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FIVE
E-MAILS TO THOMAS LEHMEN IN REPLY TO HIS INSTALLATION INVITATION AT IN
TRANSIT 08 IN BERLIN
By
Jeroen Peeters
Curated by
André Lepecki, the festival In Transit 08 in Berlin's House of World Cultures
presented two weeks of performances, installations, lectures, a lab, etc. under
the title ‘Singularities.' Lepecki in the festival's brochure: "Singularities
are critical points: points of inflection, points of metamorphosis, points of
transformation – as when water tuns into ice, or as when wood suddenly bursts
into flames. They name a constant state of transition – reminding us of the
possibility for producing what we still do not know, or of encountering what we
do not expect."
The artists
and theorists came from all over the world, and in the person of choreographer
Thomas Lehmen also from Germany. Amidst the mixture of singularities,
post-colonial perspectives and cultural studies-slanted theories, there seemed
to be no need to discuss Lehmen as critically or ironically addressing his
‘roots'. Yet, what else does Lehmen do with his insistent stabbing at the
German Bildungsideal in works like Lehmen lernt or In all
languages? Perhaps he was not that out of place at this festival after all.
His installation Invitation is indeed yet another reflection on the
neo-humanist upsurge that goes under the banner ‘society of knowledge'.
A large
rectangular space delineated by a cream-coloured curtain sits as a shrine in
the central hall of the House of World Cultures. It contains several work
units, equipped with gardening tools, pots and earth; a stitching machine, yarn
and cloth; papers, drawing material, a computer and a printer; working tools; a
kitchen; and a corner with sofas and a television set – for watching soccer,
another recurring trope in Lehmen's work. Upon entering the space, Lehmen
addresses you with the following question: "What do you think other people
could or should learn?" When coming up with an answer, he asks you to turn it
into a product, material trace or document in some way. The walls are covered
with drawings, photographs, statements and small works of art – the aura of
learning and participation being happily celebrated in a lo-fi bricolage
aesthetics.
"What do
you think other people could or should learn?"
It took me
a while to come up with an answer, as I resisted both Lehmen's overt humanism
and his eagerness to have people contribute little ‘products'. My being there,
walking and hanging around, being attracted by the proposal yet resisting its
speed and linearity, were all very much an answer, but apart from witnessing it
and giving me a beer to loosen up, Lehmen still wanted a document of it. I
ended up discussing the problem of linking learning and research to
productivity with a friend, then tried to re-enact that as a film, and
eventually decided to leave a physical trace by writing down the Dutch word
‘lanterfanten' (loitering) on a page. During the days after, I regularly
revisited Lehmen's installation and extended my contribution by unfolding the
word ‘lanterfanten' further in a series of e-mails. They are collected here.
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Original Message -----
From: Jeroen Peeters
To: Thomas Lehmen
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 10:31 AM
Subject: Lanterfanten
Hi Thomas,
Here is some
more on ‘lanterfanten', which I have tentatively translated as
‘procrastination' and ‘being busy with being busy'.
There is a
nice website (www.structuredprocrastination.com/)
on ‘structured procrastination' with an introductory essay on the phenomenon
(though it is not exactly the same as ‘lanterfanten' …) by John Perry. I quote
a small part of it: "All procrastinators put off things they have to do.
Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you.
The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing.
Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things,
like gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will
reorganize their files when they get around to it. Why does the procrastinator
do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important.
If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force
on earth could get him do it. However, the procrastinator can be motivated to
do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of
not doing something more important."
I looked up
‘lanterfanten' in the dictionary, and the term is mostly regarded pejoratively.
In German: bummeln, sich herumtreiben, herumlungern. In English: loiter,
lounge, footle, lollygag, loaf, lollygag, hang around, mess about, tarry,
linger, lurk, mill about, mill around, be about. Yesterday evening I had dinner
with some English native speakers and took the chance to discuss ‘lanterfanten'
with them. It seems that ‘to loiter' is the proper translation of
‘lanterfanten', so I will pass by today to add that word to the yellow paper
residing in your installation.
To loiter
according to the on line dictionary:
"– verb (used without object)
1. to linger aimlessly or
as if aimless in or about a place: to loiter around the bus terminal
2. to move in a slow, idle
manner, making purposeless stops in the course of a trip, journey, errand,
etc.: to loiter on the way to work.
3. to waste time or dawdle over work: He loiters over his homework
until one in the morning.
– verb (used with object)
4. to pass (time) in an idle or aimless manner (usually fol. by away):
to loiter away the afternoon in daydreaming.
[Origin: 1300-50; ME loteren, loytren,
perh. < MD loteren to stagger, totter; cf. D leuteren to
dawdle"
It seems
I'll have some work to do in order to establish ‘lanterfanten' as a shared
notion and positive approach to learning – but it already sounds beautiful!
Maybe combining the notions is a way to get started: lanterfanten =
procrastination + hanging around (as it links with time, space and
narrativity), but than the non-intentional, non-direct, non-deliberate sense of
exploration should be part of it too. More later (I'm procrastinating, have to
head off to work … to continue my hanging around in the studio).
Best,
Jeroen
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Original Message -----
From: Jeroen Peeters
To: Thomas Lehmen
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2008 2:24 PM
Subject: Lanterfanten (2)
Hi Thomas,
I've been
searching for the etymology of the Dutch word ‘lanterfanten', hoping to learn
more about its history and layers of meaning.
The origin
is probably the French word ‘lanterner', which is informal language for
‘flâner, perdre son temps' – so again, ‘to stroll' is part of it, a notion
which was widely explored by Walter Benjamin, so that opens quite a frame of references.
Another possible origin (according to Killiaen) is ‘land-trouwant' – a
‘land-beggar' or tramp.
Yet,
backtracking the history of the French ‘lanterner', we arrive at ‘laterne' in
the work of Rabelais, where it means ‘delusion' or ‘chimera' – the monstrous
and frightening forms of ungrounded thought. Knowledge without experience? The
radical empiricists Brian Massumi and Erin Manning (cf. their talk at In
Transit yesterday) probably wouldn't agree with that. It's the monstrous
thought that calls for embodiment and physical exercise, for strolling about – I add a passage from an essay I wrote on monstrosity
(www.sarma.be/text.asp?id=1408), which points out this choreographic moment:
"The
production of monsters and monstrosity to test the limits of science and
subjectivity, and the moral order they are embedded in, is a common topos in
gothic literature. Monstrous in Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein (1818)
is not only the creature that results from Victor Frankenstein's scientific
experiments, at once gruesome and a metaphor for the excessive development of
science. Interesting is Frankenstein's exposure to his own creation, to
this appalling yet all too human monster. After working for nearly two years,
Frankenstein has to admit that "the different accidents of life are not as
changeable as the feelings of human nature." The moment the creature awakens,
its sight strikes the scientist with horror, entraps him in a dangerous
connection, charges his body with anxiety and releases an enormous amount of
transformative energy. Frankenstein is subject to a mental and physical process
of monstration, as after a restless night taut with nightmares he seeks to ease
his mind through physical exercise. A choreography that fails to exhaust the
monstrous yet has to cope with it incessantly. Below I have assembled some
lines from Shelley's Frankenstein:
I issued into the streets, pacing them with
quick steps, as if I sought to avoid the wretch whom I feared every turning of
the street would present to my view. I continued walking in this manner for
some time, endeavouring by bodily exercise to ease the load that weighed upon
my mind. I traversed the streets without any clear conception of where I was or
what I was doing. My heart palpitated in the sickness of fear, and I hurried on
with irregular steps, not daring to look about me. I trembled excessively. I
was unable to contain myself. It was not joy only that possessed me; I felt my
flesh tingle with excess of sensitiveness, and my pulse beat rapidly. I was unable
to remain for a single instant in the same place; I jumped over the chairs,
clapped my hands, and laughed aloud, unrestrained and heartless. The form of
the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was forever before my eyes, and I
raved incessantly concerning him."
