Instant Coffee Saturday Edition Issue 19, December 14 2003 | ISSN 1499-5085 saturday.instantcoffee.org |
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Saturday comes late. ho ho ho. time flies when you're busy makin out. something in the air feels like effort. instant coffee is brought to you by the collective. next year send in some mid-winter saturday edition content to be enjoyed by all. that's an open call. with the holdidays here we know we don't want to spend any more money than we have to. so be happy we are free. someday we'll explain everything. till then have a happy new year, and may it be a dirty dirty one. luck and happiness ::ic send letters & content to the editor saturday@instantcoffee.org |
Saturday Edition Feature 1. Sarah Hollenberg on Utopia The following is an excerpt from the catalogue essay for Three Models for Improvement (Minor), a show held last summer (July 28 to September 7) at eyelevelgallery in Halifax, featuring recent work by Aaron Brewer, Geoffrey Garrison and Andrea Lalonde. (Catalogue available through http:// www.eyelevelgallery.ca).
'The hole is the only intimation of paradise there is down here.' Karl Tucholsky (1) The fantastic imaginings of a perfect society, of a place where the desires of the individual and the collective are in perfect harmony with each other and with available resources have collapsed, a balloon pricked by history and worldliness. The failure of utopian thought-which can be located most clearly in the first half of the twentieth century-was spectacular. Its dissolution complete, Utopia was defeated, like many renounced fantasies, by the disappointing results of attempts to manifest it as reality. The idyllic paradise waiting across the sea was exposed as a colonial nightmare that stripped lands and peoples of their material and human resources. Attempts to transform societies from the inside bought us totalitarian states which left too high a body count to be considered viable, whatever one may think of the ideologies that drove them. Even the paradise promised by religious faith is being rapid- ly abandoned in much of the West. We shy away from any attempt to enact massive transformations of the world we live in with Pavlovian obedience, identifying such attempts as arrogant, dangerous, and futile. Though there are still many who identify themselves as revolutionaries, their strategies often resemble fashion statements more than political actions. The organizations that appear to provide genuinely needed services (i.e. Medecines Sans Frontiers, women's shelters, food banks) are all clean-up operations. They exist to offer some small help or sanctuary to the many that our contemporary social structures have failed. So we focus on whatever small but desperately necessary gestures we are capable of making. Keep our collective finger in the proverbial dike. Try to stave off disaster by blue-bagging our lives. A few steps forward, shuffle back, leaning left or right, we're mostly keeping time. But Utopia, until someone tried to make it real, was meant to be imagined.(2) Even if our policy makers and political leaders have grown too sophisticated for such naive ideas, there are few of us who don't harbour an imagined good place/no place. Any relevant contemporary engagement with utopian thought requires an acceptance of and investment in its contradictions. It must retain criticality (which is easy), while functioning ultimately as shameless optimism (which is not). The artists presented in this exhibition enact such contrary thinking in their practices. Whether they attempt to make material and manageable the abstractions of international politics and economics; to bridge the gap between the material comforts of the domestic sphere and the egalitarian impersonality of public space; or to prioritize desire over propriety, these projects simultaneously shudder at and yearn toward the concept of a better place, an impossible social contract. "The Unity that serves to encompass diversity is that of a geometrically reconstituted perception on the part of a fictitious eye." Rudolf zur Lippe 3 The European Union is, at first glance, remarkably close to a multi-national manifestation of utopian ideals. A continent that displayed some of the most horrific of human achievements in the last few centuries - in the attempts of various nations to overcome one another, to eliminate undesirable populations, and to build perfect societies by force of violence - Europe seems finally to have reached a state of semi-peaceable cooperation. It is fitting that Geoffrey Garrison's Euro Bridges were conceived of and produced in Berlin - the reunification of Germany having both allowed and necessitated the political, industrial, and financial unification of the continent. The anatomy of the union is really pretty banal. Driven more by bureaucracy than ideology, the union is one of complex treaties addressing such issues as allowable deficits, agricultural subsidies, and common law. The product of pragmatic politics, it facilitates European competitiveness in the global economy and prevents military conflict between previously fractious member nations. These nations are left to define themselves by their languages and cultural histories, a happy state of diversity within unity. Utopia necessitates exclusivity and the removal or refusal of any subject that fails to meet its dictates. There is a reason that More's Utopia was set on an island; defense from outsiders was identified as a primary and integral aspect of that peaceable society, and punishments for any infraction were spectacularly severe. (4) To maintain such a perfect state, lines must be drawn, choices made. Self-definition presents something of a problem in an alliance that has little capacity to foster a homogeneous concept of transnational European identity. The reasons for the inclusion or exclusion of a country from the union are many and complex, but there does seem to be a limit to accepted conventions of diversity. [...]
