norman on Wed, 16 Sep 1998 17:15:36 +0100 |
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Syndicate: indian non-summer viewed from paris autumn |
Hello fellow syndicalists. Reporting in from a scarcely survived maelstrom, a long haul this summer that I missed. It's a mnemonic kaleidoscope, a pirate mix of souvenirs: when was Cyberconf in the pig slaughter house? Shimmering heat of the July Danube, crazy images of automobiles from every plant on the planet, horsepower from east and west home's best spitting out gases eating up the old walls of this once-still elegant city, the infinitely respectable grace of an old lady who's seen many other times. I found Budapest moving for indescribable reasons, maybe just the movement of the water and the sun and the slow tides of people. Like the pitted facades, it was ridden with images, black and white, of political events viewed from my antipodean home a few decades back, which I remember trying vainly to link to the new neighbours in my home town who'd just arrived from Hungary... Monochromatic stills of impossibly old streets and strikingly craggy faces that studded a world of blue Pacific skies and evergreen coastal scapes. A vague ache about Cyberconf, about its estrangement from energies sensed in town (we were located peripherally), energies known through Syndicate postings, energies that didn't quite make it to the surface. A perverse nostalgia for what might have been and, at the same time, a "kick-yourself-you're-really-here" delight in being somewhere so new that felt so oddly familiar. A weird, lasting image of Esther Dyson triumphantly wielding a framed certificate won by the original Stakhanovite of the local pig-killing squad, some guy who'd slaughtered more pigs than anyone else. An unusual piece of fetishism that will no doubt draw much attention in some drawing room in a land where pigs kill people. Then in August putting and holding together a workshop in the intimacy of the International Puppetry Institute in France, working intensely without technology on simple gestures and objects and interactions, before crossing the Rhine and investing the gigantic ZKM, with its Onyx(s) and Medientheater and labs and gear. A culture shock with all its faltering, its incomprehension, its tensions. An at times acutely painful lesson that I didn't want or particularly need to learn again (and again and again) about the problems of encounter. So many things that could and should have been done, or done better, prepared and worked on in more depth, easily identified with hindsight - and known in advance to be lacking, but no resources to deal with them; the no-choice stoical conclusion is that I've personally never experienced any truly experimental undertaking that occurs in "ideal" conditions. Encouraging elements of our work were ultimately discreet but solid acquisitions - a recognition by ZKM interface and software wizards of gestural skills not previously encountered, of the febrile representation and characterisation arts of puppeteers, generally absent from the theatre/ technology arena; most important, a strongly voiced wish from participants to go further, move on. Despite and because of the contradictions: presenting workshop experimentation to a public was tough in that it gave a production-oriented twist to our introverted labour of love, sabotaging it in more ways than one. e.g. precious machine time gets hogged if you over-emphasise "going public" rather than experimenting; some of the richest investigation undertaken was still too subterranean after just a few days with fully operational technology to stand up to outsider scrutiny. Andreas B. and others rightly pointed out that describing the technical set-up would have been useful and valuable for the public. Funny situation - we hadn't had a single real run-through of the fragments presented and I was counting on the 99.9% predictable technical lags for playing this didactic role, then for some insane reason everything fell smoothly into place. Thus too smoothly. Murphy's law put on its head. And of course the inevitable more-or-less veiled criticism about our not having done anything new, which amuses me. What's really new in theatre, and who does it? George Coates alias the Broadway bunch or their hip post-modern counterparts, those we see too often squatting prestigious international festival circuits? So much of what people call "new" in performance seems to boil down to premiering swiftly dated technology, smart gadgets and snazzy tricks like the 19th century props and decor guys who would do anything to get their new curtains and carpets and lighting effects showcased in the latest big productions....in ways that testify more to budgets and hard assets than to "soft" artistic reflection, particularly in the intangible realm of performing arts. One of the pieces we worked on that I found most theatrically potent involved no computers, just a couple of string puppets, one wearing a "head-mount" hand cam which allowed images of its puppet partner to be projected onto a semi-translucent screen, these projected images being uncannily superposed over the real puppets' shadows and the shadows of their handlers... Hard to describe, but a sense of depth and duplicity of space and physicality that withholds much potential, that points towards new dramaturgical possibilities, even though technologically it's old hat. These are the chinks in the door I'm stubbornly pushing at. Subtle but long-term promising relationships between performers and objects, solid or screened, that go unnoticed by trend-hunters waiting to pounce on some tupenny novelty. Other responses warm and encouraging fortunately, people who proved sensitive to the "fireworks", the disordered bunch of very different ideas and foci that were touched on, who recognised the potential of this mass of decidedly, deliberately unfinished material. And the risk we took showing it ad hoc, rather than playing it safe by concentrating on high end dazzle. Writing and analysis yet to be done, still dubious as to the dramatic scope of motion-capture based research; my involvement