[-empyre-] Resolutions for Digital Futures

[Johannes Birringer]

a peaceful new year to you all.



this has been a propitious beginning of a soft discussion of possible resolutions. 

i had been wondering whether any "resolutions" (which generally don't resolve much) would enter immediately into political statements or socio-political commentary, and
was suprised that (border crossings, digitally, notwithstanding) the first few comments were quite private and personal, and addressed
also the impact of (inevitable) aging that one might feel and experience, at a time when "digital" tended to mean "new" but our bodies, along with our gardens, need careful and tender
tending. 

I loved Gabriela's music, and watching her film, i meant to ask Gabriela whether she could tell us more about 
the Voladores of Papantla (not in Yucatán, I suppose, but nearby, and I thought i saw a dance that resembled the Voladores, in your film).

Flying upside down, that would be something i would like to do, in the future.

regarding the comment made by Beryl  (and remembering Jeffery), i also spent the first days of the new year in the museum taking a look. 
The MFA in Houston currently features:  

"I Still Believe in Tomorrow: Contemporary Video from Asia" - - 
displaying several projected videos/films confronting the current conditions of urban life in Asia with the hope of changing the future..........
(this is what the press release says).

I didn't find them very optimistic, though, these believers. 

even the youngsters in one of the films (by Cao Fei) merely dress up as manga characters to play around the town a little,  enacting the kind of "beau geste" that seemed to have fuelled F. Alys's "Cuando la fe mueve montañas"......


A "conflictual reading of participation", Markus, would need to address such beaux gestes, no?


with regards

Johannes Birringer
c/o Houston, TX


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