Es könnte einem geschehen, daß er, beim Rückblick auf sein Leben, zu der Erkenntnis käme, fast alle tieferen Bindungen, die er in ihm erlitten habe, seien von Menschen ausgegangen, über deren »destruktiven Charakter« alle Leute sich einig waren. Er würde eines Tages, vielleicht zufällig, auf diese Tatsache stoßen, und je härter der Chock ist, der ihm so versetzt wird, desto größer sind damit seine Chancen für eine Darstellung des destruktiven Charakters.

– Walter Benjamin, Der destruktive Charakter

What does this mean to nascent ecological awareness? Humans are not totally in charge of assigning significance and value to events that can be statistically measured. The worry is not, that the world will end, as in the old model of dis-astro, but wether the end of the world is already happening, or wether perhaps it might already have taken place. A deep shuddering of temporality 

 — Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects

Die Spiegelreflexkamera – den Moment, in dem das Bild aufgenommen wird, verpassen wir, damit die Kamera sehen kann. 

Walking Project

manifesto

The things I make are variable,
as simple as possible,
reproducible.
They are components of a space; since they are like building elements,
they can always be rearranged into new combinations or positions.
Thus, they alter the space.
I leave this alteration to the consumer who thereby again and anew participates in the creation.
The simplicity of the basic geometric forms is beautiful and suited to demonstrate the principles
of rationalized alteration.
I make series because I do not want to make single pieces for individuals,
in order to have elements combinable within a system,
in order to make something which is repeatable, objective, and because it is economical.
The series could be prototypes for mass production.
Series DW (at Fischer’s) is made of corrugated pasteboard which is light and cheap: a material for consumption.
Often the elements or their combinations are very large in order to alter the spatial environment
more thoroughly.
They approximate architectural dimensions and also for this reason differ increasingly from the former gallery objects.
They are less and less recognizable as “artworks.”
The objects should have the objective character of industrial products.
They are not intended to represent anything other than what they are.
The former categorization of the arts no longer exists.
The artist of the future should have to work with a team of specialists in a development laboratory.
Though art’s formal development has progressed at an increasing tempo, its social function has regressed.
Art is a product of temporary topicality, yet, the market is minute while prestige and prices rise the less topical the supply is.
It is painful for me to face the fact that art cannot contribute to the solution of urgent social problems.

Offenbach, February 11, 1968

Humans are not totally in charge of assigning significance and value to events that can be statistically measured. The worry is not wether the world will end, as in the old model of the dis-astron, but wether the end of the world is already happening, or wether it might already have taken place. A deep shuddering of temporality occurs. Furthermore, hyperobjectsseem to continue what Siegmund Freud considered the great humiliation of the human following Copernicus and Darwin, Jacques Derrida rightly adds Freud to the list of humiliators – after all, he displaces the human from the very center of psychic activity. But we might also add Marx, who displaces human social life with economic organization. And we could add Heidegger and Derrida himself who in related but subtly different waysdisplace the human from the center of meaning-making. We might further expand the list by bringing in Nietzsche and his lineage, which now runs through Deleuze and Guattarito Brassier: “Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?” (Nietzsche) And in a different vein, we might add that OOO radically displaces the human by insisting that my being is not everything it’s cracked up to be – or rather that the being of a paper cup is as profound as mine.”

— Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects

 

All that is solid, melts into PR.

— Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism

Why make things difficult for the viewer?

We are a consumer-society, and it seems to me, that art has become a passive ‘spectator sport’ to an extent unprecendented in history. I have always tried to work against this tendency by producing ‘occasions for interpretation’ rather than ‘objects for consumption’. I believe that the ability to produce rather than consume meanings, and the ability to think otherwise – ways of thinking to encouraged by the imperative to commodity production, ways condemned as a ‘waste of time’ – is fundamental to the goal of a truly, rather than nominally democratic society. I believe art is one of the few remaining areas of social activity where the attitude of critical engagement may still be encouraged – all the more reason then for art to engage with those issues which are critical.

— Victor Burgin, from a Letter to a Collector

Die Bäume
Denn wir sind wie Baumstämme im Schnee. Scheinbar liegen sie glatt auf, und mit kleinem Anstoß sollte man sie wegschieben können. Nein, das kann man nicht, denn sie sind fest mit dem Boden verbunden. Aber sieh, sogar das ist nur scheinbar.

–Franz Kafka