Flat Recordings CD 01 05

Compact Disk 01 05 The First Internotional Theatre of Communication

At some point, Horsburgh introduces the event to the audience/participants with a statement. After which interaction began within the ‘audience’. Horburgh (H), Rhett Martyn (M), Paula Grundy (G), Walker Paterson (P), Elmin Engelbrecht (E), Etienne De Kock (DK), Barry (B) and Allen (A). A number of people who I did not know also took part. They are referred to as W1, 2, 3…. if they were female, and M1, 2, 3… if they were male.

H: In case you were wondering what I was doing, an introduction seems necessary. We would just like to welcome everyone who is coming down to our evening of communication interaction… We are not entirely sure what is going to take place from now until then. But it is necessary that anyone who does have anything to say and who is interested in saying something respond to the situation. Now is the time! [* Pun from Sekunjalo Ke Nako, the ANC logo.] It’s spontaneous, it’s evolutionary so anything you have to say about anything… please go ahead. Do it right now. Or in five minutes, or ten minutes and… enjoy. Now everyone is focussing their attention on me and that sets up a dichotomy which everyone is aware of - subject, object and all of that. It’s not very interesting. It’s interesting only to a certain degree. And we would like to transcend that. So… please feel free to talk amoungst yourselves. Feel free to write on the walls. Feel free to read everything and exchange understandings of what those things are about. It’s entirely a human process. It’s got to do with the information that you are willing to dispatch. It’s probably gonna be sent to other countries and in a similar evening in another country this information that is compiled here [will be used.]

H: Generate an audience.
M: Generate organs? Jay wants to generate organs. Jay! Jay is an organgenerator.
Generalised transaction between the left ventricle and the right. Would obviously mean
H: cloud-busters while handcuffed to a smile
M: with an effervescent sparkularity of hundreds of different kinds of distinguished guests
H: of topography and rupture.
M: Ah false.
H: I open up parentheses in your falsehood, in order to say the following: To sleep in a butterfly is an epic abdication of a moral territory. To let a butterfly sleep in one’s hand is a secret theft of that territory of morals. The first is a surrender allowing oneself to be seduced by illuminous channel. An intuition that flees from maps. The map is not the territory, after all. The second is criminal. It is to seek out those points at which moral landscapes buckle. To crawl into that space and plot, using the techniques of sorcery for an epic seduction. We will be making a sleep to fit the contours of one hand. Neither can be recognised without the other, so here I close the parentheses at criminal seduction.
M: Whoever paints his face taking the marks of an arbitrary characterization of a future people. Whoever appropriates in the exhaustive way of all possible terms and threats language as a science of imagery solutions. Whoever refuses to explain himself and despite the emission doesn’t stop robbing nor in fact engages in any collective practice. Such a person is the agent of subversion which… has great significance. The alchemy of the word, information requires uncertainty. The person that can predict a message knows it in advance. Then that message is not information hence meaningless. That part of the message that is not unpredictable is redundant. Redundancy is productive because redundancy guarantees the primacy of certain messages to the exclusion of all spurious information, which is called noise. The greater uncertance of the message, the more noise it will contain. The loss of productivity in the system is called entropy. Entropy is the information and meaningful step taken with the full weight of the body on a plump and rounded ball of the foot down the conclusive and dangerous brick road to chaos.

H: Generate organs! The following typography has ruptured or […] cloudbusters while hand-cuffed to a smile. Everyone is smiling so I assume you know what I am talking about. This is the intent at describing the architecture of the essay itself, but simply the architecture. Those point to which various elements of the essay
M1: consist of
H: converge, because the anatomy of language is rather melancholic. To sleep in a butterfly is the epic abdication of moral territory. To let the butterfly sleep in ones hands is the secret… [He continues inaudibly.]

A: I find that I am starting to walk like Jay.
M: Stetson Boots?
A: I’m Jay-walking in other words!
M: Interference.
A: But unfortunately I do not smoke.
M: Peter’s project. Alternatives to the new world order?
A: No, I prefer… I prefer to keep myself clean

M: Any euphoric people commemorating this theatre of
W1: and it is time that I had a voice in this
M: redundancy.

W1: I want to participate. I want to talk about the fact that you want to be clean.
M: Participants must interact.
W1: I want to talk about that and that you actually are holding
M: the Victoria Falls.

W1: Everyone has ulterior motives, hay?
M: is in a state of rupture.
W1: You know actually, mine wasn’t ulterior motives.
M: Whether its rupture or whether its… finding a solution to an organic problem in which
B: I might have a gun
M: has never solved itself.
W1: Oh well, I have my flick knife.
M: Or whether it’s just a recording of elements
W1: in my boots.

M: We don’t need to be accessed by other people in order to access yourself. But in a situation like this access is vital
M3: because no one was listening to me.
M: If you don’t have access to a memory
W1: your own voice
M: then you are a useless pile of flesh reduced to a graphic medium.
B: Exactly, I agree with you.
W1: whatever it was
M: self perpetuating destructive mechanism.

B: It’s a matter of you’ve said what you have said.
M4: I didn’t say it to make myself happy. I said it because I needed to say it.
M: What are you writing?
W2: I’m writing a review for the newspaper.
B: Have you accepted the
M: Which newspaper?
W2: The Natal Witness.
M: Do you think that this event has been successful?
W2: I only just got here.
M: How do you feel?
W2: Fine.
M: Great
B: conversation.
W1: Yes, it does, definitely.

P: What is the significance of significant form?
W1: They can learn how to communicate.
B: Exactly.
M: Significance of significant form is
H: Beethoven was deaf and his music was
M: to theorize an emotional response to an artwork.
B: Wanting to
M: that’s the only significance it has
B: and not being able to?
M: Because it was defined in order to theorize.
P: Who defined it?
B: Whose disability is that?
M: Clive Bell and Robert Fry, the modernist critics.
M5: They must communicate
H: because they haven’t chosen context.
P: That’s all very well, but how can you define significant form?
W1: Lets take the bottom line here and that is not good enough.
P: Say two aspects of a possible aspect of significant form.
W1: So they don’t believe that they are good enough.
P: It is significant? How does it have any validity?
W1: They never came forward and voiced their opinions.
M: Well my Peugeot Bicycle has validity therefor significant form must have validity too.

W1: So, why can’t people communicate? Bottomline is that they don’t like themselves and they don’t believe what they have to say is good enough or acceptable.
M: The king and queen of howling indifference.
B: What I wanted to say is
M: the court jester is not a royalty.
B: It’s just as much an insult to go up to someone and say: communicate! Feel free!
A: Only if you want to record any of this information you’ve actually got to speak into this microphone.
B: It’s very condescending to do that.
W6: Feel free? That is the whole question. It goes back to acceptable itself. So that you can actually be free to say what you want to say. It’s that picture.
H: Alternatively there is a social context and there is other contexts which
M: I come back to David Byrne, who said: “Why say anything when you’ve got nothing to say?” Which goes back to access again. How do you access information which you don’t want to access? And in a situation like this I feel that it is difficult to access information.
M6: Did Jay say right and wrong?
M: it’s hard to access verbal information.
M6: Verbally?
G: Verbal and social masturbation!
M6: If you’d like us to get on to physical.
W1: You know what I’ve never thought of that before. I’ve never actually considered verbal masturbation. I’ve only considered physical masturbation. And that’s great!
M: Does somebody want the microphone?
W1: Well, this is a new experience for all of us. [Laughter]
G: It’s a never ending special.
W1: Where have you been all your life?
G: I can only be where I am.
W1: Ja, but you can also climax if you want to.
G: Right here? How can I be anywhere else but right here?
W1: You talk about a verbal masturbation, you can also have a verbal climax as well.
G: Well, would you like to climax?
W1: Well, what are we on this planet for besides… you know… loving and experiencing and climaxing?
G: And the indulgence in nothingness. We are all loving each other, aren’t we? But we need a mask.
W1: Somebody over here tell us the point of this conversation?
G: I’m not critising, I’m not critisising pointlessness. There is nothing else but pointlesness! That’s not a criticism, its just an acknowledgement.
B: In terms of that, masturbation is an incorrect metaphor to use.
W1: This girl who had to talk about sex, because everybody is interested in sex.
H: Maybe you should tell her that.
W1: You are so bad. You are manipulative. [Laughter]
B: From one stranger to another.
W6: I have a comment to say and I am not taking sides. Is this on? When she says to you…
G: My name is Paula…
W6: Hello Paula. When Colette says to you that you are manipulative, you really shouldn’t feel bad about it because at the end of the day we are all manipulative. The fact that you are not very subtle in your manipulation is your joy or your problem… or your choice, your choice. The point is we are all manipulative to a degree so the fact…
G: How do you define manipulation? I mean how and why am I manipulative?
W1: Because you came and interrupted this conversation because you wanted to have a voice.
G: It’s not an interruption!
W1: You wanted to have a voice!
G: It’s not a manipulative interaction!
M6: You insulted her. She said we were masturbating.
W1: So, what is wrong with masturbation?
G: But why is that an insult?
W1: Do you have a problem with masturbation?
G: I’ve now decided to masturbate with you. That’s why I am here.
W1: That’s great.
G: It is not an insult that is your choice.
W1: Ja, but you see, you achieved what you wanted to achieve. And that was to have a voice and to be heard. And you were and that is fantastic. I think that is great.
G: Well, thank you.

