A group of diverse people calls a meeting, setting a place and a time. They meet. Each one brings the things they think are necessary. The “opening-up” to action is big. They disuss and reach agreements. They have to manage that shared time in the search for freedom. They select a place, make it theirs, precariously theirs. What is the potential of that meeting, of that time lived in common? They have to make decisions and try to create a collective space, not exempt from disapprovals. Apart from the physical space they might find (that could not be found), first there is a social space that has to be built up to very basic levels. Many of the problems come directly from that. How long can they endure? What will they be able to do? How much of the potential of the action lies in their own capacity for meeting together and dealing with uncertainty? What would be left if they didn’t do anything except be in an abnormal situation? How many different situations can the general situation contain? What is it that will give the right levels of intensity?

The meeting happens. The previous days and hours are disturbing. We don’t know if anyone will show up or if we’ll only be two people. From the moment we decide that, whatever happens, at least we’ll be two, we already are certain that “something” is going to happen. That moment of commitment is vital for us, it gives us strength. We received some e-mails from people who were interested, but no one confirms. It doesn’t matter, we know something is going to happen since the moment we acquired that basic commitment. Some call asking about how to get to the place we fixed just three days earlier. We know of a space where we could enter easily. The sense of uncertainty is big and that tension encourages us. The day comes, the time, and we finally gather five people. More than enough. Everything is recorded.

We approach the factory and discover that somebody has locked the window through which we’d planned to get in. We split up to try and get in through one of the ground floors by climbing down (the original access was in the roof you can access from a road). After struggling with the land (brambles, nails, heights), we finally enter. But it’s not easy, we’re seen from some nearby houses, and besides, not everyone could enter, it takes much agility. We join with the group again and discuss what to do. We decide to spend the afternoon in some isolated place where we can think and discuss options. We find a remote place under the A-8 motorway (Bilbao-Donosti), we eat something there, and all the time we face the threat of the uncertainty about whether or not we can finally get in the place before dark. We start to believe that we might have to spend the night out in the open. In the evening we drop off one of the five at the bus station. He has to go back home and can’t sleep with us. On the way, we buy a rope (to help with the steep inclined stretch of our access route into the factory) and get something to eat. We come back to the factory.

While preparing the rope, near the entrance, we see in the distance some kids on the roof of another factory making graffiti. We make our way over to the other factory figuring that if these kids can enter, we should also be able to. When we get to the gate it’s getting dark, and the kids just leave through a big elevated metal door from which one goes down by using some stairs drilled to the wall. We ask them about the factory, and they tell us the access is easy and that they usually come around. Quickly, we enter and close the door. Its condition is really deplorable, there is debris everywhere, broken glass, stones… All the factory windows are broken and there’s a constant draft. We explore it a bit and the first thing that worries us is the salubriousness. The air is dense in spite of the ventilation. The atmosphere is very stuffy. We go up the stairs to the fourth floor and from there to the cabin where in its flat roof the elevator motor is kept and gives access to the roof. There’s a door through which the air comes in, the final landing of the stairs is not as dirty as the rest of the space. We decide it’s the best place to at least spend the first night. We return to a shop to get brooms and candles. On the way we pick up another person who’s called us and joins in to spend the night. Then we do our best to clean the landing, about five square meters. We leave the door open for air circulation. Once the space is organized and cleaned, we prepare a kind of cold dinner.

We have something to drink, start feeling more comfortable, more relaxed. Wine and conversation take us to a new situation like if they were music. Cars constantly passing through A-8, where there are fewer police checkpoints. The modernist architecture during Francoist Spain is very peculiar since Franco only wanted to adhere to the practical and the functional aspects of this type of architecture and ignore the progressive ideology of modernism. The factory’s strong structure reminds us of that type of modernist architecture and also of that great Basque Country that enjoyed glorious industrial moments. Eibar is a special place in this way. Known for its arms industry since the 16th century . Despite it's small size, Eibar has been a key town in the development of the Basque Country’s culture and economy. In some moments, even beating Donostia-San Sebastián. Coming out of these industrious times, Eibar has a specific architecture that sometimse combines housing and workshops within the same building.

A long time has passed since globalization took care of moving this type of industrial production to other parts of the world where the standard of living is not that high and where the labour force is cheaper and therefore produces bigger profits for capitalist investors. For a few years, in the Basque Country it seemed that culture could replace industry and become the driving force of the economy. In the present period of crisis it looks like culture doesn’t produce enough value, which is why the institutions promoting it are being dispensed with. We are in 2011 and the cultural institutions are suffering big cuts on a global scale. Especially in the UK and the Netherlands. But we also have here our own cases like the Montehermoso cultural centre in Vitoria, the annual budget of which has been entirely removed. And not just the big institutions are suffering. This week the ‘Kukutza’ gaztetxe in the district of Rekalde in Bilbao (other big industrial premises that became the biggest cultural and socially squatted centre in the world) has been vacated and destroyed. To whose interest is the Bilbao mayor Iñaki Azkuna doing a favour? Obviously, it’s a rhetoric question. We are living difficult times.

It’s clear, we need to search-create our own infrastructures, no matter how precarious they are. Many things can happen if we make them happen. We spend as little money as possible. We don’t need much help, just the Internet to promote the meeting and, once we are there, ourselves. Our bodies. There’s no electricity but we don't need it. Mobile phones are running out of battery. Listening intensifies, we speak softly, little by little we’re making the place ours: our stage, our room, our bedroom. A time to share.

It’s completely dark already, we go out to the roof. It’s flooded and full of vegetation, in between there are some very narrowed concrete footbridges through which we walk in single file. We stand there, contemplating the town of Eibar in the distance and, closer, over our heads, the Bilbao-Donosti motorway with its constant rhythmic traffic, like a background drone. We go to sleep. We spend the first night, which is the most intense of the two. Noises alternate with a brutal silence, two bats get in and can’t get out flying over us most of the night, like Goya’s engraving. Sometimes we sleep and wake up with the sound of the wind moving things in the factory. Sometimes we sleep more deeply. All the time we have the feeling that anyone can enter the factory as we did. We fantasize about a possible meeting with somebody at that time in that place. Which relationship would be established? Who’d be more afraid? Who’d feel more vulnerable?

