Announcement of the first interview to come: David Woodard

—for immediate release—

Fellow time travelers, liebe Zeitmaurer,

I am exceedingly pleased to announce the release of our first full-length interview here at the WALL OF TIME, kick-starting the series entitled time traveler’s widsom:

An insightful and free-floating conversation with composer DR. DAVID J. WOODARD, of prequiem and dream machine fame.

Come with us on a trip covering, amongst other themes, the art of the fugue, Condoleeza Rice, 19th century Saxonian dialects, The Great Pyramid, a few suggestions for students preparing a thesis, and—in extenso—this notebook's eponymous time-travelling chief Ernst Jünger.

Also, très old school, we plan to make glossy pdf reprints available for print out and offline enjoyment.

Watch this space for the FULL-LENGTH INTERVIEW with DAVID WOODARD next Monday, March 03 2008.

Time traveler wisdom (V)

Eagerly expecting the first full-length interviews to be ready for final layout and posting, we let a bit more time slip and listen to a few wise friends and their subjective take on time instead.

Today it’s Stefanie Roenneke, 25, writer, and an upcoming eminent figure in the study of camp literature.

Q: “What is time”?
A: “What is time? I do not know? Nothing! Unfortunately, it is used as an item to make things countable and ratable. For instance, the time between your question and my answer. Moreover, to make us valuable: life and work. But time can always be remembered. Then it is used as ‘time as metaphor’.”

There is freedom in the moment: On the road to “Emergenz des Totalen” (pt. II)

On a gloomy day in London, it all came together, and began to make sense.

“Dann, siehe Symbolwelt, wieder: der Tavistock Square. Ich sehe, zum ersten Mal, weil ich auf dieser Seite der Strasse immer nur abends, im Dunkeln laufe, die verwelkten Blumen und leeren Windlichter hinter dem schweren gusseisernen Zaun des Tavistock Square Parks: 7/7, seven seven, wie das Ereignis wohl unter Londonern heißt. Ich trete auf den Mauerabsatz, halte mich am brusthohen Zaun fest, und studiere die völlig farblos gewordenen, aber nicht vergehen wollenden Sträuße. Über drei Monate ist es her, aber diese hier sind sicher entweder wirklich die allerletzte Garde, oder sie wurden vor kurzem erst hier abgelegt.

Als ich wieder einen Schritt zurücktrete, studiere ich unweigerlich das schwarze Geländer: ob nicht doch das Ereignis im optisch statischen Teil des Platzes seine Spuren hinterlassen hat. Das Blut von der Häuserwand gegenüber hat man entfernt, das ist naheliegend. Aber es gibt und gab ja andere Probleme als Kratzer im Lack des Zauns. Und ich sehe, direkt vor mir, dass einer der alle sechs bis acht Zaunstäbe vorkommenden Zierabschlüsse, in Silber statt schwarz gehalten, unfassbar massiv, ein Zaunstab hat sicher vier Zentimeter Durchmesser, genau dort wo Silber und Schwarz sich treffen angebrochen, fast durchgebrochen, durchgerissen ist. Die Zierkappe neigt sich fast unmerklich fünf, sechs, sieben Grad von der Strasse hinweg, in Richtung des Parks.

Ein Detail, ein leicht beschädigter Zaun. Aber doch ein monströses Zeugnis. In meiner Vorstellung zumindest kann dieser Bruch nur durch im Alltag nicht auftretende Kräfte entstanden sein, kein betrunkener Autofahrer würde es schaffen, dort oben, in Kopfhöhe fast, so selektiv ein Stück des ohnehin ridikül massiven, typisch Londoner Zauns zu beschädigen. Es wird eher eine fliegende Bordwand oder eine Sitzreihe gewesen sein.

Es scheint also, dass der Terror sich dort, in den Details verewigt hat in einer Stadt, die außer in den Seelen ihrer Menschen überall so gut aufgeräumt hat wie möglich.

Das bringt mich zum ersten Gedanken fast dieses Tages: ‘You are on CCTV’, droht ein Pub hier um die Ecke Menschen, die lesen können und gerne in der Mülltonne des Pubs stöbern: Das Schild hängt, etwas zu groß geraten vielleicht, über besagten Mülltonnen. Und in der Tat, CCTV ist überall, und überall wird man darüber auch pflichtschuldig informiert. Big Brother is watching you, so hieß das bei Orwell, und wie habe ich mich als Kind davor gefürchtet. Nun bin ich, sind wir alle jeden Tag auf unzähligen bewegten Bildern. Totalitär ist es freilich nicht, sie haben nicht mal ein Melderegister hier, aber weniger total ist es deshalb ja keineswegs. Wozu ein Melderegister, wenn ich Dich sehe an jeder Ecke, in jedem Pub, und bei der Arbeit.

Hier schließt sich der Kreis, denn Totalität als Begriff ist ja nun gewiss mit dem Namen des für den Geschmack vieler oft etwas zu begeisterten Seismographen Jünger verbunden, und ebenso—oder genau deshalb—sein Wunschleben als Anarch. Und so schließe ich mit Zeilen aus dem Vorwort der sehr, sehr angenehm zu lesenden englischen Übersetzung der Gläsernen Bienen. Dort wird Jünger zitiert mit

‘A happy century does not exist; but there are moments of happiness, and there is freedom in the moment’.”

