Browse Category: A void in hearts

Some contemplate and resist the tredmill of normality.

Smiling protest


There is no category old news on this blog, but this image would definitely qualify: found stuck in between pages of a two year old agenda.
Depicted is a loose protest in Mexico -city against the outcome of the elections in august 2006, supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador demanded a re-counting of the votes. They surrounded three big foreign banks, claiming that they “ransack the country” and “widen the barrier between rich and poor” and because, supposedly, these banks had participated in the politics of the country supporting the PAN candidate Felipe Calderón. The protestors put up banners with the text ‘Smile!’

Prolétaires du monde, reposez-vous

“Following Karl Marx’s wayward son-in-law Paul Lafargue I support the right to be lazy.” In the article “The abolition of work” Bob Black states his conviction that the world would be better off without employment. “Leftists favor full employment. (…) Trotskyists agitate for permanent revolution. I favor full unemployment. I agitate for permanent revelry.” (French version) (English version)
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Jorn on Automation


A revised translation by Ken Knabb of a short text by Asger Jorn who played an important role in merging theCOBRA movement with the Lettriste Internationale and the London Psychogeographical Association to form the Situationist International (SI). Written in the late fifties, before the boom of technological media, Jorn’s scetchy text on automation, leisure time and standardisation questions the seamless introduction of these phenomena wondering if we ever took time to reflect on their purpose and effects.
Experimental cultural activity delivers a field of play in which we need to imagine projects that supersede, and go beyond the realization of automation itself. “If we want standardization to open up more interesting realms than it closes”, we should reflect on processes of automation and examine varieties of possible outcomes. “Depending on the outcome, we may arrive at a total degradation of human life or at the possibility of perpetually discovering new desires.”

Published in the Situationist International Anthology (see: http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/
Source: http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/1.automation.htm
No copyrights.
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Electing to leave

“So the wrong candidate has won the elections, and you want to leave the country. Let us consider your options.”

With four more Republican years ahead, some Americans might think the time has come to give up American citizenship and move to another country. Bryan Urstadts article “A reader’s guide to expatriating” published in Harper’s Magazine explores optional destinations for self chosen exile and investigates the possibility of starting your own private country.

http://www.harpers.org/ElectingToLeave.html

SOS! Incorrect use of Spaces

Words which are composed by several single words should in Dutch be written as one word. Writing a space in a composed word is not allowed. “There is no reason to insert spaces in words such as leesplezier (reading pleasure), hogesnelheidslijn (high speed train) and keukenbenodigdheden (kitchen utensils).”

The platform Signalering Onjuist Spatiegebruik (SOS) campaigns against a growing tendency to insert spaces in composed words. Their website urges users of the dutch language to apply the rules correctly, and seeks to create a better understanding of the spelling of composed words.


Click image for their excellent “Examples” section.