Abstract
‘‘Sólo pedimos un poco de orden para protegernos del caos.’’[1]
–Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari
Papelitos con numeritos son gobernantes de facto en instituciones y establecimientos que intentan ejercer la organización. La máquina expendedora es un centinela en sus puertas y los espacios contiguos a este sistema de turnos procuran– antes que nada– ordenar a la gente. ¿Y si los despojo de su entorno natural y los suspendo en otro espacio donde las personas pueden contemplarlos? ¿ Es acaso absurdo trasladar los números a otros espacios y sugerirles un valor simbólico distinto? Esta obra intenta responder éstas preguntas. Durante los últimos tres años he ido guardando esporádicamente algunos numeritos en vez de entregarlos a su juicio final en el pincha papel. Este montaje les brinda a ellos una última morada para que reflexionemos sobre nuestra obediencia colectiva a un ritual que, en muchos casos, es una estructura de lo absurdo y por otro lado es ejecutado como un rito innato. Así nos detenemos a considerar su valor estético y ontológico en vez de su utilidad efímera. Fuera de serie y orden, puestos en una discontinuidad íntima- quizá nos inviten a reflexionar sobre la ceremonia que mantenemos con estos numeritos. Nos invitan a repensar eso que ‘nos protege del caos’. ¿Quién sigue?
[1] En Deleuze Gilles y Guattari, Félix, ¿Qué es la filosofía? Editorial Anagrama, Barcelona, 2001, traducción de Thomas Kauf.
An NFT is a unique digital good or the digital version of a real-life object in an image or video. Literally, NFT stands for a non-fungible token, meaning that nothing can serve in the place of the NFT, or token. And these tokens are linked to a creation or design that is accompanied by a concept. The range is broad and varied, like the first tweet in history being sold as an NFT, or the first digital home (Mars House) created by artist Krista Kim’s that sold as an NFT. These examples demonstrate the expansion of conceptual art and design, proving that its access and reach are being heavily influenced by the NFT boom.
Two important attributes that make NFT art desired are scarcity and uniqueness. Whether it be a GIF, .jpeg, or mp4; they can only be minted by an individual or collective one time, making it both unique and scarce. But if it is so easy to copy images and videos from the internet, what guarantees these characteristics? The answer is blockchain technology. The blockchain is a digital record book- it records which people mint the piece and put it on the digital market. Releases are usually limited to low numbered series and these factors lock the NFT into a specific space and time via the blockchain. This process means an NFT work is ready to be auctioned off on platforms like Zora or OpenSea, just to name a few. Now collectors, or any curious person, can bid to win and become the sole owner.
What sets this image or video apart from just any old image file or video, is that digital piece, or good, along with the concept tied to it can never be reproduced on the blockchain. If it is sold again, the blockchain creates a whole new record. You may ask: But why not just download a copy of the same exact image or video and either keep it for yourself, trade it or even sell it? Yes, you can possess it, but it has not been registered or recorded on a blockchain, therefore it is not the original. You have the postcard version and the buyer of the NFT holds the original, anchored by the blockchain.
We have seen recent examples from the Arab world art scene, too. Activists/artists are using NFT art to further the conceptual reach of their work, demonstrating how concepts and meaning behind digital art can be re-considered and presented.
Last month a large group of artists, critics, scholars, and organizers signed an open-letter in solidarity with the Palestinian Struggle. In its first paragraph it states:
“We feel it is urgent to highlight the connections between the ongoing violence of Israel against the Palestinian people and a leading institution of the art system, namely the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).” (The letter can be read in its entirety at Social Text Online)
Why now? Here are two reasons: many signees already support the BDS initiative and all found it necessary to echo their support of recent grassroots protests in front of MoMA. First, many of the signees have been committed to BDS initiatives that benefit from open-letters like this one. Since 2005 the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement “works to end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law.” Secondly, the letter affirms each signee’s solidarity with the peaceful protests earlier in May that called for MoMA and the art establishment at large to align with Palestine’s liberation– for “All eyes to be on Palestine”– one of the many phrases circulating at the protests.
The open letter articulately expresses what a few of the speakers at the peaceful protests brought to the attention of many: key MoMA trustees, Larry Fink and Leon Black both invest in art and systematic military violence directed at Palestine. Fink’s company BlackRock invests in Lockheed Martin, which has assisted in weaponizing the Israeli army since 1971. Leon Black’s private equity company, Apollo Global Management, invests in General Electric, which also supplies the Israel army with an array of military equipment. The letter goes into much more detail on other points of Israel's support from the trustees, but we want to highlight the signees doing the important work of speaking out against institutions like the MoMA who refuse to challenge their own trustees.
