posted
  • place: Barcelona, Spain

re: When the city

My friend,

I am listening to your writing —-

Words abbreviate experience

Language = fable

Impossible to say what Jules feels in her moments

Impossible to say what Dona feels in her moments

( does suffering have depth surface . . . space scale dimension ??? )

Anger
a limit a barricade against . . . .
what we cannot name
what we cannot touch see hear say

Indeterminacy

Catastrophe
Loss
cannot name it
. . . . there is no [ it ] to name

Presence
Experience

To love and to heal

To cry and embrace

I remember now what you wrote to me —-

Zen is a parlour game . . . .

Psyche — a name — a figure in a fable
Psychology — a game

Talkers talk about experience

= as if = it were a pack of cards

= Let us put them all in order =

= Politease and Polissee =

the Old Deal the New Deal the Fair Deal the New Frontier the Big Deal . . .
.

Fortune telling —

Cards

More cards — a game

Cartographers masque control and colour the scene

Decor —

Comforting reassuring

Alice In Wonderland = a pack of cards

what i need = is other than luck = is other than fortune telling

maite sends you greetings

i miss your presence

love to you

a

_____________________________________________________________________
_ _

posted
  • place: Glade Park, Colorado

Day 1 – Hawk Moon Ridge

Heavy storm beginning in late afternoon, continuing with an especially heavy downpour. To clean out the 40-gallon garbage cans and to collect some water for augmenting the supply for the plants most proximal to the house, I move them under the down spouts. they fill in moments. 500 gallons could be collected in no time. water. Prior to the storm, everything feels dry. very dry. This storm certainly lowers the fire risk significantly for at least a short time. It’s ‘monsoon’ season now, so the storms may come every day. Between waves of rain, a flock of birds, some kind of jay, comes: it’s piñon pine nut time so they pass through, busily pecking at the downed pine cones. This morning before dawn when running the perimeter of the canyon with Luna, I disturb hundreds of them roosting along the ridge crest in the trees.

After two months of intense human contact in mostly urban regimes, finally arriving at Hawk Moon Ridge is a treat for the senses. Much work to be done — primarily digesting of all the intense encounters and their potential for future engagement. that, along with a number of texts to continue preparing, editing of several new audio works, correspondance, and retroactively adding to this blog which has gotten rather thin on content since early spring.

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

Nordic Nazi recollections

Hitler’s worldview included copious referencing of Nordic creation mythologies (thus his love of Wagner!). One consequence of this obsession was the emergence of strong pro-Nazi movements leading up to, through, and most disturbingly, after WWII in all the Nordic/Scandic countries (Nordic countries comprise all the Scandinavian countries (Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark), plus Finland). Some Icelanders eagerly supported these Nazi ideologies — documented in black-and-white images of uniformed goose-stepping rubes on parade in downtown Reykjavík before the 1940 British occupation, and the refusal of Icelandic authorities to allow African-American soldiers into the country during the later US occupation. These warped sympathies have persisted right up to the present time: a fact that was brought to my attention by a sequence of articles published in Iceland’s main national newspaper, Morgunbladið, back in the early 1990’s when I had recently immigrated to Reykjavík to take up residence with my future ex-wife, an Icelandic psychologist who I had met in Germany a few years previous. The current events in Norway bring all this back to mind, again… more “Nordic Nazi recollections”

posted

ant(s)

Latour’s network(s) of relations (in ANT) are complexifying descriptors for a multiplicity of flows where each actor in the network are the origin and recipient of various flows. Or, they are merely the nodal locales of concentrated flow (as conscripted by the social structures). Again, back to the observation that the structure of the social is the prescription that forces flows into rarefied and concentrated zones or pathways. Each attenuation (measured in relief to a ‘natural’ background flow) becomes an actor in full, constant, and distributed relation to at least some other points in the field. The theory, the image of a multiplicity of flows, taken to a near-infinite limit, a beyond-multiplicity, an infinity of nodes would then approximate “reality.” If the network is functioning properly — that is, constructing a plausible account of real social systems — the network will be “an expression to check how much energy, movement and specificity our own reports are able to capture.” (Latour) Those reports, though, are always reductive and incomplete. A map locating the nodes and noting the flows across each one is not the lived territory in time, nor does it accurately express the character of the flows, which in the end are more important than the nodal points.

Is this blog a report? If so, the question becomes how it might more accurately invoke the territory of inquiry. [indeterminacy, trans-disciplinary (discipline being “mortification by scourging oneself”, yikes!), without genesis or terminus, and sampling as many strands of lived-impression (not just screen-mediated living) as possible.]

If network is an accurate description of a situation then a consideration of the order that the network imposes on the situation is called for. Network and order, (including Latour’s actor-network) is about the application of a decodable order applied to a diversity of actors within the object of study. It implies reduction, though hints at an ever-expanding point-of-view. It is couched in language (report, correspondance, academic paper, speech, communications) which is problematic, but this limit is applied to practically anything social. Order is rooted in the negentropic tendencies of life in opposition to the entropic character of all non-life. (Depends — is an accretionary disk of stellar matter, through gravity, rising as anisotropic presence of order as the star forms negentropic, or not — is there any fundamental (ordered) difference between varying (relative and Cartesian) densities of energized matter?) The biggest problem with most current usages of network is that very often the nodes are well-defined (to a fault), as are the geometries of connection, but not so much the qualities of the flows between. I’ll have to pay attention to that lack as I troll the literature. There is the (network) engineering efficiency approach which examines the issues around signal transmission and reception including power usage and signal/noise ratios — which are inextricably linked to amplification issues.. But the efficiency is determined after the fact of the signal being strictly defined by existing protocols.

ack! my usage plunges into a cesspool. the Jekyll and Hyde of free-style and efficient. faggeddabouddit!

posted
  • place: Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany

blackbird sings

Nan’s funeral in Charlottenburg. I see a number of people that I have not seen in some time. Kathy Rae is there from Manchester, and Sandro, one of the students who came to Iceland all those years ago.

