nomadic dialogues by Andreas Templin

nomadic dialogues a project by Andreas Templin & HTV de IJsberg

Westergasfabriek Amsterdam 1998

Introduction

Contemporary culture is witnessing a broad variety of di erent styles, ideas and activities. Among these developments a new way of thinking and experience is growing. Although it is very di cult to de ne this new mentality, ‘nomadism’ can be a name for it. The concept of nomadism isn’t new. In the early eighties nomadism was associated with the squatter movement and represented a corresponding alternative lifestyle. The current developments have a completely di erent character.Instead of being rigid and isolated in certain cultural territories, instead of having a xed social setting and clear de ned political goals, the present nomadic developments are engaged in very di erent social and cultural layers. Instead of operating on a macro level on which political di erences are based on polarization, contemporary nomadism is functioning on a micro level of multiple and changing coordinates. It can be seen as a dynamic. A moving in the `in-between’ among the existing territories, cultural and social identities and institutional boundaries. Within the world of architects, writers, artists and netsurfers we are witnessing this low pro le activity.What these people have in common is the need to leave habitual domains like professional standards and hierarchies, xed social arrangements (lifestyles, relationships), domestical patterns, psychological conditions (ego, identity, sexual di erence) and institutional organisation. Instead of proclaiming the grand refusal against society and thereby reducing its mobility, the present mentality generates a powerful and productive energy. The nomad is a traveller, connecting with many singular experiences, perspectives and ideas, operating on a small scale in the margins everywhere in our society. This new mentality strives for action, for connections of di erences beyond the realm of representation and meaning.Present nomadism has been in uenced by postmodernism. Certain aspects like heterogeneity and multiplicity refer to a postmodern heritage. However, the micropolitical awareness of the present mentality shows a break with the political naivety of postmodernism. Nomadism requires a combination of an experimental `elan vital’ with pragmatic ethics. To be able to move in between territories, identities and dominant meaning, one has to navigate in order to escape coding, representation and organisation, which are imposed on us every day. Dominant forms of representation, within arts, science, economy and media, constitute the present forms of production within every domain of our society. Nomadism expresses a sensibility and practical logic to mutate and therefor escape these boundaries. It is this micropolitical mentality which di ers nomadism from the current postmodern tendencies which seem to have degenerated into a blind a rmation of our western culture.This mentality is foremost a practice experienced by people who operate within the elds of art, science, music, media and management. Their individual conditions and singular experiences de ne the di erent manuals, tools and coordinates suitable for these activities. `Nomadic Dialogues’ provided possibilities to broaden the perspectives on this, at the same time individual and collective, movement.

Robin Brouwer, August 1998.

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For the project nomadic dialogues an old caravan provided just the right setting; a quiet, neutral and intimate space for at most six people, to sit and talk. The caravan was driven on to the middle of the big square on the terrain of the Westergasfabriek. During ten days a variety of thirty- ve people were invited to take a seat, sit and chat their way into an unprepared an uncensored dialogue. Talking not so much about their work as an artist, curator, writer or critic, or about their future plans, but mostly about the general cultural climate we are all part of at this moment. What they all had in common can be described as a nomadic approach of dealing with their work within this cultural climate.The following six people were invited on Tuesday 2nd of June 1998.Roy Cerpac has been working as an artist for several years and went through a radical change in his approach of dealing with art in which the art product is no longer the centre of conception. Life’s experiences, relationships and the practice of art could then be more connected to each other.In her artwork, consisting at the moment mostly out of photography and reproduction, Gerda Hahn is questioning the issue of personal value versus nancial value by distributing her work free. At the beginning of this dialogue, Gerda gave all the visitors in the caravan a work of art in return for posing in front of the camera with her. Ineke Schwartz has been working for De Volkskrant as an art critic and is closely following the current cultural developments. Anne Bruggenkamp has studied Art History at the university in Amsterdam after nishing the AKI Art Academy. Now he is involved in the inner circle of HTV de IJsberg as the head co-ordinator. Henri van Zanten is an artist in the practice of life. As a poet, rapper, writer, performer, musician and as a producer of

theatre, he is currently based in Rotterdam, where many of his postcards can also be found. Better known as M.C. Wisecrack. Robin Brouwer is teaching philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. His main focus at the moment is on the works of Deleuze, Guattari and Virilio. He is investigating the layers of cultural conditions that surround the acts of nomadic thinking and working together with people in several artistical elds in an experimental cross over with philosophical concepts. Andreas Templin guided the conversation. Sonja Beijering edited this conversation, leaving as much of the initial content intact. Idea and production: Andreas Templin and Sonja Beijering, realised at ‘Niet de KunstVlaai’ 1998.

Participants: Alfons ter Avert, Gerda Hahn, Alicia de Jong, Gijs van Leuwen, Remco Scha, Robin Brouwer, Roy Cerpac, Ulay, Wim Verhoeven, Martin Viergever, Gabriel Lester, Eric Wie, Carlos Amorales, Ineke Schwartz, Tiong Ang, Wim Kok, Martijn Sandberg, Henri van Zanten and many others

Andreas: Roy, what are you working on right now? The last thing I heard about you was quite spectacular. You did your nal exams at the art academy in Amsterdam by pure talking. You did not show any product-related artwork that had been developed in a certain range of time, which usually cover all the angles that are measured at the academy’s exams. How was your experience with this quite uncommon way of working at an art academy? I can imagine there was a lot of opposition against your project.

