kagablog

i am not sure sometimes if i am still so excited by the avant garde tendencies that i fear are becoming increasingly trivial in an entirely mediatized global environment. avant garde practice becomes merely one trope amongst thousands, and not necessarily the most interesting or forward thinking of these. so it’s a strange bind i find myself in – having been determined by the culture around me as an “avant garde practitioner” for so long it has become an appellation that is almost impossible to escape, no matter what it do and in fact, ironically, any strategies i concoct to escape or elude, the nomenclature of the avant garde, only work to concretize and prove my status as exactly that. it is paradoxical and perhaps this is as it should be. i don’t know anymore.

aryan kaganof

It is difficult to identify the exact moment when an idea is born, and impossible to predict the journey that such an idea might make.

In May of 2010, I had met and collaborated with Aryan Kaganof on a screening and live performance of ‘The Exhibition of Vandalizim’, where the musicians Zim Ngqawana and Kyle Shepherd performed in a scrapyard outside of Stellenbosch. The experience was inspirational, to say the least, not only because of the integrity and professionalism of the musicians, but also because of the visual impact and power of Kaganof’s film. In the aftermath of that experience – with which I was involved both creatively and in terms of organization – I began thinking about other ways in which to combine film and music in creative processes, and my first ideas for tonight’s performance began to take shape.
On 5 May 2010, I wrote the following email to Aryan Kaganof:

Dear Aryan,
I had a thought this morning, and I’m wondering what you would think about it.

How about (yet another) collaboration idea: I commission a series of ‘miniatures’ or short pieces for piano, something like 5 or 6 pieces of about 5 minutes each. Each ‘miniature’ should portray a specific atmosphere, emotion or psychological situation. Then I commission 5 (or 6) short films from you to fit with the ‘miniatures’ soundtracks.

Or perhaps it can go both ways – you make films based on compositions, and the composer writes three miniatures based on film material provided by you. We then pre-record the music – for the ‘performance’, I have an idea which might be logistically impossible, but potentially very cool. We find a huge space, and we place six monitors in succession, far enough apart so that the sounds of each recording can be heard, but so that the recording next to which the audience member finds themselves is the most prominent. We play the film with the compositions, and audience members are asked to walk from installation to installation, to experience each ‘production’ separately.

Does this sound like something you would be interested in?
kind regards
mareli

Luckily Aryan was interested, and the project was born, raised and is ultimately performed this evening. Of course, what is being presented to you tonight is a far cry from the initial concept, and I would like to spend some time tracing the intellectual and creative development of the idea from its inception to how it came to exist in its current form.

Originally, my primary interest was in the ways in which different types of material or media could influence and cross-pollinate each other; intermediality, therefore, was the main focus. Intermediality occurs in works that are created across the boundaries of different media and disciplines. ‘Media’ refers here to the material or form used by an artist, composer, or writer, and can apply to artistic practices such as music, dance, theatre, film, installation and written text. In intermedial works, different media are combined, fused or productively co-related.

In the initial conceptualization of tonight’s performance, the media involved included the materials of film and musical composition. I soon began to theorize ways in which this initial conceptual model could be expanded to include live performance, rather than being limited to pre-recorded material. This would necessitate a reconsideration of the roles of the composer and performer. At first, I had envisioned myself as a performer, recording the composed music, which is then presented with the film material in a way similar to an art exhibition: static and pre-fabricated. It became clear that, in order for me to be an active participant in this performance, I would have to be able to respond musically in ‘real time’ to the film material being presented.

This could happen in several ways. I considered the possibility of simply having a composer write music for film material provided by Kaganof, which I could perform while the film was being shown. I soon discarded this idea, though. There are several precedents for compositions for piano and film – Dutch composer Michel van der Aa is an example – and I wanted to explore possibilities that move conceptually beyond this model.

Another option would be for me to improvise on the piano while viewing the film. I have, however, scant experience with improvisation, and felt the need for a more structured approach. Without training in or familiarity with improvisation, I was worried that I would not be able to react satisfactorily to the film material upon first viewing. I did feel, however, that I would be able to give some form of real-time response, if I had pre-composed material to work with.