E: What colour did you draw your little men when you were a kid?
M: If I drew them with a blue pen, they were blue. If I drew them with a black pen, they were black.
E: Really? What’s the difference when you colour them, you’ve got a colouring in book and you’ve got to colour this little smiling guy. What would you make his face?
M: I would make his face skin colour.
E: Ja, but what was skin colour?
M: Skin colour was a thing that you got in a Crayola box and it said “skin colour”.
E: Ja, but say you were poor and you didn’t have a big, wide range of koki colours.
M: Then I would chop my wrist off.
E: And you’ve got a choice between brown, pink and white? You don’t even have brown. You’ve got pink, orange and black. So what do you make him?
M: Brown, orange, pink and black? I would mix brown and pink.
E: Then it comes out black.
M: No, it comes out skin colour.
E: No, if you do it in koki.
M: With koki? What colour does brown and pink make?
B: Black!
E: You still haven’t said to me what you would choose. Because if you mix kokis, you don’t get the colour you think you do.
M: I’d use…
E: No, but don’t tell me what you would use now. I am asking you when you were a kid what you would have chosen.
M: I would have made it skin colour.
E: Oh, fuck, I don’t believe you. I always had a conflict between which colour would be right. I always ended up drawing them brown and all my friends said no it is supposed to be pink otherwise they’re black.
M: I don’t believe in that kind of segregation.

M: I’ve got absolutely nothing to say to an anarchist except […] is very alive very passionate, very intentional, and love is a void. Universal applauds action […] and a trade union which will give you new dimension to the art of speaking. Speaking has become just one of the intentions of the new age. The new age will carry on into an infinitive process. And this infinitive process will carry on through the after-life. We will never be left; we will never be spared from this eternal reaction and this eternal return and it’s much like a spider’s web which will just go round, and round and eventually just come out of the ass of the spider. And then you will just go into the spider and, you know, play around with the spider’s body a bit. And then you will leave the spider at the mandibles of the spider into the body of the fly which was actually caught in the spider’s web which is significant in that what the spider generated out of its ass is eventually returned back to the product of the spider’s ass.

M: [In American accent] Carling Black Label, the new brew from South Africa.
The brew that made you 60 before you were 30.
The brew that made Hong Kong famous.
The brew that made Planet Hollywood and Hong Kong appear on the same T-shirt.
The brew that made a star come out of the world.
The brew that made me grow a beard.
The brew that made you wear a string around you neck.
The brew that made other people put strings around your neck.
The brew that made you hang.
The brew that made you get a hard-on.
The brew that made your arms come out of your sleeves.
The brew that made your feet come out of your toes.
The brew that made your mother come out of your father.
The brew that made the first sonic, philharmonic orchestra.
The brew that made your paint peel.
The brew that makes your evangelical status seem absolutely appalling.
The brew that made you famous.
The brew that made you 450 ml of pure indulgence.
The brew that made your Caltex Guard seem green.
The brew that made Etienne de Kock feel privileged.
The brew that made the speaker speak before he had spoken.
The brew that made me talk in this American accent.

There is quite a long break before Etienne De Kock takes up the microphone and recites some poetry.

DK: I just want to read some poetry and make one little point about what I do, and what a lot of people make and that is art. And there’s two things about art: what you do and how you do it. It’s what you say and how you say it. And art limited into categories. Its not held down and put this way or that way. It’s a very human thing. The first poem is quite an old poem. It talks about a college and college-students, right. And now there is a college called Milton, or something. And a freshman is someone new who arrives at university and this was written very long ago. Milton is obviously a literary college of some sort and literature and art are very closely linked. It’s called “After sending freshmen to describe a tree”:
“Twenty inglorious Milton’s looked at a tree and saw God.
Noted its clutching fingers in the sod.
Heard Zephyrs gentle breezes wafting through her hair.
Saw a solemn statue, heard a growing woody prayer.
Saw dancing skirts and the Lord’s desire.
Green arrows to God instead of pyre.
Saw symbols and squirrels, heard musins indeed.
Not one of the Miltons saw any tree. [Laughter]
If you must see a tree, clean, clear and bright.
For God’s sake and mine, look outside your heart and write.”
That’s the first one and that just echoes some sentiments I have. [Laughter]
Because I don’t like to listen always to the clamor of 100 saartjies [or softies] trying to discover themselves. [Laughter] And then there is another way of saying things. Well, this is a way of being a nonsense poet.
“I cannot give the reasons, I only sing the tunes.
The sadness of the seasons, the madness of the moons.
I cannot be didactical, lucid, but I can be quite obscure.
And positively […]
In gorgery and gushness and all that squishes by
My voice has all the lushness of what I try to buy.
And yet it has a beauty, proud and terrible.
Denied to those with duty is to be cerebral.
Among the infant mountains I make my vistas wade
And watch the sepia fountains throw up their lime-green spray.”
That’s the end of that one. [Laughter] And that shows a way of looking at things that I particularly enjoy. And then for all you people, you middle-earth, third-eye, politically correct people.
“Leave fibres on the wind, and if it bears your weight
you are a daughter of the dawn. If not, pick up your carcass, dry your tears.
For that sweet open wind, forgerer was from the fairy-land
But coming rather flooded through the kitchen floor
from where your uncle Yustis and his band of flautists
turn my cellar more and more into a place of hollow and decay.
That’s my theory on it, do your own.” [Laughter]
And then finally…
Of barley corn and furrows
Of farms and turtles
About such ghostly burrows […]
Of […] and pasteurs
Of skies both peak and green
I made these statements…
And I have no more to say.” [Laughter]
It’s been such a long time since I’ve had such a captive audience. [Laughter]

INTERVIEW
During the evening, Martyn interviewed me about the Internotional and the state of the FLAT Gallery. This interview was spread throughout the later part of the evening on different tapes.

M: Lets talk about this [FLAT] as an establishment. Do you see this as an establishment?
A: How do you mean?
M: How do you feel about this?
A: About this event, this gallery or what?
M: This event!
A: I feel in two minds, for one. [Laughter] In one way it is great that this event actually happened. The fact that it happened is great. But I feel in another way that it could have gone further. That’s my own personal opinion. I think people could have relaxed a lot. I think people could have freaked out a lot. People could have done anything.
M: Why do you think they couldn’t ‘liberate’ themselves?
A: I am not too sure about that. I really wish I could know the reason why people can not liberate themselves.
M: Don’t you see this as having a particularly… […] against its intentions? Does it have a particularly elitist philosophy?
A: Do you think this event was elitist?
M: To an extent, yes.
A: It probably was elitist in terms of the way it used the media. Or the way we disseminated information. It was probably elitist in the first place and therefor that reflects on the number of people who came.