Roy: Yes, in the beginning there was. Most of the reactions were something like “it’s all crazy”, “what are you talking about” or even “go to India and get drunk”. The teachers said it would be impossible to graduate without showing artwork, but obviously that was already four years ago.

Ineke: I don’t think I understand. What did you talk about at your exam?

Roy: At a certain moment something transformed in myself. I started out working a lot with material, like drawing, but I never knew where it is going. The talking I did was a in way similar to drawing. It was about things that I had seen or had experienced. At a certain moment my work started to become very transparent. It wasn’t really about talking, but more about being present and not being present. Like really being in a situation, in my environment, in my space with my chalk or whatever it was I worked with. So what I produced was no longer in between my surroundings and me. But suddenly this became a problem, because people need something to look at. They need this third thing to look at. While for me it was exactly the opposite. You have to understand also that this was never a concept. It was just me in that time, being in a situation together with other people. It was about being. That was very hard to understand for a lot of people. They thought it was crazy.

Ineke: So what did you actually do?

Roy: I don’t do anything on purpose. That’s just a point. It is about breaking borders, breaking borders between my life and my work.. There are of course more and less interesting moments, but it’s not about doing something especially. That is my perception of art. It is something that you are not forcing. Every forcing for me, is something that you will have to go back to afterwards. It’s very intense or intensive until a limited jump level. The art appears when there is a jump of levels, a jump of quantum. How to counter this intensity? There is no technique for it. When I start to talk about technique, I will loose the feeling, that’s for sure. So it only can appear or not, so you can be there and feel it or not. A lot of people want to know in advance what is going to happen, what you are going to o er, “what are you gonna show us?” That is of course not my way, because I start with nothing.

Ineke: Do you gather people or do you announce that there is some kind of happening?

Roy: There is not one-way to do things. I will go to any situation that seems interesting to me, from which I feel inspired. Many times it’s like a snowball that goes from person to person. I am invited to situations and if I’m inspired I will initiate something. I will tell people about what I’m doing and o er them to participate in it. Many times it rolls on and keeps on rolling. It can be in any discipline. I’m very involved with artists, but it also can be in design or science, any subject I

feel inspired by. Actually it’s very much like traditional work. The only di erence is that it’s not about material en masse, but it is exactly the same way of working. It’s a very associative way of working, because you don’t see the lines that people have laid out to control things afterwards. Time has changed things. The same people that formerly had a lot of problems with my way of working, got in contact with me after one or two years. They started to see things di erently and now they have worked together with me. The same goes for the institutions. The academy and later the Fonds voor Beeldende Kunst. At certain moments this transparency occurs and the idea that not only material can exist, is something which doesn’t seem that impossible or crazy anymore. There is a place for it.

Andreas: So, you could say there is an artist-model, but this artist-model or system of thinking and structuralizing things, of acting towards things can be taken over by anything else. It’s not necessary that a product gets created. A certain structure gets created that is acceptable as an art piece and this model can be transferred towards anything else.

Roy: That is the feeling that I have. First of all I have it more and more within the art-world. For me there is a big di erence between art, art world and art-identity. There is a certain kind of gap in between these things. I feel them even outside of the art-world. For me art is exactly like opening up these gaps, not de ning things and trying to get beyond the identity. I felt this opening many times in science- or in business-related situations. It’s something very strong. I mean, it is in the air. It is almost everywhere. The art-world is actually a bit slower, but I feel a lot of openings there also. There it is more personal. Certain kinds of people are changing the structures, but not structurally. It’s the personal approach that can change certain kinds of conditions. Which is a beautiful way of letting it happen, it’s also the way in how we are talking in this caravan now. This is an opening.

Andreas: What are your projects in the moment? Are you projecting towards anything in the moment?

Roy: There are no projects, but there are people from di erent disciplines that I have worked with for a long time, for instance with Gerda.

Ineke: But give us a concrete example.

Roy: Concrete example? Gerda! Or for instance Jeroen Kooijmans. He was asked to give a proposal for the new Dutch Embassy in Berlin from Rem Koolhaas. We are working on it together. Sometimes I work with institutes, the Rietveld Academy or in Den Bosch or in Arnhem. I have worked a long time with a business-support scientist from the University in Rotterdam. From time to time there are certain kinds of questions. The last question was about the standing-still of business and the business-world. Whatever I do, it’s working like a snowball. The way that I was invited here was also a little bit like this.