Everything is recorded: Document of a concert? Field recording? A friend tells me about Derrida’s hauntology: something that is and is not, that haunts us like Marx’s communist spectre arising in 19th century Europe. It's as if the past collapses into the present, history no longer existing. The End of History. Some do field recordings in abandoned spaces trying to sonically represent this hauntology. One of us accidentally kicks over a five-litre bottle of water while sleeping. It falls four floors down resounding throughout the building. We all wake up saying: There’s someone!

We don’t believe in ghosts and this is not an anonymous recording. We are there and we are present. Sometimes we are aware that we’re recording but other times we forget. Hours and hours of audio-duration as noise. The interesting point of these conversations is that, on the one hand, they can be understood as any other improvisation, in which one produces a sound and another responds and, on the other, as a document of some specific interests within a very concrete moment where people say more and more: fuck neo-liberalism!

By using these conversations as improvisation material, we make the fetishization of the sounds difficult since the conceptualization of language disables one's capacity to deal with sounds as if they were only sonic and abstract materials. One can’t separate the meaning from its sonic qualities (unless he/she doesn’t understand anything). One must reflect beyond the aesthetic nature of the sound. Sounds, especially in this case, can’t be isolated from their context. We’re living in a time where language and our thinking process have become work tools to generate value: by recording our conversations, we can later dissect language to help us reconsider our capacity for agency and the meaning of freedom nowadays. The communist spectre gets more and more notorious and some of us want to propagate it at any cost. On the floor there are insurance records of all the workers with small x-rays of their lungs. How many workers might have suffered the consequences of working here for so many years?

The next morning some wake up scratching their skin. We are still worried about the salubriousness. We hysterically talk about scabies and lice. Early in the morning we hear noises from within the factory, someone has come in and hits things violently. Then we start to realize that the factory has its own inhabitants, its social and discreet everyday life: a scrap merchant picking scrap, local kids entering to get materials to build a cabin, graffiti artists, etc. How do they relate with each other? How is their interaction in a place like this? The strength and intensity of the sounds are very present at all times, as much or more than in a concert you attend respectfully. With the difference that here the sounds don’t just sound, but also they point, inform, scare, relieve... because they feel like doing something they are not supposed to do. Suddenly, we’ve turned into another inhabitant of that strange and marginal space where experiences get amplified. We keep on listening.

This concert or situation is post-industrial in many ways. More sounds. Radical dehierarchicalization . If we’re interested in noise, why do we value a sound more than another? Sincerity and the private are becoming our instruments while we constantly reflect on what we do. Both raves and RRV (Basque Radical Rock) are clear references. At the same time, there are big differences. Although this is a temporarily squatted space, here there’s no division or distancing between music and living together: all we do produces sounds or makes us reflect about the sound, some more than others. We talk, move and constantly listen. Perhaps in some moments we’re more aware of the aesthetic features in each sound. However, in other moments, we listen in a practical way not paying that much attention to their aesthetic nature. As life takes its course and we have needs, the listening process cannot satisfy us for an infinite period of time (for instance, when we have to eat). The bodies are getting more and more dirty. My worried mother asks me: How did you manage to go to the toilet? Very simple. You squat down and answer to Nature’s call. The digital recorder captures the sound of the anal sphincter throwing the excrement, which stays on the factory floor. No one cares. Something ordinary. A sound like any other, a shitty sound, a noise coming out of my body. I don’t need instruments. I feel kind of bad for having recorded this. Doesn't this sound too intimate? Too vulgar? Too obvious? I remember Spinoza: What can the body do? I also remember G.G. Allin. Life as improvisation, the recorder capturing life. Is there any problem or contradiction with aestheticizing this coexistence, for proposing it as an improvisation concert or for recording it to make it public later? Maybe, but at least it helps us in reconsidering the possibilities of the practice of improvisation beyond certain conventions: whether it’s the necessity of instruments or of a context like in a concert (with the economy and audience it requires). Here there’s no division between performer and audience.

I remember someone’s comment saying that it’d be more interesting if the artists transmitted their works directly through a concept everyone could understand at any moment beyond the materials. The abstraction of the forms might be more difficult to understand by people with no specific knowledge of this type of practice (whether musical or artistic). Will the idea overcome its realization. It wouldn’t be conceptual art. Someone instead would directly express the idea and the intentions with no need to produce them at all (so Lawrence Weiner wouldn’t have to produce the typographic texts, but simply describe them conceptually). But we’ve got bodies. Depending on where and how you experience the concept, it’ll make you reflect in many different ways. Reading at home (in the private sphere, full of security and comfort, the words describing a concept, in an institution where most of the audience has a certain degree of education and purchasing power and you don’t feel any kind of risk or danger), is different than reading, for instance, in this strange situation in the light of a candle inside a half-destroyed building in the company of bats. One is more susceptible and the body is more fragile, more vulnerable. We all need each other. Respect and cordiality make us endure the tough conditions. We’re living something special and still don’t know what might happen. In this situation the concept itself could be interpreted through many different ways. Nobody sees us. As said earlier, perception gets amplified; everything gets more important, for good or for bad. Sometimes we are scared and other times we feel a certain liberation. At any moment, this could have turned into total transgression: a huge orgy where we explore our bodies in different ways that we are not used to. Anything could have happened without anybody knowing it. A possible secret between us. Who knows if we were Black Metal fans and disciples of Satan’s Beasts, we could’ve tortured an innocent victim or even one of us. But no, we didn’t fuck. Here, we speak informally but with respect and affection.

In the morning another person arrives, we have some coffee and talk constantly. We talk of “sincerity” and “honesty”. She says she doesn’t understand what honesty is: one can be very sincere but without making great efforts to deconstruct the ideological mechanisms that reproduce certain power structures, those keeping the status quo. What constitutes a display of freedom for someone, can be perceived as an act of oppression for another. If you haven’t suffered this oppression in you own body you can’t be aware of what that can mean. You’re not aware of the power you execute by certain acts, words, movements, gestures, etc. You’re not aware of your privileged situation. The spontaneity, as a way to express that privilege which hasn’t been reflected on, becomes a power relation. Talking about all of this we become aware of the existing problems around the alleged freedom that improvisation and noise offer. We discuss gender issues in relation to improvisation and noise. We agree that usually there’s little reflection on these issues. Who can afford to make noise? Who can afford to expressing his/her freedom? People who are in a privileged enough situation. A well known feminist explains how speaking aloud to everyone (and no one) is “masculine”, while speaking to one another, understanding each other, noticing other bodies is “feminine”. The first makes me think of a musician playing the computer on the stage giving the impression he/she doesn’t care about what’s happening around. Historically man has been the one who could express himself in the public sphere, while woman has done it in the private sphere. Man could be in solitude, meditating, contemplating and reflecting, whereas woman was responsible for reproduction, or as Leopoldina Fortunati would accurately say: producing the future workforce.