Apologies to our readers who prefer our English posts.

Time traveler wisdom (IV)

Again, let’s listen to our wise friends and their take on time.

Today it’s scientists’ time. Prof. Sophie Kerttu Scott, 41, Senior Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, Institute for Human Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London.

Q: “What is time”?
A: “For me, time is change. This both as a scientist and as a person and mother.”

Sophie is a very eminent researcher on the speech signal (time!) and its way through the brain. She also is regularly winning prizes for best middle name.

Testimony

“testimony |ˈtestəˌmōnē|
noun ( pl. -nies)
—a formal written or spoken statement, esp. one given in a court of law.
—evidence or proof provided by the existence or appearance of something: his blackened finger was testimony to the fact that he had played in pain.
—a public recounting of a religious conversion or experience.
—archaic a solemn protest or declaration.
ORIGIN Middle English : from Latin testimonium, from testis ‘a witness.’ ”

On Saturday, Febuary 23, 2008 around 1600 hours I saw Ricardo Vilalobos here. He was wearing huge purple sunglasses.

On Sunday, Febuary 24, 2008 around 1400 hours I saw Nicholas Currie aka Momus here. He was wearing a blue eye patch.

I was there.

Stars of the Post-Histoire (VI)

Over the last weeks, a recurrent figure in my audio playback devices as well as in the interviews and features I consume has been prodigious Carl Craig, of Detroit fame. Carl Craig is a magician, go and buy all his records and remixes [1]. Basically every track he has ever laid his hands on is a better one than it must have been before — something that I would not dare to say about the inbred remixing industry in general.

His records do sound timeless, as if he had found the key to an otherworldly funkiness. We should imagine Carl Craig as the man who has catapulted himself out of this pseudo-fluctuating styles stratosphere into an eternal loop surrounding our planet, from where he frequently transmits dry beauty and funk [2]; I would not be surprised to learn that his loop out there sounds like the two quarter notes of ‘Hit and Run’ that Carl had sampled for Paperclip people's eternally valid ‘Throw’ from 1994.

“What I’m trying to do is similar to what Herbie did back in the day in the 1970’s. And to what Miles had done back in the day in the late 1960’s / early 1970’s, where it just had the feel that was timeless, that was amazing. And they were able to integrate aspects of modern technology at that time. My whole outlook isn’t to make a pop record. My whole outlook is to make a classic, timeless piece of music that I could pick up thirty years from now and be proud of it, as well as the average person could pick up and say ‘well fucking shit, this is amazing.’ Or maybe today they won’t get into it but in five years time it might be like ‘damn, what the fuck was he on? Was he on some kind of drugs when he was doing this shit?’
You know, just doing something that is against the grain of what has been done, but borrowing concepts and ideas from what has been done, but taking it a few steps further. I think one of the other groups that is doing something kind of similar to that whole concept is Tortoise. They took another avenue to what was happening with the whole Can thing and elevated that to a 1990’s, end of the century concept.”

¹The super smart !K7 sessions album of Craig is out this week.

²After having drafted this paragraph, I found out how fitting my astronaut / stars wars analogy was: On his myspace profile, Craig himself calls his occupation “Thermonuclear brain teasing”.

160 characters of art (II): Fruit tarts of honour

May I humbly present the second great idea for a nice piece of (t)art, given away for free to anybody who feels like executing it:

BAKE FRUIT TARTS IN HONOUR OF GREAT INDIVIDUALS AND THEIR GREATEST GIFT TO US; E.G. NEWTON AND LEIBNIZ FOR DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS OR G. HARRISON FOR 'SOMETHING'.


(160 characters)

Notes:

1. It is very important, I think, to honour Newton and Leibniz together, as a sign of reconciliation. If you do not agree with this (check out a concise abstract of the controversy here), consider honouring somebody else altogether.

2. There is an ongoing debate as to whether such a heartfelt thankfulness for great gifts all of us have received, such as beautiful songs, great cultural advances, etc., has to be expressed by preparing fruit tarts yourself, or whether it is valid to have the tarts prepared by accomplished experts such as aunties or elder women from your local community.

3. A modular system of, say, 4 different tarts (apple, peach, pear, plum) is recommended, but by no means a must. The tart sorts could then be dedicated to various honourees as they get selected by the executive artist. Also, some aunties are really good in one fruit tart discipline but not in another.

4. A table with the tarts might be looking nice, with little flags pinned to the middle of each tart, noting the honouree and the specific accomplishment that he or she receives this fruit tart of hounour for.

5. Pieces of the tarts should not rot in the gallery but rather be handed out for free, perhaps alongside short leaflets presenting the honouree and his CV.

Make sure to check out all other 160 characters of art suggestions available so far. 160 CHARACTERS OF ART, an initiative of walloftime.net.