M: I was interested to hear the other night, when I asked Melissa Marrins whether she was going to come. She said: “No, because it was going to be just another masturbation.”
A: [Surprised] That’s really interesting.
M: Whether that reveals some kind of personal conflict with the organizers… or whether there was some kind of truth in that.
A: You know what? A body only functions… a chain is only as good as its weakest link. What I mean to say is, if somebody wants something to be interesting, if somebody wants something to happen in Durban, they’ve got to fucken do it themselves. And I really stand by that. Because if everyone just sits back and thinks everything is going to happen around them, NOTHING is going to happen. And if somebody thinks that something is going to be a wank, then they are not getting involved themselves. I’m sick of people in Durban saying: “Ah, God, you are wasting your time!” or “You are being elitist!” or whatever. People just sit back and watch things happen, they don’t actually do anything themselves. And there is no one who will try and change that.
M: This evening seemed to take on a very cerebral nature. How do you feel about that?
A: Tonight? I feel fine about it… I actually feel very impartial. I feel totally indifferent because I think… I think a lot of people will go away thinking that this evening was shit. But in another way… If you and me can break down barriers tonight, then tonight was a success. But if we can’t do that then maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was just a kind of wanking, as Melissa said. But why isn’t Melissa here to ‘penetrate’ this ‘wanking’? Why isn’t she here to make ‘sexual intercourse’? Excuse the metaphor, but it’s true. If wanking is wanking then what is sexual intercourse? It must be something ‘better’, surely.

M: Perhaps what I was trying to say was… the stream that the Flat has tried to outline, events on a daily basis…
A: To a certain extent I must admit that this place is like a total fucken, shit-hole. If you ever want privacy don’t come here. It’s the worst place on earth to find privacy. There are always people here. You can come home after working at sculpture department, say about 9:30pm; come back here, and someone will knock on the door at 10:00pm guaranteed. It happens every fucken night. Its really great, but if you wany to be on your own, don’t be here. But its great, the interaction is great. I’m coming to realise that although I live here, this place is not mine, it belongs to the community. Not necessarily the community as a whole, but rather the art community. It belongs to those people who wish to interact with it and they do. I mean you do, everybody does. If you want to move in here, just move in.

A: Funny, it’s been quarter to seven the whole evening.

M: How do feel about Etienne De Kock’s exhibition here?
A: I feel like it was a watershed exhibition.
M: What do you mean?
A: It was symbolic, I think, for non-student artists. Most of the people that have exhibited here have been students. There are exceptions, actually quite a lot of exceptions. But Etienne here, in a way, represented the “Old School”.
M: This is where I am finding an establishment starting. In that if “Old School” comes here, “Old School” will be addressed to.
A: No, but I don’t think that we should be aggressive towards the “Old School”.
M: How does traditionalism play a role in the FLAT Gallery?
A: There is a mixture between both. The FLAT gallery’s opinion that “anyone can exhibit here” means that if Etienne wants to exhibit here, that is great. We totally support that and he did exhibit here and it was great. It was probably the biggest turn out we had at the FLAT. What I hope it will do is push, although nihilistically I don’t think it will, other people… “the lecturers” or older artists or anyone who is over thirty in Durban; to actually put something on here with guts or with experimentation. Something unsafe and that would be great. Possibly what the FLAT should promote is unsafety.
M: I guess I’m just trying to establish whether the FLAT still represents what it did in the beginning – which was completely open-minded and completely open-ended. I still think it is open-minded, but I think everything is always worth watching. I saw a news documentary on Albie Sachs the other night and… as you know he was a ‘radical’ in the old South Africa… and he said how important it was to always watch with a cautious eye. He is going to keep people at bay and always question their values and always question that they are open-minded and open-ended. And I use Melissa’s example to see whether there was a rift occuring within the FLAT Gallery. And I used Etienne as well, to try and see what your sentiments were.
A: Rhett, I want to say this. It might seem like, because Thomas and myself stay here, that we run the place and we do. We have to deal with all the fucken shit… we have to clean the place up… What I mean to say is… The Flat gallery is as only as much as those people are willing to put into it. Definitely! Always! And if it is SHIT it is because people aren’t fucken putting anything into it.
B: Hear, hear!
A: If Melissa thinks it is shit, it is because she is not here doing her bit for it. If people have something to say, they must do something better.

Tape 17
FIRST INTERNOTIONAL THEATRE OF COMMUNICATION
20 May 1994

The Internotional is an event in which people are invited to bring and say anything. The event is defined or is constructed purely from the information people' the audience' brings to the event. "In that way people will shape what does happen." "Basically what we are doing is recording anything that people are saying or doing and we are going to be compiling that just keeping it as some kind of record." When Rob Amato ‘interviews’ Thomas about the purpose of the event he automatically by virtue of the fact that he is speaking takes part in the event. His contribution is to look at the FLAT event and say that a break in communication is deeply desired in Durban. He then goes on to criticise the acting profession in Durban. And thus perhaps unknowingly he partakes in the event and has something relevant to say....

SIDE A:

Can music is playing in the background.

Allen: If anyone wants to say anything of particular importance....
Hello, Carol...
No, but it doesn’t work. It'll record but it won’t play back.

Stuffing around with the tapedeck.
Brendon Bussy plays a couple of tunes on his viola. He stays a while and then, has to
leave for another recita1 elsewhere. (Sound just coming out the right hand
speaker.)

Horsburgh: Thank you, thank you very much.

Viola plays on and then ends.

Bussy: OK. I've gotta shoot.
Barry: Now we can go on with our boring old lives.

Rob Amato questions Thomas about the Internotional.

Barry: Basically what we are gonna do with anything that happens tonight is we are going to be compiling it into one… kind of generalised… set of information and re-disseminating it to anyone who is interested…and fax it out internationally or where ever. On tape in terms of the information people bring…in terms of… Basically what we are doing is recording anything that people are saying or doing and we are going to be compiling that or just keeping it as some kind of record and…
Amato: Storytelling?
Barry: Yes.
Amato: Events and histories.
Barry: And we haven’t really tried to define what will be taking place. In that way people will shape what does happen. But at the same time we are trying to create some kind of break in… communication. A shift!
Amato: A communication break is deeply desired. Give us a break in communication. Ja, I can see that's lovely stuff but what I am most intrigued by is the degree to which we could have a theatre which frees itself of Sneddonism...of Sneddonism! Which has had a thirty-year scurge in this area. And then there are all sorts of other deaths in the town. It’s very strange… Why does the town have a bad acting style, for instance? Why? It’s nothing to do with the teachers. It’s got to do with something else. It’s something else.
Barry: Something obscure?
Amato: Something obscure. Something terribly obscure! That nobody has dev(f)ined. Maybe that’s why you need breaks.
Barry: Jay is a good person to speak to in terms of that. I think he’s got a lot of ideas but… not necessarily the resources. That’s also true…
Amato: But that’s a… This Space was run on… It works well on the blood of the actors…
the old space in Cape Town. There was some money coming in for things like adds in the paper. Actually I’ve reminded Kenyan about 250 000 [Rand], the period that I was there. About 200 000, 180 000 [Rand] went into the Argus Company for advertising shows. It’s one of the biggest expenses. It was the one thing we could not bypass.
Barry: Ja, I think our aim is largely to create some kind of space. A kind of free open experimental space… and we don t necessarily have the resources to provide […]. What we are trying to do is… well we trying to disregard money… as well… to some extent because… as soon as we start worrying to seriously about that… we are gonna basically…
Amato: How’ve you covered the rent?
Barry: Beg your pardon.
Amato: How have you covered the rent?
Barry: … To a large extent we basically… through ourselves but we have received sponsorship for this room. However…
Amato: What s your name?
Barry: It s Thomas, I’m Thomas
Amato: Rob, Rob Amato.
Barry: … We really just want anything to happen, you know.

