Suspicious Minds

Homeopathy as subversion, cures it all

Ricardo Alzati
 ✽

The End
(As intent, as warning and disclaimer)

Perhaps, the meaning of texts, of any text, lies exactly within the space
not occupied by the black ink. In a strange similitude with matter, where
as it appears theory explains that there is more emptiness than anything
else, meaning is the white empty space. However, this white space
requires of ink’s black matter in order to acquire a shape, in order to be
given an appearance.

The following lines are, by no means, guides and yet, the attempt is not to
conceal any possible routes. As we already know, any intent on pinning
down, on bringing light to any certainty, always ends up instead, with
ourselves holding a little vanity mirror or some crumb, some trace of a
past and extinguished fire. Therefore, tangents must be drawn since they
might actually produce some other surface, even, some other space to be
traversed.

This paper deals with illusions and dilutions. Also delusions. Its interest
lies in the paradox that arises from my position as a producer with the will
to erode production. It stems out from the knowledge that even if all
aesthetic promises appear to have been by now surpassed and dead,
there is something, always out of our reach, but nonetheless enticing and
present that we instinctively know can alter and modify. But let’s not fool
ourselves: we are all double agents too aware of the consequences and
difficulties of not complying with the order and its forces. Otherwise this
ink would not be consumed to produce these lines.

At this point in time, we must be clear about our own collusion and we
must be precise about our own position. So, lets us suppose that these
lines try to spell nothing more than what they read and perhaps then, they
might even change a thing or two from their place above in some dark
shelf.
 ✽

Dear ■■■■■,

The papers are all in order. ■■■■■■, our daughter, is along with me.
We seem as natural and as odd as everybody else: Two bags, two
passports, two visas, two boarding passes and two persons. The dog is
already checked–in and treated as special baggage. The line at the
airport security check–point moves at the same pace than it usually does
though this time I am aware of its rhythm (what a word, only consonants
and that one semi–vowel, and still it makes a heart beat. Some claim that
the letter “h” is also a semi–vowel, but I am not convinced, it lacks a
beat), I feel stress.

People seem anxious and bleary, shoeless and preparing their bags and
souls to be screened. Should I take out my wallet and put it through the X-
ray machine or should I keep it in my back pocket? How naked I am
standing inside that cylinder? Is what I am about to do really illegal? And
if so, how sever are consequences? What would be the extent of the
punishment? To this moment I am still not sure, but the humming of the
little well–trained guard inside my head grows louder. In any case this is a
point of no return, only of surrender, we are waiting already in line.

And surrender I did, long before today I guess (surrender, that is a word
to think about: ideology at work). The officers, the guns, the National
Security and the all–seeing electronic devices are no illusion, no
abstraction, and yet they do not disclose all of what they mean. While
waiting there in line, I know I am both, abiding and breaking. By now, I am
aware that plunging deep into the theories of power and oppression, will
never suffice to drown the unreasonable surface of law and order. It can
be claimed that the positions of the prisoner and the guard are
indistinguishable and might be alternated, however today, at this moment,
the positions are clearly established and my role is not the one with the
power to enforce any law.

My brain is pondering over quite a few things, all at the same time. I am
having a conversation with ■■■■■■, a prepared response for the
authorities, a prepared explanation for you (although it would be
nonsensical: how could I ever explain jeopardizing my own kid for the
sake of a subversive experiment?). There is also an increasing
awareness of the twitching in my right eyelid, the sweating and the rising
temperature of my body. This moment actualizes a plan: it is potential and
future but all impending as catastrophe or windfall. It is a moment where
the whole scene is a view from above, detached.

It is a point of view, that without a doubt is mine, isn’t it? It is nothing but
stress that makes me feel removed from the ripples of my own actions.
Although, this view quite resembles the one that the officers behind the
screens, monitoring all the surveillance cameras in some darkened room,
might have. Is it perhaps the very same sight? It is a view that with
anonymous nearness follows us around waiting for that glitch that reveals
a gap within an otherwise everyday compliance.

This view is a panorama way too familiar by now. It always consists of a

blurry silent image with a time code in one of the corners. If needed it will
help broadcast the flow of events that preceded the moment where,
apparently, law and order prevailed again.

As we are about to take our turn, the officers decide to open a new lane
for families and people with kids (In the end the flow cannot be stopped,
that would be an assault on the nature of this system itself). This is
unforeseen, though it might play in my favor. In any case, it is unexpected
and makes me all the more nervous, now it is our turn. Two bags with five
electronic devices, plus shoes, coat and belt... All of a sudden we are
making use of more than half dozen bins into which I am throwing my
wallet and ring: mistake (Mistake? Compliance we might agree). For
more than twenty minutes I considered between whether keeping the
wallet in my back pocket or strategically placing it into the bin. In my mind
the decision had been clear: to keep the wallet with me, at all times no
doubt.

Kids go only through the regular metal detector device, and get to keep
the shoes on. Adults are screened in an all–revealing scanner. I step into
it, I get scanned and a few seconds later (Let me out!), I am released. I
rush to where the bins are being spit out form the X–ray machine.
■■■■■■, is already there waiting and smiling (“You looked so silly
inside the thing, with your arms up. What do they think you are doing?”). It
is clear that my daughter is relieved as well. By now she knows,
instinctively, a thing or two about violence and control. Her pocket–sized
anxiety might be on the right track, I know she can sense that.

We hurry up and pick up all our stuff, I leave the area with an unbuckled
belt and flapping shoes, the wallet is back in its place and we rush away.
Then it hits me: I left my ring in one of the bins. I must go back and
retrieve it: I succeed.

But maybe next time, in the near future, they will catch me because none
of the five devices we are carrying has an updated version of its
Operative System. After that, they will find all of those files in the
computer and that thing on my wallet. However not today, today we are
bound to meet you in a few hours.

Love,
r.
 ✽

Love Drug (PEA) 1993/2006, is a work by Carsten Höller. It consists of a

small crystal vial filled with Phenethylamine (PEA). It was presented for
the first time in 1993 during an art fair in Cologne, Germany. Unfair Art
Fair, an event, as any other art fair, where anything has a quantifiable
price and an unverifiable quality, although with a great catchy title.

If you inhale the PEA, you will get a sudden rush of compassion for
others, a rush of empathy and perhaps even love, which will last for about
an hour. You get high on humanness. The thing is: is it possible to get
high on with this emotions at an art fair? Or rather, what are the
implications of our ability, our possibility and our desire to be in a rush of
love and compassion for others? What does it mean for this possibility to
exist as a commodity at an art fair?

I cannot think of a more paradoxical and yet appropriate setting for this
work. Some might say the moral compass is broken, others that it has
finally been found.