The old-French ‘laterne' is said to be a euphemism for ‘landie', which
comes from the Latin ‘landica' – ‘clitoris'. The chimerical ‘laterne' (in
Rabelais) is haunted by sexual difference. Looking at the work of painter René
Magritte, the female sexual organ equally serves as the phantasmal limit and
horizon for his riddle-like aesthetics of monsters and chimeras. Just to say
that it is a common trope in (masculine) Western culture. Relating this back to
lanterfanten/loitering as related to knowledge and learning, it is interesting
to find these gendered motifs, lingering in a deep historical stratum of the
word, as what pulls about desire – for knowledge, and ultimately for reaching
toward the unknown. Lanterfanten as searching for the G-spot?
So far for now.
Best,
Jeroen
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Original Message -----
From: Jeroen Peeters
To: Thomas Lehmen
Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2008 1:09 PM
Subject: Lanterfanten (3)
Hi Thomas,
I have to
prepare a discussion for later this afternoon, but writing e-mails is such a
great way of embracing procrastination – especially on Sundays, on other days
it may very well be a chore. And then in between you get distracted, your
attention diverts and suddenly you are pulled into the internet to remain there
for a while, which is nothing else than ‘digital loitering'. Relating to
knowledge there is an interesting problem we might need to discuss at some
point: how to avoid that your digital loitering strands in the superficiality
of consuming Wikipedia and other ‘democratically available knowledge'?
I just
stumbled upon the website www.lanterfanten.nl, where is being spoken of
"een veredelde vorm van onthaasten" (a noble form of slowing down). Loitering
is called a choice, "deliberately doing nothing while there is plenty to be
done" and related to green discourses, politics and lifestyles. I pick just
some words from the essay on the site to evoke it: festina lente – daydreaming – doing nothing – Zen for the mind – freewheeling – Gemütlichkeit … Loitering
is approached as an ideal, the paradise on earth, which is within reach though:
"In the near future, loitering will be at the zenith of existence, exercised in
a peaceful yet serious manner, and become popular."
Somewhere
on the site is stated that "many great thinkers and artists where next to their
productive life skilful at loitering." I think that is an interesting
intuition, but I would insist to regard ‘loitering' as very much part of the
productive life of thinkers and artists! Said differently: ‘lanterfanten'
should not be considered as off-time, as a parallel reality, as wasted time, as
a relaxed life in the countryside when not working, or whatever – whether
approached in a positive or negative sense. Somehow the website's two-world
ideology (lanterfanten is time and again seen as an ‘alternative next to daily
activity') is not pertinent to me when conceptualizing loitering. Lanterfanten
is an integral part of daily productive activity – productive in the sense that
it is a meaningful practice.
Interestingly,
the site contains some statements on learning and knowledge – I just translate,
without commenting.
Lanterfanten
and creativity: "We are ourselves the biggest obstacle for our creativity, as
we allow to be so strongly influenced by societal, organisational and
educational forces that spur us on to conformity."
Lanterfanten
and serendipity: "When you are loitering, you have a serious chance it will
happen to you, that you become fully relaxed and open for new inspiration. You
can find something you were not looking for or something unexpected enters your
mind. Serendipity: discovering the unexpected and develop it further."
And then,
the site's answer to your question "What do you think other people could or
should learn?" is of course ‘lanterfanten'. To that end they have a chapter
‘learning to loiter', and furthermore some hints – unfortunately they are more
of a relaxed-life-in-the-countryside ideology than an actual procedure. Yet, we
know by now that loitering resists procedures …
Best,
Jeroen
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Original Message -----
From: Jeroen Peeters
To: Thomas Lehmen
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 5:57 PM
Subject: Lanterfanten (4)
Hi Thomas,
In my last
e-mail I dropped the term ‘digital loitering', which is from a humanist point
of view under discussion as it runs the risk of indulging in superficial
knowledge consumption. Its alleged futility is marked by a lack of historical
awareness (either as canonical embedment or as genealogy), an indifferent
attitude toward slow and profound thought processes, et cetera. I won't pick up
that debate here, but like to relate it to another discussion that seems
pertinent to me for your Invitation project – or my response to your
invitation.
Last
Sunday, the German translation of André Lepecki's book Exhausting Dance
(Option Tanz) was launched at In Transit, on the occasion of which I
had a public dialogue with André. In his discussion of the kinetic modern
subject that claims to be self-sufficient and to that end disguises the actual
conditions of its mobility (they relate to food, fossil resources, colonialism,
ecology, …), Lepecki approaches stillness or the ‘still-act' as a critical
gesture in the work of some contemporary choreographers. Against the backdrop
of the current climate crisis, and taking also the productional level of
performance art into account, an interesting paradox comes into view:
choreographers such as Vera Mantero and Jérôme Bel are part of the first
generation of performing artists that were highly mobile, travelling widely internationally
to then perform their critical still-acts on stage. Asked how he relates to
that paradox and whether he sees possibilities for performing artists to deal
with both their large carbon footprint and with critical gestures on stage that
address mobility, Lepecki insisted that artists have to continue travelling and
finds self-culpabilisation an unproductive strategy. Compared to the war
industry, the art world's carbon footprint is to be neglected, not quite
surmounting the level of symbolical waste. That is a valuable statement, yet it
seems important to me to equally insist on continuously addressing that
question – it is a challenge for mankind, including the art world.
Lepecki's
analysis of the modern subject's kinetic self-definition is inspired by Peter
Sloterdijk's Eurotaoismus, so it interests me to follow this line of
thought in his more recent work as well. In his book on globalisation Im
Weltinnenraum des Kapitals (in French Le palais de crystal),
Sloterdijk briefly sketches some scenarios for the future, exploring notions as
‘asymmetry', ‘locality', and so on. Elsewhere in the book he discusses the
‘Verschwendungsexpressionismus' (expenditure as expressionism) of the current
mass culture: a celebration of consumption and waste. As we are deeply
influenced by the modern era and its technical innovations, Sloterdijk claims
that our need for abundance and expressionist acts of expenditure is still very
much part of our subjectivity, but wonders how we can redirect it. Exhaustion
of material resources will inevitably lead to a certain relocalisation in the
future. But then Sloterdijk also formulates a challenge for the "global
information and knowledge society" as a potential key player in the
immaterialisation of excess: symbolical waste as a post-modern (post-fossil)
strategy of subjectivation.
As he is
diagnosing our times, Sloterdijk refrains from answering the question whether
this immaterialisation of expressionist expenditure could also become a
critical strategy – next to a way of channelling our surplus of energy into
harmless forms and behavioural patterns. It is a tempting issue to me, that I
begin to understand better through the term ‘digital loitering'. The
consumption of knowledge on the internet finds its popular equivalent in quiz
programmes on television, but also extends to the neo-humanist revival of the
‘society of knowledge', especially here in Germany. Vague philosophies of
life-long learning connect both: whether they lead to a decay of culture or
not, what else are they than activities of wasting energy, relatively harmless
as they take place on a symbolical or quasi-immaterial level? That
expressionism needs a public context to exist, is provided by the formats of
television and popular media, as well as endless streams of academic
publications that are literally grounded on an economy of footnotes.
Still, the
swift circulation of knowledge seems to celebrate again the kinetic modern
subject without critical awareness – a carousel underpinned by notions such as
progress and accumulation of knowledge. Returning to Lepecki, to infuse the
highly mobile carnival of expressionist expenditure with a critical
deconstruction of movement could be fertile. In the field of knowledge,
research and learning, Lepecki's still-act, stumble dance and hiccupping
movement can perhaps be caught in the restlessness of loitering – relating
aimless moving around with wasting time? Yet what it needs to become a
critical, expressionist act of expenditure is a public context – why not a
theatre or a museum?