Reflections upon the Great Pyramid

In about two weeks’ time, on Monday 10 2008, a massive gala will be held in Berlin at the Hebbel am Ufer theatre, to celebrate and to present the project of the Great Pyramid. The Great Pyramid was first suggested by German writer and journalist Ingo Niermann in 2006 and found resonance with a group of eager people who are currently promoting and pursuing this idea of a monumental memorial site for everybody and all of us, to be built in the Eastern German pampa. Come along and visit the Gala to learn more or read about it here, here or here (in German). Below you will find a string of reflections upon the Pyramid which I assembled to celebrate this brave and, admittedly, somewhat bizarre idea.

— For Ingo and Jens, the guys with the shovels

There it is, in the East German desert. Outside a city aptly named Dessau. In a region called Sachsen-Anhalt; anhalten, also a German verb, translates best as to stop, to rest. Does time have a hole, and might this hole be found 100 km south of Berlin?

Most people who live there—in our loophole of time and space, where a gargantuan pyramid might soon be growing to a considerable height and hopefully for an unimaginably long stretch of time—outrightly hate the Great Pyramid project. Why? Out of fear? The fear of a sleeping giant. A fear nobody dares to put in words, as of yet: It is already there. The Pyramid has always been there.

The Pyramid plays an ancient, not to say archaic game with its observers’ minds: It makes us believe that we have invented the pyramid, whereas it must have been quite exactly the opposite way around. A Berlin writer and an Erfurt entrepreneur may have hallucinated the concept of a pyramid as a large-scale columbarium, a three-dimensional graveyard with worldwide appeal, also as a timely solution for Eastern Germany's obvious socioeconomic despair; rightly so. But one can hardly avoid the tempting thought that the two simply served as receiving and transmitting media, as prophets articulating the pyramid’s will. They might have been sensitive enough to hear the pyramid’s call: Come and exhume me, resurrect me. Get yourselves a few shovels and help me see the sunlight again.

You are right, this might push it a bit too far, crazy brain scientist! But the general idea has a certain appeal to me.

The pyramid is such an odd concept that even those brave few who had assembled in September 2007 in the de-localized out-of-time middle of nowhere for the first Great Pyramid festival did not really know what they were at. Everybody was very cheerful, and, yes, a certain aura of pathos and avant-garde filled the Anhaltinian air. But it remained a bit unclear what the Pyramid really should become, why we should pursue it. This is the interesting, metaphysical aspect of it: Its raison d’être appears to lie beyond political or rational pro’s and con’s. Its sensual appeal seems to transcend the (admittedly very un-hip) aesthetics of a pyramidal shape. Of course the latter fact, the pyramid as a concept and as a building and all it conveys, is so painfully unhip as if to annihilate hipness altogether. Don’t be fooled by the fifty-odd Berlin Mitte hipsters who had made it to the Dessau desert: The pyramid is not hip.

It is not hip to suggest monuments in Germany, and it never will be again. (I am very much looking forward to how my current home town Leipzig will deal with the centennial of Germany's biggest monument so far, the Völkerschlachtdenkmal.) It is also trés unhip in Germany, usually for good reason, to suggest (as I am doing here) that some project might have a reason to exist beyond ratio and worldly needs: The delusional belief to be destined and sent from above for everybody’s well-being is a genuine sign of fascist argumentation, and the slightest hint of it does not go down well with the German public; luckily enough. But for the sake of it, I allow myself to indulge in the phantasy of the emergent, self-errecting, ever-present Pyramid; the enigmatic, hilarious project that I hardly understand myself, but which is so easy to fall in love with.

The absence of anything cool to the Great Pyramid might be a problem if it would aspire to serve as a club. But it isn’t. It is something more interesting than hipness it has to offer, it is magic.

Now, the founding fathers of the Pyramid again might object here: Jonas, we do not want to push aside people investing in the project of the Great pyramid, or anything; leave us alone with the mystic folk rap. However, it remains a deeply fascinating idea that the Pyramid is there in the Anhaltinian ground; that Ingo Niermann and Jens Thiel were actually very right, more than their meticulous plan to find a site for the Pyramid allowed them to note, when they first stepped on the acres outside Streetz. Not unlike those “energetic” places animals and men seek out alike (Stonehenge, if you know what I am saying), which are constantly used for ritual and worship throughout myriads of generations, and on top of which the churches and temples of various cultures, religious practices and beliefs are built. Why shouldn’t the beginning of an enlightened, transcended, post-religious, post-historical cult to remember our deads and to contemplate our own ends find its pre-determined final destination in the Saxonian-Anhaltinian ground?

[Disclaimer: Nobody of the friends of the Great Pyramid has approved of this wild hallucination of text that you just read, and, yes, I am a scientist rather than a believer in, err, anything. Also, nobody here is planning to found a new church or something. Although, coming to think of it, I think I heard somebody call out last September after the Pyramid festival, in a slightly mad tenor: “ Now, let’s clean this place up, or what!”]