The co ee was pored and a breeze took its aroma to travel around the area… …our guide for the day addresses Robin: This also has things in common with the way you are present in certain places Robin, as a philosopher you also cooperate also with many di erent people…

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Robin: Yes, I sense the same thing. The last year I’ve been trying to do things outside of the University. I’ve worked with architects in a project. I’ve worked with two choreographers and sixteen dancers, coming from all over the world. They wanted to do something with nomadic thinking and concepts in dance. I was present at the workshops they did and spend a lot of time talking with them. I met musicians and music-producers from the techno-scene. I held a lecture at an art exhibition in the Pavilions in Almere, which also has to do with another way of approaching things. The only thing that I nd very di cult is, that it is very hard to de ne what this mentality is that you were talking about. I don’t see it as something that will in uence all the structures within our culture. In my opinion it is even more di cult to realize things in this open way, because it also has some political implications. Not on the level of the politics of the parliaments and democracy, but the politics of daily life. Some people go about it in a much too simpli ed way, for example: “ let’s create a party, we have a nice place, we invite some DJs, some dancers and we call it something like ‘Escape Roots’ or ‘Nomadic’ and afterwards we can say we had a great party, and that was it”. That was the experiment. This is far to simplistic. There are a lot of hypes going on, especially in the art-scene. For instance the program “VPRO laat” I saw recently, about Deleuze,

in which some artists and architects were invited. There were elements in that program which I found really super cial. Only a hype is too easy and will not change anything. It’s not just altering a style or creating something that is suitable and people nd easy to accept. I think it’s much more di cult to break out of a system. You can do it on a small scale. An Englishman I was talking to, who is working within music said: “This is something I sense all over the world and it’s going to happen on a more economic and political level as well”. I think that the developments we have seen in the 90’s are not part of a cultural change that will develop more in the next century. I think they rise out of a sort of n de siecle- sentiment at the end of a century, in which we give a sort of retro-parade of everything that has taken place. There is a big possibility that in the beginning of next century we will get back to old-structured things, still within the status quo. The way capitalism is functioning at the moment has also hardened certain lines and I think, that it is in some sense going back to certain dominant forms of representation, because it is controlled by certain structured ways. This weekend I spoke to one of the organizers of this International Hockey Tournament in Utrecht. He said “ Well, I’ve been working now for several years to get this event sponsored, so we can do it on a broad scale. We can invite all the hocky teams and really make something out of it. But now I see, that during the tournaments some of the stadiums were half-empty, the crowds were all in the pavilions drinking wine and champagne. These people were all businessmen and they were not interested in sports at all.” Is sports nanced by management or business? Or has it become entertainment for business and economics? That is something you could apply to art as well and then you realize, that the old paradigm of postmodernity, which talks about ‘going with the ow’ in fact was a critique on the dominant modernist representational forms, the traditional ways in which meaning and values originated. But: it was a critique. And when you leave everything saying ‘well anything is possible’, you’re not being able to state your critique anymore. It is run over by new forms of representation.

Ineke: I’m not so afraid of that. I think this is a very clear sign. I see artists everywhere trying to do projects in which there is no gain involved. I think it is a very clear sign that there is a huge need to mean something for other people. I see everybody trying to nd ways to do this. It might be a hype, but still, people will have this need to mean something. I’ve been thinking about this for some time also and I think Postmodernism has something to do with it. The idea that everything should be newer and better and newer and better was nished with postmodern thinking. But in the 80’s, when Postmodernism was owering the art-market boomed. Artists felt probably very necessary and interesting to become a pop star, everybody bought art etc. So it seemed as if everything went properly, but then the art market crashed. I think there was a shared ‘What can we do?’-feeling. I also think there is a deep feeling that everything has already been done. We have so many objects; all the museums and all the stocking places are completely cramped with things. So what can you do? Well, you can call this a reaction, but I think there is a very deeply felt need to do something that has sense, whatever it is. I see it with architects, I see it with designers, with fashion people. There is a strong need to be important, not as an ego, but to be important for other people. I think it has been some time ago, that artists felt that they should do something not only because their ego is so important, but to do something for society, for people. It can be very small, very nearby. They are looking for holes, they’re looking for contact with business, they are looking for holes in city planning, in science, everywhere, to connect with society.

Roy: What gives me this optimistic feeling is exactly this urge you talk about. It is not that if I would be able to see the future, it would be easier. The optimism is really because some things have to be done anyway. You feel it in a lot of things, not only in yourself, also from the surrounding. It will be done even though it doesn’t promise you anything. It doesn’t promise you money, success or a name.

Ineke: ....and therefore institutions will not have any in uence, because as long as the need is there you will look after your own money. I’m always thinking about a discussion between an elder artist and Chris Dercon during the Manifesta exhibition. Dercon said, “ I don’t like this kind of art. We need some huge monumental sign”. Then Laurence Wiener said:

“It’s not important what you think we should do. There will always be somebody around the corner, who does exactly what he or she wants, no matter if it sells or not”.

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Roy: This is for me the personal power, the personal strength: To Do, for the sake of doing it.

Ineke: The people will like it because of the energy that has been put into it, because it feels fresh. I don’t know if I like all those projects, but sometimes, if you feel the good intention, the need to

do something. I don’t know. All those words that you can’t translate into objects. You’re getting optimistic about it. I’m really convinced that a lot of contemporary art is not in the institutions or in the museums. It’s everywhere. It’s a little bit hard to nd, because nobody really knows. I think we all have the feeling that this is a very important sign for today. So we could all make our own contemporary art-collections. I don’t think the public will be so much against it. As soon as they are inspired or they feel that it has some importance they accept it. I think about this project, that Alicia Framis did, The Dreamkeeper, in the Stedelijk Museum Bureau. She was the Dreamkeeper. There was a poster displayed everywhere in the city, you could call her up, make an appointment and she would come to your house to keep your dreams during the night. The people that reacted were not art-people, but people who were very interested and of course: journalists, because a lot of journalists wanted to write nice articles. She had great experiences with people who were curious, lonely or who just wanted to have this contact. Then there’s no question at all if it’s art or not.