last September in a robotics installation theatre work in Imperia continues to gnaw, won't go away, a very low cost low tech incursion into mixed species drama which offered some highly significant pointers. Have to find it again somehow. All that feels close and far now; has since been buffered by e.g. the unforgettable Solar installation at Ars Electronica which eclipses as is its wont less powerful experiences - i.e. most. Marko Peljhan and his friends even programmed the full moon to sit between the towers and moonlight the satellite dish. Cosmic piracy. Still can't quite believe it happened. That and Scanner's night on the Super Collider where every time I tried to leave the sound would suck me into another transformation vortex. Spellbound. Infowar debate to be rethought, it's happening, but I wish Solar could be set up somewhere so I could go periodically and tune in to the stars to get things into perspective. Good energy in the Brucknerhaus that hummed in the openX and audio/radio spaces. Jumpy static. The burlesque Russian speaker with his fall of the US empire predictions, his asides about the openness of the Russian official websites (as opposed to closed French networksâ?¦) which drew hoots of laughter when his government page click was denied accessâ?¦ The Chinese speaker who quite clearly evaded all questions, all discussion. George Stein, the American Air Force Academy representative who launched all statements and answers with "Speaking as a civilianâ?¦". To the point that one began to wonder who the hell classifies as military in the States, or is everybody a just civilian doing secret service Swiss army style. Some flagrantly obsolescent military philosophy dished up patronisingly, with easily revealed contradictions for anyone who scratched the surface. e.g. Stein's OODA loop(Observation, Orientation, Discussion, Action) : queried as to what constitutes a sufficiently verifiable observation to proceed with the next steps in the loop, Stein replied that Americans are not philosophers, that they don't read Heidegger and are not hung up like the French with formulating a Weltanschauung before proceeding with action, that they're pragmatic, their philosophy being "if it works, use it". This response does not seem to be a very sound basis for constituting the first two three components of the OODA loop. The validity of which I'd query anyway. As probably would a lot of infometrics and AL researchers, and even military. But Stein's brash misinformation tied in nicely and predictably with Peter Arnett's. The Khartoum story testifying admirably to Steinian "pragmatics". And as Michael Wilson (7 Pillars) pointed out in another session, bombing a makeshift training camp devoid of heavy infrastructures with some of the most expensive weapons on the planet is logically and tactically and financially questionable. The Virilio show was depressing as his doomsday revelations usually are and have been over the past few years. With farcical relaying of questions and deformed translations apparently imputable to horrific acoustics. Pain in the arse. The human species as the summit of life, about to blow itself to smithereens. Armageddon seen by our friendly local predicator. Distressing â?? his lectures at the Institut Français de l'Architecture back in the seventies used to be lively and provocative. He could and would pack a punch. But the Brucknerhaus pulpit had another ring to it. A ring that resounded via Arnett and Virilio. Talking down (to) everything/ everyone. Ensconced in some self-righteous supremacy that exonerates them from notions of individual responsibility or even commitment. Virilio has resigned, long ago, tragically â?? it's not just because he was born in 1932 and has decided to give up â?? many people born still earlier are not curling into this species of doomsday discourse. As a postscript, here's an original INFOWAR story that I find refreshing in its primal violence. Tumatauenga is the Maori god of war and technology, a fierce dimension of humankind in this rich cosmogony. The Polynesian creation myth tells how Tane, god of the forests, and his siblings, were stifled and cramped by the embrace of their parents, Rangi the sky father, and Papa the earth mother. So Tane stood upright and wrenched his parents apart to make room for their offspring. Whence the birth of the world. One of his brothers, Tawhirimatea, the god of winds and storms, was against the ripping asunder of his parents, and he sought revenge on the newly created world by smashing the trees and stirring up the oceans, whirling and howling in the new void where his parents had once ensured shelter. The land and sea gods cowed under Tawhirimatea's attacks, seeking refuge in the entrails of the earth and in the marine depths. Tumatauenga despised them for this cowardice, and debased them by turning them into food and implements : Tane's children in the forests were dug up and turned into boats and spears and lines with which Tumatauenga fished up the children of Tangaroa, the sea god. He dug up others of Tane's children and ate them. Tumatauenga is one of the most fiercely ambivalent Maori gods, and his dual role as founder of technology and warfare is perhaps worth remembering when we embark on these purist debates about good guys and bad guys in 20th century Infowar. Maori battle strategies are formidable, including in the espionnage and deception areas, outwitting the enemy and duping him in estimates of opponent force, etc. But I guess this kind of archaic, heavy, heady, Infowar is too far away from the radiant crowd-pulling histrionics of a big-time conference circuit. Infowar toys for boys? No way. The haka you hear at international rugby matches was created by a woman who shielded the hunted chief Te Rauparaha in a foodpit. A Maori elder who scared the shit out of her adversaries with the sheer energy of her rhetoric. And there are many more where she comes from. Kia Ora Sally Jane Norman 48, rue de l'Ourcq 75019 PARIS Tel (33) 1 40 38 22 12 Cell phone (33) 6 08 32 22 38 Fax (33) 1 42 09 96 07 Norman@wanadoo.fr http://uchcom.botik.ru/~norman