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Post Relativism exhibition Berlin (Art Week, Sept 11)
by Giovanni De Donà 07 Sep '24

07 Sep '24

September 11th, 4:00-10:00 PM | Post Relativism: KOO EDITIONS exhibition and experimental live sets KOO EDITIONS celebrates 5 years of experimental research with Post Relativism: the vision and the phenomenon <http://postrelativism.eventbrite.com/>, a special event taking place on September 11th in Berlin during Berlin Art Week. This exclusive exhibition showcases KOO EDITIONS' visual and sound exploration of the 21st century. The event will feature a curated selection of images and videos reflecting the label's productions, as well as new digital editions on blockchain and three experimental live sets by four artists: CoH, Niclas A Lindgren, and the duo Alexei Borisov and Sergey Kasich. Schedule: - 4:00 - 6:00 PM: Exhibition viewing (including images and video projection) - 6:30 - 9:00 PM: Experimental Live Sets - CoH - Niclas A Lindgren - Alexei Borisov and Sergey Kasich duo CoH, the alias of Ivan Pavlov, is a Russian word for both sleep and dream, spelled in Cyrillic and pronounced as ‘son’. Having left Russia for Sweden in 1995, CoH produced an extensive catalog of releases, including several notable collaborations with leading figures in industrial music, such as Cosey Fanni Tutti and Peter Christopherson of Coil/Throbbing Gristle. Niclas A Lindgren is a composer and sound-artist based in Stockholm, Sweden. He studied sound design and electroacoustic music at the Academy of Dramatic Arts and Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm. Niclas creates music through various collaborations and under different monikers, most notably the drone project Korda (Midira Records, Kalkatraz Cassettes). He is active as a composer for theater and dance, with numerous performances in Sweden and abroad, and is part of the collective K.Polyfon. Alexei Borisov, the Moscow underground legend who has spanned new wave, electronic noise and constructivist experimentation, dialogues with artist and curator Sergey Kasich, a sound and media artist originally from Sevastopol, Crimea, founder and main curator of the SA)) community for experimental sound artists from the post-Soviet regions ( https://soundartist.ru), as well as the SA))_gallery and SA))_studio in Moscow, now researcher at University of California, San Diego. Reserve your entry here: postrelativism.eventbrite.com WHEN: September 11, from 4:00 p.m. (live sets starting from 6.30 p.m.) WHERE: GILKA REMISE, Kärntener Str. 20, 10827 Berlin HOW: http://postrelativism.eventbrite.com KOO EDITIONS AVANT-GARDE / CODES / CODEBREAKERS / Analogue and Digital Publishing curated by Giovanni De Donà KOO EDITIONS comes on vinyl featuring a selected documentation of seminal attitudes from art exhibitions, interviews, intermedia collaborations. The label was born in 2019 with the idea of using the vinyl medium as a moving exhibition space, referring to the relationship between certain experiences of visual art with the listening one. Post relativism: the vision and the phenomenon is a cross-reference documentation project on some relevant boundaries and their outcomes in cutting-edge research of the 21st century. Giovanni De Donà KOO EDITIONS

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Attention Spam: Three-sided football at Casa Jorn
by w 06 Sep '24

06 Sep '24

https://spikeartmagazine.com/articles/essay-three-sided-football-at-casa-mu…

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Fwd: Invitation RSVP / Artist Talk with WOLFGANG STAEHLE in Berlin, 16 May, 7pm
by w 01 Mar '24

01 Mar '24

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Finssage thething.is, panke.gallery this Thursday 12/01 6 pm
by w 04 Jan '23

04 Jan '23

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the thing is
by w 28 Oct '22

28 Oct '22

Hi thinglings, in case you haven't heard, "the thing is" opens at modelo para armar - Gerichtstr. 45, Berlin Wedding, Oct 20, 7:00 PM panke.gallery - Gerichtstr. 23, Hof 5, Berlin Wedding, Nov 10 , 7:00 PM /rosa - Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse 35 Berlin Mitte, Nov 11, 7:00 PM Total exhibition period: Oct 10 - Dec 1, 2022 Photo by Eva Mattes With Alterazioni Video Cory Arcangel CAMP Christoph Draeger Peter Fend Heidrun Holzfeind Christoph Keller, Sebastian Luetgert Eva and Franco Mattes Almagul Melibayeva Wolfgang Staehle Caspar Stracke More soon!

