kkoagulaa vs. Altermodern

Refer to the earlier post: (The Avant-Garde Will Eat Itself, or on a clear day you can see Jörmungandr choking on his own tail)

And let’s talk about this.

Avant-garde (pronounced /ɑvɑ̃ gɑʁd/) in French means “front guard”, “advance guard”, or “vanguard”.^[1]experimentalart and culture. The term is commonly used in French, English, and German to refer to people or works that are or innovative, particularly with respect to art and culture.

Banks Violette (born 1973, Ithaca, New York) is an artist based in New York.

…Death metal, ritual murder and teenage suicide are starting points for Banks Violette. His work is notable for combining references to excess from youth culture with minimalist form, often using glossy black and ghostly white materials. Citing examples where musical lyrics become instigating factors to real-life violence, Violette refers to an over-identification with fiction, where fantasy and reality are blurred.

Hmmm… The Market As Performance Art, Art As Commodity, taste makers seeking for a raison d’etre, journo’s and commentators whipping themselves into a froth. Case in point: Altermodern: Tate Triennial 2009, an event, a declaration and a curator that have the art press twisting themselves inside out. Postmodernism has died a thousand deaths, but we do wait for curators at large institutions in visionary and creative stasis to tell us when the nightmare is over before we accept it.

This connects with an article I posted to Alterati.com around the wild and wooly entertainment spectacular that was the 2008 US election. Admittedly, I held the thing together with spit and duct tape, but those protest didn’t turn out to be more than the prisoner’s last meal before execution, did they? A couple day of noise and the livestock went back to their pens and accepted whatever was handed to them as slops.

What is this all about?

Well, what is presented by living artists at such edifices as the Tate is art sanctioned by the moneyed classes, it either confirms or showcases their control and soothes their sensibilities, or is “edgy” and “provocative” in the same way the jesters filled that function at court. The middle-class identified are often thrown a bone to keep them coming, and to move them to pledge to institutions in the US. (“Middle-class identified includes the actual middle class, but also those who are not middle class financially. There are those groups of low wage earners who don’t get their hands dirty in their work who are encouraged to identify as  middle class to keep them on the hamster wheel, as well as retail management proxies who kept the appearance of financial comfort by buying into the credit ponzi scheme which has been the illusion of prosperity from Reagan up to the recent bank and credit collapse.)

Through a hollowing out of the body of art as a vital and living force juxtaposed the harrowing evil that is represented by Thomas Kinkade on one side with “pile of sticks in the corner” art and “chocolate sauce enema while whistling Dixie” performances on the other. Of course, the hip and precious have been delighting in a sort of representative painting in the guise of a very Satanic flavor of kitsch in the last few years. (wink, wink, aren’t we clever and detatched…)

We’re happy to see so many people discussing art this past week, but will this conversation lead to anything meaningful? The herd of artists and institution is about to be thinned through the loss of carreerists, speculators and glamour-chasing poseurs to whatever will give them money and attention, wait and see.

Excellent.

What we present here is our answer to the Altermodern Manifesto with the kkoagulaa manifesto, which preceded the grand Altermodern declaration by many months and which we declare to be more revolutionary, more comprehensive and a million times more relevant, for it was screamed from the wilderness.

And next up will be our answer to Jonathan Jones’ wailing cry that:

Art as we know it is finished

A new modernity is emerging, reconfigured to an age of globalisation – understood in its economic, political and cultural aspects: an altermodern culture

Increased communication, travel and migration are affecting the way we live

Our daily lives consist of journeys in a chaotic and teeming universe

Multiculturalism and identity is being overtaken by creolisation: Artists are now starting from a globalised state of culture

This new universalism is based on translations, subtitling and generalised dubbing

Today’s art explores the bonds that text and image, time and space, weave between themselves

Artists are responding to a new globalised perception. They traverse a cultural landscape saturated with signs and create new pathways between multiple formats of expression and communication.

The Tate Triennial 2009 at Tate Britain presents a collective discussion around this premise that postmodernism is coming to an end, and we are experiencing the emergence of a global altermodernity.