The funeral is moving, standing room only. In the room with the casket, a video tape interview with Nan running silently, along with a projection of one of her Light-water videos. Flowers, candles. Friends in black. Stories from a few folks.

After the service, Sandro mentions that he has a photograph from the Iceland trip, which he then pulls from an envelope. I am moved when I see that it is one of my postcards that I sent him after the trip. I think I sent each of the students that I had addresses for a copy, if I remember right. I immediately notice that it is on resin-coated paper, ach, but that was a time when I could use nothing else as I had only the college lab which could hardly be called a lab even. I worked with what I had. He said he would send me a high-rez scan of it. It underlines that old idea I had to gather up all the postcards that I have ever sent and put on an exhibition. What fun that would be. Especially if each of the people would attend the show.

It is very nice to let memories of Nan float up, especially her work which is essentially about Light. And her presence as a mentor, teacher, friend, her art. generosity. And the community she supported.

And memories of her Armani suit and her fondness for good cognac.

Avalon from Roxy Music plays in one interlude. and I make this small tribute — blackbird sings…

(00:10:13, stereo audio, 19.6 mb)

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

archive fires

The destruction of the correspondance, print, and book archive begins. Too many things to carry onward: it’s all been lugged for thousands of kilometers across the US and Europe. Not much to show from it either. Enough is enough. So, better to heat the house with same. Pounds and pounds of stuff that can no longer be sustained with a cyborg’s spine.

An autopoietic machine is a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components which: (i) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and (ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network.
…
The space defined by an autopoietic system is self-contained and cannot be described by using dimensions that define another space. When we refer to our interactions with a concrete autopoietic system, however, we project this system on the space of our manipulations and make a description of this projection. — H. Maturana & F. Varela, 1980

posted

postcards

I am an active node in the Mail Art Network—since around 1984—and also a nomadic network node via the Internet since 1992. The world-wide post- or mail-art network is a rich forum for expression that, despite it’s institutionalization in recent years (and now, what with the Death of the so-called Father of MailArt, Ray Johnson, this trend will probably accelerate), it remains a vital, anarchic, and complex entity. I stumbled onto this ethereal network of beings by accident, but basically as a direct outgrowth of my love of sending and receiving post (a tendency rooted in the dislocations of familial life).

I can still recall the enjoyment I got from sending out requests for information to almost every address listed in the original Whole Earth Catalog! This postal-fascination started with my father’s, and subsequently my own interest in stamp collecting. Seen, the microscopic evidences of an exotic culture showed up magically each day. The local postmaster, Mr. King, lived in a big house in the middle of huge fields of daffodils—the remains of a nursery that also provided our lawn with these spurts of white and yellow flowers as the earliest manifestation of springtime. Trips to the post office, next to the small General Store, had the character of entering a known space that contained a portal to all other spaces, exotic and otherwise. A space-time enfolding that revealed the nature of the universe to a child. more “postcards”

posted
  • place: online and Boulder, Colorado

get-carded and War-No! online

stress/migraine, get-carded online, December 2002, [online and Boulder, Colorado]

Trebor initiates an online anti-war project that I contribute three cards for [ed: the project link is long-dead; the project did not out-last the war]:

Dear Manifestors,

I work collaboratively and individually across, often merging disciplines and teach critical net cultures at the Department of Media Study at the State University New York at Buffalo.

I am part of get-carded.net, an activist e.card site. So far 70 students, artists, educators, and activists contributed to its first initiative opposing the war in Iraq — “War No!” On the site you can add your own cards as well as send those by others. The goal of the site is in particular to involve high school students in expressing their politics.

“Get Carded” is an art activist e.card site that allows open submission. The site launches with anti-war cards by 80 artists. https://get-carded.net

Trebor Scholz

posted

ThirdWorld Internet Express

Prescott, Arizona 13 April 2001-04-13

ThirdWorld Internet Express
Dept 255
Denver, Colorado 80271-0255

To whom it may concern:

Enclosed is a final payment for service on the account that I cancelled as of 31 March 2001. The statement I received for 01 Jan – 31 March was incorrect in that it had the amount of 19.95 for March which I was not apprised of before 10 March. I have enclosed a check for USD 15 to cover January – March at the rate of USD 5/month that I was on for the preceeding five years.

I cancelled the account 1) you unilaterally raised my rates by 400% for the month of March (something you happened to mention in an email dated 10 March), and 2) you seemed unable since the middle of last year to deal with the direct debit billing procedure that we used for the preceeding 6 years of service.

Sorry to say it, but I think your customer relations have gone to hell, and I understand it is a result of take-overs and employees not being treated well. And when that happens, the customer gets treated poorly, and in my case, after being a customer all this time, I had to say forget it!

John Hopkins

posted
  • place: Trondheim, Norway

Iteration One: Research Plan for Doctoral Studies at UIAH/TAIK

BACKGROUND

It is first pertinent to precede the research plan with a brief overview of my rather eclectic background.

My own relationship with technology was deeply influenced by my father who worked in various capacities for the US government and MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory as a telecommunications expert, operations analyst, and engineer. It received a firm grounding during a rigorous applied education in Geophysical Engineering with a specialization in Potential Fields Methods (Time-Domain Electromagnetics, Gravity, and Magnetics) at the top school in the world for that particular specialty. An unsatisfactory career as an international explorationist for a multinational oil company ended with my decision to pursue photography, a long-time personal avocation. After becoming a Master Printer (in black&white photography) in NYC and working in several professional photographic positions there, I returned to school and studied, notably, with the experimental film-maker Stan Brakhage. It was during these studies, concluding with an MFA in Photography/Video/Film that I began teaching and spending a significant amount of time in Europe, where I was frequently exhibiting my photographic work in Germany and France. I subsequently relocated to Reykjavík, Iceland where I started up a modest Photography and New Media program for students at the Icelandic College of Art. Since 1995 I have been working as a nomadic artist and free-lance educator teaching a range of workshops in 12 countries that orbit around the issues of networked computing, technology, creativity, dialogue, and personal activism. more “Iteration One: Research Plan for Doctoral Studies at UIAH/TAIK”

posted
  • place: Linz, Austria

Latin 5

lethargic and slow snow falls, something like I imagine the fallout from a nuclear winter, ashes, ashes, we all fall down …

Manus manum lavat. (One hand washes the other)

Thom quotes that to me, and it brings back the memory of high school with Mr. Crawford, the Latin teacher. who used to entertain us by tuning a little am radio to the same frequency as his heart pacemaker and his whole ancient body would start jiggling. this was 20 years before Stelarc ever considered the body-as-machine-the-machine-as-body. Mr. C. is dead, surely, now, his body gone. later that day, lazing around, writing correspondance et al. Christa is playing the piano in the living room. Thom and I end up deciding that I should visit his class tomorrow in the Institute of Computer Sciences at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz.

posted
  • place: Lahti, Finland

Lahti

Lahti is the sister city of Akureyri in Iceland, although it is several times larger in population. It sits on a lake (as do most (all?) cities, towns, and villages in Finland), and claims to be a Business Center in the country. It is also known for its ski jumping towers. The morning and evening are spent taking care of paperwork, correspondance, and some planning for the course here, as well as settling into my room which is actually in the school building itself, right across from the main office. I will be here for four weeks — almost the entire month of February — not counting weekend forays into Helsinki to visit friends, network, and shop (hah!). I write to Kate in Ann Arbor:

sotto voce: Much has gone down, much goes down, and much will be going down, until all is down, dirty, and done, then all will rise, not for the judge, but for the Judgment of what has gone down before the time arrives for it to be judged. like, something strikes the FAN. and other things are simply passed over. the good, the bad, and that which is neither — the contents of time-bound life and living.

When I arrive in Lahti last night, I am met by two Spanish exchange students who find a cab to take me to the school. They were waiting for a compatriot to arrive, but he is apparently delayed at the airport and was not on the same bus as I. All this reminds me of the incredible opportunities young people who are studying have in Europe at the moment. One wonders where the constant exchanging of these intelligent adventurers will lead in a Europe that has seen few decades of peace in its entire history. Most of the art academies have a transient population that is steady at 15-20 percent of the student body, and a majority of students will take studies for at least a half-year at another institution before graduating. The ERASMUS and NORDPlus consortium exchange programs include students all across greater Europe, and frequently institutions have multiple contacts on every continent. This mixing forms strong and intimate bonds across cultural borders — something I have been a proponent of for years. In my class I will have four Spaniards, a Belgian, and six Finns. Nice. I have a theory that email and these exchange programs will have a fundamental effect on the cultural life of Europe. Not only do the students have the opportunity to make contacts, but they have the tool to maintain dynamic collaborative situations. This also has the effect of leveling regional cultural differences, but allows for new forms and identities to arise. It turns out that my old friend Terhi is actually attending school at the Institute, and she is here when I arrive — it is a very pleasant surprise, as I had not heard from her for a few months since we worked together on net.sauna at Ars Electronica last September. She is working towards a continuing education BA diploma after some years of not studying. In the frigid temperatures, after a quick tour of the whole school, we head to the closest bar that serves Guinness. Back in, Finland! This time in winter. Full winter, though not as dark at all as expected, guess that was lived out between Arizona and Iceland. During the last few days I have had several instants where I will shift into a state of concentration and observations begin to flow. I am hoping to harness these energies in the next days to begin, well, to continue work on something of substance here.