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Fwd: 5 days left to apply! 2023 Atelier Mondial Residency in Basel for NYC artists
by artcast artcast 19 Sep '22

19 Sep '22

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: artcast artcast <artcast(a)gmail.com> Date: Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 10:47 AM Subject: Fwd: 5 days left to apply! 2023 Atelier Mondial Residency in Basel for NYC artists To: Wolfgang Staehle <W(a)thing.net> in case anyone want to have aresidency in basel. best- barbara ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Residency Unlimited <info(a)residencyunlimited.org> Date: Wed, Jul 27, 2022 at 2:09 PM Subject: 5 days left to apply! 2023 Atelier Mondial Residency in Basel for NYC artists To: art cast <artcast(a)gmail.com> 2023 Atelier Mondial Residency for New York City Artists APPLY FOR A SIX MONTH RESIDENCY AT ATELIER MONDIAL FOR NYC BASED ARTISTS APPLY HERE Deadli [image: unnamed] 2023 Atelier Mondial Residency for New York City Artists [image: Atelier Mondial-aussen] <https://email.cloud.secureclick.net/c/4908?id=777640.8446.1.b53f362e2dd85d7…> Atelier Mondial, outside view, 2021. *APPLY FOR A SIX MONTH RESIDENCY AT ATELIER MONDIAL FOR NYC BASED ARTISTS* APPLY HERE <https://email.cloud.secureclick.net/c/4908?id=777640.8447.1.81c2500aa04fc6e…> *Deadline: Sunday, July 31, 2022, 11:59pm Eastern Time* Residency Unlimited (RU) is proud to announce its ninth open call for New York City based artists for a six month residency starting February 3 until July 30, 2023 hosted by Atelier Mondial (formerly International Studio and Exchange Program of the Basel Region - iaab) in Basel, Switzerland. This is an exchange program, and in turn, Residency Unlimited will also host in 2023 a six month residency for a Swiss artist (yet to be selected) in New York. *CONDITIONS* >From *February 3 until July 30, 2023*, Atelier Mondial will provide to the selected artist the following: ▪ Roundtrip flight Switzerland New York ▪ 860 square foot live-in-studio ▪ An allowance of $1,200 per month while in Switzerland to cover day to day living costs. The artist will also receive a 'reduced tarif' transport pass for public transportation valid throughout Switzerland. ▪ The artist will receive an invitation to attend the ART Fair Basel, scheduled in June 2023. ▪ Roundtrip flight Switzerland New York ▪ 860 square foot live-in-studio ▪ An allowance of $1,200 per month while in Switzerland to cover day to day living costs. The artist will also receive a 'reduced tarif' transport pass for public transportation valid throughout Switzerland. ▪ The artist will receive an invitation to attend the ART Fair Basel, scheduled in June 2023. *RESIDENCY FEATURES* The Atelier Mondial facilities and studios are located in a newly constructed building complex at Freilager-Platz 10 at Dreispitz, an emerging art zone just behind the Swiss railway station. The building is closely situated next to Schaulager, the Helsinki building – by architects Herzog & de Meuron – and it faces the new Academy of Art and Design Basel (HGK FHNW), along with a number of new ‘off’ or alternative spaces and galleries, which are all part of the growing Campus of the Arts. The House of Electronic Arts Basel (HeK) is located on the ground floor of the new Atelier Mondial complex, and guest artists from around the world occupy the first floor. *Learn more about Atelier Mondial here <https://email.cloud.secureclick.net/c/4908?id=777640.8448.1.b08c5ecaf3e2707…>* *EXHIBITION* In addition to the residency, the selected artist will have the opportunity to present work during the Open studio