the text and images below are posted from beijing, berlin, buenos aires, hong kong, los angeles, new york, sado island, shanghai, tokyo and zürich. there are a few of us, and this is the space in between.

subscribe | Log in


“can intimacy exist in public?”

secretcommunity550

Secret communities tested in aleatory fashion, Acconci’s limitations are practical, too. Beginning at the site of the Bundesnachrichtendienst and arriving at the Auswaertiges Amt:

The subject was chosen walking past the site of the German Secret Service building (to be finished in 2012). A plywood construction blockade, there is hardly any graffiti here. One stencil of a walking man whose head is a surveillance camera.

[14:06] The subject has been spotted on Chausseestrasse walking south at a medium pace and smoking a cigarette with his right hand.

Getting on the U-bahn, Schwarzkopfstrasse.

Stadtmitte, getting off.
Walking south on Friedrichstrasse, turning left on Krausenstrasse.

[14:16] Subject is noted to always look both ways before crossing the street.

Taking a left and turning into park.

[14:21] Subject missing.

[14:22] Subject 1 has most likely entered building number 40 at Leipzigerstrasse, and subject 2 is picked up at the point of departure, exiting from the building wearing high-heeled boots, blonde hair, carrying a black shopping bag in her right hand. She suddenly turns and walks the other direction. [14:26] Subject number 2 enters a jade coloured BMW 725i. We return to the point of departure of Subject 1. 40 Leipzigerstrasse. [14:28] Subject number 3 exits 40 Leipzigerstrasse. She walks east, wearing a multi-coloured scarf and black hat. Walking at leisurely pace, adjusting her hat.
[14:37] After playing Lotto, subject walks into the adjacent super market.

Blumenkohl, broccoli, kiwi.

[14:50] Subject 3 investigation is terminated in supermarket. Subject 4 recognised at 14:49 walking out of the market, carrying a large bottle of Pepsi.
[14:51] Walked inside Multipolster furniture store a few doors down. Appears to be working there.

[14:53] Subject 5 spotted walking west on Leipzigerstrasse. Subject 3 rediscovered walking west on Leipzigerstrasse. She is carrying groceries in a black nylon bag. Subject 3 investigation re-terminated.

Leipzigerstrasse 43. Subject 6 is spotted buying a small potted plant from the Blumen & Pflanzen shoppe. He wears a beige trenchcoat and red scarf, carrying a white and blue shopping bag and newly purchased flowers. [14:59] Subject meets a couple at the intersection of Leipzigerstrasse and Markgrafenstrasse. They all hold shopping bags and chat for a moment before trying to enter a restaurant door, finding it locked. The go to the next eingang and enter City Hotel.

[15:15] Subject 6 exits hotel accompanied by the same man and woman. He is no longer carrying the flowers and shopping bag. They walk north on Markgrafenstrasse. [15:23] Subject 6, accompanied by the couple, walks into the Auswaertiges Amt (Federal Foreign Office). He is seen removing his trenchcoat before security check. Subject 6 investigation terminated.

After some days, she didn’t feel the need to continue in the same way again, I mean, what is participation anyway, if it’s the same as tearing the sheet, sticking around to feed the birds or clicking——wordlessly——”add friend”. How engaged does one need to be to find intimacy, and what is participation in a group in which nobody notices? Taking part, you took part, again again… but what of inaction in the kinesphere, an allowance of space in regards to an other, not taking the responsibility. What can simply be, we were the worst at imagining a telos, so it just goes here to there nor there, our passivity is incremental. but why keep thinking of community and collectivity with such utopian ideals, anyhow. he asks, “can you imagine any form of positively created collectivity”? I thought of all my ill feeling; now, like a nearing in language or love, linking forward or a re-action may not require positives or negatives…

Posted by 丫 | more »


they call it the modern sky Posted by f | reply »


things we say we’ll do and never do | things we do and never speak of again

lulu_and_wawa.jpg路路生日快乐…yeh-啦

Posted by 丫 | reply »


she said she still wanted to be, and laughed at me when i said becoming

GILpaparazzi.jpgGILgongrenmilk.jpgGILhosts.jpg

Posted by 丫 | reply »