The issue of the ‘hierarchy’ of creative material also needed to be considered. If music is composed to supplement an already existing film, the musical material can be seen as subordinate to the film, an accompaniment to the visual material or a reinforcement of the film’s message. The opposite could also be true if the musical composition would precede the manufacturing of the film material. My next step was therefore to try to conceptualize something which could facilitate the active participation of the performer, and present a challenge to the hierarchy of created material.

Aryan Kaganof was my creative collaborator throughout the conceptualization process. The model that we finally came up with would function in the following way: a film created by Aryan would be given to a composer, who would write music in response to the visual material. The brief to the composer would be to write music that could be performed in ‘fragments’; in other words, musical material that would allow the performer to respond to the film by ‘sampling’ sections from the composition in response to the visual content. The performer would not see the film beforehand, allowing for a quasi-improvisational, real-time response during the performance, without being required to engage with free improvisation. I felt satisfied that this model could be used to interrogate most of the above-mentioned issues. Aryan suggested involving composer Michael Blake, with whom he had collaborated in the past. Fortunately, Michael was willing to join our experimental project, and in February of 2012 I received the score for 20 Fragments in the Form of a Serial.

In this conceptualisation, the performance could engage with several issues simultaneously. The intermediality would apply to the materials used – film and composed music – as well as to the form that is employed for the performance. The form in which the film- and musical materials are presented is the result of the creative and practical decisions that were made during the process of conceptualizing the project. Not only does the form require the interpretation of musical material, it also requires an emotive response to visual material. The performer engages with the musical medium as well as the visual medium, and interprets both: in the preparation for the performance, the musical material is first interpreted without visual stimuli, while in performance the material is interpreted both intuitively and emotively as a real-time response. The interlocking, overlapping agencies of film, composition, improvisation and musical performance therefore provide the formal structure for the performance.

Intermediality in this performance extends to three aesthetic perspectives: the filmmaker, composer and the performer. In this model, the performer interprets two types of medium – the film as well as the musical composition – and presents the material in the form of a real-time response. It would also have been possible for me to have pre-viewed the film, and there is an argument to be made that this could have provided a more cohesive performance scenario. But, tonight’s performances are experiments, and were designed to test, among other things, my capabilities to give immediate responses to media other than composed musical material. Presenting two or more performances tonight therefore provides the opportunity to test both my musical responses upon first viewing and subsequent reactions after becoming familiarized with the film.

Michael Blake composed a single work, which he then divided into twenty fragments of varying lengths, one fragment to a page. At my initial reading of the text I was not aware that the composer had conceived of the music in one individual structure, but I did immediately become aware of a strong interconnectivity in the musical material. I did not receive the music in its original sequence however, and the musical journey during which I discovered the several musical links added to the level of the experience. I was intrigued by the fact that one piece of music could be equally coherent both in a through-composed form and when heard in a fragmented way. It is possible that one of the major strengths of this work lies in the fact that Michael Blake is a master of the miniature form and could, in the conceptual framework provided for this composition, engage with macro- and micro-forms simultaneously. The conceptual framework within which this work was conceived provided part of the creative input of this composition. This suggests to me that creative collaborations between different types of artists could facilitate and encourage new work, an idea which I find enormously exciting.

I began studying the musical score in a way similar to my usual methods for assimilating new music, beginning with a basic reading of the text, identifying potential technical issues and trying to gain an understanding of the musical language. I also decided to memorise the music, to free me up as much as possible to respond to the film. I came to the conclusion early on that the music that Blake had composed was coherent, innovative, and actually strong enough to exist completely independently from the film, a point which I will return to presently.

Studying and assimilating the musical text opened up from the outset interesting issues for me as a pianist and performer. Whereas the ‘narrative’ of the work or the sequence of musical events would normally guide my process of learning the music, I here had to resist creating any form of linear narrative, or risk being unable to break free of the sequence established in my mind when eventually responding to the film material. In terms of memorizing music, I generally find it much simpler to commit music to memory when there is an identifiable narrative structure or sequence of musical events, for in such a case each section of music is suggested by the material preceding it. In the case of Blake’s Fragments, however, I could not rely on macro-structure to aid my memory. The way Blake structured the music was, of course, exactly what I had wanted for the piece, and being confronted with complications such as those I just mentioned lent the entire project a feeling of being an organic process, which I enjoyed and struggled with in almost equal measure.