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

drugs

Okay, my mother insists that I go to her regular doctor for a checkup. I have been resisting this with visions of hundreds of dollars flying out the window for nothing, as well as getting the bad news that I have a condition demanding surgery. Then what? So. I end up going. The doctor is rather nice, and checks me out, reassuring me that it is nothing too serious, gives me some anti-inflammatory drugs (plenty of free samples), a sheet of exercises to do for the lower back, a bill for only $35.00, and sends me on my way much relieved that, indeed, I am not about to die or become cripple for life. He says about the pain: Live with it. Okay, I can handle that. And treat it with some stretching exercises, careful choices of what furniture to move, and what chairs to sit in when doing computer work. I find it funny that I can be so reassured by a simple visit to a doctor. Especially when, in the US, I don’t have so much expectations or even high regard for the general profession. Of course, I don’t condemn all doctors, as they are certainly victims in the whole health care system as much as patients. It really is a mess, the system, between the malpractice suits, the insurance companies, and the uninsured 30% of the population. Wow. When visiting with a doctor in the US, I am always bring up the fact that I have been living in Scandinavia for some years and try to get a response from the doctor regarding socialized medicine, but here I get little response. Sadly, I think doctors in the US are often pawns in a ‘market’ system that is run by insurance companies and lawyers. Anyway. I feel much better today, and even go into work this afternoon to talk with Mickey and Hope about a business plan and some technical details on the server architecture. I guess by now I am the Webmaster for LANKaster Online — and, although I readily admit I am a crummy designer, I do have a good sense of organization, and that will be beneficial for their business as they edge their way out of hardware support and into software and internet- and Web-related services. I come home and spend the evening typing on a whole series of things, letters, email correspondance, papers, this web space, the LANkaster web site, seems like life really revolves around this little machine! Can’t get away! Now to make a little money with it…

Relafen (nabumetone) is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that exhibits anti-inflammatory properties in pharmacologic studies. As with other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents, its mode of action is not known. However, the ability to inhibit prostaglandin synthesis may be involved in the anti-inflammatory effect. The parent compound is a prodrug, which undergoes hepatic biotransformation to the active component 6-methyl-2-naphthylacetic acid (6MNA), that is a potent inhibitor of prostaglandin synthesis.

And so it goes.

posted
  • place: Suomenlinna, Helsinki, Finland

Manifestations of Networking

self-portrait at Selatangar on the Summer Solstice, Árnessýsla, Iceland, June 1995
Published in Valokuva: Contemporary Imagery Review/Journal of Finnish Photography, vol. 46 number 5, Helsinki, Finland, October 1996

As a basic tenet of existence, I intentionally seek to inhabit all spaces that I encounter as personal spaces of genuine dialogue and interaction — humane intervention based in a mutual recognition and engagement of the Other.

I have always approached technology from a passively critical point-of-view. As the son of a technology analyst and forecaster, technology was introduced into my life from the very beginning of awareness. Machines were not only a means of control and extension of control but also of remote sensing — an extension of the sensual capabilities of the organic body. more “Manifestations of Networking”

posted
  • place: Newton, New Jersey

printing

Days flicker past again. I am caught up, first in simply enjoying time with friends, and now, back to printing. For the first serious time in almost three years. I will spend the next week printing up some new works, developing film from the past six months, and contact printing two years worth of negatives. Of course, in a week, I can hardly make a dent in the quantity of prints I would like to make … Last night I developed twelve rolls of film, today I made about 100 proof prints, postcard-sized of that material, so that at least my postcard stock in replenished. Tomorrow I will do contact printing, and then later I will make prints for a number of people.

posted
  • place: Akureyri, Iceland

burp!

My entries here have become fragmented, aimless, and discontinuous. I am self-conscious about this development. Not really thinking most of the time that anyone is really reading this long, boring text. But occasionally I wonder about the whole concept, why am I doing this? The writing here, for those who know me through correspondance (that word spelled that way always now, in memory of Ray Johnson) know that this writing is stilted, formalized, and rather lifeless compared with live interaction. I never did develop a healthy style, more just have written under a conglomeration of influences from Henry Miller to J-M. G. LeClezio among others, and all that previous knowledge completely corrupted by living in a second language situation for the past seven years now … A day of blustery rain showers in between pulses of brilliant sunshine. The storms roll off the mountains where there are clusters of ragged clouds (Loki calls them cloud hats). They sail quickly across the fjord, leaving gray curtains that slowly break into triple rainbows. The storms here are silent save for the wind and rain. There is no lightning or thunder — both these phenomena are extremely rare in Iceland, although Thor was well known for the loud blows of his magic hammer, Mjolnir. In the six years I lived here, I heard two crashes of thunder and saw possibly one strike of lightning. Today, time is seen linear and spatial in the voluminous skies — every moment there are different displays of Light inter-playing with the greening and white mountains, the cool blue Arctic sky, and the shading masses of condensate that spin tones of Light in all variations. We swim under this play. Enjoying the changes. It probably doesn’t get over 55F. Nothing new. But, despite temperatures which never satisfy the needs of my warm blood, I like being under water in a swimming pool when the sun shines. I teach Loki how to catch this underwater Light in his hands. appended on an email from Joy…

… For I have known them all already, known them all; Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. — excerpt, T.S. Eliot

There is a German cruise liner in the fjord off the pier that has loosed a number of its lifeboats to putter around, apparently letting the passengers fish. The harbor will be host to something like 38 cruise liners during the summer tourist season this year, more than ever before. The tourist board promotes the country more and more each year — I think around 300,000 tourists come now in the three summer months. The absolute number isn’t great, but given the size of the country and the fragility of the environment, well, it seems the main tourist spectacles are becoming run down, worn out.