中日文化体育交流年 | china-japan year of culture and sport exchange | 日中文化・スポーツ交流年

y3_盗版1.jpgy3_盗版2.jpgy3_盗版3.jpg

Posted by 丫 | reply »


minutes. finally. we meet. others. minutes.

beds. dormitory feel. luggage. blanket. dishes. showers? toilets? they’re in a group but also individuals at the same time. artwork and also receivers of info at the same time. receiving more than giving out. selection. simple. profession. location. possible interest in the project. possibility of having an effect on their life. parents? eighteen to sixty. preference of the embassy. people who can determine their will. biggest worry. how to select people. where to get them. met with embassy first. documentary film. sixteen teams all over the country. already six-hundred hours of footage. people also need to answer ninety-nine questions from fake. about germany. the west. fantasy. religion. work through e-mail. make participants start to participate. the first step. already a part of it. even if the visa process may fail. june thirteen. announcement of the artists of documenta twelve. the project is impossible to keep a secret. logistically. not boat-people. boeing-people. usb-stick. memory stick. memory of today. infrastructure hardware. network infrastructure. upload. download. twenty computers. printers. a working office space that people can freely use. create an information landscape. info-booth. usb-stick will contain the memory of one individual. corporate gift. two sticks. one at start. upload. download. use. then at departure take in stick and give a new blank one. keep this memory, this accumulated knowledge. the used one you keep as a trace of this experience. memory of participant and memory of event. a thousand and one different eyes. one may be completely into all the artworks. another may not give a damn. i’ll be a cook. a barber. the teacher. informational storage. where to eat? where to sleep? what to buy? what to visit? most will not speak english or german. need information. mapping. computer technicians? doctor? impose on top of kassel another layer of information. modeled after a map of china. your own city in any city. when it’s gone it’s gone. traces in mind not in physical space. why products. so much stuff. unnecessary. what will be related to the stick? information centre. we want to be active. them to be active. interface architecture. set up a condition. we don’t know what’s going to happen. we provide a possibility. most fascinating thing. usb one GB. one thousand and one GB. a photograph of each? that’s the studio photo! ask people to do it themselves. assuming that most people have a camera. otherwise provide twenty or so cameras. each group roughly two-hundred. on the planes forty here. sixty there. some from beijing. some from shanghai. and insurance. one-thousand yuan per person. plane tickets non-refundable. over twenty people to coordinate the work. will have volunteers in kassel. can probably have computers and technicians. map-office sets up scenario. something personal. emphasize individual. the more unpredictable, unforeseeable elements we put in the better. when i started i didn’t know it was going to be like this. chinese people get very emotional. one girl wrote me that one day she was standing on a traffic overpass and started thinking about the fact that she will partake in this project and that she was so happy it made her cry. she said she never knew she could cry out of happiness.minutes.gifimage edited from: http://blog.sina.com.cn/aiweiwei

Posted by a | reply »


more expensive DVDs

today there was a slight gasp to recognise the shop from the photograph she had shown me long ago; hiroyuki-san and she were working on a magazine for them, and i think it must have come out at some point, i think i saw it i am sorry if i don’t remember so well. but i did remember the image of the car coming out of the facade of the building, the plain cardboard brown textured cement type facade that looked like a compound. in real life today, i saw that they were rocks, a wall of rocks with a barbed wire-like fence over them, a bit scary, still looking like a compound. i had not wanted to go into any shops today, except the Saver’s because i needed to buy soap, but after the gasp i decided to go inside. a very nice bookshop. and the you like me book from jan family. right after a-chan had told me about it, maybe a few days ago (刚才?刚才?刚才是几分钟之前!几天不是刚才!!) --her suggestion for www.janfamily.com. so yes, it does have something to do with this thing we are talking about, as what anyway says, ‘but i want to focus to the communication with people who is in front of us, public (not through the book). then it makes me think about shimabuku. maybe the way i want to work is something like janfamily and shimabuku. that’s what i thought laterly. my idea came up without thinking about them, but their works can be the examples of it…’ yes, so that link, and another, www.thingsthatfall.com, because at this moment we’ll let other people’s work say things for us, so much nicer that way. what is this all about? we try to make a communication, komuni kae shun, and i am also thinking very much about this relationship to commercialism, to product, the space between public good and private belonging, the relationships we have with eachother and the relationships we have with our things. i love everything that you do.

Posted by 丫 | reply »