[NetBehaviour] stone bridges, QRRR and counter-Munich
Alan Sondheim
sondheim at panix.com
Wed Jul 27 01:50:30 CEST 2016
Howso a coward and howso a hero? One proceeds, we all have our histories,
we endure. And it's true, if terror controls your life, what then?
I make another piece, I take another breath. Or not another piece, but
a continuous practice, like breathing, like walking, reading, eating,
until something puts an end to it, something inside myself, outside
myself.
The what then, the then what - these questions or states debilitate I
think.
- Alan
On Tue, 26 Jul 2016, Johannes Birringer wrote:
>
> I'm afraid i feel more like a coward and if everyone who goes on, only
> for surviving, is a hero then the word, too, is utterly meaningless to
> me. far from heroic, I feel demoralized, small, degraded, maybe like
> many others; and if we are privileged enough, in some countries or towns
> or villages, to feel relatively safe, to carry on, and thus, as some
> friends told me tonight after we met for soccer practice, to behave "as
> if nothing happened so not to let terror control our life and civil
> liberties," then what? do we carry on to make art, make another piece?
> go to a workshop, attend a symposium, read a good review (I just read
> one about an art work called "Those that are near. Those that are far"
> by Walid Raad), carry on?
>
> I guess I tried to precisely point to that hateful liturgy in the poem I
> quoted the other day.
>
> Johannes
>
> ________________________________________
> From: netbehaviour-bounces at netbehaviour.org [netbehaviour-bounces at netbehaviour.org] on behalf of Alan Sondheim [sondheim at panix.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2016 8:52 PM
> To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity
> Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] stone bridges, QRRR and counter-Munich
>
> Yes! I agree, among everyone here.
>
> On Tue, 26 Jul 2016, Ana Vald?s wrote:
>
>> Dear Alan and dear Johannes and dear Ruth and Marc and so many others dear
>> to me. Dear because we share a feeling of despair and frustration but we are
>> stubborn enough to believe in beauty, in sharing, in creating...In the
>> middle of the horrors of the Holocaust camps people created, in Rwanda poets
>> found time and places to write, in Chile Victor Jara sang at the Stadium
>> before they cut his hands. I truly belive as Albert Camus wrote once we are
>> heroes. Not because we make heroic deeds but only for surviving and for
>> coping with the small chores of everydays life.
>> Ana
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 26, 2016 at 4:38 PM, Alan Sondheim <sondheim at panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> We go on because otherwise one's giving into fear, I'd say
>> "just" giving into fear, and statistically and otherwise one is
>> almost entirely safe, not however in Turkey or other countries
>> where the singularity of the iron fist overshadows all. Turkey
>> is turning into another hell; I don't think (and I'm speaking
>> ignorantly) France for example is. The U.S. remains to be seen
>> of course. But there are other natural disasters, and disasters
>> the result of negligence or stupidity as well. And we can't
>> forget that there are other moments of exaltation; otherwise one
>> is living in a constant state of anger, anguish, depression -
>> and that is unbelievably counter-productive; that's happening,
>> it seems (according to the news) to be happening everywhere in
>> the United States now, fury from the left and right
>> simultaneously, and I fear fury as much as anything; there has
>> to be another way. So the question is NOW - what is to be done?
>> Should we accelerate the violence and rhetoric in a kind of
>> incandescent accelerationism, or should we learn, even at this
>> late stage, to listen to one another? (I admire the work of so
>> many on this list who believe in, open up to, the commons where
>> listening and activism, art and non-art, prevail.)
>>
>> - Alan
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 26 Jul 2016, Johannes Birringer wrote:
>>
>>
>> apologies. yes, it was loaded, and terror is a word
>> I now dread to hear, day after day, and day after
>> day, and I am sorry i linked something that you had
>> sent us, Alan (not about the historical Johnstown
>> incident, but about your poetic media work with the
>> QRRR and the bridge), with a few lines that I had
>> jotted down from a a Munich poet who recently died.
>> I was trying to ask the question how we go on, what
>> warns us to be fearful or to resist fearfulness for
>> our lives (condemning, perhaps, others or seeking
>> for culprits to blame), to believe in the kind of
>> democracy we cling to or hope to live in if we are
>> fortunate, and what do you do when the tide quickly
>> or gradually turns. I write to friends in Turkey
>> yesterday, who tell me artists and academics have
>> now been forbidden to travel. Just imagine you are
>> told, sorry, you can't lave the country. You climb
>> on a train, and watch out to spot the aggressor who
>> may have a backpack on their shoulders, with a bomb.