My mother is just out of the hospital and calls from Arizona. In a rare two-way phone conversation, Loki actually talks to her. Usually he is too shy. She is feeling quite good.

posted
  • place: Akureyri, Iceland

balances

The days here vibrate with a frequency that invades the soul. It is almost the Solstice. The nights are signified only by subtle changes in the color of the clouds, and of course, the changing azimuth of the sun. Local time here is Greenwich Mean Time, but the actual position of Iceland on the globe is approximately 1-1/2 hours to the west. Because of this, high noon, defined as the time when the sun is at the highest angle above the horizon, comes at approximately 1330. And so, at 0130, or astronomical midnight, the sun is at its lowest point, which, now, is just grazing the sea direct to the north. It is the Arctic sun. It vibrates, a high-pitched squeal. Vibrations that invade the soul, not leaving it until this night Light is extinguished from memory towards the winter Solstice. So, the days — the times when Loki is awake — are still filled with swimming, playing with rocks by the rivers or ocean, hiking in the mountains, eating ice cream. When he sleeps I work pretty hard on network things — this web site, email and snail-mail correspondance with folks, proposals for teaching work for next school year, and wondering how I will survive financially. I found out my bank balance in the US was U$D18, so I had to transfer most of what I had left here to the US except for enough to survive on for the next ten days and to pay for the bus to the airport in Keflavík and then from Kennedy airport to Stefan’s place in Manhattan, I guess. Shit way to live. Beginning to wear out my welcome maybe, too. I mean, I am wealthy for all the friends who have shown incredible generosity and hospitality on this long impositional road I have been on, but I am lame at organizing the fiscal side of life.

posted
  • place: Pori, Finland

Jim’s dinner

This day is spent writing, from early morning into early evening. I never even venture outside, content instead to look out the kitchen windows and experience outside that way, from the warmth. Plenty of email correspondance to take care of (at the Digital Chaos event in Bath I will do a dinner performance, among a few tens of other things to deal with). Anna comes over for dinner — I had wanted to give her some contact addresses in the US and talk a little more about her trip — we plan to meet in NYC the first week of July. Yet again Jim prepares a superb dinner — lamb, salad, potatoes, a nice Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvignon, coffee, and Belgian chocolate. I indulge myself and show the three of them parts of this web site, which, I nervously note, is expanding daily. I wonder when I will get in trouble with the ismennt sysop or server controller? Anyway. I continue.

I think when one is too involved in making strict rules about what is right and what is wrong, or this is art and this is not: when a wall gets set up, one is cutting out a lot of interesting experiences, maybe some important parts of ones self. Then if you realize that this or that prohibition doesn’t have to exist, you suddenly discover another dimension to your life. In a way this relates to how we must learn to live together in the world. — Geoffrey Hendricks

posted
  • place: Rösrath, Germany

catharsis

The past few days have been spent around Köln and in Rösrath with Volker, an old friend from Avantière days in Aachen in 1990. I had just made a rather long entry here, but inadvertently erased it. Hmmm. Talking about the fragments of dreams, and the paradox of travel. I shall try to reconstruct it for the moment… Chris sent email from Colorado, following his return from a mountaineering trip in the Alps. He suggested that travel is a catharsis.

sotto voce: Catharsis, I dunno. Travel, well, I am oscillating between various poles on this travel now. Maybe I always have. But it does disturb me to look back and see that I have been doing this style/level of travel for over a decade, now up to 14 years! Wow. So, I am a bit critical, though at the same time, enjoying the momentary things, the various human contacts, the seeing of things, the times on the train when I can think and meditate, the conversations, and some slowly building confidence that this IS a way of doing, going, that holds some power and possibility, as opposed to what I see as a rather cumbersome and profane (too strong a word) process of making more objects to fill the material world. It does seem to me that a lessening of mediation, a reduction of mediation between peoples is the direction that one needs to move. And even with that said, I see direct in my own life that the way I have chosen — travel — mediates my contact with the Other, reducing it to a transitory melding. Maybe this is a metaphor for the larger scope of life … How people and situations pass away, forever. Maybe it is just life. period. Catharsis, yeah.

Yes, so it goes. I spend today and most of yesterday dealing with correspondance — email, snail-mail and so on. I got a package of post forwarded to Volker’s NetArt box here by my sister, Janet, who checks my post box in Prescott, Arizona. Good to see things like job application rejects and the like, eh? And my bank statement which reads a shrinking balance each month … Being on the road like this keeps me on edge for better or worse.

They shall not tame him. — The Lion of Flanders, Hendrick Conscience

The dream of building a house in Crestone, Colorado is no closer to reality than last year, although I do collect fragments of ideas and things to think about in the design. Of course, one of the primary things is simply to have a place with enough rooms that it will comfortably house a good number of folks who will surely visit me there in that beautiful place. Any suggestions?

posted
  • place: en route Aachen - Köln, Germany

Jonas Kári

Took an early train from Aachen to Köln after breakfast with Günter. I had made plans to meet Volker at the Köln Hauptbahnhof (rail station) at 11:00 so that we could then meet with Renate Goldmann in a café for lunch. We stopped by at Peter and Kirsten’s long enough to say hallo and for me to drop my backpack, and headed over to the café. I had never met Renate before, but had been in correspondance with her on account of the networking project Corps Exquis initiated by Martin Mlecko last year. The discussion circulated around some of the ideological problems related to this form of art medium called Electronic or Digital. We were joined by Ira Bartell, an American living in Köln who, PowerBook in hand, gave me contact information with the local internet access company Digital Online Media. He has been working on a rather interesting web project that he showed us. however it isn’t online, so… After a brief walk in the park near the Asiatische Museum, Volker drove me back over to Peter and Kersten’s place. I haven’t seen them since their visit to Iceland in the summer of 1993 when we all piled into our Lada Sport 4×4 — Magga, Loki, Peter, Kersten, and I — and car camped for some weeks. They have a little boy now, Jonas Kári, who is at the moment trying to type on this very machine.

