Filed under: Aesthetics, Music, Philosophy, art | Tags: art, camilo sesto, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Philosophy, Politics, recognition, sensibility, taste
It’s reasonable to suppose that a prompt report comes out of a moving encounter. In that respect, I make a poor journalist. But it also takes some time to make sense of what has moved the participant in an encounter.
You & Me, Sometimes… is an exhibition obscuring the distinction between a private cabinet of curiosity and a curatorial project. Sandra Antelo-Suarez, founder and editor of TRANS>, assembled an abundance of work and events from over twenty artists in the relatively small confines of a 1.5 floor gallery space. In this collapse of idiosyncrasy and publicity was a play of discourse neither self-addressed nor intended towards an expectant public. The press release was a friendly, colloquial, and outgoing letter from Antelo-Suarez to herself (“Sandy”) full of desire and warmth. It’s a modified soliloquy ask its addressee to partake in her intense interest in the intersections of the social, political, and aesthetic. The brief visits to the gallery bookending my short trip to New York City were among the most memorable and stimulating surprises. You and Me, Sometimes… offered an opportunity to happen upon some new works and re-visit some familiar acquaintances in a renewed light.
While there was more work than could be really taken in a short hour in the gallery, repeated visits were rewarded with events, stagings, and performances. Among the work that I was able to take in , highlights included a mix of old and new. Six of Francisco de 
Goya’s Caprichos lined the foyer’s main wall, including El sueno de la razon produce monstruos. Arguably, these little pieces were the signs that informed the driving sensibility of You & Me, Sometimes…, where art lingers beside and cuts across quotidian existence. (Could it be possible that these little pieces influenced the work of a certain Mexican printmaker born twenty-four years after Goya’s death? Art historians, please let me know.) Paul Ramirez-Jonas’s work dealt with the potentialities of communication amid the apparatus that purports to aid us in communicating. (Hopefully, a quick piece on some of his pieces at the show will come in a later post.) Various works by Alexander Calder in the show jump between formalist and political, such as Three Segments and and his ads protesting the Vietnam War and the abuses of power perpetrated by the Nixon administration. These currents cross in the 
model of Mercury Fountain on display aside the Caprichos. Minerva Cuevas contributed her unflinching critiques of concentrated corporate wealth and colonialist power through her multi-media works, including a staging of the Mejor Vida Corporation’s Donald McRonald intervention outside the Union Square McDonald’s on April 25. Finally, Fresa Salvaje brought together selected sounds of forgotten latin music that became recognizable upon hearing, courtesy of Aldo Sanchez (aka DJ Papichulo) and Dulce Pinzón. When not doing their selecting and spinning, Sanchez is an independent curator, and Pinzón is a photographer recognized for her outstanding 2006 photographs, Los Superheroes.
Both the general form the show took and the variety of works and artists on display illuminate questions about the act of selecting pieces for display and their organization under the designation ‘taste’. A couple of weeks ago, a short discussion concerning the connections between taste, knowledge, and experience prompted speculation the definition of the term ‘taste’. Carolina pointed out “a possible relation between sabor (taste, flavor) and saber (knowledge). ¿A qué sabe? What does it taste like? Tasting as a form of knowledge.” The connection is quite palpable in Spanish, but not so in English. One does not say in English that a lemon knows sour. (Jose Iraola’s Simultaneous Translation on display vaguely illustrates the phenomenon of how translation can turn into a game of telephone.)
This speculation on the relation between knowledge and experience quickly led down a rehashing of Kantian contradictions without resolution that were just unproductive. But some 
further thinking and a serendipitous reading of The Origin of Philosophy by that philosophical Goya, José Ortega y Gasset, offered a possible clue. In a discussion of the thinker as a social figure, he takes an effortless etymological detour into the common Indo-European root of the terms of wisdom, knowledge and savoring (tasting) that have left their traces in ourmodern languages. His discussion suggests is that taste is less about a possessed knowledge, but an exposure to openness “…always referring, however, to a non-theoretical, still non-existent type of knowledge.” (116) From this suggestion we can imply that taste is the possibility that artistic production can convey both the knowledge of producing beautiful sense experiences and sense experiences whose beauty make knowing more knowable. And it’s that very simple possibility that resides throughout You & Me, Sometimes…: that contact with the very edge of another’s sensibility can yield knowledge about the world we inhabit and the way we approach it.
How can I not end a post without a video? It’d be cruel of me to not do so. It’s the least I can do to reward your having made it from one end of the post to the other without clicking out. Here’s some priceless footage of Camilo Sesto meeting his promotional obligations for a then freshly-cut record, Solo un Hombre. Check out Fresa Salvaje. You & Me, Sometimes… ends Saturday, May 3.
Filed under: Items | Tags: interesting items, more than just artifacts, thought exercise, work
When these lovely pieces appeared in my blog reader courtesy of Infinite Thought, I was immediately smitten. With speed being the name of the game in this electro-delivery world, I wanted to post toot sweet. Then I realized I was a work, and held off from doing anything until the time was available.
Want a way to think through the near-endless contingency and insecurity involved with working life? Try your with these cards from the Almanac of Precariomancy, a nice primer on the terms and figures of market-mediated existence. Notice, interestingly enough, how gifts have no material place in the schema of unadulterated risk. Only rewards figure in this arrangement of terms.
I could easily imagine a set of these cards appearing as promotions or subscription premiums for publications like The Baffler or its distant cousin in the UK, the Idler. They even have something of a Baffler-esque aesthetic, harkening, notably, to covers for issue numbers 9 (“Workplace: An Injury to All”) and 14 (“The God that Sucked”), to say the least of any Idler cover. They could also make perfect accessories for risky parlor games or lunchtime picnics.
As pieces of contemporary folklore, these are the closest things I have noticed continental Europe having to Mexican loteria cards. If you could only interpret relationships between the cards in the Mexican game other than with respect to their random placement on the naipes (game boards), the relationship between the two would perhaps be more than imaginary or darkly speculative.
The Almanac of Precariomancy’s website has a complete description of the card set, along with a guide to its use.
Filed under: Latinos, Music, Upcoming Shows | Tags: go see this artist play, Gui Boratto, outstanding records, pop criticism, techno
Approaching any artistic genre requires that a critical perspective be put into play. James Parker astutely mentioned such with reference to hardcore back in 2000 when he reviewed Snapcase’s Designs for Automotion in the last issue of Hermenaut.
About this hardcore thing you’ve really got to be binocular: screw up one eye and behold a sealed playground for thugs, runts, drones, and demagogues, a grim halfworld where preening skinheads endlessly rehearse their primordial dramas—faces distended in purist rage—tendons coiled in a sweat-sleek forearm—massed salutes—repressed seekers after the love of men—music that twitches like the vestigial tail-stump it truly is—etc. Screw up the other eye and it’s folk music, a tribal beat, a still-necessary set of moves, nothing less than a full-force belief system in noise. Depends who’s playing, I guess.
It’s much the same with electronic music: if you look at the long-range without careful listening, it’s just repetitive beats pulsing away. No movement, just its semblance masking stasis. If you concentrate on the minutiae of sound composition or on the track for the sake of what it can do for you as an artist, the tendency will be to lose any grasp of lyricism proportionate to the format at hand.
To further belabor the analogy, these problems present themselves with techno more often than adherents would like to admit, especially when it comes to the genre’s relationship with ease. Too much effort readily shows a track as forced, driving beats and intrusive themes log-jamming the ears in the name of being thoughtful and complex. But that’s just being a boffin. Do too little, and either the same staccato thump-thump becomes unitneresting or undesirable to listen to, or whatever accompaniment doesn’t encourage listener’s attention enough to want to keep listening. It possibly explains why there are so few techno albums that can coax a dozen tracks out of a listener’s time and offer extended interest and reward repeated listens.
It ultimately invites a crisis on how one handles the means at one’s disposal. Which is where politics comes into play. But that is for another post, perhaps.
At any rate, Brazilian architect-turned-ad guy-turned-techno musician Gui Boratto is one of the handful of artists, who alongside Ricardo Villalobos, Ellen Allien, Michael Mayer, and Superpitcher, to name a few, 
have worked to elevate the state of the art in the genre. Released early in 2007, his Kompakt full-length Chromophobia, is as close to a fully-realized electronic album as the genre offers to date. At the very least, it is brings together the various musical interests that Kompakt pursues quite neatly into one record. It’s a synthesis of electronic idioms held together by a intricate and polished aesthetic. His nods to Kraftwerk from the opening seconds of “Scene 1″ (and arguably the entirety of “Acrostico”) and a his salute to New Order in “Xilo” show his classical leanings. The transition from a conventional four-on-the-floor beat to a clean schaffel signature in “shebang” (and back) is an example of how he dynamically manipulates rhythms; the title track, “The Blessing” and “Terminal” hint at intelligent and tasteful infusions of afro-latin syncopation into techno. His lyrical side shows in “Hera”, a pop-inflected delight, and ambient music is a familiar part of his repetiore, at least in tracks such as “The Verdict” and “Mala Strana”. Boratto is faithful to the notion that electronic music can swing and still maintain its character- “Mr. Decay” and “Gate 7″ demonstrate this admirably.
Boratto begins Chromophobia froma darkness that is neither malevolent nor benevolent; it simply contains the colors that register as a result of his work. And it is in “Beautifull Life” where he is most ebullient and joyful, temporarily suspending any melancholy and cynicism, giving the track the distinction of being last year’s unofficial summer anthem. The video below, showing a pop-friendly version of Boratto’s eight minute steady-burner is just the thing required when you’re waiting for the sun to come out more often in Boston.
Since releasing Chromophobia, Boratto has been prolific, releasing remix after remix, releasing an album with Martin Eyerer called “The Island” on Audiomatique Recorings, and is in the midst of what anyone would consider a grueling tour schedule taking him around the globe over a year-and-three-month period. He comes to Great Scott in Allston on Monday night, April 7, thanks to the efforts of the local Basstown collective. Squar3 productions expresses their excitement for the event, which I obviously share with them, and have great track on their mp3 blog- “Matryoshka”. It originally appears on a 12″ on Kompakt, as part of the label’s Spiecher series.
Gui Boratto will be playing tomorrow evening April 7 at Great Scott in Allston, with his compatriot DRI.K as a special guest. Basstown residents DJ Die Young, Volvox, and Etan will warm the crowd up. As of the time this post was published, tickets were still available.
Filed under: Anthropology, Books, Cultural Studies, Latinos, Politics | Tags: Agamben, Auge, Books, Death, Mexico, Plastilina Mosh, thanatopolitics
While this post was originally meant to be published a week or so ago, it’s still worth noting that Zone Books has finally released anthropologist Claudio Lomnitz’s masterful text Death and the Idea of Mexico in paperback, almost two and a half years after its aptly-timed November 2005 hardcover release (which made my Dia de los Muertos that year…). In Death and the Idea of Mexico, Lomnitz draws on a multitude of sources to trace the history of death as Mexico’s constituting and guiding idea. And he does this in a manner that issues an assertive response to Marc Auge’s work An Anthropology for Contenporaeous Worlds, where Auge seeks to traverse the division between history and anthropology to give anthropology renewed contemporary relevance. Lomnitz infuses his anthropological thinking with a powerful sense for how temporal movements require ample space to make their effects felt and ultimately shift form and meaning. Beginning with the originary trauma of conquest and colonialism as establishing the coordinates along which death moves along and circulates, he tracks the ways in which religious doctrine and authority, political and state power, political-economic exigencies, class, and cultural production collude in forming the deathscapes that define Mexico in an utterly singular fashion.
With Death and the Idea of Mexico Lomnitz also proposes a thesis that should make any careful reader of Agamben pay attention, namely that Death was put into play as a way of shaping politics, i.e., a form of life. In short, he is initiating a study of Mexico’s thanatopolitical history. Lomnitz’s analysis bears the possibility of standing as an example of studying how death works in political and cultural settings outside of Mexico, most especially in those that seemingly espouse life as a dominant political sign.
As erudite as his work is, his writing is engaging, thoughtful, and bears a stunning public relevance. The last chapter of the book bears this out, where he discusses the intersections and differences between Mexican, Chicano, and North American uses of death as cultural signifiers in light of emigration. Lomnitz currently teaches Anthropology and Latina/o Studies at Columbia University, where he is also the director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. He also edits the journal Public Culture. He also happened to pen what was probably the clearest and most slept on analysis of the controversy surrounding the Mexican government’s intention to issue postage stamps in Mexico bearing the image of Memín Pinguín.
No dabbling, let alone serious, consideration of how we think about and relate to death can fail to engage
Death and the Idea of Mexico with interest. Even if you remotely enjoy anything Mexicano resembling el Dia de los Muertos, this text is essential reading, because it offers a broad and profound sense of the forces in operation (or not) when long-standing symbols are put into play. It gives the contrary impression to that of one offered by a piece that I ran across in the recent issue of Cabinet Magazine, where Michael Sappol and Eva Ahren lament that “….by sequestering death in the realm of art, pop culture, and kitsch, maybe we hope to attenuate the certain prospect of our impending mortality: Death becomes just another disposable consumer object, or conversely just another collectible. Thus accessorized, we no longer get good representational service out of the skeleton as an inner self…”
In light of Lomnitz’s work, I’d like to offer an alternate possibility as a rejoinder. Could it be that death (with its skullen, masked and synthesized representatives, as the boys in Plastilina Mosh seem to propose in the video below) is the human disco ball nonpareil? And could it be so in a manner similar to the one Heidegger proposes, where Dasein is being-towards-death, in which all of our encounters in the world possess some animating glimmer as we exist beside our own death? Decide for yourself.
