----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- dear all- thank you Ana, for this wonderful translation, so quickly shared, of Alicia's text (and also for re-posting the clear spanish version, I received Alicia's writing not inside this email, as you should now, but as a tiny txt attachment, orthographies out the window).
My warm welcome to others who have joined in past days, such as Simon, Vivian, Alicia and now Reinhold Görling (one of our guests this month, I will post more info on Reinhold's work soon,) and Simon Taylor from NZ is of course well know here on list debates, and I'm glad he is back and I hope others out there come to the table, yes? My personal feeling today is -- to slow down, allow us to reflect and listen. I pondered the time, slowed-down, it takes to translate, especially when it is poetic writing, dramatic writing, as Ana notes.. And Olga told me she could barely post as she was traveling in the Ukraine. I mean to say, we are in not much of a rush. we have this month to talk to each other, figure a few things... ..(I had not heard of filmmaker Ermanno Olmi, before; his “Torneranno i prati” seems to want to honor the grandfather-generation (his own) who fought the first World War, in trenches, in snowed down alpine passes. I only found one website, dedicated, strangely to the shoot on location, a tourist website? - advertising their scenic spot now via the movie, "set" between ""our mountains", witnesses of the hardships, suffering and tragedies suffered by the soldiers). I like the reference to mountains as silent witnesses to the soldiering. The website seemed google-translated from italian to some kind of english, good stuff, and non-chalantely answering Alan's question ("And what would be the distinction between a 'mad subject' and 'patriot'? " - well i can think of many) to Olga's question: is the soldier a mad subject or a patriot? (neither?). But Olga, you mentioned to me the amazing re-instatement of the (mythic) Cossacks as new fancy heroes now in the Ukraine: there they come, riding on their horses, the postmodern Samurai! Amazing. Can you elaborate on how this works culturally? How reputation is re-versed (e.g. the Kurdish peshmerga, reviled by Turkey, now becoming the last bastion against ISIS?, used by Turkey and US now as stimulus shield)? Johannes _______________________________________ From: Ana Valdés [agora...@gmail.com] To: soft_skinned_space; Alicia Migdal Subject: Fwd: [-empyre-] The horror, the horror The chronological and emotional sequences of this year: we are still shocked by the impact of the massive kidnapping of the girls by Boko Haram, our capacity of perception goes to the massacre of Gaza, as in a relay race ISIS takes over the attention in barely two months. We became aware there are bodies and brains of Western (or Westernely) teenagers living apparently an adapted life, making their initiation travel (rites de passages) to the "unkown purity". At the same time in Mexico 43 students dissapear as in in magic pass and another massgrave with anonymous bodies is found. More of the same. Another alert to not participate in the dormant stage of the contemporaryhood. >>Las secuencias cronológicas y emocionales de este año: todavía bajo el impacto del secuestro masivo de niñas por Boko Haram, la capacidad de percepción de se desplaza a la masacre de Gaza que a su vez, como en una carrera de postas es tomada por ISIS en apenas dos meses. Nos enteramos, así, que hay cuerpos y mentes de adolescentes occidentales u occidentalizados, de vida aparentemente adaptada, que hacen su viaje de iniciación a la "pureza desconocida". A la vez, en México, 43 estudiantes desaparecen como en un pase de magia y se descubre otra fosa común con cadáveres NN. Más de lo mismo. Un alerta más para no participar del estado anestesiado de esta contemporaneidad.>> The representation is a substancial part of the politic rethoric, the jihadists take to the extrem the death in direct, but edited as an spectacle, written and produced intentionally to build a continous visual narrative. An orientalized Guy Debord. <>>La representación es parte sustancial de la retórica política, los yihadistas la llevan al extremo como muerte en directo, pero obviamente editada como espectáculo, por lo tanto guionada y producida en su intencionalidad de construcción de un relato visual continuo. Guy Debord orientalizado.