Continue to read how three signees (Angela Davis, Yazan Khalili, & Jumana Manna) each work towards a free Palestine. Their activism and art uniquely bring others to consider the current situation. Honest coverage of the Palestine and Israel conflict will not come from any major media outlet. The people who signed the letter help keep us honest when considering how to not only learn about the conflict but to also consider how we can become active supporters of the #freePalestine movement.
Palestinian film director and artist Khaled Jarrar is known for his satirical and critical artistic output. So it comes as no surprise that his most recent experiment with NFT art explicitly polemicizes the Israeli occupation of Palestine, specifically the direct attack on the land’s fertility and biodiversity. His piece is an open denunciation of Israel removing fecund soil from where Palestinians dwell and moving it into the regions populated by Israelis for agricultural purposes. Jarrar’s “If I don’t steal your home, someone else will steal it” demonstrates his refusal to keep silent in the face of the Israeli tactics to diversify and further the humiliation and disregard for the Palestinian people.
“If I don’t steal your home, someone else will steal it” is a limited edition NFT that was sold to a Palestinian-Jordanian collector for 3 ETH (Ethoreum cryptocurrency). The image included Palestinian dirt jarred by artist Khaled Jarrar. Israeli Settlements populate the image, superimposing over a handful of Palestinian Dirt.
Jarrar is no stranger to critiquing the Israeli occupation that has been ongoing since 1948. All of his work employs criticism of the global denial and complicity when it comes to the situation of his homeland. Since the early 2000s, his art has uniquely disputed the normalization of the military complex and colonial violence. Whether directly related to the Palestinian situation or not, the artist utilizes objects to engage these themes, resounding the call for “Free Palestine”. In this way, his art demonstrates how all is linked together and the need for global liberation from oppressive and violent geopolitical systems can begin with freeing Palestine. One example of this commentary is when he sold vials of blood on Wall Street to match defense contractors’ stock in New York. More explicitly speaking to the Israeli occupation, he once secretly chiseled pieces from the West Bank wall to later use as material for sculptures, creating objects like ping pong balls and paddles, which were included in an exhibition in London. In 2014 he was denied exit from his land via the Al-Karameh Bridge, which is the sole exit point for Palestinians traveling abroad, causing him to miss a panel on Arab contemporary art to be held at the New Museum in New York. But his activism, work, and innovation are relentless. And he draws inspiration from these imposed limitations Palestinian bodies experience on a global scale. Since then he has installed “Khaled’s Ladder”, a sculpture of a ladder using a piece of the wall from the US/Mexican border, exhibiting it just meters from the wall itself on the Mexican side.
Khaled's Ladder, 2016. Credit: CULTURRUNERS, photo by John Mireles
And again, unphased by the travel incident, we see him engage in an intimate and violent art performance in that it explicitly includes the onlookers. The performance in New Mexico “I’m Good at Shooting, Bad at Painting”, referenced his past as an integral part of Yasir Arafat’s personal security team. During the performance, he handled an AR-15 with a cup of “American coffee and a donut” while pulverizing bottles of paint that splattered large canvases and clippings of the audience’s clothing between sips of coffee at an office desk. An intentionally collective performance, worth noting the always present element of Jarrar’s work, a summons for a collective response from the people who view his art.
It is clear that Jarrar decisively chooses the elements in his art as a way to engage the Palestinian occupation from distinctive angles. He offers a perspective that calls to question the general notion that the Israeli-Palestine conflict is too complex to understand, resulting in a stalemate that impedes any real solution, let alone fair and balanced exposure in mainstream media. But in fact, he expresses just the opposite through film, sculpture, performance, and now, crypto art. Interacting physically with the usurped land, his most recent work shows that the liberation of Palestine is an opportunity for the world to learn a profound lesson in justice and liberation by addressing the historic maltreatment of Israel and reckoning with the blatant disregard of Palestine from the global community. Without any intention to coincide with the current news on Palestine, Khaled Jarrar's “If I don’t steal your home, someone else will steal it” polemicizes the occupation and daily injustices that have become a way of life since 1948. In collaboration with SPSK (An NFT-focused art Collective), he released the limited edition NFT (non-fungible token) by placing it on the decentralized auction house Zora. And by offering a jar of dirt with the NFT piece, it not only questions the unjust occupation but also highlights the economic limitations, and agriculture terracides being directly implemented by Israel and its detrimental consequences on Palestinians. In their own words, SPSK states on their website:
“Jarrar seeks to heighten awareness around the plight of Palestinian identity, particularly as it applies to the ongoing state of apartheid and occupation today. By offering the works as an NFT, SPSK is working with Jarrar to illustrate the economic challenges that people in Palestine face as a result of decades-long occupation and sanctions.”