The process of opening-up in what we do is determined by the material conditions and time constraints we’ve established. Within these, we try to negotiate a radical form of equality, both at an auditory level and in terms of relationships. Everything at the same level: the sound of the cars or the broken glasses or the violin or our speaking, as well as our relationship with the space. Someone might call what we are doing “Relational Aesthetics”, in which social relations and their context are taken as material for artistic production. There are several things that differentiate us from the use of this idea:

2) We’re interested in noise: what doesn’t have an aesthetic value, something that might seem irrelevant to other people, something unwanted. We do appreciate it without making distinctions whether it’s something creative or not.

3) Participation here doesn’t work as a bargaining chip, but as a need for coexistence. Once we entered the building we were all on the same plane with respect to our relationship with this particular situation, unlike if this was happening in an institution where one might already have a position or even in agaztetxe where there are people already used to the space and have already established certain ways to relate to it.

In the afternoon the one who had arrived that morning is gone and so is the one who was here to sleep. But another four from Bilbao show up. When they arrive, we start a concert; we meet in a point of the factory where we “start” and we meet again in the same point after two hours. We walk freely through the factory which is huge and full of nooks and crannies. We break things, we hit, step on, rip, shout and finally we gather again. That feeling of intensity you usually feel in a concert is not present here. This is not because it hasn’t been interesting, but because in contrast with the intensity of the total experience of squatting this space as a group, this moment of music becomes secondary. When the concert within a concert ends, another five people arrive who have found us on the Internet. We set up a kind of gathering space with benches where we all sit to talk. They’re architects so it’s an interesting opportunity to bring up many issues, questions and interests we’re dealing with, with a particular focus on problems with the habitability of an abandoned space. We talk about industrial architecture, the reappropriation of urban industrial spaces and how these affect us. We discuss the about what are the minimum conditions that make a space habitable. It’s getting dark and we decide to go with them to get something to eat at a nearby bar.

At the bar, we continue our conversation, while we eat eggs with chorizo that taste better than ever. We also drink. The bar closes so we ask the waiter for a strong liqueur to bring it with us. He gets a bottle of homemade orujo. As we’ll see later, it is strong, very strong. We come back when it’s totally dark already and we’re a bit drunk. The first day it got dark when we were in the building, but this time it’s different since we are coming back from the bar when it’s already dark. So we find ourselves in a new situation, the access point and the space are really dark, like in a horror movie. In the darkness we walk through the stretch we have to cross to get to the space. The sounds of the footsteps and the voices are much more intense now. The evening before going to sleep is interesting, more and more issues come out motivated by our stay in this space. The space fuels our words. We discuss many things like “individuality versus the collective”, social classes, gender (again), free software, 15-M and social change, etc. While drinking, we become uninhibited and divulge private things, very private. At the end we fall asleep, this time much more deeply than the first night.

It’s as if the space had become ours already. Like one of the architects that came in the afternoon told us, “if you can’t adapt the space to you, adapt yourself to the space”. And this adaptation lies in an obvious material level we’ve already taken care of (tidying up, cleaning, allocating things, etc.), but in this second night we feel like we have psychologically stopped worrying about many things like dirt, noises, etc. As if we had made the space much more ours by understanding and controlling it in some psychological way. We sleep almost straight through the night. The next morning we start to feel the tiredness, but the adaptation too. We have breakfast together while we keep on talking. At this point, the discussion we are having is fragmented but continuous.

We start to create a common language. There is something going on while we collectively write this text. Time goes by, slowly at first, but as we get used to it, it gets faster and faster. Until we get to a point where the shit annoys us. We get more and more familiar with the space but it also gets more claustrophobic. The morning runs out and when we see nobody else is coming we decide to go to the rocks, in Itziar, and have a bath in the sea. The contrast is from the dirty industrial atmosphere we’ve inhabited, to a natural environment is brutal. We go down through a fresh coppice, breathing that healthy clean air. We eat a sandwich on the beach and have a bath. It’s like a reward, almost like to be born again or, rather, like coming back to our bodies. The water is so salty but we find ourselves cleaner than ever. We discuss a bit about our impressions on these three days together: the problems, the possibilities for the future. The feeling of unity is strong, like the complicity of some musicians after improvising together, but multiplied by a hundred. We’ve changed the scenario but feel we take with us a special strength, a strength that can take us to lots of places we haven’t planned. We say goodbye, we part. There is no applause.

their radiographies as the artwork for the record Improkup! 40 hours in the zone

Bryone, the beautiful and rich daughter of the king, was the most beloved princess of all times.
She led a peaceful life within the castle walls.
However, there was only one thing that perturbed her.
She had been forbidden to ever enter the great forest.
As the years passed, the prohibition became more and more unbearable.
One night, Bryone escaped from the castle in order to solve the mystery.
She walked for many nights and days.
One morning, she reached the extraordinary “Magnificent World”.
When she returned to the castle, Bryone could not hide her amazement from the King.
Infuriated by her disobedience, he had every living being in the great forest beheaded, slit his daughter’s throat, and died so as to guard the secret.

As a result, the Queen went mad, and commanded the royal court to recreate the “Magnificent World” every year, on the night of Saint Baradatus, although she knew nothing about it.

THIS IS NOT A PARTY. DON'T BRING YOUR FRIENDS.

