thingist May 2020

thingist@mailman.thing.net

6 participants
4 discussions

By way of Sixteen Beaver
by Caspar Stracke 29 May '20

29 May '20

The amount of Sixteen Beaver’s output, writing and on-line discourse on life and politics beyond the pandemic is both amazing and overwhelming. Saturday -- 05.30.20 -- Testing Assembling Fifth Edition CONTENTS: 0. Short Note 1. Today 2. Tomorrow (Saturday's Assembling) 3. Videos from Previous Weeks 4. Additional Links 5. In Memorium ______________________________________ 0. Short Note We send this invitation to the fifth testing of assembling. It will take place tomorrow (Saturday May 30, 2020) at 11am New York Time. Please write to mai [at] 16beavergroup.org <http://16beavergroup.org/> if you are interested to take part. ______________________________________ 1. Today / Introduction We convene this assembling in the wake of so many whose lives have been senselessly taken in what unfolds as a pandemic, yet can also been seen, as Silvia Federici noted in our first assembling, as pre-meditated and structurally adjusted death (e.g., only taking the most obvious case of 50 years of neoliberal privatization and economization of health care). And we do so facing with deep sadness and a profound anger over the recent murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery which recall Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Renisha McBride, Eric Garner, John Crawford, Michael Brown, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Jamar Clark, Akai Gurley, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Charles Kinsey, and how many daily whose death is not recorded, captured, noted, which no timeline can grasp if not to return to that age of 'discovery' and all the lies which proliferate and form the bedrock upon which the truths of today circulate, establish themselves, and gain currency. That over 100,000 individuals have been killed in the United States, like George Floyd, in the last months, not from a virus but from structured neglect, mutilated forms of care (which are as racialized, gendered, naturalized and normalized) remains our challenge to connect. Last week, our conversation turned to three incorrigible states, Turkey, Lebanon, the U.S.. It included a friend and elder, Annie Chambers in East Baltimore, who gave us a sense of what 'pre-existing conditions' could mean and what we need to be talking about / considering / struggling against and for in the midst of this pandemic. We hope to share this video soon as her notes as well as those of our other comrades from Ankara and Beirut, given for consideration, are very pertinent to this time we are living through. Below, we share the invite to the fifth attempt to assemble online, which will take place tomorrow (May 30). Please write to mai [at] 16beavergroup.org <http://16beavergroup.org/> if you are interested to take part. ______________________________________ 2. Tomorrow / Testing Assembling Fourth Edition What: Testing Assembling When: Sunday, May 30th, begins 11:00 a.m. (approx. 2hrs) (New York Time) Where: Online Who: please write to mai [at] 16beavergroup.org <http://16beavergroup.org/> (to receive the details) This Saturday, we would like to invite you to the fifth edition of Testing Assembling. We have been using this time of gathering to try and invite friends from different contexts, experiences and struggles to try to share some questions/points they believe to be necessary or critical to consider. This week, we will be joined by a friend of the space (and the Society!) who will share a few points both with regard to our relation to the virus as well as to the question of death and the deceased. What means to live with this virus and to potentially make politics with it? What means to live with those who pass on and to potentially make politics with them? What means politics in such a context we are living today? In the context of today - where we see states and capital reveal in a myriad of ways a blatant disregard for life, especially for the lives of those deemed sacrifice-able, not valuable, expendable, disposable (through deeply structured colonial, racist, patriarchal, classist. heternormative, agiest, corporatist, productivist, destructivist institutions, values, forms of thinking, imposed forms of living); a question poses itself with regard to how we relate to and how do we live with those among us who pass. In situating her use of a word, instauration as it may relate to the deceased, our friend writes: "participating in a transformation that leads to a certain existence, that is, to more existence (in the case of the deceased, both a biographical supplement and the accomplishment of an existence in another realm of reality): an existence that, in the case of a particularly successful accomplishment, may manifest what Étienne Souriau calls its “brilliance of reality” (éclat suffisant de réalité). For we can indeed talk of “reality” as regards the existence of the deceased, provided we agree on the right regime of reality that can be granted to them. By envisaging the definition of the mode of existence that enables us to account for what the deceased do and what they have others do – so that we can describe how they interfere in the lives of the living –, we avoid the trap in which our tradition captures and generally freezes the problem" Thinking about the actions taking place on the streets of Minneapolis in the memory of George Floyd and so many others subjected to the same violence these words above gain new valence. Like the previous weeks, if you are interested to take part, we ask you to please write to: mai [at] 16beavergroup.org <http://16beavergroup.org/> Our schedule will be between 11am-1pm or so. ______________________________________ 3. Videos from Previous Weeks We have uploaded the videos from the second and third edition, which include contributions from Havin Guneser, Suely Rolnik, David Harvey, Michael Taussig, and many more friends. http://16beavergroup.org/assembling/ <http://16beavergroup.org/assembling/> ______________________________________ 4. Useful Links Bring the Dead into Ethology http://centreparrhesia.org/bring_the_dead_back_to_ethology.pdf <http://centreparrhesia.org/bring_the_dead_back_to_ethology.pdf> Inquiries raised by the dead http://centreparrhesia.org/inquiries_raised_by_the_dead.pdf <http://centreparrhesia.org/inquiries_raised_by_the_dead.pdf> Society of the Friends of the Virus http://centreparrhesia.org/ <http://centreparrhesia.org/> Film Supplement to Volume 4 http://centreparrhesia.org/nyc <http://centreparrhesia.org/nyc> (the fifth video includes Annie!) ______________________________________ 5. In Memorium We thought to include here a text we wrote and sent nearly a year ago to mark the passing of a young comrade who frequented the space, Zack Rosen. Remembering Zack and re-reading the text, we were struck by how much of it relates to this moment we are living, which makes the questions posed in it, all the more relevant. Clearly, the reference to 'silence as a common' was a reference to the writings and thought of Ivan Illich who like Zack and many other friends we have lost over the years still accompany us today on this infinite journey. http://16beavergroup.org/mondays/2019/05/25/our-silence-is-also-a-commons/ <http://16beavergroup.org/mondays/2019/05/25/our-silence-is-also-a-commons/> _______________________________________________ 16 Beaver Group 16 Beaver Street - Exodus New York - Under Lockdown for more info visit: http://www.16beavergroup.org <http://www.16beavergroup.org/>

