dear all thanks Alan for your exquisite, resonating poem, it has internal rhyme i have still to figure out, so many referernces and beautiful images; well, enough, everyone knows we are friends, and also collaborators, so that, i think my views don;'rt count. Annie's question is odd (Hi Annie, greetings!) and yet stimulating; ask a painter why they walk into the studio every day ....well, to paint! And your reference to musicians, Alan , is well taken, as are the references to writers like Klemperer Knausgaard, or the sleepless Aby Warburg or the sleepless Hella Pick who just published 'Invisible Walls"....
Well, i have nothing to say, except respecting Alan's daily poetry and music and the jpgs very much, almost now for me, for a few years i think, since our ISIS "writings" and blog back then, a recording task. I record/archive what you send us, I sometimes show it to students, sometimes use your acoustic music in my dance, sometimes curse the times in which we cannot support our collaborations more, or see you have grants and invitations come your way more..... But I also meant to write about memory, years, parents, old homes, lost times, and had wanted to share a passage from Frank Witzel's new memoir, "Inniger Schiffbruch" (maybe translatable as "Intimate Shipwreck"), but it's too painful, dealing with parents who died and are dead, memories coming up, re-memories, old notes, super-8 films, flashing up, reverting us to strange questions (was is Pam Zhang who asked, "what makes a home a home", in her "How Much of These Hills are Gold?"), about us, providences, determinants, coincidences; and our ancestors, yes, shadowy figures, and why we stay up at night writing.. regards Johannes Birringer ________________________________________ From: NetBehaviour <netbehaviour-boun...@lists.netbehaviour.org> on behalf of Alan Sondheim via NetBehaviour <netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> Sent: 05 May 2021 22:42 To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity Cc: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] The Eternal Exercise And A Comment Hi Annie, It's a practice that keeps me focused; I have what I call 'waves' of content that flow through the sections - for example analog/digital phenomenology / gamespace/edgespace/blankspace / splatter semiotics / etc. It's like meditation; I learn from the practice and honestly have done this most of my life. Early on I was also influenced by Delta Blues music (and was at times close to people like Al Wilson through whom I met Son House etc.) - and I soon was listening to 60s-70s free jazz (people like Albert Ayler, Archie Schepp, John Coltrane, and so many others) - and almost all the musicians I know practice/play/think/produce/ etc. every day - it's I think a different way of working, I have to keep re-inventing myself in a sense, but also paying close attention to what I think might be valuable or somehow true at times, and then question those underpinnings. There are diarists like Viktor Klemperer and Kierkegaard who have also influenced me - daily writing... And from people like Kristeva and Irigaray I was also inspired to think more about embodied art, which is daily practice; most of the artists I knew early on like Vito Acconci, Rosemary Mayer, Bernadette Mayer, and so forth were also constantly producing. It's somewhat of a work ethic I think as well. -- Hope this answers somewhat and thanks for asking! Best, Alan On Wed, May 5, 2021 at 5:24 PM Annie Abrahams via NetBehaviour <netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org<mailto:netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org>> wrote: May l ask Alan What was the reason for starting to produce work at a daily rate? Best ANNIE Le mer. 5 mai 2021 à 22:23, Alan Sondheim <sondh...@panix.com<mailto:sondh...@panix.com>> a écrit : The Eternal Exercise And A Comment http://www.alansondheim.org/gonedays.jpg What am I hearing it might be God fearing the stallion is rearing the forest is dead where am I going the sky's blowing red the people are ready the horses are fed where have I been in this town of grey sin in this town where the weather's unpinned where the horses are in where the stallion is ready where the horses are rearing and the forest is dead. Sometimes there's chasm a sight of a plasm where's the flesh isn't messed and the samples go lie and this sky is darkling and the plasm's a storm that always means harm and the cyto is psycho and the horses are no go and the horses are carrying bodies in babies up to the sky up into the sky. What am I seeing it might be gone fleeing the stallion is winning the forest is gone where am I going the wind is no more the people steady to go down to the Weir. Where is the Weir where the canal was flying into the sky with the horses and chasm where is this site have the people who light down by the forest for the trees are all burning and the horses are churning in this dream by the river in the river by brook in the fountain in in the sea in the sea in the ocean in the lake of the ocean in the lake of the ocean where the horses lies sleeping and people are weeping at parties in babies are up in the sky and falling and sweeping the seeds of the rye and the wheat that surrounds us and the lost people hound us where the horses are tossed and nothing is left but a weir way down there where the people in steeples steeples learn how to fear when they go down in the forest and the ocean is messed and the horses are blessed hands up in the sky the lake of the ocean is a sound of the cry from the horses and bodies and babies who fly. I've been thinking more and more about this process of creating daily new work; I've been doing this for 27 years now in a row. It's been a scaffolding but it's also been a source of anxiety since it's difficult to come up with something new on a daily basis; for all I know I may be repeating myself incessantly. The result, combined with covid, is an out of control anxiety. Part of this is a fundamental lack of community here in Providence, which has been going on for almost eight years; part of it is a real lack of funding, which in my (equal lack of a) profession results in an inability to carry out the work I want to; as you know - I was adding this all up today - for the first time, I have no real adequate still or video camera for production, and no chance of getting these (I've always worked otherwise, with good equipment, since 1969 or so) - so there's no VR or AR work coming from my end, no potential collaborations at this point. The last actual grant I had was something like fifteen years ago which gave us tools to work in West Virginia at the Virtual Environment Lab. Since then, there's been no funding, which sends me constantly back to things like linux, work with acoustic instruments, text manipulation programs and the like. (Medicines cost for example.) If anyone has any ideas at this point, please let me know; I'm certainly not going to be getting any other grants or faculty positions or stipends etc. I'm constantly trying, even now, to get a book out, based on my production and theory-work (such as it is), but I think I carry the stink of failure around with me that undermines everything. At least we owe no one any money, and I keep going at this absurd and somewhat baleful task of continuous production. _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org<mailto:NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org<mailto:NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour -- ===================================================== directory http://www.alansondheim.org tel 718-813-3285 email sondheim ut panix.com<http://panix.com>, sondheim ut gmail.com<http://gmail.com> ===================================================== _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