It could be said that this work makes it clear that we have reached a
point, a certain degree of complexity as society, where anyone (that is, if
they hold the appropriate role on the theater (or reality show) of
democratic hierarchies) can enjoy the essence of love without the drag of
social intercourse. Or maybe, Love Drug could be taken as proof of the
artists’ ability to actually modify reality, the ultimate quest for more than
one this professionals: to actually transform the viewer and hence the
world, if only for a moment (or an hour).
Yet another take on Love Drug could be perhaps the idea that there is no
such a substance. Or better yet, that there is no such a substance as long
as it remains in the vial as a collectible object. The user/owner must give
in, participate and use it, if she actually wants to experience the delight
her money is worth. In that way, the art object is lost and the user must
embody it. There is in fact no Love substance; no essence then, there is
only the encounter within our own body and psyches of a contingency, of
a rush. As a smart customer, you can experience unadulterated emotions
for a little more than a few minutes.

Love Drug becomes a promised land, in this case, not as a place to be

found, but rather as an episode within our body to be experienced. The
irony remains in the fact that this episode itself has to be served as if it
were a gourmet dish; as if it was, tonight, an extraordinary adventure to
which we have already made the conclusion, we have no access but by
means of the bright lights of a stand at an art fair.

After all these seasons of making myths and experiencing Love, life after
life, language after language, shouldn’t we be Masters in its Arts by now?
However, Love Drug (PEA) can always be stored in a wooden container
at a warehouse, waiting for the value of the shares of Mr. Höller to go up,
seize the moment and make a kill in the secondary market. Because in
the end, it seems that everything is subject to be standing–in reserve.
Everything is subject to experience a marginal utility, the last fragment of
need not satisfied.
 ✽

Dear Klaus Weber:

The last time I used the substance known as LSD (Lysergic Acid
Diethylamide) was a few years ago. It happened during the year that I got
a production grant from the National Council of the Arts in my home
country. A few obligations come with the grant, of which the most time–
consuming happens when all of the grantees must meet for a three days
boot camp in Guadalajara, far away from home. After the long days that
go by in meetings and critical discussion of our peers’ work, the nights
belong to some other kind of social interaction.

After all of our meetings were finished, when everything was done and the
only commitment left in the program was the opening ceremony of a
group show the next day, a celebration was in order. It was a night with a
few stops at different bars and cantinas. One of these was extremely
traditional and had, instead of a jukebox or a DJ, a small scenario which
intermittently one of the drunken patrons would occupy in order to sing a
couple of mariachi–style love songs. At that point Guadalajara seemed
just like an old movie: it seemed very real, an almost perfect description of
itself.

In order to get to the next gathering spot, our little group walked a few
blocks through the city streets and squares. During the walk, we came
across one of our Program’s mentors. A man dressed up as a clown and
wielding a knife had mugged him just a minute before. There was no trace
of the clown, who had already disappeared in the dark streets. Since our
mentor was all right and no harm had really been done, we couldn’t do
anything better but burst out laughing. A clown? How was he able to get
away with a robbery? Wearing those funny shoes.

Later on that night we found ourselves at the house of a friend of a friend.

He was an artist and his wife a museum director. Night went on, drink
after drink. There were some drugs going around but I passed. I stayed
with the whiskey as if I were an old Irish man.

Dawn. Even though I hadn’t slept, my body was not feeling at all tired and
my mind was somehow clear. I am sure I had quite a few drinks, enough
as to not go to bed all night but still I didn’t feel drunk. At that point,
■■■■■■■ and myself decided to go away, it was about time. As we
were leaving, we opened the shutters: the sun came pouring in, the
guests were taken by surprise. As they turned out not to be vampires no
one evaporated, and the party went on.

We left the place, jumped into the car and drive off to pick up ■■■■■,
■■■■■■’s good friend. We arrived at her place, woke her up and all in
good spirits left in search of a big breakfast. Tortas Ahogadas (something
like Ertränkendoppelbrot or Drowned Sandwich), the local delight. Pork
and bread soaked in hot chili sauce. “I’ll take that pig, though make it
super lean, pristine.”

What next? “We should go out to Chapala and pay a visit to

■■■■■■■■. She prepares the best beer cocktails and there is a Sauna
at her place. It is not that far, we will be back on time for the opening.”
There was not much more to be said. We were on our way.
As the car made its way through the traffic, ■■■■■ made of our
knowledge that she had with her a little piece of an LSD dose. Some
joyful remain of another gathering. It was really small. She dropped the
barely visible pellet piece in a bottle of water. She put it aside and waited
for the pellet to be dissolved. After we managed to navigate the Sunday
traffic jam and left the city behind, we had a first little sip from the bottle.

Minutes later after the first sip the curvy road in front of us was unwinding
itself, effortless, sweetly. The plants and flowers at the edge of the road
were shimmering. The sensation was that of a fine tingly vibration coming
from my brain all the way to my eyes and ears: flow out, pulsate, breath
in. A fine–tuning of the volume, contrast, tint, treble and bass was taking
place. The lengthy drive turned into a rather calm stream of micro–shifts.
Everything fell into place, both in its depth and its absurdity.

We arrived at Chapala. Out of the car and merrily lay on the lawn. Our
conversation continued, we laughed, we got along beautifully. A tight knit
group of almost total strangers. After a while it was obvious that the LSD
was not, in this case, an enhancer, it was an elixir, a remedy. Not so
much as to feel, but as to be: To be lighter within our beings. For hours
we remained under the tree looking up at the branches, talking and
laughing, looking closely at the blades of grass in all of its details,
listening.

The sauna was just great. It was time for us to go back to the city to arrive
in time for the opening. As we made our way back, a sudden stop to
avoid a pothole on the road made us realize that we had sipped only once
from the bottle with the acid. After the first round of sips, the bottle got
mixed up and was left underneath the passenger for the rest of the
evening. We never made it to the opening. We started sipping again.

After encountering your work, I felt compelled to write you about this odd
little anecdote.

Not too long ago, during the so–called Cold War, the United States
intelligence agencies were involved in multiple operations aimed to
research upon the effects of different drugs in a quest for either mind
control, memory loss or more effective methods of torture. Regardless of
their true intentions (perhaps even of its veracity), the aim of these
operations made clear that individual perception of reality and the
possible malleability of it, were acknowledge not anymore only as a field
of ethics, where allegiance, loyalty or submission were only to be trusted
or suspected. Rather, perception’s ductility was understood as just
another theater of operations, another “ultimate weapon”, as another
battleground to operate on.