1 0

Dear members of thingist /
by Armando Lulaj 20 May '20

20 May '20

Dear thingist Members, This is Armando Lulaj writing. At Wolfgang Staehle's kind invitation I just joined thingist. I want to bring to your attention a very problematic situation we are facing in Albania, that concerns art and politics, and of course the relationship between the two. Members of DebatikCenter of Contemporary Art together with many other artists, activists, etc., have written and signed an Open Letter addressed to the international art community, concerning urgent issues needing a vigorous and immediate response in our country which, like many other countries these days, is rapidly sliding towards fascism. I kindly invite you to read it and to support the cause we are fighting for. You will find the original link to Open Letter and the document where you can sign at the following link. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOD6TJ9YMBrqiL-tRTOmScaUnd9XwVfG3vO-3nb… With all my best regards, Armando -- D.C.C.A debatikcenter.net *www.instagram.com/armandolulaj_magazine <http://www.instagram.com/armandolulaj_magazine>* Sent by a satellite tracking device.

1 0

More from Sixteen Beaver's "Testing Assembly"
by Caspar Stracke 09 May '20

09 May '20

Sunday — 05.10.20 — Testing Assembling Second Edition — Videos from First Edition CONTENTS: 0. Short Note 1. Testing Assembling Second Edition (This Sunday) 2. Some Thoughts (for Second Testing) 3. Testing Assembling First Edition (Videos) 4. Society of the Friends of the Virus (Small Note) ______________________________________ 0. Short Note We want to write this short note to let you know two things: One, that we will try to build on our first meeting last Sunday with a second test at assembling. The description is below. Like last week, if you are interested to take part, we ask you to please write to: mai [at] 16beavergroup.org <http://16beavergroup.org/> Two, we also have videos from last week, please see below for more details and the link. ______________________________________ 1. Testing Assembling Second Edition What: Testing Assembling When: Sunday, May 10th, begins 11:00 a.m. Where: Online Who: All are invited, please write to mai [at] 16beavergroup.org <http://16beavergroup.org/> (to receive further details) This Sunday, we would like to invite you to the second edition of our Testing Assembling. We are still waiting to determine the more precise schedule. We provide a description below, if you are interested, please write to mai [at] 16beavergroup.org <http://16beavergroup.org/> and we will confirm the schedule and details of how to access the meeting. We are still testing assembling, in the sense that we would like to try different ways of meeting and thinking together (making use of the means of meeting remotely while attempting to also consider the limits and dead-ends of such means). ______________________________________ 2. Some Thoughts (for Second Testing) Each of us prepares a question or two, a point or two, related to last Sunday’s meeting, something that was brought up, that resonates, needs attention and thinking. (We managed to put up the recordings from last week to also allow others who could not attend to be able to participate.) (If you were not able to take part last week, you can also join to follow the discussions but it will be useful to at least watch one of the movements.) To make this assembling useful and our meeting meaningful, we encourage everyone to try to link their questions and associated points or elaborations to issues raised in the first series of conversations. We are trying to build a process of thinking and questioning together and avoid the institutionalized approaches which foreclose any possibility to develop collectively a critical space for thought, action, and organization in whatever form that may take. After each has shared their question with everyone, the rest who did not formulate a question will open the discussion. As you can imagine, we are trying to activate all the intelligences in the assembling space and encourage it. At the same time, we hope that it does not become a democracy of speech time as an empty formal and meaningless gesture without the necessary counterparts of listening, responding, considering, translating through another body, another affection and perspective. It goes without saying that our invited guests from the first assembling are a core part of this continued conversation and will hopefully be part of this evolving process, whether on this occasion or subsequent assemblings. We will also be inviting other friends to slowly build up a suppleness to our responses to the virus. Our horizon for organizing these meetings is not to fill content or fulfill a mandate for a job, institution, anything of the kind: rather, it comes out from and toward a care for our worlds-in-common. The exigency is communal, political, and based on affinity and friendship, which is also based on the establishment of relations and forms of organizing with one another that go beyond professionalisms and instrumentalisms. We are all being or going to be called into processes which will establish, shape a 'new normal', to 'return', to go 'back to work', 'back to school', etc.: trying to create a space of thinking together in this moment is also searching for the terms to struggle within the cuts/ruptures the virus opens and understand what these fissures may mean and how they may affect the way we reimagine the politics and the necessary shifts in sense-abilities to come.. ______________________________________ 3. Testing Assembling First Edition We also uploaded the videos to the four movements we organized last week. Many interventions from friends including those whom we had invited to contribute: Jean-Luc Nancy Nazan Ustundag Rolando Vázquez Melken Nika Dubrovsky David Graeber Jaspal Singh Hardeep Mann Silvia Federici Marcela Olivera Sarah Lewison Suely Rolnik You can find links to the videos here: http://16beavergroup.org/assembling/ <http://16beavergroup.org/assembling/> ______________________________________ 4. Society of the Friends of the Virus We realize that these downloads are 7mb, for anyone who has low bandwidth and needs lighter files or simple text files, please write to letters [at] centreparrhesia.org <http://centreparrhesia.org/> You can also visit the centre's website for some translations in Spanish and Italian. We are working on translating additional volumes. Volume 3 http://centreparrhesia.org/vol_3_society_of_the_friends.pdf <http://centreparrhesia.org/vol_3_society_of_the_friends.pdf> Volume 3 Supplement - Perspectives http://centreparrhesia.org/vol_3_society_of_the_friends_supplement.pdf <http://centreparrhesia.org/vol_3_society_of_the_friends_supplement.pdf> Finally, both the videos and the texts are being circulated only through our mailing lists, hardly visible in the anti-social media. We put a lot of time in preparing them and we think they are of value. We are happy that they are shared in this organic manner, hand-to-hand, as a virtual samizdat. Thanks to all who take part in that passing on. _______________________________________________ 16 Beaver Group 16 Beaver Street - Exodus New York - Under Lockdown for more info visit: http://www.16beavergroup.org <http://www.16beavergroup.org/>more from Sixteen Beaver's

1 0

[Fwd: Sunday Testing Assembling / Society of the Friends of the Virus Vol. 3]
by w 07 May '20

07 May '20

5 8

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

thingist May 2020