>> Very alike the lachonic austerity of Bin Laden in the caves and from their strategically broadcasted videos, always contested, the actions of ISIS have often something carnevalesque in itself (Pia speaks about the kitsch, if I didn't misread her), organized by the rethoric of the "good new pure sauvages". >>A diferencia de la austeridad lacónica de Bin Laden en las cuevas, y de sus videos estratégicamente emitidos y siempre puestos en duda, las acciones de ISIS tienen algo de lo carnavalesco (Pía habla de lo kitsch, si no la leí mal), organizado con la retórica de los "buenos nuevos salvajes puros".>> The repetition of the landscape in the beheadings of the foreigners, the symetric rituals of the victim and the executor, the action of the execuator as known figure and of the victim, merge one with the other in the orange robe, the despersonalization of the shaved head, everything works as a contrast with the plenty and chaotic filming of their executed dissidents, killed and shown as in the images of an archive with their appearance of dirty spontaneity. >> La repetición del paisaje en las decapitaciones de los extranjeros, el ritual de simetrías de la víctima y el verdugo, la actuación del verdugo como figura reconocible y la de la víctima fusionada una con otra en la túnica naranja y la despersonalizacion de la cabeza rapada, todo esto funciona en contraste con la abundante y caótica filmación de sus disidentes ejecutados y exhibidos, según imágenes de archivo con su apariencia de espontaneidad sucia.>> The Nazis had their own designers of clothes, scenography and architecture, the jihadists need too a brand, their black shirts, their walk more similar to the vitality of the fascism than to the hypnotical rigidity of the Nazi. An erotic of the masculinity. A populist maleness, vital, plenty of dust from the actions, trucks in the roads, erupting in the hoods. >> Los nazis tuvieron sus diseñadores de vestuario, escenografía y arquitectura, los yihadistas necesitan también una marca, sus propias camisas negras, su andar parecido a la vitalidad del fascio más que a la rigidez hipnótica del nazi. Una erótica de la masculinidad. Masculinidad populista, vitalista, llena del polvo de la acción, de los camiones en las carreteras, de la irrupción en los barrios.>> The dust, the desert, the ruins of urbanity, the primitive extraction of the oil as the pioneers did, the ubicous and fragmented State in Syra but reproducing itself in other places and act as explosion of many nuclear mushrooms in many territories, there are images of simultaneus effect in our brains. >> El polvo, el desierto, las ruinas de lo urbano, la extracción primitiva del petróleo a la manera de los pioneros, el Estado ubicuo y a la vez fragmentado, que está en un borde de Siria pero se reproduce en otros lados y actúa como la explosión de muchos hongos nucleares en varios territorios, son imágenes de efecto simultáneo en nuestras mentes.>> Johannes ask for Cecilia Sosa's book. Here around there is not any Spanish edition, but her topic gather together the big topics of these decades. I wrote in my first post about the theater of Lola Arias. I must read again it. >>Johannes pregunta por el libro de Cecilia Sosa. Por estos lados no hay edición en español, pero su temática reúne los grandes tópicos de estas décadas. Incluye el teatro de Lola Arias que yo mencionaba en mi punteo. Debo leerlo con tiempo.>> Agamben: his approach to biopower and to the bare life is an analysis of the Western political power and its paradigmatical horror, the Shoa. I propose think about Pol Pot, another forgotten horror, and today, in ISIS, a reverse of the homo sacer, the automated mechanism of the elimination of the other. <<Agamben: su abordaje del biopoder y de la nuda vida es un análisis del poder político occidental y de su horror paradigmático, el de la shoa. Propongo pensar en Pol Pot,por ejemplo, que es una especie de horror olvidado, y en ISIS, hoy, como pensamiento en reversa del homo sacer, del mecanismo automático de eliminación del otro.>> Thank you, I will continue thinking about it, with all my contradictions. Gracias, seguiré pensando, con todas mis contradicciones. Ana, hago este envío en directo. Tal vez los amigos puedan conectarse, igual, con nuestro idioma. alicia _______________________________________________ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu -- http://www.twitter.com/caravia15860606060 http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-activism/ http://www.scoop.it/t/food-history-and-trivia http://www.scoop.it/t/urbanism-3-0 cell Sweden +4670-3213370 cell Uruguay +598-99470758 "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always long to return. — Leonardo da Vinci -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. _______________________________________________ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu