Out and about on city streets. New camera in hand.

cd 18 - tag 2

cd 19 - tag 2

Note on the photo:

Relitti della 122 Aktion al Burgtheater
Fondazione Morra Palazzo dello Spagnuolo
via Vergini 19 - Napoli
dal 13/4/07 al 30/9/07                                             [via]

A casket full of aural oddities, this is the title of a new merzbau post series, inaugurated by the present one. I could have started a separate blog for these [I've seen others doing so] but I chose to stick with my current entity. Merzbau after all was, is and will remain a casket full of oddities.

There is no clear line to separate what belongs to these series and what not. Generally small run releases limited or not, sonic products on which little, fuzzy or incoherent information is available, outsider sound art, found music and in general everything dmtls considers obscure or weird enough will find its place here. Frequently bought in large volumes and/or rather cheap, found in all places possible these recordings have a special beauty of their own.

The idea for these posts came after a package was received from Finland, a package I could only describe as A casket full of aural oddities.

Presented here are two cdrs from the aforementioned package.

Paraffin Affiliates is [or was, unsure about their current state as the last signs of their existence found over the net, date five to six years ago] a Finnish free jazz impro/noise unit. Our music is noisy and furious, and yet intuitive. It is more a question of variations in intensity than of structure says Joonas Virtasalo, clarinetist of the band and he is putting his finger exactly on how Paraffin Affiliates works sound like. Squeaks and skreaks, noise and chaos. Wild free improvisations featuring clarinet, guitars, bass, drums and even accordion in a couple of tracks, make for a study of variations in intensity while retaining that little something [structure of some kind?] that keep these recordings from falling apart , from making another dull noise statement

.

demo 2002 [1 / 2]

demo/promo 2003 [1 / 2]

ElectroMediaWorks 08 is open to anyone interested in the theory, technology, philosophy and practices of mixed media arts in today’s state-of-the-art cultural landscape.

Medea Electronique, CMCP (Center for Music Composition and Performance) and EPHMEE (Electroacoustic Music Research and Applications Lab, Music Dept. Ionian University) co organize an intensive program over five days and nights, presenting international shows and productions featuring innovative media art, electronic music and cross-over work performed by musicians, video artists and sonic artists.

ElectroMediaWorks ’08 is hosted in an 1800 square meter industrial space in down town Athens. A full 16-channel sound diffusion system will be installed for electroacoustic and live electronic music performance, with a 5.1 surround system for video art installations.

Yes it is final, tickets issued. I am off to Athens next week for ElectroMediaWorks festival [?], a great concept, a major event, for free [!] in a wide abandoned factory space [it couldn't have been more suitable]. Five days of cutting edge avant-garde in the heart of Athens, in the heart of May. dmtls will be there on the first three days only [unfortunately], that makes for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Any friends or readers of merzbau also attending are strongly urged to come in contact.

Today I got an email from my friend Mr. Stereotype, who is now pursuing his musical interests a little more intensively [reach him also @ his Myspace page]. He included a link to what at first seemed an interesting and provocative [film] short. It did live up to my expectations but it also proved a rare surreal document.

It is falsely posted on Youtube simply as Satan while the whole title reads Satan bouche un coin. It was shot in 1968 in France. Directed by Jean-Pierre Bouyxou [Bouyxou was also the writer] and Raphaël Marongiu, my first thought while watching and knowing nothing about it [someone missed his Esotika Erotica Psychotica classes, I came by this entry only after having completed my post here] was, I can see Molinier and Aktionismus here. Well I couldn’t have been closer to the truth. Pierre Molinier is the mysterious androgynous figure of the picture. Surrealist photographer and pioneering body artist, whose ‘Bellmeric’ works are full of ambiguous eros and transgendered fetish visions. Scenes in the movie actually look like Bellmer lifeforms, while others like pieces from Muehl or Nitsch Aktion films. Kenneth Anger hints are eminent.

Images of death towards the end and the introducing along with the final scene of an ass give to the disturbed tale even more perverted twists [necrophilia and scatology (?)]. Necrophilic references [if any] may also be a wink to the alleged Molinier’s sexual intercourse with his dead sister [When Molinier's sister died in 1918, he is alleged to have had sex with her corpse while left alone to photograph it. "'Even dead, she was beautiful. I shot sperm on her stomach and legs, and onto the First Communion dress she was wearing. She took with her into death the best of me."]. The accompanying lugubrious music is actually working in funny ways during the film, adding falsely joyous strokes making for an even more decadent feel. Transgressive and unsettling this piece of celluloid is an obscure shard of surrealism history and aesthetics.

