staying completely weird
not becoming super rational. but rather square rooting 'normal', rationalist ideas and senses.
a Dialogue all the while in general (but not neccesarily in language)
allowing multiple spaces to exist. afs is thinking of how narrative can work with slippages and indications that reveal that what you just heard/saw... happened in the past...
working with transitions
very much about our process
always lived in the future
always live in the present (!)
....she will come on the stage (then will come on the stage slightly different)
how about:? person in blue outfit who is not-there, with the words in dark blue "Trotsky 00" on his back (but also sorta blended in to his outfit, so that only in certain light can you read it) a... occassionally arrives... does some things (like starts sewing this gigantic beautiful yellow flag that is draping suddenly across the stage)... dissappears...
how about you have this great cosmonaut helmet from time to time when we really get into the future... or maybe just a cool contemporary motorcyle helmet and this image comes on that you stand in front of and sorta move about with this strange cool, aggressive energy for a while (in the helmet)...
i love the idea of an enormous amount of media that is tracking us. that is, all this worldwide recording. waiting and listening to ever word! what is going to happen!? what is going to be said!? with all kinds of logos! and different colors! like hundreds of mics and cables.. all different colors and logos...
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references (see new links in link section): Joseph Chaikin, Darren O'Donnel's main text "Social Acupuncture" (canadian performance maker who made a monologue which featured this interesting back and forth in time thing)
i love the helmet! it reminds me on Tereshkova, first women cosmonaut. i will put her picture later on blog. the idea of media is also great! having two many microphones, we can have some fake microphones out of paper.
ReplyDeleteabout the present of the advertisement i do not agree. i think the capitalist world is also about the future. the american dream! this is again what they have in common. one georgian photographer, who has great photos about stalin- he explains the love to stalin, as kind of 'american dream', he was the sun of the shoemaker and became the man in power. he made it to the top. this photographer has great photos series of shoemakers ateliers where they have photos of stalin on the walls.
ReplyDeleteoh yes. in that respect yes! american sensibility is about the future. no question..
ReplyDeletenot so sure that capitalism itself is so much about the future... well.. i would have to explain what i mean..
it IS about the future... but ONLY as a speculative field.. hence there is always this constant project/re-evaluation thing... this is what the ups and downs of the stock market, for example are all about... its all about attempting to estimate what sector, what company, etc. is going to make a profit in the future and what not... that is why for instance right now, the markets are down, because it is projected that since China just reported that their manufacturing orders were down this last month, there is worry that things are slowing down in the largest area of manufacturing in the world (and which makes most things which are sold in europe and north america -- the two largest markets for consumer goods, by far).
so, my point is that there is a weird difference... not a strict one.. between american sensibility and how global capitalism works. they are not opposites! most definetly not.
but on one hand its all about the future.. about building together.. about imagining how something can be ahead and then working into that... this goes way back to say how small communities in america work together... often a strong scandanivian influence.. things like what is called "barn-raising" (where a whole community in one day puts up a barn for one of the farmers there)... to all sorts of other sorta communal, collective actions that are about building into the future... this is also in many american games (american football, baseball, etc.) -- there is a strong component of how you imagine the future and work towards that in the game..
but i just think that capitalism per se... global capitalism that is.. while it does 'deal' with the future... is in fact very much about the present... in how it plays...
as it were...
did you know also that Gramsci (the italian marxist who was imprisoned by the fascists and wrote the famous Prison Notebooks... also was a huge influence on the autonomist marxists in italy in the late 60's, early 70's.. such people as Negri)... well he thought that american culture (the people) were indeed perfect for real revolutionary possibilities.. partly because in american culture there is this openness and willingness to Enter the Future (and in a way enjoy it).. but also because he argued that american culture being broken from the european fold (being seperated from it in certain crucial structural ways) also meant that there was not the layers of cultural internal politics and favors and payback that was very active in europe. namely in southern europe.. the continuity of feudal days.. so that you had people receiving pensions in effect from Lords, etc,... this created problems he felt for a real revolution in europe... American society, etc. he felt was more able and ready to really Enter the Revolution...
ReplyDeleteunfortunately what he did not analyze was how devestating the destruction of the Left was in the 1910's in america.. so in other words, his analysis was right but a little late... from the late 1800's to around 1915 there had been very strong revolutionary movements in america, but they had been literally murderously destroyed by big industrialists hiring thugs in combination with the police. The infamous Pullman Strike is perhaps the central event that turned the tables. The state literally murdered all kinds of people and rounded up and executed the most dynamic and smart leaders of that time. Then ww1 happened.
This period in american history and how the radical left was destroyed at that point is rarely taught in schools, etc but its quite incredible.
Not only did it create a huge vacumn and in effect cripple a whole generation, it created a massive 'chill-effect'.. slowing down radical movements to near stand-stills..
I don't think the radical left ever really recovered. Not nearly to its power and magnitude of those times...relatively speaking... in america..
anyhow...