Andreas: To come back to the questions of politics Robin: was raising. I think there is one important point: an institution will also not feel responsible anymore for actions which it has no control over and it maybe does not even have the function of documentation any more. I had some contacts with AEG company, this huge manufacture of household-machinery. I was helping to curate a prize for them together with two other artists. We were setting up this huge amount of work for an exhibition. In his speech on the opening day one of the directors of AEG was constantly concerned with ‘how can we create a good image for our company’. This means if you as an artist are willing to involve in such a cooperation, if you even follow an idea and are a little bit naive, you do end up in this form of self-censorship that these companies are indirectly asking from the artists to get into a cooperation. This company wants to build up a certain image, because this image is useful in all it’s product-streams, but that are not even distinctionable anymore from any other company, which is doing the same advertising campaigns. The products are no more di ering. The identity comes through a cultural engagement that is invested by the company. They of course search for an image that stays in a way very un-pro led. Especially from the side of the visual art they feature then out of this interest mostly an artwork that doesn’t ask any critical questions. Of course is this nice for the company, they ask their promotion-people to write a text about the collection or the activity and create some identity for the sta and the clients. There is this point where the critiqueless moment of the artwork can be very much abused.

Ineke: I know what you mean, but this has always been the case. Probably tomorrow there will be a very creative person who can explain why this new project is extremely interesting for a company. I think immediately about Goya, who was the favorite painter of the Spanish king and you know what he painted. He painted the king as a bastard and still he was accepted. Probably a company wants objects, but there also will always be companies which are so progressive that they only want the newest thing or just ideas. Maybe as an artist you can give a positive turn so that the image of the company can go together with the artist. The company of course wants something good out of it. Some companies are quite progressive. I think about the Diesel or the Benetton ads, which are quite critical. About ten years ago everybody reacted furious, now they are completely accepted. We are entering the next phase.

Roy: For me it is exactly the same issue when someone is going to view a painting in a museum. Some people will have that certain kind of way of looking for a painting that suits them or suits the color of their carpet.

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Robin: If you link the commercial sign and the art sign together, I think that the art sign is too fragile to compete. Chomsky calculated how many words you would need to explain a story in opposition to the mainstream-stories of society. You would need four or ve times more words to explain. So the sign of the image in art - which explains something about personal life or personal experiences - and the signs we have in our encoded society - which are still produced by our capitalistic tendencies - are much stronger. I nd it naive to say that the art will be strong enough to infect this system. I think it is naive to say it will happen, just because it has to happen. I mean, it is a powerful thing and people do believe in it. I think it is di cult, because it is not something that can just be accept overnight. For instance, we are used to di erentiate between male and female, just like that. Deleuze and Guattari said: there is no ‘male or female’. It doesn’t exist. It is a concept produced by society. We actually have thousands of sexes within us. It is just a way of

looking. For me this is di cult to accept while I’m studying reading and writing about it. But it is the same with art, I mean it has a very fragile meaning to de ne something, to create something that has the possibility to de ne and to explore the di erence of something beyond the normal accepted perspective of reality. Because it is quite fragile, you need a kind of strategy to make it possible. If you can link it to other existing signs, they will be stronger and take it over.At the moment you have all discussion about the Internet. I have studied many books about the cultural in uences of Internet from psychology, art and commercial enterprise. At the moment it is very di cult to state what is going to happen with it. It is in a sort of vacuum and dominant forms of representation, which means dominant signs, always colonize a vacuum. It has to do with ideas on politics and commercial enterprise. If you want to produce something that is fresh, it will be like trying to de ne thousands of sexes. You will have to lift this experience beyond a certain border, in order for people to recognize what is happening.

Roy: I nd it really interesting. Let’s say there is a di erence between to organize and something which gets de ned. If you take the example of having sex: to think of it all the time, would be a good strategy, but it would kill the feeling for me. There is a di erence between doing something consciously and to have an awareness of what is happening. The awareness is helping to make it stronger. At a certain moment it will get a form by itself.

Ineke: But it’s so optimistic to say it can be achieved when you link it to a very in uential sign.

Robin: That’s not what I’m saying. I meant it in a way, that when you link it to a very dominant sign, the dominant sign will take the art sign over. Andreas was talking about a big company like the AEG. I know people in management who deal with art, they see a lot of things happen. During a symposium at the Rietveld, where 300 people were present, I asked a question at the end of my lecture:

“ many people have been talking about Derridian architecture and postmodern buildings, but what is the sense of a building that is based on the principles of Derrida? While a very rigid and modernist company like Mac Donald’s is working with it, is using it?” I mean, it’s just like a surface…

Ineke: The old cozy idea that architecture changes people.

Robin: Within some text I’m working on this idea of schizophrenia as a sort of experiment. They are using the concept of schizophrenia as a sort of a breaking-free, letting things ow and that is still with some sense. So it’s not senseless. The point is: on what level are you still aware of the conditions around you? When I take a certain decision at a certain moment I might also get stuck... and then it’s gone.

