NEW STRATEGIES DMC

A preliminary last note

2011-12-20T22:56:00.003+01:00

Q: So, now that you are leaving tomorrow, was the residency worth your time?
A: My time, yes. Maybe you remember I arrived with two notions in my mind to dive in deeper here. One being the idea of ‘hope’, as expressed by many political thinkers around the globe as a possible answer to the political hegemony of the neoliberal right. That idea of hope is than opposing the vast presence of Fukuyama’s idea of the End of Ideology. With most governments in the West paying tribute to the notion no other arrangement for society is possible anymore than the economic neo liberal one we live in, hope in itself is becoming an oppositional idea. One scholar who wrote nicely about these matters is Stephen Duncombe, check here.

Q: Nice, but what about the second notion?
A: Let me finish on the first one, please, as I wasn’t finished formulating. I think my time here showed me many people in this time are trying to find a way for themselves to be living, to make a living without falling in the traps of that neoliberal economic trend. It is not that a new formula for living together came out yet, but people are trying rather than merely consuming. As I wrote somewhere: the American Dream turned into the American Nightmare here in Detroit and people don’t buy into that shitty story anymore. That could be a first step to working out a new Dream, one in which solidarity, localities and an end to consumerism are main features. Surely, if you look at Detroit and the changes it undergoes nothing is yet stable for future – some here even think Detroit did not yet hit rock bottom - but the sparks one sees are promising.

Q: Big words my friends…
A: Perhaps, but being the political thinker I am, these are little sparks of hope I will take home and keep on lingering about. Now to get your second notion. That one was inspired by a great book by a Canadian journalist, Doug Saunders, who wrote a book by the name of ‘Arrival City’, in which he investigates the way cities are changed by newcomers coming into town. As you probbly know most migrants move into neighbourhoods where they know people already. Saunders arguments that these migrant communities are the motor for cities, are the bastions for change in the towns they arrive. At a meeting in February last year he even convinced the audience, including me, the Arab Spring started by those newcomers in Cairo. They have been living in some parts of ton and have been making their way up in economical and political spheres. Untill they found out there is this glass ceiling. In order to break that glass the complete system of privileges and ingrown corruption had to be changed. Hence their wish for a complete overthrow of the Mubarak regime.

Q: Again you are using some big words here..
A: Yes, I agree, but the story also reveals to me, that personal stories, when combined, do make for big narratives. And having spend just two months in this town all I actually did do was collecting personal stories, some from today, some from the past, some for the future. So in order to find a common denominator for my experiences here I came up with two notions that were in the back of my mind already.

Q: Does that mean you were really working with a plan here?
A: To say that would be a lie. I struggled with the idea of being in town where so much is happening at the same time and actually being unable to contribute to one of those changes, that for a moment I wondered about the idea of residencies in general. But whilst looking back now there are plenty of new ideas that came into my mind. One of the most predominant being the idea of representation of towns. The ruin porn Detroit is associated with is a great example. The mediatised image of Detroit is – for many outsiders – just that: decay. But one can find completely other images here. So I took to some theories on photograpy, finding Susan Sontag’s ‘On photography’ a great treat again. Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans’ was a great introduction to the way the USA is represented in pictures, whereas jacob Holdt’s work also gave some socio-political input. I guess I will be using some of the pictures I took in Detroit – not completely ruin porn free, see here as nails to hang some stories on.

Q: So photograpy came in, any other things you would like to share here?
A: Well, having been a curator for many public debates on urban planning and having been sent out by Expodium to dive deeper into the urban dillema’s of Detroit I tried to dig up some stories on urban planning in the USA and most notably on that part of the American phenomenon people call suburbanization. But a lot of reading on that matter is awaiting me. I do know however that the notion of the capsular society will play a big role in whatever I come up with. Raging from gated communities via the American lovestory with their cars to the way people plug their headphones in when walking their dog. It seemed to me public sphere in the USA is smaller than I expected and that the car and the life style connnected with cars has a lot to do wit hit.

Q: Well, again those are big ideas, didn’t you do think or do some ‘normal’ stuff?
A: Hell I did. For the first time in my life I saw a roller derby, I dove into the classic soul and rock sounds of Detroit, and I to be honest I also semi-wasted some of my time on seeing some American movies I had never seen before. On topics I had never considered to be my topics for this residency, but here they seemed relevant. So I saw some movies on the Civil War, on slavetrade and the slavery system. And surely did I do some drinking and eating with new found friends here.

Q: Ah, that was a word I was waiting for – friends.
A: I know, you are as sentinemtal a bastard as I am. So I will affirm you, yes, friends. As Detroit gets under your skin, so do people, no? And I met some real nice people here, friends that were interested in me being me, rather in me the resident. I hope they will remain people I am in contact with, for friend stuff and for commenting on the stories I put out afterwards on this residency here.

Q: You don’t ask the questions, I do. So what are your plans for the follow up of this residency?
A: Well, first of all my girlfriend, who came over to visit me here, and me will spend some days in New York. Than we cross the big pond where it is still holiday season. That offers some time for additional reflections on my time here. Than – as I mentioned – I hope to do something with pictures, something with the found ‘scientific’ ideas on what happened here, and combining all that with personal impressions. In the meantime some institutions here and back home are already thinking of some follow up to things I helped put into motion, as a movie series followed with open discussions.

Maybe even the idea of reframing public space as I tried to do with putting some Loesje posters could be one of the things in future. And there’s plenty more, but you’ll read about it on this blog in due time.

Q: Ah, becasue it is continueing?
A: Oh, yes. See you here again, but for now: Happy Holidays!

On this artist in residency

2011-12-12T16:15:00.003+01:00

My landlord, kind Bridget, stepped in today asking me ‘whether all is allright?’ for me being so silent in the appartment above hers. On my confirming answer ‘yes, quietly sitting here, trying to read all there is to be read’ she said ‘OK, just checking’. But there is a little more to it, of course. The way the residency here is shaping out for me, I do wonder what is the result from this residency for Detroit. I suppose the answer is simple: Not a lot for Detroit.

As you are aware of the enormous pile of publications on this town and the various methods to observing, participating, changing this town I need not extent on that. But being me, not a producing artist, rather a thinker and connector, I thrive in circumstances where I am able to make a differerence. Here in Detroit, I don’t have the feeling a residency of this kind, two months without being introduced properly at beforehand, enables me to make that difference. Confronted with the wide array of people active already here nobody needs yet another artist in residence reflecting on Detroit and the turning of the American dream into the American nightmare. But still I am here and doing just that.

So yes I did dive in the enormous amount of stories here. From bloggers writing about Detroit’s history, to books about the new 21^st century Detroit, to the mountain of slightly neglected African American contributions in shaping this town and country, to books about city planning, to the great reservoir of music connected to Detroit, to the experiences of other residential artists. And let me assure you, there is a lot of great findings there.

But still, I wonder on the added value of artist in residency programs in this town. For a number of reasons: 1. So much happens here already, what could an outsider possibly add? 2. Living in a town, Utrecht, which is almost an antidote to Detroit, my pack of artistic experiences doesn’t fit the short timed situation I am in right now. 3. Exploiting Detroit is a real danger awaiting all residents just ‘round the corner – and if there is one thing I don’t want to do in life, it is exploiting other people’s dire circumstances. 4. As long as no Detroiters comment on Utrecht, why would Utrechters comment on Detroit? 5. Lacking the artists’ need to express myself being convinced the world needs my view, I’d rather pull back in the reflective mood I apparently am in.

Let me tell you a anecdote. In Utrecht we have a neighbourhood called Overvecht. It is a neighbourhood known for not being the best neighbourhood in town. It turned out to be a playground for artists. Some doing their own work, some pulling out the so called community art card. And without willing to play into the hands of those critizing the funded art world, who were always lacking at the art openings in that neighbourhood: exactly, the regular habitants of the neighbourhood. A municipal survey conducted in 2008 found out the incredible number of 217 art project were in process in that single neighbourhood. But did it make any difference for the actual residents? Wouldn’t they benefit more from some investments in the livelihood of their flats and streets?

So what is my actual contribution to Detroit? I can tell some stories on life in the Netherlands, on my experiences in life in general, those at the Balkans in particular, but I suppose that is it. I chose the vehicle of movies to do so – showing some European movies at a local art centre with an introduction by me. An introduction that doesn’t necessarily touch on Detroit, but actually might. The evenings are nice, the food and thoughts provided for by me well appreciated, the crowds not enormous. And, logically, the crowds are those of the insiders already. For the bigger part people I have met during this artist in residency already. Flyering at universities, in some bars and shops, don’t attract the people that are not already in these circles already.

So to public space than. In the Netherlands we know the phenomenon of Loesje. I thought one of my small contributions to this town should be putting out some of that posters here. Just making people smile on their way in town. Not an enormous contribution in the light of eternity, no. But a small contribution indeed.

At the same time I think a lot on the presentation back home. I produced enough material, stories, thoughts, images, I collected a lot of books, music, images I could fill the Expodium

art space on all walls with three layers. Now that will be nice for me. That will be nice for Expodium. That will be nice for the visiting crowd. But will the people of Detroit benefit? Perhaps only if the presentation brings some unexpected angles to it. So for the moment I am more than occupied in musing on those angles.

Diego Rivera’s murals rethought

2011-12-05T20:47:00.002+01:00

On the occasion of the US Social Forum, taken place in Detroit in the summer 2010, political commentator Thomas Ponniah  wrote a story on the famous Rivera mural’s. He introduced the beautiful works as follows: “The murals illustrate the dignity of the worker in relation to the history of technology - from its origins in agriculture to the factory floor of a Ford auto plant. The most intriguing aspect of the murals lies hidden within the outline of a gigantic stamping press on the South Wall: the press intimates a resemblance to the Aztec deity Coatlicue - the goddess of creation and destruction. Through the image Rivera suggests that in the 1930s the deity revealed herself, in all of her contradictions, as technology. The murals present us with the latter’s dual nature - factories and smokestacks, passenger planes and war planes, vaccines and poison gas - implying that technical progress always offers us the choice between self-immolation or an increase in human flourishing.”

After some alinea’s on the events taking place at the USSF [slogan: Another world is possible. Another USA is necessary] he sums up the social forum. Great workshops, many interesting meetings, no conrete outcomes. Than he gets to an interesting question: What would a contemporary Diego Rivera paint if invited by Ford? Not being sure of the answer himself he suggests self representation.

Self representation than would serve as a strategy to be an individual, to be more than a mere number in the 99 percent, to be existing, to be seen. That might also explain the popularity in the States for storytelling on the crisis. For example see the work of filmers Sílvia Leindecker and Michael Fox who made the documentary film Crossing the American Crises.

I don’t know why storytelling like this is so popular. Would it be because the culture of the USA is not all about cozily getting together and being a society, but more on individually pursuing your goals? Would it be because public space is merely non-existent, something you quickly pass through in order to get your destination? It struck me that many more people here than back home do walk their dogs with an iPod in their ears… Talking about the capsular society.

It might be precisely for that reason that the Occupy movement, and its’ predecessors in Wisconsin and Madison, touched an open vein in this country. Now people were getting together, they were talking, they were meeting eachother as individuals. Naturally a lot was and will be said on the Occupy Movement, but one thing cannot be forgotten: people met.

Here in Detroit – where the word Occupy has a bizarre idea to it – two events happening tomorrow might be illustrative to that idea. On the occasion of December 6th “Occupy Our Homes" two events take place in Detroit. Two families struggling to keep on living in their homes, threatened to be foreclosed, will hopefully receive mass attention. And than?

Perhaps in this country with its’ cynicism towards all things political it might just be that storyteling is a way to get a political message through. I suppose we all do remember the sixties slogan that ‘all is political’. Back than a certain narrative, and a certain political vision, accompanied the storytelling – what that vision would be today, or tomorrow, still seems unclear. So to end this post: I’d suggest Riviera to paint the dignity of the worker in relation to the networks of globalized finance. From its’ origins in ancient times to this era of hypercapitalism. Orisha God Coatlicue will give way to Ogun, cleaning the roads. That picture should be symbolizing the before mentioned battle between self-immolation or an increase in human flourishing.

Flames Favorite Music & Things

2011-12-04T23:10:00.003+01:00

Aarrgghh. Treasures in this town are so easy to find. Yesterday was the special Noel shopping day and night in what people here lik to call Mid Town, an upcoming part in town that had to do away with its’ old name of Cass Corridor because that reminds too many of the not so beautiful last twenty years. The organizing body for the Noel Day Midtown Detroit’s University Cultural Center put quite some energy in having the market succeed.

And it did. The streets were busting with people. Not so common here, as you’d imagined by now. When I spoke to someone waiting at the take away Chinese later on that eve, he just said: “Wow, to see people on the street. That made me think of years gone by. And you don’t know half how happy it made me seeing our pavements all used for what they are intended for: walking people.” So I suppose the day was a success.

But as you all know that in days of success you happen to have those very special moments. The uber success. While following one of the Detroit’s marching bands performing on the street I passed yet another second hand store on Hancock Street. Now there’s plenty more of second hand shops, be it for clothing, for house materials, or for records. This one looked liked it was for clothing, but they did have some records in there as well. So, logically, I stepped in. Then it turned out they didn’t have a few records, they had a dollar dungeon filled with the best sorted jazz and soul collection I’d seen here.

Owner Jim and employee Lerrol took their time for a little talk. They explained me the shop wasn’t the main income for Jim, however the parttime job has to provide for Lerrol. That the shop wasn’t that known in Detroit itself [whereas the record shops in Hamtramck are heralded all over the local media], but that they do attract visitors all the way down from Japan and Germany and England. The 45’s collection of Northern Soul is well worth that visit apparently. But what struck me most and really took the guys in for me was that they weren’t doing the selling for themselves; profits are all donated to an invisible group in town: the retarded. Once a year Jim told me, they even do organise an outdoor concert where local bands donate their time for a over enthusiastic audience. An audience which also climbs the stage to perform themselves. And so Jim said “We have had blind singers climbing the stage. We have had tough cases shining all over when singing on stage.” Now stories like these are exactly why Detroit is in my heart. It has nothing to do with the upcoming Cork nor Midtowns – it has to do with regular people taking care of eachother. Sharing life. Sharing stories. If only all could be so simple.

And that it is not that simple always is proven in the stories of the Detroit blogger John Carlisle. His book 313 is by far the most insightful book on Detroit bottom up that I have read. No stories on government, no stories on companies, no none of that. John went out to meet some of the special characters living in this town, listening to their stories, and then writing them down in a tender way. It made me laugh a lot as well.

Hipster

2011-12-02T10:34:00.004+01:00

One of the words popping up when talkin about the changes in Detroit is hipster. Like mentioned in an earlier post it has something to do with gentrification, it has something to do with outsiders coming in, and it has a lot to do with economical perspectives hipsters apparently do have, whereas others don’t. After diving into the history of the word, it turned out Normain Mailer dubbed the term. Check his classic essay The White Negro here.

But the word has more contemporary connotations as shows this Guardian quote: "It seemed to revolve around the desire to reproduce as rebellion these things that had formerly been part of the mainstream market," says Greif, citing the art-gallery porn by the likes of Richard Kern and the conspicuous consumption of meat while in the company of vegetarians as two examples. "There's this idea that they are the agents of change, the true revolutionaries, where the revolutionary change is to . . . make exclusive the pleasures that had potentially belonged to anyone in the past, to celebrate the upwards redistribution of wealth. Not all hipsters arrive in the big cities flush with cash, but they almost always possess some cultural capital, usually a university degree and refined upbringing. They can use this to prevent themselves from ending up on the bottom of the pile, even if their only means of upward mobility are snarky putdowns and a working knowledge of the Smiths.“ End of quote, since who listens to the Smiths these days?

Now the lines above point towards a definition but as it goes with words, another pops up just round the corner. So it seems. Since the possible definitions and explanations given at a conference, yes you read that right, a conference, on hipsterdom aren’t the most scientific proof. The conversations do however make you smile.

So there is hate against hipsters, which seems to be the ultimately hipster thing. Since who has time to worry about words like these, except for me and the cafe latte soja milk sucking hipsters themselves? Or as somebody remarks in a rather silly video on that big web:"If you like the eighties so much, than just get back, and die of aids."

Now that indeed is not very friendly, so to something a little lightlier: Naturally the name can also be transformed to a title dripping off with heavy drops of self irony. The blog Look at that Hipster even developed their own clothing. Shop here. I guess for me the most upsetting in the discussion on hipsters is the focus on the ever present and everlasting now. As if we don't live our live in a society that has been scarred by the past. So, lack of political, or for that matter historical, knowledge just pisses me off. It could be my prejudice but when i think of hipsters I do not think of kids knowing of bands performing befroe the Smiths...That might have been triggered by the first article I read that mentioned the word hipster, which was published by the loving title “Hipster: the death end to Western civilisation”. The first line of that article just sums it up: We've reached a point in our civilization where counterculture has mutated into a self-obsessed aesthetic vacuum.

“Supersonic D. Artists in Detroit now”

2011-12-02T10:00:00.003+01:00

Was the title of an evening organised by the Friends of Modern and Contemporary Art [FMCA] of the Detroit Arts Institute [DIA] last November. Now that the meme in the press of the United States on Detroit is changing from ‘that disaster city’ to ‘that city where all is possible’ it was to be expected that words like supersonic and even Mecca would show up one day or another. As far as I can see this was one of the most blatant examples: “What is it like to make art in Detroit now that the city has become an international mecca for artists, curators, and critics? Hear directly from native Detroiters and newcomers at the heart of this transformation as they discuss challenges and delights they have encountered.”