Each of the fragments has, however, a very specific character, another indication of Michael’s skill and insight into the requirements of this project: the composer realised that my reactions to the film will be driven by emotive responses, which means an easily identifiable character association with each fragment would aid the process enormously. In addition, I found that Blake’s composition is written in a way that the inner structure of each individual fragment could, without the trigger of visual material, also suggest a larger musical sequence. Several chord structures occur in more than one fragment; sometimes, these chord structures are written out to form a melody, and the chord is disguised. There are recurring melodic and rhythmic sections, sometimes reoccurring with only an alteration in tempo but remaining the same both rhythmically and in terms of register. Sometimes, sectional material is transformed in terms of character so that it becomes barely recognisable. These factors attest to a strong musical coherence in these Fragments in the Form of a Serial, and I experimented with performing them without visual stimuli, using the inner structures and materials of each fragment to create a unique version of the composition, a process similar to that followed by Stockhausen in his Klavierstück XI.

Eventually I came to the realization that, for this performance at least, I would have to approach the fragments as individual character pieces, rather than try to imagine them as a purely musical aggregate. At the time of writing this text, I had not seen Aryan Kaganof’s film, but I felt secure in assuming that the material he provided the composer to work with had to at least match the substance of the music that was created in response to it. Because I had no idea what the film material would be like, and because Aryan did not know what to expect from the music, we were both required to engage with a new level of creativity and creative response.

I would like to, at this point, say a few words on collaboration. According to the dictionary definition, to ‘collaborate’ is to ‘work jointly on an activity or project’. Its roots are in Latin: to labour together. According to this definition, therefore, tonight’s performances should not be viewed as the result of collaboration per se. While the three role-players in tonight’s performance event all had some level of interaction with each other, each created and interpreted materials individually, and without necessarily consulting or including the others. Aryan Kaganof and I were conceptual collaborators on this project, because the idea ultimately came to exist in its current form as a result of our joined creative efforts in conceptualising it. We did not, however, collaborate on the conceptualising and creation of the film itself. While Blake and Kaganof have a history of collaboration, in this instance they had little or no interaction, and before this evening Kaganof did not hear the music that Blake had composed. I had the opportunity to work with Michael on the Fragments and he made several suggestions, some of which I have incorporated, and some of which I have ignored because they were contrary to my own creative and musical instincts and some performative decisions I had made. Michael and I could not collaborate on the interpretation of the Fragments on a larger scale or intermedial level, of course: an essential feature of this concept was that I would not see the film or know what it contains, which meant the discussions we could have in terms of interpretation were limited.

There is also the question of personal dynamics in a collaborative project. The expertise and specializations that each individual brings to the table in such a project comes with specific personality traits, work methods and creative approaches. The negotiation of different media and creative processes go together with a negotiation of different personalities, artistic impulses, approaches and aesthetics. All these must be negotiated on some level by the collaborators. My instinct throughout this project was to allow as much personal and artistic freedom for each of the role-players as possible, and to try not to exercise too much control over the individual creative processes. Departing from the knowledge that the choice of individuals to participate in this project was a creative decision as much as a practical one, I felt secure in the knowledge that the result of the collaboration would be artistically viable, perhaps even more so if each creative personality was allowed maximum freedom.

I would suggest that Kaganof, Blake and I indeed laboured together to create tonight’s performance; it could only have existed in its current form with the presence of these specific collaborators, their specific skills and also personalities. It is my belief that the question of ‘ownership’, a recurring issue with collaborations in music and art, is circumvented in this project: all the creative material is substantial enough to exist on its own, even though it forms a coherent whole in performance. I would posit, therefore, that tonight’s performance is the one moment where the essential collaborative aspect of this conceptual performance project is revealed.

The performance you just heard, and the one which will be presented to you following this presentation, could therefore be seen as experiments in collaboration, as well as a venture into the as yet uncommon territory of conceptual music.
Contrary to the term ‘conceptual art’ which has been pervasive in art discourse since the 1960’s, conceptual music has as yet not been clearly defined, nor do many examples of this type of music exist. Conceptual art can be loosely defined as art in which the concept or idea that underwrites the work takes precedence over traditional aesthetic norms and practices. Sol LeWitt, an important early exponent of the conceptual art movement, wrote in 1967 that ‘in conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art’ (LeWitt 1967).

I would argue that in conceptual music, contrary to conceptual art, the execution is not a ‘perfunctory affair’ but rather an essential part of the final product; while the conceptual decisions and planning is done beforehand, the concept only fully comes to fruition in the performance of the music. A feature of conceptual music, in my view, is that new music is created and performed as a result of a process of rational argument first and perhaps even foremost, and creative engagement and artistic imagination second. The idea or concept drives the creative process, leading to a performative result. The field of conceptual music is as yet still wide open and, I believe, ripe for exploration.
The process of conceptualising this project, assimilating the music and ultimately presenting it in performance has opened up many questions about my own processes of engaging with music, performance, different media and creative response. These issues will be elaborated on in my PhD thesis. I thank you for joining me this evening for this experiment – it is any artist’s dream to have an interested audience available willing to be subjected to her experiments, follies and fantasies.

Whenever I film it is always in the present. (My present)

I frame time and space.

When I edit, this too is
in the present.

I attach units
of recorded
space-time,
of the past,
to each other.

When the audience
watches my films they
watch them in the present.
(Their present)

But what they
are watching
is the past,
framed
twice
as it
were,
in the present
of filming and the
present of editing.

The past becomes present
again every time a film is viewed.

Therefore film is a time machine.

The idea that the “real me” has a body
of flesh and blood is ludicrous.

The real me is captured
on film.

The
real me
never dies.

My flesh and blood
body is merely a transporting
vehicle, a biological device to be
used in conjunction with the mechanical
device of the cinematic apparatus in order to
RELEASE the real me from the primitive mortal prison
of my body.

The real me is
endlessly rewinding
and being played back
in the present.

The real me
has merged
with infinity
to become
timeless,
immortal,
a god.

The voice
you hear is not
a recording of an
original event that
took place in the past,
not a copy of something
authentic. The voice you hear
is me, speaking to you now in the
present, your present. The face staring
out at you from the screen is the real me,
disembodied, freed from the limitation of dying.

The meaning of what you are seeing and hearing is true freedom.

aryan kaganof

Between 2005 and 2006 Aryan Kaganof produced four video-clips with the famous French group NOUVELLE VAGUE. Their most recent concert in Paris to date was on the 25-04-07 at the Grand Rex, one of the capital’s largest concert venues. During these two years the group successfully brought out four cover versions of English or American tracks.

In order to show you the telepathy between Kaganof and ourselves, we’re going to quote our comments from KagaBlog from 14-08-06, where we referred to the song “Bela Lugosi is Dead” by Bauhaus, concluding that the latter is not dead. At the same time, without knowing, Kaganof was filming the video-clip “Helgé Janssen. Undead” with a remake of the same song by Nouvelle Vague this time. Helgé Janssen is a South African dancer and writer who has already published a novel with the publishing house directed by Kaganof. He dances half-naked in the video of Bauhaus’ song covered by Nouvelle Vague. With great talent for four minutes he emphasises the metaphorical aspect of the song, reminding us that Lugosi was a defender of counter-culture in his time, and Kaganof wants to emphasise the fact that this counter-culture is not dead today, but revived by extraordinary people such as Helgé Janssen and Kaganof himself!

“Too Drunk to Fuck” is the Nouvelle Vague’s cover of an old track by the Dead Kennedys. Kaganof puts the song’s context into a new problematic. Through the real images of an adolescent Catherine Henegan playing with her friends, he is trying to underline the naïve side of the lyrics with a touch of discreet humour. The Super8 images of family scenes are full of charm and grace, a grace lost with time, but seen again from an angle that is sexist and nostalgic-lyrical: that of the lines of the song and that of the producer, who manages to blend the contradictory elements.

“Fade to glass” is the remake of Visage’s old song “Fade to Grey”. Kaganof presents two dancers on two screens, interpreting a choreography directed by Ysabelle Evers. The producer’s editing is full of rhythmic interactions between intersecting and superimposed images. With the technical term of the title, the producer highlights a home-made technique where the special effects are used only for their poetic value, not for their effect of illusion, as is done in commercial cinema.

“Venus Emerging” is the title of the fourth video, but not the fourth song. It’s a remake of the Special’s “Friday Night” in which we see, above all, the impressive sub-marine images of a beautiful young diver in slow motion. She is diving gracefully and the camera observes the carnal aspect of her beautiful athletic body.