and also at Salon Mondial, the Atelier Mondial's gallery space. *CITY* Basel is a major Swiss cultural and industrial city in the tri-border area where Switzerland, Germany and France meet. It has a rich cultural heritage (with historical personalities such as Erasmus, Holbein, Böcklin, Burckhardt, Nietzsche, etc.), ongoing traditions and a vital and diverse range of cultural activities in art, theater, music, dance, film. Many museums (Kunstmuseum Basel /Museum of Contemporary Art, Schaulager, Kunsthalle Basel, Fondation Beyeler, Museum der Kulturen, Tinguely Museum, Antikenmuseum Basel and Sammlung Ludwig, etc.), and contemporary buildings by internationally recognized architects. A lively alternative cultural scene complements the prominent public and private institutions. *Who can apply?* The exchange program is open to visual artists of all disciplines and performance artists who reside in New York City with an active practice of at least two years, irrespective of age, gender or nationality. *Application procedure for artists from New York* Residency Unlimited (RU) administers the open call for the 2023 Residency at Atelier Mondial. ▪ The deadline for submissions is *Sunday, July 31, 2022 at 11:59pm Eastern Time* ▪ The finalist will be announced end of August 2022 ▪ The deadline for submissions is *Sunday, July 31, 2022 at 11:59pm Eastern Time* ▪ The finalist will be announced end of August 2022 *Applicants will need to provide the following information:* ▪ Contact Information ▪ Motivation Letter (max 500 words/3000 characters) ▪ Project Description (max 500 words/3000 characters) ▪ CV / Resume ▪ Digital Portfolio (PDF) ▪ Providing proof of COVID-19 vaccination status and meeting the Swiss travel guidelines is also a prerequisite ▪ Contact Information ▪ Motivation Letter (max 500 words/3000 characters) ▪ Project Description (max 500 words/3000 characters) ▪ CV / Resume ▪ Digital Portfolio (PDF) ▪ Providing proof of COVID-19 vaccination status and meeting the Swiss travel guidelines is also a prerequisite *The residency program is generously supported by Atelier Mondial. We are grateful to the Zaeslin-Preiswerk Foundation for their ongoing support.* [image: Atelier Mondial Logo] [image: ***] [image: Donate button 4] <https://email.cloud.secureclick.net/c/4908?id=777640.8449.1.ffa749f4b9006b3…> Donate to Residency Unlimited (RU) and support the exchange of art and ideas through local, national, and international residencies and year-round public programs. Thank you! <https://email.cloud.secureclick.net/c/4908?id=777640.8450.1.161e637f4dc547b…> Follow RU on Facebook <https://email.cloud.secureclick.net/c/4908?id=777640.8451.1.ab34d6c7e7ba549…>, Instagram <https://email.cloud.secureclick.net/c/4908?id=777640.8452.1.0639006f5c861e0…> and Twitter <https://email.cloud.secureclick.net/c/4908?id=777640.8453.1.8c2b69bbb8c1100…> for updates, opportunities, RU Community news, and resources @residencyunlimited. © 2009 - 2022 Residency Unlimited | 360 Court Street unit #4, Brooklyn NY 11231 Web Version <https://email.cloud.secureclick.net/c/4908?id=777640.8454.1.27b1fd7130cec50…> Preferences <https://email.cloud.secureclick.net/c/4908?id=777640.8455.1.ad24f377055c8e2…> Forward <https://email.cloud.secureclick.net/c/4908?id=777640.8456.1.48cc338c5831998…> Unsubscribe <https://go.madmimi.com/opt_out?pact=777640-168752347-7583615887-17850d92b01…> Powered by *Mad Mimi*®A GoDaddy® company <https://madmimi.com/> -- on-line since 1995 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(art_project) -- on-line since 1995 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(art_project)

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HN3
by Giovanni De Donà 05 Jan '22

05 Jan '22

Happy New 1993! [image: image.png]

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HBDTT30+HNY22
by Caspar Stracke 04 Jan '22

04 Jan '22

PS: HNY! <http://www.videokasbah.net/HNY22.mp4>

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2022
by w 30 Dec '21

30 Dec '21

Dear friends, when we started out in Danny Newburg's basement on 44 White Street in November 1991, we had no idea that this thing would still be around 30 years later. Back then, I thought of it as a project lasting a few months. Well, here we are in December 2021. Happy New Year everyone!

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Fwd: Book launch and journal launch in New York next week
by w 10 Dec '21

10 Dec '21

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news from the indo-pacific scenario
by w 20 Sep '21

20 Sep '21

https://twitter.com/i/status/1438559198888009728

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Fwd: Forecast Forum 2021 online
by Keith Sanborn 01 Sep '21

01 Sep '21

Good luck Walter!!! Keith Begin forwarded message: > From: Art & Education <edu-news(a)mailer.e-flux.com> > Date: September 1, 2021 at 5:03:08 AM EDT > To: mrzero(a)panix.com > Subject: Forecast Forum 2021 online > Reply-To: Art & Education <edu-news(a)mailer.e-flux.com> > > > Art & Education > > September 01, 2021 > Forecast Forum 2021 > > Forecast > > > > © Forecast 2021. > > Online: September 9–11, 2021, 6pm > > forecast-platform.com > Facebook / Instagram > > The sixth edition of the international mentorship program Forecast will host a three-day virtual event showcasing the nominees' work. > > The 18 nominees will share their projects with the public for the first time through live performances, music, and films livestreamed online from their locations around the world. > > The mentors of Forecast’s sixth edition, who have selected their respective nominees and are supervising their projects' development, are architect Tatiana Bilbao, digital policy expert Francesca Bria, experimental singer and composer Sofia Jernberg, cartoonist Ulli Lust, choreographer Mathilde Monnier, and artist Emeka Ogboh. > > Handpicked by the mentors out of nearly 600 applications, the nominated projects have benefitted from remote mentoring since May. At the end of the Forum, each mentor will select one mentee, and accompany their project to completion. The final six productions will be presented at the Forecast Festival in April 2022, at radialsystem in Berlin. > > Join us September 9–11, at 6pm CET on forecast-platform.com. > The Forum is free and accessible to the public, no registration required. > > Forecast Forum program > Two mentorship fields will showcase their work each day. The public is invited to join the conversations in Q&A sessions. > > Thursday, September 9, 6pm CET: > > Translating Sensations > Cartoonist Ulli Lust has selected three nominees who will create graphic novels focusing on autobiographical material in which no topic is off-limits. Here, personal trauma stands in for big topics such as totalitarianism, abuse of power, and transactional relationships. > With works by Ness Ilene Garza (United States), M.S. Harkness (United States), and Özge Samancı (United States/Turkey) > > From Stories to Spaces > Under the mentorship of architect Tatiana Bilbao, the nominees analyze how a space’s design can impact the ways in which we perceive our own potential within it. This field's three projects share a common interest in exploring how architecture can foment creativity, autonomy, and a sense of dignity in its users. > With projects by Yasmin Schönmann (Germany), Luísa Sol (Portugal), and Sarah Oberrauch (Italy) > > Friday, September 10, 6pm CET: > > Data Democracy and the Green Transition > Digital policy expert Francesca Bria oversees three proposals which, at their core, share a strategic and aesthetic vision: how can digital technologies, Big Data, and AI support alternative projects based on data democracy, digital sovereignty, and citizen participation? > With works by Jaya Klara Brekke (Sweden), Walter Palmetshofer (Austria), and Pamela Breda (Italy) > > Sensing the World > Melding the personal and the political, each of the three nominees by artist Emeka Ogboh proposes a conceptual artwork that questions collective memories and histories through sensory experiences such as taste, smell, and hearing. > With works by Awuor Onyango (Kenya), Iman Jesmi (Iran), and Timothy Lee (United States) > > Saturday, September 11, 6pm CET: > > Unlimited Gestures > For choreographer Mathilde Monnier, the body is “an infinite reservoir of discovery and potential.” Her nominees propose projects that explore dance as the embodied expression of tacit knowledge shaped by quotidian domesticity, a personal battle for survival, or a massive political movement. > With works by Simona Deaconescu (Romania), Aída Herrera Peña (Colombia), and Samaké Moussa (Burkina Faso) > > Sound as Organized Time > The experimental musician Sofia Jernberg supports and facilitates three projects anchored in exploring music through time. The nominees bring new approaches rooted in movement, photography, and composition into their translations of concepts into contemporary sound. > With works by Flora Détraz (France), Talia de Vries (Israel), and Rylan Gleave (United Kingdom) > > Forecast—Mentorships for Audacious Minds > Since its inaugural edition in 2015, Forecast offers artists and creative thinkers from anywhere in the world the chance to work with accomplished mentors toward bringing their projects to fruition. For each edition, Forecast selects six mentors of various disciplines who offer selected participants their expertise in specifying and realizing their pioneering project ideas. Forecast transcends neatly defined disciplines and genres to provide insight into creative production processes, and carve out space for the questions on the minds of the next generation of trailblazers. > > > Forecast is a project by Skills e.V. It is supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. > > > > > > Art & Education > Contact Facebook Twitter Instagram > > This announcement was sent to mrzero(a)panix.com. You have received it because you have successfully subscribed to Art & Education. You can revoke your consent and unsubscribe from this email distribution list by clicking here at any time. For more information, please see our privacy policy. If you have any questions regarding data protection, please contact dataprivacy(a)e-flux.com. >

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From Tricksters in an age of dirty tricks
by w 22 Aug '21

22 Aug '21

The Yes Men still in good form: https://theyesmen.org/newsmax I wonder how Jacques made his voice sound so old and muffled. He must have cupped his hand in front of his mouth during the whole interview.

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I don't care if Bill Gates thinks it's communism!
by w 27 Jul '21

27 Jul '21

Philippe Aigrain, champion of the digital commons died two weeks ago in a mountain accident. He was 71: https://mondediplo.com/2005/11/13commons Is there any limit to property? Current developments might suggest not, as property rights are steadily extended. Property rights, in the form of patents, copyright and, to a lesser extent, brands, apply to ever wider fields and are protected by ever stronger laws, police powers and technological tools. Resistance to the patenting of medicines, software, plant varieties and cell strains has been active and determined. But it is up against a concerted offensive by multinational companies, patent offices, specialised legal consultants, the United States government and the European Union, all working together to reinforce and extend property rights. New technologies are helping to make copyright law more strictly enforceable, preventing the use of copyright material even for legitimate ends (1). When it comes to violating intellectual property rights, everyone is guilty until proven innocent, from users of peer- to-peer file-sharing networks to farmers whose crops have accidentally become mixed with genetically modified varieties for which they do not hold licences (2). Jean-René Fourtou, the CEO of Vivendi Universal and chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce, addressed directors representing pharmaceutical, media and software multinationals at the United Nations in October 2004. He announced a global war on intellectual property piracy, calling on business leaders to unite and form a massive lobby working to influence governments (3). This will be a pre-emptive war that lumps independent producers and users in with industrial counterfeiters and organised crime, imagining a single enemy that will be defeated via tightly and ingeniously enforced property mechanisms. There has been resistance to this offensive. Campaigns for access to medicines in developing countries have had some success, as have those against the patenting of software or living organisms. Increasingly, patent applications for GM crops or biotechnology products are rejected. But resistance is fragmented; campaigns only rarely succeed in pulling together as parts of a single cause. On the technological side, there is a strong pull away from ownership of published works or recorded media. New forms of collaborative innovation, whereby ideas and expertise are freely shared, are proving more productive than traditional ways of working. Once dismissed as the work of an eccentric fringe of naive scientists who didn’t understand the harsh reality of economics, these cooperative approaches are now being taken more seriously. They have the particular advantage of orienting innovation towards the general interest and the preservation of cultural diversity, rather than being tied to profit incentives. Academic research has convincingly established the superiority of what Yochai Benkler calls “commons-based peer production” (4) in a wide range of information technology development. In this model, every stage in the development of a product is freely accessible to all, and anyone who wants to use or modify it may do so as they see fit. The product is in this sense a common good, and is often protected against patenting by any individual or group. The development of diametrically opposed visions vying for pre-eminence will have profound implications for the future not only of technology, but also of the world’s economies and social systems. Two scenarios are proposed. One vision’s most fervent supporters are a small group of large multinationals, represented by Fourtou’s UN audience. Their position was summed up by Bill Gates, who dismissed those wishing to restrict intellectual property rights as “modern-day communists” (5). More moderately, the defence of intellectual property is based on a conviction that it is the oil, “black gold”, of the 21st century. Critics such as Jeremy Rifkin (6) regard that defensive vision as a plausible nightmare which is to be avoided. And the defensive vision has flaws that cannot be ignored. IT networks do not lend themselves to requisitioning or to restrictions on access and usage; such restrictions are a hindrance to their development. A number of important projects (see Open sources, below) have shown how powerful the alternative vision of cooperative development can be when freed of the constraints imposed by property and contracts. But there are difficulties: attempts to expand free cooperation models and apply them to new areas meet internal obstacles. One problem is the complexity and perceived impenetrability of technology, whose future we have been too willing to abandon to specialists. Another is fear about what reappropriation by the public might mean. Society’s inventiveness is gradually finding ways around these problems. The preservationists, with their artificial engineering of scarcity to maintain monopoly prices, are encountering serious difficulties: information capitalism is proving as fragile as it is powerful. A serious illustration of this fragility is the total divorce between pharmaceutical companies’ profits and share values, and their strategies’ real effects on public health. Financial concerns lead them to prioritise research objectives that are not those which society needs (7). Coalitions are now emerging to challenge the arrogance of big pharma proposing an alternative that will re-establish the common good alongside the principle of property, complementing the more general effort to rein in the financial sphere’s unrestrained power over the economy and society. Is this hoped-for coalition of the common good possible? Or is the fight against restrictions on the circulation of information goods (including data, software, expertise, genetic information and the organisms that contain it) a utopian dream? The movement has had a few successes: resistance to software patents in Europe; the emergence, at the World Intellectual Property Organisation; and at Unesco, of coalitions that bring diverse NGOs together with developing countries’ governments. Officially, documents such as the 2004 EU directive “on the enforcement of intellectual property rights” (8) are intended to fight organised crime and its links with industrial counterfeiting. In practice, they facilitate attacks on generic medicines, freeware and voluntary sharing of products. Do charities and campaign groups working with impoverished countries, plus a few lawyers and political figures, have a chance against highly organised business lobbies defending IP with armies of lawyers and connections at the highest level in governments and political parties? There are reasons for optimism. Though the international legal system seems biased towards the interests of multinational companies, it does not know how information is exchanged and innovation achieved in reality. Despite redoubled efforts, tighter rules and harsher enforcement practices, stopping free information exchange is about as easy as pushing water uphill. The popularity of freeware is helping to establish the principles on which it is based. Goods developed through free exchange and cooperative innovation present such advantages, in independence from suppliers, that they are finding their way into more homes and offices, including those of major administrations and companies. This kind of creeping, underground spread among users is not enough. It keeps commons-based peer production at a distance from the mainstream economy, instead of developing new forms of integration. It cannot provide funding to enable all citizens to participate in the development of common goods and of a large, vibrant sphere of activity. If it is to be credible, any coalition in defence of common goods must articulate its proposals around the general aim of bringing capitalism back under control. To do that, we need to reject the defeatist mentality that treats technological change as an external factor independent of human choices and actions. Philippe Aigrain Translated by Gulliver Cragg Philippe Aigrain is a campaigner for common goods and author of Cause Commune (Fayard, Paris, 2005, www.causecommune.org) (1) EU Directive 2001/09 frees the providers of “protection” technology from any obligation to allow for legitimate uses of the material they protect, even where the law recognises these legitimate uses. If the protection is bypassed, it is so hard to prove that this was for a legitimate end that in practice the technology makes the law instead of the judge. (2) See the case of Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser’s battle with the chemical giant Monsanto. Schmeiser was found guilty of violating its patent even though the Monsanto patented crops he was accused of “exploiting” had grown on his land because of natural accidents. See www.percyschmeiser.com (3) Financial Times, London, 12 October 2004. (4) Yochai Benkler, “Coase’s Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm” in Yale Law Journal, New Haven, 4 June 2002. (5) Michael Kanellos, “Gates, ‘Restricting IP is Tantamount to Communism’”, CNET News.com. (6) Jeremy Rifkin, The Age of Access, Putnam Publishing Group, Itasca, 2000. (7) See Frederic M Scherer, “Global welfare and pharmaceutical patenting”, The World Economy, Oxford, July 2004. (8) Directive 2004/48/CE, 29 April 2004.