Mr. Stereotype thank you very much for your great suggestions and recommendations and for your kind words about merzbau in your blog.

hint: check comments in Esotika Erotica Psychotica post

The title may sound a little strange but museum shop is in many cases the place to make some wonderful discoveries of special editions and more.

Starting and proceeding chronologically

Neue Nationalgalerie

Within the area of Kulturforum, close to Potsdamer Platz and Sony Center, Neue Nationalgalerie [...the famous "temple of light and glass" designed by Mies van der Rohe...] was my first museum experience in Berlin, a city with dense museum network. Now on exhibition the new collection where everyone and everything in modern art from Kokoschka to contemporary abstract art, through the likes of Dix [his was some of the best pieces in the collection], Schwitters and others, has its place. Divided in art movements Neue galerie is a sure call for modern art lovers.

Museum shop: Alphabetically arranged monographs and a nice selection of art books plus the ordinary museum paraphernalia. Outside the main shop’s space there are two tables stocked with sale items, but be warned that some of these titles are available elsewhere even cheaper.

Pergamonmuseum [Museumsinsel, first take]

Inside Pergamonmuseum lies an amazing collection of antiquities [a part of this collection is housed in Altes Museum] many of them of Greek origin [finds from excavations in Olympia, Samos, Pergamon, Miletus, Priene, Magnesia, Cyprus and Didyma]. Inside museum’s halls visitor can admire the world renowned magnificently opulent structure of Pergamon Altar as well as a really big collection of Classic, Hellenistic, Roman and late Roman antiquities. Two more collections of great interest and importance found within Pergamonmuseum are the Islamic Art and the Ancient Near East one.

Museum shop: Many books covering the thematic of the museum and its collections can be found in its shop. Unfortunately the majority of them, including some not-permanent exhibitions’ catalogues, are only available in German. There is a rather big collection of jewelry also in the shop and here you can find the perfect gift for many occasions.

photos:

Medizinhistorisches

Housed in Charité [the largest university hospital in Europe] hospital complex, Medizinhistorisches museum is a thrilling and strange experience. More than one collections were on display, but I am unsure which of them where running exhibitions and which of them permanent. One that was [almost] for sure ongoing was a showcase of face casts presenting a variety of optical and dermatic [always concerning face] pathologies. Another that was quite haunting was a selection of medical cases spanning the last 3 or 4 centuries, presented in text along with any relating instruments of each time and a handful of personal belongings of the suffering person. Given the fact that all of them were tormented and dead, I couldn’t help but remember John Saul’s Blackstone Chronicles. The view from a nearby window was Psychiatric Clinic, as the label next to it read.

The core of the museum is the medical collection of deformities, curiosities, damaged internal organs, sick skin, dead foetuses and so on preserved in formaldehyde [?], exhibited in a big hall. Part of this collection is an awe-inspiring megacolon, stored in a huge jar. The day we visited the museum was bleak and rainy. Searching for the hospital bookstore [we didn't find one, probably misinformed] we ended up taking a walk in the hospital gardens between and around buildings and clinics. Everything was unnaturally still and quiet, and probably somewhat unsettling.

This visit was a mind-altering experience highly recommended to anyone interested in medical history and/or medical curiosities. Definitely not for the faint-hearted.

Museum shop: Much to my disappointment [although probably expected] there was just a rudimentary [book]shop featuring a handful of titles, only in German. One or two seemed interesting to my non expert eyes. If anyone knows of any catalogue of this museum’s collection [or similar books, except from the Phantom Museum and a couple of editions on Mutter museum] please leave a comment or send an email.

flyers:

more on Berlin museums soon

dmtls reporting from Berlin part 2.

Advertised under the slogan 100% text, 99% illegible the book Drawings on Writing edited by Serge Onnen, seems really promising. Recently published [Spring 2008] immediately entered dmtls future shopping list.

Take a look at the dedicated website.

History Of Beauty is an interesting book, while On Ugliness [both by the great Umberto Eco] is an excellent one, not it terms of ‘execution’ [see writing] but as a subject. Studying the ever-shifting and changing standards of beauty can prove useful and entertaining. Beauty and how we conceive it plays a key role in understanding society and art. This also applies to ugliness despite the fact that most of the times, ugliness is pushed out of focus and to the darkest corners. It is of critical importance to note that it is rather unsure whether beauty exists and is defined as the opposite of ugliness or vice versa [These thoughts are addressed also by Eco].