After the welcoming words by Becky Hart, curator at the DIA, and Allan Nachman, director of the board of FMCA, four artists working in, or coming from Detroit were given the floor for short presentations of their work. Afterwards a discussion and Q&A would follow, one in which the ‘renaissance’ and the ‘celebration of what is happening’ were to be the central topics. The four artists however had not planned at only playing out that card. To Marie Hermann, Richard Lewis, Veronika Scott and John Egner, Detroit was many things, but not yet a haven for artists. Hermann recalled her reasons for moving here: 1. Cheapness, 2. Thereby offering the possibility to spend many hours of real work in her studio, 3. Space in town and 4. the extremely helpful surroundings. Lewis was a bit more blunt. He had moved from Detroit to New York to return to Detroit in 2002. Because, as he mentioned, he is “out of sync with the art world and never feels out of place in Detroit.” Scott on the other hand is a Detroiter of the newest generation and did live to up the moment, calling her Detroit pride something that helped her in making the first steps in her career. Egner who while presenting his works in a beautifully orchestrated amateuristic way remarked “he just did want to talk about himself” had trouble believing in the latest renaissance, as “artists did save many neighbourhood, but I don’t know if they are able to save Detroit.” The most painful remark of the evening was by him as well. When asked why then all the artists were coming over to Detroit, he answered: “it’s the hopelesness artists thrive on.”

For some information on the artists see links below:
Marie Hermann
Richard Lewis
Veronika Scott
John Egner

One more on baseball, well, starting from baseball

2011-11-17T20:08:00.005+01:00

Having written that post on the Detroit Tigers and their claim to fame this season one cannot write about the other side to that story. For in this town all stories do have a flipside. For every story on succes there are stories on loss and pain. Newcomers in town, ‘transplants’ in the local language, are heralded by most and scoffed at by others. Investments in town are welcomed by business peeps and are laughed at by those who like Detroit as it is: a breeding ground for urban experiments. What both groups share is a certain neglect for what was here before. As an European from a museum-alized city [in the sense that we cherish our medieval city centre so much] it is surprising at the least to see that neglect in mainstream media. Because when reading on baseball in town it took some time to find mentions on the Negro Leaugue stadium in Hamtramck.

For the Europeans: As playing in the Major League baseball clubs was forbidden during the de facto apartheid years in US history African Americans organized their own baseball competition. That period started to end with Jackie Robinson’s entry into Major League baseball in 1947. Many claim this moment to be one of the contributing moments to the birth of the Civil Rights Movement.

As most countries the United States doesn’t have a culture of raising monuments for the ashaming aspects of their history. But when a baseball park as Roesink Stadium in Hamtramck does still exist, the European culture of maintaining its’ past would surely have propelled that stadium into being a musuem before a long time. Here in Detroit that discussion is just starting. Local historian and baseball fan Gary Gillette dove into the history and local authorities received him to hear the story.

“What would be the benefit?”, was one of the questions during the session with local government in 2010. Like having a historical piece in itself couldn’t be a benefit. But well, as one of the few Negro League stadiums remaining, it surely will atract tourists and “that preserving the stadium would generate national media interest, propelling Hamtramck into the national spotlight.”

Now with such recommendations one supposes it would be a matter of time for the stadium to be on lists for historical preservation, for a small renovation on the stands, and bam to be launched into that national attention. But now, one and a half year later the stadium is a neglected as it was last decades. Serving as a symbol of both neglect for African American history and of the poor economical situation of this city and its’ surroundings. Just this week the mayor delivered a speech Detroit had to be cutting yet another 10 percent on personnel budgets. National media report on the ‘Great Recession’ the US of A is in and Time Magazine ran a coverstory on “Can you still move up in America?” and one doesn’t have to be a great mind to guess what’s the answer.

With foreign commentators writing about Obama finally understanding that building bridges in the divided political landscape that is Washington will not benefit him, but that focusing on and charging at the ‘fat cats’ who got richer and richer over the last decades might do that, the picture emerges: This country is coming to a point understanding the American Dream is destroying more than it builds up.

To some there’s nothing new in that. But to many it seems a new thought. An idea that opens new roads, with directions towards unknown places called equality or sharing. Directions towards a new American dream? Now, that would be something revolutionairy indeed.

"Resurget Cineribus"

2011-11-13T02:23:00.003+01:00

Most likely a lot of people did see the Johnny Knoxville report on the D. Link here, here, and here. But than who did read all comments? Ah…
Here is selection by my hand of some of those.

Lived here all my life. The past few years,_ there has been an influx of hipsters in downtown. Why? Because they just adore taking pictures of the central station for their 'art' classes.

I admire the positivity and the DIY attitude, but I didn't see much job creation. This will sound cynical, but how many of the people featured were actually getting paid? or how many were living on trust funds. What about seniors,_ didn't see many kids, will these people start families in Detroit, send their kids to the local schools? I know this is aimed at a young trendy market but you need more than organic farmers markets and bands to revive a city

I have yet to see a city whose core is constructed of 20-30yr old, single people flourish. Skate parks don't make the city money. Raves put money in the promoter's pockets and sometimes leave havoc - after the event. Most artists don't have healthy incomes. And gardens feed only a few. Detroit needs to attract tech companies with tax breaks, alternative power industries with land deals and bio-engineering firms with the keys to the city.

Wow, can you interview anybody who's not a fucking 20 year old hipster. Why don't you interview the 58 year old people who have lived, worked and STAYED_ in the city for decades! They've been "saving" the city their whole lives, even after they've had their places shot up and been robbed. They're not just trying to create a steller rave scene. (don't get me wrong, the rave scene in detroit is great but it seems trivial).

Detroit Tigers

2011-11-10T23:16:00.003+01:00

Some of you might know Detroit is home to a Major League Baseball organisation: the Tigers. The Tigers were founded in 1894 and, contrary to many other teams in Major League baseball, never moved to another town. Wikipedia says this about the club: “The Tigers have won four World Series championships (1935, 1945, 1968 and 1984) and have won the American League pennant 10 times. The team currently plays their home games at Comerica Park in Downtown Detroit. The Tigers constructed Bennett Park at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Trumbull Avenue and began playing there in 1896. In 1912, the team moved into Navin Field, which was built on the same location. It was expanded in 1938 and renamed Briggs Stadium. It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961 and the Tigers played there until moving to Comerica Park in 2000.”

And it is on that new stadium i would like to continue. Because to build a new baseball park in a town with so many problems doesn’t seem to be the most logical thing to do. But than, economical necessities more often than not don’t suit the needs of the average Detroiter. As someone mentioned “You don’t get richer not building a new stadium.” And that might be true: building breeds money. Maintaining just costs money. Promptly the Tigers went through some bad years, with the 2003 season being one of the most disastrous baseball seasons played by any team in Major League Baseball history. Quoting wikipedia again: “While the 2003 Tigers rank as the third worst team in major league history based on loss total. The Tigers went 43–119 that season, 47 games behind division-winner Minnesota.” The pitchers of the Tigers were #1, #2, and #3 in the major leagues in losses for 2003—the only time in major league history that one team has had the top three losers.” Things couldn’t get worse.

But now, with the town itself starting to breathe again, so did the baseball club. 2011 saw the Detroit Tigers competing well and making it to the American League series, which is the equivalent of the semifinals, to lose against the Texas Rangers. What pleased the neutral baseball most is they beat the Yankees in the ‘quarter finals’. That, for Europeans, is the equivalent of a Dutch soccer team beating Real Madrid. And not only the Yankees, as a rich club able to sign expensive players, didn’t make it to the final rounds, neither did other rich clubs. Actually other clubs from the ‘rust belt’ performed well this season, inciting Richard Florida to write a pleasant commentary on the “de-industrialized Rustbelt metros”. Read here

2011-11-07T02:09:00.003+01:00

As we know, not everything happening in Detroit is new, as also concluded the Frenchies on their blog Detroit, je t'aime , and this picture from the Yes Farm's site just proves that.

Influxes from the outside world

2011-11-07T01:11:00.003+01:00

Naturally the situation Detroit is in attracts [media] attention from outside. The former branding of the city as a ruin town, as the living example of the death of the American dream seems to be outdated. So many people here worked so hard to maintain this city, so many people did their best to have some kind of society working, it had to pay off. Whereas Detroit was leading all the wrong lists in many of the USA media, ow the tide is changing. From a town in which one would not even be found death, now the stigma on Detroit is one of 'can do'. From disaster city Detroit turned into 'city of opportunities'. A link to provide you with further insight on that idea:
- Is Detroit the new Brooklyn?

But that idea of course is contested in yet another one [numerous are the publications on this town, and countless the comments they provoke]:
- Detroit: the death of Manhattanism.

Many of the outsiders coming into town at this moment are not wholly trusted by the Detroiters i have been meeting these weeks. As opposed to the white flight from the 50ies, and more recent, now power and money don't leave town, but flow in. That causes Detroiters who stayed here to wonder on the willingness of those people to contribute to non fordist dream of Detroit's future. Are businesses and investment bankers not trying to revive the old system which so deeply hurt this town? Are they here for profits only, rather than for the sake of the community? As some one put it last week: "The new incomers have access to two things most people here don't have: resources and out of town networks. Kids who grew up here during last decades are than again losers - as they don't have these two assets. Who is going to guarantee me the investers will not move somewhere else sometime soon and once again leave us? And in that process having transformed our dream into another nightmare?" Let's see what some of the investers think of that themselves:
- Detroit's fix-it men in their own words

"Second" impressions

2011-11-07T01:07:00.003+01:00

“Second“ impressions Having spent one more week here, filled with more talks and tours through various parts of the city, it’s time to write down some second impressions. What struck me most is the concern and love of all people here in Detroit for the city they live in. There does exist a certain idea of what Detroit ought to be: a town in which the experiment on the post-fordist , post neo liberal society is taking shape. An experiment with an unknown outcome, but based on ideas and beliefs the local counts more than the national, based on convictions the Detroiters are in this situation all together and need eachother to make the experiment work. Whether that be by buying local, by social networking in your town, or by supporting eachother in all one does makes no difference now. The belief is here that people need to do it themselves, independent of the structures that characterized the fordist system. Politics and politicians? To be laughed at. Companies and other institutions? Not concerned with people. So everybody works in non profit organisations. Some get paid for their work, others live of food stamps to have their NGO function on the highest profile possible.

This indeed is all very beautiful, but it brings up some tough questions: In the limbo-ism of this moment cooperations work out fine, but how will the future with some more organized models influence this way of working? How will Detroiters deal with the influx of people and money from out of town? Can the love and desire for making Detroit work again survive the phase of self obsessedness that naturally stems from it? How will Detroiters deal with the outside world putting various stamps on the city? The future might be less bright for some of the ideas that seem so vivid today.

Jon King's books

2011-10-27T23:21:00.004+02:00

Anyone having some hours to spend in this town which are not filled in with appointments is strongly recommended to visit Jon King’s books. A heavenlike place for any booklover, and actually for all who are not – they will walk out being booklovers. On three stores, in two buildings there are books books books books books books and yep some more books. The owners, Jon and his wife Toni, and the personnel seem to be the sole people on earth knowing their way in this labyrinth of piles and shelves filled with books from all times. Little corners reveal treausures never thought of. The corner of ‘Detroit’ saw me digging in deep and coming up with some first hand accounts of the ’67 riots, some guide to nineties multicultural Detroit and Boggs’ 1963 “The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker's Notebook.”
When Toni noticed our excitement for what was all around us she as well got enthusiastic. We were invited to follow her into the second building in which the real treasures are kept. It turned out the second building was more orderly with real categories being sticked to the walls. Now the real treasure digging could start – and Toni next to us [“Yes, i am going to take all your money”] kept on throwing beautiful brochures on urban planning, old citymaps, and historical books at us. And yes, she could have taken all our money, and than some more. Luckily we had a busy afternoon schedule so we had to leave her. Happy and excited with what we found we left and promised ourselves a quiet evening to do some reading. And that evening silence reigned the house.

Mexican mural

2011-10-27T23:20:00.006+02:00

Walking down the street picturing a mural which clearly was never finished I met a girl. She was as kind to leave the pavement and take a detour on the street allowing me to have an open panorama. When I thanked her she looked surprised and stopped. Nervously sucking her sigaret she greeted back. On my question if she knew if the mural would ever be finished, she looked even more puzzled. “Will you do so?” Me laughing, “No I don’t think so, I just wonder who will do so?” On her second question if I was an artist I had to reply “No, even though some would label me like that during my time here, but no. Are you?” “Naah, never was, never will.” Than we looked at eachother and just laughed. Both of us willing to see the mural finished, both of us feeling strange we would never do so. Both of us sad thinking we wouldn’t see that happen.

Hidden histories

2011-10-27T23:17:00.011+02:00

A few days later, a few days filled with stories, a few days of exploring the D. Not only by driving around, by meeting people, by talking, but by taking leaflets, reading the signs on the streets, and already in this first weeks various layers of histories shape up. Having been impressed by reading Doug Saunders’ book ‘Arrival city’ on the arrival and consecutive ‘landing’ and empowerment of migrants within their own communities I’d like to look at Detroit as an arrival city. Waves of African Americans were coming to town in what was called the Great Migration – the migration of African Americans from the South to the North between 1890 and 1970. They arrived in a town that by then knew great Polish, Ukraianan and Greek communities. Nowadays the town of Hamtramck is referred to as Banglatown, whereas South Western Detroit is widely known as Mexicantown. The latest wave of immigrants are the socalled hipsters, being attracted by the vibrant scene they created for themselves, not necessarily connected with anything already existing in town, and the cheap housing possibilities. What will be a next wave of migration? And will the flagrant segregation that existed, and exists!, once be someting of the past?

What station to get off at?

2011-10-25T07:28:00.004+02:00

An event by Expodium and Friso Wiersum, Utrecht The Netherlands, in collaboration with CAID, Detroit, USA.

Friday, 28th of October
CAID, 5141, Rosa Parks BLVD

Doors open for refreshments at 7.30 pm. Conversation starts at 8 pm.

WHAT DO DETROIT, THE BALKANS AND INDONESIAN SHADOW PUPPETS HAVE IN COMMON?

SHOULD WE ‘HURRAY’ HIPSTERDOM IN DETROIT?

Since 2009 Expodium has been coming to Detroit in order to set up a program based on exchanging experiences and knowledge about urban challenges. The program started in 2010 and recently, the fifth resident – Friso Wiersum - arrived.

Expodium and Friso will introduce the program and touch upon various issues Friso hopes to address to during his dialogue-seeking stay of 9 weeks.

Weekend

2011-10-24T16:56:00.002+02:00

Weekends in the D offer plenty of opportunities to discover other sides of the town. Friday evening we spent playing 8ball in Temple Bar, meeting up with dj Affection. Some collab in future is at hand.

Saturday night Theatre Bizarre organized a tremendous party in one of the town's iconic buildings, the Masonic Temple. Costumes mandatory. Check their site for more info and see their facebook for uploaded pictures of guests. Five floors filled with music and shows and theatre and burlesque stages and… It was a good night out. The only disturbing fact: our dresses were marked with a Spartan. And Spartans are the sport teams of the Michigan State University, the concurrent of Wayne State University. All evening long people called out to us: "Go green!" And how much I would love the world to go green, I did not expect people to keep confirming that on a Halloween party. It had nothing to do with environmental issues, but all with the color of the sports teams. It took some Arab sheik to explain us why we were being so enthusiastically welcomed. Thanks again Mark.

Than sunday, as you can imagine, some tiredness was my share. Luckily Bart and Luc shared that feeling. An English breakfast with KT and some coffees later we took out to Belle Isle. The lounging island in the Detroit river. We watched a game of slowpitch in the sun. Afterwards we met up with Andrew Herscher [more on him later] in a beautiful pop up beergarten; Tashmoo. As it turned out this was their last sunday at their location at Van Dyke Street, and the lightbulbs, the beanbag tossing, the grilled sausages and the hipsters all made it feel very Berlin.

This town has many sides, and wow, I am going to dive in.

Spacious limbo-ism

2011-10-22T18:52:00.009+02:00

First impressions
First impressions are always the most funny ones. The ones that give shape to your frame for understanding all things one is gonna encounter. Now my first impressions here were as one could expect: the USA really does look like all the images one knows from TV and movies: huge cars, big people, many ads along the road, and those dinners and delicatessen we all dreamt of. The car we drive in here swallows a 120 litres of gasoline. When the battery run empty some guys, each one of them weighting at least what us three weight together, helped us out at the gas station. And to finish the story at the gasstation: they did serve some awfully good Mexican food. So actually now new impressions there.

Spacious
But than to something that did strike me. We all know Detroit’s notoriety as the town where things, to say the least, didn’t exactly go as once planned. Economies failed, corporations decided to leave town & fuck over all their employees & their families, and hence the drop in population size from over 2 million to a mere 800.000 at the moment. I suppose everybody reading these lines heard about the word ‘ruin’ porn– the eagerness of seeing and preferably photographing the abandoned and deserted desolate and sometimes halfly burnt houses, so no need to dwell upon that – but what I did not realize is this: when these houses, factories, and other lots were taken down the sites weren’t developed and thus the town has an enormous amount of empty space. And Detroit already looks like a spacious town to me, having grown up in busy neighbourhoods in Europe. Every direction one looks shows open space. So even though Detroit is a big town it has a village feel.

Lethargy of living in limbo
And connected to that feeling is the very citylike idea of a village being more relaxed, more connected, more community like than the towns most people live in today. But than, for some among us who did grew up in villages, those little towns also had the dready long afternoons where nothing was gonna happen and you did know at beforehand. Numerous were the afternoons when homework was done and you didn’t know what else to do. That in some way also is the Detroit experience. It is the quietness of a post conflict zone where new life has yet to gain shape. It is the limbo time in which we don’t now what tomorrow will bring. It is the spacious surroundings that are so wide we don’t where to start filling them in. It’s the lethargy of not knowing where to start ‘cause there is so much to be done. It is the poetry of longing for a future finally starting.

WE'RE BACK!

2011-10-20T16:49:00.005+02:00

Hellooohooo! We're back in Detroit, this time with Friso Wiersum who will stay here for the upcoming 9 weeks for us. Good to be back, lots of rain, but good to see Detroit in autumn too.

Customs this time went pretty well... although... Friso was picked out of line this time, and was lead immidiately to a back room for interrogation. Actually it wasn't that bad, but they didn't quite get how Friso would stay for nine weeks at someones home who he didn't even met yet. And the main thing: "we just want to make sure that, if you get hit by a car, you won't be a burden to our society".... Well, what to say about that?