Time traveler wisdom (II)

Sandra, 27, student of mathematics, sweating over her diploma thesis:

Q: “What is time”?
A: “Hatte grad noch Vorlesung. Du setzt mich ja ganz schön unter Druck. Jetzt muss ich mir spontan was Intelligentes einfallen lassen. Ah, vielleicht gilt ja

Time=1/pressure

Time
Changes, runs, kills, is standing still
Seems to be everything, these days
Is experience, individual, atomically fixed.
Does time exist, if nothing changes?”

Sandra is also, quite rightly so, bored with my first 160 CHARACTERS OF ART suggestion, she thinks it is a bit wimpy to stop at 1,000,000, with an infinite number of primes (and non-primes of course) missing.

Classics of Camp (II): Big Crunch im Gefrierschrank

Heute erreicht uns ein Text aus einer vergangenen Zeit; als es noch so schien, als würde alles gut werden, es mag 1996 oder 2006 gewesen sein. Einiges wirkt ganz schrecklich vorbei, doch auch dieser Zeitmeteorit soll sein Ziel noch finden; noch manches an ihm hallt nach, und nutzt die vergangene Zeit als Resonanzraum:

“Auf Reisen. Zürich: Essen vom Bahnsteig immer noch bedenkenlos möglich. Ein Phänomen, diese Stadt. Dieses Land. Kein Wunder, dass der BBC4-Physiker hierher fuhr, um Zeit und ihre Deformationen, auch: ihren Stillstand, zu illustrieren.

Bei Lethen gelesen, wieder eingetaucht in das Eiswasserfass, das er da in den Verhaltenslehren der Kälte so eindrücklich aufgießt, darstellt. Manche Stellen müsste man sofort auf Handzettel kopieren und an alle verteilen. Besonders das Handbrevier für Hochstapler und Brechts Geschichte vom Ingenieur Krämer, der in der neusachlichen Wohnung randaliert (‘Grabenschwein in der Bauhaussiedlung’).

All das verschmilzt mit einem lauten ‘Au ja!’ bei der Illustration des Big Crunchs in besagter BBC4-Zeit-Dokumentation (das Universum zieht sich zusammen, alles ist vorbei, auf einmal). Dann der Gedanke: Warum immer der Tod, der Umsturz, die Inversion, die Annihilation, die manche herbeisehnen; über die wir mit wohligem Schauer nachzudenken im Stande sind? Dann plötzlich: Müssen Söhne erst zu Vätern werden, bis das vergeht?”

Apologies to our readers who prefer our English posts.

Time traveler wisdom (I)

WALLOFTIME.NET is here to dissect time at its most subjective and in a decidedly non-scientific way. Time as a highly personal, idiosyncratic measuring stick against which our lives take place [sic!]. Also, time as a looming principle behind movement, development, history, disappearance, and, quite likely, death.

This is the first announcement for a series of exciting interviews we will do with eminent time travelers, sound architects, composers, musicians, photographers, all of whom play ping-pong with time one way or the other. We look forward to hear what their take on some of the pertinent issues at stake here will be.

The interviews will appear in loose sequence, most likely fortnightly.

Until then, we have decided to do away with useless wikicyclopedic definitons of Time with a captial t. We rather will ask friends, colleagues, children, and taxi drivers for their very subjective take on time.

So, let the teasing begin, to wet your appetite for the full interviews soon to follow:

Ralf Theil, 29, Hamburg-based DJ, promoter and blog addict:

Q: “What is time”?
A: “In Germany, we call that superglue ‘Sekundenkleber’. Wouldn’t it be great if that stuff really could glue tiny little bits of time to the wall, so we could look at them whenever we want? Too bad I always lose my favorite pieces.”

Ralf can be read at djmasterquest.de.

Editorial Note: 160 characters in exile.

It might only take 160 characters to suggest pieces of art, but it takes a lot more to stay on top of things in the eternal meanderings of the de-localized internet that surrounds this very wall of time when it comes to RSS feeds, post URLs and all other impenetrable things you do not really want to know of.

Anyway, the article 160 CHARACTERS OF ART (I) had to be moved, very shortly after coming into existence, to a new place: here.

Apologies.

160 characters of art (I): Prime number tribute to On Kawara

Welcome to our series 160 CHARACTERS OF ART.
Here is the first piece of art, given away for free for anybody to perform and get famous with, an idea announced earlier here.

PRINT ALL INTEGERS 1 TO 1 MILLION INTO A BOOK OR MORE THAN ONE, WRITE NEXT TO EACH WHETHER IT IS PRIME OR NOT, E.G. 971 IS A PRIME NUMBER. LAY OUT ON A TABLE.

(158 characters)

This idea came to me when I realised what a shaman of time On Kawara is, and it coincided perfectly well with my obsession with prime numbers.
His series of telegrams he was sending out to friends for a certain time stating simply “I am still alive.” may well have been my first contact with a concept of (life–)time passing when my mother told me about it. I must have been five.
He finally took my breath with printing out about a million years in tomes and tomes of books, not unlike a monstrous telephone directory. All you could look up in these directories, though, was the information that the year 902 BC must have directly followed the year 903 BC. Redundant for those with a concept of calendarial time, of course, but allowing for a very fresh and different look at its passing. Therefore, On Kawara deserves his own honorary brick in the wall of time.
— The number ray with its most peculiar inhabitants, the primes, simply should be honored and acknowledged in a directory as well, choosing the most considerate typography only and the most luxurious printing products available.

Feel free to perform this piece of art. Please send complimentary copies (a test pdf of only the numbers 1 to 600 000 in a one column per page / typical font size layout yielded a few thousand pages). However, as Borges rightly notes at the end of the Babel library, it is of course up to you how small the type or how thin the paper.

160 CHARACTERS OF ART, an initiative of walloftime.net.

Dieser Beitrag ist auf Englisch, doch einiges an der Zeitmauer gibt es auch in der hervorragenden Kultur- und Verwaltungssprache Deutsch zu lesen.

Ihre Quittung / Your receipt

“Du bist 32 Jahre, 310 Tage, 7 Stunden, 34 Minuten und 19 Sekunden alt.
Das sind 11.998 Tage, 7 Stunden, 34 Minuten und 19 Sekunden.
Das sind 287.959 Stunden, 34 Minuten und 19 Sekunden.
Das sind 17.277.574 Minuten und 19 Sekunden.
Das sind 1.036.654.459 Sekunden.
In 54 Tagen wirst du 33 Jahre alt.
Du bist also 11.998 Tage alt.”

If this life were an On Kawara piece, it would have made for 11,998
telegrams I would have had to send out. Tiresome.

So much numbers, nothing gained.
Thank you, wasistzeit.de,
I wouldn't have guessed it.

I should ask my friends instead.
They will know what time is. Please stay tuned.

Watch out for the new series of 160 CHARACTERS OF ART giveaways

This is just to announce that we will shortly begin a new series at the WALL OF TIME, maybe of interest to those of you who have more energy and time left [sic!] to actually pursue and do things instead of simply boring your friends with your nutty ideas.

Me personally, I get bored so quickly that the most remote, vague sketch of something can make me smile for the next 15 minutes (or two days) and then, something else has to come on. Therefore, a few ideas for artworks lie around. I thought I would give them away here for free.

Any good piece of art boils down to a single idea anyway, doesn’t it. Therefore the extra constraint of the classic text message length is now formally decreed: A GOOD PIECE OF ART HAS TO FIT INTO 160 CHARACTERS (first axiom).

We shall start this project here very soon. The game is the following:

1. I sketch out a 160-character artwork description. Maybe an idea I had, maybe one I stole from somewhere (hey, it’s all postmodernism, so come on; don’t be a spoilsport).
2. Maybe I add a few lines, just to drive home how great the idea actually is.
3. If you like the idea, go ahead and just do it.
4. Get rich and famous with it. You, that is. If you feel like acknowledging me in the liner notes that your moving and shaking art agent will send out, however, that’s okay. Name checks fine, pay cheques even more so.

Stay tuned for the first 160 CHARACTERS OF ART soon to come: The “tribute to On Kawara” for example, as well as the “Obstkuchen tribute” (Belying my own postmoderism rap above, I feel the urge to declare that to the best of my knowledge I had nursed this idea before I learned of Rafael Horzon’s fabulous cornershop).

Meta-crap post scriptum: This post itself proves the point. It is just a half-witty idea, and that should suffice in principal. I promise, however, to really pursue posting the 160 CHARACTERS OF ART series and sticking them to the wall of time.

EDIT: The series is on air, the first art give-away can be found here.

Dieser Beitrag ist auf Englisch, doch einiges an der Zeitmauer gibt es auch in der hervorragenden Kultur- und Verwaltungssprache Deutsch zu lesen.

Stars of the Post-Histoire (V)

“This is the fate of extreme phenomena which unfold beyond their own end (literally, ex-treme, ex-terminis, beyond the end). They are no longer about growth (croissance), but outgrowth (excroissance). No longer movement, but exponential power (montee en puissance). No longer change, but a passage through the limit.


Thus, we encounter a paradoxical logic according to which an idea ends with its own excess, its own realization. History, for example, ends with information and the creation of the instantaneous event. The increased speed of modernity, of technical development, and of all formerly linear structures creates a turbulent shift and a circular reversion of things which explains that, today, nothing is irreversible. The retrospective curving of historical space, which in a sense resembles the recurrence of physical and cosmological space, is perhaps the big discovery of the end of the millennium. It corresponds to the figure of a curved line which goes back through each of its previous stages. Retrograding to past events at all costs is an old fantasy.


Science fiction has repeatedly used the theme. For example, diving back into the past to change the course of events was the idea of the movie 12 Monkeys: To freeze the past to see what would have happened without it; to suspend time and see what would take place next; to recreate the world even before the emergence of the human race to see what it would be like without us or, even beyond humankind, to get a feel for what things could look like once we are all long gone; finally, to reinvent an origin, but only as a simulation, with definite limits. The more the future escapes us, the more the quest for a return to origins, for a return to the primal scene (as an individual being or as a human collective) becomes our obsession. As a consequence, we try to collect evidence: the evidence of time past, of human evolution.


