10.03.2024
Where have I been, what have I seen?
First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who attended the screening at Goldsmiths, University of London on the 22nd of February. Thanks to Fran Painter-Fleming, the curator of the screenings that evening, and thanks to crowd. Thanks to my friends Maomì and Alfie, there’s a heavily bootlegged version of the talk circulating out on the web.
It was an incredibly demanding schedule; I barely had 24 hours in London. Not having been there since summer, it was definitely too little time. The morning after, I even managed to travel from South-East to the wrong airport. God, what chaos.
I hit Berlin the day after and met with the director Moana Schorlemer, whom I’ve been working with on two film pieces for the past 6 weeks. Unfortunately, I missed the opening at BAS CS Galerie, but I hope everyone had a wonderful evening.
It was a joy working with this incredible team, I cannot express my gratitude to them enough. Over the next 6-9 months, I’ll slowly be releasing our work. A conversation between Moana and I, will also be out once the films are launched.
Melissa, Pauline, and Michel – I hope you are all well, I’m sending glitter from Paris.
Returning from Berlin was a real nightmare. There was a nationwide strike action in the public transport sector ultimately making every taxi, uber and whatever unavailable.
I found myself just one hour before the flight not having any means of transportation to the airport.. And I was even hosting a dinner the day after !
Thanks to my dear friend, I got to the airport in time, as we raced 140km/h down Sonnenallee till we hit the autobahn and traffic loosened up.
Hitting Paris was a great relief, even though the driver that picked me up got a bit too fascinated by me.. He constantly jumped from vous to tu and left me with his business card.
The next day was a real treat. One of my dearest friends came in from London. We discussed a project that we aim to present at the beginning of next year. More will follow on that.
The most remarkable thing happened. I had tried to get tickets for Björk at Bourse de Commerce for my two friends and me. They had come in from London and Berlin.. which didn’t really change our chances of getting tickets in any way, but due to that, I felt the more responsible for having failed getting tickets. We arrived at Bourse de Commerce late, around 11pm I think. A British guy came up to us and gave us a ticket [thank you British guy if you’re reading this]. Then one of my friends stopped two people who left the venue and we eventually got two additional tickets on our hands. We may be skinny, but we’re vicious and we fight dirty !
It was fun, quite an usual transformation of the old Bourse…
Two days ago, I had a conversation with Hans Petter Blad. We talked about the conditions of literature.. He has a new book out end of the year. We spoke about the relationship between art and literature, in particular my situation.. The decade long piece, I worked on, the correspondence piece.. Hans Petter has been very involved in that and its transformative nature.. I am not sure when I’ll re-enter that again..
The archaic force of literature and the impossibility of letting it enter a place of visibility; will literature always be the language of the invisible?
I was the student of Hans Petter in 2016. He mentioned some old manuscripts I wrote from the time. It sparked a conversation about whether literature is an envelope inside of language that will never reach outside itself, essentially a point of language’s own possibility of self-reference, or if literature and writing still serves as the most accurate epistemological tool for critical examination of culture and societal life.
We discussed whether literature, or a critic articulated verbally, actually is the right means for a critical transformation of society, in the sense that an open society is one which exists on the fundament of enlightenment and reason opposed to the ignorant society we find ourselves in currently which praises “invisible hands (i.e. magic)”, magical powers, and the blind belief that human phenomena are as natural as the sun setting every evening.
Having worked extensively in literature, I argued that the word doesn’t hold the same critical and epistemological position as it did earlier. Instead, I imagine that new metaphors, new medias, and new visual approaches can propose a much more adequate critic of life today. In times of hybridization, it seems that the authority the word formerly held has lost its pregnancy.
Where does that leave us?
With something exciting.
In a few days more news will follow !
Bye bye everyone !