These four video clips produced by Aryan Kaganof are fairly simple as concepts and productions, but very liturgical and effective as artistic events – they are liturgical for it is a special mass that they are celebrating, that of youth, charm, music and love. They are effective because these films highlight the essential values of cinema – the rhythm and vibration of life, colour, dance, art, youth and love.

dionysos andronis

more info here: http://www.kurzfilmtage.de/en/programme/programmes/international-competition/international-competition-5.html

keep reading this review here: http://eustisjazz.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/341/

If music is alone amongst the arts in its ability to penetrate to the essence of things in a non-referential way, Aryan Kaganof’s film Interactions: A Strategy of Difference and Repetition, is music.

Commissioned by the Theater Instituut Nederland to make a film about the Expert Meeting held at the Goethe German Cultural Centre in Johannesburg from 21-23 November 2010, Kaganof composes a film consisting of polyphonic voices, gesticulating hands, staged diegetic sound/action and scenes of civic unrest filmed at Zandspruit, a township in the North-west of Johannesburg.

The brilliance of this work lies in how it recognizes and demonstrates futility – the tedium of arts administration dialogue, the impotence of art, the power-imbalances of interactions – without surrendering to its implications. In this film ethical resistance to these conditions emerges not through a critique thereof, but through a framing sensibility that is fundamentally compassionate and unyieldingly political.

Kaganof’s startling filming, editing and directing performance overwhelms the commissioning agency’s bureaucratic requirements and lack of ambition. He makes the film that should have been commissioned (but clearly was not) by enacting the dynamic he is supposed to document.

Re-edited at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study in January 2012 and selected for this year’s 58th International Oberhausen Short Film Festival, Interactions is a densely layered, multi-register performance of unlikely concentration and succinctness. In its emotional directness and enigmatic clarity, it is meaningful in a profoundly musical way.

Stephanus Muller
University of Stellenbosch
Department of Music

00:59 We are all going to Johannesburg. Why?

01:13 A strategy of difference and repetition by Aryan Kaganof

02:49 At first when you collaborate, and somebody has a cheque, you want to seem to please that person with a cheque. You do everything that he wants or that she wants, because he has a cheque. in his hand.

03:07 Hi Aryan, I had a first look at the film and many questions raised. My first impression on the first version of your film report of the expert meeting is that I did not understand it.

03:19 1. I do not understand the storyline and for me as a organiser I could not follow the story line and I wonder how others than participants to the meeting will have an idea about the contents. I saw some nice bits and pieces in the film (specially Afrikaaps) and some speeches. But it is very fragmentic / fragmentarisch we say in the Netherlands and chaotic. I miss consistency. Like I understand you made a film out of (personal) impressions of the meeting. But I cannot find the overall storyline.

03:39 I do not understand why the content we agreed upon does not come across: what is Interactions, the topics of the sessions, the networking during the breaks, the sustainability discussed, the concluions of the meeting, the participants, etcetera. I miss some sessions. I miss faces of people speaking. I miss the final conclusions. I miss the connection with the general underlying purposes of the meeting and the project (I send you all information about the project on beforehand). I miss faces faces of people anyhow. I miss a clear beginning and a clear end. I miss consistency in the film. etcetera.

04:07 Could you explain to me what you see as the storyline in the film? Could you explain to me why you chose these fragments and why you choose this form with hands and impersonal images? Could you explain to me what you want to say with the film? I have many more comments, but first of all I am curious to know more about your ideas with this film?

04:42 We wish to be like this rock
We wish to be like…

05:40 We wish to be like this rock…

06:00 Lord make me… be like this rock…
Make me like this… rock

06:43 Buzz and pull when opened

06:47 Yes Mr.B I will go with you Mr.B

06:59 We wish to be like this rock.

07:15 OK what is this movie about?

07:17 Interactions? It’s real dialogue, it’s making things happen.

07:21 OK what is this movie about?

07:23 In English? A two year collaborative program in the field of performing arts and it’s about collaborations between performing artists in South Africa and the Netherlands.

07:36 Hi Jeanneke, thank you very much for your open-hearted mail. The best way of viewing Interactions is to imagine Bert Haanstra doing Johan van der Keuken doing an anthropological documentary. As I am sure you know your Dutch classics well all should be revealed! Best wishes Aryan.

