Two Times One Coin

Sketch of Main Idea

Myself and another performer (perhaps Katerina).
I read Adorno on how american capitalism and nazi fascism are two sides of the same coin: Modernity.

Read in german, by me. Hence many words and pronounciations will be very off, incomprehensible.

Occassionally, K, in full bavarian costume, will sing with pleasure and happiness a pub german song.
Perhaps I will play accordion.

Perhaps will turn into a radio show

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... find a way to deal with the ideas which is nonetheless spirited... not neccesarily so polemical. not so much a wall or force put up upon the audience in the performance space/time, but rather either a space of investigation or a space of awkward but electric language/bodies... perhaps both...where projections are played with...

UPDATE March 26




original image i had way back when, was me reading the text in difficult (bad, indescribable) german... and katarina on a video screen in bavarian dress dancing and singing but a video fragment almost as if from a 70's festive, childish, rainbow and special effects in the background show (see above of this page for some references to this kind of imagery. had in mind her outlined and cascading repeating to infinity over a solid color which changes.. going through rainbow colors...).. a blend of cheap but fun colorful tv special effects that have her dancing figure cascading in repitition back into the color field and forward again as she is dancing and singing (sometimes we hear this other times not) ... thinking of this, i start to see myself in this scene....somehow in dark light.. perhaps with goggles on... and a strange long hat... like a sleeping cap, but tied in knots streaming back and up into the depths of the stage space.-- like a stream of connection to an unknown space not visible... white squares and rectangles (very modern shapes) around the space. arranged as in a television studio of a music act in the 70's but more abstract and simple.. the left-overs from the dream of modernism... (perhaps inside these boxes and rectangles are radio controlled toy cars. so that on occasion from off-stage the eternal forms/shapes move slightly-- are bumped from within...). at one point, K in bavarian costume comes on scene. perhaps we begin a comedy interaction like in: "hey andrew" "yeah" "isn't it odd how you just can't help but take inside of you in one way or the other the ideology of the quote culture endquote you are living in" "i suppose its a matter of survival. what other choice do you have. you have to learn to swim." "but what happens if you don't learn to swim so good" "you feel bad, incomplete, etc. etc. etc." "so you have to learn to meditate" "definetly" "lets tell a joke" "ok"



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***BELOW: NOTES FROM LINK [2] On ADORNO on art and the problem of singularity ***

"Enlightenment behaves toward things as a dictator toward men. He knows them only in so far as he can manipulate them."

"....For Adorno, no modern subject can break the spell of identity thinking. As Adorno claims of himself that '[e]very visit to the cinema leaves me, against all my vigilance, stupider and worse,' all humans have been similarly stupefied by the culture industry. Whether idolizing Rocky Balboa or Cool Hand Luke, the public learns the cultural maxim that taking hits, absorbing domination, is not only basely the minimum condition for survival, but a virtue in itself. This lesson begins with children taking their ideological medicine with their morning television: 'Donald Duck in cartoons and the unfortunate in real life get their trashing so that the audience can learn to take their own punishment.' Muhammad Ali best embodies the situation as he holds aloft the commemorative flame at the opening ceremonies of the 2000 Olympic Games with shaking arms. He flies the flag of the very institution that beat him senseless, and we find this admirable. Since the masses 'insist on the very ideology which enslaves them,' the momentum of exploitation of commodification becomes a force more powerful than any other in society. As instrumental life picks up speed, Adorno, as if calling a race between technological cretinization and critical thinking, declares a winner: 'thought has lost the element of self-reflection.'


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***End Adorno notes ***
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scene idea: while we are performing a mirror is behind us and above. projeted onto the mirror are white clouds in a blue sky slowly moving. occassionally a dissolve comes up of parking garages, piles of computers in India, showcase interiors of high-rise apartments, highways at night, packs of sugar, children's math, this may have the word OR between the images -- a phrase arises: "Can you self-reflect? I barely know what that is anymore. I am instrumental."


UPDATE MARCH 20


(see below for original sketch of concept)
Key Links to Adorno's ideas that are at play in this concept
Click here [1] [2] general overview of Adorno [2]

Katerina and I talked a bit about the idea.
Now, need a date to do the shoot and then in a way work back from there.
Aim now is to build up text. She will see if online there is any Adorno in german we can find and work with. I will seek out american texts and english translation of Adorno.

Thinking towards a question of where if capitalism is thought of as quite suspect now, how the 'coin' flips now... And as a sequence a kind of history-- through this coin flipping in time(s)... perhaps under one pair of clothes is another... Perhaps we go to songs at certain times (interludes)-- for instance: doing togethor: german song i sing not-so-well while she sings well, then american song, where she sings not-so-well, i sing better (at the same time us singing togethor). So interludes in a sense of song-cycles.

But main thing is building out text at this point. Agreed that performance should go to some kind of conclusion. Leave the audience not so much with a kind of super-irony but rather something that we propose conclusively - and that this ought to come from the logic of the texts as we develop that.

perhaps in the end of the performance it breaks into virtual radio show (or simple discussion), where we are discussing the plus' and minus' of capitalism/communism using the logics and sayings which are common or in culture in general and which we re-work to be a fairly fast-paced dialogue going through different ideas, at the core of the general 'discourse'.

QUESTIONS:
...of which texts to work with and how to develop sequence...
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Sketch of Idea

Myself and another performer (perhaps Katerina).
I read Adorno on how american capitalism and nazi fascism are two sides of the same coin: Modernity.

Read in german, by me. Hence many words and pronounciations will be very off, incomprehensible.

Occassionally, K, in full bavarian costume, will sing with pleasure and happiness a pub german song.
Perhaps I will play accordion.

Perhaps will turn into a radio show