And just when things for me looked to be really smooth this time -i went past the customs officer without too many trouble- just before really entering i was asked to again have my luggage checked. This officer asked me some questions: "what are you in Detroit for? For how long will you be staying?", and then: "why do you have so many layers on man?". I replied that it was indeed a little warm. The officer continued: "if you have so many layers on we of course think that you are hiding something from us. What are you hiding?". So i had to open my hoody and then the guy said something that i did'nt quite get, except for the word "belly", so, of course, i lifted my sweater and showed the guy my bare naked belly..... "Don't show me that man!!" he shouted, and i was released to go in to the country. So my belly did the trick this time. Will remember that for the future.

BACK TO D

2011-10-18T17:44:00.007+02:00

From 19.10.2011 Expodium will be in Detroit again.

Following up the first residents in summer 2010, (Nikos Doulos and Joao Evangelista) and the second, in summer 2011 (Chris Meighan and Jonas Ohlsson) we will be acompanying Friso Wiersum who will be the next resident.

Where Nikos and Joao have been focussing on mapping the social structures and building up an Expodium network, Chris and Jonas have been focussing on Artistic practise.

We know Friso as a historian who is pushing boundaries when they are tight, staying within when they are spacious. A walking paradox? No. A professional in the cultural-political working sphere. He will be focussing on the political and historical situation in D-town and following the same path as his predecessors, he will be processing the experience and info that is gained during his stay after his return back in the Netherlands.

Our Schedule for the upcoming days introducing Friso to our Detroit Network is pretty packed!

We will be taking our new Expothesis by Markus Miessen and 37 contributers to have it introduced in the US of A!

Translation Station #4: Kanaleneiland Event

2011-10-18T15:50:00.006+02:00

As a follow-up of their previous three translation stations, all based on their experiences in Detroit, Nikos Doulos and João Evangelista presented their fourth and last one that this time takes place in de Utrecht area of Kanaleneiland. The translation stations are stops in the process in which experiences and knowledge that are obtained in Detroit, are tested in a new context. Expodium instructs the artists it sends to Detroit to physically get their hands dirty and realise projects that are entrenched in the urban situation in Detroit. This method is used in Kanaleneiland as well. That’s why Translation Station #4 focused on finding an appropriate way of applying knowledge that is obtained in Detroit, to the social context of Kanaleneiland.

Nikos got in contact with newcomers in the area during his stay: artists that have come to live in the area and found themselves confronted with the fact that they have to do ‘something’ in the area. The urge or capability however to act collectively is practically non-existent, as Nikos found out. His contribution to this evening thus existed of a performative presentation and slide show entitled ARE YOU PEOPLE?, in which he, together with Mai Linh Ly and Koen Marks (both living in Kanaleneiland), explained why collective feeling doesn’t emerge, what does make it emerge and what their actions were, based on the findings of Nikos. The action that came out of their experiences during last month is the so-called NIGHT WALKERS.

NIGHT WALKERS is a group of artists and inhabitants of Kanaleneiland. They carry out hikes at night in order to, collectively, explore new peculiarities in the area. On this evening too, a night walk took place with a focus on ‘spaces of tranquility’ in the area. The route took us to the promenade along the Amsterdam-Rijn canal, via the Sayidina Ibrahim mosque to the St. Antonius hospital and to the Eyüp Sultan mosque.

João Evangelista presented a service-project – SERVICE LAUNCH - from which he will try to instigate a collective response. Based on his knowledge obtained in Detroit about producing bio-diesel, he gave a ‘cooking work shop’. João constructed a bio-diesel lab in the apartment to give a demonstration on how to make bio-diesel. The presentation was filled with references to power relations, political tendencies and alternative economies. During stirring the mixture of methanol, hydroxide and vegetable oil, which took about twenty minutes, the audience could ask questions.

With his service João focuses on the community of vintage Mercedes owners. Within that bunch, there is already some interest in the bio-diesel lab. The upcoming period, João will pass the knowledge about bio-diesel production on to inhabitants of Kanaleneiland in order to create a collective around the lab. The lab is made mobile in order for it to travel with the inhabitants who are interested in continuing it.

Both presentations of the projects are moments in the trajectory of locatie:KANALENEILAND. The upcoming weeks both NIGHT WALKERS as the bio-diesel lab will be continued.

Translation Station #4

2011-10-14T12:23:00.006+02:00

15.10.2011 | 20.00-23.00 | locatie:KANALENEILAND (Auriollaan 98)

João Evangelista | Nikos Doulos

As a follow-up of our three previous translation stations, all based on our Detroit experiences, We present the fourth and final translation station, this time in Kanaleneiland, Utrecht.

The translation stations are stops in the process of testing experiences and knowledge learned in Detroit, against different contexts. As Expodium assigns the artists they send to Detroit to get their hands dirty in order to come up with projects that root in the urban situation there, this method is also applied to Kanaleneiland. Therefore, Translation Station #4 focuses on finding an appropriate way of applying the knowledge gained in Detroit to the social context of Kanaleneiland.

João Evangelista | SERVICE LAUNCH 1& 2

15.00 (SERVICE LAUNCH 1) | 21.00 (SERVICE LAUNCH 2)

What proverbial power lies dorment in a neighborhood like Kanaleneiland? What groups of people already have their own productive way of looking after their own? João Evangelista will be showing a straightforward way of producing power, kick-starting a communal way of working on a shared interest.

Nikos Doulos | ARE YOU PEOPLE?

with Mai Linh Ly & Koen Marks 20.00

Nikos Doulos' performance is rooted in collecting information obtained while taking baby steps towards a collective doing. During his stay in Kanaleneiland this last month, he hooked up with many local artists and initiatives and tested several ways of operating as a collective, focusing on the 'why' rather than the 'know how' of such an activity. The emphasis was put on its necessity as a format for doing and creating a sense of 'belonging to' instead of it being a top-down initiative.

And of course one more NIGHT WALKERS session!

NIGHT WALKERS #4
22.00
NIGHT WALKERS is a group of artists and residents in Kanaleneiland, Utrecht.
They initiate night walks around the area.
Meeting point: Front porch at Auriollaan 98!

Join NIGHT WALKERS and:
allow yourself to get affected by the urban night-scape.

Clearly not all about Detroit

2011-09-09T16:44:00.011+02:00

It's been 380 days since we left Detroit. And by we I mean Joao and me.

It's been 24 days since they left Detroit. And by they I mean Jonas and Chris.

It is quite evident that our focus on the city differed and while our translation process is coming to an end, theirs has just begun.

We embrace the uniqueness of the moment and feel the need to reflect upon, not so as to give an elaborate view on the effect Detroit had on all of us, but to investigate the nature of the 'residency', the failures and successes of any translation attempt, and the identity of the 'artist in residency' - who ever this body and mind is or has become.

Therefore we would like to invite everyone to an event on Friday the 16th in the Kanaleneiland apartment of Expodium, in Utrecht.

Following up is the press release! Have a look and drop by!

Two artists that have been building on their experiences from a residency period in Detroit (that's me and Joao) encounter two artists that have just returned from that same city (that's Jonas and Chris). A unique confrontation that will leave you pumping with energy for new plans.

During the night you will see some work-in-progress, an innovative publication project, provoking political presentations and much more. Everything stems from the possibilities the Detroit program offers to be used for an extensive period and on multiple locations, in a constructive way.

The four artists take you along locatie:KANALENEILAND and open your eyes towards possibilities that come into existence when you apply your experiences to a new context.

After all these insights we'll get a party going on the tunes of DJ Lonely and Baba Electronica.

A brief preview:
Michigan left
by Chris Meighan

Electro lecture
by Jonas Ohlsson

Launch of the DBA_IDURLL* publication project
Nikos Doulos | João Evangelista
* DETROIT: BACK TO THE FUTURE/ARCHIVE OF IMPRESSIONS between illusion and delusion, urban and rural, living and leaving

Milk and honey on the other side

2011-08-17T16:44:00.008+02:00

The big day has come and gone. I had some early worries about the weather, since thunderstorms had been predicted, and part of my performance was to take place outdoors. In the end, the sun stayed shining on into the evening. The skies finally opened with a dramatic show of lightning, rain, and even a rainbow against a dark red sky. But by this time, everyone was safely situated in the Temple Bar with a beer and something to eat.
I was very pleased with how my two-part performance turned out, although I'm not sure if people knew quite what to make of it. The visual arts here appear to be dominated by the art object; in this context, it is perhaps a little difficult to place my own way of working: part theatre, part performance art, part artist's lecture. But I myself at least am satisfied with it, which is as important as what anyone else thinks of it. In due course, the edited video version will appear online.
The performance consisted of two parts, which took place in John K. King's book store and Cass Park respectively. To solve the logistical problem of moving people from one to the other in a reasonably short period of time, I had wanted to hire a bus and driver. Despite extensive efforts by KT to locate one at a reasonable price, this proved to be more difficult and expensive than expected - until finally we were able to secure the services of Jean Wilson and her blue biodiesel monster. Affordable, green, and much more fun!

After the performance, we set about feeding everyone in the Temple with hummus, rice, salad, chips, and various other delicious things. Jonas had turned the Temple into an exhibition space with an extensive collection of drawings and sculptures in his own inimitable style. A nice trick was the separate installations in the gents and ladies toilets - one show for the girls, and a different one for the boys. Afterwards Jonas, a.k.a. DJ Lonely, played a storming DJ set as always.

And so we are reaching the end of our time in Detroit. This week, with the pressures of the end show behind us, we have had time to do some things which need to be done before leaving: including, as we did yesterday, visiting Canada. It's only a bridge crossing away on the other side of the Detroit River, but in other respects it is a long way away. And this isn't Europe - there's a proper border crossing with guards, guns, and (probably) dogs.
We set off in bright sunshine across the Ambassador Bridge, an imposing structure towering over the Detroit River. Curiously, we did not need to present ourselves to US Customs on the way out, only to Canadian Customs on the way in. After a series of pointless questions about what we were doing in the US, why we were coming to Canada, and who's van we were driving, we were allowed to proceed.
At first glance, there are few great differences between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan. The streets are cleaner, there are very few abandoned buildings, and everything just seems to be in a slightly better state of repair. There is also clearly much greater ethnic diversity - which displayed itself not least in the astounding variety of restaurants. It was quite a strange experience to stand on the waterfront and to stare across at downtown Detroit, which has become so familiar and which was now in another country.

In some respects, Canada is a little bit closer to home. Speed limits are in km/h, there's some British influence in the spelling (Honour vs. Honor), and Queen Elizabeth is still on the coins.
And, without too much America-bashing, the evidence is plain to see of the effects of a political system which places greater emphasis on social welfare and solidarity. The United States, if it is possible to talk of the country as one whole (which is questionable), has an almost dogmatic attachment to free market economics and the right and responsibility of every citizen to fend for themselves. This has lead to some startling economic success stories, but also to some horrific economic and social failures. One of these is Detroit.
That said, I want to reiterate the warm feelings that I have already expressed for this city. And after around four hours in Canada - neat, tidy, ever-so-polite - I was surprisingly happy to be back in the grimy old Motor City.

But not before the ordeal of re-entering the United States. In contrast to the superficial enquiries on the Canadian side, we were subjected to more in-depth questioning this time. We were also made to sit in a waiting room while a team of border guards dismantled the internal panels of our Dodge Ram conversion van with the aid of power tools, in the hope presumably of finding something incriminating.
Friendly they were not, but they at least put the van back together, and - more importantly - allowed us back into the country. In two days time, we will be leaving it for good.

"I, European person, solemnly swear..."

2011-08-12T19:40:00.003+02:00

"I, European person, solemnly swear" (and so on...).

We are doing our final preparations for the Art & Rave party tomorrow.

Sound check yesterday went well, even though it was hard to get it right.

But I am convinced we can clean the ears of the Detroitians, with the sound we now have...

TJOHOOoooOoOooOooooOooooo!!!!!!

Why one marshmallow is sometimes enough

2011-08-11T16:56:00.000+02:00

I am not able to keep up with Jonas' speed and quantity of writing, but I will try and at least write something meaningful in my own, more compact style...
The work continues. I have finished writing my half-hour, three thousand word performance text, and am now busy memorising it (or since we are in the USA, that should be memorizing). This is a very tedious process, although thankfully one that I am quite experienced with now.
Following my experiments last week with the bicycle wheel, I am now building an more advanced camera dolly. So far the results are great - a small test can be seen below.

The piece I am working on focusses on some themes related to the reason for our residency here: growth, decay, progress and success (and to what extent these are subjective concepts), and the idea of “enough” - that is to say, the state of being in which you cease to desire more.
As an example of the sort of accepted wisdom which I am attempting to be critical of can be seen in the following quote:

“In one US experiment, researchers put five-year-olds in a room with a marshmallow. The children were told that if it [sic] could wait 15 minutes without touching it, they would be offered a second marshmallow. Despite the inducement, the vast majority of the children ate it before the time limit was up.“ - www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14412025

The point which intrigues me is: why are they assuming that two marshmallows are better than one? Why is more always better? Can they not see that these children - apart from being impatient (although who would really want to spend 15 minutes in a room staring at a marshmallow?) - were perhaps quite satisfied with only one? How strange it is that adults cannot see this.
This may seem like quite an odd thing to be mentioning in relation to this residency in Detroit - but in fact it completely gets to the heart of what has been preoccupying me the whole time here. The life which people are able to carve out here despite the odds, against the grain of what seems rational with respect to accepted values, is clear evidence of the cracks in the system which chooses to condemn Detroit.

“Detroit has to be deprived of its reality so that everyone else can feel better about theirs.” - Herron, J. - AfterCulture: Detroit and the Humiliation of History

Or in other words, it is necessary for the city to be written off as a failure so that inhabitants of more traditional, “successful” cities can go on believing that the old system is working. Recent events are beginning to show that this self-deception cannot continue for long.
No-one can deny that, by all normal measures, Detroit is a total failure as a city. There is no getting away from the fact that life is hard for a great many people here, with many practical difficulties. On a functional level, many things which are normally taken for granted as a part of city life simply do not work.
But people stay here - and new people come here - for a reason. Politicians like to use evocative words like “hope” and “opportunity” to explain the mentality of Detroit, but I would say that the reasons are more concrete and down-to-earth than that: the unique atmosphere of Detroit is proof that another life is possible which does not involve a big-name chain store on every corner, ever-increasing house prices, gentrification, superficial image makeovers (although there have been plenty attempts), or a new car (or back home, bakfiets) in front of every house. There are so many initiatives which I have seen here, and in each case I been painfully aware of the countless reasons why it could not happen back home - lack of space, regulation, real-estate prices, the wagging finger of the law. Who is really the success and who is the failure? That is the nagging question which will be, I think, the lasting reminder of my time in this city.

End performances, exhibition, and party at the Temple Bar!

2011-08-10T04:31:00.015+02:00

On Saturday August 13th, Yes Farm residents Chris Meighan and Jonas Ohlsson will say goodbye to Detroit in style. Chris and Jonas have been spending the last two months on the East Side courtesy of the art organization Expodium, from Utrecht in the Netherlands.
The program begins with a once-only performance by Chris at a secret location. Bus will depart for the first part from the Temple Bar on Cass Avenue at 5.30pm. Places are limited, so come on time - the bus won't wait!
If you miss it, don't worry - part II will take place at 6.30pm in Cass Park, with plenty of space for everyone.
After that, we will all return to the Temple Bar for free food at 8pm, drawings by Jonas, and finally a party with DJ Lonely and Lauren Hood rockin' the house till 2am!
B there or B...RnB!!!

The usual DJ Lonely ASS FOOD of...
(good name, I will use that next time for a party)

Baile Funk, Ghetto Tech, Detroit Techno, sleazy Chicago house, Kuduro, Kwaito, Dancehall, Euro trash, Miami Bass, Moombahton, Baltimore Club, Rave, Nu Disco, Indie, Dubstep, Digital Cumbia, Tech House and so on... Until they throw us out!

With thanks to Expodium, the Yes Farm, Mondriaan Stichting, Fonds BKVB, CAID, and all the many interesting and enterprising people we have met in Detroit (and elsewhere) during the last few months, who have been so patient with and helpful to us - we're gonna miss you!

Femke Halsema to the rescue...

2011-08-09T15:18:00.027+02:00

There was an interesting article in Volkskrant where Femke Halsema was stepping in for
the usual TV reviewer (don't know his name) and reviewed the TV programs of the day, she apologized for
not being so knowledgeable about TV as him and wrote a nice review of BBC's Top Gear show.
It was a good review, but nothing spectacular.

But what made me think was this apology for not knowing so much about TV as the specialist.
That REALLY opened up my eyes, according to Maurice de Hond Dutch people watch on average
3 hours of TV a day, how come we are not ALL TV specialists.

The reason I remembered this was that I would always tell my art students, that it is VERY
important to create an addiction with your art practice, so that you get soooo sucked into the proccess,
that you automatically go to your studio or laptop or whatever.

I basically believe that love and passion is something that you can create in yourself for art or music
(maybe not for persons), but if you don't love art it is usually because you have been misinformed or not informed at all
and that is my basic working hypothesis. Because with music and art..."to know me (Art & Music) is to love me"...
I say this because I speak from my OWN experiences, I didn't always love art and music, you WORK on it.
To GET you need to GIVE!!!

But back to the Femke Halsema argument...
I always used to tell my students
"If you can create that addiction to your own practice you will walk around with the energy of a speed freak
and then AUTOMATICALLY you will get good at what you do"... and
I use this argument because it worked for ME...I am not a very discplined person.
If I HAVE to do something I don't like very much, I can keep it up 3 weeks maximum.

BUT...I am a very PASSIONATE person, so if I fall in love with collecting records, I will travel
all over the world to find the record I am looking for, or with art, when I GET INTO something,
you can't drag me out with 4 elephants, from the OUTSIDE, it might look like I am a very disciplined art guy,
but in fact I am totally NOT ( I am generally very lazy),
it's just that I am having the time of my life, thereby SIDESTEPPING discipline.
I guess this story tells more about me, than about my students maybe,
But I can only give them what worked for ME and hope that there are some nuggets
of wisdom in there that someone else also can relate to...

BUT what was missing in this theory was the TV argument....

There are tons of things we do daily...eating, shitting, showering, watching TV, that we just DO NOT get any better at.
It doesn't take much care, passion or involvement from us either, it is done on auto pilot!
We have managed to cultivate a certain addiction, and we spend hours, weeks, years and lives doing it,
but there is just NO learning curve involved, no development or improvement.