Allen: Hello, Carol. How are you?
Gainer: Hello, Siemon.
Allen: What are you doing?
Gainer: Well once again I have to tell you that I think it’s really fucking pathetic!
Allen: What is?
Gainer: […]
Allen: Why?
Gainer: Well it’s so bloody…
Allen: …selfconceited?
Gainer: Yes!
Allen: Do you know how many tapes we’ve got? Of all the parties that we… [Laughter]
Gainer: …what you wanna do? [To someone else.]
Allen: Ja.
Gainer: You wanna join in? [To someone else.]
Allen: We've got about fifteen tapes so far - since the beginning of the year.
Gainer: […]
Woman: […]
Allen: Boring… Shuush. [Laughter] But… So why don’t you say something tonight?
Woman: […]
Allen: Yes you're right I suppose whatever gets recorded on here is all peripheral. It’s kind of like what happened during and in between.
Gainer: Ja', you're taking it over…
Allen: No, not at all…
Gainer: What?
Allen: It’s finished.
Gainer: OK Bye.
Allen: Bye, bye, Carol. Thanks for…
Gainer: …the chat!

Engelbrecht: No way.
Horsburgh: That’s right.
Engelbrecht: I’ll yawn in a year again. Wanna yawn? Wanna […] to yawn? [Yawn] One, two… [Taps microphone] Helloooooooooooooooooooow! Do you wanna hear the yawn? [Yawn]
Horsburgh: We didn’t actually have […] the microphone. In case you were wondering what I was doing, an introduction seems necessary. We would just like to welcome everyone who is coming down to our evening of communication interaction… We are not entirely sure what is going to take place from now until then. But it is necessary that anyone who does have anything to say and who is interested in saying something respond to the situation. That is the situation […]. Now is the time! [* Pun from Sekunjalo Ke Nako, the ANC logo.] We are glad that […] It’s spontaneous, it’s evolutionary so anything you have to say about anything… please go ahead. Do it right now. Or in five minutes, or ten minutes and… enjoy. [General conversation.] In order to […] anyone assuming the focal point which I am doing at this point in time. We are hoping that people will disperse throughout the scene and then at some point stop for any particular period of time… Now everyone is focussing their attention on me and that sets up a dichotomy which everyone is aware of - subject, object and all of that. It’s not very interesting. It’s interesting only to a certain degree. And we would like to transcend that. So… please feel free to talk amoungst yourselves. Feel free to write on the walls. Feel free to read everything and exchange understandings of what those things are about. It’s entirely a human process. […]

Simultaneous to Jay’s opening speech, Siemon cuts in.

Allen: … For those people who don’t feel like writing on the walls, there is the recording material here which will record anything you say and do and everything you say will be taken… and recorded. But… make advantage of that… as well. No, I m going now.
Barry: …Information… anything you are passionate about. Write your name on to find out about it… disseminating…
Woman 2: And now you re taking us to […] What are you doing to us by saying that?
Horsburgh: Its got nothing to do with […] Its got to do with the information that you are willing to dispatch. Its probably gonna be sent to other countries and in a similar evening in another country […] this information that is compiled here […]
Woman 3: […]

General conversation

Allen: Elmin and myself, we are going to do our thing now… So we’ll just see what happens.

Siemon and Elmin do the ‘Conversation’ performance where a prerecorded banal conversation between them is played in stereo through speakers above their heads. They stand in opposite corners of the room like a modernday “Adam and Eve”.

[L] denotes speech on the left hand speaker, while [R] denotes speech on the right hand speaker. There were obviously two microphones operating that night. These signs do not occur often though they appear intermittently to remind the reader which side the speaker is on. All people remain on that same side throughout their conversations. At times there will be two conversations on each microphone that is 4 people speaking simultaneously. Though people on the left will be taking to each other as will people on the right. Some will be talking to themselves as in the case of Rhett.

Martyn [R]: Is it recording now? Jay, is it recording now? How does that make me feel?
Do what?
Horsburgh: Generate an audience.
Martyn: Generate organs? Jay wants to generate organs. Jay! Jay is an organgenerator.
Generalised transaction between the left ventricle and the right. Would obviously mean…
Horsburgh: …cloud-busters while handcuffed to a smile.
Martyn: With an effervescent sparkularity of hundreds of different kinds of distinguished guests.
Horsburgh: …of topography and rupture.
Martyn: Ah false.
Horsburgh: I open up parentheses in your falsehood, in order to say the following: To sleep in a butterfly is an epic abdication of a moral territory. To let a butterfly sleep in one’s hand is a secret theft of that territory of morals. The first is a surrender allowing oneself to be seduced by illuminous channel. An intuition that flees from maps. The map is not the territory, after all. The second is criminal. Its it to seek out those points at which moral landscapes buckle. To crawl into that space and plot, using the techniques of sorcery for an epic seduction. We will be making a sleep to fit the contours of one hand. Neither can be recognised without the other, so here I close the parentheses at criminal seduction.
Martyn [R]: Whoever paints his face taking the marks of an arbitrary characterisation of a future people. Whoever appropriates in the exhaustive way of all possible terms and threats language as a science of imagery solutions. Whoever refuses to explain himself and despite the emission doesn’t stop robbing nor in fact engages in any collective practice. Such a person is the agent of subversion which… have great significance. The alchemy of the word, information requires uncertainty. The person that can predict a message knows it in advance. Then that message is not information hence meaningless. That part of the message that is not unpredictable is redundant. Redundancy is productive because redundancy guarantees the primacy of certain messages to the exclusion of all spurious information, which is called noise. The greater uncertance of the message, the more noise it will contain. The loss of productivity in the system is called entropy. Entropy is the information and meaningful step taken with the full weight of the body on a plump and rounded ball of the foot…
Allen [L]: Rhett! Rhett!
Martyn [R]: …down the conclusive and dangerous brick road to chaos.
Allen: I know you don’t mind me talking to you. What are you reading?
Martyn: Long live… Wait! Just hang on, I’ve got to finish reading one sentence. Along live sturgeon of…
Allen: …Ah I see you’ve got hold of some dangerous material there.
Martyn: …entropic information is the first appearance of caviar spawn now. Ooooh. Aaaah. I would like to talk about… I would like to talk about…

At this point the music (Can) is switched off, and Jay moves toward the microphone to make a statement. His barely audible statement can be heard congruent with others in the audience / performance speaking simultaneously.

Horsburgh: Generate organ! The following […] typography has ruptured or […] cloudbusters while hand-cuffed to a smile. Everyone is smiling so I assume you know what I am talking about. This is the intent at describing the architecture of […] the culmination of describing the essay itself, but simply the architecture […] Those point to which various elements of the essay…
Man: …consist of…
Horsburgh: …converge, because the anatomy of language is rather melancholic. […] To sleep in a butterfly is the epic abdication of moral territory. To let the butterfly sleep in ones hands is the secret… [He continues inaudibly.]
Allen [L]: I am finding it easier, recently, to speak into a microphone, than normally. In a situation given like this, I really do not know what to say but I find myself speaking about things I do not know about. But anyway…
Martyn [R]: Music and…penetration.
Allen: What I would like to say first of all is… I know that this material is going to be recorded - not all of it, but half of it - maybe in stereo but not definitely in ambio. And maybe the information is not going to be of any relevance to anyone at all but…
Martyn: Sound and… creation.
Allen: First of all… I must commend the people involved and…
Man 2: the point at which music is…
Horsburgh: manifested in later…
Colette: God!
Allen: and Jesus.
Horsburgh: You are quite unnecessary!
Allen: But I must thank the people involved and what I would like to say now is that I am repeating myself and for me to really truly say what I really feel is going to take a lot of … a lot of… wine.
Martyn: Ja.
Allen [L]: I find that I am starting to walk like Jay.
Martyn [R]: Stetson Boots.
Allen: I’m Jay-walking in other words!
Martyn: Interference.
Allen: But unfortunately I do not smoke.
Martyn: Peter’s projects. Alternatives to the new world order…
Allen: No, I prefer… I prefer to keep myself clean….
Martyn: given the situation what we’ve arrived at…
Allen: for the moment…
Martyn: any euphoric people commemorating this…
Colette: I want to tell everyone that you are talking far too much…
Martyn : theatre of…
Colette: and it is time that I had a voice in this…
Martyn: redundancy…
Colette: That boy sitting in the corner there, he actually doesn’t know…
Martyn: to communicate…
Colette: what the hell he is talking about.
Martyn: about…
Colette: I mean… is that his name, Rhett. Rhett over there is talking to himself totally.
Martyn: telephone conversations…
Colette: I mean at least you have had a little bit of an audience and some people are listening to you…
Martyn: which they have heard before…
Colette: And this guy is like so into his intellect…
Martyn: and cross-pollinate…
Colette: It’s just too much… I mean actually its frightening.
Martyn: Ideas about…
Colette: And I don’t know what this one’s into.
Martyn: integration of…
Colette: Is anyone listening to this?… Helloooo!
Martyn: a complex model…
Colette: Is there anybody out there?
Martyn: which ultimately…
Colette: Rhett, I’m very concerned about you.
[Laughter]
Martyn: Guess what?
Colette: I’m very concerned about this. Look at this man. But I want to participate…
Martyn: They can’t deal with low metabolism.
Colette: I want to participate.
Martyn: Participation…
Colette: [To Thomas] Ok what do you want to say? I have to continue to talk.
Martyn: is no obligation. So therefor…
Colette: So lets have a conversation. OK I want to talk about the fact that you want to be clean.
Martyn: participants must interact…
Colette: Clean, you know clean? The cleanest of cleans.
Martyn: like…
Colette: I want to talk about that and that you actually are holding…
Martyn: the Victoria Falls.
Colette: that red wine. That tastes like shit,
Martyn: Hello… [Gibberish]
Colette: but we will drink it anyway because it does the trick. Love some more! I would love some more…[Laughter]
Barry: Is there anymore wine? [Laughter]
Martyn: How many times a day can you say the word fast?
Colette: Ah… I love it!
Martyn: 500 times a day, 15 times a day or 70?There is no positive reaction to anything…
Colette: I love my mike at work oven. I have a voice there.
Martyn: regardless of the intuition response mechanism.
Colette: [To Thomas] Did you get us some wine?
Martyn: For about 15 years scientist have discovered and research the…
Barry: Its not happening yet.
Martyn: possibility of a new dimension called chaos. KAOS! Ostentatious chaos
Barry: I know it all too well.
Martyn: is one of the classics of
Barry: That’s right!
Martyn: incredibly pleasing discovery which has amounted to…
Colette: … like actually have a voice…and people can actually hear you!
Barry: Oh, Absolutely!
Martyn: an embellishment of congruency which in the end has got…
Barry: Completely! In fact I am only holding the fort until the wine comes.
Martyn: inevitable impact on a social system which…
Colette: Everyone has ulterior motives, hay?
Martyn: is in a state of rupture.
Colette: You know actually, mine wasn’t ulterior motives.
Martyn: Whether its rupture or whether its… finding a solution to…
Barry: Oh, absolutely.
Martyn: an organic problem which…
Barry: I might have a gun.
Martyn: has never solved itself.
Colette: Oh well, I have my flick knife…
Martyn: Or whether it’s just a recording of elements
Colette: in my boots.
Martyn: which have…
Barry: Well, I’ve got a wrist fax.
Colette: Oh you have out done me, hay?
Martyn: no bearing on…
Barry: It’s a James Bond thing.
Martyn: the profundity of…
Colette: I could be a James Bond woman…
Martyn: the afterlife.
Colette: You know those woman that come up with those stunning bodies and the whole story?
Martyn: Then there will be…
Colette: I could fit that picture.
Martyn: no core cantilever system in our basic will to live.
Colette: … for more than 15 minutes or is he going to drive us fucken insane?
Barry: Should we try to have a conversation for more than 15 minutes?
Colette: Now he’s tired of talking because he was talking to himself.
Barry: Maybe not, but… maybe no one was listening and in terms of that he was talking to himself. Maybe what he was saying…
Martyn: Access.
Colette: Do you know what he was talking about?
Barry: I didn’t hear but can you remember what you were saying?
Colette: Well, we were talking about electronic music.
Martyn: We don’t need to be accessed by other people in order to access yourself. But in a situation like this access is vital because…
Man 3: ….because no one was listening to me.
Martyn: if you don’t have access to a memory…
Colette: …your own voice…
Martyn: then you are a useless pile of flesh…
Colette: Nobody was listening to me.
Martyn: reduced to a graphic medium…
Barry: Exactly, I agree with you.
Colette: …whatever it was…
Martyn: self perpetuating destructive mechanism.
Colette [L]: Derrick!
Barry [L]: Well as far as I am concerned…
Martyn [R]: Hay, Andrew do you want to talk with me? Have a conversation with me about love.
Barry [L]: It’s a matter of you’ve said what you have said.
Man 4 [L]: I didn’t say it to make myself happy. I said it because I needed to say it.
Martyn[R]: What are you writing?
Woman 4[R]: I’m writing a review for the newspaper.
Barry: Have you accepted the…
Martyn: Which newspaper?
Woman 4: The Natal Witness.
Martyn: Do you think that this event has been successful?
Woman 4: I only just got here.
Martyn: How do you feel?
Woman: Fine.
Martyn: Great…
Barry [L]: …conversation.
Colette: Yes, it does, definitely.
Martyn: Andrew lets talk. Andrew, I can’t bare to talk by myself.
Barry: Are we still having a conversation?
Martyn: I just don’t know what to say. I mean its like… I just cannot talk to myself..
Colette: I’m under pressure to perform.
Martyn: Lets talk about your stubble.
Barry: No, not necessarily. As far as I see it’s more about the will…
Paterson[R]: My stubble?
Barry: to communicate.
Colette: What, the will to communicate?
Martyn: I’ve also got stubble.
Paterson: Ja, but your stubble is longer than mine.
Barry: Ja, more than the need to perform.
Colette: I have the will to communicate, but I feel self-conscious and I actually can’t communicate.
Paterson: I can actually make a comparison between your stubble and your eyelashes.
Colette: Its something to get up there and have a voice.
Paterson: Your eyelashes are longer.
Colette: But they can’t.
Martyn: My eyelashes are longer than my hair but my hair on my head is longer than my eyelashes.
Colette: I don’t have a problem talking.
Paterson: And it’s also the same colour so what’s the point?
Colette: Sometimes I do. Sometimes I feel threatened in a situation.
Martyn: The point is that stubble has become significant.
Colette: But its all a performance level. Sometimes I have to perform.
Barry: Which we do all the time don’t we?
Paterson: Significant form or just significant?
Martyn: [ppbbbrll…]
Paterson: What is the significance of significant form?