1.Quoted by Klaus Theweleit in Male Fantasises, Vol. 1 1987, Minnesota
2. Thomas More coined the term in his 1516 book of the same name. It was one of only many puns and wordplays in the text: a combination of the Greek terms for "good place" and "no place." Thomas More, Utopia, current translation published in 1965, Penguin Classics, London England. Markus was no different. An army of boys had come before him, their brains short circuited from the penetrative gloss of a Technicolor XY Magazine. The Elysium they were promised never came to pass; it only left their hopes to the winding concrete of the East village. Of course, there was the resourceful variety that had managed to swindle a loft on Spring Street with lawyers and real-estate tycoons alike. There were the trust funded who lived out a dual existence of ennui and debauchery in the hotel residences on West End Avenue, concierge and all. Or there were those who were the embodiment of irony, living it up in Williamsburgh and staying in with take-out sushi. What they all shared in common was that they traveled across the borders of their own history, across the borders of America's lonely and eccentric townships, and down the endless highways that seemed as though they would never find New York, in the prospect of transformation, personal liberty and a home in the Hamptons. Markus was no different. He paused now half way down West 75th Street and gazed up at a five-story brick building. A canopy stretched half way out of the entrance of the building and lingered about two-and a half feet from Markus' head and maybe eight from the ground. Etched into the marquis was a tattered burgundy that read: "250 West 75th Street". Something about the etching made the muscles in Markus' stomach flinch. The assertion of addresses on buildings in Manhattan took a whole being unto themselves. It was as though every number on every street was a holy proverb, like they were the coordinates of some divine and glamorous jigsaw puzzle. He turned the key. Markus' father owned property on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It was an inheritance from his mother who died rich and lonely and the space was virtually unused. At any rate Markus climbed the four flights to 407 and helped himself in. The Richard Avedon on the white plaster walls were no contribution of Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy. Lily, Markus' grandmother had a penchant for fine art. Not the Baroque or gaudy variety you might expect from a woman her age; Lily had a taste for the avant-garde and all its mundane cache. And by that token had created a private permanent collection of sorts. She was a society lady and her taste for art went no further than the keen eye she held for fashion, intellectually or otherwise. Lily was a mystery to the McCarthy's. Her wit and hedonism dragged her to every hotel lobby in Manhattan, and into the arms of every senator and attorney. She was a professional. The McCarthy's inherited everything from her, but never directed any thanks openly or cited how a small fortune had found them all the way from New York to Osceola County, Iowa.
Markus found an unscathed bottle of Southern Comfort in the pantry that led off the kitchen. Outside the living room there was a fire-escape. It was the quintessential New York fire-escape that housed a few neglected plants and a small pitcher that had gathered cellophane wrappers and rain water. Markus imagined some less fortunate souls waiting outside the Fairway Market at 11:30 a.m. for the lunch crowd to empty on to Broadway. Their charity would render them the simple pleasure of a Brooklyn Lager concealed by a brown paper bag. Perhaps even the sugared comfort of the 12 ounces of Southern Comfort Markus now enjoyed in a glass tumbler with a floral pattern on the imperative fire-escape four stories over West 75th Street.
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International Coffees 1. Nicolas Bourriaud: Notes from Cuba by Jenifer Papararo My notes unedited (except for spelling) from Nicolas Bourriaud¹s twenty minute lecture Arte Global o Turismo Artistico: La Ideologia de la Globalización (Global Art or Artistic Tourism: the Ideology of Globalization). for the Forum, Arte-Vida (Art and Life) as part of the 8th Havana Biennial. The forum provided simultaneous translation: Bourriaud spoke in French; I listened in English. JP Aesthetic problem of common territory reflected through abstraction. Modernism = emergence of common commitment. Ended by an idealism - something valid for everyone & this is what over the last twenty years has... Now out of an ideological time - material occurs.
Idealist: train station - knows where it is going.
Globalization = Essentialism
Felix G. Torres (extremely literal) True challenge lies: current art as a montage of reality juxtaposition of social and politics; art forces us to see ourselves through a member of scripts. *critical relation with general production relations of production. *art relates to technology the way it is in the economy. ie. Minimalism: architectural sources aluminum. Now conceptual art follows closely the progress of information technology. Ie. Computer processes being developed at the same time as conceptual art surfaces. Micro-utopias in the vanguard of the 20th century; experimental centers; curator is a part. Circumstances: What is art? The only common thing is that art is an action that actualizes concrete relations. Criteria: why does a work exclude or include me? Dumb question, but must ask that question. *misundertanding is part of the programme.