Depicting what is not visually or mentally [everything is in the brain(?)] attractive, not strictly as a means of threat or propaganda, is a barrier-smashing concept in art. Disturbance in art accounts for many powerful and of great depth masterpieces. Steadily avoiding the mainstream ‘evil’, ‘wicked’ and ‘ugly’ popster hype, difference, para-normal, perverseness, the displeasing mark a widely uncharted territory deep within human psyche capable of the next chef-d’oeuvre or a disgusting monstrosity. Appealing and appalling sound and spell conspicuously similar.

What lies beyond death [physically] is rot and decomposition. The ultimate transformation, the passage from life to death is one of the biggest taboos. But what about the literally ultimate transformation/passage, decomposition? Dealing with subjects like this probably categorizes as transgression but that is what avant-garde is all about. Avant-garde and ‘extreme’ [extreme here stands for all practices, art forms and expressions considered abnormal and/or over-provocative] meet again on the grounds of transgression. Greenaway deals extensively with decay in his Zed & Two Noughts, while also rot and putrefaction are returning themes in Cannibal Corpse’s releases, both visually [artwork] and lyrically, while generally being a favourite concept of fellow death metal and grindcore bands.

Ravenous waves attack,
drawn by the scent of life
Fever for our blood

Instinct rules this mass, ruthless living sea
Devouring

Countless vermin gnashing at my face
Tear meat from my skull
Swarming, rabid, features are erased
Unrecognizable
Body covered, rat filled innards
Shred internal organs
Heart and lungs consumed from inside but my
pain doesn’t end
I have not died

Devour, cesspool of vermin
Devour, bloodthristy rabid
Devoured by vermin

Ruthless gnawing vermin - feed
Cleaning off my bones while I breathe
Stenching greasy rodents - swarm
My body is losing its form

[Lead - Owen]
[Lead - Barrett]

Devour, cesspool of vermin
Devour, bloodthristy rabid
Devoured by vermin

Lyrics of Devoured by Vermin, Vile [1996], see numerous other examples.

Decomposition is also the subject of Sam Taylor-Wood’s work A Little Death.

It can be described as ‘meta-still life’ [sic] imagery, probably better classified as vanitas. Still life by convention, as it fails to meet the definition of …[a work of art] depicting inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural (food, plants and natural substances like rocks) or man-made (drinking glasses, cigarettes, pipes and so on) in an artificial setting. In A Little Death subjects are certainly not inanimate. We witness a slow, almost ritualistic procedure [made frantic in order to fit in 4 and a half minutes of film] that ‘performs’ the final transmutation to the mortal body [Memento mori]. This is not Ars Moriendi, preceding death and the inevitable subsequent results are presented ‘as-are’, there is no ethos, like in nature, making our spectacle even more disturbing.

An alteration of forms is taking place in this video. A passage from form to deformity, resulting in an almost abstract and all-together different final outcome [the apple remains unaltered (plastic?), probably to work as a connecting factor between the phases] with a distinct artistic value per se [?].

…He [Sonny Blount a.k.a. Sun Ra] had developed insomnia, and seemed to never sleep except for brief moments of napping, usually at the keyboard in the middle of rehearsal. Instead of handicap, he saw it as a sign of potential greatness, and cited Napoleon and Thomas Edison as fellow nonsleepers. Sleep took too much energy, he said, it was a waste of creativity. His short moments of sleep-especially when others around him were awake-put special emphasis on the waking state, and deepened the mystery of sleep with a suggestion of death. “To be asleep” was a figure of speech by which he represented the state of somnambulism which plagued humanity, an unnatural state, an early death. For the rest of his life he was notorious among musicians for calling at all hours of night with new musical ideas or solutions to musical problems, and he sought musicians who could be free to rehearse and try out new compositions as fast as he wrote them, no matter the time. … [1]

Resorting to Sun Ra’s sleeping [?] habits seem to be one-way solution for keeping up with all the interesting stuff. This was quite an introduction in order to make a statement regarding TV watching, magazine reading and similar activities with the tendency to consume time that could as well have been spent on doing, seeing or hearing something really interesting. Of course the above applies to the vast majority of cases and [thankfully] not to the entirety of them. Magazines is the talk of this post and before everything else I feel obliged to point everyone reading this to the direction of FMR and The Wire [2] [dmtls being proud subscriber of both] which happen to be the only magazines, currently, that successfully claim dmtls’ time on a regular basis and there are much more than a couple of good reasons for this.