Nicolas Bourriaud
Altermodern – Tate Triennial 2009
at Tate Britain
4 February – 26 April 2009

thee kkoagulaa manifestoooo (Alpha Test)

This statement will evolve as we evolve, as you respond and remix it, as worlds collapse and return…

###

This manifesto is a living document, constantly evolving, part of the process of art itself. kkoagulaa is a living, constantly evolving entity, a shout from the mountaintop proclaiming the primacy of the act of creation.

All life is a collage of every form that has been engaged in a dance with the chaos that calls forth new forms. Order dissolves into chaos and then collapses into a higher form of order. This holds true for galaxies, ecosystems, empires and civilizations. The Universe, society, culture manifests in eternal change, and so should music and art.

The artifacts of kkoagulaa too are not so many calcified forms, but moments of the process of discovery captured. In a time when the business and cultural role of music and art is becoming increasingly destabilized, a quickening of chaotic activity ends up opening up new possibilities. This period of chaos before new structures coalesce into the next orthodoxy, before a possible return to and strengthening of corporate hegemony, the creative community has an opportunity to stretch out beyond safe art and safe social functions.

Better still, we see an opportunity to include everyone when we talk about the creative community. Not in theory, not as a fluffy bromide to flatter an “audience” or a way to make “customers” feel included in something when they’re nothing but another resource to be exploited. Art exists for you to shape it, hijack it and remake, remix, reiterate and even reject it. It is for you to inspire thought, critical thinking, re-consideration.

You are part of kkoagulaa. Your grandma is a node of kkoagulaa. Your cat is integral to kkoagulaa. Art is commentary on society and culture, whether it is intended to or not. We have been sold a notion that art is something the majority is to sit back and passively observe, if art plays a role in daily life at all. It is vital that you reject that notion. Throw it out, public, go on, take the next step.

kkoagulaa declares that society, culture and all actions in space-time are examples of art, and by extension magic, the continued creation of the Universe. All life, all processes, all art and the Universe is partially finished. Nothing will be done until the Universe collapses in on itself. And even then, the process begins anew.

You create the patterns you see in everything you behold, hear, touch and think about. You create the meaning of a work of art. By looking at it, listening to it, reflecting on it, you complete the creative act. should you take that symphony, piece of writing or painting and add your own touch, cut it up and recombine the elements, you bring the process further.

###

Further Reading:

http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/tate_triennial_2009/

http://www.frieze.com/blog/entry/altercritics/

http://stewarthomesociety.org/blog/?p=550

http://moot-blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/altermodern.html

http://www.alterati.com/blog/?p=2093

http://imomus.livejournal.com/440487.html

http://imomus.livejournal.com/440637.html

http://imomus.livejournal.com/441059.html

http://imomus.livejournal.com/441132.html

product placements

just a quickie:

download it here (archive.org), or visit http://www.kreidler-net.de/ for more info

– ccernn

Freedom

A free-flowing, off kilter image that drew itself. All the kkoagulaa images are to be remixed, refluxored, painted over and gathered.

kkoagulaa ikkonografikkaa – Slange

Alongside the audio skketches and more refined aural manipulations, we are working visually, making the process one of fluid creation. Images work off sounds, words off imagery becoming ever more prolix and profuse, as you soon shall see, and music is again inspired from the other aspects.

ikkonografikkaa – source file

Since wordpress wouldn’t let us embed the online reader, we bring you the pdf, so you can take the book everywhere. Download, read, spread far and wide, and if you rework it, let us know so we can marvel and spread.

ikkonografikkaa.pdf

re: linux vs win/mac

here’s some more copy/paste stuff from another blog, to balance out the previous “linux vs win/mac” post a bit…

— how to be a linux user

I’m sure all of this is already in y’all’s blood. But you know, I figured I should write it down for all the noobs out there. They need to learn how to behave properly as a luser.

• If something doesn’t work for you, tell yourself that you don’t really need it anyways.
• Convert at least five others to user your distribution of choice. Even against their will. Do whatever it takes. Lie about how it makes such a great OS. Tell them the people at the NYSE use it. Tell them it gets less viruses. Tell them it runs on their toaster, so it’s awesome. If they resist, here’s some things you can do:
  • Do NOT research Microsoft security technologies. Instead, just point solely to Windows 95 and UAC as examples of poor security on Windows
  • Tell them that they can install thousands, no millions, of apps with a single command.
  • Tell them that they’ll have choice. Do not tell them that they’ll have to make tons of choices which they know nothing about.
  • If they are non-programmers, tell them that it’s a fantastic opportunity to get into programming and spend hours and hours to make their system work.
  • Question their manhood or womanhood.
  • Accuse them of spreading FUD.
  • If they’re Mac users, accuse them of blatant homosexuality. Then tell them that they’re spending way too much money. Show them your wobbly windows.
  • If they point out that they won’t be able to do something that they could before, tell them that they didn’t really need to do that anyways.
• A year later, convert them to your new distribution of choice.
• When you have a configuration problem, do one or more of:
  • File a bug, without doing any research on the problem.
  • If you’re really in the mood, find a totally unrelated bug, and post a comment along the lines of, “Hey, I think this might be related …”
  • If you’re actually partially smart and have found the appropriate bug report, post a comment saying ‘Me too!’, even though there are already 300 of the same. It really helps developers when their bug report pages are really long. You see, they judge the importance of a bug by how short their scrollbar grabby-thing gets.
  • Post to Ubuntutips. Be sure to sound really spoiled.
  • Tell yourself that you don’t need that feature. Tell yourself that if you wait patiently you’ll have it in 2 years, maybe.
  • Write something along the lines of “I totally need this feature XXX to work. Someone help me” to every mailing list you can find that ends with -devel.
• When others have problems, do one or more of:
  • Tell them that it works for you, and give no further information. New users must learn on their own. Remember this. It’s for their own good.
  • If you’re a little more motivated, tell them that it works for you, and then tell them about your hardware that is totally different from theirs.
  • Never reveal that you actually have no idea what you’re talking about. Suggest random solutions like patching their kernel.
  • If they’re trying to watch some video or listen to some music in a non-free format, drop some knowledge on them about how they’re poisoning society. Trust me, everyone really cares. They’re just too stupid to know to care.
  • If all else fails, yes, you can tell them that they don’t really need that feature. By wanting it, they’re just prolonging their addiction to useful software.
• Most importantly, write blogs, comment on blogs, post on forums , anything, to tell people that your Linux desktop does everything you need, but make sure you know absolutely nothing about the proprietary software workflows that exist on other platforms. It’s really important that you have a “clean room” opinion, unaffected by the imperfections of the real world.

– ccernn

solve et coagula

since the earliest times, philosophers have been searching for the underlying patterns of order. we find it in spiritual development, we find it in psychotherapy and we find it, yes, even in quantum physics. in the latter understanding, there is a well known duality of wave and particle (light exists as a wave and a particle at the same time, modern physics tells us). a wave has no limits, it spreads everywhere and we can’t measure it. in the moment we try to measure it, or to interact with it consciously, it disappears everywhere except at the point of observation i.e measurement. on that point it changes into a particle which has particular characteristics. but long before quantum physics, alchemy pointed to its most important operation: solve et coagula. “solve” or “solutio” refers to the breaking down of elements and “coagula” refers to their coming together. in the process of transmuting base metal into gold or arriving at the philosopher’s stone, this contained both literal and hidden meaning. esoterically, “solve” referred to the dissolving of hardened positions, negative states of body and mind, thereby dissolving and vanishing negative energetic charge. “coagula” referred to the coagulation of dispersed elements into an integrated whole, representing the new synthesis. solve et coagula expresses transmutation from base to a finer state, the perpetual goal of spiritual growth and human evolution. thus in the widest meaning of the term, solve means dissolve, disperse, dilute. coagulate, by definition, is “to gather or form into a mass or group”. so, the real meaning of these three words (“solve et coagula”) is the formula that the alchemists used to effect this transformation. it could be described as a process where something is broken down to its elements, a process which produces energy that compels reconstitution in a purer form. the same meaning we find in the well known scientific terms: analysis and synthesis. first break something down into its parts and then make a new, better or more acceptable whole. a result of this process is the release of energy. even in some particular occult systems we find this realization. for example in thelema, a. crowley speaks of the duality of nuit and hadit. nuit is the “goddess of the infinite space” (meaning the wave) and hadit is the point (which means the particle).

from somewhere on the net. lost the link a long time ago…

– ccernn

thee kkoagulaa manifestoooo (Alpha Test)

This statement will evolve as we evolve, as you respond and remix it, as worlds collapse and return…

###

This manifesto is a living document, constantly evolving, part of the process of art itself. kkoagulaa is a living, constantly evolving entity, a shout from the mountaintop proclaiming the primacy of the act of creation.

All life is a collage of every form that has been engaged in a dance with the chaos that calls forth new forms. Order dissolves into chaos and then collapses into a higher form of order. This holds true for galaxies, ecosystems, empires and civilizations. The Universe, society, culture manifests in eternal change, and so should music and art.

The artifacts of kkoagulaa too are not so many calcified forms, but moments of the process of discovery captured. In a time when the business and cultural role of music and art is becoming increasingly destabilized, a quickening of chaotic activity ends up opening up new possibilities. This period of chaos before new structures coalesce into the next orthodoxy, before a possible return to and strengthening of corporate hegemony, the creative community has an opportunity to stretch out beyond safe art and safe social functions.

Better still, we see an opportunity to include everyone when we talk about the creative community. Not in theory, not as a fluffy bromide to flatter an “audience” or a way to make “customers” feel included in something when they’re nothing but another resource to be exploited. Art exists for you to shape it, hijack it and remake, remix, reiterate and even reject it. It is for you to inspire thought, critical thinking, re-consideration.

You are part of kkoagulaa. Your grandma is a node of kkoagulaa. Your cat is integral to kkoagulaa. Art is commentary on society and culture, whether it is intended to or not. We have been sold a notion that art is something the majority is to sit back and passively observe, if art plays a role in daily life at all. It is vital that you reject that notion. Throw it out, public, go on, take the next step.

kkoagulaa declares that society, culture and all actions in space-time are examples of art, and by extension magic, the continued creation of the Universe. All life, all processes, all art and the Universe is partially finished. Nothing will be done until the Universe collapses in on itself. And even then, the process begins anew.

You create the patterns you see in everything you behold, hear, touch and think about. You create the meaning of a work of art. By looking at it, listening to it, reflecting on it, you complete the creative act. should you take that symphony, piece of writing or painting and add your own touch, cut it up and recombine the elements, you bring the process further.

###

Peter Thiel Makes Down Payment on Libertarian Ocean Colonies

Tired of the United States and the other 190-odd nations on Earth?

If a small team of Silicon Valley millionaires get their way, in a few years, you could have a new option for global citizenship: A permanent, quasi-sovereign nation floating in international waters.

With a $500,000 donation from PayPal founder Peter Thiel, a Google engineer and a former Sun Microsystems programmer have launched The Seasteading Institute, an organization dedicated to creating experimental ocean communities “with diverse social, political, and legal systems.”

“Decades from now, those looking back at the start of the century will understand that Seasteading was an obvious step towards encouraging the development of more efficient, practical public-sector models around the world,” Thiel said in a statement.

More at Wired.com

kkoagulaa’s three laws

a “remix” of arthur c clarke’s three laws of prediction

• when a distinguished but elderly scientist artist states that something is possible acceptable, he is almost certainly right. when he states that something is impossible unacceptable, he is very probably wrong
• the only way of discovering the limits of the possible acceptable is to venture a little way past them into the impossible unacceptable
• any sufficiently advanced unacceptable technology art is indistinguishable from magic

– ccernn