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Ars Electronica 1986
Festival-Program 1986
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Festival 1979-2007
 

 

Chip aesthetics


'Gerhard Johann Lischka Gerhard Johann Lischka

There is neither one only true and saving church, nor is there a single binding aesthetics. These are claims for omnipotence by dogmatic systems wanting to clamp the lid of a single possible view of the world on everything– it's totalitarianism.

VER Spring. Beginning. Awakening. Sprouting. Rising heat. Soft light increasing. Pushing upwards from underneath the ground. Subdued colour. Various shades of green. Yellow. Rustling trees. Steaming fields. However, every individual is so unique, that it is here that any debate must take off. From the preferences, desires, wishes, and wants of the individual, from his/ her ideas different at different times, from concerns changing with the individual's age. Everyone is for him/herself always and everywhere everything he/she can be. UNIVERSALIST.

IS Now. This moment passing into the next and having forgotten the preceding one. Sleep. Far away. Very close. The horizon. Rain. Sun. Clouds. A road whipped by, the gale. Noise of cars. Breathing. The bus stops. Pushing. Waiting. The first draught of beer. Shit. The bill. Tempting lips. Eyes. Buttocks. Exhaust fumes. Rhythms.

Universality develops within the unique system of aesthetics given to man, that is making (poiesis) and thinking, that constitutes oneness and uniqueness. The head rests in the hand and the mind in the body.

TUN (German for doing) Stirring the soup. Cutting hair. Caressing the woman. Encouraging the child. Whistling and singing. Walking about. Writing. Talking on the phone.

Listening. Talking. Thinking. Taking a shower. Peeing. Drying the hair. Farting. Holding a book. Sketching. Sitting.

Every day has its familiar regularities but also its unpredictable snags. That's the fun of it. We stay playful, learn to qualify, become mature to be open for the neighbour.

SAL Salt. Spices. What is being added to making all the difference, to make the same always be different.

Snags are barbs, they are splinters under the skin. At first, one does not even notice it. Then you start wondering where it has come from. You try to trace it, so as to discover the cause.

VERSE Flashlights of language. At the beginning, in the middle, at the end: the rhyme puts life into the language and makes it resound. Memories underneath the skin. Awe. Play.

What is being perceived as being different are chips of knowledge. They keep the mind awake, they goad on our senses. They mobilize our power of resistance, envigorating the body and its zest for life against lethargy.

STUNT No mucking up. A stunt is better than intellect. A pitfall for reason. A magic trick. Versatility. Paradox. A snare. No arrogance.

We cannot predict where another splinter or chip will appear, the course of life is too complex. The manifestations of chips creating moments of experience are manifold, as soon as we accept ourselves as chipped entities, as universalists.

UNI—coloured. Red Yellow Blue. One. All together.

Orbital aesthetics
The terrestrial can be observed to disintegrate everywhere in favour of the orbital so that concern for the terrestrial must be renewed. The predominance of the mass media and their sham existence render life senseless. The global media entanglement has been facilitated by the satellites, by these outposts in orbit who exercise a strict control over mother earth. What is the image of man like, of architecture, of the globe as such? This is what I want to show by presenting an orbital aesthetics, an overview of individual convictions.. Is a star a human being, and how does man become a phantom of himself? What does the sky look like and what does our earth look like? What is the form of the speed at which we race through space?