they were slashing maniacs. There was an elegance to their slashing. Those poor would-be robbers didn’t know what the fuck happened to them. Lights out ek se.”
I like the way she talks and drinks at the same time. She talks quickly and she drinks even quicker. Her eyes are glowing manic attack, like she tripped hard on Californian Sunshines and never came down. Suddenly she grabs my hand and squeezes it very hard.
“You not gonna go all soft on me boet now are you?”
“Not me sister.”
“Orright.”
We order more whiskys that arrive very slowly. At these prices you’d expect some service as well. The long dry wait gives us a chance to peer into the abysmal hubbub around us. Most of these kids never have to wear their outfits twice. This bar caters to rich white poepals from up North who drive down here to pay R30 entry fee. It makes them feel important and rich. That’s the funny thing—they are rich but that’s never good enough—they only feel rich when they’re spending. Shit holes like the Color Bar exploit the basic psychological inadequacy of being born into bread and not having to bake it oneself. There’s lots of that kind in Joburg. Tonight they’re all sitting around us. We must seem like extras from the wrong movie to them. We’re both of us wearing last decade’s raiments. We’re comfortable. She offers me a puff of a mean looking doobie that she got from her pops.
“So your dad smokes dagga?”
“Ja, but only since he was 40. He always says ‘Give me the good stuff hey’ to his dealer. It’s funny, he thinks because he’s paying top dollar that he’s getting the good shit.”
Much like the clowns that populate this over-priced bar methinks. Joburg is a huge confidence trick. Everyone’s friendly because they want your tom. It’s tom city. At least in Cape Town nobody’s smart enough to pretend that they like you. You know where you stand. Here everyone’s your tjommmie. While you’re paying.
She asks me to dance. She’s short and I like that, it makes me feel tall. We hold on to each other very tightly and we dance the cha cha cha very slowly, neither of us wants this intimacy to end. She edges me towards the back of the poorly spelled “color” bar and soon it’s time to return to the fountain. I’m not sure if I can get it up but this chick’s thin little lips work themselves into a frenzy. It’s like taking Viagra. While she’s down there I’m thinking about hedonism and how it’s relayed. Ooh now I’m close to delivering this load. I’m not quite sure how she does it but she keeps asking questions, in between gobbling the business.
“Are you into cable?”
“I’m outside of everything. But I accepted it.”
“It’s very important that.”
She goes back to the munchies. Full throttle. Then I’m popping. That stuff tears its way out of me inna freight train stylee, forcing my head back and eyes open and I stare right into the face of my old mistress the moon who is furiously jealous and full. Back on earth the rof chick looks up when the milking is finished. Smiles with those small regular teeth glinting in lunacy’s passionate glare, mutters mysteriously “And you were beyond you.”
Then it’s all over between us. What more could we do? Or say?
When she waved goodbye I asked her her name.
“Penny.”

first published on storyglossia

pass

passed

waiting in the corridors
fighting in the minds of those
identifying with the work of our
fellows

then the strange came

then the swarm swarmed
the beehive money
for the taking

the quondam regime
being so despicable
made it easy to be immune
to assume entitlement
for laws of just settlement
were wavered
in the winds

of course change has come
the change to be like them
they fell into the trap
with arms wide open

had learnt the uncorrected things
to fit into the old flake shoes
also to stomp the path well ridden

they missed an opportunity golden
they thrashed the thing they loved
where money does buy love

is only to be human

nature

they just couldn’t rise above
the dis-ease of euphoria

this is their legacy as it now bends
whether they want to stone it or not

Dear friends and colleagues

I am happy to announce that my new music work ‘Sonic Tapestry Ⅲ’ will be presented at Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ/ Concert Hall of the 21st Century in Amsterdam on Tuesday the 3 November.
‘Sonic Tapestry III’ is a music journey of four centuries of music zigzagging from east to west. The fragments for this tapestry include Bach, Schumann, Sciarrino, Sato and my new piece.
I am preparing a small visual surprise between my music.
On that same evening my new CD-Book -en blanc et noir- will be presented. It is a new cd-release after 10 years. The cd is part of a vinyl size photobook with never published portraits and photos taken by Philip Mechanicus.
I sincerely hope you can come to hear and see me on the 3rd of November.

Tomoko

///////////////////////////////////

Tuesday, 3 November 2009, 20:15

Muziekgebouw aan t IJ, Grote Zaal

Ticket: € 23,- Normaal, € 18,50 Stadspas/CJP

reservation 020-788 2000

www.http://www.muziekgebouw.nl/agenda/291/Tomoko_Mukaiyama/Sonic_Tapestry_III/

Tomoko Mukaiyama : concept / composition / piano

Frank van der Weij : live-electronic

Here is a small interview about the performance.

http://www.muziekgebouw.nl/actueel/46/Interview_met_pianiste_Tomoko_Mukaiyama/

In a previously unpublished Kurt Vonnegut story from a new book, the author bellies up to the bar.

By Kurt Vonnegut

I was sitting in a bar one night, talking rather loudly about a person I hated — and a man with a beard sat down beside me, and he said amiably, “Why don’t you have him killed?”

“I’ve thought of it,” I said. “Don’t think I haven’t.”

“Let me help you to think about it clearly,” he said. His voice was deep. His beak was large. He wore a black mohair suit and a black string tie. His little red mouth was obscene. “You’re looking at the situation through a red haze of hate,” he said. “What you need are the calm, wise services of a murder counselor, who can plan the job for you, and save you an unnecessary trip to the hot squat.”

“Where do I find one?” I said.

“You’ve found one,” he said.

“You’re crazy,” I said.

“That’s right,” he said. “I’ve been in and out of mental institutions all my life. That makes my services all the more appealing. If I were ever to testify against you, your lawyer would have no trouble establishing that I was a well-known nut, and a convicted felon besides.”

“What was the felony?” I said.

“A little thing — practicing medicine without a license,” he said.

“Not murder then?” I said.

“No,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I haven’t murdered. As a matter of fact, I murdered almost everyone who had anything to do with convicting me of practicing medicine without a license.” He looked at the ceiling, did some mental arithmetic. “Twenty-two, twenty-three people — maybe more,” he said. “Maybe more. I’ve killed them over a period of years, and I haven’t read the papers every single day.”

“You black out when you kill, do you,” I said, “and wake up the next morning, and read that you’ve struck again?”

“No, no, no, no, no,” he said. “No, no, no, no, no. I killed many of those people while I was cozily tucked away in prison. You see,” he said, “I use the cat-over-the-wall technique, a technique I recommend to you.”

“This is a new technique?” I said.

“I like to think that it is,” he said. He shook his head. “But it’s so obvious, I can’t believe that I was the first to think of it. After all, murdering’s an old, old trade.”

“You use a cat?” I said.

“Only as an analogy,” he said. “You see,” he said, “a very interesting legal question is raised when a man, for one reason or another, throws a cat over a wall. If the cat lands on a person, claws his eyes out, is the cat thrower responsible?”

“Certainly,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Now then — if the cat lands on nobody, but claws someone 10 minutes after being thrown, is the cat thrower responsible?”

“No,” I said.

“That,” he said, “is the high art of the cat-over-the-wall technique for carefree murder.”

“Time bombs?” I said.

“No, no, no,” he said, pitying my feeble imagination.

“Slow poisons? Germs?” I said.

“No,” he said. “And your next and final guess I already know: killers for hire from out of town.” He sat back, pleased with himself. “Maybe I really did invent this thing.”

“I give up,” I said.

“Before I tell you,” he said, “you’ve got to let my wife take your picture.” He pointed his wife out to me. She was a scrawny, thin-lipped woman with raddled hair and bad teeth. She was sitting in a booth with an untouched beer before her. She was obviously a lunatic herself, watching us with the harrowing cuteness of schizophrenia. I saw that she had a Rolleiflex with flashgun attached on the seat beside her.

At a signal from her husband, she came over and prepared to take my picture. “Look at the birdie,” she said.

“I don’t want my picture taken,” I said.

“Say cheese,” she said, and the flashgun went off.

When my eyes got used to darkness of the bar again, I saw the woman scuttling out the door.

“What the hell is this?” I said, standing up.

“Calm yourself. Sit down,” he said. “You’ve had your picture taken. That’s all.”

“What’s she going to do with it?” I said.

“Develop it,” he said.

“And then what?” I said.

“Paste it in our picture album,” he said, “in our treasure house of golden memories.”

“Is this some kind of blackmail?” I said.

“Did she photograph you doing anything you shouldn’t be doing?” he said.

“I want that picture,” I said.

“You’re not superstitious, are you?” he said.

“Superstitious?” I said.

“Some people believe that, if their picture is taken,” he said, “the camera captures a little piece of their soul.”

“I want to know what’s going on,” I said.

“Sit down and I’ll tell you,” he said.

“Make it good, and make it quick,” I said.

“Good and quick it shall be, my friend,” he said. “My name is Felix Koradubian. Does the name ring a bell?”

“No,” I said.

“I practiced psychiatry in this city for seven years,” he said. “Group psychiatry was my technique. I practiced in the round, mirror-lined ballroom of a stucco castle between a used car lot and a colored funeral home.”

“I remember now,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “For your sake, I’d hate to have you think I was a liar.”

“You were run in for quackery,” I said.

“Quite right,” he said.

“You hadn’t even finished high school,” I said.

“You mustn’t forget,” he said, “Freud himself was self-educated in the field. And one thing Freud said was that a brilliant intuition was as important as anything taught in medical school.” He gave a dry laugh. His little red mouth certainly didn’t show any merriment to go with the laugh. “When I was arrested,” he said, “a young reporter who had finished high school — wonder of wonders, he may have even finished college — he asked me to tell him what a paranoiac was. Can you imagine?” he said. “I had been dealing with the insane and the nearly insane of this city for seven years, and that young squirt, who maybe took freshman psychology at Jerkwater U, thought he could baffle me with a question like that.”

“What is a paranoiac?” I said.

“I sincerely hope that that is a respectful question put by an ignorant man in search of truth,” he said.

“It is,” I said. It wasn’t.

“Good,” he said. “Your respect for me at this point should be growing by leaps and bounds.”

“It is,” I said. It wasn’t.

“A paranoiac, my friend,” he said, “is a person who has gone crazy in the most intelligent, well-informed way, the world being what it is. The paranoiac believes that great secret conspiracies are afoot to destroy him.”

“Do you believe that about yourself?” I said.

“Friend,” he said, “I have been destroyed! My God, I was making sixty thousand dollars a year — six patients an hour, at five dollars a head, two thousand hours a year. I was a rich, proud, and happy man. And that miserable woman who just took your picture, she was beautiful, wise, and serene.”

“Too bad,” I said.

“Too bad it is, indeed, my friend,” he said. “And not just for us, either. This is a sick, sick city, with thousands upon thousands of mentally ill people for whom nothing is being done. Poor people, lonely people, afraid of doctors, most of them — those are the people I was helping. Nobody is helping them now.” He shrugged. “Well,” he said, “having been caught fishing illegally in the waters of human misery, I have returned my entire catch to the muddy stream.”

“Didn’t you turn your records over to somebody?” I said.

“I burned them,” he said. “The only thing I saved was a list of really dangerous paranoiacs that only I knew about — violently insane people hidden in the woodwork of the city, so to speak — a laundress, a telephone installer, a florist’s helper, an elevator operator, and on and on.”

Koradubian winked. “A hundred and twenty-three names on my magic list — all people who heard voices, all people who thought certain strangers were out to get them, all people, who, if they got scared enough, would kill.”

He sat back and beamed. “I see you’re beginning to understand,” he said. “When I was arrested, and then got out on bail, I bought a camera — the same camera that took your picture. And my wife and I took candid snapshots of the District Attorney, the President of the County Medical Association, of an editorial writer who demanded my conviction. Later on, my wife photographed the judge and jury, the prosecuting attorney, and all of the unfriendly witnesses.

“I called in my paranoiacs, and I apologized to them. I told them that I had been very wrong in telling them that there was no plot against them. I told them that I had uncovered a monstrous plot, and that I had photographs of the plotters. I told them that they should study the photographs, and should be alert and armed constantly. And I promised to send them more photographs from time to time.”

I was sick with horror, had a vision of the city teeming with innocent-looking lunatics who would suddenly kill and run.

“That — that picture of me –” I said wretchedly.

“We’ll keep it locked up nice and tight,” said Koradubian, “provided you keep this conversation a secret, and provided you give me money.”

“How much money?” I said.

“I’ll take whatever you’ve got on you now,” he said.

I had twelve dollars. I gave it to him. “Now do I get the picture back?” I said.

“No,” he said. “I’m sorry, but this goes on indefinitely, I’m afraid. One has to live, you know.” He sighed, tucked away the money in his billfold.

“Shameful days, shameful days,” he murmured. “And to think that I was once a respected professional man.”

From the book “Look at the Birdie” by Kurt Vonnegut. Text copyright 2009 by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Trust. To be published by Delecorte Press, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc.

first published on the web by latimes.com

Time has come, the new edition of Netfilmmakers is upon us! On October 18th, South-African artist Aryan Kaganof will unveil the 18th edition, curated by him, aptly named “Noisewomb”, at the new and improved Netfilmmakers’ space, at Brorsonsgade 1, Vesterbro. Contributing artists Kerstin Ergenzinger, Isabelle Schiltz, and Catherine Henegan, will be present and discuss their works.

