from a contribution to aikun zine number 2, by 王汉丽 Regina Ho. Recording by her daughter 丫, April 2010.

なかなか整理できずに放ってあったかっぽう着の写真を、明日のセミナーのために少し整理しました。パソコンのディスプレイに小さく並んだかっぽう着が楽しくって…こうやって見ると色々作ったものです。

above: putting up the exhibition (photo by 高灵 Gao Ling); below: walking back after finishing the installation ｜ 上海 shanghai，2009年9月

i am sorry. time is everything.

cannot go there, too much or too little, traveling, hanging there, a collection, hanging on. i seem to have an affinity for stories of people getting lost, perhaps a bit too direct a reference yet were i to introduce myself to you as that one who liked to find this little thing in the street it perhaps would remain too ridiculously nebulous.

direct.

direction.

we would have been looking in the wrong direction to go astray, to find the beside. aside, as in put in reserve, for future use, the collection of objects for which we may find value or function at another time. we never know what will become useful in the end, or the lessons come too late, i feel the top of her head and wonder what positions i layed in as a child, what positions i moved in sleep, next to you or dreaming without you. we cannot always think so functionally, in love and in war. i don’t strategize very well. but we may very well have a hunch.

a hunch is an open space of time, a forethought without expectation, like a collection of random things for which we may find use later. i suppose it could be important to figure out how to make use of them, but perhaps their being together could be enough. find meaning beyond use value, a cabinet of curiousities, our collection of oddities.

that’s the thing i’ve been missing lately. to take time for my collection of oddities, to try to go back to a certain kind of objectivity without expecting too much. i have a hunch. perhaps i was looking in the wrong direction and now find myself lost, a story that i liked to hear, her voice in two languages on loop. it’s my own aside that is now addressed to you, without letting the other characters hear, a story shared without knowing if anyone is listening. you, dear audience member or director, the lights are shining so bright…i cannot see if you are out there.

Michael writes to H.F:  “We enjoy the space between being ‘in the know’ and simply being attentive to one’s social environment where the unexpected may occur, setting up an interaction that will provide a meaningful communication, ‘loading the decks’.”

It ends with a face in rain, or two, that washed away one after the other like passing faces in a party.

The next day, he sends me a message: “One day I will explain to you why things are so complicated.”

And then it becomes difficult to respond, silence an only recourse, uncovering to plot thickening. The loneliness amidst joyful crowds, like the stripping away of an impersonator who says, “I don’t know. I was born that way.”

People ask questions all the time to which we must answer, “I don’t know.” I can’t remember anymore which way it was when i was born, but somehow I always return to a letter read as a child, from an old woman. I read her as if I were her already, so confounded by the inexplicability of my thoughts, to the possibility of their being expressed. It seems now, in future, utterly impossible to answer any question asked of me. I find less and less the words to place the complexities of my feeling.

Perhaps now back outside of each of those moments, I could answer each of you in turn, eloquently and honestly. Like an old woman’s remembrance of the sound of a black-capped chickadee, a doing nothing kind of being or simply, so simply, the fullness of…

- Cultural exchange – Interesting examination – Hm, difficult to define. I think everybody (as the videoclip proves) has their own definition. I added parts from the interview I made with the Chinese women. 文化交流? I was thinking of the word 交流 and it reminded me of the question where I asked to define “性交”. And in addition, I thought Ouyang’s definition of cultural exchange was also very special…and fits to this question.

m：你是怎么理解做爱的？你介意么？

interview1： 你是指两个女生么？我ok的。如果抛开孕育下一代这个想法，这是人的基本的生理需求，很正常。

m：你觉得做爱和性交是一个意思么？

interview1：我觉得意思差不多，是不是一个褒义一个贬义啊？呃…不太知道。

m：为什么是性交会有贬义？那个性是指什么？交是交流吗？

interview1：呃…交，交换一下东西吧。交换一种感受，一种体验吧。可能有些感触只能是通过异性来带给你的。

m：那如果是两个男人在做爱，你可以用性交来形容吗？

interview1：呃…..不知道，应该可以吧。性没有规定是只有异性之间的吧，我不太知道这个词究竟应该怎么定义。

m: 那对女的来说差不多，那自慰是做爱吗？

interview1：我觉得做爱是两个人的事情，而自慰是一个人的，可能效果是一样的，但心里感觉不一样吧。

interview1： 因为每个人都对自己的身体很好奇，我觉得很正常。但是可能自慰这个词在我脑海中出现的比较晚，所以我不是很了解，但是当它出现的时候我还是可以接受的。可能如果再出现的早一点，小学初中的话，我就不能够理解。

m：你能用你自己的话来解释一下“做爱”或者“性交”吗？

interview2：是名词解释吗？就是很自然的一种行为吧。然后，那是生活的一部分。譬如说，如果你把兴趣爱好和工作放在一起，然后你的感情生活和性生活又是一块东西。如果说定义的话，就是生活的一部分而已，没觉得有太多别的东西… 其实我也不是经常会有这样的体力活动，但是我们都会希望会有一个稳定的东西，因为那样⋯⋯就像我之前跟你说过的，我觉得两样东西是不可以分开的。（性）是一个你希望它能够稳定而有故事的东西。如果非要解释的话，我会觉得是一种必需品，不一定在每个阶段都会出现，但是它会是必需品。

m：你觉得“做爱”和“性交”的意思是一样的吗？

interview2：我觉得“性交”也包括动物对吗，但“做爱”是人才用的，你不会说，在街上看到两条狗在做爱。哎，但是也可以，好像也可以这么说。“性交”感觉是写在书上的字…“性交”听起来有动物性。你不会跟你的男朋友说，我们来“性交”吧，你会觉得这句话说出来特别楞。但你会说，我们“做爱”吧。

on projection at 玩世不恭文化交流BBQ a cynical cultural exchange barbecue, 家作坊HomeShop Beijing, 11 July 2009

(looking through the spam folder, in lack of other responses (sigh), oh the things you discover in the trash..! but i wish you would say something, dear reader.. how are you today? here it’s cold and grey again, they call it the summer.. hmm.. time for more coffee now, a soft-boiled egg.. good morning!

oh and please make sure to let us know in case you are ’saa’, ‘penilopa’, ‘domainmaster’, ‘chad’, ‘uyit’ or ‘blogger’ and your message mistakenly ended up in our spam..)

——
Research material from part of the PUBLIC project by Elaine W. Ho and Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga. Organized as a daily series of experiments, interventions and discourses, PUBLIC aims to examine the potentiality of latency and open spaces made possible in the relations between individuals and publics. Other activities are posted here. Some are open invitations to all, others are unannounced insertions in different locations throughout Berlin. PROGRAM – intitiative for art and architecture collaborations; 22 January – 1 February 2009.

Secret communities tested in aleatory fashion, Acconci’s limitations are practical, too. Beginning at the site of the Bundesnachrichtendienst and arriving at the Auswaertiges Amt:

The subject was chosen walking past the site of the German Secret Service building (to be finished in 2012). A plywood construction blockade, there is hardly any graffiti here. One stencil of a walking man whose head is a surveillance camera.

[14:06] The subject has been spotted on Chausseestrasse walking south at a medium pace and smoking a cigarette with his right hand.

Getting on the U-bahn, Schwarzkopfstrasse.

Stadtmitte, getting off.
Walking south on Friedrichstrasse, turning left on Krausenstrasse.

[14:16] Subject is noted to always look both ways before crossing the street.

Taking a left and turning into park.

[14:21] Subject missing.

[14:22] Subject 1 has most likely entered building number 40 at Leipzigerstrasse, and subject 2 is picked up at the point of departure, exiting from the building wearing high-heeled boots, blonde hair, carrying a black shopping bag in her right hand. She suddenly turns and walks the other direction. [14:26] Subject number 2 enters a jade coloured BMW 725i. We return to the point of departure of Subject 1. 40 Leipzigerstrasse. [14:28] Subject number 3 exits 40 Leipzigerstrasse. She walks east, wearing a multi-coloured scarf and black hat. Walking at leisurely pace, adjusting her hat.
[14:37] After playing Lotto, subject walks into the adjacent super market.

Blumenkohl, broccoli, kiwi.

[14:50] Subject 3 investigation is terminated in supermarket. Subject 4 recognised at 14:49 walking out of the market, carrying a large bottle of Pepsi.
[14:51] Walked inside Multipolster furniture store a few doors down. Appears to be working there.

[14:53] Subject 5 spotted walking west on Leipzigerstrasse. Subject 3 rediscovered walking west on Leipzigerstrasse. She is carrying groceries in a black nylon bag. Subject 3 investigation re-terminated.

Leipzigerstrasse 43. Subject 6 is spotted buying a small potted plant from the Blumen & Pflanzen shoppe. He wears a beige trenchcoat and red scarf, carrying a white and blue shopping bag and newly purchased flowers. [14:59] Subject meets a couple at the intersection of Leipzigerstrasse and Markgrafenstrasse. They all hold shopping bags and chat for a moment before trying to enter a restaurant door, finding it locked. The go to the next eingang and enter City Hotel.

[15:15] Subject 6 exits hotel accompanied by the same man and woman. He is no longer carrying the flowers and shopping bag. They walk north on Markgrafenstrasse. [15:23] Subject 6, accompanied by the couple, walks into the Auswaertiges Amt (Federal Foreign Office). He is seen removing his trenchcoat before security check. Subject 6 investigation terminated.

After some days, she didn’t feel the need to continue in the same way again, I mean, what is participation anyway, if it’s the same as tearing the sheet, sticking around to feed the birds or clicking——wordlessly——”add friend”. How engaged does one need to be to find intimacy, and what is participation in a group in which nobody notices? Taking part, you took part, again again… but what of inaction in the kinesphere, an allowance of space in regards to an other, not taking the responsibility. What can simply be, we were the worst at imagining a telos, so it just goes here to there nor there, our passivity is incremental. but why keep thinking of community and collectivity with such utopian ideals, anyhow. he asks, “can you imagine any form of positively created collectivity”? I thought of all my ill feeling; now, like a nearing in language or love, linking forward or a re-action may not require positives or negatives…