2.Kodak discontinuing slide projectors TOP |
Mr Brown selected links 1. don't waste your money Paris Hilton Sex video 2.REAL ART - End The Uncertainty! Visit this site to find out if you or someone you know is a REAL ARTISTS. http://www.real-art.tv 3. PAMPHLET: A monthly discussion series. http://www.static-ops.org/pamphlet.htm 4. I am robot and proud http://www.bloop.org/robot/main.htm 5. Why not? http://www.whynot.net/ submitted links 1. this you'll just have to see for yourselves rapping kid 2. "...Go to google and type in "miserable failure" and hit the 'I'm feeling lucky' button..." ic supporter links http://www.steamwhistle.ca/ http://www.easydns.com http://www.techno.ca TOP |
Tasters Choice Ingredients 5 lb chicken, cut into pieces 2/3 cup shoyu, (soy sauce) 1/3 cup brewed coffee 1 cup sugar, =or=- 1 sugar substitute equal to 1 1 cup 1 cup water 1/2 inch fresh ginger root 1 =peeled minced 2 cl garlic Directions Combine all ingredients in an eight-quart pot. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer over medium heat for 30 to 40 minutes. Do not stir. Keep covered and shake the pot once or twice during cooking. The Friendly Exchange by Adele DeiSavio, Hilo, Hawaii Brought to you and yours via Nancy O'Brion and her Meal-Master. Servings: 6 TOP |
Ten Ten 1. Clubs by Nicholas Flood I have always preferred the eerie glow of disco lights to that of the harsh reality of UV rays. Admittedly, I approach the night life with a certain "impress me" attitude after years of disco spelunking and hosting my own monthly club night in NYC. However, the radar is always scanning for something fresh and I will be the first to acknowledge innovation in the art of night vision. A gorgeous wave of lesbian chic is washing away exhausted gay boy drama. In recent months, girl centric-boy friendly-parties have made a mark on the early a.m. party horizon. These weekly and monthly parties are offering a much desired alternative to church street monotony and a male-stream underground. Don't expect any uniform code of fashion or conduct at these events. They attract a "we are here to party" cross-section of lesbians and their admirers. The only thing that really stands out is the lack of self-conscious reserve these women exhibit. They come to groove and the crowd is never static. If you suffer from any delusions of lesbian style deficit you will be corrected at the door. There is no archetype here, looks range from high lipstick gloss to raw diesel (and everything in between). The frequency is at full tilt in a most inclusive manner. These gals seem hell bent on one thing-having fun. Two current nights that exemplify this growing dance girl riot are Smooch and Juicy. On the advice of a friend, Petra C, I attended Smooch one Thursday night at Liquid Lounge on College Street. I was greeted by a sexy kitten in a full body cat look brandishing a whip, meow! The smallish dance floor was drenched with style and rhythm. Smooch is run by the fabulous duo Michelle Mama and DJ Secret Agent-Kristy (whom, when not Dj-ing can be found slinging fashion at Holt's). Their night is a weekly lounge foil to the monthly party Juicy. Juicy is a major affair. Held at the re-vamped el mo on Spandia Juicy attracts a youthful crowd craving old skool electro and funk. Juicy is thrown by a collective of stellar girls who recognized the need for girl sponsored music speed. In addition to a rotating line-up of all girl Djs hot new performs are regularly featured. November's party featured a wonderful drag-king cabaret number. Recently I had a chance to speak with one of Juicy's representatives, Holly Skinner. During a phone interview I asked her about some of the backlash from the lesbian community regarding the presence of men at Juicy to which she responded without missing a beat "When you are on the dance floor the only thing that should really matter is the music and who you are dancing with in the moment". Sing it Sister.
2.The International Space Station and the newsworthiness of Rex Harrington
Apparantly Bushy down south is going to soon announce a return to the moon. Like the weapons of mass destruction, I'll believe this big-election-next year-bribe when I see it. For the past while I've been content to make do with watching the space sation fly overhead every once and awhile. Now, it's not that big of a deal, but it is one of those things that most resemble art while making no pretense to be so. Like a conceptual masterpeice, it is rather banal and boring, but it can inspire much thought. Nothing else so reminds me of what Heidegger was talking about when he was going on about Greek temples. But I mean really, Greek temples...when we've been to the moon for god's sakes. Why should any of that classcism make sense to us when we have a space station orbiting the earth, and visable according to a schedule worked out using good old fashioned Newtonian physics and viewable using good old java applets and contempoary telecommunictation technology (links below).