>> You stand in line to a rock concert, and the person
>> near you blows himself up. You go to a fastfood
>> restaurant, some one pulls a gun and starts
>> shooting. You dance in a disco, someone starts
>> killing people on the dance floor. You walk on a
>> promenade, somone drives over you in a huge truck.
>> You attend a peaceful pro democracy rally, as folks
>> did in Kabul, and then there is an explosion. I was
>> asking for a counter narrative.
>>
>> regards
>> Johannes Birringer
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: netbehaviour-bounces at netbehaviour.org
>> [netbehaviour-bounces at netbehaviour.org] on behalf of
>> Alan Sondheim [sondheim at panix.com]
>> Sent: Monday, July 25, 2016 1:58 AM
>> To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed
>> creativity
>> Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] stone bridges, QRRR and
>> counter-Munich
>>
>> "Terror" is already a loaded term and it effaces
>> sometimes what one might
>> want to reveal. We just have different attitudes
>> here. And poverty wasn't
>> the issue in Johnstown at the time. I apologize
>> again, however; the
>> discussion is too loaded for me as well.
>>
>> On Sun, 24 Jul 2016, Ana Vald?s wrote:
>>
>>
>> Dear Alan I think life is inclusive and
>> terror in Munich and what happened
>> in Johnstown are not exclusive but
>> includes each other. Poverty and to feel
>> different are the mothers of the terror
>> as well.
>> Ana
>>
>>
>> Den 24 jul 2016 21:41 skrev "Alan
>> Sondheim" <sondheim at panix.com>:
>>
>> First -"Lone wolf" - from the WSJ
>> - "The Phrase Lone Wolf Goes
>> Back Centuries A phrase used to
>> describe the culprit in the
>> Sydney siege stretches centuries
>> back to Native American chiefs,
>> Kipling and Crane."
>>
>> I've heard it all my life.
>>
>> Second - The bridge and what
>> happened at Johnstown is quite
>> different - two books are David J.
>> Beale, Through the Johnstown
>> Flood, and David McCullough, The
>> Johnstown Flood. As I
>> mentioned, I think, a minimum of
>> 2209 people died from drowning,
>> the physical force of buildings
>> bearing down upon them, and
>> fire. The bridge was a retaining
>> wall for debris, buildings,
>> fire, people dead and alive, and
>> animals dead and alive.
>>
>> It seems problematic to me -
>> having been up and down in
>> Johnstown, seeing the poverty
>> there now, and so forth - to
>> immediately have this slip into a
>> dialog about the Olympics and
>> the usual discussions on terror.
>> Johnstown wasn't this; it was
>> also very much about class
>> differences, etc., but it was also
>> about heroic efforts to save
>> thousands and thousands of lives
>> (which involved everything from
>> creating hospitals from scratch
>> to building railroad tracks in a
>> very few days, etc.). It's not
>> that I don't think the other
>> issues and dialogs are important -
>> they're absolutely critical - but
>> the issues are not the same
>> between the two.
>>
>> When I was in Johnstown with
>> Azure, we walked to the damsite
>> (where the dam gave way), where
>> the Little Conemaugh River still
>> flows - and for us and many people
>> there, the issue is the vile
>> pollution from mine runoff - which
>> kills but slower - that's
>> evident everywhere; the River ran
>> bright orange, nothing lived
>> in it at all, and it's part of the
>> watershed.
>>
>> I apologize if I'm overstepping my
>> bounds here, in the
>> discussion; I just feel odd about
>> the slippage into a discourse
>> which seemed to me to efface what
>> happened 5/31/1889 in
>> Johnstown, what's happening there
>> now as well.
>>
>> Alan
>>
>> On Sun, 24 Jul 2016, Johannes
>> Birringer wrote:
>>
>>
>> Dear Ana
>>
>> not wanting to engage in
>> ideological fracturings
>> here, to be honest; you must
>> be refering to the
>> passage that my friend from
>> Houston had sent me in
>> the reference to the Olympic
>> Games of 1972, he
>> spotted a sinister irony in
>> the choice of the site;
>> you will recall that the
>> militant group 'Black
>> September' , a palestinian
>> organization, took
>> responsibility for the
>> hostage taking, there is
>> little disputing that, and i
>> had no intention of
>> causing harm with labeling.
>>
>> I was more interested in the
>> perversion of term lone
>> wolf (which was a literary
>> term i think, from
>> Hesse's Steppenwolf). My
>> friend from Texas also
>> pondered the scene he found
>> on the internet captured
>> during the Munich shootings
>> last Friday: "An
>> extraordinary altercation
>> took place between some
>> individuals filming the
>> Munich killer as he wandered
>> around a roof car park which
>> was empty. A fair
>> amount of invective was
>> directed from the group
>> doing the filming at the
>> killer below. His response
>> to this was to repeat, "I am
>> German." A strange
>> response. There is perhaps
>> no easy answer to the
>> question, 'What did he
>> mean?'"