Roy: When something has happened or has changed the conditions around me, I was exactly going through a moment that before looked like a dead end. Then there was an explosion, a development, a kind of process. The jumps happened through seeing and not through thinking my way out of a situation. Suddenly it is exploding and you are in a di erent space, jumping into the mouth of the lion. It is surprising. The moment was not linear, not analytic or anything, but very surprising. That was when the change in conditions occurred.

Andreas: This concept to take certain models over for yourself, certain mentalities or temperaments in order to evoke creative moments, you have had this very strong in Surrealism. I think it got stuck in a way on the outcast of what it was leaded into. Movements before Surrealism were even broader. For instance Dadaism and the way they saw their in ltration into culture. I think there are lots of these moments that can be taken over and might give a challenge, but the question nowadays is also: a challenge towards what?

Meanwhile Anne enters the caravan. We relieve him of the three mu ns he brought with him, as he nds a spot on the sofa between Gerda and Andreas.

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Anne: You talked about Derrida, well I don’t believe in Derridian architecture. I think Derrida has not presented any architectural theories to make any good building. It’s more likely to break down a building, to show its parts in very di erent ways. The same can be said about art. For me these ideas are very much - and that’s always a problem nowadays - related to a product. Within the art

world you could say, that the most interesting thing happening at the moment is, to try to break open the whole idea of what art is and how art should be and could function. There is always the problem of the product, because the product has always been the death of the avant-garde. The product becoming an icon of di erent works in the art-context has always been the problem of the avant-garde. It always killed the avant-garde in a way. There are a lot of structures working in the eld of art, in the eld of consumption, the eld of music, all di erent cultural elds and they are very similar, but are also very disconnected. I consider this more a problem, than not. Because of this explosion of modernism, all this di erent parts do not have a connection anymore. So the connection has to be found by individuals and individual works again and again in every step.

Ineke: You mean: you have a lot of possibilities, but it’s very hard to get connected?

Anne: Yes.

Roy: But on the other hand: the individual has to take care of this connection. I see it like you, but there is something that makes it very real. It’s not easy to get connected, but when you do make the connection… For instance the students at the Rietveld Academy who come from far abroad: their motivation is much stronger than of the students from this region. They just decided to do an art school; it is easier for them. But that also makes something very strong, this individual connection.

Anne: When I was just graduating from art school, in 1987, there was this movement that, at that moment, could be called a sort of avant-garde. It was a new geometric painting. On the one hand it had a very strong connection to the past, on the other hand it meant a total breakdown of all the immanent structures of color eld-painting and the older abstract painters like Malevich or Kandinsky, people like Bauhaus, the Constructivists etc. After three, maybe four years this movement had completely disappeared. The works was only printed in catalogues, with the prices behind. There was nothing left anymore of this idealism behind it. It had just disappeared. It became a school for art-historians. From 1988 to 1992 I studied art-history at the University. Then I got back into the art world and I noticed a very big change in the idea of making art, of how you want to produce art in a certain context. In a very small time scale huge changes had occured, in very di erent directions.

Roy: What you say now makes also something clear for me. This running after the ideal, is also a way of forcing which lasts a certain period. It is a bit like politics in a way. There is something in art, I don’t mean about identity, something with art works, that stays in a way forever. It doesn’t last for a small period, but a long time. What lasts is the ideal or the idea, the forcing. It always falls down back to this. There is something in the real path that people take somehow - not because they are trying to get somewhere - just because of the need to go. That has to do with the nomadic. It is just there.

Anne: The nomadic has also been a concept that has been catapulted into the theories about contemporary art. But there you also see: it is no general concept. It’s not a concept that you can shine a light onto in the art world. It’s just something that ickers here and there.Andreas: It’s more or less a mentality.Anne: It’s more a spiritual or mentality thing than the product that comes out of it, because the product disappears from the scene in a way. On the one hand this is a very good thing, on the other hand you can ask yourself ‘What then is art?’ more than just into a human relation. Maybe you can even expect within a view years some younger artists coming up who are very product- xated.

Ineke: Object-orientated?

Anne: Object-orientated art! Yes.

Ineke: We don’t have that many solutions to how we can solve this problem of the product. I know, that artists have a real problem with the way, when they make a kind of registration of their work - the people start seeing it as ‘the’ piece of art. Like in the case of Ulay and Abramovic. The video is the art? No, the performance is the art. Well, this is a problem and a lot of artists don’t have any solutions. They will probably come up with solutions. That there will be something to

remember them, some thing you can sell or give away. It will be something to remember and to help you have this experience again.

Anne: The problem I have with the new concept of art is, that it is a lot of times it not important enough for me. I see things that are related to the concept of the nomadic, but when art becomes very personal or the object does, the question is: is it still important enough to transport a sort of idea to the viewer?

Gerda: When is something important? I think this is very di cult to say in general.

Anne: If you can not de ne an object anymore in its general importance, because it has become so very personal, it can maybe signify a moment that even the author himself did not know at that moment he presents it. It can be very hard for the receptor to grasp this moment again from a

work that is a metaphor of something, because it is already far beyond. Also the concept of importance is gone. The concept of the importance , the essence cannot be easily de ned anymore. It can only be de ned maybe in a very personal way, so we come back again of the concept of the personal and then we are in a sort of vicious circle of signs that are a short cut.

