Re: [-empyre-] Viewing Axalotls

["info.saij-netart" <info@saij-netart.net>]

Dear Regina, Hi Jim, Hi everybody,

First I'm very happy to discuss the new work of Regina
on [empyre]. 

I saw your new creation, regina, and I appreciate it.
There is the touch of humour and poetical nonsense I like.
In your answer to Jim's question about Cortazar and Kafka
you give explanations how the texts of the 2 authors are
different.
Your creation underlines another difference : your work
is not oppressive, I find it rather optimistic.
You feel uneasy with Kafka's works. Everything is blurred.
The same appears in the romans of Leo Perutz (was born in rag).
 
The discussion about art and poets in Brazil
(thank you for the information, it is very interesting to
learn about it) and the Kafka-Coortazar comparison
let appear a number of contacts with Europe and France.
For instance :
"Burrocracia" would be a pleasant idea to writers like
Franz Kafka or Karl Kraus, polemist (he wrote he never sleeps the
afternoon except when he had visited an administration
in the morning)
Regina mentioned Merleau-Ponty and Lévi-Strauss in relation
with neoconcrete.
Jim makes a parallel between "viewing axalots" and "the
metamorphosis"
The story of Julio Cortazar : "le jardin des plantes" à Paris
Regina said that : 
"Viewing Axolotls" is based on the Fantastic Realism of Argentine author
Julio Cortazar.
"Fantastic realism" is the name given to works of austrian
painters like Fuchs, Brauer, Hausner, Lehmden,...
Is that a coincidence or is there an explanation for the
relations between south-america and europe (like history
and dictatorship, studies in Europe for south-american
writers, artists,...?)
What about the US culture ?

Best
Bien amicalement

Isabel

am 19.03.2004 13:41 Uhr schrieb Jim Andrews unter jim@vispo.com:

> Hi Regina,
> 
> Reading the "Axalotls" story by Cortazar in your piece "Viewing Axalotls" at
> http://arteonline.arq.br/viewing_axolotls , I am reminded somewhat of Franz
> Kafka's story "The Metamorphosis," where the speaker turns into a giant
> cockroach (the Kafka text is at
> http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/stories/kafka-E.htm , for those who might
> like to check it out). But the transformation of Gregor Samsa in Kafka's
> story seems quite different from the transformation in Cortazar's story. In
> Kafka's story, the transformation is an absurdly terrible thing, a life
> wasted to the point where it is somehow only natural that he has turned into
> a big disgusting bug. Whereas the transformation in Cortazar to Axalotls
> does not seem to have those overtones. I wonder if you would care to comment
> on that aspect of the story and your use of the Cortazar story?
> 
> Also, I note that Cortazar's "Axalotls" is from his collection "The End of
> the Game" and your piece has a kind of a game in it. Is this coincidence?
> 
> jaxalotls
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre