<nettime> Cuscokids +

["Nils [iso-8859-1] Röller" <nils@khm.de>]

Cuscokids I

The Cuscokids are active at the moment, but their strategies diverge. The
Limagroup is preparing the political atmosphere, but the Colognegroup is
lost between art and philosophy. The Cologne-Cuscos had to postpone a
plane to solve the riddle of Manhattan. Now they discuss the way towards
Cusco. The Cuscokids ask wether they should think about a bridge between
Europe and Southamerica. This idea came up because of Heinz Emigholz’ film
on the engineer-artist Robert Maillart.

Maillart was a bridge builder. He created an architectual encyclopedia by
using the material of concrete and steel. He was only allowed to build
bridges in the wildness of Switzerlands mountains. There the local
authorities did not subject his concrete fantasies to standards. Emigholz
says that bridges are time-machines. They are time machines because they
diminish the time to come from one point to another. The plan to bridge
the distance between Europe and Southamerica is gigantic. It seems today
as gigantic as 150 years ago it seemed impossible to build a worldwide
telephon network. A network is not only bridging but also creating
differences. This was shown in an article written by Sieglinde Geisel.

Geisel says that it is less expensive to call from Swiss to the US than
from Swiss to Egypt. Calls to Georgia are the most expansive ones. So
networks are one hand instruments that create bridges between Europe and
US, but broaden the gap between Europe and Georgia. This is so, because of
the lack of investments into networks connecting Europe and Georgia. The
Cuscokids ask what kind of differences a bridge between Europe ans
Southamerica would set? Because of this difficult question they returned
to idea of building a spacetimeship. They confirm also that this
spacetimeship has already a destination. It’s clear destination is to
transport goods between Europe and Southamerica. So far there was no
agreement achieved how and when and by whom this ship is going to build.
Thursday morning this clearings had two directions. One is discussing
difficult questions concerning the impact of central digital engine. One
subgroup was build to investigate the challenge of a central engine (see
postscriptum). The other direction is inspired by Achim Riechers work.

Achim Riechers has brought photographies from Russia. Black and white
images. A man sleeping on dirty paper in front of a white wall, cute girls
preparing for a balletsession in Minsk, female dolmetscher on a stairway,
gigantic billboards: a malboro-man smooking in a Wolgograd: a manga – girl
offering Mirinda. Riechers says that this is not a manga – girl but a
common russian figure. There the discussion starts. Who is seeing what and
how is our viewpoint on russia? Russia interesting because it could
function as a bridge between Europe and Southamerica. The viewer is
challenged to ask himself what his image of russia is like. He tries to
check patterns, for example: this ad shows how much Russia is already
filtrated by worldwide capitalism or this ad shows that Russia is closer
to Asia than to Europe. Riechers background is lower photographer. Years
ago he created an encylopedia of found porno-fotographies, in the late
ninties he started to use a consumer camera to form a view first one
todays concept of adbeaty and then on the beauty in Africa and the east.
The last two years Riechers is often in Russia. The images do look
constructed but they are not, they are found and just taken. Just take is
not correct. Often Riechers interviews and talks to the person he covers.
This photos are not metaphors. They do not bridge two points. They show a
reality that looks familiar but it is not. They create a feeling of
strange affection. One is faszinated but not because of the poverty, but
because of a sensibility that is there in a rough clima, in the cultural
sense and in the climatic sense. The images do not evoke nostalgia, they
do not make you leave to discover Russia. They show a world in transition,
but may be this time of transition will never stop. This may be argument
to discuss more in detail, wether Russia and Asia are the already existing
bridge between Europe and America. Kurt Goedel emigrated from Austria to
the US via Siberia. Maybe the cuscokids in Cologne do have to take this a
way, instead of going to the East Coast like Gödel did, they pass Alaska
towards the Anden.








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