Eerily admonishing some minimalist sculptures and performance art, a

few of these operations involved, apart from administering substances to
unsuspecting individuals, one–way–mirrors, surveillance, deception and
brothels. In their lust for prevention, a quest for managing every possible
outcome of all those crimes, which they claimed would surely be
committed and posed an imminent threat to social order, the intelligence
agents and security units became indistinguishable of those forces that
they pretended to counteract in the first place. One is left to wonder if, in
fact, those antagonistic forces were ever a real menace or if the keepers
had become the threat itself. Maybe the enemy has never been the Big
Other, possibly the real danger has always been the way in which we
relate to each other.

In many levels, Public Fountain LSD Hall (2003) functions as a highly

subversive proposal for an artwork. As such, it is close to becoming a
weapon, perhaps it could turn out to be one, and the city officials in
Dresden might have been (un)consciously aware of this when they
rejected your original intent of installing it as a public artwork on a city
square. In its public iteration, Public Fountain aims to alter the notions of
control and social engagement, the mechanisms of power exertion and
possibly the ways in which we can think and forget about the latter.

What is extremely interesting is the fact that LSD Hall achieves this arena
(that of resistance) without doing anything out of the ordinary, without any
outcry for revolt. Public Fountain is nothing but suggesting a space for the
ghosts of other possibilities to appear. It is a proposal that puts in motion
the potential to redirect our perception, and hence relation, with others,
while using only proven conventions of social behavior and official
certification standards. Perhaps the idea of a swerve, (of a slight detour in
the usual current of relations and behavior), might become useful to think
of in order to comprehend some of the significations of your work.

Prior to its use as a pure ideological scenario or display of power, the

fountain was a necessary means of survival for the city and its social and
economical transactions. Also, it can be maintained that public fountains
had a function of social equalizer, an acknowledgement, or a sign at
least, of a common outcome, for better or for worse, for rulers and
citizens. A fountain can be seen, to an extent, as a measurement
parameter for common fortune. By the same token, the public square can
be thought of as the source of order and revolt. The public square
configures the place where news and laws were to be disseminated and
thus abided or contested.

By using two apparently already surpassed and empty devices

(concerning its functionality, e.g., the fountain as provider. Or, in regards
of a scientific verifiability, Homeopathy as an effective substance) the
specter of their potential is unraveled. It is then that a “remember” and a
“what if” come into place. Remember that it has not always been as it is.
Maybe this (social) arrangement might be nothing but a temporal oddity.
What if in fact a non-substance can hold sway? It is a proposition of de–
stabilization.

Your proposal can be thought of as a swerve of trajectory, which allows

for the possibility to encounter that gap, that position from where the view
is clear: the rendition of the extreme contingent nature of that order which
appears solid and within time might turn just as hard as jell-o and, without
any heat, suddenly, might just melt away.

None of the elements within Public Fountain is in fact any different to

what this rooted order has already given us in countless unremarkable
parks and plazas around the world: a delimited public space, benches, a
tasteful fountain and time to spare. Watch the cars go by, watch the fluid
order of the passer–by and the buses. Entertaining ourselves with the
bright lights of this or that shop, the logo of the fast–food restaurant, an
odd ad for that old bank. Although, yes, it does take over a few inches of
the road.

But, oh! The idea, the idea that a certified homeopathic substance is
dissolved into the water and as if it was brilliant quicksilver, would
instantly make mad-hatters of all of us; or even worse, might help the
participants find a lucidity for self–organization.

The funny thing is that according to more than one scientist (specially
those interested in debunking the claims of Homeopathic orthodoxy), the
reality of Public Fountain would be one of complete illusion, something
not short of a, literally, unsubstantial claim. According to them, and by
following Avogadro’s law, Public Fountain LSD Hall is in fact nothing more
than an empty wish: A lost molecule somewhere in the solar system.

But then paradox arises, for if in fact Homeopathy’s potential is empty or

at least virtually untraceable as to be taken seriously into account, if it is
nothing but a placebo (and the rest of the components of the proposal for
the work are in no way an “alien threat” to any regular city), why not then
allow the possibility for the hall to exist as a public artwork? It appears as
if in the end the idea of “potential” is the problem: a treacherous threat
can be perceived even in the smallest of traces.

Is interesting the role of official certification that LSD Hall puts forward: If
the German Homeopathic Society certifies the LSD dilution to be used in
this work is obtained through the most rigorous Homeopathic standards, it
implies, conversely, that the sanitation authorities in Dresden would have
been equally able to certify that in fact there are no LSD traces to be
found in the water fountain. Even as both theses could strengthen each
other (since Homeopathy and Science produce mirror images of their
respective logics), only one can come out triumphant, isn’t it? But still, it
would appear that in this case a reasonable triumph of reason is not
reason enough to deem your proposal as harmless and ergo viable.

And yet, I Public Fountain wishes not to topple, it is not a work where
subversion is aimed towards the ignition of a public outrage and
resistance. Its direction is not one of head on collision against the state
(of things). As a proposal LSD Hall reclaims a different kind of space,
following Sun Tzu’s Way of the Warrior advice, the Fountain will not
engage in battle since the outcome is already known. Therefore, a
different theater must be established, one where the enemy’s armies are
disarmed by their position within the battle–field alone. Does an army
remain an army if it rather not to fight?

However, every time that I explain this work to myself and feel completely
convinced of its subversive potential, I end up thinking that Public
Fountain is perhaps nothing but art. And art has long ago left the building,
just as homeopathy, its real substance is far from being accounted for
(although it might still take sway, someday, somewhere). I cannot help
but smile and think that in the end, just as a Magritte painting/writing, your
proposal could read as a subtitle: ceci n’est pas une œuvre d’ art.

Because in the end, it could be claimed that things have never been
better. So much so that my little petit bourgeois radical fears the revolt
and my own fascistic guard tells me: beware. But I rather not listen and
just go outside, enjoy the weather, do as I please, walk my dog and listen.
Perhaps in one of those walks I will find a Public Fountain and will help
myself not a sip but a cup.

Best wishes,
r.
 ✱

Proposal 20130704,
(ongoing)

For the past seven months I have been carrying in my wallet, at all times,
an envelope containing a small amount of Papaver Somniferum (opium
poppy) seeds. Whenever the occasion arises the seeds get set into the
ground in order to produce, weather permitting, small patches of poppy
plants. After each episode the envelope and seeds are replaced with a
new one waiting, while in transit, their turn to meet the soil and deploy
their possibility.

Up to this point, while carrying one of these envelopes, I have managed

to cross ten different security checkpoints at international airports. The
seeds have been planted in three different countries. I carry around the
potential for colorful flower fields that might arise unexpectedly, illegal
substances, and delicious bakery goods. Also I carry around my potential
non-compliance with the legal frameworks of all those strange in–
between places at airport terminals, where past, present and future seem
to collide ever so organized.
 ✱

■■■■■■ and I arrived at the Mexico City airport after a whole night of
being suspended in the air inside a tin box propelled close to the speed of
sound. To be suspended in the air. What an accomplishment, fulfillment
of humanity. The machine’s (in)efficiency making clear, that more often
than not, movement is a voracious drive and thirst.

