Sunday 22 June 2014

INFORMATION SUPER BARRIO

"When spring came, when every crow announced its arrival by raising his cry half a tone, I took the green train of the Yamanote line and got off at Tokyo station, near the central post office. Even if the street was empty I waited at the red light—Japanese style—so as to leave space for the spirits of the broken cars. Even if I was expecting no letter I stopped at the general delivery window, for one must honor the spirits of torn up letters, and at the airmail counter to salute the spirits of unmailed letters.  I took the measure of the unbearable vanity of the West, that has never ceased to privilege being over non-being, what is spoken to what is left unsaid."
(from Chris Marker’s film, Sunless)

She is standing two steps beside me.  We are re-characterising the world.  We are tracking the transformation of beauty into exact science.  Or so i like to think.  But then she does something like this:

http://www.tweenbots.com/

I wake up each morning to find busy bees in the L.A. night leaving gems like that in my twitter box. I live alone - everyone does, one way or another - but the walls of my castle are broad: bands of strangers stroll the battlements or camp out overnight in ten minute segments, wrapped in shawls of golden languages and unique, precise worldviews.  More super-barrio than superhighway, it is a new kind of talking and listening, raggedy, discontinuous and a kind of heaven, where the mind can feel distributed yet focussed.  I’m happy here..

As a Buddhist monk I no longer use the word ‘battle’, and if I still have a fondness for reading The Art Of War its only to better appreciate the strategies of up and coming artists as they edge their way in from the periphery, from tiny gallery to magazine reviews to mid-career museum retrospective.

“And when all the celebrations are over it remains only to pick up all the ornaments - all the accessories of the celebration - and by burning them, make a celebration.” (‘Sunless’)

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