29.02.2012:
IMPROKUP! DVDR DAGOENEKO KALEAN, GAURTIK AURRERA METAMINA FREE NET IRRATIAN STREAMING BIDEZ ZABALDUKO DA, GERTATUKOAREN ORDENA KRONOLOGIKOA JARRAITUZ
IMPROKUP! DVDR YA ESTA RULANDO, A PARTIR DE HOY Y EN LOS PRÓXIMOS DOS DÍASM SERÁ DIFUNDIDA EN METAMINA FREE NETRADIO SIGUIENDO EL ORDEN KRONOLOGICO DE LOS EVENTOS

Reviews:

Publicado por Lotta Messer en http://puradeccadencia.blogspot.com/

Eibar Factory Massacre

3 días...

una fabrica abandonada...
el pueblo con las calles más estrechas del universo...
un grupo de chavales...

Parece en comienzo de una película de terror, o el anuncio de una inminente masacre adolescente, pero no, es el comienzo de una acción experimental dirigida por mattin y amigos un una fábrica abandonada de Eibar, según un amigo, el pueblo más feo del mundo...No sé si el más feo, pero desde luego el que tiene las calles más estrechas que yo he visto y el índice más alto de edificios deshabitados y/o en desuso y una ínfima e inverosímil densidad de población.

El motivo de la elección de la fábrica creo que fue básicamente la accesibilidad y el de la ocupación y llamamiento a quien quisiera unirse fue el de explorar diferentes cuestiones como dar una utilidad distinta a un espacio creado para otra cosa y la inherente interacción con el espacio, o como la creación de musica/ruido a través de elementos alternativos y atípicos como los desechos y restos encontrados de la fábrica, posterior debate incluido.

Una reflexión breve pero continua sobre uno mismo repecto al espacio, repecto a eso que llamamos música y respecto a los demás asistentes. Un efímero ejercicio de exploración y autoconocimiento, de interacción con un espacio nuevo y ajeno a nuestras costumbres y necesidades diarias y/o un plan alternativo para el fín de semana. En cualquier caso me gustó la experiencia y muestro aquí testimonios gráficos, que no sonoros, lamentablemente, de lo que aquello fue.

miércoles 10 de agosto de 2011

Uno de los asistentes aprovechó la ocasión para mencionar la inminente realización de una acción experimental en una fabrica abandonada en Eibar.
La idea consistía en ocupar durante tres días una fábrica deshabitada en la localidad guipuzcoana de Eibar y realizar diversas acciones posterior reflexión y debate.

El motivo de la elección de la fábrica creo que fue básicamente la accesibilidad y el de la ocupación y llamamiento a quien quisiera unirse fue el de explorar diferentes cuestiones como dar una utilidad distinta a un espacio creado para otra cosa y la inherente interacción con el espacio, o como la creación de musica/ruido a través de elementos alternativos y atípicos como los desechos y restos encontrados de la fábrica.

Una reflexión breve pero continua sobre uno mismo repecto al espacio, repecto a eso que llamamos música y respecto a los demás asistentes. Un efímero ejercicio de exploración y autoconocimiento, de interacción con un espacio nuevo y ajeno a nuestras costumbres y necesidades diarias y/o un plan alternativo para el fín de semana.

Re: [Igua] IMPROKUP DVDR LANZAMIENTO EN STREAMING

Prado Casanova
Wed, 29 Feb 2012 07:48:11 -0800

Hola Aitor, ya lo he leido todo y se me hace corto! llevo un par de horas con el streaming! dios, estoy flipando, mola mucho mucho mucho.

como hago para conseguir una copia?
hablamos un día de estos por skipe?
abrazos
miguel

From: Loty Negarti:: <aizmad gabone.info>
To: prado <miguel taumaturgia.com>
Subject: improkup!
Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:17:33 +0000
X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.0.2 (GTK+ 2.20.1; x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)

aupa miguel,

como siempre voy tarde con todo, aun ando haciendo las copias pero tranki que en cuanto tenga os envio a roberto y a ti un par de copias.
me imagino que para la semana que viene tendre unas cuantas asi que en unos 15 dias os podre enviar.

la verdad es que escucharlo todo de golpe es una experiencia muy extraña, como estar siguiendo un reality show, un programa de radio, u observando a unos idiotas en un zoo.

yo la verdad es que me doy verguenza de mi mismo al escucharme, no callo ni un puto rato y digo unas paridas a veces que ufff. pero una de las cosas que nos interesaba era precisamente esa, sacar en crudo todas nuestras limitaciones (intelectuales, comunicativas, organizativas, afectivas, etc) y hacerlas explicitas, ponerlas en un primer plano. Es como diciendo: estos somos nosostros, esto es lo que hay, ¿qué podemos hacer con esto? ¿que podemos hacer con estas vidas? Tambien esta el asunto de que fueron tres días muy intensos en un ambito muy privado donde la intimidad iba creciendo y decimos muchas cosas personales nuestras y de otras personas... y teniamos la duda de si sacarlo o no, pero al final decidimos sacarlo. Asi que si la gente lo escucha con atención a lo mejor tenemos lios con algunas personas... pero bueno, yo creo que merece arriesgarse.

Tambien parece como si estuvieras viendo un documental. A mi me da la impresión de que somos como el de Grizzly Man de la peli de Herzog y que la gente esta viendonos (en este caso escuchandonos) mientras piensa, ¿pero que tipo de gente es esta, son idiotas?

Pero ahi esta lo interesante!!!

abrazos!

From: Prado Casanova <miguel taumaturgia.com>
To: fnmaa-12.srv.cat, "Loty Negarti" fnmaa-12.srv.cat: <aizmad gabone.info>
Subject: Re: improkup!
Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:32:47 +0100
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.936)

Hola Aitor, no te preocupes por el retraso, tengo ganas de ver las copias pero espero sin problema! al final usasteis las radiografías como portada?
lo de el cambio de perspectiva al escucharte y la verguenza que nos da oirnos a nosotros mismos es mítico, pero creo que está subestimado como herramienta para pulir nuestras carencias, nuestras tonterías, ponernos a escuchar esa visión desde el exterior es superpotente como análisis y muy simple a la vez.
sin duda el material es la caña y abre la ostia de cuestiones, te voy comentando conforme vaya escuchando más! abrazos!