The captain remains not to be seen during flight. Any flight attendant who
might remind me of my grandmother (although that is another story, since
I am doubtful about any remembrance of those who remain unknown to
me) is authority, seriously. For the time being, during the
flight/suspension, she is in charge of you and your fleeting neighbors, just
a few would dare to challenge her smiling policing role that is to remain
concealed as that of a vendor or a server.

The food packaged in little trays along with the pressurized air reminds
me that outside this metalized rubbery order we would freeze to death,
that for the time being, this is it, there is no chance on checking out any
other menu, any other table for dinner. The complete rituals of sitting up
straight and behave like humans do... all those years at school paying off:
civilization and manners, surrender and submission.

Wouldn’t it be great if planes were full of Japanese futons on the ground?

With only one–class for all? They could become the re–distribution of
space with an egalitarian approach to the most expensive piece of rental
real–estate? The resulting interactions could potentially be more
conducive to... oh, but let’s not forget: we all know that doesn’t work.
Thankfully the days of the Red Scares are long gone. And furthermore, it
is clear that is not the System what is at fault, what is at fault is the way in
which sometimes we want to engage it and take advantage of it.

In mid air, everything is impending. Every part must play accordingly. Any
event out of the ordinary may lead into catastrophe... However, that
possibility is already taken into account, no surprises only insurances and
instantaneous speculation. You can bet on that, just as the financial
markets do. In mid–air there is nothing but movement for movement sake,
even if it opposes the entropic desire of Physics; nothing but Capital and
its poetical politics of endless accumulation and expansion.

The system efficiency propelling itself, as to keep us safe through it own

motion. And even there, somewhere, always there is still space for love. I
can see it asleep by my side, dreaming without a doubt. The airplane mid
air with all of its seats occupied against the starred–filled backdrop,
burning thousands of gallons of gas, is a beautiful rendering of our
likeness tonight.

As we leave the airport behind, dawn is rising and things are just as
normal as can be. The city expels its daily stench and cars are already
jamming the avenues. People throw themselves into a new day. I had
forgotten for sometime of that which I was carrying in my wallet. The kid,
the dog, the suitcases, the sleepless night, the passports on my third
hand, my compliance and my resistance sort of got whatever was left of
me.
 ✱

In 1970 Elvis Presley wrote, while high above on an American Airlines

flight, a letter to then President Richard Nixon. The King expressed his
wish to meet the president out of concern for the nation. In his real and
Royal letter, the King made clear that he desired to be made a federal
agent at large. He envisioned his mission as that of a deceptive double
agent.

Elvis proposed to report directly to President Nixon on the activities of

people of all ages with subversive inclinations. His access to this
information was granted since he was not seen as part of the
establishment (or “America” as The King himself would call it). He
claimed, in his letter, that individuals with seditious inclinations often
approached him convinced that he would be likewise minded. He felt
nothing but contempt for them. He also claimed to have made an in depth
study of Drug Abuse and Communist Brainwashing Techniques and he
perceived himself as being “in the middle of the whole thing”.

The King met later with the president, gave him a Colt .45 pistol along
with other presents. A bizarre photo–op. Eventually, Elvis Presley was
presented with a badge and an ID from the Department of Justice’s
Bureau of Narcotics Dangerous Drugs and a Thank you note signed by
the President. The King of the Jailhouse rock, while under the influence of
an amazing multitude of prescription drugs, was made a Federal Agent
and Special Advisor on matters of controlled substances, ironically
appropriate.
Years later, after the King dropped dead alone in his bathroom, a trial was
set in motion against his doctor. Blame and guilt are always to find a
father whenever we feel at lost. Law and order declares who that is, and
in this case Dr. George “Nick” Nichopoulous seemed to a large extent as
the (ir)responsible one. The Tennessee doctor had been Elvis’ doctor in
Memphis since 1965. Over the years, innumerable prescriptions
amounting to thousands of doses had been made by Dr. Nick to satisfy
Mr. Presley’s needs. Ease the pain and keep the pelvis rocking. In 1977
alone, Dr. Nick issued more than 200 prescriptions with over 10,000
doses of powerful pills for Elvis.

By the doctor’s account Elvis took combinations of amphetamines and

painkillers over decades. Elvis’ addiction to the former was traced back to
his years in the military when the substance was available as dietary
supplements. Energy, not much sleep and weight control. Rock and Roll,
the show, the movie must go on.

At this point Elvis’ addiction to the opiates seemed only to be surfacing.

Tiunal, Desbutal, Escatrol, and Placidyl, those were the rhythmical names
given to some of his Majesty favorite “tonics”. According to the doctor, the
biggest problem in regards of Mr. Presley habit was that he would not
consider himself in any way an addict as long as the substances were
prescribed. If science, medicine, state and law allowed the substance to
be available, if the solution was validated by that entity which protected
him, (and he swore to protect back), then, how his consumption could
possibly be perceived as an ailment?
Dr. Nick’s handling of the case seemed to prefigure a grim outcome for
him. However his luck changed when the jury found him to be acting in
his patient best interest. According to the jurors, he was not guilty of
Gross Malpractice as charged. This unexpected turn of events happened
when Dr. Nick produced evidence of a year–long and successful effort of
letters and negotiations with Knoll Pharmaceutical Labs. The good doctor
managed to have the laboratory produce a special batch of thousands of
Dilaudid (a powerful opiate preferred by Elvis) doses with no active
ingredients whatsoever. These dummies were expressly made for his
Highness and looked exactly as the real things. Indeed, the Tennessee
physician used these placebos on the King in order, to surreptitiously
protect Elvis from himself.

More over than the reason which moved Mr. Nixon and his advisors to
accept the petition, (which could lead to endless speculation upon Mr.
Nixon’s and his advisor own psychic states and political positions) the
documents remaining from this affair reveal the perception that a real and
dangerous subversion was indeed taking place. And the need for a
different kind of weapon, of counter–measure was transparent, since it
was not only happening at home but also, it could be said, was happening
a little out of the box.

And Elvis became a counter measure. One of the icons of counter culture
reversed: he made clear that he wished to turn into a poet of law and
order. But he would only able to do so, given that the seditious forces
would never perceive him as such a poet. His force and ability to infiltrate
lay precisely in the fact that The King was one of their own agents. His
argued position as a dissenter, as an anti–establishment agent was
already determined long before (Jail-House Rock double attitude:
submissive towards the law/homo–erotic towards fellow inmates: an
unfulfilled, though pleasurable, rhythmic revolt). Elvis played a double–
game that relied at the same time, in the deception and the re–assurance
of a rebellious identity. His pelvic movement might have even been once
censored from the TV screens; but his heart (and allegiance) was always
in place (despite what one could think).

One is left to wonder how lost was he in this game or, if perhaps he was
just granting himself the suspension of any legal, social and metaphysical
restraints left for him. And here, I am not only thinking about Elvis, since
the very same thing can be debated about President Nixon.

Publicly, Death presented itself on both characters with very different, but
equally interesting and distinctive demeanors. May we agree on the
certainty of an uncertain death as a signature? For in Nixon’s case, we
could assert that death effectively took place as he waved good–bye with
the victory sign (or was it the peace sign?) and the helicopter took off the
White House, roughly twenty years before he actually died. As for the
King, he was just seen leaving some building not too long ago, and he
was still fighting crime. That lonely death in a bathroom was not his.
 ✱

Dear ■■■■■■■:

I hadn’t had a dream in Spanish for a long time. There was rain, furious
rain that appeared to be falling from each tree, only from the trees. After
the rain stopped, the sun shined over a river of mud carrying people
away. And I was worried about you: I know I had seen you before, prior to
the rain. Your hair was different and so was your name. It took a long time
for me to find you. Just as long as it took me to understand that, by now,
(Power) is so big, so unrepentant and full of confidence, that there is no
doubt about the need to erode it in each and every direction possible.

Not in the dream but in your writing (and it should be clear how to tell the
difference between the two), you were describing Gravity. Not about
Newton and Physics. You were talking about Gravity and the way it could
be understood regarding a Moral time–space dynamic. I must confess I
was skeptical, too idealistic and ordered of an approach for me. But then
it kind of hit me.

I was only thinking of it as a progression, like a trajectory ever expanding

never returning. But what if the object does not escape gravity and must
go back? Not to the point of origin, but as the parabola of an old cannon
ball, moral reaches a point of zero velocity, zero movement only to
accelerate back in its reversed crashing path somewhere lost in the war
zone? The modern system shot us all into the sky with the idea of the
limitless universe, but the momentum was never enough.
As if it were a Frankenstein, a Leviathan, our creation, meant originally as
protection and reason for a hierachical co–existence, Sovereign Power
has become a creature of its own. As any other organism it has evolved.
Mimicking a biological need for survival, social structure has come to use
the individual components as ponds in its progression. As of today,
individuals, the raison d’etre of states, are nothing but leverage and a
stand-in reserve to be exchanged for the sole purpose of sustaining the
system.

As if it were a strange premonition, or possibly nothing but pure

awareness and vision, Thomas Hobbes casted a spell and a self fulfilling
prophecy. Where despite the fact that there has been a diagnosis, we just
surrendered enchanted by the monstrosity of this gigantic being. Is it
possible, perhaps even necessary to propose erosion as a way to dilute
the meaning of our reasonable system to the point of senselessness?

At this point in time, it seems that it really does not matter anymore how
you fight the power, (as Rosie Perez did in the during the opening credits
of that old Spike Lee movie). For as long as it is done, it might well be
done even in a dream. Or would that approach just leave the door open to
the free reign by the poets of economic law and the voracious?

A city without roundabouts is to be cut across, traversed and then left

behind. It might be navigated but the lack of reference is not very inviting
to do so. It could be said that a city built in this fashion becomes a side-of-
the-road. Roundabouts and their necessary monuments are like beacons.
They remind us of the distance to and from the point of departure/return.
The monument on a roundabout does not hide its quality of cultural
signifier, its status of sign of the ruling ideology. The function is a certain
sense of event as matter.

Contrary to its original purpose, this kind of monuments might bring hope:
yes, of course they are signifiers of the current power structures, but by
the same token, they are a reminder that once the city (the polis, the
order) was not what it is and further more, the monuments have the
implicit promise of toppling and effacement. The weight will ruin them,
and it might just so happen that this end might just come sooner if we
lean into it.

At one given point the Golden Winged Victory will grow weary of her nest
atop the column and will scream out to be released. Hopefully, concerned
passers–by will grant her wish. If only to begin again, since the nest, the
origin of things and of our own explanation cannot be left empty. Those
same passers–by shall look and find some other creature to remain
frozen against its will.

This past weekend protesters in Ukraine toppled a Lenin statue, at the

same time that the Lenin memorial (the one with the embalmed body of
Lenin) reopened in Moscow after many years. And as of now Crimea,
something a little bit bigger and important than just real–estate in Ukraine,
has already been re–annexed to Russia.

A city that refuses monuments and reminders is not more democratic. Far
from it, this refusal only reassures and conceals the ideological
inclinations that gave rise to it and pretends to naturalize the city and its
transactions as if it were a landscape: the city will always be here, no
doubt, as it has always been. There is nothing but progression. Utopia is
not the outcome of a process to be reached it is a place ready to be
leased. There is nothing but and endless road movie and our car has a
tank full of gas, no matter what.

So maybe is not a bad idea to rename the People’s Park in Berkeley as

the Ronald Reagan Park, with some place for an obelisk and a memorial
too. Then we could be certain that by Gravity, there will be no mistake of
what exactly is it that which will fall down and the wind will carry.

Love,
r.
 ✽

What is Left
(As departure)

At first, the desire was to build up a theory that could provide the strategy
for subverting any given power structure from within, in a diluted and
almost imperceptible measure. Homeopathic remedies and their
mysterious unsubstantial ways of working would provide the model. The
proposal was to set a simple method where the malady, the symptom,
would be replicated in order to counter the affection. To turn the struggle,
the counter attack invisible, while remaining as a producer in plain sight,
within a system.

The problem arises when the paradoxical nature of the homeopathic

remedy makes us realize that there is no remedy to our malady, there is
only some other place where to be aware and act. Erode from within as to
leave a thin shell that the wind will finally break to pieces.

Ricardo Alzati

San Francisco, California

March 2014  
Twenty-four Notes
(Why these and not something else?)

So, it can be said that Jean Baudrillard was a bit over the edge, with
claims that leave no room for wiggling around or feeling good; we are set
against a backdrop of deep hopelessness. And perhaps that is where a
critique to his approach could be done: Baudrillard’s insistence on his
ability to have an all–encompassing gaze, the one who noticed (how did
he managed?) that Everything is but a simulacra. However, he was not all
that wrong.

Baudrillard undoubtedly provided a fair assessment of the state of affairs,

his critique to late–capitalist culture is accurate, and as if he were the
lunatic Grandparent on the attic, some of his claims cannot go ignored.
We can, undoubtedly, experience everyday the way in which values can
be summoned in order to advance the very opposite, bringing meaning to
a point of disappearance: Let us do a pre–emptive war. Free market will
distribute, in its fountain like, trickle down economics, wealth to all.
Democracy provides the space for choosing our own governing bodies,
as long as we choose correctly.