Just DOING something is not good enough, if it is not connected to some kind of focus or research.

I would also go so far as to say that this is where depressions can come into our lives, if there is nothing challenging
happening, if it is all just a BIG slur.
If we can live our lives on auto pilot it get's stagnant.

And I guess this is also the reason people take cooking classes or study Spanish (or go to Rietveld in some cases)
or what ever. To wake up the brain from the slur of the everyday life.

In ALL of us there is this cooconing gene, that wants to make life simpler and more controllable,
but if it gets TOO controlled, we get ourselves in trouble again...
But this is another debate!

You can watch tons of TV and still it will remain something that does not take you further, or develops your taste or persona in any way.

Of course THIS is not a revolutionary idea, that TV might make you slow, but it makes me
understand certain principles of the mind , that was missing in my theory before.

I think the key danger here is relaxation. If you use something for relaxation, there is very little development,
of course you also have a lot of people using painting for relaxation, the Bob Ross school of thought,
and I don't want to diss people who uses TV or painting for relaxation.
But there is a time for relaxation and there is a time for ACTION!

But I now see what the problem is with that attitude, also in MY case...I need to be aware.
Often when I sit and play with my synths (or facebook), it is pure relaxation, and again there is nothing wrong with relaxation
But I don't think that that is how you make great art or music.
You need to watch out for the relaxation and make sure the focus is also there,
otherwise it is just a surrogate for watching bad TV.

There is of course also good TV, so I use the idea of TV here in my argument for the more
mind numbing qualities that I think we are all familiar with.

So what I am really talking about here is NOT painting or TV per se (or what ever). It is not TV in itself.
It is the abuse of TV, just like you can enjoy a fine glass of beer OR abuse 23 bottles of wine.

You need to find an art practice that keeps you on your toes and keeps challenging yourself, just being in the studio everyday,
is in that sense not enough, so I thank Femke Halsema for giving me this missing link in my ever expanding theory about how to become more creative...

PS...I totally believe that you CAN become a sophisticated TV specialist (like the Volkskrant reviewer)
who have researched the history of TV and can name
all the BBC presentators and write essays on HBO and so on...But the interesting fact here IS....wait for it...

Just watching TV (or paint) passively 3, 4 even 11 hours a day won't take you there...and THIS fact is very interesting.

Especially in these times of right wing populism and the STRONG winds of anti intellectualism that
are now blowing in our new Holland.

By this I mean the sentiments of people like Halbe Zijlstra "culture should make you feel good"
(not a correct quote word by word, but in spirit).

For non Dutch people...Zijlstra is the new Dutch minister of culture (and science & education)!

????????????????

Yes I am serious, it is NOT a joke!
He IS the new minister of culture ( we Dutch also laugh...or we chuckle ,
outright laughter is made impossible by the small pieces of shame and BIG chunks of fear in out throats and hearts).

And anti Intellectualism has ALWAYS been the order of the day in America, in Detroit it is no different,
maybe even stronger here.
And it is one of the LEAST attractive features of USA, a country who I otherwise really love and respect.

Will publish another text related to populism vs intellectualism/elitism later...

Clarifications for non Dutch people...
-----------------------------------------------------
Femke Halsema used to be the leader of the Green Party in Holland.
Maurice de Hond...has an institute that does polling reports on opinions and habits of the Dutch.
Volkskrant is the New York Times of Holland.
Rietveld is the best art academy in the country BA and MA (via Sandberg). where...
unlike some academies in the USA you do NOT pay 36 000 $ a year, but around 4 000 € ( less for EU members).

Kama Sutra theory vs actually FUCKING!!!

2011-08-08T16:53:00.005+02:00

I totally agree with this statement and general attitude of my brotherman Chris in his blog below....

"And if you don't make things, you don't understand shit about what life is all about. Well, that's how I see it, at least."

I am also making drawings again, and it feels so GOOD!
Some Rietveld student said that another teacher had said (don't know who)

"There is no art without some kind of craft or skill connected to it"
Even thinking has a system connected to it that you can "get better" at.

But to involve your BODY and sweat into your practise is SOOOO important, there is so much knowledge & wisdom hidden in there.

The Americans talk about "muscle memory", meaning the skills to drive cars or play tennis, or bike around. For you to get good at those things, knowledge HAS to move from the brain to the muscles.

It is something that interests me enormously and is often why I think purely conceptual art is often missing a certain type of (body) wisdom.

BRANIACS!!!!

By the way...is Arnon Grunberg a good writer, isn't he just a good thinker, or is that something else...I guess it is?
I guess you could be a good speaker (Obama). It doesn't automatically make you a good writer. Can you trust DJs who can't or even worse WON"T dance???!!! I don't think so.

Could you become a good lover by just studying Kama Sutra theory?

HEHEHEHE
"Performing the Social" is a especially apt title to this text!
Is that blues code speak for "the old in & out"?

PS we didn't write these label post tags, they were here when we came...but I like them!

Detroit Techno...The Horses Mouth

2011-08-08T16:23:00.006+02:00

Why listen to my childish ramblings...on and on...about Techno when you can go straight to the Pope.
Why indeed?...I give you Dan Sicko's website

http://techno-rebels.com

"narrating the evolution of Techno music"

He is the guy who wrote the book
Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk

AND he is a Detroit native and a REAL Techno specialist & writer, so what more do you want?

-fries?!!!
-you want fries with that???!!
-AND a milkshake???!!!

"{"":":":";'P{p[pKKKlklK|\''\'\\|\\++ (=swearwords)

YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARD....just wait until I can lay my hands on you!!!

DJ Lonely a Chicago Footwork/Juke mix...

2011-08-08T02:32:00.003+02:00

DJ Lonely mix of Chicago Footwork by Blodfet & DJ Lonely

You HAVE to check this out...totally insane!!! seriously out there!!!!!!

1.DJ Spinn-2020
2.Traxman-WTF?
3.DJ Rashad-Madnezz
4.Traxman-Movelt Jungletronic
5.DJ Lil Rome-I go Hard
6.Tha Pope-Jungle Juke
7.DJ Diamond-Ready Motherfucka
8.Traxman-Compute Funk
9.DJ Rashad & DJ Spinn-Space Juke
10. Traxman-Get Down Lil Booty
11. DJ Rashad & DJ Spinn-Footcrab Remix
12. DJ Rashad-Jule Dat Juke Dat
13. Chi Boogie-Move Back
14. Dude n Nem-Watch My Feet
15. Chrissy Muderbot ft. DJ Spinn-Bussin Down
16. DJ Pillsbury-Bedrock (Juke Remix)

To buy music ( I still do, to support starving artists ) or get info, check...

http://www.ghettophiles.com
http://www.planet.mu
www.beatport.com

Detroit Techno...an overview of the underground

2011-08-07T19:20:00.020+02:00

Here is a 62.25 minute mix of classic Detroit Techno hits,mixed on the fly and with panache by

FUCK's finest...DJ Lonely!

ENJOY!!!!

1. Electrifying Mojo Intro...
2. Model 500-No UFO's
3. Cybotron-Alleys of Your Mind
4. Plastikman-Plastique
5. Carl Craig-Void 23
6. Aux 88-Electronic Robots
7. DJ Assault-Nigga Music
8. DJ Godfather-OOO Im Tellin
9. Detroit Grand Pubah-After School Special
10.Bileebob-Call Me
11.Underground Resistance-Jupiter Jazz
12.Drexciya-Soul of the Sea

PS...
The Electrifying Mojo was a legendary radio DJ in Detroit

who dominated the airwaves in the late 1970's to mid 80's

His experimental, open minded show exposed Detroit to,

Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, George Clinton & P-Funk, Prince,

the B-52's and many others and is credited by many of the Detroit legends

as THE main reason for them getting inspiration to start making Techno...

Prince would grant MOJO interviews when nobody else could get one.
In short a VERY respected and loved DJ by artist nationwide.

We hear him open this set...doing an live introduction at a techno concert of "the Detroit Underground" to a ROAAAARING reception of his many, many thankful fans!
Finishing off with his radio signature classic!

"If you're nearing the end of your rope, remember to hold on...

tie a knot...and don't let go!

Just keep hanging...cause there ain't nobody bad, like you bad!

May the Funk be with you for always!!!

Respect!!!
DJ Lonely (Jonas Ohlsson)

The hour of judgement approaches

2011-08-05T20:53:00.007+02:00

At last, things are coming together! Following from my last post, I now have permission to hold a performance at John K. King's store. This will form the first part of a two-part piece, the second of which will (probably) take place in Cass Park, also on the West Side of Detroit. Watch this space for more details...

Unfortunately, it will only be possible for a small number of people to be present during the performance, due to lack of space. Because of this, and because I want to make something which lasts somewhat longer than the remaining period of our time in Detroit, I also intend making a video work - of which the performance will form a small part.

This work is provisionally entitled Michigan left, after the the strange traffic arrangement of that name which is (almost) unique to this state. The basis of it is: to go left, you gotta keep going, turn left twice, go back the way you came, and then finally right. For me, this over-complicated and mixed up way of doing something simple spoke right to the heart. And of course, like most over-complicated and mixed up things, there's a good reason for it in the end (as usual, Wikipedia will tell you more). And it agrees to a great extent with how I have felt about my (almost) eight weeks in Detroit.

So I've been busy with two things - preparing the performance, and filming as many shots as I can for the film - since it will not be so easy to fill in any missing ones when I return to the Netherlands.
And to satisfy my desire to get busy with tools and bits of metal, I've been building the thing below - it's a sort of bricolage camera dolly (thanks for the photo Ben!).
I can't tell you how good it feels to be doing something practical, after all the weeks of meeting, thinking, drinking, and absorbing. In the end, artists are supposed to make things. And if you don't make things, you don't understand shit about what life is all about. Well, that's how I see it, at least.

But all this doesn't mean that I've stopped thinking about what it means to be here. Continuing from what I have written earlier about what exactly the point is of our being here, I would like to turn to the issues faced once you have accepted that you are here for a good reason.

There are practical difficulties, analytical difficulties, as well as moral difficulties. The first of these needs no explanation - anyone who has spent any time in a foreign country will know what I mean.
The second, the problems of analysis and observation, stem from the fact of your own otherness and newness, and that also of the place in which you find yourself. In the first instance, there is the difficulty of distinguishing that which is typical from that which is special - for if you are seeing everything for the first time, how are you supposed to know what happens every day and what is unusual? Whilst cycling in Poland a few years ago, I wrote about this too. Time will eventually erase this difficulty, which is in part the advantage of us spending an entire summer here. But of course, who is to say that this season is typical, or this year? All the time, I find myself making guesses and piecing together clues about what is really happening, what is really characteristic, and what are in fact ephemeral aberrations.
There are other problems, too. As I stand in line at the gas station, or waiting for the lights to change, I am torn between finding everything around me endlessly fascinating, or else so banal that I feel nothing but despair. What am I to think of the packet of Twinkies before me, or the traffic light swinging in the breeze? Are these things iconic, immortal, telling, poetic in the extreme, shining examples of what it is to be human, American, alive, and finite? Or are they simply objects, commodities, as meaningless as words in a dead language? I don't know, I really don't, and this constant switching between one and the other, right before my eyes, makes it harder than it already was to form any sort of concrete opinion about what I see.
And to the moral difficulties - these at least are easier to explain. How long must you reside somewhere before you have the right to criticise it? I have dealt with this question before in the Netherlands - where, incidentally, I feel totally within my rights to say anything I feel like (and where, incidentally, I must pay the same taxes as everyone else, behave as a responsible citizen, and respect the law, but may not vote).
But here, it still seems too new, too recent a development in my life. There's stuff here I just don't get, where I want to scream “why can't you just be like us?”, however much I know that I cannot and I should not do so. Other things I can be much more positive about. And of course, two months since leaving home, I am doubtless forgetting a bunch of annoying Dutch/Scottish/European habits too. I've also mentioned this point before, shortly before returning from China. And oh, that was a hard one.

The Political Techno of Underground Resistance (Detroit Techno part 3).

2011-08-02T16:53:00.046+02:00

Hello People!

The Detroit techno research is going great. I have seen a lot of concerts,Juan Atkins (twice),

Moodyman (twice) Underground Resistance, DJ Al Ester, Matthew Dear and a bunch of small unknown acts at a 2 day picnic that UR organized for the benefits of "backpacks for school children" and another festival they organized in Highland park.

I have been to a sleazy after party in an industrial warehouse

(wasn't as good as it might sound, some straight 4 to the floor DJs from the suburbs).

But it all adds up to greater knowledge of the situation in the city and the history of techno.

I have gone to a lecture given by the label manager of UR, Cornelius Harris and had a good talk with him afterwards. And I have gotten a guided tour of Underground Resistance's HQ.

I have seen the very cute little Techno museum above their record store Submerge.

Cornelius Harris, label manager of Underground Resistance, tells the history of Detroit Techno in their own little

"Techno Museum" above their record store Submerge.

In the glass display Box containing "inspirations" there was of course a bunch of Kraftwerk stuff, as expected...

but just as much Yellow Magic Orchestra records, (Kraftwerk but with MORE humour from Tokyo),

which was interesting.

They also had another glass box with all their old drummachines and samplers.

Yet another with posters & memorabilia from their first tours abroad to Europe.

Holland was on the list.

I got some signed UR 12 inches and bought a T-shirt, and basically lived out all my girly

little Justin Bieber fan dreams (but with Underground Resistance).

I was also asked to sign the names of Baba Electronica and DJ Lonely on the walls of Submerge...next to Richie Hawtin, Sven Väth and DJ Hell and many others.

A proud moment for the DJs of FUCK!

Underground Resistance's record store Submerge and UR's HQ on East Grand

Street in Detroit...tjohooooooo!

Submerge is a closed record store and you only get in by making appointments in advance, they say that the people who really WANTS to come to Submerge will find it anyway.

It is an interesting approach to business, but maybe understandable if you know that they sell 70% of their records overseas, Europe and Asia mainly, and some to South America.

Shook hands with "Mad" Mike Banks of UR, (an imposing figure for sure with a very natural charisma) who with his booming moral anger and political awareness has made UR the Public Enemy of Techno and while we were there Juan Atkins!!!???

(the originator and founding father of Techno in the Early 80's)

knocked on the office door while Cornelius Harris was showing us videos of police violence in Holland (By the way Underground Resistance is boycotting NL for the moment, since one of their friends in Holland, who helps organize their tours, got beaten up by the police in Den Haag during the culture cut demonstrations). Juan Atkins knocked on the door and came in and sat down. A very gentle, almost shy person, with tiny skinny legs sticking out under his shorts. Very polite and unassuming. Outside URs HQ his silver Hummer was parked, which was kind of a contrast to his very shy, introspective, quiet persona.

UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE...

"Mad" Mike Banks OF Underground Resistance is pissed off at the European Techno world and feels that some of the enormous amounts of money circulating in Europe

(think Sensation white and black in Arena for instance) should somehow trickle back to Detroit in the form of Technological help for Detroit's inner city kids, the next generation of Techno stars. He feels that Europe took Techno and ran with it and nothing trickles back to "the motherland", I don't know how realistic that is.

One of the questions I had for myself concerning Underground Resistance

(who in Europe (I sometimes get the feeling) sells more T-shirts than records).

Was...just HOW political can you GET with instrumental techno music?

But they heroically built their own ideal world thru their record label, networks,

studios, record shop aso...

And in the often sleazy world of dance and the music industry as a whole they

have managed to set their OWN standards and lived by their own rules.

And when you see their commitment to their community, they sponsor little leagues baseball teams for inner city kids (just like Snoop Dogg by the way), and how they get all their mega stars DJ buddies to play for free in Detroit (Both Juan Atkins, UR and Moodyman could get paid much more playing in Europe, or moving to Europe). Also the faceless appraoch of UR, who usually DJs with masks, makes sense in a Techno world more and more focused on Star DJs, like Sven Väth, Richie Hawtin and Ricardo Villalobos who cruise from Ibiza to Miami to London fetching HUGE fees along the way. The local dedication of UR and their dedication to their own city makes them something else. There is also something very endearing about certain levels of their amateurism, for example in their cute little UR Techno Museum. It is NOT the high tech madness of Richie Hawtin or even Jeff Mills (founder of Underground Resistance together with Mad Mike Banks). It is something else. Their political involvement also stretches to Indian tribes in the amazonas who they support with video cameras to film and document the abuse they get from lumber companies there.

So behind the cool look of UR, there is something very genuinely angry, commited, aware and dedicated. I am attracted to the realness & grimness of their message (and image I have to admit) plus the fact that their "from the roots up" approach is so refreshing, which takes them into a league of their own and sets them apart from much of the so called political art of the vanilla left, that I ridiculed in my other blog

"My (THE) problem of community art...and why William Burroughs eat Superflex any day of the week". (see blog below).

All in all it has been a great period for me and for my increased understanding of this city...

Also I have spent a lot of time researching what there is to research on the internet about Detroit Techno and the city of Detroit....See the links in my other blog below.

A BOOK.....

Dan Sicko's book

"Techno Rebels...the renegades of electronic funk"

is a must read for anyone interested in Techno and

the city of Detroit in general. Very well written.

Dan is a Detroit native who in his book remembers the high school parties that nurtured the scene and gives enormous insights. He is a huge fan of Italo/Euro disco and connects Detroit Techno to this often forgotten source of inspiration.

According to Dan Sicko's book, there was an absolute craze in Detroit about Europe

(much like our whigger fascination with gangsta Rap, but reversed).

All the clubs had Italian names, and everyone was wearing fake Italian suits and trying to look suave, cosmopolitan and European.

Some of the HUGE Euro/Italo hits in Detroits early highschool parties were.

Kano-I'm ready

Telex-Moskow Diskow

Alexander Robotnick-Problemes D'amour

As well as Kraftwerk and YMO of course, that the lyrics were often in French or German

(that none of them could understand) was seen as a chic, cosmopolitan bonus!

The Detroit Techno scene has become so big now worldwide and the influx of money and attention creates a lot of tensions locally.

There is jealousy and infighting between the various scenes and generations.