We need to find material traces of all that was on earth before us today, not so much to relive it or rekindle past eras, but to prove that time has existed (before it finally disappeared), that space has existed too (before speed erased it). In short, we need to gather the evidence of all transcendental data, like space or time, which we thought inherently belonged to the human race. Interestingly, it is the human race itself which today successfully manages to create a perfect instantaneousness, often called real time. Irresistibly increasing its power, the human race manages to abolish the human perception of both time and space. The loss of transcendental data, that is to say, the incapacity to organize the world according to our sense perceptions and human functions, is without measure (incalculable).”


Jean Baudrillard (1998), A l’Ombre du Millenaire ou le Suspens de l’An 2000, translated by Francois Debrix [read: Debris, must be a lame-joke fake name; bold emphasis by j.o.]

Time travel to new convenient .de and .net addresses

Life changes fast: THE WALL OF TIME is proud to announce that time travelers now can lift off into the wall of time universe via these convenient addresses, walloftime.net and walloftime.de.

Feel free to feed the bricks of our wall to your RSS feed reader or blog rolls, and make sure not to miss the exciting interview series coming up (more news to follow). Yours, the time cowboy.

Shared lifetime.

Shared lifetime, geteilte Lebenszeit. Overly consuming and confusing is the thought of others to leave.
It is a bit like a boulevard theatre piece, like a chat room¹ also; doors open, people enter, make an impression—or don’t—and leave, through another door. You find yourself sitting in the middle of what is your own stage, jaw dropped, overly taxed by too much waving goodbye, and unspeakably sad to have missed a few sparkling cameos before you entered the stage yourself. ¹The chat room analogy is used courtesy of Olaf Schäfer.

Shared lifetime, also: the lifetime not shared; the years you missed, and the people who had to leave earlier. This blind spot, the years just before your birth, can develop into the most mesmerising era on your personal time arrow, I’d reckon.

They might have left some time before you yourself entered the scene, on a hot August noon in 1972, for example.

They might literally pass on the torch (i.e., the emergency rescue rocket in the case of B.J. Ader), some time in spring 1975 (if ever, we will never know).

They might take the rear exit a few years time into your own live, being shot in front of their front door, on a December evening in 1980, not before having left behind, on analogue tape reel, one of the everlasting bass lines (walking on thin ice). Although you might be sitting in the bath tub and hear your elder brother announce the tragic news, it might take you years to grow and to appreciate their merits.

You might also be discovering a biographical book on them on a bookshelf at an utterly boring party, reading their name for the first time, and a week later their death hits the international news: You find yourself to have co-existed with this man for 23 years in fairly close proximity, without taking further notice, and literally the week you start to appreciate his work, he waves goodbye.
Likewise, while you might be discovering a grey hair on your chest (if you sport any, that is) and might be indulging in a mixture of self-pity and grandeur: This is it, those pigments will never come back, decay, death, over and out, Grande Finale — a text message is buzzing in to praise the birth of a child, somewhere over in Switzerland, on a glistening February morning.

Shared lifetime; a miracle.

Fig. 1: A highly subjective, arbitrary chart of shared, sheared, missed lifetime.

Whatever happened to—

1. “I found a book on how to be invisible” (Kate Bush, 2005)

2. “100 ways to disappear and live free” (Barry Reid, 1978)

3. “DISAPPEARANCE |ˌdisəˈpi(ə)rəns|
noun [usu. in sing. ]
an instance or fact of someone or something ceasing to be visible.
—an instance or fact of someone going missing or (in coded political language) being killed : the police were investigating her disappearance.
—an instance or fact of something being lost or stolen: an investigation is being carried out into the disappearance of the money.
—the process or fact of something ceasing to exist or be in use: the disappearance of grammar schools.”

4. Two-liner, at 180 kmh on the left lane, listening to “Don’t cry tonight” by Savage: “Whatever happened to Jochen Distelmeyer.” — “I don’t know.”

Q:
How is it possible to disappear?

A:
I don’t know. But the longer and deeper you dig into the conditions and caveats of the all-embracing, timeless, merciless Borgesian memories of the internet rhizoma, the more you begin you admire those people of (if moderate) public interest, who have managed to disappear and live free.

It is partly sad and partly a great relief to know a few people to have simply vanished from our collective or personal radar. Some vanish, some just chose not to publish, some may be prevented from doing so. Great voices turn silent, sometimes.
May they live on forever to lead a free and fulfilled life. Whatever happened to (in no particular order)

Jochen Distelmeyer,
Rüdiger Kurz,
Andreas Neumeister,
J.D. Salinger,
Arthur Rimbaud,
Endrick Gerber,
Steve Fossett,
Thorsten Krämer,
Ulrich Kallenberg,
Silke Besa,
Wilhelm Haefner,
Richey James Edwards,
Frank Morris.