It is no less, however, that the dirt was collected during Jarrar’s hikes through the hills and mountains of occupied Palestine. As such, it is a direct refusal to remain passive in the face of Israeli violence and illegitimate occupation, pushing him to seek the most culturally relevant and innovative expression to leverage his disconformity with the Israeli destruction of his native land. It invokes his refusal to accept a wall in his homeland as he subverted its chiseled pieces into objects of diversion and recreation. It also calls to mind the lone standing ladder near the US/Mexico border, used as a reflective piece and a playground by neighborhood children. Here, Jarrar peacefully and leisurely collects dirt, reclaiming it and appropriating it, placing it on a decentralized virtual market where no institution, government, or agency can gain any control of it. Thus, Jarrar exposes the simple fact that Israel, backed by Western power, stole and continues to violently gain control of the stolen land. This piece is truly a contemporary act of civil resistance and disobedience, showing that crypto art, and contemporary art from the Arab world, offer some of the most expressive and engaging art pieces today.
Khaled Jarrar is a strong singular voice in the art world and for Palestine. However, if you look into his work, one will quickly grasp how his performances are inclusive and his work always leaves room for participation from the audience and other individuals. The collective experience innate in Jarrar’s art inspires and challenges the art world and its global community. And perhaps the most important results blossoming from Jarrar’s
interventions, are the young Palestinians living in occupation and diaspora who are finding inspiration to demand that their voices be heard. Khaled Jarrar and SPSK are not done either. The artist’s “State of Palestine Postage Stamp” NFT will be minted and offered for sale at the Crypto and Digital Art Fair in Paris this June 2021.
translated by Eric Schierloh & paul j holzman
Using Bruce Charles Mollison’s How to Prepare for the Collapse of Capitalism as a starting point, Eric Schierloh partially rewrites and expands far beyond it. The idea of “agricultural reform” that appears in this anarchist flattening of the hierarchy of urgency was outlined metaphorically, and only a few days apart, by two of the author’s friends who don’t know each other. For this, he thanks Chilean poet Diego Alfaro Palma and the Argentine letterpress printer stranded in Italy, Federico Cimatti of Prensa La Libertad.
1 – Learn to print, not a text but a book, and not just using a home printer. A typewriter, stamps, engraving, silkscreen printing, letterpress, collage; this can all be useful for writing and for the book outside of the industrial publishing system.
1 – The industrial publishing system implies, to some degree, a standardization of text (edition) and material for the marketplace, in addition to economic dependency—in the vast majority of cases pitiful and meager and altogether unfair in terms of percentages—both symbolically and instrumentally. Very few writers know how to make a book, and perhaps even far less want to manufacture them.
1 – The material diversity of the publications will never be industrial because the very nature of the industry is replication, centralization, and an endless increase of revenue to the detriment of everything else. Meanwhile, your nature as a being inserted into a dynamic system (which includes the biblio-system) is, first of all, diversity. So take that diversity to the text as a writer and to the book as a publisher—ultimately, toward a new art of making books.
1 – Allow failure and error to have a place in your procedures.
I first came across Eric Schierloh’s multifaceted cultural artisanry imprint Barba de Abejas (Bee beard) when I was gifted a copy of Richard Brautigan’s Please Plant This Book. Eager to read the poems in Spanish, my then one-dimensional approach to books, I carefully opened the object unable to overlook the detail in each item. To my surprise, out fell eight envelopes from a peculiar binding that had subverted the traditional text block. Each side of the envelopes donned a poem in either Spanish or English enfolding a seed between each version of the text. Also included was a book of Schierloh’s own poetry written while representing Argentina at the Guadalajara International Book Fair and a hand-painted watercolor portrait of Brautigan. Perusing this offbeat compilation became the defining moment that began to expand my relationship with books, the written word, translation, and the circulation of it all.
Reaching ten years at the end of 2020, Barba de Abejas has released forty-six titles of more than thirty authors, and around 6,600 books along with 1,900 chapbooks—each one made by hand and including ancient text to contemporary poetry. Eric was willing to answer a few questions to discuss artisan publishing and his advocacy for publishing on the margins, outside of the industrial publishing complex.