The Ghetto Tech people (DJ Assault, Starsky & Clutch & DJ Godfather among others), feels that they don't get the respect they deserve from the old school garde, who often helps programme the annual Movement festival which is Detroits one and only festival with a large international audience. They also feel that their sleazy brand of Techno is more working class and bluecolor than the more intellectual approach of the legends, and that THAT in itself is seen as a problem.

A bit the same debate as you have on Jamaica, roots reggae vs. dancehall.

Daft Punk's favorite DJ, DJ Funk (left) from Chicago, next to Detroit's finest Ghetto Tech DJ...DJ ASSault

Usually the Ghetto Tech DJs perform mid day,and the late night spots are reserved for the legends, and even the legends fight among each other who should finish the night off.

Derrick May or Juan Atkins? Carl Craig, Kevin Saunderson or Blake Baxter? Plastikman, Eddie "Flashin" Fowlkes or Jeff Mills?

and with Underground Resistance, Suburban Knight, Stacey Pullen, Moodyman, Kenny Larkin

on the reserve bench you have a DEEEEEP team.

So of course tensions may arise, as the picking order and hierarchy has to be settled.

There is nothing minimal about Ghetto Tech!!!

There is also some resentment towards "white boy" Plastikman,

aka Richie Hawtin's world wide success.

Is Richie the Elvis or Eminem of Techno, coming to steal a culture from the black Techno Detroitians to make buckloads of money? Of course, releasing a record called "the future sound of Detroit" when you live in Windsor, Canada doesn't help your cause much.

Even though it is only a 5 minute bridge ride away.

But probably one bridge too far in the eyes of many local Detroit Techno purists.

And there is a sense that Richie was given chances and opportunities that the others did not get. On the other hand, just as with Eminem, there is no one, black or white, young or old in the Detroit Techno scene doubting Richie Hawtin's qualities. His stuff IS amazing and you could maybe argue that he injected much needed innovation and depth into a somewhat stagnant scene.

If you listen to Plastikmans early records you realize, this is something else! This is a totally brand new chapter, MILES above and ahead the (at times) overly Kraftwerk inspired sounds of Aux 88 for instance.

I myself had a somewhat complicated relationship with Detroit Techno.

Since I grew up listening to Human League, Heaven 17, OMD, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, YMO, Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA and so on...

I at first failed to understand what was NEW with this so called "Techno music".

But as time grew I could see the developments and innovations.

That much of it was instrumental for instance, was new...NO lyrics?!

It had a more direct link to black funk, Cabaret Voltaire, and others would sometimes be called "white electro funk" and Detroit Techno had a very direct relationship to the dancefloor, whereas with Industrial or Synth music, that was more a happy bi effect in some cases, but in most cases totally not. It was not "made for the dancefloor" in the same sense, even though you could sometimes consider dancing to it.

Techno was also born out of a DJ culture. Most Detroit acts has at one time or another DJ'd, either before they started making their own music or afterwards.

Depeche Mode and Cabaret Voltaire were BANDS and none of them even thought of DJing as a culture in itself.

That most Detroit Techno artists are NOT in bands, but do things on their own, as DJs and/or artists are also a difference.

Techno is also interesting because the mental idea traffic between USA and Europe (and to some extent Japan) has been so heavy...back and forth, back and forth.

Maybe you could argue that Rock and the Rolling Stones who also borrowed from the blues had some inter atlantic traffic, but probably not as much back and forth as Techno.

Of course also aided by MP3 culture, internet and cheaper air tickets (relatively speaking).

If we compare it to Hip Hop or Reggae, the idea traffic has been VERY dense indeed,to the extent that you have no idea anymore what or where is the centre of the Techno universe.

So it's an extremely international movement. Helped of course by the fact that it is mainly instrumental, so you bypass the debate "should we rap in Dutch or broken English".

It is freed from the language hierarchy...Techno as the esperanto of music.

And even though Detroit has been a place that has had is heavy, heavy share of race riots and racism, and there might be some resentment towards Richie Hawtin from less fortunate (and in some cases, just less talented) Detroit Techno acts. Techno (and House) is unique in its relative color blindness when it comes to race and music. Especially compared to Hip Hop, Country, Soul, Funk, Reggae or Punk music, Maybe Ska music could be an equally racially mixed music style, but I don't know enough about it.

You could argue that Hip Hop is ASLO very international and racially mixed, but then we sidestep the fact that everyone knows who's the boss and originator in Hip Hop.

African Americans acts like KRS One, Public Enemy or NWA! And I know from up close in East L.A. how hard the Chicano rap scene had to work to get (a tiny little bit of respect) and no matter how good and talented the Bijlmer rappers will get, it will take some time before they can outdo their American buddies in influence and respect worldwide. From an Amercian rap perspective it will never be more than a curiosity what their French compatriots can do with "their" music, rap.

So the hierarchy in Hip Hop is much more set. Even people in the UK (who speak decent English) could not get much influence or respect in Hip Hop until they just gave up and invented their own version of it and called it Dubstep, Drum n Bass or Jungle.

Last weekend Underground Resistance organized a small 2 day Techno picnic for the benefit of "backpacks for school children". The Picnic culture is an event that I don't think we even have in Europe, everyone brings there own food and drink and set up their little tents to protect them from the sun, people BBQ and sit in their fold out chairs, it is free and there is nothing to buy??!! As I noticed in Chicago at the House music picnic there, no beer!!??

It is a mixture of a family picnic (which we DO have in Europe) and dancevalley.It was a small intimate event no more than 80 people and everyone hangs around and dances to each others DJ sets, Juan Atkins in the background nodding his royal approval to Moodyman's housy set. Juan Atkins (the originator of Techno) DJ'd on Saturday and did a really good set, MUCH better than two weeks ago in Highland Park. Even squeezed in some obsure Michael Jackson track, if I 'm not totally mistaken (didn't recognize the song, but for the voice). Juan also came out on day two to check out the competition. Moodyman is the better DJ to be frank, and so is DJ Al Ester (who is phenomenal!!!). But of course if Juan DJs, the younger DJs stand behind him in awe, trying to check out his LPs and giving him high fives. At Moodymans concert I counted 45 dancing people, and at Juan Atkins Saturday gig there was not many more and this is of course mindblowing for us Europeans, imagine a free Underground Resistance, Juan Atkins, Moodyman, Suburban Knights and Al Ester concert on a warm summer night in Vondelpark, I think more than 45 people would show up, some of the other "family" picnics in the park had more people. But this is of course the charm of seeing Techno in its birthplace, Detroit, the intimacy. DJ Al Ester swinging like a madman to Juan's set, while Underground Resistance gives their approval from from the sideline, and while Detroit Techno Militia is watching from the back. It is a cosy event, for free...

( Juan Atkins aka "the originator", Cybertron, Model 500 and Infiniti DJ's on Underground Resistance "Backpacks for school children benefit" picnic event on Belle Isle in Detroit, July 30 2011).

Detroit is a very warm place!

PS...I post a lot of links to Detroit Techno music on youtube on my facebook page.

Befriend me and you have access to a pretty vast library of handpicked, filtered diamonds.

you will find me, Jonas Ohlsson here...

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=530006830

BLUES PICNIC every sunday in our hood

PMS...here are some photos from our neighbourhood Blues picnic that happens every Sunday.

All the black motorcycle gangs show up and it is always very cozy, as with almost every event in Downtown Detroit, we are one of the very few white people showing up.

What is nice with this event, is to see all the old people getting down, I think the average age of this Blues picnic audience is around 60, but no bingo for these mo'fo's!!! It's songs about sex and rock n roll, sung in VERY badly disguised code, (rock n roll of course being one code word used for "the old in and out") And the old grand Mamas get up (out of their wheelchairs) and GET DOWN....

Griiiiiiiiinding the old Grandpa's!!!

From Detroit, Jonas Ohlsson reporting thanks to Expodium in Utrecht...

Practical steps

2011-07-30T00:17:00.003+02:00

I said last time that I would be working on a response to all the countless influences and occurrences here in Detroit. Well, here is how I am going to do it.
The purpose of our nine weeks here in Detroit is... in fact I don't need to explain that, it's written in the box on the right: shrinkage, urban models, and all that. Make of that what you will.
But what should all that mean for me personally? What sort of practical contribution should I be making to the debate? How am I to repay the investment Expodium has made in sending me here?
These questions have been torturing me to an unreasonable degree during the last few weeks - and to some extent, ever since I got here, and even before.
Jonas asked me something similar when we were in Chicago: what exactly is the point of foreign residencies, aside from the obvious gain in experience (and free travel) for the participating artist(s)? What do people living in the place visited have to gain from it?
My answer at the time was that even simply being in contact with like-minded individuals from other countries is a benefit in itself. For example, I live these days in the Netherlands, despite that not being my home country. I am quite certain that I never would have even considered making the move there if I had not come into contact with a great many foreigners whilst living in Scotland. At the end of the day, I was tired of being the only native in a conversation; I wanted to be the exotic one. And life has gone pretty well since then.
But it is not enough for me to simply be the quaint European on the block for a few months. I want to do something meaningful with the experiences I have undergone here, and do it before I go. Which gives me just three weeks.
I have been thinking about what sort of form that would take. I have decided to produce another performance of a similar sort to the work that I have made in Utrecht, in the Museumkwartier last year and Kanaleneiland earlier this year. The free-form nature of such an outdoor event, which gives me the opportunity to give my very personal response to a number of things which have come to mind, seems well-suited to the environment here. Additionally, there are many interesting public spaces which would lend themselves well to such a piece.
Of course, the problem lies in selecting and arranging the use of such spaces. And it is here that I have met with a lot of frustration recently.
I really wanted to do something at the nearby General Motors plant, which lies on the border between Detroit and Hamtramck. However, trying to communicate effectively with such a large corporation has been an exercise in futility. After three weeks, numerous e-mails and phone calls, and a visit in person, I finally received a clear answer today: no, can't be done. I could expend yet more effort trying to reverse this, but objectively speaking, my energies can better be directed at other things.

I have had slightly more success with another venue - the huge book warehouse of John K. King on West Lafayette Street. I sent them an e-mail yesterday, and today made a personal call at the store. The lady I spoke to was very friendly, said she'd read my mail, and would contact me at the beginning of next week. We'll see.
In the meantime, I'm writing, writing, writing. It is slowly beginning to take on some sort of coherent form. With luck, the coming two weeks will be more fruitful than the last.

Interesting links about Detroit...

2011-07-28T21:00:00.003+02:00

I guess we could also see this blog as an intro to Detroit for outsiders and for

European artists in residence to come...so I will just post some links to the history of

Detroit Techno and the city in general for people who wants to know more.

For people who are about to come, already here in body or in spririt.

Here a link about the Detroit Electronic Music festival...sometimes called Movement,

at other times it is called something else. I came a bit too late for this one, usually held in the end of may, could maybe be great start for the 9 week air period.

Knowing that for a LOT of Euro people who wants to come here, Techno is one of the great reasons...

This link is nice because it is just one liners and gossip from all the Detroitian Techno legends who with tears in their eyes could for the first time make mom and pop understand what a monster that they have unleashed on the rest of the world. This was the first time, that average people in Detroit could kind of grasp how HUGE techno is outside of Detroit (and USA).

http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1186

A nice documentary about Techno music (from Detroit).

With a lot of insider gossip and jealousy

which makes you understand a lot about the city and the scene.

Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May got to become best friends after Kevin knocked Derrick May out with a couple of punches!!!!

Funny to see how slick Derrick is, you can kind of understand that someone wants to punch him out, but also very charming of course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIEbkSpNXGE

(part 1 of 9)

Underground Resistance documentary (10 min),

Where you get a feel for their anger with the world of corruption and decay

but also the love for the music

and the political dedication and general passion...VERY good!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI4cBPgETnU

A very nice and well produced video documentary about the legendary Richie Hawtins

(aka Plastikman from Windsor, across the river...). Very informative about Detroit techno

and scene...very good!

Also nice is the different vibe of white boy Richie and Mad Mike Banks,

They compliment each other to tell the same story...but different!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc6474KUBV8

Ok French documentary on Detroit Techno, but everyones speaks English...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSX_r0u3uzE

Critically acclaimed docu. about the rise and fall of Detroit by Julian Temple, who also did

a couple of very famous Sex Pistols film...very beautiful!

http://rutube.ru/tracks/3971045.html

Johnny Knoxville (of Jackass fame) tried to go against the grain and NOT do a classical film about Detroit...i.e. "ruin porn", crime, decay and how BAD things are in Detroit.

But an uplifting Detroit LIVES! film...

(by the way "ruin porn" is not what I first thought it was...it means people who are obssessed with taking photos of ruins in Detroit (usually Europeans or defenitely "out of towners",

much despised by the locals, who are quite sensitive about it...and quite sensitive about a LOT of things.

Despite Johnny's good intentions to "do the right thing" it STILL backfired...

The Detroitians were pissed off that most people who were interviewed for this film where "New York Hipster"people with money who just moved in to poor Detroit to escape the high loft rents of Williamsburg.

Oh well...at least Larry Mongo is in the film, he IS from Detroit and never left!

Even people FROM Detroit who lived in New York for two years!!! and then came back are suspect in the eyes of the die hard Detroitians

They're a VERY hard crowd to please...

I am trying to tell people in Detroit to chill out a bit and not be soooo pissed off all the time.

In Amsterdam we also get tons of American tourists coming to smoke pot with a VERY one sided interest in what Holland has to offer. If we would go and be pissed off in Amsterdam the whole time about it, we wouldn't have any energy left!

Detroit people needs to relax and accept that the ruins are unique in the western world and that that is partly the reason why people come here in the first place (and spend money)

so chill out a bit and just go with the flow!

We are all very sorry that we were not born in Detroit and that we weren't here when the car industry broke down, or that we haven't lived here since 1973 or...or...or...

We apologize for ALL that, but we will still come to Detroit to take photos of your ruins.

So BACK OFF!!!!...local angry guy....You're blocking the view of the ruins!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMysMDHdb4

Letting it all in

2011-07-21T19:32:00.004+02:00

This week, Jonas has placed some really great posts, very sharp and to the point. This is a hard act to follow. Of the course the longer I leave it the more difficult it will become - so here goes.
I am not at all interested in writing about the art world, the music world, or what either of these things has to do with Detroit. As I have said, Jonas is doing a great job, but not one that I am going to assist with.

Instead, I am going to mention some personal reflections on being here. Yesterday, I said to our visiting friends from Chicago that I felt as if Detroit was a syrup in which you needed to allow yourself to be soaked, seeped, for some time in order to be able to make some sense of it. This is about as good a description of my time here as I can think of.
You must let it attack you with its wilful indifference, let people on the street shout at you with their off-key, mixed-up, half-bullshit, half-profound, loud-mouthed statements. Get irritated by everything, everyone, yourself most of all. Get impatient. Eat unhealthy. Get sick and disgusted, get drunk, fall asleep, wake up, make coffee and try again. Be humble. Listen to everything, everyone, feel the reality of others. Make it your own.
It has become even more unbearably hot and humid than it already was. This gives a special quality to the streets during the day, since they have become even more deserted than before. And it creates an extra reason to be outside, alone, hearing the noise of your own shoes on the pavement, with a sound which does not echo but which is immediately absorbed in the thick summer air.
I have had enough of the van. Instead I am cycling as much as possible. This is not a very popular way of travelling here, which makes it all the more worthwhile - and in this heat, the cool breeze against your body as you go is certainly to be preferred to sitting in a vehicle.
On a bike, you become much more aware of the relative silence of the city, of its emptiness, and of its particular smells - cinders, flowers, decay, grilled meat, dust, trees, stale frying fat, cigarette smoke, hot asphalt, burning metal, rubber, gasoline, and disinfectant. Some of these will overlap with any American city, others with any city anywhere, but the particular combination, or better yet composition - for order, relative frequency, distance, and intensity are important - is essentially Detroit. You must feel it repeat, like the wheels of a train over worn rails, a mantra, something which repeats its own name until it has no meaning beyond a sound, and a dull sensation of a thing which has become slowly and stealthily familiar. And then you are in the belly of the beast.
The city drifts by in flashes of Wendy's, CVS, “Checks Cashed”, Comerica, “No standing this side of sign” attached to one of countless bent signposts, all of which are constructed from the same form of perforated steel, with a continuous series of holes from top to bottom at (I suppose) one-inch intervals, giving the streetscape the temporary appearance of something made from a giant grown-up construction kit, as if the real thing will be constructed later based upon this prototype. Here good road, there bad road - watch out all the time. Concrete, of the sort which has been filled with rough aggregate, crumbles as biscuit, as if it was made to do so, as if its aesthetic qualities as ruin were to be given equal consideration to those when new; so designed Albert Speer the Berlin of the thousand-year Reich. With some success.
Passing through downtown on the evening of a ball game, and I am surprised and irritated by the presence of meat-headed white guys, heading purposefully for the Hard Rock Café. “From the suburbs” is what people here would say of them, rolling their eyes and feeling good about themselves. I guess that's okay.

I have shaved all the hair off my head. Partly to deal with the heat, and partly because I felt the desperate need to do something; I feel as if the city's sticky lethargy is infecting me in some untreatable way. As I did it, I felt like laughing like a maniac.
I'm still slightly shocked by my own appearance in the mirror. I feel a little as if I have unleashed some unpredictable monster, as if bad things may come of this. I can't place this individual on a bike in Amsterdam, passing under the trees in the Vondelpark, buying vegetables at the Ten Katemarkt, on the Noordpont staring at the barges heading for IJmuiden. I seem too vicious for that, too hard, brutalised, suspicious of compromise. I am trying to construct a value system for myself here which can fit with what it is all around me, and yet still be my own. I need to find some new form of English; the one I know is not fit for purpose, full of useless words and lacking in all the right adjectives. Meanwhile it's just sounds. Sounds and heat, sweat in my eyes, silence, frustration and the passage of time. I am working on a response.

My (THE) problem with community art...and why William Burroughs EAT Superflex any day of the week!!!

2011-07-20T18:27:00.020+02:00

Last night our new found friends from Chicago came to visit us in our little house on Farnsworth street in Detroit.

We talked a lot about art,

and again (as it often does here in the midwest) the discussion turned to the virtues (or not) of community art and audience participation. Kevin was talking about an artist colleague of his who did a project where she would install plastic containers at the toilets of friends and collect their left overs to produce manure, which she would then later return in a cup, ready to be used in the nearest flower pot.