Colette: They can learn how to communicate.
Barry: Exactly.
Martyn: Significance of significant form is a…
Horsburgh: Beethoven was deaf and his music was…
Martyn: to theorise an emotional response to an artwork.
Barry: What I’m saying is that is it a matter of…
Martyn: It’s to theorise an emotional response to an artwork.
Barry: wanting to…
Martyn: That’s the only significance it has.
Barry: and not being able to?
Martyn: Because it was defined in order to theorise.
Paterson: Who defined it?
Barry: Who’s disability is that?
Martyn: Clive Bell.
Barry: Is it the disability of… Beethoven was deaf, his music…
Paterson: Clive Bell, hay?
Martyn: And Robert Fry, the modernist critics.
Man 5: They must communicate.
Horsburgh: Because they haven’t chosen context…
Paterson: That’s all very well, but how can you define significant form from…
Colette: OK, lets forget about Beethoven. Lets take the bottomline here and that is not good enough…
Paterson: say two aspects of a possible aspect of significant form so how can you actually say…
Colette: So they don’t believe that they are good enough.
Paterson: it is significant? How does it have any validity?
Colette: They’ll never come forward and voice their opinions,
Martyn: Well my Peugeot Bicycle has validity…
Colette: communicate from a…
Martyn: therefor significant form must have validity too.
Barry: Do you say… Do you…
Martyn: Because it has been mentioned and as long as it is mentioned it’s significant.
Paterson: Isn’t true significant form…
Colette: It’s a mirror of themselves.
Paterson: meant to have a variety of responses from…
Barry: So they should be shot?
Paterson: a variety of people?
Barry: No. No what I am saying is this.
Paterson: If only two people have given rise and they have only…
Woman 5: What do I have to say?
Paterson: they have only examined it and…
Martyn: Hello, someone said that to me before and I didn’t know what to say back.
Barry: … as mush as speaking for…
Martyn: Someone said that to me before and I didn’t know what to say back.
Barry: Some people don’t have the ability, means…
Martyn: I heard you howling.
Barry: They don’t!
Martyn: Indifference.
Barry: Some people would sit back and listen.
Martyn: I was howling indifference.
Horsburgh: I think appearance communicates an…
Martyn: In fact I think I’ll call my band that.
Barry: Maybe.
Martyn: Howling Indifference.
Barry: Ja?
Martyn: That band, Howling Indifference.
Colette: So, why can’t people communicate? Bottomline is that they don’t like themselves and they don’t believe what they have to say is good enough or acceptable…
Martyn: The king and queen of howling indifference. [Laughter]
Barry: What I wanted to say is…
Martyn: The court jester is not a royalty…
Barry: it’s just as much an insult to go up to someone and say: communicate! Feel free!
Allen: Only if you want to record any of this information you’ve actually got to speak into this microphone.
Barry: It’s very condescending to do that.
Woman 6: Feel free? That is the whole question. It goes back to acceptable itself. So that you can actually be free to say what you want to say. Its that picture…
Horsburgh: Alternatively there is a social context and there is other contexts which…
Martyn: I come back to David Byrne, who said: “Why say anything when you’ve got nothing to say?” Which goes back to access again. How do you acces information which you don’t want to access? And in a situation like this I feel that it is difficult to access information, in fact I think that’s why I make art because…
Man 6: Did Jay say right and wrong?
Martyn: it’s hard to access verbal information.
Man 6: Verbally?
Paula: …verbal and social masturbation! (Grundy)
Man 6: If you’d like us to get on to physical.
Martyn: This is…
Colette: [L]: You know what I’ve never thought of that before. I’ve never actually considered verbal masturbation. I’ve only considered physical masturbation. And that’s great!
Martyn [R]: Does somebody want the microphone?
Colette: Well, this is a new experience for all of us. [Laughter] Oh, isn’t there. Shame!
Paula: It’s a never ending special.
Colette: Where have you been all your life?
Paula: I’ve been right here.
Colette: Shame that’s also bad news.
Paula: I can only be where I am.
Colette: Ja, but you can also climax if you want to.
Paula: Right here? How can I be anywhere else but right here?
Colette: You talk about a verbal masturbation, you can also have a verbal climax as well. How about that?
Paula: Well, would you like to climax?
Colette: Well, what are we on this planet for besides… you know… loving and experiencing and climaxing? I’m not talking hippie.
Paula: Because of a pointlessness…
Martyn: Hippie?
Paula [L]: and the indulgence in nothingness.
Martyn: You’re not talking hippie?
Colette [R]: No we are not talking airy-fairy, mumbo-jumbo, esoteric-crappy rubbish.
Paula: Endless love, nothingness love. We are all loving each other, aren’t we? But we need a mask.
Colette: Somebody over here tell us the point of this conversation?
Paula: I’m not critising, I’m not critisising pointlessness.
Colette: And she manipulated all of us…
Paula: There is nothing else but pointlesness!
Colette: to her way of thinking because that was her avoidance mechanism.
Paula: That’s not a criticism, its just an acknowledgement.
Colette: You see, because she couldn’t cope with the intensity of the conversation.
Barry [L]: In terms of that, masturbation is an incorrect metaphor to use.
Colette: This girl who had to talk about sex, because everybody is interested in sex.
Horsburgh[R]: Maybe you should tell her that.
Paula [L]: There is no such thing as…
Barry: Maybe so…
Colette: You are so bad. You are manipulative.
[Laughter]
Barry: From one stranger to another.
Woman 6 [R]: I have a comment to say and I am not taking sides. Is this on? When she says to you…
Paula: My name is Paula…
Colette: Hi, Paula.
Woman 6: Listen hang on, Paulaaa! Hello Paula. When Colette says to you that you are manipulative, you really shouldn’t feel bad about it because at the end of the day we are all manipulative. The fact that you are not very subtle in your manipulation is your joy or your problem… or your choice, your choice. The point is we are all manipulative to a degree so the fact…
Paula [R]: How do you find manipulation? I mean how and why am I manipulative?
Colette: Because you came and interrupted this conversation because you wanted to have a voice.
Paula: It’s not an interruption!
Colette: You wanted to have a voice!
Paula: It’s not a manipulative interaction!
Man 6: You insulted her. She said we were masturbating.
Colette: So, what is wrong with masturbation?
Paula: But why is that an insult?
Colette: Do you have a problem with masturbation?
Paula: I’ve now decided to masturbate with you. That’s why I am here.
Colette: That’s great.
Paula: It is not an insult that is your choice.
Colette: Ja, but you see, you achieved what you wanted to achieve. And that was to have a voice and to be heard. And you were and that is fantastic. I think that is great.
Paula: Well, thank you.
Colette: You need to have a handclap.
Man 6: Turn the radio off.
Engelbrecht: This is…I don’t want to be recorded.
Colette [R]: No one can hear us… I want to be heard. I want to have a voice.
Engelbrecht: Why don’t you start singing?
Colette [B]: Woohooo! I don’t want two speakers, hay. There you go.
Horsburgh: Thank you.
Colette: Open your mouth.
Barry: Great shirt!
Horsburgh: Thanks, thanks very much.
Allen: This conversation is now over but I reckon everyone is getting really bored and is totally incapacitated to actually fucken say anything. Useless shit!
[Laughter]
Allen [R]: Hello Rhett! Wait lets try this one.
Martyn [L] Ok.
Allen: Hi, how are you?
Martyn: Siemon, this is to all the girls I’ve loved before.
[Laughter]
Martyn: [In Italian accent, singing] To all the girls I’ve loved before.
Allen: Well, what am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to act like John Denver and you act like Willey Nelson?
Martyn: No not John Denver, Ig…Ignatious Iglasius.
Allen: Jullius Iglasius. Ok. [In accent, singing] To all the girls I’ve loved before.
Martyn: Who traveled in and out my door.
Allen: I want to make a song and I’ve got to be along.
Together: To all the girls we’ve loved before.
Allen: So many.
Martyn: A numerous amount.
Allen: Yes, o all the girls we’ve loved before.
Martyn: To all the fingers I’ve chopped of before.
Allen: In and out that door. Making love and making war.
Martyn: To the many shaves I’ve had. I cannot count them in one hand.
Allen: To all the girls…
Martyn: Because I’ve cut them all off.
Allen: I’ve loved before.
Martyn: Are we recording?
Siemon: Hay?
Martyn: What are we recording?
Allen: We are recording this! [pbrtsbnmwwwmm… noise]
Martyn: [bbbrttdgdwwmmm… noise]

Allen and Martyn jam, making stereo noises at each other.

Engelbrecht: Are you a baboon?
Martyn: Mongolian swan pig.
Engelbrecht: Mongolian swan?
Martyn: Mongolian swan pig.
Engelbrecht: Are these pigs white or are they…
Martyn: Swan colour.
Engelbrecht: Or have they got slit eyes?
Martyn: No they swan…
Engelbrecht: What is swan colour? I’ve been wondering today what is swan colour is. We got an order from this fabric company sending us a bill that we’ve never seen in our lives saying that we’ve ordered 15 meters of swan.
Martyn: Swan, I know the only relation to colour and swan is swan-paint.
Engelbrecht: So where you thought it’s blue?
Martyn: I would say it was either black or white.
Engelbrecht: Swan? Swan is black or white?
Martyn: Ja. Green.
Engelbrecht: So where have you seen an orange pig? What colour did you draw your little men when you were a kid?
Martyn: If I drew them with a blue pen, they were blue. If I drew them with a black pen, they were black.
Engelbrecht: Really? What’s the difference when you colour them, you’ve got a colouring in book and you’ve got to colour this little smiling guy. What would you make his face?
Martyn: I would make his face skin colour.
Engelbrecht: Ja, but what was skin colour?
Martyn: Skin colour was a thing that you got in a Crayola box and it said “skin colour”.
Engelbrecht: Ja, but say you were poor and you didn’t have a big, wide range of koki colours.
Martyn: Then I would chop my wrist off.
Engelbrecht: And you’ve got a choice between brown, pink and white? You don’t even have brown. You’ve got pink, orange and black. So what do you make him?
Martyn: Brown, orange, pink and black? I would mix brown and pink.
Engelbrecht: Then it comes out black.
Martyn: No it comes out skin colour.
Engelbrecht: No, if you do it in koki.
Martyn: Brown and pink?
Engelbrecht: With koki.
Martyn: With koki. What colour does brown and pink make?
Barry: Black!
Martyn: Farrk you! Farrk you!
Engelbrecht: Fark you! You sound like a German.
Martyn: No, it’s the chant of the Mongolian Swan Pig.
Engelbrecht: You still haven’t said to me what you would choose. Because if you mix kokis, you don’t get the colour you think you do.
Martyn: I’d use…
Engelbrecht: No, but don’t tell me what you would use now. I am asking you when you were a kid what you would have chosen.
Martyn: I would have made it skin colour.
Engelbrecht: OK but you visit your friend.
Martyn: Which is brown and pink.
Engelbrecht: Its not because as soon as you put brown it goes dominant over pink. With kokis.
Martyn: I was a subtle kid.
[Laughter]
Engelbrecht: Oh, fuck, I don’t believe you. I always had a conflict between which colour would be right. I always ended up drawing them brown and all my friends said no it is supposed to be pink otherwise they’re black.
Martyn: I don’t believe in that kind of segregation.
Engelbrecht: What segregation?
Martyn: Brown and pink segregation. Maybe one cheek would be brown and the other one pink.
Engelbrecht: Maybe the other one would be turquoise.
Martyn: She reckons it will be turquoise.
Engelbrecht: We were actually poor kids, we didn’t have turquoise. We had green and blue.
Martyn: What does turquoise remind you of?
Engelbrecht: A tortoise.
Martyn: A tortoise.
Engelbrecht: How did I know that?
Martyn: Because you are a lucky, lucky, lucky person.
Engelbrecht: Why does that make you lucky?
Martyn: Because if you didn’t know that turquoise and tortoise were related it might have significance in your after life.
Engelbrecht: Like what?
Martyn: Well you could get mixed up and end up in the section for rats instead of tortoises.
Engelbrecht: Rats aren’t turquoise though.
Martyn: Yes I know, but if you didn’t know that turquoise and tortoise… because when they ask you… what is…
Engelbrecht: You are talking so much fucking crap. Are you trying to get to some point?
Martyn: There is noo point.
Engelbrecht: Noo point.
Martyn: How do you define babbling?
Engelbrecht: When there is no sense in it.

 

SIDE B:

Martyn and Engelbrecht end their senseless conversation. Martyn and Allen begin to jam with
noises again. Then for a period, the tape records speech at half-speed, or double speed. The net
effect is a slowing down of speech.

Allen: Hay, Rhett everything you say will be recorded really fast.
Martyn: Wow, that’s just anarchistic and I’ve got absolutely nothing to say to an anarchist except […] is very alive very passionate, very intentional, and love is a void. Universal applauds action […] and a trade union which will give you new dimension to the art of speaking. Speaking has become just one of the intentions of the new age. The new age will carry on into an infinitive process. And this infinitive process will carry on through the after-life. We will never be left; we will never be spared from this eternal reaction and this eternal return and its much like a spiders web which will just go round, and round and eventually just come out of the ass of the spider. And then you will just go into the spider and, you know, play around with the spider’s body a bit. And then you will leave the spider at the mandibles of the spider into the body of the fly which was actually caught in the spider’s web which is significant in that what the spider generated out of its ass is eventually returned back to the product of the spider’s ass.
Siemon: Elmin, are you going?
Engelbrecht: I’m going. I’m going, I’m gone.
Allen: Why?
Martyn: I’m going. I’m going, dominance.
Engelbrecht: You guys are boring.
Allen: But we were boring at the beginning. [Laughter]
Engelbrecht: But you are even more boring.
Allen: Ah, you right. Where are you going?
Martyn: Everything is about birds.
Engelbrecht: To the Rift.
Martyn: Learn about birds.
Allen: OK, I’ll see you there later.
Martyn: Birds can make your life gracious. Graciousness can be a God given fact.
Allen: I’ll definitely see you there.
Martyn: God will give you grace and God will give you cancer. And God will give you love. And God will give you songs. God will give you the police.
Allen: Bye-bye everybody. Have a nice evening.
Martyn: God will give royalty and God will give you royal jelly. And God will give you genocidal genius. Are you going, Andrew?
Allen: Andrew, do you want to say anything?
Martyn: God will give you film, a film which will corrupt itself, through a process known as rhubarb rejuvenation.
Paterson: I don’t feel like saying anything. Thanks Siemon this is great. I’ve got lots of information.
Martyn: Rhubarb rejuvenation is the new drug which once exposed to film will release a violent toxic reaction with the media.
Allen: Andrew, what did you say?
Martyn: Once the media has discovered the violent toxic reaction of the film,
Allen: [To Paterson] Are you going now? Are you working tomorrow?
Martyn: they will be subjected to sporadic… population with other media members.
Allen: Ah shit, you don’t want to go to the Rift?
Martyn: In this case… [To man] Do you want to talk?
Allen: I don’t really have money to lend you, but I can… maybe lend you R5. I don’t really have money.
Man: No, I’ll leave it all up to you. You are a perfect speaker. And I’m glad you are talking.
Allen: It’s my dad’s money, but I have to give it back to him tomorrow.
Man: Keep it up, I’m going.
Martyn: Thanks.
Allen: But I swear to God that I am going to spend it tonight. And if I’m going to spend it, then you might as well spend it.
Martyn: [In American accent] […] Carling Black Label, the new brew from South Africa. The brew that made you 60 before you were 30.
Allen: The music that is playing now is Swans.
Martyn: The brew that made Hong Kong famous.
Allen: Ja,
Martyn: The brew that made Planet Hollywood and Hong Kong appear on the same T-shirt.
Allen: Yea…
Allen: Oh the bird sounds? That was feedback.
Martyn: The brew that made a star come out of the world
Allen: No, that was a tape we made the other night.
Martyn: The brew that made me grow a beard.
The brew that made you wear a string around you neck.
The brew that made other people put strings around your neck.
Allen: The music before the feedback was Can.
Martyn: The brew that made you hang.
The brew that made you get a hard-on.
Allen: Can and Swans.
Martyn: The brew that made your arms come out of your sleeves.
Allen: Er…I’ve lost the cover for Swans but the CD case is up there.
Martyn: The brew that bade your feet come out of your toes.
Allen: Actually, the group before the feedback was Faust.
Martyn: The brew that made your mother come out of your father.
The brew that made the first sonic, philharmonic orchestra.
Allen: They are really good groups.
Martyn: The brew that made your paint peel.
The brew that makes your evangelical status seem absolutely appalling.
The brew that made you famous.
The brew that made you 450 ml of pure indulgence.
The brew that made your Caltex Guard seem green.
The brew that made Etienne de Kock feel privileged.
The brew that made the speaker speak before he had spoken.
The brew that made me talk in this American accent.
The brew that gave life to life.
The brew that gave life to the after-life.
The brew that gave life to before you born.
The brew that gave life to your mother’s mother’s generation.
The brew that made you eat tomatoes.
The breeewwww…
Gimme a brew!
Gimme a B!
Gimme an R! Because R is not possible in this dimension.
R was not a possible suspect.
R gave rise to books.
R was a brave new world which could not construct itself around a sound.
R was a letter of my first name.
R was a name that didn’t… […]

There is quite a long break before Etienne De Kock takes up the microphone and recites some poetry.

De Kock: Hello, hello, Ja… Yes I just want to… Oh Shit… I just want to read some poetry and make one little point about what I do, and what a lot of people make and that is art. And there’s two things about art: what you do and how you do it. It’s what you say and how you say it. And art limited into categories. Its not held down and put this way or that way. It’s a very human thing. The first poem is about… it’s called: “After sending freshmen to describe a tree”. It’s quite an old poem. It talks about a college and college-students, right. And now there is a college called Milton, or something. And a freshman is someone new who arrives at university and this was written very long ago. Milton is obviously a literary college of some sort and literature and art are very closely linked. It’s called “After sending freshmen to describe a tree”:

“Twenty inglorious Milton’s looked at a tree and saw God.
Noted its clutching fingers in the sod.
Heard Zephyrs gentle breezes wafting through her hair.
Saw a solemn statue, heard a growing woody prayer.
Saw dancing skirts and the Lord’s desire.
Green arrows to God instead of pyre.
Saw symbols and squirrels, heard musins indeed.
Not one of the Miltons saw any tree.
[Laughter]
If you must see a tree, clean, clear and bright.
For God’s sake and mine, look outside your heart and write.”

That’s the first one and that just echoes some sentiments I have. [Laughter]
Because… Because I don’t like to listen always to the clamor of 100 saartjies [or softies] trying to discover themselves. [Laughter] And that is what the next poem is about. Its about youth… But it is also about someone who tried to find out about something or other, which I don’t understand. And this is written by Mervin Peake, who is a nonsense writer. Now nonsense depends more on the way you say it than what is said and it tends to build in you a mood very much like the way art does. It’s not a literary thing, or a literal thing. It tries and gives you some idea of what the […] without saying it.

“It worries me to know she cried, her voice both sharp and high.
Her dress was yellow as the hide of lions in July.
It worries me to know she cried and then she rolled her eyes aside.
Her friend, a dowdy looking man, began to tuck his shoe.
His collar was an […] his hair and beard were too.
What is it that worries you to know? He said is accents lush and low.
But she had rolled her eyes aside as though
She were not able to quell an inward rise of tide and feared to slip her cable.
He turned to where her eyes were bent upon a golden ornament.
Talk not of fancy friend to me though you are of in wise
My trouble is with what I see that is where the mischief lies.
It worries me to note and then it worries me she said again.
Perhaps if you could amplify your statement, child,
I could draw from my wath of wisdom. I am seldom understood.
And juggling with the two […] to give some angle that would fit.
Oh you are old and full of years but haven’t got a clue.
What use is solace to the fears my soul is stumbling through.
Even that ornament of gold is quite enough to turn me cold.
Your thwarted and convulsive thought is mere childsplay to me.
These mental wonderings are naught but biblic fantasy.
You are a whimsy thing and do not understand what’s good for you.
It’s you who’ll never understand. You’re ancient, cold and brine.
He heard her turn and felt her hand butter his socks behind.
Apparently she is on the pill, he thought,
What next, I’ll speak to her.
Child, child, child, child, child, he said
You must not be so prone to scoff at someone else’s lead.
Because it’s not your own.
Your wishfull dreams are gaunt and blue, your hand has blood upon it too.
My hand has blood upon it!
What grizzly wit is this? What do you mean, it’s as white as snow?
The kind a prince might kiss.
A figure, dear, of speech he said. It doesn’t mean your hands are red.
I always hated them and now you’ve brought them up again.
[…] my dear, I don’t know what you mean.
Those figures, sir, of speech she cried, her eyes as wild as they were wide.
Her […] calling exercised as many as I could.
I had the priest endure fires, I chopped down half the wood.
I love you wood of oaks […], who’s branches creaked against my house.
But it has gone and for a time, the figures let me be.
The speech was all about a crime I did when I was three.
And now you’ve let them use much more, she rose and wondered to the door.
Oh, I must bid you now and leave now for all my days.
Adieu, Adieu my heart shall grieve in multitudinous ways.
Though you may have your theories, I shall nurse a child named poetry.
And those dynamic things that lie within a carrot’s brain,
The passion of the wormwood fly that grows against the grain.
If you were such as I, you’d see the cravings of a buzzard’s wing.
I will serve […] not of my caliber, old clay,
You groped down the […] and theorising day.
You are old and clinical and can’t accept me as a simple flop.
There was no answer for alas the wise and cloudy man,
Had like a story come to pass directly it began.
It faded gently through the door and she was left to hold the floor.
She held it both within the pain of blisters at her palm,
Forced her to leave its open grain and wander to the farm.
The cattle mooed and the […] at home.
What did this sakkie mean?”
[Laughter]

And then there is another way of saying things. Well, this is a way of being a nonsense poet.

“I cannot give the reasons, I only sing the tunes.
The sadness of the seasons, the madness of the moons.
I cannot be didactical, lucid, but I can be quite obscure.
And positively […]
In gorgery and gushness and all that squishes by
My voice has all the lushness of what I try to buy.
And yet it has a beauty, proud and terrible.
Denied to those with duty is to be cerebral.
Among the infant mountains I make my vistas wade
And watch the sepia fountains throw up their lime-green spray.”

That’s the end of that one. [Laughter] And that shows a way of looking at things that I particularly enjoy. And then for all you people, you middle-earth, third-eye, politically correct people.

“Leave fibres on the wind, and if it bears your weight
you are a daughter of the dawn. If not, pick up your carcass, dry your tears.
For that sweet open wind, forgerer was from the fairy-land
But coming rather flooded through the kitchen floor
from where your uncle Yustis and his band of flautists
turn my cellar more and more into a place of hollow and decay.
That’s my theory on it, do your own.”
[Laughter]

And then finally…

“ Of pygmies, pounds and pirates
Of islands and lagoons
Of […] spotted crickets
Of crabs and […]
Of […] and broken bottles
Of quick-sand’s, cold and […]
Of […] and […]
I have no more to say
Of barley corn and furrows
Of farms and turtles
About such ghostly burrows […]
Of […] and pasteurs
Of skies both peak and green
I made these statements…
And I have no more to say.”
[Laughter]

It’s been such a long time since I’ve had such a captive audience. [Laughter]