posted
  • place: Reykjavík, Iceland

Letters from Ice Land

Letters from Ice Land (to azega):

So I get your “real world” postcards from Tejas. Messages from a place that is as far-distant from here as anywhere or so. But everywhere is far-distant from here now, at this time of howling, this time of chill bones, of blank darkness that is brimming with these un-things, of deep blue daytimes, of one foot in dreams of sleep and one foot in dreams of waking. And that is that. The time has arrived, the Time is Here, nowhere else is there a spare moment, even a second, where the eye rolls up into the head in concentrated thought, in the time it takes to believe something. All that is here is now, nothing, nowhere else. So it goes. I say it meself. I say it to meself, cause there ain’t nothin’ outside of this hereness. So no one to Say to, anything. Yup.

Þriðjudagur, 13 Desember 1994, Reykjavík

The Solstice a week off still. No telling what will happen before that. No telling.

Brain-box is shape-shifting

Are you photographing? Are you loving another? Surely you are writing? All this in the Toooorino? I can’t imagine, though she was moving just on 18 months ago or so.

I have immersed self in doing things. Mostly stupid things, things that further attach me to more things. And the only thing I do is Talk to people. Talk. Conversations. I have never had a worry about this until recently, when I discover there is a concrete difference between talking about and doing. Strange how that works. I’m still 36, I think, maybe I am more. TickTock.

Þriðjudagur, 20 Desember 1994

Hours to the Solstice, moon just lately Full. Remarkable energies flow around, but I ain’t so much attached to the bulk of ’em. Survival. Sunrise (I look for it, and blessedly it has been quite clear this month) is happening well after 11 and sunset well before three. Maximum height is three degrees off the horizon. TRAVERSE NO ZENITH!

I have some understandings, and some other ways of thinking, but there is only a little freedom undertake such extravagant activities. Now I get a postcard from the Rim. Which is different from the edge, the Rim signifies significances and a certain tangible danger. I wonder if you are traveling alone, I think so, but wonder at such a long lonely road. I would rather think of you travelling with Kate, but she is immersed in Grad School now, to get out in the Spring. As it goes.

Sunnudagur, 1 Janúar 1995

Yes. the New Year is here and there, everywhere, now, the International date line has been reached long ago.

Words are trim and effluent, brought into being with effort and

You are in movement. I have been here in Iceland for all except six days in the last 367. Amazing.

Föstudagur, 27 Janúar 1995

Sitting in a ten-hour screening of video work that I have previously screened at the US cultural Center here — a marathon for those who have missed any of the works.

I had just finished typing a few more paragraphs to you and the machine bombed out unexpectedly. Strange. Those words, about the precision of language and Kate and on, are gone. Forever. Digital insolence. So it goes. Save me, the digits plea. Save me. Anyway, here in the half-dark, I sit. Oh yes, here is Kate’s new address:

Kate G___
119 A___ Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan
48104
USA

She is finishing up her MA in Creative Writing in May or so, teaching now, and on to what knows. I’ve only heard from her a couple times in the past year, but she is interested in keeping connections open, or so I read in her language. And so on.

Yeah, Ezra was talking about precision in Language, and how not to be wasteful with it. So it goes. I realize in the past two years of correspondance, that I have been far from precise in things. Using too many derivatives of cliché and on. A result of a lack of concentration on the object/subject facing the moment, and on it goes. Moving into uncertain futures and with digital baggage beginning to tail into. So it goes.

Losing all precision there, I stop writing to try and regroup. Mind and disassimilated body. One eye on a video screen, butt killing me, radiating warmth of a crowded room.

An hour later. This is a marathon of images, most that I have seen for the third time, maybe more. The room is cooler now. The sun has definitely set. And the chill of the evening begins. I do not know what it looks like out there, but if it mattered anyway. Life goes on. Again. I am only chanting here. I always direct the words. Echos. What the fuck were you doing wandering around the West? I aim to get there for a period of thawing in the summer. Somewhere in the West. But I will have to get rid of much baggage and so on. I burn with the chill of 13 months here with hardly a break from this land. This Light, the sea surrounding. Ultima Thule. (I would be interested in your reactions to Snorri’s EDDA, check it out someday…)

But any leaving now must take into its maw the vast sadness of leaving Child. This beautiful Child who I make to cry by my hardness ever so often. Too often. All are Children, broken to tears by the weight of living in this world. Too much living in this world. Yeah. Leaving. Living with MB is only an exercise in less than being. Or Being less than.

And here I am six hours of video later, two more to go. Hacking away on this silly portable machine in the half-dark. Watching some alternative compilation that I just got in the post today — even including a Stan Brakhage piece, mostly current works from all sorts of folks. This puts a strange twist on things as they are juxtaposed with a WGBH special aired in 1969 with works by Paik among others. A strange similarity. Echoing through twenty-five years of ‘progress’. So it goes. Crazy where things go and don’t go. Yup.

Where is the Center and where is the Edge, the perimeter. (Where we get Stoned Immaculate?)

So it goes. Writing in the Dark. This is the marathon last day of my teaching here sorta, as I probably said before, but repetition is probably the surest simile to reality that can be. SO it goes, so IT goes. There and so on. I just write. In a void of photons falling on Phosphor. And air molecules vibrating on membranes. So it goes. Psychedelic, man.