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THE CURRENT THING AT HOPSCOTCH JULY @(
by w 23 Jul '21

23 Jul '21

Hopscotch Reading Room Kurfürstenstraße 14 Berlin 10785 THURSDAY, JULY 29th, 7:30pm JOURNAL LAUNCH: THE CURRENT THING ISSUES ONE AND TWO edited by Caspar Stracke and Keith Sanborn A compilation of artists' writings, drawings, sounds and films Issue ONE contains thoughts and insights from the first eight weeks of the lockdown. The brand new issue TWO, features post-pandemic thoughts on resistance towards exaggerated online culture by means of time-travel. two readings from the current issue, films by duke & battersby, Mark Dean, yann beauvais, Sindhu Thirumalasisamy, Akram Zaatari and music by Rolux issue #1 works by Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere / Alexandro Segade / Almagul Menlibayaeva / Amanda McDonald Crowley /Andy Graydon / Anna Thew / Ashton Applewhite / Bradley Eros / Caspar Stracke / Cathy Lee Crane / Coco Sollfrank / Daniella Dooling / Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby / Darrin Martin / Deborah Stratman / Diana Vidrascu / eteam / Emily Mode / Graeme Arnfield / Nordholt & Steingrobe / Jaakko Pallasvuo / Jackie Goss / Les LeVeque / lundi matin / Jason Livingston / Jeanne Liotta / Jeffrey Skoller / Jim Supanick / Juliane Henrich / Joy Chan / Kathy Brew / Keith Sanborn / Kim Modig / Leo Goldsmith / Lynne Sachs / Mark Street / Masha Godovannaya / Mike Hoolboom / Monika Czyżyk / Nina Katchadourian / Olav Westphalen / Peggy Ahwesh / Perry Bard / Rebekah Rutkoff / RPI / Ricardo Dominguez / Sean Cubitt / belit sağ & Robert Luxemburg / Sebastián Romo / Steve Reinke / The Society of the Friends of the Virus / Thomas Zummer / Torsten Zenas Burns / Wolfgang Staehle / yann beauvais / and Zoe Beloff / issue #2 works by Ayreen Anastas & Rene Gabri (NY) / Michael Baers (Berlin) / Craig Baldwin (SF) / Greg de Cuir Jr. (Belgrade) / Cathy Crane (NY)/ Mark Dean (London) / Christoph Draeger (Berlin) / Ursula Endlicher (NY) / Abigail Child (NY)/ Bradley Eros (NY)/ Rob La Frenais (London)/ Dee Dee Halleck (NY) / Sam Hopkins (Nairobi) / Juliet Jacques (London)/ Jeanne Liotta (NY) / Jason Livingston (Buffalo) / belt sağ + Sebastian Lütgert (A’dam/Berlin) / Gabriela Monroy (Mexico City) / Esma Moukhtar (A’dam)/ Wolfgang Müller (Berlin) / Ellen Pau (Hong Kong) / Rachel Rosalen (Sao Paulo) / Keith Sanborn (NY) / Kelly Sears ((Denver)/ Asli Serbest + Mona Mahall (Berlin) / Raquel Shapira (NY) / Caspar Stracke (Mexico City) / Jim Supanick (Denver) / Sindhu Thirumalaisamy (NY) / Leslie Thornton (NY) / Thomas Zummer (NY) / http://the.current.thing.net

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THE CURRENT THING. A proposal for issue 2
by Caspar Stracke 29 May '21

29 May '21

Dear all, One+ year into the pandemic we continue THE CURRENT THING. The thematic framing of the next issue is actually a time-travel experiment. We want to focus on off-culture and offline culture, makeshift technology and resistance. As resistance. With that we imagine to completely eliminate the internet. At least for time being. In conspiracy theory terms, we would like to propose the idea, that the internet does not exist. Has never existed. We also want to extend this type of analog mindset: form follows content. So the next issue will be a xeroxed magazine, only available offline, at your local copy shop (yes, we did research whether your city still had one!) Also only available in cities, which have at least one contributor present. Once again we are inviting you, dear thingists, to contribute with a text, an analog photo, a drawing or collage that embraces the topic of resistance, however defined. But one that defies digital technology. We are also interested in including texts that were written pre-internet. Before March 11, 1989, to be exact, the birth date of the www, according to its founder, Tim Berners-Lee. If you happen to be old enough, maybe you can dig up some articles you wrote for fanzines or magazines, see if you find a piece of writing that does not immediately reveal when it was written, and possesses a special relevance to this moment in time, to any type of resistance. Thirdly, we also welcome any kind of “what if” scenarios: imagining a current, or future world without the internet, mobile media, social media or the associated technology. The deadline for submissions is: June 30, 2021 Please use this mailing address: kasbah(a)thing.net <mailto:kasbah@thing.net> Yours, Caspar Stracke & Keith Sanborn

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Fwd: [Experimental-intermedia] John Cage's Empty Words
by w 28 Apr '21

28 Apr '21

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[Experimental-intermedia] Phill Niblock at Roulette.org on Dec 21
by w 21 Dec '20

21 Dec '20

late notice about a solistice treat from phill niblock!

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The era of fake news for good has (re)begun
by w 08 Dec '20

08 Dec '20

Another Yes Men caper, this time the poor victim is the Bank of England: https://theyesmen.substack.com/p/the-era-of-fake-news-for-good-has?utm_camp…

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Prime time crime
by w 10 Nov '20

10 Nov '20

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/business/amazon-eu-antitrust.html EU is finally taking action against Amazon. As usual, it's too little too late, but at least Vestager is moving, while Dorothee Bär prefers to play cheerleader for the games industry. https://www.t-online.de/unterhaltung/stars/royals/id_85558218/dorothee-baer… Attachment: Collage by Peter Fend Btw, Fend has a show opening soon at Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin: "Birds Reign" from November 21, 2020 until January 23, 2021.

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Wtf
by w 04 Nov '20

04 Nov '20

Funny how things have changed. A mainstream democratic election campaign using tactical media tropes like https://trumpcovidplan.com/ and tactical media activists turning into mainstream media hacks, like Yesman Andy in https://progressive.org/op-eds/elect-biden-then-give-him-power-servin-20102… Strange times.

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ask thingist: what is the name of the year 2020?
by sebastian＠rolux.org 02 Nov '20

02 Nov '20

[via https://thegermanissue.com/texts/what_is_the_name_of_the_year_2020.html] What Is the Name of the Year 2020? This summer, when re-reading Peter-Paul Koch's essay "Making <time> safe for historians,"(1) I was, once again, reminded that years should be treated as names, not as numbers. This may be most obvious to those of us who have ever tried to arithmetically operate with dates that lie outside the confines of our immediate present – but the issue at hand is more than just a technical problem. Just like, over time, cyclical concepts of time have gone out of fashion,(2) the postulate that human history will, and must, remain in alignment with a monotonically ascending sequence of integers, has been running out of steam for quite a while, and may have already entered its trajectory towards the dustbin of said history.(3) Until organized religion planted the dubious origins of today's numbering schemes, the rise and fall of kings and dynasties was a rather obvious choice for naming otherwise uneventful years.(4) The Roman Consular Years are one of many examples,(5) and when historians try to map them back onto the set of numbers, the shaky foundations of human historiography become painfully apparent. But there were always those outlier years when it was hard to make out who was actually in power, or when being in power, or not, didn't seem to make much of a difference. 2020 appears to be a special year in many ways. It is also one of the rare years whose name - its "number" - already had a proper meaning. Until the year itself arrived, 20/20 used to be synonymous with "perfect vision,"(6) and one could argue that the year so far has reinforced this meaning. "2020 feels as if someone had switched on the light: Everything is the same as before, just much more so, and all of a sudden, everything appears much clearer."(7) Yet, "perfect vision" may not be the last word when it comes to putting a name on the year that we're in. The Chinese name for 2020 is "The Year of the Metal Rat,"(8) which evokes the image of a mutated robotic rodent that gnaws at the foundations of our global order. The United States, one day in the future, may remember 2020 as "The 4th Year of the 45th Dynasty," and there is not much comfort to be found in that name either. But what other names can we already think of, now that most of 2020 lies behind us?(9) For inspiration, a short selection of years that were more special than others is included below.(10) (A few of the entries are just movie titles... sorry for that ;-)) 1978: The Year of the Three Popes 1888: The Year of the Three Emperors 1066: The Year of the Three Kings #1 1483: The Year of the Three Kings #2 1936: The Year of the Three Kings #3 1992: A Year of Kings(11) 1991: The Year Punk Broke 1965: The Year We Were Nowhere 1978: In a Year With 13 Moons 2001: A Space Odyssey 2010: The Year We Make Contact 1816: The Year Without a Summer 1848: The Year of Revolutions 1914: One or Several Wolves? -333: bei Issos Keilerei 2000: Y2K 1968: "1968" 1971: WTF happened in 1971?(12) My own pick for 2020 would be: In a Year of Leaky Abstractions. Notes: (1) https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2009/04/making_time_saf.html (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_of_time (3) The concept of linear time and history has been challenged on many fronts, from post-colonial studies to quantum mechanics. It has also been experimentally abandoned in practice (see, for example, https://www.blackquantumfuturism.com), and some of the findings look rather promising. (4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regnal_year (5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_consuls. In fact, the Roman reign over time has never ended, and left us with one of the most broken naming schemes in existence: the names of our months, where ancient emperors are followed by cardinal numbers that are all off by two. To _mix_ names and numbers is never a good idea. (6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity (7) not attributed to anyone in particular (8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_zodiac. We are dealing with a lunar calendar here, so the Chinese year "2020" would be the one that begins on January 25, 2020, and ends on February 12, 2021. (9) I am aware that this question is both premature (history is usually written from a safe distance) and misguided (history is usually written by the winners). But maybe that's the point here. (10) Obviously, any such list, and one could make much better ones, will show, by omission, that most historical events refuse to align with the Earth's revolution around the sun. That's why we also have The Day the Music Died, Ten Days That Shook the World, The Week of Blood, The Summer of Love, The Years of Lead, The Greatest Hits of the 80s, and The Short Century. But whatever calendar units we choose: putting names on them will always remain a hopelessly heliocentric approach to human history. Science and/or fiction may eventually come up with better ideas. (11) according to Brian Springer's film Spin: https://0xdb.org/0114512/00:00:31 (12) https://nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-2009/msg00016.html. I personally suspect that this is off-by-one, and 1972 ("The Year We Left the Moon") was the year in question – but maybe that's just my own preference. Images: https://thegermanissue.com/jpg/XX_XX.jpg [via https://pad.ma/documents/BKZ/100] https://thegermanissue.com/jpg/20_20.jpg [via https://pad.ma/LBT/00:00:16]