From: :: <aizmad gabone.info>
To: Prado Casanova <miguel taumaturgia.com>
Subject: Re: improkup!
Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:45:51 +0000
X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.0.2 (GTK+ 2.20.1; x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)

si, si al final las portadas son estas
http://www.gabone.info/hamaika/improkup-cover.png

a mi lo que me da verguenza, o inseguridad o... no se como decirlo, es esa sensación de vulneravilidad que siento no por la voz sino por esos aspectos de mi personalidad que no me gustan, que me gustaria cambiar porque siento como un muro que me limita y me hace sufrir a veces. Evidentemente, si hemos sacado eso en dvd tampoco tenemos una inseguridad brutal, quiero decir que en cierto sentido vemos y encaramos esos limites, al menos exponiendonos a ver cuales son las consecuencias.

estamos!

From: Prado Casanova <miguel taumaturgia.com>
To: fnmaa-12.srv.cat, "izagirre:" fnmaa-12.srv.cat: <aizmad gabone.info>
Subject: Re: improkup!
Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:53:16 +0100
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.936)

sisi, te entiendo perfectamente, es como escuchar por donde crujes,
por donde eres fragil, joder las portadas son la ostia

JUST OUTSIDE (Brian Olewnick, 9th December 2012)

Anonymous - Improkup! (w.m.o/r)

a description of events

An action is one thing; a documentation of that action is another. Within the act of "documentation", one can create something which is purely that, a record of the events, for various reasons from historical to contemplative, or one can seek to present it in the guise of an art object, which raises questions. In a more overtly art-centered world, we have items like Manfred Werder's scores which may consist of lines of found or extracted text which the "performer" may take upon his or herself to actuate, often by experiencing surroundings of choice. All well and good, but when released to file or disc, one wonders, "Why?" What has been accomplished that couldn't have been done so as effectively by the listener, the recipient of the work? More complicatedly, sometimes the release does, indeed, seem to elicit something previously unheard (unseen?).

There's the experience and then there's the compunction to elucidate it not via abstracted, edited form, but with a second by second (aural) reproduction of it, as though the importance, the meat, is inextricably bound in the smallest details, though this implies a god's-eye view of things, especially when dealing with something of this length, over 24 hours (I forget the exact cumulative time), that thought is paradoxical in that none of the participants conceivable attended to matters that closely; they slept, ate, excreted, etc. An event occurs, you weren't there but now you can, if you chose to listen in that matter, gain a second-hand experience of the activities. Or, you could (much to the dismay, I imagine of the creators of this object) listen in an abstracted, aesthetic way, something that the very nature of the pure sonics involved does tend to pull one toward, at times. There's a portion early on when Mattin and a friend or two are driving toward the warehouse in which they intend to squat and conduct their workshop, where they apparently pull over, perhaps grabbing a bite, and the tape is left running in the vacated automobile, maybe 15-20 minutes, and one "merely" hears the ambient sound, the roadway, etc. It's very beautiful, I'm afraid to say.

[A little earlier, I thought I'd turned off the recording. Was sitting here typing something else when I heard faint snores, which I assumed where emanating from our dog, Katie. Looked around, didn't see her. Took me about 30 seconds to realize that the squat had entered their sleeping phase...nice]

and then...well, I think Richard mentioned some technical problems he had with this disc and similar ones have plague me. My Macbook would spurt out the disc at irregular intervals, in between making noises that caused me some concern. I thought you could stream at the Metamina site, but it didn't work for me. So I decided to call it a day.

All in all, I listened to 5-6 hours of the activity and it's hard to say what more value I would have received listening through; the relative paucity of English was one thing and listening "aesthetically" would seem to be missing the point (though, as mentioned above, it was an easy enough trap for me to fall into). The consistently lingering question was the issue of the documentation as such as opposed to the action it was documenting. Even that--it's hard for me to know what significance squatting has at that point in time, at that particular place in Basque country--what did that signify? Did anyone (outside of the participants) care? Did it matter to the discussion that they had done so or could the same talk have been had camping out somewhere or at a bar over a long enough span? Not sure but, as with Werder (admittedly, I enjoy bringing such apparently disparate activities and approaches into some kind of tandem), my gut feeling is that this sort of text inevitably, perhaps tragically, loses much impact.

With the caveat of having missed a substantial portion of the work, it still strikes me as reasonable to say that I'm afraid you had to be there.

The Watchful Ear (Richard Pinnell)

DVD containing 30 hours of audio files.
w.m.o/r or stream here.

This is an interesting release. Its also the only recording I have written about here without actually hearing all of it, given that the work consists of a DVD containing thirty hours of audio files, which I began playing early yesterday morning, on my day off, and which finished playing at around 3PM this afternoon, while I was at work. I also missed a few hours last night when I went over to Julie’s place, and again four or five hours overnight while I slept. In the context of the work though I don’t think its a big problem that I missed large chunks of the recordings, and actually waking this morning to hear the it playing quietly added an extra dimension to the experience, as at first I had forgotten it was playing, and slipping slowly out of my slumber at 5AM to hear a group of people walking past a barking dog (as was happening on the recording at the time) was a strange, unsettling experience.

Improkup! is credited to a group of anonymous people, and certainly it is the product of a large group, but at the heart of the work lies Mattin, perhaps unsurprisingly. I think I should note here that I personally have a lot of time for Mattin. While I don’t always (often?) agree with his ideologies, I have a great deal of respect for his commitment to them, his dedication to what he believes in and the energy he puts into his work. However much value someone may apply to his work I think it is extremely unfair to accuse him of not being serious, or that what he does is merely the act of an enfant terrible out to shock. A lot of thought goes in to what he does. He has also always been exceptionally friendly and supportive of me down the years, despite obvious differences and times when I have been openly critical of him, and takes the time to send me little emails explaining a little of what he is trying to do with some of his works, as he has with this Improkup! release. I have to say though, that while there is little here that is aesthetically pleasing in line with traditional musical values I found this DVD of audio files a really interesting thing to engage with even before Mattin had said very much about it.

Details of the event that is documented cross the thirty hours of recordings can be found here. To be honest, I have actually found myself paying little attention to precisely what unfolds over the recordings, partly because my absence for large parts made that difficult, but also because I have quite liked the abstract elements- hearing things I recognise but not really knowing how they form a narrative with each other, or what came between them. Essentially though, Mattin and a group of others arranged to meet up at a particular place in the Basque country in the summer of 2011, where they then travel around in search of a building to break into and squat. So we hear conversations in cars, a lot of walking about, “silences” when the handheld Zoom recorder is left unattended, a brief period of furtive activity as a disused factory is broken into, and talking. A LOT of talking, in various languages, sometimes audible, sometimes less so. There is probably a lot more in there besides that I missed while absent as the piece played.

There are obvious political references in here that relate to the fact that a group of people acquire a building for themselves, taking the property, doing as they choose with it etc. I’m not sure what else there is to add on this side of things however. What does interest me quite a lot (and apparently interested Mattin also) is how the whole thing can be considered when viewed in the light of modern experimental music. Mattin talks a little of how this work can actually be considered to be improvised, given that a group of people set out without knowing precisely which sounds they will make, or which will be captured by the recorder. We can draw comparisons with the age-old quandaries of improvisation- is there really such a thing as improvisation when musicians bring particular routines, practices and histories to a concert setting? Is then there any improvisation in Improkup! when the activities of the group were planned in advance, and (I am guessing) the majority of them had done similar things before? Like in an everyday recording of an improv concert, the precise way individual elements created by separate people fit together are partly dictated by intention, partly by chance, but ultimately, this sounds like a recording of a pre-determined set of occurrences, as does so much improvisation in this day and age… Then can we consider this recording in the way we might think of field recording? Certainly the record button has been pressed on the recorder with the intention of capturing specific events, and many external sounds have been caught incidentally in the process. This is field recording isn’t it? Even the Zoom recorder used is one popular with those in the field recording area. There has been however, no editing applied to these recordings, and no real attempt to produce something of particular aesthetic value. This is a recording of an event, or events, a documentation process rather than the selective decision making of field recording. Is there much here of particular interest from a purely sonic perspective? A few moments when things go quiet and distant environmental sounds creep into view aside, no probably not. The period during which the group can be heard talking, indecipherably in the echoing factory space has some nice qualities to it, but these wear off after hearing them for a few hours. So how actually does Improkup! differ to any other experimental music release? Its a lot longer. It takes a bit of effort to queue all of the audio files up to play in a continuous stream. Beyond that though? I could of course outline many significant aesthetic differences, but as a set of processes, well there is very little different here. We might even consider the recent, in my opinion very important work of Manfred Werder along these lines as well. Does it matter if the “musicians” are not making music, or even that the sounds on the recording were not made with an audience in mind? If Werder places the onus on the listener, on those experiencing a moment, creating an event from it, then similarities can certainly be drawn.

The pleasure with this DVD for me however has come entirely through my personal engagement with it. I very much enjoy longform listening experiences. I have attended a fair number of concerts that have lasted for several hours and have demanded the focus and attention of the listener. Several of these have seen me fighting off the effects of tiredness, trying to listen rather than let my mind wander, my eyes begin to close. Yesterday I listened to Improkup! playing quietly in the room behind me for about six hours, with just toilet and food breaks interrupting the experience. I spent much of the time sat reading and drawing, my focus not entirely on the audio, and yet I felt a kind of half-connection to what was playing, as if the quiet in the room here, broken up only by the light hammering of rain against the window was replaced by this additional soundtrack. It felt like I was in the car with Mattin and friends as they travelled to wherever they were going. I detuned myself from the conversations, which were anyway only occasionally in English, and let the recording exist as there as a natural background. Only when something notable occurred on the recording, maybe the car stopped, a phone rang, voices were raised, that my attention was brought back to the details of the recording. I don’t usually listen like this. I normally try and focus closely on the recording in question. Allowing Improkup! to exist in the background, both during the day and then again when I went to sleep last night was an unusual, slightly unnerving experience for me. Another moment really struck me. I left to head to Julie at around seven last night, and when I departed little was happening on the recording, just some scuffling and banging about in a large space, all very distant and not intrusive. When I returned, maybe four hours later voices were chattering excitedly. Although there had been a long break between these events the voices still came as a shock on my return, and I wondered how things had gone from one set of sounds to the other. Then when I got home from work this evening, and the recording had long finished, i found myself wondering how things had ended. Did everyone say goodbye and walk off in different directions? Did the recorder just run out of memory? I could go back and play the last few moments of course, but somehow that doesn’t feel like the right thing to do. I wasn’t here to hear it as it played out naturally, perhaps I shouldn’t hear it at all. Walk out on an improv concert you can’t go back and experience it again, and while obviously this was a recording, and I wasn’t there in the squatted factory before leaving it, it feels strangely similar to one. Perhaps its partly because I didn’t have to go through the usual rituals here of pressing play on a CD player, or because the music didn’t end after forty minutes that I was able to consider the experience of listening to Improkup! more as an live event than as part of the normal CD-listening processes.

Though I doubt many will agree with me then, I found engaging with this release a fascinating and worthwhile experience, one that asked a lot of questions of me, perhaps not the ones Mattin and co wanted to ask, but questions all the same. Its no small undertaking to go through the experience of listening to this, but I recommend doing so to those that, like me, enjoy spending time seeking out new ways of listening and engaging with thoughtful, different work.