If we were to follow his advice as a possible path for a cultural production,

the latter turns to be almost impossible. And that is the trap. Because
even if all is just simulacra (which it is not, and countless bloody headless
bodies can attest to that), within the illusion (reality?), there is always a
pulsating sensuous experience of being and hovering over, a sense of the
Real is always poking through. Meaning does not stop at language, just
as much as time does not stop when you miss a train. There is always a
space through which the ripples of our propositions will travel and
encounter propositions put forth by some other.

1. The transparency is too good to be true. As for art, it is too superficial to

be truly null and void. There must be some underlying mystery. Like
anamorphosis: there must be an angle from which all this useless excess
of sex and signs becomes meaningful, but, for the time being we can only
experience it with an ironic indifference... If everything becomes too
obvious to be true maybe there is still a chance for illusion. What lies
hidden behind this falsely transparent world? Another kind of intelligence
or a terminal lobotomy?

Baudrillard, Jean. 1996. The Conspiracy of Art. Edited by Sylvère Lotringer,

translated by Ames Hodges. New York: Semiotext(e) 2005
(Baudrillard 1996, 26)

Hopefully the former.

2. Nullity, however is a secret quality that cannot be claimed by just

anyone. Insignificance –real insignificance, the victorious challenge to
meaning, the shedding of sense, the art of the disappearance of
meaning– is the rare quality of a few exceptional works that never strive
for it.
(Ibid., 26)

Can it be claimed that Public Fountain is a victorious challenge through

emptiness? Does it make visible the meaningless, or at least, contingent
character of order within modern urban space? As a proposal Public
Fountain does nothing but point towards another possibility of observation
and experience without altering the current forms. It remains only a public
plaza. It takes the existing social order and only shifts the angle of
approach, just a little bit, enough to be a completely recognizable space,
but also enough to uncover another route, one that has (apparently) no
real or substantial dimension but that is able to alter its original (originary)
socio-political space while providing an option.

3. The poetic operation is to make Nothingness rise from the power of

signs –not banality or indifference toward reality but radical illusion.
(Warhol is thus truly null, in the sense that he reintroduces nothingness
into the heart of the image. He turns nullity and insignificance into an
event that he changes into a fatal strategy of the image).
(Ibid., 28)

4. Contemporary art makes use of this uncertainty, of the impossibility of

grounding aesthetic value judgments and speculates on the guilt of those
who do not understand it or who have not realized that there is nothing to
understand. Another case of insider trading.
(Ibid., 28)

5. The only question is: How can such a machine continue to operate in
the midst of critical disillusion and commercial frenzy? And if it does, how
long will this conjuring act last? One hundred? Two hundred years? Will
art have the right to a second interminable existence, like the secret
services that, as we know, haven’t had any secrets to steal or exchange
for some time but who still continue to flourish in the utter superstition of
their usefulness, perpetuating their own myth.
(Ibid., 29)
6. It is impossible to destroy the system by a contradiction–based logic or
by reversing the balance of forces –in short, by a direct, dialectical
revolution affecting the economic or political infrastructure. Everything that
produces contradiction or a balance of forces or energy in general merely
feeds back into the system and drives it on... the worst error, the one
committed by all our revolutionary strategists, is to think they can out an
end to the system in the real plane: that is... the imaginary the system
imposes on them, a system that lives and survives only to be getting
those who attack it to fight in the terrain of reality, a ground that is always
its own. Realism is no kind of radicalism at all: the only solution is “to
challenge the system with a gift to which it cannot reply –except by its
own death and collapse”.,

Baudrillard, Jean, 1967. Le Ludique et Le Policier: Et autres textes parus dans

Utopie , quoted by Chris Turner intro of “The Intelligence of Evil or The Lucidity
Pact”, New York: Berg, 2005.
(Baudrillard, 4 & 5)

Is this a hint for the Homeopathic route of practicing the cultural

production and the critique to the system? We should move to some other
field altogether? Let us hide in plain sight, somewhere were the system
must acknowledge but has no substance through which claim back the
proposal.

7. In conversation with the Russian artist Boris Groys* in 1995, Baudrillard

says: “What we have to deal with now is the fact that our entire culture
has, through simulation, the media etc., gone over into something else,
into a space beyond the end.” And the he adds, “Things have no origin
any longer and no end, they cannot develop logically or dialectically
anymore, but only chaotically and randomly. They are becoming
“extreme” in the literal sense –ex terminis: they are beyond the limits.”
(Ibid., 9)

The path enlightened by this thought, as well as Michel Foucault’s

example on how to deal with a seminar on Psychology and Philosophy,
informs the writing of this paper. The attempt: to accomplish a practical
exercise, a praxis, as close as possible to its own theoretical source, to its
fountain. Drink from the fountain that you have built. The option is to take
into account as much as possible for any given work. Because the work
will intersect the other actors in any given place.

*Dear Chris Turner:

As much as I appreciate and have made use of the work you have done
over the years as translator and champion of JB’s thought, I must bring to
your attention that Boris Groys is not a Russian artist. His work is that of a
philosopher and an art critic.
Although of Russian origin and closely linked to the reevaluation of the
socialist realism, Herr Groys was born in East Berlin in 1947. He would
later attend The University of Leningrad (today again, St. Petersburg) and
earn a degree on the field of Mathematical Logic. It was only several
years later that he would obtain a PhD in Philosophy from the University
of Münster in Germany.
Apart from this marginal detail which, in tangential fashion, made me think
about the precision of words and the affect of this latter upon meaning, I
congratulate and salute you over your exceptional work. (source:
Wikipedia)
8. America is neither dream nor reality. It is hyperreality. It is a hyperreality
because it is a utopia which has behaved from the very beginning as
though it were already achieved. Everything here is real and pragmatic,
and yet it is all the stuff of dreams too.

Baudrillard, Jean. 1988, America, trans. by Chris Turner, intro. by Geoff Dyer, New
York: Verso
(Baudrillard, 1998. 28)

It is an apartment for lease on Market Street, right next to Twitter’s Head

Quarters, fully furnished and equipped. The difference between leasing
and renting, you forego your right to housing as citizen and exchange it
for a contract of service with a company as a consumer, because you
know, we have it made, really, just look at the latest IPO’s.