07:46 There were all kinds of collaborations. Afrikaaps is the result of a collaboration.

07:52 I’m in front of the door
I’m in front of the door
Of the magistrate’s office
O tell me boss
What did I do?
When I got 9 months jail
Up there on Roeland street

08:51 I come back from the mountain
I drink fresh water at the fountain
You can’t dis me and I can’t be coloured
Because Bliksem takes the flame much higher

09:03 All of a sudden the flow of arts exchange between South Africa and the Netherlands had dried up a bit and I thought there is a little low in the relationship and we need to do something about it so the aim of this program was to underpin again a good basis for cultural exchange. That we know each other again and that we have again a good basis to collaborate.

09:34 South African art and culture is a product of what people used to call “The Melting Pot”. I believe that a lot of work that’s being done in the field of arts and culture is also a product of this “melting pot”

10:02 We are a dark people
And we can count on our language to liberate our soul
Some call it creole
It came on a ship and we call it hotnot

10:22 Breaking it down on the floor, rapping it up on the mic, playing some beats, everyone is playing a part and no one is asking “what race are you?”.

10:33 Because this whole thing about “coloured”, if you really look about it everybody’s coloured.

10:37 Thank you.

10:41 I came to this conference with proof from our government that it took seven months to respond to an email for funding to attend a festival in Afrovibes, in Amsterdam called the Afrovibes festival. It took them seven months to respond of which I have proof, weekly chasing them, like a pitbull with a bone in its mouth, to try and get some sort of response, and I have proof over here, seven months later.

11:06 I think probably the approach needs to be different, because there are agencies, goverment agencies, that are mandated with doing the same thing, so we probably need to start using the agencies more and moving away from the reliance on government.

11:18 If the whiteys could fuck it up for 300 years why can’t the blacks fuck it up?

11:28 We’re doing well, we’re fucking it up well. We’re not allowing artists in, we’re keeping the communities out, we only can put on 25 plays a year, the other 400 that want to be there we have to say NO to. I’ve only been shot once.

11:46 But at least I’m not dancing like the Dutchmen.

11:50 But anyway, ask some other people some questions.

11:52 In a post 9/11 world there have been increasing concerns around security globally and culture has been identified as a key faultline. Different values, belief systems, different ideologies and worldviews pose threats as perceived by some. Against this background there has been much emphasis by some governments on intercultural dialogue, on cultural diplomacy, on the appropriation of culture and arts-related strategies to build bridges between communities. To facilitate understanding, to humanize “Other”.

13:41 So here we are, evaluating… but what are we evaluating…

13:46 It’s been twenty years staying in squatter camp. Nothing is happening in squatter camp. We don’t want Maureen Son. We want Zuma now. When we go to Metro they stop our toyi-toyi. We are tired of them now. We are tired. Because we staying in shacks about twenty years. They treat us like pigs, we are not a pig we are the people. They must treat us well.

15:50 Many artists just want to make art. They don’t want to be concerned about all of these other factors.

18:43 I wonder in what way you involve the private sector in your approach?

18:51 It’s about to withdraw its funding from the arts, give or take a year or two, so anybody who talks about entrepreneurship, anybody who talks about “business is the way”, I think they are just blinded by contemporary discourse that has got fuck all to do with the reality of how these things work. Sorry. Sorry.

19:08 And you leave me hanging…

19:15 Oh my God! You’re catching me.

19:19 Hi Aryan. Thanks for your message. But I still have the question; which is your storyline you choose? With friendly greetings, Jeanneke den Boer.

19:33 We may be coming with something that is called money but so what? It’s actually just money. In the end it just doesn’t matter. You as an artist may be coming with something which is just as valuable. So how do we stop this kind of beggar mentality?

19:52 Bring in money or funding in terms of like for instance because when an example when a collaboration starts to exist now how do we keep that relationship going?

20:05 Make sure the people come in to see the shows and then you start talking about how and what. Me I’m running a crossover thing between film and dance.

20:15 What are the conditions of sustaining the sector?

20:18 The curiosity and integrity and the wish of the people working in the theatre or in music to co-operate. And what I see in the Netherlands is that after a rather long period in the arts of very much concentrating on artistic development and concentrating on aesthetics…

20:41 We should stop crying all the time. We should educate.