>>
>> maybe you have an answer.
>> regards
>> jb
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From:
>> netbehaviour-bounces at netbehaviour.org
>>
>> [netbehaviour-bounces at netbehaviour.org]
>> on behalf of
>> Ana Vald?s
>> [agora158 at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2016
>> 9:11 PM
>> To: NetBehaviour for
>> networked distributed
>> creativity
>> Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour]
>> stone bridges, QRRR and
>> counter-Munich
>>
>> Johannes I am always moved
>> by your words. You have
>> such a touching way to paint
>> with words:)
>> When you use the words
>> "Palestinian terrorists" I
>> react. Because I has been in
>> Palestine several times
>> and the only terror I met
>> was that exerced by the
>> Israeli soldiers at the
>> checkpoints making us run
>> from their rubber bullets
>> and from their gas
>> grenades.
>> And many of the old Israeli
>> politicians, as Menachem
>> Begin, Sharon and others
>> were called terrorists by
>> the English when they bombed
>> the King David Hotel
>> killing many civilians and
>> when they killed the
>> envoy from the United
>> Nations Folke Bernadotte.
>> You are born in a country
>> who exerced terror over
>> Europe and Africa killing
>> civilians and executing
>> Jews, homosexuals and
>> dissidents. The English
>> exerced terror over the
>> Boers in South Africa and
>> were the first creating
>> concentration camps.
>> The French called the time
>> between 1791 and 1794 the
>> Regime of the Terror when
>> not only the French
>> aristocracy but also the
>> political dissidents paid
>> with their life their
>> dissent.
>> My point is terror is such
>> an ambiguous word and I
>> think no one should label
>> others with it since
>> terror seems to be inherent
>> to all people and to all
>> cultures.
>>
>> Ana
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 24, 2016 at 1:56
>> PM, Johannes Birringer
>>
>> <Johannes.Birringer at brunel.ac.uk<mailto:Johannes.Birringer at brunel.ac.uk>>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Receiving a note from Alan
>> Sondheim, on the road, he
>> mentions a stone bridge
>> where he
>> created a piece "changing
>> the bridge lighting to
>> produce,
>> sequentially, and on
>> different lighting
>> levels/apparatus, SOS, QRRR,
>> and
>> MAYDAY (QRRR is an old radio
>> code for
>> warning/danger/disaster);
>> this
>> alternative with flame-light
>> images on the bridge
>> side (invisible from the
>> trains that run above it)
>> representing burning
>> crushed buildings and
>> people....."
>>
>> i am not sure why I think of
>> the bridge, but a
>> friend from Texas, after I
>> told him
>> about the chaos in Europe,
>> the shootings, the
>> terror, the military
>> putsches, purges,
>> and the new security
>> measures, the increasingly
>> heated debates on refugees
>> and migration, Islamism,
>> fascism, and violence,
>> well, he noted that the
>> shootings
>> in Munich took place on the
>> site of the former
>> Olympic Park.
>>
>> The Olympia shopping centre
>> is a two-tiered
>> glass-covered mall that was
>> built on the site of the
>> 1972 Olympics.
>> The Munich Games were
>> overshadowed by a terrorist
>> attack in which 11 Israeli
>> sportsmen and a German
>> policeman were
>> killed after being taken
>> hostage by Palestinian
>> terrorists.
>>
>> Now we hear that the
>> shooting last Friday was by a
>> young "lone wolf" (and what
>> exactly do they mean by
>> lone wolf).
>>
>>
>>
>> A Munich-based poet, the
>> late Paul W?hr, once wrote
>> about Die Wirklichkeit unter
>> Beschuss (reality under
>> shooting attack)
>>
>> alles ist doch in Ordnung /
>> es geht weiter /
>> ich glaube /
>> ich glaube es geht weiter /
>> ja des glaub ich schon.
>>
>>
>> (translated)
>>
>> everything's all right, no?
>> /
>> life goes on /
>> I believe /
>> I believe life goes on /
>> yeah, I believe so /
>>
>>
>>
>> that short QRRR, I tend to
>> think, was meant as
>> W?hr's satirical comment on
>> "weltfromme
>> Bekenntnisformeln" , pious
>> liturgies that we tell
>> ourselves, as we must repeat
>> them and murmur them in
>> the face of the all the
>> constant flare ups.
>>
>>
>>
>> Johannes Birringer
>> c/o Interaktionslabor
>> G?ttelborn
>>
>>
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>>
>>
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