9. Everywhere survival has become a burning issue, perhaps by some

obscure weariness of life or a collective desire for catastrophe (though we
should not take all this to seriously: it is also a playing at catastrophe).
Certainly, this whole panoply of survival issues –dieting, ecology, saving
the sequoias, seals or the human race– tends to prove that we are very
much alive (just as all imaginary fairy-tales tend to prove that the real
world is very real). But this is not so certain, for not only is the fact of
living not really well-attested, but the paradox of this society is that you
cannot even die in it anymore since you are already dead... This is the
real suspense. (...)we no longer have any awareness of death, since we
have subtly passed over into a state where life is excessively easy.
(Ibid., 43-44)
10. ...they were robbed of power over their own deaths. And this is what is
happening to all of us, in slow, homeopathic doses, by virtue of the very
development of our systems. The explosions and the exterminations
(Auschwitz and Hiroshima) still go on though they have simply taken on a
purulent, endemic form. The chain reaction continues nonetheless, the
contagion, the unfolding of the viral and bacteriological process. The end
of history was precisely the inauguration of this chain reaction.
(Ibid., 44)

In return I feel obliged to reply, in the same homeopathic method, to the

end of history.

11. Thus the freeways do not de-nature the city or the landscape; they
simply pass through it and unravel it without altering the desert character
of this particular metropolis. And they are ideally suited to the only truly
profound pleasure, that of keeping on the move.
(Ibid., 55)

I was told of a cricket plague that appears every few years in Nevada.
The gigantic insect cloud moves and devours everything in the path. Their
gargantuan number makes the roads dangerous, slippery by the amount
of squashed protein, as you try to drive through. It seems as if a common
knowledge among the insect colony would guide the pace (in peace), but
that is not the case.

The matter of fact, that which keeps the engine of the insect–organism on
the move, is simply that the guides in the front must move on, otherwise
they are to be devoured by their fellow followers.
You must keep moving with the flow. Remember that driving too slow is
as dangerous as driving too fast. Though you should always keep a tank
full of gas.

12. Everything is metamorphosed into its opposite to perpetuate itself in

its expurgated form. All the powers, all the institutions speak of
themselves through denial, in order to attempt, by simulating death, to
escape their real death throes. Power can stage its own murder to
rediscover a glimmer of existence and legitimacy. Such was the case with
some American presidents: the Kennedys were murdered because they
still had a political dimension. The others, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, only had
the right to phantom attempts, to simulated murders. But this aura of an
artificial menace was still necessary to conceal that they were no longer
anything but the mannequins of power. Formerly, the king (also the god)
had to die, therein lay his power. Today, he is miserably forced to feign
death, in order to preserve the blessing of power. But it is lost.
To seek new blood in its own death, to renew the cycle through the mirror
of crisis, negativity and anti–power: this is the only solution-alibi of every
power, of every institution attempting to break the vicious circle of its
irresponsibility and of its fundamental nonexistence, of its already seen
and of its already dead.

Baudrillard, Jean. 1981. Simulacra & Simulation, trans. by Sheila Faria Glaser, Ann
Arbor: The Michigan University Press
(Baudrillard 1981, 19)

The attempt to bring back the revolution is thus doomed to failed since it
would only give the power-to-be-toppled a breath of fresh air, an attack
that would only brings it to a reason of being again.
13. Disneyland exists in order to hide that it is the “real” country, all of
“real” America that is Disneyland (a bit like the prisons are there to hide
that it is the social in its entirety, in its banal omnipresence, that is
carceral). Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us
believe that the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles and the America
that surrounds it are no longer real, but belong to the hyperreal order and
to the order of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false
representation of reality (ideology) but of concealing the fact that the real
is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle.
(Ibid., 12-13)

The city presents itself as landscape to be occupied. The current socio-

political system depicted as natural landscape to be traversed, in any
case as space to be conquered and inhabited. A road movie where there
can be no destination but only movement and infinite amounts of gas to
be burned and replenished.

Also, it illuminates the plane travel as the moment where individual

freedom becomes negation. Sure, you can go wherever you like as long
as you do not change your mind and try to go somewhere else. And you
must consume the duty free products: they are cheap. Although you
cannot buy all the cigarettes in the port, for what would they sell then?
Hierarchy conceals itself only to be thought of at every moment, you are
subject to the machine and the captain, you are bounded to your seat and
class. But don’t worry, its going to be fine, it is only for a few hours and
planes are safe, it is not as if a plane can just disappear and go
somewhere else. After all that, you will be free again.
14. One must be conscious that, no matter how the analysis proceeds, it
proceeds toward the freezing over of meaning, it assists in the precession
of simulacra and of indifferent forms. The desert grows.
(Ibid., 161)

15. Cfr. Chapter 1, Two Poets at Saffron Park, where Gabriel Syme, The
poet of law and order, discusses with Lucien Gregory, the anarchist poet,
the differences of poetry as total chaos or as total order.

“It is things going right,” he (Syme) cried, “that is poetical! Our digestions,
for instance, going sacredly and silently right, that is the foundation of all
poetry. Yes, the most poetical thing, more poetical than the flowers, more
poetical than the stars –the most poetical thing in the world is not being
sick.”

Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. 1908. The Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare,
London: Penguin Books
(Chesterton 1908, 7)

16. "The work of the philosophical policeman," replied the man in blue, "is
at once bolder and more subtle than that of the ordinary detective. The
ordinary detective goes to pothouses to arrest thieves; we go to artistic
tea parties to detect pessimists. The ordinary detective discovers from a
ledger or a diary that a crime has been committed. We discover from a
book of sonnets that a crime will be committed. We have to trace the
origin of those dreadful thoughts that drive men on at last to intellectual
fanaticism and intellectual crime. We were only just in time to prevent the
assassination at Hartlepool, and that was entirely due to the fact that our
Mr. Wilks (a smart young fellow) thoroughly understood a triolet."
(Ibid., 43)

So, maybe Elvis thought of himself as a smart young fellow thoroughly

understanding the triolets of rock and roll and counter-culture. Just as
Nixon himself, understood the bigger picture of politics. To bend the rule
for a greater good, for a history that was already dead a few decades
before.

17. Alain Badiou: I would like to finish with a pedagogical question: if you
were to deliver a seminar on what we have here alluded to as
Psychology, how would you face that challenge?

Michel Foucault: I must admit I would be in trouble, since I have the

impression that my role should be at least a double one. I would have to
teach on the one hand Psychology, and on the other Philosophy.
It seems to me that the only way to solve this problem would be not by
denying the relation between both (fields), but on the contrary, it should
be embraced and emphasized. And, what I would like to do is a seminar
on Psychology, which just as Descartes’ philosophy would be masked,
but in this case (I would be) masked in the role of a Psychologist.
I would try to change my face, my voice as much as possible. I would
change my gestures, my clothes and also my habits. During the time
devoted to Psychology I would teach on the psychology of laboratory, of
tests. I would teach on the labyrinth, on the rat.
I would have to talk to about Psychoanalysis too. That would be, if you
will, the second variance of that first character. I would try to speak with
great prudence, as precise as possible, of that which Psychoanalysis is.
The reason (for this distinction and second iteration) being that
Psychoanalysis is so close to the Humanities and, at the same, time
fundamentally distanced from laboratory psychology. Probably that is due
to how (Psychoanalysis’) structure is so close to its own praxis.
And then, in the second part, I would return to the philosopher. That is to
say I would loose the mask. I would return to my own voice, my own
gestures, and at that moment, I would try to discuss that which we refer to
as Philosophy.