Curator Kaganof describes his idea of Noisewomb:

Intention of the theme (After Adorno).

If the aesthetic realm originally emerged as an autonomous sphere from the magic taboo, which distinguished the sacred from the everyday, seeking to keep the former pure, the profane now takes its revenge on the descendant of magic, on art. Art is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane, which finally took over the taboo. Nothing may exist which is not like the world as it is. Noise is the false liquidation of art. Instead of utopia becoming a reality it disappears from the picture. NOISEWOMB is a net-based staging of the reappearance, on the scene of the absent sign, of the previously silent utopia.

I think it is useful to return to Rainer Maria Rilke’s fabulous essay “Primal Sound” from 1919, where he describes the following:

“The coronal suture of the skull a certain similarity to the closely wavy line which the needle of a phonograph engraves on the receiving, rotating cylinder of the apparatus. What if one changed the needle and directed it on its return journey along a tracing which was not derived from the graphic translation of a sound, but existed of itself naturally–well: to put it plainly, along the coronal suture, for example. What would happen?
A sound would necessarily result, a series of sounds, music … Feelings–which? Incredulity, timidity, fear, awe–which of all the feelings here possible prevents me from suggesting a name for the primal sound which would then make its appearance in the world … Leaving that side for the moment: what variety of lines then, occurring anywhere, could one not put under the needle and try out? Is there any contour that one could not, in a sense, complete in this way and then experience it, as it makes itself felt, thus transformed, in another field of sense?”

I am hoping that the three artists involved will work with this idea of a primal noise, an Ur-noise, a noise from the womb. I do not however, want to influence their interpretation of these ideas in any way.

aryan kaganof

Bewildered and fascinated by Aryan´s theme and notion Noisewomb and his link to Rilke’s contemplation about his first experience with an experimental setup of a phonograph I rediscovered Rilke’s Ur-Geräusch via the English translation. As point of departure I asked myself how does something look like in difference to how it sounds? An acoustic action and its representations (visual, tactile etc.) are intrinsically tied to each other by their nature. But their meanings reveal to be independent, blueprints for our associations and mental constructions. One question gave birth to the next and for me making a piece for the Noisewomb edition of Netfilmmakers became a constant back-and-forth between questioning, framing a rule, taking an action, cutting and re-cutting.

Some questions

Where does noise come from? How does a certain act sound? How does it look like? How does it feel? What traces are to be observed and will we be able to reconstruct the incident from what is remaining?

Is this noise or a signal, a sign or nothing?
If we are only able to interpret in relation to something else, does everything depend on our constructions?

Is a netfilm a film in the net, a film about the net? Just moving images, a piece of online art or an online piece of art? May this mean it is something the observer is generally facing on the screen of his or her personal computer? Then how does it feel like to watch a piece of art online? Is it an intimate experience? Is it intimate even if available for anybody 24h a day, depending on server and online access?

What does it mean to sit in front of a screen, watching, reading, listening, typing, editing, programming, designing? What does opposing a screen make with us? Bodily? Mentally? How is this screen like? What kind of surface is it? Is it flat, is it really flat? Is there something beneath it? Is it a surface above an inside? If yes what would this be? Is it the machine? Is it the information? Is it the code, the algorithm or its representation? Is it what we want it to be? Our counterpart? Is it a layer upon a layer upon a layer?… At least for this fly in the dark my TFT screen is cozy, warm and bright, in the moment definitely the best whereabouts.

Some rules

Setup: a digital SLR face to face with white paper above black paper above a cut mat. On the cut map fix a piezoelectric microphone, under the cut map place a table with a cut-out, beneath the…

Task: destroy the paper starting by cutting a) vertically, b) horizontally, c) diagonally, to thin the paper use rubber, to take away the crumbs use your hand and your spit, take as many pictures as possible and record the sound of all actions with a contact microphone.

One aim is nothing shall remain, but the cut mat and I wanted to peep through it as well.

Allow yourself:
to follow the unfolding phenomena
to break the rules
to vary and experiment

Analyze and organize the imagery and sound independently. Find a way to reconnect and spread it out on the screen and the built-in speakers of a personal computer.

The result:

Inner Cuts is an animation
Inner Cuts is about the surface. It is about choosing an action and a direction to delete one surface to reach the next.
Inner Cuts are tactile gestures and their acoustic traces meant to be sensed digitized by crawling back into the personal computers, those engines they have been fed in and cut a second time. Their mouth are the speakers, the screen is their face.

Kerstin Ergenzinger October 2009

first published on http://www.netfilmmakers.dk/netblog/