20:47 Many people argue and talk about legalize your language
Mix it up with English and a whole lot of styles
Rap it up with confidence and I say Jah Nyabinghi within Afrikaaps
White man stole my language but he can’t steal my soul
The fucking cunt
But I want to rap and sound like me
Not someone else

21:20 We see the big dream of touring as validating us as artists. It doesn’t. We’re validating ourselves as artists when we can earn a living from the arts and we’re able to pay the rent.

21:31 Even professional companies have realized that there is no audience base for shows, so they all want to go to schools.

21:37 They don’t go to the theatres.

21:40 A government that does not have a community arts policy in place.

21:45 This is how collaborations should happen.

21:47 That does not fund community arts.

21:49 We have to make sure that the people, they see what you mean.

21:54 And if we want to sustain our groups our groups have to start to sustain themselves in some measure financially.

22:03 Not just thinking about sustainability as financial but in terms of social capital.

22:08 Yeah, this is the Dutchman that brings you money. Oh! Oh! And then whatever Roel says, Yes! Ja! Yes! And when Roel goes it’s like, “we don’t want to do what that man was saying”.

22:22 On the other hand do Dutch colleagues refrain from raising their concerns about issues for fear of being regarded as patronising or neo-colonial and so rather than deal with the issues wait for the project to end, never to return.

22:43 Hi Jeanneke. Thank you for your mail. There has clearly been a misunderstanding. Probably you have never seen a film of mine. I am a non-narrative film-maker. My films don’t have “storylines”. Best wishes
Aryan.

22:52 Since you have been sitting and talking all night we thought it might be a good idea to give you a little bit of an artistic performance here tonight.

23:33 Um very interesting but from my point of view I’m wondering where the new music is. It seems to be quite dance and theatre focused.

23:46 But we have some time so maybe there are some questions?

23:50 Tell a story. Thanks for your message. In response to your reaction: than there is a problem, it is not exactly what we asked for and agreed upon. How can we solve this? It would be good to have a skype appointment to communicate about this. I am at TIN irregularly and finishing my job here now. Best wishes Jeanneke.

24:03 This is how collaborations should happen.

24:05 I am on the attack
A promise is a comfort to a fool
Babylon is crucial
Ghetto youth is on the alert
And hijack city is the land of I & I

24:14 Afrikaaps , which is the expression of the people of the Cape flats, was never really considered “official” , because our language was never “official”. So your expression is not “official”. So if you’re heartbroken girl, “officially” heartbroken. You feel “officially” bad. So Afrikaaps makes those emotions of ours official. And everybody knows now what we feel about the type of Afrikaans that we speak. Every day.

24:46 Clearly we speak different types of Afrikaans. And it’s not about putting anyone down or saying this is the standard once again. It’s been done. So what we’re doing is for ourselves and contributing to our nation’s healing.

25:06 Who is your dumb darkie? Afrikaaps comes from the Cape
Now 2nd new year is celebrated every day
In the form of a party
The people will give themselves back to the land

25:16 And we must not be fooled, language is a big part of identity and self-worth.

25:21 Then the ships came from Batavia
Now everything is all mixed up

25:27 Bullets and business
Idolise tv and selling those drugs
Word virus on computers and paedophiles
Townships are ill
Police stand there shooting to kill
Come khoisan take back your land
Come khoisan take back your land
Coloureds come from khoisan understand?

26:11 It’s not a surprise to you that you are living in interesting times. Powers in the world are shifting. And some people become frightened. But there are others who see this as opportunities. In these turbulent times the debate about the essence of art is always intensified.

27:00 I don’t remember much after that. I woke up here.

27:12 One more time.
Are you wild on guilt are you wild on credit?
We speak the language and throw the tongue roll
We throw the tongue roll

28:08 I get so nervous of this guy he is in my face all of the time. You also wonder are these pictures of me going to end up on youtube or something? Especially on the back of my head.

28:27 Hi Jeanneke, thank you for your mail. I do not skype. I am not sure what there is to solve? I have sent you the work. I am very oopen to shortening it if needs be. You asked for and agreed upon a film by Aryan Kaganof. And that is what you got. My invoice is attached. With friendly greetings, Aryan Kaganof.

syd kitchen’s song is arranged by colin shapiro
camera, edit, direction by aryan kaganof
october 2011