Sunnudagur, 29 Janúar 1995

A couple days later. Still at this same machine, still reflecting on what needs no reflecting. Using mind to break big pieces into smaller pieces that can just be swallowed with a stretching gag of the thoughtful
throat. I remember the scum of a long-ago Dream, the words “Catching Spears with My Throat”. Pallas Athena was in the Dream, too.

I have lost hold of my dreams for now. But will regain something soon. When I am on to Finland.

Mánudagur, 30 Janúar 1995

Short additions, reflecting short living testimonies of being sorta.

Yep. Monday. to the dentist tomorra. Can’t wait. Root Canal work. Lovely. And then working with a guest student from Granada in Spain who speaks no inglés. Oboy. Everytime I think of something to say, it comes out Icelandic, just like my French. Oi!

Hey, there is a chance that MOMA Library will be taking a copy of the Xerox Book II. So, you’ll have work in MOMA. I got a pleasant letter from the Acting Director of the Library today, asking for a copy to review — evidently they are quite interested in the Mail Art scene — seems to be getting quite some attention these days anyway… So. I’ll let you know what happens. T’wood be a nice boot in the ass, an extra gold star on a work long since resigned to people’s shelves wherever or so.

Laugardagur, 4 Febrúar 1995

Heading out into the blizzard to a friends 40th birthday. Funny how those begin to come about. I forget where I turned 30. Probably in Peters Valley, maybe? I can’t remember anymore.

Saturday Night. Been out on the Net for some time. Collab work, communication from this rock in the North.

Had a job interview over the telly on Friday. An hour with two women faculty in a Jesuit school in Worcester, MA. But a place that needs building up. And what I need is a built-up place to get some work done. We’ll see.

So it goes.

Fimmtudagur, 16 Febrúar 1995

Flickers. The day up to eight ours long, though the sun is still very low even at noon. A woman student comes to me a couple days ago and asks to talk with me privately, she hems and haws, I know she has some feelings for me, as well as I know her to be quite sensitive a person. She hands me a laserprinted sheet of paper like this:

T
O
L
E
R
A
N
C
E

And says to me “this is why you came to Iceland — to get this, to find this, to somehow learn this.” And embarrassed sorta, leaves me holding this paper. She has been watching me carefully for some time. I have had some conversations with her, she has been in a number of my classes. I think she is in her mid/early 30’s. I wonder about this.

These are things that need attention, concentration, and focus. Three ways I have not been travelling upon much of late, if at all. I long to find some peace, some silence (with warmth) that would allow for some meditation. More than a few moments. With Child it is impossible, having to make a living makes it impossible.

I look to this upcoming trip to Helsinki for some wildness, but also some peace. As I will be staying with a bunch of prints in my friends studio, sleeping on the floor. I want to do a lecture titled “Material Intervention” relating the spirit to material and that history and reality of … I will have this machine with, because it holds my art, in a way.

Gotta think now. Gotta be. Gotta Live!

posted

Simulation of the Light of Van Gogh’s Madness

Reykjavík, 18 March 1993

President,
Fondation Vincent Van Gogh Arles
Palais de Luppe
26, Rond-Point des Arenes
13200 Arles FRANCE

Dear M./Mme. President;

Four years ago I wrote to propose a gift to the collection of the Fondation – a photographic work of mine that was conceived in Aries – but I did not received a reply.

I am writing again to propose the idea. I have a photographic work entitled “Simulation of the Light of Van Gogh’s Madness” that I would like to offer as a gift to the collection. The actual image is an archival silver print, sepia-toned, mounted on 100% archival museum board (40×50 cm), overmatted. It has been exhibited a number of times in Europe and the US.

I have enclosed a copy of a current resume and, as you will see, I just had a large exhibition (with catalog) at the Niepce Museum in Chalon, and my work is represented in a number of collections in Europe including the Bibliothéque Nationale. I take this contribution seriously – as an artist, Vincent’s intensive personal vision has been a certain influence on me, especially after spending time in Aries, – I would be honored to make this small contribution to his memory and to the Fondation.

I will be visiting Aries between 26-31 April, to see Alain Desvergnes and Louis Mesplé, and would like to present the work to the Fondation at that time.

Please contact me at FAX (354.1.623629) or the postal address below. I thank you for your attentions and consideration.

Cordially,

John Hopkins,
Chair, Department of Electronic Media and Photography
Holmgardi 24 108 Reykjavik Iceland Tel.354.1.34591

posted

Pósturinn

18.11.92
Reykjavík

To Whom it May Concern:

Regarding the recent postal rate increase, the following points should be considered as illustrations of the completely unreasonable position taken by the Postal Authorities:

The main changes that have lead to increases of up to 250% in some categories are the following:

The elimination of the category “Prent” which allowed the economic posting of printed material including, most importantly, books.

The elimination of the category “Smápakkar” which was the most economic rate for sending small gifts up to 2000 gm.

The elimination of the distinction between postal rates to Scandinavia and rates to greater Europe.

Where previously surface “bref” post went by air to all of Scandinavia and Europe, now there will be sea rates.

The rates that have increased most, then, relate to the combined impact of the first two changes with the third change. That is, for example:

Sending a 1000gm book to Norway by air previously cost ISK 325, the cost now is ISK 585, an increase of 80%!