We talked about how LONG she would be able to sustain this practice and if that was important or not for the project.

Or if it was maybe enough that the art worked on a more metaphorical, symbolic level.

Apparently this woman was also a great communicator and had managed to get support from powerful people (Patricia Arquette) in high places (Hollywood).

Surely this could be a very useful, green and worthy art project with many possible positive benefits for mankind and the planet as a whole?

And it is usually around this point in the discussions surrounding community art that I fall asleep spiritually and mentally .

And it's not ONLY because I am a mean spirited, jaded cynic, who can't value utilitarianism.

But because it is sOoOOoOoooOOooooo different and alien from my own experience of art and culture.

If I look at my own experience of culture I think about what was important to me, what changed me as a human, and what helped me to develop.

I value and respect Greenpeace, the Red Cross (and the Crescent) or Médecins Sans Frontières

just as much as the next guy. I just don't think it's art, and I don't think that they see it as art either. It would take some truly hardcore relational aesthetics guy or girl to claim that as an art piece.

There were very few utilitarian reasons for me to listen to Sex Pistols or Throbbing Gristle,

or read books by William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski or Jack Kerouac,

or laugh myself silly reading Robert Crumb....au contraire!

There was NOTHING healthy about it.

Which of course was partly the reason why I got into it in the first place.

Does anyone SERIOUSLY believe that people listen to Death Metal or experimental Jazz for any hidden health reasons?

But it DID help me to become a more complex person, it did challenge my beliefs and it did force me to open up to new ways of looking at the world.

And it DID fuck up my mental hard disk and after that I can't process information and ideas in the same way as I did before and I think that's all you can ask of art.

Here in the midwest (as I have written about before) a lot of the little support there is for art, is tied to educational projects.

I have no problem with this, I TOO teach, but I don't call it art!

In the 60's and 70's there were huge debates in Europe and USA.

Usually from a leftist perspective.

Wasn't it time for the artists to FINALLY get off the fence and make themselves useful for the workers and join the revolution?

Every artist and writer joined either the Communist party or the RAF, except Salvador Dali who just wanted to make preeeeeecious GOooOoOOOLD!

"Make yourself useful, go into Bijlmer and help some poor Suriname kids".

Was the mantra (until very recently) from Dutch politicians who felt that maybe they could finally get some economical and social returns from the artist parasites that they had subsidized for much too long.

I am already doing this by the way, but for other more "culturally perverted" (=sound) reasons.

Now the calls come from the cultural right

(or maybe the cultural nihilists would be a more correct description).

Go and entertain Henk and Ingrid in Apeldoorn

(the Suriname kids are of course out of fashion).

I don't mind being useful or utilitarian, but I rather call that teaching, lectures or workshops

to be able to keep my art free, dirty and perverted.

And if you haven't paid attention, most poor, uneducated people ALSO prefers their culture dirty and nasty.

See Baile Funk in Brazil and Gangster Rap in the States, aso...

And they find it condescending when we honkies come up with another well meaning

Do Good-er project in the Bijlmer, Rio or Detroit.

So let's keep REAL culture SICK n NASTY and leave the Do Good-erism to Greenpeace.

And if you absolutely can't restrain yourself and just HAVE TO DO SOME GOOD...

just call it a workshop and you're off the hook....

Peace Out!!!!

Jonas Ohlsson reporting form Detroit thanks to Expodium

Clarifications for Non Dutch/European people...and idiots!

-----------------------------------------------------------

Superflex=Danish art collective who builds water wells in Arica.

William Burroughs=American, anti drug and homo writer.

RAF= Rote Armee Fraktion (German leftist terrorist group from the 70's)

Suriname= Dutch ex. slave colony country, north of Brazil, now independant and free.

Henk & Ingrid=an imaginable ideal couple of "normal Dutch people" in Holland, used by right wing manipulator Gert Wilders in his propaganda against multiculturalism.

Apeldoorn=small town in Holland, representing "white trash country" in this text...

as opposed to...

Bijlmer="The Watts" of Holland, south east suburb ( ex. ? ghetto) of Amsterdam consisting of 100 000 people, 80% black, mostly from Suriname, Aruba, Curacao, Saba (all ex. slave colonies of Holland) and Nigeria and Ghana. Plus some honkies....

Médecins Sans Frontières=Doctors Without Borders.

Who for the last three decennias have fought a global, bloody turf war against NWW=

Nurse With Wound.

More Techno and Race...

2011-07-18T04:36:00.009+02:00

So last night we went to see Underground Resistance play for free in Highland park.

They did a very jazzy set under the name Timeline, with a saxophone player and

a slick, flowy guy on keyboards. It was a nice mix of techno and free jazz. After that the

revelation of the night came on, DJ Al Ester. Swinging and dancing like a madman,

he played a very housey set, with singing divas and all, but the way he mixed it, and how

much fun he had with the FX's and taking out the high's, mid's and low's in a super synchronized

set was a true joy! After that the highlight of the night was supposed to be Juan Atkins

"the Godfather of techno" as he was announced, who was part of the legendary "Belleville Three", the other two being Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. But this was a sad, sad affair to have to watch, Juan couldn't mix two tracks

together to save his life, and he dropped records on the floor, had the needle skipping back and forth on a track for bout 20 seconds (which is a loooooooong time if you're DJ ing in front of a extremely knowledgeable crowd (I am not talking about me here...hehehe)).

A couple of times UR's manager Cornelius, who was the MC of the night between the acts had to try to save his ass, by encouraging people AND Juan to get into it again. Juan just looked lost and looked as if he was suffering more than we did. I TOO mix like shit, but at least I do it because I think that is they way it should sound, it is part of my "vision" (or lack of it) and I am really into it while DJing, but with Juan it was just painful. He seemed to be totally somewhere else. He fucked up a reunion of "the Belleville 3" at Awakenings in Amsterdam, by mixing like crap and just not being present. It was extra sad because you could really feel the potential of the music, the track selection was awesome, his own mega hits

as Cybotron "alleys of your mind" and "cosmic cars" and Kraftwerks "numbers" boomed out of the system, and for a moment you felt "wow" this is why I came to Detroit, to be able to hear Juan Atkins pump Kraftwerk into a beautiful summer night at Highland park. But the overwhelming feeling was one of sadness. Well at least Underground Resistance and DJ Al Ester was blockrocking!!! After that we went to the incredibly sleazy temple bar in the most run down part of town, an AMAZING bar! So the night was still perfect in the end.

I was talking with a Dutch artist who now lives in Detroit,

as we were dancing in front of the stage.

We were SOooOoooo surprised to see so few people at the festival.

If you have Underground Resistance, Juan Atkins and DJ Al Ester (trust me he is one for the future) playing for FREE on a warm beautiful summer night in Vondelpark, you would probably be able to get more than 80 people to show up???!!!

Ok..earlier in the evening there were more, and it also had to do with Juan Atkins crappy set, but STILL???!!!.

One of the reasons that she came to Detroit was her love for techno, the same as me.

And it's a story often told, Detroit Techno is HUGE in Europe and Asia but has soooo little support in Detroit itself (or the rest of USA for that matter).

Last weekend I went to a Chicago house picnic festival IN Chicago.

The 21st annual edition of the Chicago House Music picnic and it was PACKED!!!!

Even though you had to pay 10 $ to get in, 1000s of people were grooving and dancing to Frankie Knuckles and the Chosen Few among others.

And what was also very interesting, I was the ONLY white person at this picnic, I am serious!!??

Here...check this video from last years picnic and try to spot any honkies...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQUZqbLX8CQ

I don't know why race, class and music is so interesting to me, but you could make tons of anthropological studies on this subject and it would be very revealing. Rio de Janeiro was another very interesting case, with its Baile Funk, Samba and Bossa Nova, but Brazil is much more racially mixed than Europe and USA.

The Brazilians that we had living with us in Bijlmer last summer in Flatstation were shocked to see the extreme separation between the very black Bijlmer and the very white grachtengordel,

they couldn't believe it!

see for more information...

http://www.fffuck.org/projects/brazilian-air-program-0

http://www.flatstation.nl/agenda

http://www.fatform.com

Anyhow...So Chicago house music has MASSIVE local, black support and Detroit very little local, black support. At the Underground Resistance concert, there was a bunch of De.Bug t-shirts and European football shirts (soccer), which made you suspect that at least part of the audience were European fans who had come a long way to see this spectacle.

So why does Chicago House connect and Detroit techno not?

While in Chicago we also went to see Moodyman, a DJ using the Chicago sound, though originally from Detroit and according to his wikipedia page...

"He is outspoken on the current state of dance music, decrying the lack of black techno and the white domination of the genre."

and...

"An outspoken voice in the normally non-confrontational world of electronic dance music, Moodymann (Kenny Dixon Jr.) is committed to keeping a distinctly black imprint on techno and house."

So for all of us who thought house was..."one nation under a groove" where race, gender, class and sexual orientation would all be absolved into one fruity love juice drink.

Moodyman is again bringing RACE into the mix!

I once read a very interesting little piece about house music in De Appels F.R David publication

where someone wrote a piece about house music debunking the myth of all the love bullshit, saying something like...house was born out of an atmosphere of racism, homophobia, transvestites trying to save enough money to go to Brazil to do sex changes,gay prostitution, drug addictions, and suicides...so this "love dream" surrounding house music needs to be at least more nuanced. If someone knows who wrote this text I am happy to include the name

(I couldn't find it) in this text.

After the Moodyman concert me and Chris had a small after party together with two black transvestites and a white gay guy in their very tiny appartment.

Stumbling out into the bright day light the morning after, I thought we had a very fitting ending to a night out in Chicago, sampling the local house music scene.

But I DO have a little theory as to why Chicago is so succesful and Detroit less so when it comes to hooking up to local (black) support. Chicago house music is much more linked to soul, gospel and R n B. Tons of screaming little divas who sing on top of the house tracks, so the links to other classical black forms of music is very clear. Detroit Techno's VERY obvious flirtations with Kraftwerk (especially) and European (white) electro pop and new romantic music (as they called it in the UK). Takes the music into an another direction, less rooted in classical black music forms.

Detroit techno is much less connected to classical black music styles such as Gospel and Soul. On the other hand it is very much connected to the ideas of "Afrofuturism"that you can find in the works of Sun Ra, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Funkadelic & Parliament, Africa Bambaataa or even Grace Jones.

There is something very sad about the state of music, if we STILL have to discuss race and music, as in...

Can black people sing the opera and country music?

Can white people techno?

Can white people rap and sing reggae?

Just like we whites know what we mean by a whigger (me?!), someone who totally wants to jump into blackness, Detroit techno kids could possibly be seen by the local black population as bounty's

(brown on the outside, white on the inside).

But this is not something I know enough about, but I will research this further here in Detroit.

The problem with this kind of knowledge is that it is often not spoken out loud, it is a gut feeling, and maybe something that you would not say to a white person (if you were black).

But on the other hand these stereotypes DO play a role and to try to totally ignore this debate would do a disservice to the development of music and the ideas surrounding it. In the case of Techno I think that black Detroit Techno stars are TOTALLY accepted in Europe and no one even thinks of race

as an issue in techno, whereas in Detroit I get the feeling that the black population in general thinks that the local techno kids got a bit TOO close to European electronic music, as if they were not proud enough of "their own" musical heritage.

Almost like a sort of betrayal, and of course betrayal is different if you are part of the majority

i.e. whites going black, than if you are a supressed minority, blacks switching to white music.

But to even be able to TALK like this we would have to accept certain musics as "white" and "black" and I think this could be very dangerous. BUT...on the other hand it could ALSO be dangerous to NOT see the history of music and its links to its past. How could you understand reggae or hip hop OUTSIDE a context of racism and the history of the oppression of black people?

I guess it is important to understand where a music comes from and its roots and history, but music is in its essence is universal and it explains why hip hop now works as a great vehicle of expression for oppressed people all over the world, be it Banlieu kids of Arab descent in Paris or Palestinians in Israel.

And I think THIS brings me back to my old argument...Europeans are VERY good at contemporary art for A REASON! Which is also why Indonesians in general are less good at it, but good at other things, such as shadow puppetry for example. And this is NOT meant as a racist statement that Indonesians can never get good at art, or that white people can't rap. Everyone can get good at anything...BUT, you need to live in an environment that stimulates that growth

where you can develop, and compete against the best. That Eminem could get good at rapping growing up in Detroit does not surprise me, or that Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson could get impulses from abroad AND at home and develop a scene that later influenced the rest of the world.

And this is where racism get's confusing when I give lectures. When I for instance say...if you lived in New York in the 80's with the possibility to listen to KRS one and Public Enemy,

and having radio station playing hip hop 24/7 chances are GREATER that you too could become a good rapper, no one has a problem with that.

But If I say that...if you grew up in Europe with the Dokumenta, the Venice bienale, amazing museums where the best of the best are collected and discussed, with newspaper articles on a daily basis discussing art shows, with the best artists, critics, collectors, galleries and so on aso...chances are that you will become a GREATER artist faster in Europe than in Indonesia, who lacks the necessary infrastructure to feed this necessary development...then I often have a problem and people accuse me of racism.

The chances of there being TRULY great contemporary art outside of Europe and USA is smaller, just as there are slim chances of there being fantastic samba bands outside of Brazil, NOT impossible, but less probable.

This is the problem we now get when we debate the globalization of every art biennial, we need THIS many artist from Sudan, THIS many women, this many gays and this many peadophiles and rapists, it just doesn't automatically create quality.

And in general I think this is the most amusing aspect of the Venice biennial for instance, to see the amount of crap art from Uzbekistan or Iran. Would it be possible to assume that democracy is neccessary to create good art? Probably not...Brazil did amazing stuff during the fascist era, China is also doing amazing art. In the case of China you could also add that they have different taboos than in Europe, which creates a interesting grey zone (from OUR perspective) the by now very famous performance "I'm gonna eat a little fetus with a glass of chardonnay" would not be possible in Europe. So so much for freedom in the democratic world hehehehe...

So here the west and the east are complementing each other in the taboo world.

In China the artists can't talk about Tibet and democracy, and in the west we are not allowed to eat fetuses or use dead AIDS women on ice in our installations, but we STILL get by.

But of course, every year the gap is closing, and the best way to increase quality is to let the Sudani artists compete with the best of Europe, just look at football.

And this is also why it is such a good idea to have artists in residencies, to spread the knowledge.

BUT...also infrastructure is necessary, if there are no contemporary art museums in Sudan, or art magazines, or artschools, or critics, or galleries, or biennials, or or or....HOW are they gonna get good? And if there is no critical mass who is interested locally it doesn't HAVE to be a HUGE dilemma. Look at Detroit techno, but it would help!

But on the other hand, what is the problem if not every country in the world are good at contemporary art, I am sure that they are good at other things. If they have drive and fantasy they have to get rid of their energy somehow.

At the Sao Paulo bienial last year there was this HUGE debate of how underexposed the Nigerian artists were, or the Sudanis or the Angolans and I basically said...well maybe you should get GOOD at art first and THEN we can talk!

Of course I know that this is a radical thing to say, but imagine if we would come with quotas for the next reggae sunsplash festival in Kingston!!! You don't have ANY artists from Mongolia, zero reggae artist from Poland and no gay white dancehall stars...what's up????!!!

We would get laughed out of town!!!

So to the all the Nigerian artists of this world I say, you want to participate in the next major biennial in Europe? Then make sure that you create a good art scene where you live, start art schools, galleries, debates, art magazines, radio programs, academies and so on...

create a critical mass, create a scene...Just like they did with Baile Funk music in Rio de Janeiro

or with Kwaito music in South Africa or Kuduro in Angola or Dancehall in Jamaica or Country music in Nashville and so on aso...

Or to quote KRS one "If you can't rock your own neighbourhood...". And of course this will take time and money, but it is not really about money, as we have seen in the examples mentioned above.

Of course it is also unfair to compare art and music, since we can't upload installations, paintings or sculpures and send them as MP3's as of yet.

So music has an ENORMOUS advantage in how fast ideas can spread over the world,

with a decent internet connection you can be on top of all the developments in music ALL over the world. We are not there yet with art. Which is the reason why London, Berlin and New York will REMAIN art centers for the forseeable future. Whereas in music, Rio de Janeiro, Angola and South Africa can EASILY overtake London or New York in musical invention and probably already has.

Of course, developments in the art world is also related to first world power, racism and economy also. Look how hard women had to fight to enter the art world, but they did it and the developments in Europe have been very succesful on that front...

Ok I am blabbering on...I don't really know what I am saying, but that is why I am saying it...

to find OUT what could be the truth...so please feedback me with ideas and critique.

finally I will give you two links to an old Detroit Techno argument...

1. Underground Resistance- AfroGermanic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvyAxHaem24

celebrating the links between Germany, Detroit and Africa...

And as a piss take off that, another Detroitian (DJ Ass ault), who is basically just ripping up that argument with his hit "Nigga Music", which the first time I heard it... I just thought it was a bad/good joke, but if you understand the heated debate about techno music and race here...it is much more subtle and deep than I first thought.

2. DJ Assault-Nigga Music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hax6NGNCEhw

Jonas Ohlsson reporting from Detroit, thanks to Expodium in Utrecht!

Five days in Chicago

2011-07-14T19:21:00.003+02:00

We have just returned from a little side trip to Chicago.
It's about a five hour drive to the west, on a route which took us past the suburbs of Detroit, through rural Michigan, down into Indiana, and across to Illinois. Even an hour outside of Detroit seemed a world away: twisting roads which wound their way between lakes, forest, and small towns with well-kept houses. This dealt with my confusion as to why Michigan has a Republican governor, a state of affairs which seems perverse in Detroit.
Later we switched onto the Interstate, which although much faster was a lot less interesting. I had some romantic ideas about taking a road trip in America, but the reality – here at least – is not so different from the motorway/snelweg/autobahn/autopista in Europe. I guess driving across the desert or through the mountains would be quite spectacular, but neither of those is anywhere near here.

However, the entrance into Chicago is impressive; as the road crosses the Illinois state line and rises up onto the huge steel bridge of the Chicago Skyway (they like to give roads dramatic names here), the skyscrapers of the city centre suddenly appear in the distance, draped in mist. To the east stretches the enormous blue surface of Lake Michigan, an area of water one and a half times the size of the Netherlands. The road then plunges down between the streets, joining with another to become a busy fourteen-lane highway to the downtown area.
It was already obvious from the volume of everything – traffic, buildings, advertising, industry, trains, and people – that this is a very different city to Detroit. It is also much more racially mixed. For the first time since arriving in the US, I have seen significant concentrations of white people.
All these things serve to give it quite a different character. Although Chicago seems on the one hand to be a city on the move, where business (for some at least) is booming, it also lacks the slow, quiet, easy-going feeling of Detroit.

In many ways, Chicago agrees with the expectations I had of America, expectations which have been confounded here in Detroit. In that respect, it is far less interesting.
That being said, I enjoyed our time there. We had a great time staying at the Co-Prosperity Sphere space of Ed and Rachael Marszewski in the district of Bridgeport, met some interesting people, and saw some great art at the Art Institute of Chicago. And we swam in Lake Michigan.
More than anything however, our time there has given a valuable sense of perspective to the experience of being in Detroit. After almost a month it is easy to forget that life here is very far from normal, and also easy to become irritated with some of its idiosyncrasies. I have returned to Detroit with a whole new sense of enthusiasm and appreciation for this weird, weird city. It's good to be back.

Storms and magazines

2011-07-07T18:16:00.003+02:00

Last week, I bought three old copies of “Life” magazine from a bookshop in Ferndale: one each from 1948, 1958, and 1968. Twenty years of American history, bracketed.
What struck me the most is the weird version of reality presented in the advertisements, and to a lesser extent in the editorial content, of a perfect, white, middle-class America, where everyone's material needs could easily be met and the scope for further technological improvement of domestic life was unlimited. So long, that was, as gender, class, and race roles were strictly maintained. Objective accounts of history present another picture.
What were people thinking? Did anyone really believe any of this? Or was hypocrisy silently accepted as a necessary requirement for an orderly society?
This got me thinking a lot about how far we have come, or how far we have not come. As the media of the 1940's peddled the stereotype of the perfect wife preparing the perfect casserole, we are now bombarded with images of a hyper-optimised, performance- money- and status-obsessed ideal lifestyle.

Detroit is interesting because it is hard to be fooled by such promises here. It is sometimes described as the West's first post-industrial city, but it's post-a-lot-of-things too. I see a life after corporate capitalism here, where the big-name retail outlets don't bother to set up shop, advertising is conspicuous by its general absence, and a generally slow pace of life has taken hold in response to the practical difficulties involved in getting things done – an example of which will follow.
Detroit is the end. But it is also the start of something else.

On Saturday afternoon, unable to deal with the sticky heat on Farnsworth any longer, we headed over to Belle Isle for a swim in the river. We were not the only ones with this idea.
But almost as soon as we were in the water, everyone was told to get out again. There was a storm coming; it is not a good idea to be in the water when lightning hits.
Very soon the water was empty, and most people decided to head home. And so we were left with the beach to ourselves, and a fantastic view of the storm coming in over the downtown area in the distance. Soon the Renaissance Center (headquarters of General Motors) and the rest of the city was invisible, as if it had just melted into the sky.
Then suddenly, without warning, the storm hit Belle Isle beach. We were struck by a wave of hailstones and sand whipped up by the wind, giving us just a few moments to grab our things and run back to the van before everything was blown away. With everybody inside, we slammed the doors shut and waited for the worst of the storm to die down. We could not see more than a few metres outside.
Leaving Belle Isle was made difficult by the heavy rain, fallen tree branches, and the huge number of people trying to do the same thing. As we finally made it back towards the East Side, our way was continually blocked by fallen trees and flooded roads. About an hour earlier, we had been sitting in bright sunshine.
By the time we reached home, an eerie calm had descended, along with a strange yellow glow in the sky. It felt like the end of the world.
Besides the fallen trees, all the traffic lights in the area had stopped working, along with the internet connection of everyone on the block. It was four days before we were online once again.

In the meantime I have been doing a lot of reading, cycling, and sitting on the porch. Here's to the offline life.

-

2011-07-07T18:10:00.003+02:00

Trying to cruise down the street in our Dodge RAM monster, but the storm (see images from Chris) took down so many trees, it was hard to get home. And don't expect the fire dept. to sort things out for you. If you don't have chain saw massacre machine at home your on your own!

The violent nature of the Americans

2011-07-07T17:59:00.007+02:00

The violent nature of the Americans.

What we thought would be a quiet night of wining and dining turns ugly after an argument over dessert (cherry pie).

Space out in Holland...It's not an option!

2011-07-01T06:22:00.006+02:00

When we came here two weeks ago there was a literal Dutch invasion of Detroit,

Expodium was here, as well as Partisan Publik and Fonds BKVB and

their artists in residence hangers on.

The locals were understandably perplexed and wondered why so many Dutch people were suddenly interested in Detroit.

One of the reasons concerns urban space and freedom (or the lack of it).

In mega densely populated Holland every square meter is planned, booked and spoken for.

The relatively new situation in Detroit of urban shrinkage, frees up so much space,

space that can now be redefined.

I always had a theory about the Dutch

The reason why they legalized prostitution and drugs were not only for economical reasons,

even though the Dutch really likes money and are good at making it

( but not as good as the Swedes...njä njä njä njä njääää=teasing 1).

The prime reason for it was the lack of chaos in their surroundings.

The Dutch had controlled everything that would have been called nature in thee olden days,

even the ocean was cut up into small controllable grachtengordel, polder pieces.

In Sweden I sometimes go into to the enormous forests just to feel small and get a bit scared.

It puts me in place and in awe...

Nature is something uncontrollable, the forest (and nature in general) is a symbol for the unconscious, for "the other", for the unknown...

There is nothing scary, wild, or uncontrollable in the Dutch landscape

(except ganja smoking Italian tourists on bikes)

and THIS fact created the need for some semi legalized wildness in the form of "ladies of the night" and drugs...Until recently I also used this theory to explain the great love for culture that the Dutch used to have. Culture as the unknown...wild, scary, thought and emotion provoking.

How scary and unknown can a musical get??!!

If we take away the mind expanding possibilities in Holland of drugs, hookers and culture I think Holland will have collective panic attacks on a MASSIVE scale in a very near future.

People will realize how small and claustrophobic Holland is.

The new powerful political right is doing everything in its power to make Holland even smaller, to make the Dutch bitterballen walls come closing in...they come closer...and closer...

and closer...and....WHUAAAOAOOA!!!!!

Focus on your breathing Jonas!!!

fhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu....IN....fhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...OUT!

I came to NL as a Swedish western allochtoon in 1996,

and since I come from a richer country than Holland (njä njä njä njä njääää=teasing 2)

I am in the unique allochtoon situation that no one will think I came here for the money or for the social security checks (they're MUCH fatter in Sweden).

So I think I can afford (hehehehe...) to be blunt and speak freely.

I don't have a right to vote in Holland, but I voted FOR Holland 15 years ago when I moved here, with my life, my time, money, ambitions, passions and dreams.

So I DO have a right to be critical.

Holland NOW is not the Holland I came to 15 years ago.

But I will stay and fight.

Thatcher, Reagan, Bush...Rutte?!

KICK OUT THE JAMS MOTHERFUCKERS!!!

(famous MC5 song which made Detroit famous as the pre punk city...

Iggy and Stooges also helped out, hence the name, Detroit-Rock city!)

see here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM6nasmkg7A

Politically I also think it would be a good idea to stop focusing on Wilders.

VVD is hiding behind Wilders and not the other way around and now the new right in Holland can let all their wet little neo con dreams become a reality. Wilders is not the problem, we have populist right wing manipulators in every country, massaging the assholes of all the "Henk & Ingrids" of this world. The weak CDA (the warm "socialist" christians of the right) and the strength of the VVD is the problem.

But also...as artists and culture makers...

let's spend some time for a little bit of self reflection and self criticism too.

After the murders of Pim & Theo, Holland suffered one of their greatest trauma in recent history....how many of us artist did anything to deal with that drama in our art?

How many of us didn't just continue with our own discourses,

when maybe this could have been a good time to get hip to the now.

But we better get hip to THIS game quick though, otherwise the only option left will be...

tune in, turn on, drop out!

But even that won't work....Wilders, Donner, Zijlstra and Verhagen wants to shrink Holland mentally into an even smaller hobbit country...and there are not enough drugs in the world to MIND EXPAND our way out of that dark, tight, scary shithole.

So our only choice is to fight back hard.

Let's GO!!!

C U on the other side....

Techno, from Germany to Detroit & black...the race is on!

2011-06-30T17:53:00.014+02:00

When I left Bijlmer we had a goodbye party on the rooftops of Kraaiennest.

Coincidentally a Detroit DJ from Antwerpen played...

there was synchronicity in the techno/house.

Techno in Detroit is not like Dancehall in Kingston or Baile Funk in Rio de Janeiro.

The only ones HERE who cares are big eyed Danish tourists and Swedish/Dutch artists in residence. The techno stars of Detroit...Derrick May, Juan Atkins, Carl Craig, Underground Resistance, Jeff Mills, Kevin Saunderson, Drexciya, Aux 88, Detroit Grand Pubah or Richie Hawtin aka Plastikman from really VERY neighbouring Windsor in Canada, really a stones throw away (even a girls throw) can eat their Coney Island? hotdogs in Detroit in cognito.

For them in seems to be impossible to be prophets (one) in their own hometown.

Bob Marley never seemed to have had any problems skanking in Kingston

and there is this old hip hop saying "if you can't rock your own neighbourhood??!!"

"...we'll rock Berlin, Amsterdam and London instead",

seems to have been the techno godfathers answer.

If you listen to mainstream radio in the USA, it is as racially divided as ever.

There is Rock music for the honkies and Hip Hop for the blacks.

How did this happen?

How could Detroit build up such a strong scene with so little local support from its homebase.

So different from other strong musical scenes where truly new inventions are being developed

on a daily, weekly basis.

For example Baile Funk (Rio de Janeiro), Minimal (Berlin), Dubstep (London), Cumbia

(all of South America except Brazil), Kuduro (Angola), Kwaito (South Africa) and so on aso...

In an interview in local magazine BLAC, Carl Craig explains "There is so much more recognition of the contributions Detroit (Techno) has made outside of Detroit, and defenitely outside of the U.S."...Just as Eminem had to work a bit extra hard (or did he) to be accepted in Hip Hop. Race seems to have played a part in Detroit techno too, but more from blacks who didn't consider Techno or House black enough. This month there is "Black music month" on the local radio stations, "celebrating the musical contributions Blacks have given to America".

"turning poverty and misery into swagger and style". And THIS seems to be the point too, not only race confusion but also class. Many of the stars of the Techno scene came from middle class background and weren't slinging crack in the projects. "Black music month" will NOT celebrate the black musical contributions of Techno (too middleclass and white) nor Chicago House (too genderbending and gay). But Techno DOES connect to a long tradition in black music, that of a liberating Afrofuturism..."space is the place" that goes back to George Clinton and P-Funk, Sun Ra and Afrika Bambataataa.

A longing for something else and new that they ironically also shared with

the German post war experimental Kraut movement of the late 60's and early 70's.

To quote the singer of Amun Duul..."we were tired of Nazism and Germany, but we also didn't want to make Anglo Saxon music (The Beatles or Rolling Stones)...we wanted to go somewhere else...so, space seemed to be an option". These ideas brought us the experimental genious of Faust, Can, Amon Duul, Neu, La Dusseldorf AND...Kraftwerk, which later got picked up by Afrika Bambaataa. The legendary DJ in Detroit who infused the local scene with all these new experimental ideas from Germany and Europe and mixed it up with Prince and P-funk , was called "The Electrifying Mojo (Charles Johnson). He had a radio show on a radio station geared towards the African-American market, and here he managed to experiment and break down gengre, racial, class and gender barriers. Not a bad achievement for a little DJ.

So the circle is again round...from Germany to Detroit and black.

This text is dedicated to The Electrifying Mojo and all other barrier breakers!

Goat milk and engine coolant

2011-06-30T00:06:00.006+02:00

On Friday morning, we were introduced to the daily routine of the urban farmer. Our host and fairy godmother KT Andresky is both a teacher and volunteer at the Catherine Ferguson Academy, a ground-breaking educational institution for teenage mothers. Amongst other things, the girls who study there learn about farming.
We got to feed the ducks, the rabbits, and the chickens - both the tiny baby ones and the grown-ups - but the highlight of the experience was the milking of the goats.
As soon as the gate of their enclosure was opened and the first lady released, she waddled of her own free will across the field, into the barn, and onto the milking stand. Her reward was a bucket of feed, as well of course as some blessed relief from the pressure of the enormous bulging bag of milk between her back legs.
Milking a goat is quite a strange experience. Its udders are basically small, hairy versions of human breasts; the small amount of familiarity which accompanies the total strangeness of squeezing milk out of the thing is quite disturbing. The technique of doing also takes some getting used to. My fingers were aching before the jar was full, half the time nothing came out, and at the end the goat began to get quite restless and impatient.
At the end of all this we had about five large jars of steaming milk, which the goats in turn seemed glad to be rid of. To a city-dweller like myself, there is something magical about seeing first-hand where food comes from; it makes the world seem a little less cold and systematised.

Later in the afternoon, we were driving in the centre of the city. Suddenly I noticed a red light on the dashboard which had not been illuminated before. The reason quickly became clear: the engine temperature was rising rapidly, and was soon off the scale. By the time I had found a space to park, there was smoke streaming out from under the engine cap.
Having left the engine to cool down for a while, we drove around for about ten minutes in search of a garage or at least a petrol station. But before long the temperature was once again off the scale. It was clear that we would have to fix the problem ourselves.
When we opened the engine cap, the problem seemed quite clear; there was no coolant in the reservoir. Around the next corner was a convenience store, where we were able to buy a large bottle of the stuff. With the tank topped up, we set off again, hoping that the problem had been solved.
It had not. After around ten minutes, the temperature once again began rising rapidly. By now, we were out of ideas.
Finally, we came across a petrol station. My reasoning for stopping there was that, surely, someone there would know some basic stuff about cars? This is the Motor City, for crying out loud.
But of course, the guy behind the plexiglass screen inside had no idea. With no further plan, I began reading the section “Troubleshooting: Overheating” in the Haynes manual tucked in the pocket behind the driver's seat. Nothing seemed like a likely cause.
Since we were at a petrol station anyway, we filled the van up - $80 of fuel and barely over half-full. While I was doing so, a homeless man asked me if I could given him a few dollars. I told him that this really wasn't the right time to be asking.
As we now stood staring at the engine, he approached us once again. “You got engine trouble?” he asked. Uh-huh. “I worked fifteen years in the auto industry. Lemme have a look at it.” he said. It didn't seem like the time to say no.
Turned out that it is not sufficient to fill the coolant reservoir: if the cooling system is really empty, you must also fill the radiator directly. Obvious perhaps if you know it, not at all if you don't.
So, about a quarter of an hour and maybe ten litres of water later, and the engine was running like a dream. I thanked our saviour heartily, and asked him if I could give him some money for his troubles - after first apologising for the knock-back the first time. He was happy to accept a donation.
His name is John. I asked him why he was homeless when he clearly has some useful skills. The reason he gave me was unsettling: he has developed arthritis, and so can no longer do heavy manual work - such as work in the motor trade. End of career, no safety net - and no medical insurance. He could be talking bullshit, but I had no reason to disbelieve him.
He pointed to the cross on the roof of a church a little further up on the other side of the road.
“See that cross?” he said, “that cross is for me.”
This is a hard place if you are unlucky.

I guess that these two experiences illustrate my impressions of this place so far: it is on the one hand a place of endless space, endless possibilities, and hands-on, practical solutions. On the other, it seems tragically dysfunctional, unable to implement the simplest things. Every day is fascinating.

US example

2011-06-24T11:01:00.005+02:00

As we all know by now, Dutch parliament want the market to steer society.

'For your convenience we are providing the following gratuity calculations'

For the culture policy the State secretary of the Netherlands uses the American system as example. In the near future this is what we need to write down first in everything that is written about and through art.

Two short lists

2011-06-22T22:21:00.005+02:00

Some of the ideas I had are not true.

People don't seem any louder and more assertive than back home. Perhaps it's just a survival method employed by Americans overseas. Or perhaps I am already used to it and am doing the same.
Not everyone is overweight. Although a few are.

Some of the ideas I had are true.

I don't think I've ever walked - or otherwise moved around under my own power - so little in my adult life as during this last week. The car is the star.
Everything is bigger here, but perhaps not quite as big as I had expected. I guess people will tend to talk in hyperbole when describing visits to faraway places, as a form to amplification to counteract the attenuation of distance and time. But you'll need to remember to cancel it out when visiting these places for yourself.
There sure are a lot of American flags around. I generally don't like flag-flying (or any display of nationalistic pride), although from an aesthetic point of view there is something quite beautiful about them, especially since the seem to fit so well with the landscape, as indispensable to the scene as the road signs, fast food joints, liquor stores and pick-up trucks. It's no accident that so many countries have chosen flags of red, white, and blue; my own has only the last two, which means our flag tends to get lost against the sky. The American sky is big, but the stars and stripes can deal with it.
I have been struck in some other parts of the world by the feeling that everything is new, as if history is in general an inconvenience. In Detroit, there's very little that isn't old: cars, buildings, roads, furniture, and a good deal of people seem to have been slowly aged, like cheese or whisky, so that all the new paint and sharp edges are gone. It gives the place a soft feeling, something very analogue, a cracked old recording which resists all forms of digitisation. And no-one moves around very fast in these parts.

back to reality

2011-06-20T17:39:00.005+02:00

Theatre Bizarre tells the story of the possibilities in Detroit; have a idea, do it, act, realize it end some of the time you end up with a great initiative. This one ended up being a great Halloween theme park that is only used once a year, 2200 people show up and it is as big as a small inner city park....... Since we are coming here in Detroit the atmosphere is developing and changing and it seems it is starting to get more realistic and down to earth. "The honeymoon is over" as they say over here.

boy band photo II

2011-06-15T00:37:00.006+02:00

We arrived back in Detroit!!!!

Jonas Ohlsson and Chris Meighan are the two new artists we are injecting in our network (which is well extended after Nikos and Joao stay last summer, thanks guys!!!).

We immediately had our 'boy band' photo taken. This to illustrate and put a picture next to the event announcement of thursday evening 16.06.2011 @ 2:1 Gallery in which we will introduce ourselves once more and give Jonas and Chris the change to introduce themselves and gain info from the audience in understanding the detroit situation

IMAGINE!

2011-02-04T23:21:00.011+01:00

Last night we went to Windsor (Canada) to attend a lecture at the Windsor University. There were five speakers; Monte Martinez and Andrew Herscher were two of them. Great to learn about different projects in Windsor, Winnipeg and Phoenix too, through the other speakers. When you come to think of it, it’s kinda silly that there is no real connection between the cities of Detroit and Windsor yet. It's just across the river!!

Afterwards we went over to the house of Tim, Ben and Eric to drink, talk and shoot some pool. It was a great evening (considering the hang-over I had this morning). It’s great to realise that every single conversation we have keeps on contributing to our understanding of this city and its complex dynamics and ethics. Today we had more of those talks with Dan Pitera, Andrew Herscher and Scott Hocking. Afterwards we went in to the Warren street building that was bought by KT and 555. Freakin’ great place that is. It used to be a cigar factory. We got up on the roof that has a fantastic 360˚ view on Detroit. That place definitely gets you to think of all the things you can do with it. Imagine!

Please the goat

2011-02-03T17:37:00.007+01:00

Today, we’ve helped KT out a bit at the Catherine Ferguson Academy Farm. It’s a beautiful day, lots of sunshine and refreshingly cold.

We milked a goat… It pleased her while she was eating.

And we fed the chickens, geese and bunnies too. KT says we’re real good farmers, ‘cause we chose, out of our own free will, to clean out the bunny cages. The bunnies were grateful.

Afterwards, we treated ourselves to a fantastic Rhode Island Clam Chowder and a sandwich at Russel’s Deli. KT traded two jars of fresh goat milk for super sandwiches and soup. That’s cool.

HEAD SPIN

2011-02-02T18:51:00.008+01:00

It’s snowing big time at the moment in Detroit. Schools and Universities are closed, meetings are cancelled, and traffic goes slowly, permanently trying not to get stuck in a pile of snow.

Interestingly enough, this situation opened up a scenario for a mind-twisting conversation (coincidence or fate?). If not for the snow, my mind wouldn’t be triggered as it is right now, spinning around issues of resentment, community, decadence, collaboration, hierarchy, acknowledgment, reflection, arrogance, energy, and world dominance. There is something about the friction or duality and complexity of thoughts within a single individual that is so appetizing. I am certainly not talking about myself right now, but more about the mind torture that is created through a unique meeting over breakfast (garlic potatoes, scrambled eggs, latte and bread). There is a subliminal understanding which is hard to grasp and put into words though. So we’re faced now with the challenge of structuring everything we’ve learned so far during our stay here, and putting it into action both in Utrecht as well as in Detroit. It is energising and scrumptious to say the least.

For now, this is all pretty cryptic, but be sure to be posted on the practical outcome of it all.

WE'VE GOT A "TWO-FIVE" HERE...!

2011-01-30T17:45:00.006+01:00

Yes, Bart and I are back in Detroit again. This time for only a week, to catch up with our friends, as well as to meet new people for future exchanges. We also brought the publication that we’ve made with Nikos and Joao about their stay in Detroit and the three stations that followed afterwards in The Netherlands and Germany. And we also brought the whole “Archive of Impressions” that we exhibited in our Expodium space last October.

When we arrived at the Detroit airport, this time it was me who was picked out of the queue at Customs for a thorough check (who are you? What are you doing here? Where are you staying?). The lady at the desk looked at my passport, took my fingerprints, and without any question called a colleague of hers. The only thing she said was: “we’ve got a Two-Five here”..... All of a sudden I was a “two-five”, and I didn’t even know what that was. I was brought down to two numbers, which probably stood for something suspicious and which needed extra attention.

I was brought up to a special desk where another lady took my passport and started typing all kind of stuff into her computer. I tried to explain why I was here, and at the point that I was talking about the exchange of knowledge and experiences between Detroit and Utrecht, she cut me off and asked if I wanted to open my suitcase.

She went through my stuff (boxer shorts, warm socks, towel, toothpaste, shirts) and saw a carton box – about an A4 size. “What’s in the box?” she asked, and I replied “an exhibition”. There we stood, a couple of seconds, realising what the situation was, and she let me go. It’s great to be back again.

DETROIT: THE PUBLICATION

2011-01-28T20:30:00.008+01:00

Bart and Luc are heading to Detroit to visit the "dream-team".
They will be carrying in their luggage the ARCHIVE OF IMPRESSIONS exhibition package as well as our recently produced Detroit publication.

"DETROIT: BACK TO THE FUTUREARCHIVE OF IMPRESSIONS - between illusion and delusion, Urban and Rural, living and leaving" is a 179 pages booklet, printed in a limited edition of 30 copies. Every copy is numbered and signed.
Around 10 of them will be distributed to the organizations and initiatives we have been collaborating with and 20 copies will be accessible for anyone to purchase via Expodium.

This publication is designed to give an inside to our journey so far. It includes part of the Visual Archive, a series of texts as well as documentation photos and descriptive articles of all three stations of the Translation Process.

Unlike most booklets "DETROIT: BACK TO THE FUTUREARCHIVE OF IMPRESSIONS" avoids a linear order. A plastic screw on the top left side binds all pages together, inviting readers to "twist" instead of "flip", suggesting various starting points.

"This publication is set to give a mere impression of Detroit’s complexity and highlight notions, embedded within its current state. Notions such as mutualism and the sense of taking care, preservation and the sense of belonging, agency, necessity and the trust in the outcome of a creative mind...
...As artists interested in social phenomena, we research, documentate and mediate. We “engage” with our subject matter, put trust in our practice, our background knowledge and reflective skills.
But so do architects, philosophers, sociologists and journalists.
We have often wondered what separates us from any other researcher.
This publication is set to give an answer to that and establish a more concrete perception of our status during our sixty-four days residency in Detroit.
Cultural colonizers? Accidental tourists? Parachuted maggots? Temporal residents or all of the above? "
Abstract from the publication's introductory text.

p. 178.

Translation Process #2: Impakt Performance

2010-10-20T23:41:00.002+02:00

Nikos Doulos Joao Evangelista
17.10.10 17:00 bus departure at Theater Kikker
( limited capacity)

Expodium’s participation in the Impakt Festival was a commissioned, progress-based work on ‘shrinking cities and emerging strategies’, carried out in a collaboration with the artists Nikos Doulos (Greece) and João Evangelista (Portugal) during a period of 64 days in Detroit.

The event revolved around the traces and marks left on the artists during their residency by means of a modular narrative in stations. Spectators were encouraged to envision the urban landscape in a process of arrivals and departures, an archive of impressions and stories.

An old American school bus took the audience out of the center of Utrecht to Hofstede, a preserved monument - farm, built next to the upcoming center of Leidsche Rijn.

First stop took place at Expodium, where people got confronted with the Visual Archive and were given twenty minutes to dive into it.
The visit to the farm consisted of scripted narratives performed on predefined locations/stations.

The discontinuity in the form of our narratives, shifting from here (Leidsche Rijn) to there (Detroit) and vice versa, served the purpose of highlighting the bypolarity in the co-existence of the urban and the rural, growth and shrinkage, Detroit and the Netherlands. What became of great importance to us was pointing out the need for a collective creative response towards the transitional nature of contemporary urban surroundings.

The city doesn't need artists. it needs persons who can respond creatively to life.
Erin Moran Martinez

first page of the tour script after rehearsal in the rain.

contribution to Filter-Detroit

2010-10-13T00:42:00.009+02:00

FILTER DETROIT is the little sister of FILTER; a platform for international contemporary art and culture.
FILTER DETROIT researches structural and cultural processes of transformation in the urban landscape of Detroit. FILTER DETROIT is a research residence for artists and cultural producers and makers from Detroit and outside of Detroit.
FILTER DETROIT collaborates with Detroit’s cultural institutions and initiatives as well as internationally.
FILTER DETROIT is building up a living archive, a constantly transforming archive of information, documentation, knowledge, activity and space about urban interventions as well as social and artistic movements in Detroit and particularly on Moran Street in Detroit.

We got introduced to Kerstin Niemann by Luc and Bart, during our first visit to the Filter house in Moran Street.
After her invitation to contribute to the "live archive" of FILTER DETROIT, we started investigating what we could leave behind that would function as a manual for upcoming visitors and additionally work as a voice for all of the people we had encountered.

We therefore invited everyone we met to respond to the question of "how did you perceive our visit to Detroit".

For the last couple of years the city has become the center of attention for many social engaged artists and initiatives worldwide.

Detroit is not a blank canvas and every single attempt to represent its reality should be practiced with considerable thought and caution.

We received a small amount of contributions and decided make a small publication (one for FILTER DETROIT and one for EXPODIUM) in two copies.

All the contributions were placed unedited together with the following introductory text.

Dear Reader,

Attached to this letter you will find a series of contributions from the people we had encountered during our stay in Detroit. These following pages are the voice of a few. A few who are living and leaving, who belong and don't belong, a few who we have met in the 64 days spent in the city of Detroit.

We were here as the first artists in a residency initiated by Expodium Platform Voor Jonge Kunst (NL), 555 Gallery (US) and THE YES FARM (US).

As a response to the invitation of Kerstin to contribute to the living archive of the Filter Project, we decided to mediate what those that live here have thought, felt, believed, misunderstood, denied, accepted, dealt with and resolved, with our ephemeral stay.

We are aware that Detroit is not a blank canvas - that its inhabitants are fully capable of raising a critical voice and acting on matters imposed to their everyday lives. We asked the basic question of how do you perceive our temporary living in your community.

This passing through that promised only to deliver a gaze from an accidental tourist - a concerned one, a caring one, one under the weight of an ethics of the encounter with the other. Detroit’s past and its eminent future, with a complex present, filled with life and death, reveals a present cycle that promises so many potentialities. One cannot but dwell in daydreaming, a very hopeful dream.

In between illusion and delusion, in between the portrayal of Detroit as the post-industrial dystopia and Alice's Wonderland where every artists dream is possible, we found ourselves living with these people, and now we find ourselves leaving these people.

These contributions give a small but significant input to the problems of ephemeral living and practices of numerous visitors (artists, researchers, theoreticians etc.) in the Detroit area.

We put trust on people’s choice to express themselves through actions rather than words, through closed verbal encounters rather than public written contributions.

Therefore our call found place only within the ones who chose to formulate their opinions in that specific manner. Most of them chose the former rather than the later, but we feel strongly about maintaining that “literate” silence.

All contributions are placed unfiltered and unedited and should be treated with great respect in regards to each author.

We claim no authorship to the material and we expect any appropriation or use to occur under the full agreement of all the contributors. Whether you are a visitor or an inhabitant of the city, we invite you to flip through it, read carefully or discard it. We hope you have a fruitful stay and pleasant living.

Wishing you all the best,

Nikos Doulos & João Evangelista

Translation Process #1: Archive of Impressions

2010-10-02T17:59:00.003+02:00

Nikos Doulos Joao Evangelista
1.10.10 - 29.10.10

Detroit's situation can be read as a visual manifestation of the new post-industrial city, a hybrid of a paradoxical alignment of the urdan and the rural, taking place in a single geographical frame, wrapped in a mediatic representation caught between delusion and illusion between " ruin porn" photography and the idea of a safe haven for artist.
The city displays far more complex signals that constitute the begging of a whole new attempt towards gentrification process, suggesting the rebirth of Detroit into a city of the future.

Station #1: Visual Translation- Archive of Impression
The exhibition is a visual amalgam of the one-month "translation process" the artists have undergone since their arrival back in the Netherlands. The gallery becomes a sight where a narrative of images is composed assisted by a script of factual and subjective subtitles.

You are confronted with a series of images - a visual archive - an archive of impression.
Think of them as stills of a movie. A movie that is open ended and has multiple narratives for you to explore.
You are given its script and your choice of movements will animate it.

translation processes

2010-09-15T13:41:00.004+02:00

Nikos and Joao at Bobby Perrou room, Detroit July 2010. photo by Kt Andresky.

Where to go and how to begin? Our findings and impressions during our stay in Detroit float in a tank of mixed emotions and daydreams of a soon return.
We are fishing them out, let them dry and arrange them in a highly subjective order.
We named this A TRANSLATION PROCESS and is set to evolve in three stages.

First station is the VISUAL TRANSLATION leading to a white cube exhibition at the Expodium space. Documentation photos are being printed, documents are scanned and objects are photographed, all placed in A4 size papers, building a visual archive of 273 prints.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a booklet with comments, notes and information as "subtitles" for most of the visual archive.

Second stage is a one evening performance at the Impakt Festival 2010 - MATRIX CITY. We are focusing on a bus tour, starting from the center of Utrecht, passing by the Expodium space and arriving to a secret location near the upcoming center of Leidche Rijn. The viewing landscape will work as a backdrop to a series of "bypolar" narratives shifting between here and Detroit.

Third stage is a lecture/demonstration at Kunstlerhaus Sootborn curated by Kerstin Niemann and Filter Detroit. The event will evolve around notions and concepts of social interaction in the city of Detroit and aims to demonstrate and investigate possibilities of applying those notions in social contexts of western european environments.

back to the future Part 11

2010-08-30T10:40:00.011+02:00

We left early in the morning, avoiding closures and goodbyes.
I am not a goodbye person and under the circumstances, leaving things open seemed the best thing to do.
Don't know when and if I'll be able to come back to Detroit. Don't really know if the ones I met will be there when I have the chance to do so.
I assume and speculate on the future of this city but predictions are founded on mostly temporary facts and practices and the transitory features of Detroit do not hold space for a prefixed outcome.
Detroit is it's people and they are for sure not a homogenic bunch of individuals. Their actions will determine their future as well as the city's. Some will leave and others will come, some will visit and some will stay.
Nine weeks is not three years, but three years is not ten and so on.

What Joao stated regarding our return to the Netherlands is that "we are not going back but forward". It's a "back to the future" kinda thing, realizing that "to" embeds "with", "in" and "on".

I guess Michael J. Fox's current Parkinson state is a visual interpretation of that shaky state of being back and forth, in and out of the past and future. Shaky is the new now.

Detroit is the city of leaving.
Detroit is the city of the future.
Detroit is the city I spent nine weeks of my life in.

party bus

2010-08-27T12:55:00.010+02:00

Having to re-thing on how to construct a social event that evolves around an object, but still stay true to our non-tangible performative practices, we came up with an idea of hosting a final tour around the city on a bio-diesel bus.
The YES FARM became a bus station, and passengers had to obtain a ticket from a temporary stand inside the space.
We decided on three travel routes and planned four bus rides, inviting all the people we had encountered during our stay in the city.

All passengers were given a questionnaire to fill in while they were waiting at the YES FARM station. Questions evolved around the notions of "living in Detroit" and "leaving from Detroit" and worked as a starting point to our discussions on the bus.

While on the bus, we decided to stop beating around the bush and pose themes of discussion in a slightly more explicit manner than before. We chose to be as laconic as possible and generate fruitful conversations among the passengers. We mostly listened allowing members of the group to reflect on each others' statements.

The tours were recorded and the responsibility of visual documentation was passed to the passengers. A photo camera was given to a member of every group allowing to capture stills of what was happening inside as well as outside the bus.

Recordings as a well as additional photos will be posted shortly.

for the living and the leaving

2010-08-25T02:48:00.006+02:00

horoscope

2010-08-25T02:45:00.003+02:00

as we prepare to make our last performance, we read each other horoscopes, and the scorpio's one says all about what we are intending with our work...

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Most discussions on TV news shows involve

so-called experts shouting simplistic opinions at each other. They may

provide some meager entertainment value, but are rarely enlightening. In

contrast to these paltry spectacles were the salons at Paris's Cafe

Guerbois in 1869. A group of hard-working artists and writers gathered

there to inspire each other. The painter Claude Monet wrote that their

discussions "sharpened one's wits, encouraged frank and impartial inquiry,

and provided enthusiasm that kept us going for weeks . . . One always

came away feeling more involved, more determined, and thinking more

clearly and distinctly." That's the kind of dynamic interaction you should

seek out in abundance, Scorpio.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): *Allure* magazine sought out Luca Turin and

Tania Sanchez, the women who wrote the book *Perfumes: The A to Z

Guide.* "What are the sexiest-smelling perfumes of all time?" they asked.

Turin and Sanchez said Chinatown was at the top of their list. Their

explanation: "If wearing Opium is like walking around with a bullhorn

shouting, 'Come and get it!', Chinatown is like discreetly whispering the

same thing." The Chinatown approach is what I recommend for you in the

coming weeks, Pisces.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): A Chinese company reached out to me by email

today. The message began, "As the leading professional conveyor belt

manufacturers in Shanghai, we present to you our very best sincere

regards, desiring to find out if there is a chance for us to be your top-rate

conveyor belt supplier." I wrote back, thanking them for their friendly

inquiry. I said that personally I didn't have any need of conveyor belts

right now, but I told them I would check with my Leo readers to see if

they might. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you see,

you're entering a time when it makes sense to expand and refine your

approach to work. It'll be a good time, for example, to get more efficient

and step up production. So how about it? Do you need any conveyor

belts?

Drawing Marathon @ THE YES FARM

2010-08-24T19:36:00.009+02:00

Blake and Ben came up with the idea of a drawing marathon and an exhibition at The Yes Farm for this weekend. We have been working putting the place into shape to host the artworks and the guests.

Three rooms were cleaned and freshly painted and a stage in the main hall was set to facilitate the community's School Of Rock.

School Of Rock is a summer program initiated by Tim and the children of the Farnsworth community. Once per week the kids would "squa"t Tim's house, practicing on how to play the drums, form a band and perform on stage.

We took the task of fixing the stage, painting the background black, adding lights and dark curtains.

The School Of Rock will be performed on Saturday during the painting marathon.

On Sunday The Yes Farm throw a raffle where people could buy raffles for 1$, take part in a lottery and if their number would come up they could choose to take home one of the drawings exhibited at the space.