[-empyre-] How to build a Cathedral in 5 easy steps

["Dirk Vekemans" <dv@vilt.net>]

[More fun:] 

1.Name an event
2.The guiding Ideas emerge from within the praxis itself
3.Forget critique, practise indifference
4.Forget subversion, link up the generic
5.Build and maintain the counter-state
 
[it's funny (QED) but amidst all of this confusion my dearest K. decided
today was the day to go visit the SMAK (Museum of contemporary art) in Gent
today because there was a showing of photographs there indicating how our
Flemish landscape has changed from say 1920 till now.We are not in the habit
of visiting museums frequently, but she took an interest in it because she
studied and works as a town and country planner here in Louvain. So we
hopped on the train and dragged along our three children. It was cold but
the sun was out, so the occasion was quite enjoyable. The photographs were a
bit disappointing because, as we agreed, we did expect a more substantial
representation of the research. There were only 20 or so series of pictures,
most of them were already shown on coverage of the expo on television.
Luckily there was a lot of other interesting and amusing things, like a
corridor where a video was playing on how to construct a Billy closet from
Ikea -very instructional- and some beautiful collections of  orange debris.
Our children were thrilled when a sphinx came by asking them questions on
evolution (she asked me the same questions, i got both answers wrong), and i
particularly enjoyed two youngsters walking about the place talking a
self-constructed language in between themselves that reminded me of how the
soldiers speak in my WVW series.
 
Now the reason i'm telling this is that i picked up an issue there of AS, a
media-magazine of sorts and in it i found these five rules from a guy i
never heard of before. His name is Oliver Feltham (in fact the 'felt' in his
name convinced me to buy the magazine, i always act on such cranky impulses,
i guess it's my only escape from Saul here so aptly described as being
'incapable of deluding it [myself] into believing it [ok:it] is capable of
acting') and his article is entitled 'Forget subversion, link up the
generic'. In his article, apparantly, Feltham proposes an alternative
framework based on the philosophy of Alain Badiou to 'bypass the impasses in
which contemporary movements between culture and politics find themselves'.
Now the name Badiou i knew, because i did make a note sometime ago i should
look into him, but i keep forgetting that as if on purpose, almost. Anyway,
i don't think Badiou's thinking agrees very well with Cathedral Building
Theory, but much to my surprise the 5 rules Feltham derives of it come
extremely close to what i was thinking about all day long, namely giving
this and that and this and untsoweiter- how could i formulate very simply
what building a Cathedral was all about in the context of the current
discussion. I do not presume it to be important for anybody else, but for me
the matter became rather urgent, spoiling most of the joy in our family
outing. Soit, here's a slightly altered and expanded version leading up to
what the message title says, a generative Cathedral algorhythm:]

1. Initiate the Building Process by naming and dating an event.
2. Derive a Building Theory from within the Praxis of Building.
3. Forget about art, writing and all that. Accept whatever happens.
4. Forget about things that are not required for Building while Building.
5. Go about your life in the usual way, while Building.

[6. Whenever you get painfully stuck in a discussion with lots of people who
are smarter than yourself, take the children out to see a show in Gent]

greetings,
dv @ Neue Kathedrale des erotischen Elends
http://www.vilt.net/nkdee



Mr Feltham's place: http://www.janvaneyck.nl/~bavo/AG/htm/mf_contrib_fe.htm 

The mag i picked up: http://www.muhka.be/denkt_as.php?la=nl&jaargang=2006