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VITAL WEEKLY
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number 865
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week 3
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'Review' Definition: 'A report or essay giving a critical estimate of a work or performance.'
What is this activity of deliberate risk, if it is risk? To see and feel how the other half lives, I think not, it would if it were an act of condescension, which I don’t think it is? Is it yet more sensational 'bungee' jumping, seemingly dangerous, but not, or a cultural anthropological field trip? Akin to watching the lonely and cold Nambikwara …?
Though the now too numerous hierarchies of structuralism become chaotic-without any mathematics of help. I have written elsewhere of the concerns and problematics within contemporary art. These are numerous and complex, and yet an audience may not be bothered. Art has never been as popular, as mass entertainment, social glue, education and solution to economic and social deprivation. This was the case, yet the current fiscal situation might not only expose the greed within humanity but also the somewhat 'difficult' relation this has towards the arts themselves. The audiences of the 1990s were amused and delighted by the event of art as it was presented to them as sensation upon sensation. An audience willing to accept the novelty of postmodernism's lack of novelty in its presentation of novelty… has come to be seen as something of a similar disaster to older modernist practitioners. (In music Cage, and his lack of any legacy) Despite theory, theories which resemble tutus laced on performing poodles, the essence of
the animal is lost in kitsch performances and documenta of pageants… such as The Cremaster Cycle … a prevailing question is what is to be done? Where and by who, to who for what? There was and is in some quarters still sufficient money to not bother, Saatchi is doing well in China and the former USSR, and not too badly in Chelsea. Of course these represent safe houses and safe places. The gallery is no longer a gallows, only a fake.
Going out on a limb here – which is part of this current strategy - is the artist and that relationship to audience- poodle or prophet. Yet it isn't any different in terms of engagement- Stockhausen famously identified this lack in his description of the "audiences" terrible complicity with the 'architects' of 911. He was soon silenced but he identified a very real set of complex issues. These revolve around such things as risk, commitment, capital, sincerity, entertainment, education, politics and the general set of complex systems of the current civilized world. Any audience or performer is aware of what is missing, history, geography ethnicity, sex, in any encounter. Seth Kim-Cohen simply gives up 'his spaces' - Mattin and company find other strategies and this is yet another. Successful or not it identifies the core of a vipers nest of problems, situations, networks etc.
Though still strangely the venue, gallery, artist, curator event persists. The cycle of Biennales and festivals all celebrate these persistent failures of wanting a univocity- but of needing to shout out this fact from somewhere else, as someone else, privileged = artist. The question is the answer and
that still gets us nowhere – or rather gets us wherever we want to go. The audience continues to look at the finger which now points both to the audience and to the artist. Yet this is still a 'pointing' artist.
The artist deskills the audience – distracts the audience – if the artist removes himself or herself from the audience that is the only viable strategy. But not even to communicate that would assume that nothing has occurred – which is precisely the point. A point which cannot be made without refuting itself. As an undocumented non performative act – which is life itself – life qua life as opposed to life as an artist (or audience). The erasure of noise taken to its conclusion is not silence but being qua being. Such is the joy of the artist liberated from art- and the spectator
no longer needs to watch.
In the recent work of Mattin – I identify the problem of audience, artist, performance and space.
As art no longer explores or 'creates anew' it must entertain, (time) amuse – an audience by other means. The audience therefore together with the 'space' (a curated space) dictate the art, they therefore effectively become the artist in a play which Mattin involves a reversal or challenge to these roles. In watching or attending to this process the artist becomes audience. The artist in effect becomes the prisoner of the curated space. For example Joseph Beuys' "I Like America and America Likes Me" - in which audience is Beuys and/or the coyote? 1974 marks a juncture of Modern Art and the Post-Modern…
The curated space (after Duchamp) legitimates art- that is the 'final' truth of Modernity- that its Structures are what carry its legitimation, power and meaning, (The Structuralism of Lévi-Strauss, Jakobson, and Lacan et al.) Within post-structuralism the art-audience audience-as-artist takes on the legitimating role of performing – with the context of the critical arena of curatorship. The public act of 911 legitimates the 'War on Terror'. Or 'Terror on Terror' – 'War on War' The audience – victims of terror refuses terror and victimhood – for choosing terror and instigator (artist) of a
war. Sympathy for the victims of terrorism is replaced by the aggressive artistic acts of 'shock and awe' and bravery, courage, and risk of our armed forces. Of occupations! The artist becomes victim, here? In being observed in his/her failure to be creative – to create new and so the audience become
instigators of the act – authors of performances they can watch failure take place. Now the artist is like the zoo animal or circus animal, the YBAs. The situation – Zoo/Circus is no longer real – real of Modernity – truth & beauty- but façade- act – performance.
So space became curated – and deserted spaces – wastelands – ones incapable of territoriallization and re- territoriallization - outside of curatorship – de-curatorship – become the spaces of 'reality'. These are 'poor' – inhabited by the poor – and therefore the real and the source of the good. Charity does not begin at home but it is located in the Desert – Africa – Band Aid. Without these deserts how could the rich liberal democracies be 'good'. For without the poor we cannot be charitable. The
poor allow (give the opportunity for) justice. The poor become the new real artists- making us good. These poor – has an audience of charitable and state funded art. This justifies the spectator- audience of ecological tourism. But the creators of this drama are the audiences themselves, as are
the victims of the drama. The 'other' artist, polar bear, flood / famine victim is passive, empty and arbitrary. It is in this context that the work (here) struggles as does the work of – I maintain – Mattin et al. Here the audience is exposed as artist- elsewhere the audience becomes the artist –
downloading - creating playlists… The focus groups. Liberal democracy is the totalitarianism of the group.
What 'The artist' is to do is to find a 'new space' which is not public, but holy other – like the poor. Not to conceptualize, conceptualism becomes speculation – a book which is measured not on its meaning but on its sales. In other words on its audience. Mass sales mean that the message is held
already by the mass - no learning curve- as no learning – the audience is the author of the books success.
The text. The text describes the background to this piece. A group of people sort to 'occupy' and live in a deserted factory in the town of Eibar in the Basque country. As the author is not identified, which is because of its participatory nature I have not made any attempt to identify an author. The
group is not identified or is the author so my references to Mattin here and above will relate both to an individual and an assumed 'collective'. The text details the difficulties of gaining access, thoughts and feelings, conversations, and a profound feeling at the start of the occupation of what
I will précis here as 'alienation'. But it is perhaps more the losing of another alienation which alienates. They appear as 'fish out of water'. A terrifying and uncertain predicament. This "group of people" – undergoing such a process is separate to other processes, but joins them, I receive an email from Frans de Waard which is a CC from one Mattin who has emailed a Franz, asking about the