Roy: This is exactly, when I understand it right, the di erence between a monologue and a discussion. A monologue can be a short cut, but when it happens to be a discussion, then something very personal can become transparent with the layer, so that you can enter into it. Then it stops to be like your crying child and it appears to be an opening. Then it happens, not because I thought of how I would tell it to you or to bring it to you. I just experienced it. In that moment you would experience it also, or actually we would experience it together.

Anne: Maybe we should try to de ne it more into the question: is the art-object still the art-object or has it changed in its way that it addresses the receptor?

Andreas: I think that is also the general question of the object. The conception of objects has changed. The objects are much softer than they were maybe ten years ago. This means the information value, or what an object is able to transport on information, is already much more interesting than the object itself.

Anne: So the object is the metaphor?

Andreas: The object is metaphor. The object is soft. The hardware is not the signi cant change; it’s the machinery, the software; and this is the interesting point in the development of the computer industry. What I wanted to say with it: maybe it is a whole change of the function of the object in general.

Anne: You can talk about the object, but in what sense can you talk about the object, if it’s constantly shifting in signi cance, in context. I don’t now if you ever read the book called ‘How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art’. Then you read how the concept of Abstract Expressionism - which came from a sort of unconscious, surrealism-related idea - was afterwards used as holy idea of...

Ineke: …The Unique American Experience.

Anne:…as the unique American experience of freedom and so on. It was also exported as a product. There are beautiful photographs of fashion models in front of Jackson Pollock’s paintings. New dresses were presented in front of an abstract background. The whole concept of abstraction was lifted into this massive distribution system. So what you said about the schizophrenic, Robin, is in fact a concept of language. A concept that is totally di erent from the logical concept of language used in the description of art works and in work as a process.

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Robin: I regret having stated this concept of schizophrenia, because it is a bit of a problem. There is a link between the logic of capitalism and schizophrenia itself. So what we see now is that newer forms of capitalistic enterprise are able to imitate the schizophrenic processes. It adopts not one icon, but many. We see that capitalism itself has the ability to produce a linear production: and this, and that and that and that. It does not rely on one icon as a symbol. That is the

complexity of this time. Capitalism has this same dynamic force that is constantly adapting new ideas, reproducing them, producing new hypes etc.

Anne: These fast changes, these fast shifts are also fast changes in signi cance.

Robin: It resembles to what Virilio wrote about in ‘Speed and Politics’. It is part of the structure of our society at the moment. I think that nomadic formations on the level of micro systems are able to avoid these black holes in which you can get stuck. I think there is this point where you can get stuck. I want to make those kinds of choices that give a certain amount of options. I will not choose something if it will reduce my possibilities in the future. I want to make choices that make more options possible, that are multiple. Nomadic in my idea is: this and that and that and that etc. If I were to stick to one icon, I would experience it as a form of regression. It’s like going backwards, because you get a reduction to one or two principles, as where I want to open more possibilities.

Ineke: But don’t you think our perception on life is changing into another direction? One in which we are looking at the world, as if it consists of a lot of complex networks. Our perception is very di erent if we see the world in this way. The idea of the nomadic ts in here also. The idea of being this and that in stead of this or that.

Roy: There are people who are moving from place to place because of fear, moving from a negative point. There are also people who move because they are satis ed and want to see more. Both can look nomadic, but are of a di erent kind. There is something about this avoiding, which is a negative thing for me. If I were to decide not to iconize myself, but I do have the tendency towards it, that means that I am avoiding myself and actually are iconizing myself. Let’s take the example of making an artwork. When I am nished, I can sit on it and look at it for the next thirty years. There are people who do that. Maybe they are happy with it.

Anne: (I think more people should do that!) What you were saying about avoidance, I thought was very clear. In the sense that it could be related to certain psychoanalytic concepts like xation or fetishism which are very object-related states of mind. It is clear that in these times people are less free of the possibilities inside the system of language, inside the system of creativity, inside the system of sexuality, that are o ered. You were talking about blockades, trying to avoid, I think this is about trying to nd relations with the things around you. That’s what I think you are constantly talking about. When you do this from a nomadic point of view, these relations constantly shift. You are constantly moving and changing the perspective towards the object, but also towards yourself, because you re ect on di erent kinds of objects. If you are in a very tight system, like Protestant families in certain areas here in Holland, or in fundamentalist countries, this changing of perspective is very di cult and it takes an enormous amount of energy to break out of those systems. I think that on a small scale this constantly happens to people, because they have a big tendency to cling to a de nition of how to relate to the world. ‘This is a building, this is a street, and this is a sign that leads me to there’ ... that’s the most boring way to relate to the things around you.

Roy: I would be careful to put it that way, I don’t want to generalise, for other people it is not boring, it is what makes them happy.

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Robin: I have been working on this concept of nomadology and in aspect in social psychology, I have worked together with a psychiatrist for seven years on the shifts and di erences between psychoanalysis and schizoanalysis. A nomadic approach, on the level of the psyche and related to social habits. You talked about the Protestant milieu; I have experienced the breaking out myself. You see that people relate to boundaries di erently. Everybody has his own way of making the possibilities more open. On a personal level it is di erent, but in general you can compare it to driving a motorcycle, you have the surface of the streets, you cross boundaries, you put power and energy in it to keep going. If you talk about nomadism on an abstract level in society, you see it for example in Vrieshuis America; there you nd a new nomadic movement with lots of energy. Suddenly political barriers come up which can not be overthrown and they will have to relocate. Then it happens somewhere else, with some of the same people and some new. That is the principle: there are certain areas in which it can happen. On the level of social psychology I’m working on the social environment in which people live, habitual things like profession, family

Anne: That is very strange, because there are a lot of theoretic discourses on this nomadic topic within scienti c research, on the level of philosophy, language, psychology ...etc. But the overall paradigm is in fact very xated, so it is very di cult for people inside this system to see its limitations. You are interested in the limits and how they are created, but I have always been more interested in the totality of these limits, as a whole. For instance, four or ve years ago I wrote a small article in an underground magazine about how the western world was again creating strong boarders, how peoples front doors were shut with more locks, etc. Somewhere this developed along with the idea that you are being threatened. Now we have closed the state borders for immigrants. Shutting people out who maybe see the world as an economic eld, but that is okay. Why is there a problem with exploring your economic potential, why not do it here? Maybe I would like to do the same in Africa or South America. But we are now again creating a wall around Europe, metaphorically speaking. On the level of personal experience these walls are also being pulled up. Drawing borders so children can play safely in the streets. On the other hand there is this macro development of a sort of hostility towards the other. In philosophy the boundaries between the self and the other are very di used terms and this is in no way visible in culture at the moment, because culture tries to xate its territory, its meaning as Western. This is a strange contradiction and it very frustrating for the nomadic identity.

Robin: On the one hand a small group has the luxury of talking about these things, we talk about our work and express it; on the other hand big parts of the world we live in are not able to experience this. When you face the fact of segmentation, of rigid structures, the fact that fty percent of the world capital is in the hands of ve percent of the world population; free capital takes on a di erent meaning.

Ineke: You mean of the whole world?

Robin: Yes.

Anne: It is the same case with the artists. Ten percent of the artists eat ninety percent of the money that is there for art. But I’m not so concerned with these ideas on distribution. What concerns me, is that this has been developing for the last fty years. The world seems smaller now, but actually due to the economic boom that has occurred, people have become more distant, more ridged in their defence of possessions, in what they consider as theirs. While on the other hand the concept of the identity has been exploded into the universe. That’s strange.

At this point in time Ineke Schwartz had to leave, but not after she brie y got aquatinted to our last guest, better known to some as MC Wisecrack. He gladly took the still warm spot on the other side of the sofa, opened a can of beer and turned the conversation into a true poetic speech…. Henri: I think it’s kind of an implosion. The mind is developing, though with a small part of humanity, it is imploding into what I would call a nancial concentration camp. That is what makes people so possessive. I don’t think that there are many politics involved in this game. There are just puppets playing and strings being pulled to ll the hours on television. It’s all about money and it’s so well organised. It’s all in the brain now. This is a pessimistic view maybe.

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Andreas: I think in general when you look at it from this point of view, you had a cultural opposition that stood into a form of tradition, but this cultural opposition is no longer working, because the codes have become too exible. You talked about that model of the schizophrenic being taken over by an institutionalized side, which makes it very di cult even to locate intention. On the other hand there is also a strong intention behind these institutions. I wouldn’t call it a nancial concentration camp, because this allegory has…

Henri: ‘Everyone behind bars’, that’s gonna be my next art piece. Like 006, 007, 0089, everyone behind those black coded bars. I think we should be realistic. In order to develop things, you

situation, love life, dress code and how they in uence each other within the system. But I also want to think about how dynamic things like art, music or the lifestyle in clubs like the Roxy, how their boundaries are set and conditioned in a way that make them possible to exist. Where are the limits? I am curious how these boundaries perform.At the University were I work we are trying to get something going with this nomadic way of thinking. But the university is holding it o ; they are still in traditional paradigms of thinking and see this as a frightening movement

should be able to see the shit and see the goal. It takes a new war to make an old war. I sometimes nd a pile of shit on the street made by a dog very beautiful. The form can sometimes come really close to an artwork..

Roy: Now we know what makes you curious.

Henri: Sometimes I wonder if the ratio or language are the best instruments to understand art. We are very xated on that in our culture. That is why I think people make art, to escape from this system of codes. That is why I write poetry. Poetry is like the entrails of language. That is also why rap is so beautiful. If you read Shakespeare it has the same thing, a feeling of rhythm trying to be grasped by words.

Roy: That is what I have here in this caravan. I hear what we discuss, but the actual feeling goes far beyond that, beyond the words we use.

Henri: Its nice when people are really talking together, they are like musicians.

Anne: I think that is a very good comparison. In the eld of language, as in the eld of art, there are very di erent concepts about talking, about how a person talks, in relation to his background, the choice of words etc. But in the eld of music you have a page of notes that you can give to someone and say, “let’s play”. Then you will nd di erences of interpretation of the notes. In language this is also the case. There is something bigger than each di erent musician is, something that goes beyond the individual is. You cannot easily de ne were this lies. An artist for example is mostly alone when he is producing an artwork, but in theatre or in music you are dependent on other people, you have to believe in them. I was very interested in the idea of Lacan: that language is like the unconscious. Concepts within language are never xated, they are always metaphors, or metonym they call it, which are constantly shifting and have a very poetic surrealistic quality. So in that sense talking can be like music.