Disappearing, of course, is a highly subjective process. If you object the rather arbitrary and personal list above or had a coffee yesterday with any of the names on it, this only proves my point: Basically, disappearing only takes place in the heads of those who might be looking for you. Most famous examples include Elvis Presley, Adolf Hitler, and—of course—the Lordsiegelbewahrer of disappearance, Bas Jan Ader.

For further reading on the subject matter, I recommend the beautiful piece by April Elizabeth Lamm, published in DER FREUND (2006) 7:20 (in English).

Mavrocordato is back: Creative use of CCTV

Eine Chat-Konversation mit dem geschätzten IT-Experten Dr. Assadollahi über die Kunst des kreativen „Video Sniffing“, bei dem die vorhandenen CCTV-Kameras genutzt werden, indem man sich per Wireless Lan hineinhackt und die Bilder abfischt, respektive vor den Augen der Kameras ein Schauspiel veranstaltet und dann die Bilder abgreift, die Überwachungskameras also quasi als ohnehin bereitgestelltes Film-Equipment begreift und benutzt:

— sehr geiles Video, aber was machen sie? […] verstehe!
und wie kommen sie an die aufgenommenen Videos dran?
— ja, die hacken sich da rein, per Funk.
— echt, geil!
— weil viele CCTV Kameras wohl per Funk ihre Daten übertragen, zu den Rekordern.
— sehr geil! Dann könnte man ja auch andere Bilder einspielen als die die aufgenommen werden!
— ich glaub hier war die Bauanleitung: [...] Klar!
— zum Beispiel was von einer Kamera in Sao Paolo! sehr cool.
— genau, das wär das Schönste, geographischen Unsinn stiften.
— jajaja! Oder einfach mal Pro Sieben rein! Noise = Noise.
— richtig, und nicht mehr so tun als ob Noise = Signal, was ja verlogen ist.
— ganz genau!
— „wenn Ihr schon Stunden von CCTV aufnehmen wollt, dann nehmt doch irgendwas auf. Schneidet n-tv mit!“
— yeah!
— super an dem Überwachungswahn auch: Wo ein Bild, da ein Interpret; jedes arme blonde Kind auf dem Globus muss zurzeit damit rechnen, für Maddie gehalten zu werden.

Classics of Camp (I): accident grotèsque — eine hilflose Umklammerung

− Für Olaf Schäfer

Dort anfangen, wo andere aufhören. Aufhören müssen, weil es ihnen nicht anders vergönnt ist. Dort hin, wo es weh tut (ist das fussballerdeutsch? reporterdeutsch? schlimmer, am schlimmsten: feuilletondeutsch?).

Calypso frelimo schneidet in die Luft, sendet Wellen durch die Unräumlicheit einer grossen Wohnung. Solierende Instrumente schreien, wissen selbst nicht, ob sie Schwein oder Mensch sind, Teil des Problems oder Teil der Auflösung, in der sich alles befindet.

Einer der anfängt, einer es ausdrückt. Einer, der alles zulässt. Die Tränen von Jahren tropfen an den Wänden hinab, wie Blut, sie sind das Blut, die (katholische) Wandlung in den Leib. Wer sich verströmt, mit seinem Blut, seinen Tränen […], der kann schauen, furchtlos, und er wird Dinge sehen, von denen andere nicht träumen. Also:

Einer, der für uns träumt. Einer, der uns sagt, wie es sich am besten träumt, auf welchen Kissen, einer der seinen Stoff offen legt, der die Textur, die Nährlösung nennt, den Tropf, an dem er hängt. Was will er?

Den Raum umarmen. Sich selbst einspannen in ein Geflecht, sich selbst einhängen ins Balkenkreuz der Erinnerungen. Orte ohne Erinnerung verharren im Nichts, und nur wer erinnert, hat einen Ort. Nur wer aber einen Ort hat, kann erinnern. Zeitsprung: Mich verorten, das ist die Aufgabe. Mich transformieren, mich transzendieren in den Raum hinein, ihm sodann die Erinnerungen entsaugen, auf denen das Neue, Nächste gedeiht, selbst neu erstehen, neu gedeihen, neu leiblich werden aus den Erinnerungen des Raumes. Wie klingt er, der Raum?

Er klingt wie Madeleine McCann. Er klingt wie Pascal. Er klingt wie Borges, blind schon, unterwegs zu anderen Sternen. Er klingt wie Hannah Arendt, rauchend, in Schlauheit suhlend. Er klingt wie ein toter alter Schäferhundmischling, dem sein eigener Lebenssaft, sein Blut zu Klumpen im Nichts zwischen den Gefäßen verhängnisvoll zusammengelaufen ist – ein grotesker Unfall. Ein groteskes Auftreten von Bildern auch, ein Aufsteigen in mir von Bildern, aus Tönen, nicht, um nichts in der Welt der Dinge und Begrifflichkeiten zu verwechseln mit der (ja!:) protestantischen Synästhesie der Hirnforscher. Eine Akzidenz des Grotesken.

Die Becken Al Fosters, der sich immer ganz vergrub hinter diesen wagenradgrossen Blechscheiben, die so unvorhersagbar zu schwingen mögen, wenn man sie nur herrisch anschlägt – sie sägen von Wand zu Wand, reiten auf Wellen, die sie selbst sind, nutzen die Luftmoleküle nur zu rauschhafter Fahrt durch mein Zimmer. Sie sind mein Zimmer. Al Foster ist für diese Minuten der Herrscher des Raums, seine Vasallen knechten die Luft, werden die Luft, usurpieren den Raum, die Erinnerung, allen Eindruck, der überhaupt nur möglich scheint, jetzt.

Weil einer sich hingesetzt hat und alles zugelassen hat. Alle Liebe, und allen Schmerz. Weil einer alles zulässt, kann ich fragen: What was it that so darkened our lives. Er gibt mir erst Worte ein, dann Bilder, die zu Tönen werden, Klangwelten, auf denen und durch die jene nur für mich bestimmten Krebszellen der Erinnerung geritten kommen, er gibt mir den Raum zurück.

(verfasst in direkter Replik auf Olaf Schäfer: Raummaschine, Berlin 2007; Typographische Anweisung und müder Scherz: Zu setzen in der Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk)

Stars of the Post-Histoire (IV)

“Philosophen? Heidegger? Aber Sie wissen wahrscheinlich, dass er als Philosoph ein schlechtes Ende genommen hat. Und abgesehen von Heidegger? Die Philosophen interessieren mich nicht, ich suche nur Weise — und finden Sie mir einen Weisen. All das hängt mit dem Ende der Geschichte zusammen. Es ist seltsam; Hegel hat das gesagt. Ich, ich habe erklärt, dass Hegel es gesagt hatte, und niemand will anerkennen, dass die Geschichte abgeschlossen ist, niemand verdaut das. Um ehrlich zu sein, ich habe auch zuerst gedacht, dass das ein Hirngespinst sei, aber anschließend habe ich nachgedacht und gesehen, dass es genial war. Hegel hatte sich um hundertfünfzig Jahre getäuscht. Das Ende der Geschichte, das war nicht Napoleon, sondern Stalin, und ich sollte kommen und es verkünden, mit dem Unterschied, dass ich nicht das Glück hatte, Stalin unter meinen Fenstern vorbeireiten zu sehen, aber nun ja … ”

Alexandre Kojève im Interview,  Überlebensformen, Merve 2007

On the road to “Emergenz des Totalen” (pt. I)

Wie alles begann:

“—und zitiere deshalb Mussolini: ‘The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people.’ (p. 14); ‘Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed to the doctrines of liberalism, both in the political and economic sphere.’ (p. 32; Benito Mussolini, 1935, The Doctrine of Fascism, Firenze: Vallecchi Editore).

Der Trick ist jetzt natürlich nur, dass heute in einer post-modernen Welt eben der Staat nicht mehr diese Rolle spielt, aber heute Totalität möglich ist in einem Ausmaß, von dem ja die Freunde wie Mussolini und Stalin nur träumen konnten (Hitler hat sich vielleicht nicht mal so dafür interessiert). Es muss eben nicht ein Staat, ein Böses sein (Betonung sowohl auf: nicht ein, als auch auf: nicht ein Staat). Und es braucht vielleicht nicht mal die böse Absicht um uns gleichzuschalten; die Emergenz von totalitären Strukturen — Da muss ich drüber nachdenken.”

— So in einem Brief an einen Freund, vor 18 Monaten. Es ist also an der Zeit, das aus sich selbst heraus sich erschaffene Totale einmal zu untersuchen. Des Deutschen liebstes Wort, das F-Wort, das er einem koprolalischen Tourette-Patienten gleich immer ausstossen muss, geht dabei an der Sache natürlich vorbei, wie Frederic Tuten (cheers, Christian) bereits wusste; sollte es doch für unsere italienischen Freunde reserviert bleiben?:

“ ‘In short, you propose fascism’. ‘That is a specialty reserved for Italians’, the lieutenant answered curtly. ‘Fascism, sir, is a generic term, applicable to all states bent on nationalism and state socialism, on a retrograde and mystical love of the folk blended with elitism and economic and political tyranny.’ ” (p. 38, Frederic Tuten, Tintin in the new world).

Watch this space for the forthcoming essay “Die Emergenz des Totalen”, 2008.

Neues Leben an der Zeitmauer

Dear friends, fellow scientists in the laboratories of time and space,

while Miles Davis' Brew and a Minimal London mixdown of Chris Box fill this appartment with compressed and dilated waves of molecules, I would like to welcome you back to the WALL OF TIME.

In the following months, I would like to run a new experiment in (what I hope to become) a post-blog world. Unable to share any of the enthusiasm that is brought towards the web, let alone its violently advertised version 2.0, I feel that this here is nothing more and nothing less than the street I am driving on on my way to my friends.

Stay tuned for a few observations, impressions and expressions, and watch a not so young man struggle with words, in English and German, watch him become a not-so-junior-anymore scientist, follow him as a balance is sought between the fine arts interests, the minimal techno records, the cognitive neuroscience of speech and hearing, the books on type and totalitarianism. Accompany him as time goes — by.