the text and images below are posted from beijing, berlin, buenos aires, hong kong, los angeles, new york, sado island, shanghai, tokyo and zürich. there are a few of us, and this is the space in between.

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cutting down the tree while you’re hanging from it

tree

notree

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in praise of shadows

athens

berlin

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please don’t go, don’t go away


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.

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“can intimacy exist in public?”

secretcommunity550

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…

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please meet here and now

An Appointment
Alexanderplatz, Tuesday, 27 January 2009, 18.00

ling_alax001[photo by 高灵 Gao Ling]

This is your latest minute notice to our meeting and appointment. Please come to Alexanderplatz station, the platform of the U8 line, between Le Crobag bakery and the Presse + Buch shoppe. Apologies for having been so late all the time lately, does 18.00 sound like a weak quantification of all the things i haven’t caught up to yet?

Please meet me, even if we don’t know one other. No one knows each other here, so let’s just try to remember that fact of all that we know we don’t know, that feeling that you next to me may have noticed it, too.

Mostly we’re ignorant. But I wanted to meet you anyway, an appointment in and of itself as a time and place predetermined. A context embedded into itself, choking, documented. Itself, itself, itself.

And a broad, come with—-first-time everything…

——–
An Appointment is part of the continuing PUBLIC research 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. 22 January – 1 February 2009.

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everything on sale this time of year

wearsale_466“Okay,” he said, “everything 90 degrees.” And we became temporary helmsmen, the act of organising one’s knowledge and one’s life to be a 2nd Captain job. Here, the sea is misty, the sea is cold, the sea is snowing, but we aim for 90 degrees, give or take a few, 90 degrees today or tomorrow relative. I missed the pounding on ice, her roommate bouncing before the ice turned sweaty; it’s dangerous but not scary. No, not scary at all, love, we just go, we just go, through broken ice or slippery snow, because the thing is the thing, and let us share this thing that is not ours to keep or own. Six shirts, everything on sale this time of year, let’s get rid of them all or let them go slowly.

Wear journal is now available in Berlin at do you read me?!, Motto and ProQM. In the post, on its way to Boekie Woekie in Amsterdam.

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two thousand and nine, we try more, we try better

we step out of the house [10] just before midnight, funny [9] noise as we run down the [8] stairs, wanting to be there [7] just in time for the [6] new year, many people on the [5] street, what time, what year [4] is it now in japan, in greece [3], in china, [2] the fireworks set off [1], here we go again, the champagne bottle [2] pops open, and the neighbour with [3] his daughter find it funny to throw the little fireworks [4] at us and laugh as we get scared, sigh, optimism [5] wears off easily and we retreat upstairs [6] again, one more sip of champagne [7], wishing for better neighbours in this [8] new year.. and.. and.. and.. everything.. [9] for all of you, faraway and close..

abstract2009

abstract and blurry but right here in front of you

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