Henri: “C’est le ton qui fait le monde”, Cadler said. It’s the sound. Look at politics, all this diarrhoea coming from their mouths.

Anne: You like to use the shitty words.

Henri: You have to stick to something. What Lubbers did in Holland was use this reasonable catholic tone and fuck up the whole society with it. Just by having a reasonable tone, but meanwhile lying all the way. Then you see that words are not important. Pinter said “The stating that human beings can’t communicate is nonsense. We are like animals. We communicate so much, that we use language to hide it”. Reading his pieces is very interesting. He shows that language is a weapon. Not so much in an open conversation like this, but in general we use it as a weapon to hide ourselves. It is sentimental to say that humans cannot communicate. We are animals.

Roy: Then it is a question of who you give the responsibility. For me your talk is no problem. But let’s say you can percept it and 90 percent of the people can not. That is our responsibility. It is how we listen. It is what we see. What you hide behind is what people are looking at.

Henri: My statement was that the trick works. A very interesting and therapeutic project I do was with postcards. They were small cards with just one line on it, one-liners. Suddenly I had 200.000 little cards. They are all in boxes in my house. Every day when I go out I pick one box, take a few with me and just hand just them out to people everywhere or the throw them on the street. It works really well. It’s like a dog pissing (I’ll skip the shit this time ). It’s funny because people nd them everywhere also and start seeing them as a kind of oracle. Everytime I also hesitate, thinking: this is a waste. It’s not a waste. It gives a big feeling of freedom.

Anne: It’s very similar to the things you do in your work Gerda.

Gerda:Yes. Giving things away gives an enormous feeling of freedom. Like the world is your oyster. There are no limits. Before I started working in this way, it was as if all the walls were closing in on me. The walls of the gallery, the ceiling, everything was so limited. The people that

Anne: In this sense we have maybe found one point of agreement. That the nomadic is the nonxation, the non hysterical.

Henri: The permanent curious being.

Anne: Curious, by de nition. It can not be otherwise. That’s is a strange e ect of being. This is the function of political power in its most extreme form. This is strange because the last discussions during the elections here in Holland, people were wondering why there were so little people coming to vote. There was a very simple answer given by a young person on the street. They asked him why he did not go to vote. He said: “because I am satis ed”.This is a strange shift of meaning: you don’t have to be political when you are satis ed. You are only political when you are not satis ed. This is very dangerous. Then things become xated on the economical and maybe a little on social wellbeing. But this is the xation on the status quo.

Andreas: I think the perspective onto politics is quite low scaled. There is nothing happening that charges politics anymore. The expectance is just to keep the streets clear, organise that the garbage gets transported away, make some nice rules that don’t restrict too much and have a nice police that is acting in a fair way. The intention of politics or the charge they have is also quite easy to handle. The progress at the moment would not be dedicated towards politics.

Robin: It seems there is a power vacuum, it is quite frustrating to see things happen like that.

Henri: The only way you can in uence it is to have a lot of money.

Anne: That is the connection between money and moralism. Money is moralism. In the history of the Protestant milieu you had the split between Calvin en Luther. One believed there was nothing you could do to improve your position in life, everything was already determined, the plan has been laid out and in fact you didn’t have to do anything. The other side proclaimed that if you did good, you would nd your Telos in heavenly beauty of a non-being state. If you talk about the art world becoming nomadic, you should ask the question, what essence does the art world re ect at this moment? The dominant ideology. That means that in an economic sense the borders should disappear, but in a possessive sense the borders should be bigger than ever. If the IMF said to Indonesia: you have to adapt to our rules because your economic situation is not sane, not healthy. So they raised the prices of gasoline, bread etc. The people then went out on the streets and said to their fellow neighbour of Chinese origin that he has to move out. Where is this leading to and where does this relation lie? They could also have said: the IMF has to move, or Shell has to move, or the Deutsche Bank has to move or who ever. Then everyone has to move and we are back to the nomadic. If everyone starts moving, we have to raise higher walls because we don’t want them all here. It’s a strange dialectic circle. The point is: where can you break this chain, in a constructive and creative way? If it is only by making an artwork or by making music or just in a conversation, it’s is perfectly okay. If it is on, what you call, micro politics. As soon as you bring it to the level of macro politics, you will get infected. Now I’m involved in making this newspaper HTV de IJsberg. But, what is this newspaper actually? It’s distributed free, some people see it and others don’t.

If you look at it like that, there is no meaning to it. So you could stop working and just look out of your window and be catatonic. Maybe you could make a few plans but you don’t even have to make plans to be catatonic. You can be perfectly catatonic without making plans. Maybe the plan will even distract you from being catatonic. So the essence is a very personal and a constantly changing process. If people would look at things more as if they were a process, then all these xations about getting somewhere would fall into pieces. You just have to sit in the bus and wait until the driver says: “this is Telos, this is where you have to get out and nd your own way”. This is the origin of the metaphor, where in Greece the philosophy of the destination of people began. The central concept of nding a goal for humanity has been reduced to a simple bus stop. But for large parts this metaphor is forbidden, because transport of certain things is forbidden. To simply take something from one place to another.

Nomadic Dialogues was published in HTV de IJsberg # 21 September 1998

worked there were limited and I had to deal with them also. Then the money was a limit. Limit over limit, it made me crazy.