Sending a 2000gm “smápakkar” to Finland by sea previously cost ISK 310, the cost now is ISK 570, an increase of 83%!

Other rates have increased accordingly, for example:

Sending a 2000gm “smápakkar” to the USA by sea previously cost ISK 310, the cost now is ISK 1100, an increase of 254%, the same for a 2000gm book would give the same effective rate increase of 254%!

Moreover:

“Innanlands” rates have increased up to 42%. (50gm +14%, 100gm +42%, 250gm +38%, 500gm +16%, 1000gm +5%, 2000gm +6%)

“Póstkort” air rates are up by 63% to the USA and and 16% to Europe.

By instituting the rate increase before Christmas without giving good warning, the immediate burden will fall upon citizens sending gifts to family and friends overseas. After that, the cost burden will begin to become clear for businesses and other organizations. This rate increase will have the effect of increasing inflationary costs throughout the economy with the primary burden on the ordinary citizen and those who are exporting books, the primary form of Icelandic culture, and other materials to fellow Scandinavians. The effect will be negative on the exchange of culture.

I believe my calculations are correct, but I suggest that you make your own calculations regarding the effect on your budget. I urge you to look closely into this problem and take effective action on behalf of the members of your organization.

Thank you,

John Hopkins
Professor, MHÍ.

posted

Performance Bicycle Shop

June 10, 1992
Reykjavík, Iceland

Performance Bicycle Shop
Customer Service
P.O. Box 2741
Chapel Hill, N.C. 27514

Dear Folks;

Unfortunately, this letter is not praising Performance products, although I have gotten good service from most of the variety of cycling equipment (and two bikes) that I purchased at your store (in Boulder) between 1988 and 1991 (to the tune of $1600). A Big Problem, though, with the 16″ Aspen that I purchased for my wife in the spring of 1989. Refering to the enclosed photographs, you will see that the frame has developed a transverse fracture below the lower water-bottle braze-on. My materials engineering education tells me that a fracture like this, in this location, develops from a material defect, as you will note the paint is not even cracked on one side of the fracture, and there is no accidental structural damage. Now, I would probably not even write to you if my wife was a thrash-out competitive rider doing intensive and extensive off-road riding and touring — I have seen frames fail (never like this or in this place, however…) under some extreme riding circumstances. On the contrary, I got her the bike in January of 1989, and since then the bike was used for two months that year, and in the following two years, it got about six months of thrice-weekly commuter use, and about a total of ten days of dirt-road day-tours. She is petite and a conservative rider (used to bike commuting in urban Germany). There is absolutely no riding that she has done to cause a material failure such as the one with this frame. The bike has not been in any accidents of any kind, nor has it been ridden by anyone but her (she weighs 105# if you want to know), nor has it been ridden with payloads over 15 pounds, nor has it had any modifications to the original design, it was transported by ship up here two years ago in its original packing with the rest of our household stuff. This fracture has only recently developed — since March as the bike was in winter storage in our garage and I did a complete inspection and tune-up then.

Another reason I am writing, just for your information is to say that I was going to have a friend who is visiting us from Boulder next month bring up a new bike for me — to replace my Nashbar Alpha MTB (which has given five problem-free years of almost daily heavy urban or off-road service). Needless to say, with this new development, that plan is canned for now.

I am an American living up here as an exchange teacher — if I was back in the States/Boulder, it would be an easy matter to get the bike to you. It is pretty frustrating, though, as it would cost a fortune for me to ship the bike all the way to North Carolina for repairs, not to mention import/export complications at this end. What can I do? I feel that despite the warranty running out that this is a pretty serious quality control failure. There are no repair shops with people experienced with this kind of problem. I am pretty disappointed about the whole thing — I was nervous about Taiwanese tubing, but the salesperson at the Boulder store insisted that the quality was as good as Japanese, at a lower cost — I see the results of that reasoning! We finally had the free time to go on a two-week road tour later this summer, thank goodness this did not wait for that, but now we have to totally change our plans. We are lucky that this was not a catastrophic failure during riding.

I would appreciate your timely response to this problem; thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

John Hopkins.
Hólmgardi 24
108 Reykjavík
Iceland
Tel.354.1.34591

posted

Ríkisútvarpið, innheimtudeild

31.3.92
Hólmgarði 24
108 Reykjavík
s.34591

Ríkisútvarpið, innheimtudeild
Efstaleiti 1
150 Reykjavík

Gentlemen;

When I first received a bill from you about a month ago, I had no idea what it was, and so, threw it away, thinking it was a lottery advertisement. A friend explained what the bill was for when I received the second one. However, I do not understand why I am being taxed for a service that I neither have used nor will use. I recall that someone from your office visited my apartment a number of months ago, asking if I had a television, which I do not and have not for ten years, I even invited them in to see for themselves (something I have found out that I am not required to do by law). Evidently they saw the stereo amplifier that I have. Yes, there is a radio in it, but the radio has not worked for a number of years, and even if it did, I am not interested in listening to public media. As my friend explained the law to me, this tax is imposed on those who use the service of radio/television as evidenced by them having radios and televisions. Since I have neither, the law exempts me from this tax.

I am a guest-professor here, and have lived here for a short time, renting the apartment that I live in. I would ask that you please correct your records, and if you are interested in inspecting my broken radio, please give me a call.

Thank you,

John Hopkins,
Professor of Photography.