[There will be a post probably in the future referring extensively to defunct magazines, many of them short-lived but of great value]

This post’s spotlights are on a Russian magazine that caught my attention. It is called DE I / DESILLUSIONIST and with a wide range of subjects lying far beyond what is generally conceived as interesting it can easily classify as ‘anti-pop’ and most certainly live up to its claim-subtitle A magazine for those who want to go further. Unfortunately apart from the bilingual site [containing many summaries and teasers from past issues] there is no English/International version available [the about page though informs us that: In Switzerland, the European version of our magazine is in development.]

The DESILLUSIONIST manifesto reads:

A world of illusions surrounds us. Alas! It is not only tradition, but also discoveries that impose more and more new illusions to replace the old. Once you start to rejoice in the Truth, that which cuts through the imprint of broken stereotypes towards freedom, lo and behold pillars of a new Dogma spring up to obscure the sky. Everything falls back into place, and once again Maya’s veil is hiding the world of true Being from us. Furthermore, even to state the question of the truth of Being seems itself almost impossible in a modern informational society, where terrorism and genetics have become our everyday concerns. But, just as before when Buddha tore away the veil of Maya under the Bodhi Tree, when Jesus made naked the essence of Being on his wooden cross, when Columbus beheld the New World holding onto a wooden mast, here now a new Pinocchio appears (God knows from where) piercing the picture of a fireplace with his wooden nose. Always though, even during the most radiant state of affairs, there will be somebody found who will point out a mistake in the formulation of the equation, or an imprecision crept in at the beginning of the problem, or an incorrect conclusion drawn from the root. Somebody, in full confusion, will suggest a solution to the situation, that which arises from illusory preconditions, thereby sewing the ground of Truth with seeds of illusion. In any dead end there is always someone to be found who will posit lack of clarity in the past as the cause of the impasse in the present and the problematical nature of the future. What can doffing masks and searching for a treasure have in common? What is the similarity between a mine detector and an auditor? What subject for conversation might an inspector share with an interpreter of dreams? The Philosopher, the Psychoanalyst and the Detective hand in hand, are standing in the way of disillusionism. They are heaping up unnecessary constructions. After having grasped an illusion, they behave like the Swan, the Crayfish and the Pike, they pull the cart in different directions - and the load is right back where it started. Only The Master of Illusion who thoroughly knows its essence, is capable of being a disillusionist. A true disillusionist is an illusionist. A disillusionist is not subject to fears and charms; in fact he holds the keys from all locks on the chain of attention. As far as style is concerned, a disillusionist is a real vip-ster*. Just like all vippies, he is always busy with the “not doing” of different activities. However, this is the only way to somehow cope with the spiraling of illusion and the endlessness of the Virtual. He is always emptying out empty cylinders, arranging bagel holes and trying sleeves on vests. Sometimes he compares calendars, looks under the table and behind the wardrobe, and observes the far side of the Moon or flip side of a medal. A disillusionist meets the mind in clothes, and sees it off in underwear. He could hardly fit the role of a guide, except maybe a la Susanin. Deillusionism is Zen sharpened like a razor. It cannot be used to weave the fabric of illusion. It cuts the snow-white desert of paper, leaving black tunnels of signs behind, and then melts without a trace. And only pupils remain observing the flight of thoughts and the feeble effort of action, to pinpoint a path beyond the known and the understood.

Sergey Anufriev, Moscow, 2005

Needless to say that the DE I site much whetted dmtls’ appetite. Presuming that it is not available outside Russia I would like to hear from any of merzbau Russian friends [hi Tikhon!] on this publication [especially owners of issue No.3 please come in contact]. Also anyone with any info on an international edition of DE I is more than welcome to contribute.

[1].Excerpt from the excellent biography of Sun Ra, Space is the Place: The life and times of Sun Ra, by John F. Szwed. Anyone with the smallest interest in or curiosity about the musical monolith called Sun Ra must read this.

[2].The Wire most probably needs no introduction. FMR is an Italian publishing house that puts out publications of immaculate beauty along with the FMR magazine, work of the highest aesthetic value. An interesting interview with the man behind all these, Franco Maria Ricci himself, can be found here.

The inconstancy of my Hermann Nitsch posts has reached its peak. After about 1+half month here are presented two more cds from the majestic Das 6-Tage-Spiel Des Orgien Mysterien Theaters.

cd 16 - tag 2

cd 17 - tag 2

[The format here is once again mp3 as the entirety of Das 6-Tage-Spiel Des O.M.T. is already ripped in this particular format]