No Context Needed

Could we do without context? For moments, we can and we do. When we are in the real, that is. As Sharon Cameron put it in Beautiful Work: A Meditation on Pain (2000): "It is possible to think this: without a reference point there is meaninglessness. But I wish you'd understand that without a reference point you are in the real."

In order to feel not lost in this world we have created belief systems. We believe what helps us to feel safe. And above all: we believe what we want to believe. We have created a variety of systems - think of the legal system or of bureaucracy, for instance - that do what they are supposed to do: to make us feel safe and provide jobs and income for lawyers and bureaucrats "Tony Blair's government has created more than 3,000 new criminal offences during its nine-year tenure, one for almost every day it has been in power" reported The Independent in August 2006. Or think of money. Like the legal system or bureaucracy it does not exist out there in the real, it exists only in our created reality. As Robert Wilson in A Small Death in Lisbon put it: "We are all mad, Inspector, for the simple reason that we don't know why we exist and this ..." he waved his hand at the tissue of existence before him, "this life is how we distract ourselves so that we don't have to think about things too difficult for us to comprehend."

Excerpt from my essay "No Context Needed".
Afterimage, Rochester, NY, November/December 2008.

On psychoanalysis (2)

The patient leaves the analysis older, and wiser about analysis. It is finally borne in on him that the object of analysis is not to make sense of his life but to make nonsense of his neurosis. Through repetitive enactment of the neurosis in the transference, the neurosis loses its edge.
Janet Malcolm: Dora

Brazilian Impressions (2)

These photos were taken in December 2009 in Curitiba, Paraná.

What to some untrained Swiss eye might look like a minaret is part of a Christian church.

Walking across one of the many squares, I suddenly saw a lot of people streaming out of a building that, when I got closer, turned out to be a place where supposedly miracles happen.

I thought it rather peculiar that a part of this church would host an Internet Café but was told that, although part of the same construction, it was separate from the church.

Speaking a foreign culture

The popular impression that a man alters his personality when speaking another tongue is far from ill-grounded. When I speak German to Germans, I automatically shift my orientation as a social being, I spontaneously adapt myself to the atmosphere characteristic of their status, outlook prejudices. The very use of the customary formulae of politeness injects a distinct flavor into the conversation, coloring attitudes and behavior. Some of these modes of expression, to be sure, are merely meaningless formulae, but by no means all. The retention of titles, in European fashion of example, colors mutual relations, as does the free and easy American way of dropping them altogether … Language is intimately interwoven with the whole of social behavior that a bilingual, for better or worse, is bound to differ from the monoglot.
Robert H. Lowie

Medien als Abstumpfungstraining

Man muss die Medienzivilisation wohl einmal für lange Zeit - für Monate oder Jahre - völlig verlassen haben, um bei der Rückkehr wieder so zentriert und konzentriert zu sein, dass man die erneute Zerstreuung und Dekonzentration durch Teilnahme an den modernen Informationsmedien bewusst bei sich selbst beobachten kann. … Wir halten es inzwischen für normal, dass wir in den Illustrierten - fast wie in einem alten Welttheater - alle Regionen hart nebeneinander finden, Berichte über Massensterben in der Dritten Welt zwischen Sektreklamen, Reportagen über Umweltkatastrophen neben dem Salon der neuesten Automobilproduktion. Unsere Köpfe sind dazu trainiert, eine enzyklopädisch breite Skala von Gleichgültigkeiten zu überblicken - wobei die Gleichgültigkeit des Einzelthemas nicht ihm selbst entspringt, sondern seiner Einreihung in den Informationsfluss der Medien. Ohne ein jahrelanges Abstumpfungs- und Elastizitätstraining kann kein menschliches Bewusstsein mit dem zurechtkommen, was ihm beim Durchblättern einer einzigen umfangreichen Illustrierten zugemutet wird; und ohne intensive Übung verträgt keiner, will er nicht geistige Desintegrationserscheinungen riskieren, dieses pausenlose Flimmern von Wichtigem und Unwichtigem, das Auf und Ab von Meldungen, die jetzt eine Höchstaufmerksamkeit verlangen und im nächsten Augenblick total desaktualisiert sind.
Peter Sloterdijk: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft

Brazilian Impressions

These pictures were taken in December 2009, and in January 2010.