–End of interview–

Foucault, Michel, Philosohpie et Psychologie int. by Alain Badiou, Académie de

París, (1965) on https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JWlRjCHrCdY last accessed
April 2, 2014.

(Translation my own)

18. As soon as what is unconcealed no longer concerns man as object,

but exclusively as standing-reserve, and man in the midst of
objectlessness is nothing but the orderer of the standing-reserve, then he
comes to the very brink of a precipitous fall; that is, he comes to the point
where he himself will have to be taken as standing-reserve. Meanwhile,
man, precisely as the one so threatened, exalts himself and postures as
lord of the earth. In this way the illusion comes to prevail that everything
that man encounters exists only in so far it is his construct. This illusion
gives rise to a final delusion: it seems as though man everywhere and
always encounters only himself.
Heidegger, Martin (1953). The Question Concerning Technology, in Basic
Writings, edited by David Farrell Krell. San Francisco: Harper Collins
(Heidegger 1953. 332)

19. The closer we come to the danger, the more brightly do the ways into
the (saving) power begin to shine and the more the questioning we
become. (For questioning is the piety of thought).
(Ibid., 341)

Parenthesis mine.
As if things were all transparent and oddly resembling to a simulation that
reveals itself, the event of coming close to the danger, just might as well
devour us (in which case we only consume ourselves) or it might as well
just push us out, leaving us in the dark. Although, I do not know about
questioning as piety in regards to thought, or for that matter, I do not
know about salvation, either.

20. In the Western world, visionaries and mystics are a good deal less
common than they used to be. There are two principal reasons for this
state of affairs –a philosophical reason and a chemical reason. In the
currently fashionable picture of the universe there is no place for the
transcendental experience. Consequently those who had what they
regard as valid transcendental experiences are looked upon with
suspicion as being either lunatics or swindlers. To be a mystic or a
visionary is no longer credible.
(But it is not only our mental climate that is unfavorable to the visionary
and the mystic; it is also our chemical environment –an environment
profoundly different from that in which our forefathers passed their lives).
Huxley, Aldous. 1954–1956. The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell, New
York: Harper Collins Publishers
(Huxley1954–1956., 149)

Parenthesis mine
Again, the question arises, what is it about Public Fountain LSD Hall that
becomes the threatening specter? The common fate of the citizens in
past cities where the water supply was a shared fate, versus the
individuality standards of most contemporary metropolis where even the
worst drought in centuries is not to be perceived? Or is it truly the specter
of the unknown that which overwhelm us? It is perhaps the idea that out
there, outside Polis, the standards and certifications hold no ground?

21. Nevertheless, the quantitative expression of need is not enough to

overcome the difficulty. A man obviously has more need of bread and
water than of a diamond. Yet a diamond has a higher exchange–value
than that of bread. A man has even more need of air, which normally
possesses no exchange value. This is why the neo–classical theory
states: it is not the intensity of the need in itself, but the intensity of the
last fragment of need not satisfied (of the marginal utility) that determines
value.

Mandel, Ernest, 1962. The Marginalist Theory of Value and Neo–classical Political
Economy, in Marxists.org http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/works/marxist-
economic-theory/marginalists.htm, last accessed April 2, 2014.

Is it not the case that, perhaps this is the way in which both, the (oddly)
speculative economic value and its (“metaphysical”) value of any given
artwork are set? In any case, this economic speculation –the last
fragment of need not satisfied– does deliver an economical poetic effect.

22. “In some strange ways we devalue things as soon as we give

utterance to them. We believe we have dived to the uttermost depths of
the abyss, and yet when we return to the surface the drop of water on our
pallid finger-tips no longer resembles the sea from which it came. We
think we have discovered a hoard of wonderful treasure-trove, yet when
we emerge again into the light of day we see that all we have brought
back with us is false stones and chips of glass. But for all this, the
treasure goes on glimmering in the darkness, unchanged.”
Maurice Maeterlinck

Musil, Robert. 1906, Young Torless, trans. Eithene Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser. New
York: The Noonday Press
(Musil 1906. IX)

23. La caresse et la mitraille
 The caress and the grapeshot

Et cette plaie qui nous tiraille
 And that wound that tears us apart
Le palais des autres jours
 The palace of everyday
D'hier et demain
 From yesterday and tomorrow
Le vent les portera The wind will carry them

Noir Désir, Le Vent Nous Portera, from the album des Visages des Figures, music
and lyrics by Noir Désir, (2001) http://lyricstranslate.com/en/Le-Vent-Nous-
Portera-Le-Vent-Nous-Portera.html#ixzz2xtaAuccq. Last accessed: April 2, 2014.
(Excerpt)

What would explain the fact that whenever I look for this song, Youtube
advertise a travel to Jerusalem and the Holy Land? What is it that the
Servers know about me that I ignore? What is the link? If I go there, will I
find out?

24. In his formidable Transcritique: On Kant and Marx, Kojin Karatani

endeavours to assert the critical potential of such an in-between stance
that he calls the “parallax view”: when confronted with an antinomy in the
precise Kantian sense of the term, one should renounce all attempts to
reduce one aspect to the other (or, for that matter, to enact a kind of
“dialectical synthesis” of the opposites). One should on the contrary,
assert the antinomy as irreducible and conceive the point of radical
critique not as a certain determinate position as opposed to other
position, but as the irreducible gap between the positions themselves, the
purely structural interstice between them. Kant’s stance is thus “to see
things neither from one view point, nor form the view point of the others,
but to face the reality that is exposed through the difference (parallax)”. (Is
this not Karatani’s way of asserting the Lacanian Real as a pure
antagonism, as an impossible difference which precedes its terms?)

Zizek, Slavoj, 2005. Interrogating The Real, Edited by Rex Butler and Scott
Stephens, New York: Continuum
(Zizek 2005. 231-232)

It seems as if the parallax view is precisely what Foucault envisioned as

the praxis of the possible Philosophy and Psychology seminar. It is also
the perpetual transparent feeling that I got at the airport waiting to be
screened. The multiplicity of viewpoints only revealed the (hyper)reality of
the current state of affairs: The pleasures and oppressions of air-travel.
But at the same time it makes clear that outside opposition (with the hope
of suppressing the suppressor) there is the possibility of action. And it is
precisely that gap into which I desire to operate, just to collaborate in the
erosion of that which is doomed to tumble.