Sunday 24 April 2011

lists (with birds)

lists: openssh; cydia; tinyumbrella; fw 3.1.3; itunes; tinyumbrella; rewind with fw 4.1.2; tinyumbrella; itunes; tinyumbrella; redsn0w; cydia; netatalk; finder. success. 1:40 hrs of sunday morning birdsong retrieved from phone. an extract here:


Sunday 17 April 2011

of love and withholding

the ghost of love is bookmarked now and here. bookmarked for two projections.

one to a workshop in may on ns family history for 2nd and 3rd generation - with questions around the common in the personal and of course the political too. the experiences that led to that what was (not) done.

 a bit of a rarity: a man not in uniform; yet: as usual, a woman to each side

on the kitchen table in wedding two weeks ago we three traced our own commonality and the extent to which family secret, guilt and the not-doneness reverberate. all of us in history, politics and social sciences. a sense of where we left from and how those identity constructions are laden with individual guilt of grandparents and parents; and are nonetheless the social relations as they are marked out across time between photos from 1936 and a profile pic.

and one week ago, another round of "do you remember?", "is she still alive?", "did she ever talk about this? that?" and yet more discovery of common threads, strands - some of these may only be constructed in our remembering - the past as made in the present.

in all this, my granny anni becomes the ghost of love. much of this love was indeed a withholding. from a present, towards a future. and then the regret at the end of having withheld all along. having hoped for a future that never happened.

the second projection? art practice, year 2: (inter)subjectivities. beginning autumn 2011. and i do need to find who has the copy of the helene cixous rootprints before that. anyone?

that's it for the bookmark right now.

Friday 15 April 2011

mirror gaze

she is looking back at me. and so many of these photos could be a mirror. not just the hair, the eyes and the face but her expressions, the way she holds her head and hunches up her legs. how...

the last time i actually saw her was the evening of december 1 1992, a few hours before she died. her death was the first meaningful one. its announcements throughout the year before imprinted in memory.

there are many photos - four albums filled with her, her friends, and travels. they are stored now next to the bed that is mine when i visit and i went to look at them in winter. my mother (a bit unsurprising) was far less surprised: yes, we always knew how much you looked like her.

it is a strange knowledge - that image one holds of oneself, so close and yet so strange. and how much time needs to pass to be able to apply some distance between what i see and what i think i know.

my granny anni was born in 1915. which makes her 21 to 27 on the photos in those  albums. it makes her too old to have merely been a girl in the nazi girls' organisation, the league of german girls (bdm).

i always knew how much she loved her youth, her friends who remained with her all her life, the travels. these albums speak of it. there exist photos of myself in nazi uniform, taken between 1936 and 1942.

Wednesday 13 April 2011

Sunday 10 April 2011

forest riffle

... and the last one: