Bündnis internationaler Produktionshäuser

Claudia Bosse

when we started at the end of january 2020
to do this work in indonesia
I said to myself
in these 7 weeks something will happen that will change everything afterwards
I was sure or I really wanted to

the work in jakarta was complex
huge
ways of working encountered other community ethics and resource use
open questions touched passions
devotion interest curiosity misunderstandings
5 and a half weeks later – we travel on sulawesi

as i walk through the market a saleswoman points to me CORONA

three steps
one too close and they jump aside
suspicion
the view on us
WE the infected

the transmitter is always the other
the other
distance
the other elsewhere
the other everywhere
at the same time the nationalization of the origins
and responsibilities
patient zero in indonesia an english man on bali
italy patient zero from germany and in contact with infected in wuhan
patient zero in jakarta brought the virus from hong kong
strange cartographies
national borders and national narratives
for other responsibilities
the people die in the camps on the greek islands
because they don’t even have water to wash
not to speak about hygiene
self concerns
so the social distance
the distance between the bodies
who protect themselves and the others
I protect you because I don’t touch you

suddenly in this slightly neurotic attention
the cruel awareness of what we all share
the 12000 liters of air that flows through our bodies every day
which the other resumes
to limit the air in aircraft in transportation in elevators
the volume of the divided matter
through which we absorb the other within us
the lever switch rinse door knob
the shell the bowl the shopping basket
that we touch to cope with daily survival
(especially if we are not yet HOME. stay safe dear! –
but when was I ever „safe“)
the vegetables the packaging I touch for daily needs
what imprints of other bodies do they carry?
what is their memory
when I start watching this
including the touch of myself
brush the hair out of the eyes the itchy nose the lint on the chin etc
when all this becomes clear to me what i do in everyday life
politely ignore the globalized side by side
then we have a lot in common
and nothing
or we have very little under control
we are in constant contact with others
through the rooms and the air we share
the products we consume
because we are society

this narrative of danger
with the statistics of the spread and dead
statistical people
the nations or regions in which they are located
the right are gradually being restricted to our common good
the common good
while everything that this capitalism believes in is led into crisis
and brutally demonstrated how little sustainable all these systems are
the healthcare system is privatized or merged
so that the dying just can’t breathe
-no air –
cannot be supplied
worries about the ventilation of a collapsing system
the precarious in all of its formulations
on the one hand is not geared towards serious cases
but to work and
on the other hand, the stress of many was no longer considered possible

despite everything my shame
that there was a moment
where I assumed I was safer in EUROPE
what EUROPE
and what security
I am feeling ashamed for that
that I thought that and it penetrated into me this narrative of security FUCK YOU
I am ashamed of my fear
„The greatest challenge facing our society since the Second World War“
how strange that sounds
and nothing will be the same as before
that is probably the case
what will human be to human?
and what will have become worthless
but the touch
that intertwine
the uncontrolled
the other
the other
this landscape of viruses
and pull on and in everything we touch

but
who would have ever thought it possible that something would happen
that this hysteria of production
simply overrides
that gives time
through restrictions on consumption
by making it impossible to maintain acceleration
that focus on the essentials of life
time
empathy
social therapy
the capitalist gagged
which suddenly after the shock
try to think differently timidly
the loss
the possibility
on what you have wanted to do away with in recent years
but couldn’t
social therapy

collections of people that could be the beginning of a riot
a danger
the beginning of a political movement
a danger

the political space has been lost
under quarantine
the beating police officers in greece
and the crime against those seeking protection
replaced by worry
to survive your own

temperature
fever
my lungs
burn it
i am infected
I have a headache
ideas penetrate my body
alienate him
or will he be someone else

what words to think and how do they rank
that you get to the bottom of something
dig in
what words to think and how to rank them
that my thinking captures its evasions
that it grasps and does not circle
always circling this which refuses to be caught
or… or..
but not to go crazy
I have to find axes
thinking as consciously pleasurable penetration into
sentences words pictures connections
that keep entering me

Shut down in the precariat

We live in an ongoing global viral threat situation in which everyone else’s body becomes a potential threat. The other one, which is not marked and recognizable as a contaminated carrier, can become a potential hazard.
The other can be my downfall if he is too close to me.
OR
My body could be a weapon against others without me knowing.
The physical distancing of our bodies currently makes it impossible to carry out our art, leaves a social system at a standstill to protect the body and to cushion dying without institutional help. Our systems are not designed for mass dying. And they cannot and do not want to watch it- the Christian remains of our civilization – although it looks different on the edges of Europe.
This is how we now think of visions of our art, while protecting some blurs the death of others. But OK. It is almost always like this. This shutdown in the precariat is a shutdown of income and practice. So here, too, this new community of prevention shows that our art system is very vulnerable.

urban landscape

landscapes the choreographies of mindfulness
the measurement of the city at distance as a new understanding of urban spaces

after the gift of time
the concentration
now the choreographies of mindfulness on the streets
the distance as perception of others in the public
individual bodies
choreographies between fear and slapstick of avoidance
a new measuring of our cities
I will miss it, this mindfulness

In my digital diets
hear see cook
I read the book covers in my apartment
i read the sky
the birds are louder the trees greener and delight about blooming
conversations with long forgotten friends
looking at the art made and thought in the last 20 years
and how
organism of exchange with the almost forgotten
the dust of events
between my everyday life in vienna everyday life of new friends in indonesia
other perspectives
“I have toothache for 3 days, I also try to survive, make programs for artists with online art program platforms, how to survive, maybe some of us will die of starvation, not because of corona” … conditions of life, micro relations, conditions from which we think of our art because of our inflation, praying against the virus. The impossible distance in the kampungs in jakarta, whenever others speak of distance here in europe i think of this density of the informal settlements in the kampungs that sometimes nestle on the back or in the spaces between the colonial settlements. Space/es that permeates the representative architecture. You need 20 m2 to be able to rehearse in Vienna. 6 people live in jakarta on these 20 m2, close to each other. the narrow lane in front of the houses is the common living room.

It is now May and in the middle of Ramadan
I wanted something to change now everything is different
my art is at stake

What to do?

So: invent and test organisms for a different “ecology of art”, knowledge and available resources. artistic, organisms as relational poems of creating relationships – to ourselves and others – beyond a project, obligations and imaginations, imaginations, insights and above all practices that make other things possible in the first place.

Caring with in the attendance to others, with asymmetry of touch, senses, and smells, caring with inside the unequal, messy and troubled situations, caring with bodies, animals, plants, things, with our hands and bodies dirty; this kind of caring radically collapsed already some time ago. Bojana Kunst is writing.

I have think about it!

Felwine Sarr writes: The task of utopia is to demonstrate the malleability of the world. It allows history to be viewed as a space of possibilities, redesign and composition, and to imagine the possible beyond the real. The reality as we know it is about to dissolve.