Paul Holzman: What was the tipping point to go DIY and to bring the entire process into your home? Tell me about the moment you decided to plan, lay out, print, and hand-make your first book.
Eric Schierloh: It was at the end of 2010, and it had to do with two things: a certain “disappointment” regarding the dynamics of the industrial publishing system and having come across, by pure chance, the case of Ulises Carrión while in Guadalajara, Mexico. A very talented artist who transcended the frontiers of literature in order to make the manufacturing and publishing of things almost intrinsically linked to writing, Carrión speaks of the modern writer in terms of someone cut off from the material conditions of book production, and that was the exact split I had experienced publishing industrial books in small independent publishing houses. It took me a year and a half to get a grasp on all this and to teach myself the craft of editing (which includes publishing and distribution), the designing of books, and bookbinding.
The subject of Osvaldo Lamborghini’s impact on Argentine Literature summons a polarity of responses. The late Leopoldo Marechal, commenting on Lamborghini’s seminal El Fiord, said: “It’s perfect. A sphere. Shame it’s a sphere of shit.” On the contrary, César Aira, Lamborghini’s mentor/curator of sorts, extrapolates his singularity—claiming his work to be unparalleled. Academics of the greatest rigor and other heavyweights of the contemporary Latin American literati—such as Tamara Kamenszain and Roberto Bolaño—have unfettered their comments on the writing of Lamborghini as well: the former finding the need to unabatedly analyze, theorize, and deconstruct the dialectic around Lamborghini’s work, and the latter encouraging the reader to enter with caution. With so much contention surrounding his oeuvre, taking on the task of translating any of Lamborghini’s work is a mighty—even ominous—task. It therefore comes to no surprise that a print translation into the English has taken a relatively long time to reach our hands, but it has arrived: Two Stories by Osvaldo Lamborghini, by the intrepid hand of translator Jessica Sequeira.
The written word, for Lamborghini, permeates the conscious with a concise and potent mechanism, boggling the minds of readers with an intelligently savage use of syntax, punctuation, and orthography. I first encountered his antics in El Fiord, his first publication. After quickly scrapping my thesaurus and dictionary, I stumbled between aversion and infatuation, rummaging through a labyrinth of blogs and academic databases for explanations and makeshift guides to the text. After a few years of indulging in the somewhat toxic relationship of attempting to translate El Fiord into English, my notes revealed that a great many elements of his writing transcend conventional translation approaches and decisions, culminating in ever more possibilities for the text. Thus, translation is an important tool for engaging the multifarious nature of Lamborghini’s work, and Two Stories demonstrates that the act of translation proves to be a helpful light while shadowboxing what some call the “untranslatable” Osvaldo Lamborghini.
Prompted by The Sound Outside initiative at the SounDesign blog. Here is a register of our 9pm soundscape in Olivos, Argentina. We moved here a few weeks before the mandatory lock-down.
This field recording registers the dwindling gesture of solidarity: applause at 8pm every night in Buenos Aires to demonstrate appreciation for essential workers. A social gesture gratitude and connection in honor of those professionals needed to keep the world moving. About halfway through quarantine (2020), a neighbor began playing the National Anthem from their stereo to embellish the new ritual with a dollop of nationalism.
At seconds 26-27 the lowered roller shutter, that briskly goes from gentle to slam, accents daily life in Buenos Aires, quarantine or not. Albeit, odd for a typical household to be turning out the lights at 9pm. Perhaps trained by day 61 in lockdown to know that they were in for some noise that they felt better muffled. Both a subtle and defining characteristic of the soundscape. And last, the tawdry fog hornist around the block marks both the prelude and coda.
Full details:
Title: "Aplaudimno: there’s no miles in the city now".
Location: Southern Cone, Argentina.
Date: 21d May 2020.
Time of the day: 09.00 pm.
Throughout Kirchhheimer’s film, the cacophony of screeching metal with breaks of Aretha Franklin’s voice and the strolling Mingus bassline, the ruin in the graffitis may outweigh the worship of the urban predicament. The last 20 minutes or so, segments ping pong between advertisements, projects in the South Bronx, pastoral countryside coexisting with a prison, factories, and the slithering ubiquitous Lexington Ave Express. Never has a prison appeared so profanely quaint.
MAKING THE NATURE SCENE BY KIM GORDON from visitor design on Vimeo.
 |
Click here to buy full text
(Front cover oil painting by
El Marinero Turco)
+
|
 |
|
|
Memoria Romana y otros relatos inéditos by Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill |
| buy_comprar // el águila ha llegado |
 |
| buy_comprar // el asesino de chanchos |