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3 colors
by w 18 Oct '20

18 Oct '20

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Kulturfragen
by w 29 Sep '20

29 Sep '20

Helen Pluckrose on gender, race and identity politics: https://ondemand-mp3.dradio.de/file/dradio/2020/09/27/helen_pluckrose_ueber… Btw, I was recently informed that wearing a wrist watch signifies "White Supremacy Culture." Doe.

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The War Is Coming
by sebastian＠rolux.org 10 Sep '20

10 Sep '20

The War is Coming For Ghayath al-Madhoun and his million Arab poets 1. I decided to leave Syria the day a stray bullet passed in front of my eyes. That day I realized my homeland was not my homeland, my blood not my blood, and my freedom belonged to a freedom fighter who didn't think to ask my permission before he shot me: a lack of courtesy we encounter often in war time. 2. If they are going to kill me, better to kill me in a foreign language. 3. On the road from Damascus to Berlin I met an old soldier from Dara'a who couldn't carry his nightmares anymore. I wrapped them and put them in my suitcase; at the airport I paid the fine for excess baggage. 4. Whoever is not afraid to cross the border carries the war on his back. 5. Swap your best shirt for a bulletproof vest, your poems for the first chapter of the Koran and your house in Athens for a throne atop Mount Aigaleo so you can survey from on high the coming war. 6. This war is trite and pedestrian, filled with similes and ornate adjectives, its history is written in the font Comic Sans, violence so limitless the war doesn't know where to put it, one grave for every thousand corpses, one shadow for every thousand survivors, it's an indelicate war, barrels vomiting explosives, steel cylinders filled with accessories for washing machines and car parts, the death that disseminates is an earthy death, this war is rightfully ours because in it we have buried all our loved ones. 7. On the 7th of January 2014, the United Nations stopped counting Syria's dead. This decision certified mathematics as the science of quality, not quantity, of living labor, not shapes, of time, not space - in other words, mathematics is the science that studies the material relations among all countable objects. 8. By the end of 2015, according to Facebook, 311 friends of mine had died since the start of the war. I decided to shut down my account: death must have a beginning, middle, and end. I can't spend my life in its wake. 9. I, Ahmed, son of Aisha, although nothing more than a humble migrant, wish to apologize on behalf of the Syrians to Greek men and women for filling their televisions with our deaths as they eat their dinners and wait for their favorite shows, I wish to apologize to the municipal authorities for leaving our trash on their beaches and polluting their shores with tons of plastic, we are uncivilized and we have no environmental awareness, I wish to apologize to the hotel owners and tour operators for damaging the island tourist industry, I wish to apologize for shattering the stereotype of the miserable migrant with our mobile phones and clean clothes, I wish to apologize to the coast guard who have the thankless task of sinking our boats, to the police for standing in disorderly lines, to the bus drivers who have to wear surgical masks to protect themselves from the diseases we carry, I also wish to make a most humble apology to Greek society for exceeding the capacity of their detention camps and for sleeping in their squares and parks - finally, I wish to apologize to the Greek government who had to request additional funds from the European Union in order to pay the purveyors who stock the detention camps, as well as the bus drivers, the police, the coast guard, the tour operators, the hotel owners, the municipal authorities, and the television stations. 10. "Don't worry," said the bullet, "I'll go in and out." I explained to her that I couldn't allow it since when she left she was bound to take some of my memories - like the face of the girl I loved in the fifth grade, the voice of the imam the first time my father took me to pray, the smell of the freshly baked bread in my grandmother's house, the fingers of my teacher as she taught me to write the word الحرب and Van Basten's final goal in the Euro of '88. 11. It's well known that no organization can buy arms on the black market without American authorization. This is one of the reasons I never managed to understand the difference between enlightenment and genocide. 12. If you don't want to be canon fodder, if you don't want the war to catch you with your pants down, put on that thinking cap, double down the class struggle, get organized, triple down the class struggle, fight, fill your pockets with rocks, stick to your guns. Out with the Left! Bring back the Spartacists! Out with the NGO's! Bring back Garibaldi's brigades! Out with the Humanists! Bring back the Italian Autonomists! The slaughter is about to begin.

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