Praia da Armação, Florianópolis: The view from my pousada room

Chapecó, Santa Catarina: The view from my hotel entrance

Curitiba, Paraná: The window of the Confeitaria Neuchatel

I am because we are

It was a Ted Talk that made me aware of the photographer Kristen Ashburn: I liked the way she looked, I liked the way she talked and I liked that she presented her pictures of Aids victims in Zimbabwe by letting them speak for themselves: they moved me deeply.

"I am because we are" is a book about Aids in Africa. Aids, as we know, is a preventable disease. In the last twenty-five years it has killed about 30 million people in Africa alone and has created, as the book states "an entire generation of orphans. More than 12 million children have experienced the death of a parent from aids. These children face incalculable odds. The fortunate find shelter with distant relatives or elderly grandparents. Others are left to fend for themselves."

"The children. Malawi's Orphaned and Vulnerable", reads the title of the first part of the book. The photographs were taken in Malawi. I had once worked there as a Red Cross delegate and I somewhat feel that I know the place but Kristen Ashburn showed me not just another Malawi, she made me see human dignity in the face of tragedy. Had I really not seen that when I was there? Sort of, yes, but not by far as intensely as when I was contemplating these photographs for beautiful photographs (and the ones in this book are aesthetically magnificent) have the power to make your constantly moving eyes stop for a while.

The cover photograph hit me first, I deem it extremely powerful. For the composition, for the colours, for the fact that it made me curious: I wondered what was going through the minds of these kids. I didn't see just a whole bunch of African youngsters, I looked at individuals, at personalities.

Photo from "I Am Because We Are" by Kristen Ashburn, published by powerHouse Books

Madonna, the singer, states in the foreword:

"As you read the following pages and look at the breathtaking photography of Kristen Ashburn, I hope that you too will be inspired by the paradox of beauty and tragedy that exists today in Malawi, and in many other countries in Africa.

I have been moved to tears by the ravaging effects of hiv/aids, malaria, and poverty, and by the pain I have seen etched into the faces of so many vulnerable children who are wise beyond their years. But I have also been moved to laughter and joy by the inner strength shared by these beautiful people who stand together in utter defiance of their hardships."

I sympathise with what Madonna expresses although "breathtaking" is not a word that comes to my mind when I look at these photographs. To me they are, first of all, beautiful, very beautiful; they express dignity, thoughtfulness, joy and, as Madonna rightfully points out, an impressive inner strength. Some of the photos are in colour, some in black and white - I've found it a convincing mix.

These photographs radiate an intriguing presence - they made me feel like I was there in Southern Africa, not only in spirit but physically. It seemed to me that Kirsten Ashburn, by photographing daily life in the face of Aids, showed me something universal: the sad and happy (yes, you will also find pictures of happy people in this tome) human condition.

The portraits come with words, a few simple words that stayed with me long after I had stopped looking at the pictures. These words made these images appear again in my mind. And they made me turn once again to the pictures in the book.

My name is Wezi.
I’m nine years old.
My mother is dead.

My name is Fred. This is our house.
My father’s name is Mr. Fred Forty.
My mother passed away. She was very sick.
No one chooses to lose their parents.
I would have been happy if she lived to an
age when I could have taken care of her.
She only suffered for us and never had the
chance to enjoy the fruit of her labor.
The future? The way I see it?
I can’t see anything because right now
I have too many problems.

The pictures in the second part of the book "The Crisis. Aids in Southern Africa" are all in black and white and they don't come with captions (you will however find captions next to smaller versions of these pictures on the last pages of the book) - they do not need any. What these photos are all about is this:

"Without a safety net, many orphans drop out of school to find work. The eldest are often forced to become parents to their younger siblings. All of these vulnerable children are trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty that exposes them to higher risks of contracting the virus themselves.

In 2007 alone, 1.6 million people died of aids in southern Africa. Only a quarter of those needing medical care actually received it. With the advent of anti-retroviral drugs over the last decade, aids is no longer a death sentence. However, for the overwhelming majority of the 22.5 million hiv-positive Africans and their children, these life-saving drugs remain out of reach."

The last pages (accompanied by colour photographs) of this tome introduces Raising Malawi, an organisation cofounded by Madonna and Michael Berg dedicated to bringing an end to the extreme poverty and hardship endured by Malawi’s one million orphans.

Kristen Ashburn
I Am Because We Are
powerHouse Books, New York