https://electricgecko.de/ Version VI 6.8 2004 — 2018
Persönliche Website von Malte Müller. Grafik/Code,
Free Agent. W.A.F. Operations.

electricgecko

Texte über Musik, Raum, Gestaltung und Kunst. Fotos.

8320

Black Peace

https://electricgecko.de/2018/black-peace

The specific peace that exists within Ryoji Ikeda’s installations must be described as a black peace (borrowing the term from Ikeda’s aethetic contemporary, Byetone). It evokes a specific type of calm that can only exist in a situation of being overwhelmed, awash with data and scale, in a moment of incomprehension. This is Ikeda’s foundation: Confronting recipients of his work with scales and semantics that are incongruent with the human perceptive systems, following and focusing the data permeating every situation and every place, unbeknownst and unperceived by the human subjects of such situations. In this way, Ryoji Ikeda’s work must be likened to the sublime, to moments on mountaintops, in deep forests and on beach cliffs. It evokes a realization of insignificance01, of belonging to the universe. With this comes peace, a warm feeling of being oneself and one with all, a black peace.

(Auf den Treppen im Foyer des Eye, nach Ryoki Ikeda im Oktober 2018.)

  1. Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically teaches viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitation on our will, that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves., Alain de Botton – The Art of Travel (2002), p.169↩︎
8273

Your Future Selves

https://electricgecko.de/2018/your-future-selves

Ghostly International hat sich schon immer wie ein Resultat des Internet angefühlt, des frühen, eigensinnigen Internets. Eines Ökosystems, das ein Label wie dieses ermöglicht hat – weniger basierend auf dem Einverständnis über ein Genre als auf einem neuen, diffusen Gefühl von Gemeinschaft. Transcending its record label roots to sell an ethos, wie die Times einmal schrieb, and an emotional state of upbeat world-weariness, möchte man hinzufügen.

Es gab stets eine Gleichberechtigung zwischen Releases, den Artworks (und tatsächlich, Desktop-Hintergründen) von Michael Cina, der bisweilen arg verstolperten Floormusik auf Spectral, den Stickern und all dem Material drumherum. Seit den mittleren Zweitausendern ist Ghostly Quelle einer spezifischen Art von Moodyness, eine Welt, in der nichts okay, aber das unmittelbare Hier und Jetzt erträglich ist, voller verwaschener Beats und im Sommergegenlicht verebbender Reverbs.

Für mich hat es immer eine spezifische Stimmung gebraucht, um derartige Wärme aushalten zu können. Aber im richtigen Licht, in der richtigen Situation kann eigentlich nur ein Ghostly-Release gehört werden01.

Ihre größte Konzentration fand diese Stimmung für mich stets in den seltenen Releases von Heathered Pearls02. Stark texturierte, maximal warme, weiche und tiefe Musik ist das, wie Schlaf am Strand, und nicht ohne dessen Düsternis der Natur und des fern drohenden Wetterumschwungs.

Ich werde mir den Sommer dieses Jahres schwer ohne den Amerikas Cities Remix von Under the Bridge vorstellen können. Weil dieser Track gleichsam zu Hause war, in all der Sonne und all der Dunkelheit dieses Sommers, in den Versuchen, neue Lösungen für die gleichen Probleme zu finden. Am 10. September notierte ich in einem Wagon der Hanzōmon-Line:

Fort Romeau’s Remix of Under the Bridge by Heathered Pearls may well be the track of this year, a requirement of the here and now. Its continuous media-sampled stream of consciousness encompasses everything to be depressed about, its pure expansive, sprawling, mellow softness describes everything to be hopeful for. In its very fabric, this track encompasses the hope, power and promise of music. To find and connect every person able and willing to perceive, to think and to feel.
  1. Früher, sehr häufig: die opulente 2×12″-Edition von Glider, von The Sight Below.↩︎
  2. Also Jakub Alexander, der als Musikautor bei Iso50 (das erfreulicherweise weiterhin existiert und weiterhin aussieht wie in 2007), für den Teil meiner Musiksozialisation verantwortlich ist, die abseits von Wavegitarren und der in Hamburg vorgefundenen Floormusik stattfand.↩︎
8240

Psychological Transit Notes, Across Japan

https://electricgecko.de/2018/psychological-transit-notes-japan

There was one of the perfect silences in the 100-Meter Gallery of Odawara Art Foundation. You know, the considered kind that includes a faint hum of air condition running at its lowest setting. There was no movement of air. This is what can be learned from the Japanese: Silence. The silence of deferring to the dao of all things, while doing what has to be done by playing one’s part, elegantly. The silence of recognizing each thing’s and each being’s part. The silence of doing nothing when all is done.

Watching the slim, immaculate fingers of the JR East clerk fly over a landscape of unlabeled, but color-coded hardware keys, each press producing the kind of satisfying mechanical click keyboard afficionados have been paying substantial sums for, I wonder whether his fingertips have already flipped open to reveal a set of spidery steel rods, inputting data with superhuman speed and precision. The clerk is wearing a short-sleeved grey button down, embroidered with the vaguely brutalist JR logo. His physiogonomy, attention and complete being could not be more focused. Around him, an assortment of laminated scraps of paper, highlighted katakana phrases, flyers and maps is taped into a Monet-esque array of tranquil color. The dynamic silence of faint office sounds surrounds us.

Everything is permanently going down. The only thing left for us to care about is how we and every thing goes down. This is why leaving small stone mounds along the hiking trail matters. This is why making good rice bowls matters. This is why optimizing your CSS grid matters. Matters of grace are actually this: matter. It’s in defiance of the universe that we apply attention and care to small things. It’s a gesture, and gestures are all we have. Put care and love into every move, in defiance of your insignificance. Create matter by claiming it emphatically and carefully. (On mossy rocks halfway between Hongu-Taisha and Yunomine-Onsen)

You look so grim, Craig said.

8248
Wakayama
8225

Psychological Bar Reviews (4)

https://electricgecko.de/2018/psychological-bar-reviews-4

Everybody and everything at Schuhmann’s Tagesbar appears to make an effort to contribute to a specific script, emulating mid-century day-drinking and one of the later iterations of the Leisure Suit Larry series of computer games at the same time.

Regulars line the bar on stools upholstered in oxblood leather, having crémants and trying to coax nightlife credibility out of the well-informed and strategically tattooed bar staff. The latter communicates like a disciplined sports team – orders are shouted across the room in shorthand language, matching requested drinks with staff members closest to the required appliance or bottle.

There is a short moment of silence, slightly moving air and long gazes. A party of three enters, surveying the establishment, a shaggy dog in tow. A short tour of the sparsely populated interior seems to end inconclusive and unsatisfactory: „There is no place for us here“, one declares as the group exits stage left.

The same moment, two women in sand-colored robes enter, their faces veiled. Nonetheless, they are recognized and treated to the usual: two slices of apple pie and two iced chocolates.

Underneath it all, faint bossa and tropicana muzak is heard and immediately forgotten, evaporating over ruby-colored drinks and a dazzle of miniature canapés, all traces of crust surgically removed from soft toast slices. Time slows in the most pleasant way.

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