Sighting oppurtunities by city Rex Harrington's Retirement on CFTO News, Wed 19 Novembe 2003 11.20pm You can't buy arts coverage on the TV 11 o'clock news and yet they think we care about the ballet? I mean, at least I understand the economics of celebrity and why they think anyone should care about Ben and J'Lo and the ultimate downfall of American civilisation that was Ryan and Trista's wedding. But Rex Harrington.... does CTV news even know who Brian Jungen is? Are they even aware that Sobey's is shelling out 50 grand to artists who usually get in the news for "wasting tax payer money"? And yet they think the public cares about an anachronistic fey sport like ballet? Now, don't get me wrong, I've never been to a ballet and I probably would not turn down the chance - I tend to be open minded about fey things - but I honestly can't see what they were thinking in imagining anyone cares. I don't understand how Rex Harrington is a household name. Hockey, curling, and ballet? The Karen Kaine days are ovah. Bye bye Rex, I so don't care. Rating: 2/10 TOP |
Sanka 1. Week in Review by Emily Hogg MONDAY A damn spider bit me again. This tends to happen under my blankets or when I wear something from the pile of dirty clothes. As I AutoCAD I scratch behind my knee, which is covered in fierce little red bumps. TUESDAY For $1.50, a PEUGEOT bicycle cap. And in the ongoing search for golf shirt insignias, a Nicklaus bear. WEDNESDAY I'm not sure why I so conscientiously clean my kitchen as a 'discouragement' to the mouse, when I could so easily have him killed. THURSDAY A sequence in Disney's The Black Hole has the Palomino investigating the starship Cygnus, a searchlight running over it like a sunken National Geographic battleship. FRIDAY I sit at the window and warm my feet on the electric baseboard heater. Everyone outside looks so smart in their winter warm things. TOP |
Feedback 1. From: "Paul Cowles" Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 13:23:32 -0500 To: everyone@instantcoffee.org Subject: (ic-events) in iCalendar format Hi there, I've taken the liberty to start re-publishing your events in iCalendar format. See http://pcowles.sherpasuite.com/homepage.php Now people on every OS can subscribe (http://www.sherpafind.com/subscribehelp.php) and have your events added to their personal calendars. Enjoy! Paul 2. From: mutik Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 22:58:21 +0300 To: national@instantcoffee.org Subject: Thanks for your fax Dear Sir Thanks for your fax.But when I was in Istanbul you send your fax.Just I know English in my company, so they did not understand anything.I'm sorry.I look it today.So I did not send a sample. Yes you understand me.I need instant coffee and coffee cream in bulk (25 kilos cartons).I thınk you find the coffee cream for me.I need good price with quality.Please send me your sample wirh their price. I'm interested to start cooperation with your company. With my best regards Murat Küçük 3. From: "Shintai | Zweck - Milena" Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 01:26:56 -0500 To: "Instant Coffee" Subject: RE: Quadrasonic/Instant_Coffee MAKE OUT PARTY @ Revival Fri. Nov 21 To IC, Ulysses and Alvaro -- this is the best flier I've ever seen in my WHOLE LIFE! I love Love LOVE it!!! See y'all on friday night! xo, Milena 4. From: Shaun Bowring Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 02:56:30 -0600 To: Instant Coffee Subject: Re: Quadrasonic/Instant_Coffee MAKE OUT PARTY @ Revival Fri. Nov 21 unsubscride - youmakeme puke! 5.From: Chandra Bulucon Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 08:59:03 -0500 To: Instant Coffee Subject: IC fundraiser hey IC I'd like to send you cats a cheque as a contribution to your fundrasier. to whom and where do I sent this to? 6. From: jamie sinclair Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 10:38:46 -0400 To: national@instantcoffee.org Subject: send me stuff thanks for sending me stuff TOP |
Instant Coffee Saturday Edition is our email/online zine, sent out every month or two. Saturday Edition compliments Instant Coffee's email list service, which has been promoting local, national and international events to a targeted audience since 2000. Instant Coffee Saturday Edition takes submissions; graphics, articles, reviews, links; about music, video/film, art exhibitions, architecture, design and all else worth knowing; ... self indulgence welcome in the Sanka section. Send submissions to saturday@instantcoffee.org some sats seem like suns, Instant Coffee is lovin |
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