Your Invitation
installation appears to me to be a space which is perhaps not so much creating
space for learning, but a public environment that embraces two conflicting
strands: the endless circulation and accumulation of knowledge on the one hand,
and loitering as wasting time on the other hand. The combination of these two
extremes pulls about a rather large and heterogeneous imaginary realm that
relates to learning, which finds its expression in gestures of expenditure,
wavering between the two poles. That you still seek to document people's
replies to the question "What do you think other people could or should learn?"
makes sense to me as a materialisation of the phantasm that doesn't cease to
relate learning and knowledge to accumulation, progress and productivity. But
I'm happy that there are others that simply decide to loiter in that space,
transforming their hetero-mobility into a critical choreographic act.
Hmm, I
already see contradictions loom, but that's great – it keeps me going (contradiction
is yet another immaterial resource for expressionist expenditure!). And in
kinetic modernity's dietary regime, loitering provides time for digestion and
rumination. There will be more, I'm not finished yet. But my roommate is
preparing Thai food, so I'm happy to venture into the material world again for
a moment.
Best,
Jeroen
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Original Message -----
From: Jeroen Peeters
To: Thomas Lehmen
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2008 3:34 PM
Subject: Lanterfanten (5)
Hi Thomas,
I know that
In Transit and Invitation are over right now, yet I'm curious how things
have developed over the past week, as I left Berlin on Wednesday and wasn't
able to keep track of that. Travelling to Brussels then Paris and back to
Brussels, I realised how much time and energy we invest in our (international)
mobility that doesn't leave much time for productive activity. And not for
‘productive' loitering either …
Working
through a pile of three weeks' mail at home in Brussels, I read Alexandra
Crouwers' column in the arts magazine <H>ART, which is devoted to
loitering – though she doesn't exactly use that word – and the question what
context or productional conditions one needs to that end as an artist. "Money
is time", reads the title. Crouwers, who is a visual artist, points out that artists,
philosophers, quantum scientists and the like, mainly produce their work during
long thought processes. These can possibly happen while shopping, travelling,
doing the dishes, drinking coffee on a terrace, … These thought processes cause
such a busy mental stream that artists have to then look again for other
activities to distract themselves, such as a walk or a party, where eventually
new ideas might turn up unexpectedly. Interesting paradox: when loitering
becomes productive, it calls for … loitering.
Crouwers
moves on to a second paradox related to ‘productive loitering'. The mental
process in preparation of its material form (work/product/document) needs a
particular environment. Eventually, artistic thought processes thrive most "in
an environment devoid of practical distraction in the form of jobs and the
dishes. That is why subsidies are so important for relatively specialized or
young, talented artists and why ‘artist in residencies' often contribute so
strongly to productivity and concentration. Not because artists then have the
money to buy a dishwasher, but because money is time for us. Time to think." I
may add: time to loiter. Second loitering paradox: practical distraction (cf.
the hassle of travelling) doesn't lead to productive loitering, yet subsidies
help us to embrace ‘disinterested' distraction. Which then may become
productive and launches us again into the first paradox of productive
loitering.
To wrap it
up, I am somehow back at where these thoughts on loitering started – my resistance
to provide you with a product, or better a material trace, as answer to your
question "What do you think other people could or should learn?" Curiously, I
have become rather productive in sending you some thoughts, which have been
exhibited in your installation and will be published on corpus as well
… Yet this ‘product' required ‘productive loitering' to actually get there,
which required in turn some ‘disinterested loitering' (me currently profiting
from a research grant, which allows for that), which actually required ánd
produced some more loitering, including practical distractions and parties. It
reads as a hierarchical, structured process, but I like to ride all these waves
simultaneously – all of it composes loitering's precious balance.
Best,
Jeroen
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