End Notes to Self

43. 14

Earlier this year I went to see Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca live at the Cape Town city hall.

Aside from a beautifully jarring yet seamless performance by Fonseca and his group the event introduced me to the work of Mr Darren English. Proper stuff. This lead to The Thing in Breathing performance feat Mr English. More proper stuff.

43.15

Having worked with a cross section of artists ranging from the beer drinkers, worshippers and fanatics to the thoughtful, skilful and traditional I have been disciplined to recognise and realise things. Aside from that I also picked up some good and bad habits: thinking and unthinking, doing and undoing, ‘appleing and apple-zeding’.

plantsculpture

2002 - ongoing

Aside from the theoretical, ‘conceptual’ and aesthetic outcomes of this endeavour the impetus behind this experiment was a simple one: I wanted to know first hand what drove some people to be the ‘boss’ of others. To manipulate, bend and beat into shape a being. A living being. Working with clay, marble, paint, wood, bronze, words, steel, film et cetera are obvious materials but what about us? Us people, citizens, members of society. (It is a given that everyone is someone’s indentured labourer.)

Anyhow, I have been able to experience this.

“Christian Nerf adopts contemporary traumas with The Thing in Breathing, an installation in which a plant sculpture holds a conversation with a horn player [...] evoking the transformative potential of art - its ability literally to breathe life into inanimate objects. With talented young trumpeter Darren English in the role of the horn player, the work spans the disciplines of acoustic ecology, environmental and performance art, poetry, sculpture, installation and philosophy. It reminds us that beneath the surface of the commonplace something extraordinary lies waiting to be revealed.”

Mail&Guardian Vol 28, No32

And Not But

[selected notes to self/other]

[A.N.B.]72. play (06.03.12 / 14:04-)

[A.N.B.]71. pause (07.03.11 / 20:30-)

[A.N.B.]70.1. “and not but”

[A.N.B.]70.2. "___ ___ __"

[A.N.B.]69. The moment is ruined when preoccupied by another time.

[A.N.B.]68. Truth is a hole in knowledge.

One must come to conceive of truth as making a hole in knowledge.

Lacan is paradigmatic on this point. The subject is thus convoked as a border-effect or a delimiting fragment of such a hole-piercing.

Alain Badiou

ON A FINALLY OBJECTLESS SUBJECT
axiomatic provision

[A.N.B.]67.1. hope against hope.

[A.N.B.]67.2. What is too abstract to be concretized…

[A.N.B.]67.3. xeros – dry. printing, Xerox etc

[A.N.B.]67.4. _ ____ ____ _______ __ __ ________.

[A.N.B.]67.5. To be indifferent and envious at the same time.

[A.N.B.]67.6. Look into the story behind the image.

[A.N.B.]67.7. [in-itself {en-soi}]+[for-itself {pour-soi}]

[A.N.B.]67.8. Is a fat predator a successful predator?

[A.N.B.]66. see handwritten notes

[A.N.B.]65. the unseeable is found in the blink.

[A.N.B.]64. nulle terre sans seigneur [no land without its master]…[money knows no master] l’argent n’a pas de maitre

[A.N.B.]63. the nth degree

[A.N.B.]62.1. Set traps and forget about them.

[A.N.B.]62.2 Setting Traps (an experiment in logic, method and practice).

[A.N.B.]61.

[A.N.B.]60. Can words be trusted?

[A.N.B.]59.1. Art is a place.

[A.N.B.]59.1.2. This is a place.

[A.N.B.]59.2. [a place to] expose things.

[A.N.B.]59.3. a place to] hide things.

[A.N.B.]59.4. place to] keep things.

[A.N.B.]59.5. lace to] exhaust things.

[A.N.B.]59.6. ______________ change objects into things.

[A.N.B.]59.7. ce to] deal with 59.7{+}. (and stuff).

[A.N.B.]59.8. e to] ________ things (and stuff).

[A.N.B.]59.9. an event can take place anyplace.

[A.N.B.]58.1. Art is heard beyond its boundaries; those that hear disseminate to others who then speak to the masses. Multiple translations/meanings, etc.

[A.N.B.]58.2. Does Art become barren in its over-production and or its under-production?

[A.N.B.]57.

[A.N.B.]56.

[A.N.B.]55.

[A.N.B.]54.1. deliberation

[A.N.B.]54.2. liberation

[A.N.B.]54.3. post-liberation

[A.N.B.]53.1. Loosely arranged on a space-time line around the concept of unbecoming, as well as those of congruence, conflation, conversation and cooperation, this series of experiments attempts a concomitant exposure of the ridge and the crease.

[A.N.B.]53.2. long-term.

[A.N.B.]52. ... the unfold, which is not the contrary of the fold, but the continuation of its act. The unfold is the manifestation of the action of the fold. The unfolding does not reveal a void but more folds: folds are always full.

Gilles Deleuze, The Fold, Leibniz and the Baroque (1988)

[A.N.B.]51.1.a. To be animals and at times to be similar to bathing stones and at other times peculiar and uncalled-for.

[A.N.B.]50. Ask.

[A.N.B.]49. there is no solution available now for picking that up from the floor."

[A.N.B.]48.1. a / the [good] morning

[A.N.B.]48.2. a / the [good] day

[A.N.B.]48.3. a / the [good] night

[A.N.B.]47.1. Thought experiment...

[A.N.B.]47.2. Gedankenexperiment...

[A.N.B.]47.3. Deiknymi...

[A.N.B.]47.4. Allegory of the Cave...

[A.N.B.]46.1. Looking to get in?

[A.N.B.]46.2. Looking to get out?

[A.N.B.]46.3. Finding a way in.

[A.N.B.]46.4. Finding a way out

and not taking it.

[A.N.B.]45.1. serious play.

[A.N.B.]45.2. professional amateurs.

[A.N.B.]45.3. win-win (the prisoner's dilemma).

[A.N.B.]44.1. Objects become things, that is, when matters of fact give way to their complicated entanglements and become matters of concern.

Bruno Latour, from Realpolitik to Dingpolitik

[A.N.B.]44.2. At points the thing wants what the object is and visa versa.

[A.N.B.]43.1. There are extraneous factors that make us act. There are times when we are the extraneous factor, hernia / balloon; empowered and defunct at the same time.

[A.N.B.]43.2. Precious time.

[A.N.B.]42.1. There are no facts, only interpretations. [FN]

[A.N.B.]42.2. Patience.

[A.N.B.]41. Looking forward...

[A.N.B.]40.1. Turning the tables.

[A.N.B.]40.2. Swopping sides.

[A.N.B.]40.3. Taking turns.

[A.N.B.]39.1. Grave

[A.N.B.]39.2. Grave

[A.N.B.]38.1. Folie à deux ("a madness shared by two")

[A.N.B.]38.2. Folie à plusieurs ("madness of many")

[A.N.B.]37.1. Island

[A.N.B.]37.2. Islands / Archipelago

[A.N.B.]36.1. Duck.

[A.N.B.]36.2. Duck!

[A.N.B.]36.3. Duck?

[A.N.B.]35.1. Arrived. 14:06:11 (event {sculpture / life}, body / sculpture, logic / concept, words {sans murmurs}, looking forward {, a way to spend a life-time together}, actual optimism, early afternoon).

[A.N.B.]35.2. After the opening one should not expect a closing; what has been opened cannot be closed?

[A.N.B.]35.3. We fold so that we can unfold...

[A.N.B.]35.4. Infatuations (need not only involve people, but can extend to objects...)

[A.N.B.]34. Who was seen sitting in the public square gluing shut the pages of a book?

[A.N.B.]33. Intuition is the joy of difference. Gilles Deleuze, Desert Islands of Other Texts 1953–1974, trans. Sylvère Lotringer (Los Angeles: Semiotexte, 2004), p.33.

[A.N.B.]32. Radical Departures. (A.N.B. working title, Nov. 2010)

[A.N.B.]30.1. This is an attempt.

[A.N.B.]30.2. (attemptāre to test, tamper with.)

[A.N.B.]29. Can the object be autodidactic or must it be taught a lesson?

[A.N.B.]28.1. Ways to deal with what we have asked for.

[A.N.B.]28.2. Ways to deal with what I have asked for.

[A.N.B.]28.3. Ways to deal with what you have asked for.

[A.N.B.]28.4. Ways to deal with what they have asked for.

[A.N.B.]28.5. Ways to deal with what it has asked for.

[A.N.B.]26.1. { } nothing.

[A.N.B.]26.2. {...} something.

[A.N.B.]26.3. ...{ }... otherthing.

[A.N.B.]25.1. The pros and cons of “shared manifold of intersubjectivity”. [empathy]

[A.N.B.]25.2. Look into "emotional contagion".

[A.N.B.]24.1. Clarity through pain.

[A.N.B.]24.2. Clarity through pleasure.

[A.N.B.]24.3. claritas, clarus ‘clear.’

[A.N.B.]23. A body carrying a head.

[A.N.B.]22.1. Avoid circles

[A.N.B.]22.2 Embrace circles

[A.N.B.]21. Thought is like the Vampire; it has no image, either to constitute a model of or to copy. In the smooth space [...], the arrow does not go from one point to another but is taken up at any point, to be sent to any other point…

Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus

[A.N.B.]20. “Loving The Alien”

[A.N.B.]19.1. On a good day - ready.

[A.N.B.]19.2. On a bad day - unprepared.

[A.N.B.]19.3. On a perfect day - already there.

[A.N.B.]18.1. Are minor events worth noting?

An event, as defined by Badiou, leaves the dynamics radically changed; the worthless becomes valuable and visa versa and a few other configurations.

Anyhow, the Event has major consequences.

Alain speaks of how we must not imagine we can institute a purely paraconsistent logic [yes and no] to our work… classical logic [yes or no] must be instituted on occasion to keep momentum. One has to say no [or yes] on occasion; if everything was allowed in [or out] it would bloat [or deflate] the thing thereby negating agility.

Minor events may or may not lead up to the [major] event, they are things within themselves. Let us look at these minor events, everyday crossroads that dramatically alter direction.

[A.N.B.]18.2. If we do not note these decisive moments are they a series of non events vs. if noted an eventful time?

[A.N.B.]17. EASY TIGER

[A.N.B.]15.1. transitio(n-), from transire

‘go across.’

[A.N.B.]15.2. Being one’s own passeur.

[A.N.B.]15.3. Migration.

[A.N.B.]14. ? / Perverted?

[A.N.B.]13.1. Hypothesizer

[A.N.B.]13.2. Extrapolator

[A.N.B.]13.3. Iterator

[A.N.B.]13.4. Symptomologist

[A.N.B.]12. “… and what about experience, you say? […] A hypothesis is simply a question that has been asked in the right way…” Lacan

[A.N.B.]11. part teaching machine,

part epiphanic fold.

[A.N.B.]10. The thing can / should / must be artless.

[A.N.B.]9.1. snug feeling vs being?

[A.N.B.]9.2. agile being vs feeling?

[A.N.B.]8. Are misquotes less valuable than quotes?

[A.N.B.]7.1. ...attracted to what is deemed of no interest; it is occasionally the case that it is a suppressed thing that is wanting to talk but can’t find the words, often it proves to be of no interest other than some humour and or pain.

[A.N.B.]7.2. The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

Bertrand Russell

[A.N.B.]5. syncolostemon canescens - grey haired sage bush

[A.N.B.]4. The Ignorant Schoolmaster / Rancière / … he (Jacotot) could teach things that he himself did not know …

[A.N.B.]0. Part teaching machine, part epiphanic fold.

[A.N.B.]-1. Tempestuous.

[A.N.B.]-2. Reductio ad

absurdum

[A.N.B.]-3. (mesolimbic)

pathway

[A.N.B.]-4. Any-

thoughts.

http://andnotbut.blogspot.com/

(2011)