iMPROKUP! release… identity is a fatal illusion perhaps, a chilling event is the finding of old workers medical records which contains chest x-rays. My copy arrives with one – I'm suspicious to open it, could this be contaminated? Violations of name, Franz is a German name, violation of territory, violation of ownership, violation of records.
The music. There is no 'music', then there 'is' music. The DVD contains 14 mp3 files of varying length with a total running time of just under 40 hours, unedited recording of the 'occupation'. Conversations mostly in Spanish, some inaudible, noise from the deserted factory, wine being opened, a dog barking, distant traffic, and snoring are features with long silences – ambient background noise recordings which includes recording through the night as people sleep. From the text certain activities can be determined.
The crisis. Then there is the "crisis" - a performance of 'music' at a point in the proceedings, but only once the space has been not only occupied – as an animal – but as a sign that the animal occupation has become a cultural re-occupation. A Deterritorialization of the factory's territory -
capitalism - clearing a space, finding a space to eat, sleep and shit.. is then subsequently re-territorialized (Deleuze), as performance. Percussion from found objects, guitar and violin… musical devices – notes – sound – snippet of a song -organized structuring – playing – performer- art. A "bacchanal". Is this a mistake or some need to re-establish some faith in man, than otherwise remain the animal. The move from animal via bacchanalia towards man and the divine – so the percussion of church bells is the percussion of found objects in improvisations, as signs of a doxa and a logos. An attempt at being human is the human condition, or rather is one of many possibilities, there are children, graffitists , and gypsies in these territories, and now artists. Wagner contra Nietzsche. The sign of this event is a cross, X marks the spot – BC/AD, a juncture – and a dis-juncture of the performance, and its sound is the percussion of religiosity. Religiosity is a sign that the animal man is now transcended by the human man and then the knowing man and then the GOD MAN, God creator – performer musician whose intoxicated dance continues endlessly world over for 'All joy wants eternity' – is the intoxicated song. "A little poison now and then: that produces pleasant dreams" – This is the last men. The inhabitants of the last night appear to be all male. No longer an animal-man a listener in the dark, the man man or god man makes music, creates an art space – and then celebrates this conquest of the un-inhabitable, celebrates his becoming god in intoxication of a spirit, in drinking, a finality of an intoxication – which ends the occupation is orujo- a pomace brandy.
There is in the final night of raucous talk - shouts and laughter then silence of sleep, the following morning more subdued and perhaps sober departure- the text says no applause – but they have already experienced this rapture. The group now of four, five? wake and share banter, laughter,
light hearted and confident, joke about snoring, vomiting. Perhaps in Spanish they rehearse the documentation and in English discuss non-concerts in concert and non concert venues, of breaking expectations and an audiences expecting such a breaking? Meta talk, philosophy of breaking the
deification. Attempting heresy. They move around the factory, discuss international travel, and finally, there is applause.
The listener. However here also is the obvious problem for any listener is that of listening. Before this crucial event – of becoming human again the problematics of the performer are reduced to zero – in the direction of sound creation - and placed with the listener. For this review I have ran the
recordings on a lap top over several days. Though it would be possible given much more time to listen 'attentively' - a single listening as such would be impossible. This throws the listener into a non passivity. So as the recording plays – like the 'actors' in the recording I go about other
activities. The text points out, especially on the first evening, that listening becomes important, as listening for threats, for danger. (Animal listening) Sleep is disturbed by a listening as if the actors are reduced to animal instincts. The listener to the DVD is (in this case) safe, and the sounds are not dramatic and do not even raise the 'theatre' of threat. Is this good? A question such as this is beside the point. The reversal of roles, audience and performance, the 'actor' / 'performers' engagement with sound as a reality, of threat, of danger, and then of boredom, of outside of convention. These are thematics which I understand have motivated Mattin recently. Here they are complete. The occupiers need to transcend their objectives given the environment they place themselves into, or rather reverse any intellectual transcendency, for a praxis which is that of the
living organism and mere survival. My listening is likewise not a normality as I describe above, but one which is safer – though more temporally complete, a more "bourgeoisie" sense with this (second) listener. Music once did more than demonstrate a thematic, in primitive ritual it was the thing (thing-in-itself) – and I think this piece – iMPROKUP! once again claims that ontology. Whether the 'actors' think this is a measure of success or not I don’t know. For my part it is however a measure of achievement. A human achievement as an amputation from the real whose freedom threatens the animal. So as my artistic listening gives way to a listening of a performance, I can only lie on my bed and do nothing. Might I now miss some important event in the performance? Where once I was free to come and go – I am now like a traditional audience located in a space in which I cannot speak, cannot move, cannot perform.
A review: The self removal of the artist- what if Christ didn’t turn up to the crucifixion – then the subsequent distribution of the Holy Spirit to the world (thus deifying everyone) would not and could not take place. The one in its One is not interpreted in itself and if it remains in itself – self
qua self, life qua life, being qua being, in itself – without any interpretation (performance / demonstration)_ - concepts – objects ideas it is just ( as in being just – justified, justice) as being qua being – life qua life – This self creating art as being qua being.
What facilitated Marxism was not Marx but his audience, likewise Christianity, the great empires, kingdoms, fascist regimes and today's liberal democracies. Communist regimes were audience participation events par-excellence. Leaders today as always follow their audiences. The 'occupation' for me begins and fails to end with the realization that the inside is like the outside, and is as heterogeneous, polymorphic, contingent and dangerous. This then is a revelatory work of art. However its revelation is paradoxical – as its success in existence lies in the domination of a place, and overcoming of dangers – a re-occupation which then allows in the first place the presentation of this achievement – and then a celebratory performance. Where originally the participants were
listeners- and sound represented possible threats from an unknown other, they achieve a human emancipation of the space – but with such a freedom they in turn become a threat to others – still afraid in the dark and listening. The gaining of freedom is the loss of being in the real other, and brings a certain power and a certain authority again. 'Occupation' – Definition: 'An activity that serves as one's regular source of livelihood. An activity engaged in especially as a means of passing time. The act or process of holding or possessing a place. The state of being held or possessed. Invasion, conquest, and control of a nation or territory by foreign armed forces. The military government exercising control over an occupied nation or territory.' - Occupation then cannot succeed in 'locating' the outsider in a freedom – only by occupation the outside is placed inside – inside the occupiers 'prison'. Artist – freedom – audience – keep quiet – turn your mobile phones off – stop communicating. Music's failure is always that of occupation and denial, of threat of violence and actual violence. And moreover this review will be unlike some modernist ending without end- although music cannot be overcome- as occupation cannot de-occupy- in conclusion - what was not performed here, what was not recorded here- was noise qua – noise, unheard. Not heard. Not herd. The self removal of the artist- what if Christ didn’t turn up to the crucifixion? (jliat)

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improkup_001.ogg	287.6 MB
improkup_002.ogg	244.3 MB
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