the
almost
invisible
art
of
origami
republika
|
9.5.2
= ourstory
|
Disclaimer: The of Origami Republika (hereafter or_/) would like to point out that the views herein only counts for the core historical and philosophical participants of the project, not the individuals represented. On the other hand, the core is a catalysator for the whole, as it is the sum total that makes up OR.
OUR
OFFER >>>
+ life = origami - art
= origami - art + life
- art + life + origami
>>> YOUR CHOICE
UNEDITED & DYNAMIC TEXT SOURCE - 2 b added 2
The structure of the living sculpture (the real life theatre, gesamtkunst and microcosmos. - origami as a retrospective and futuristic titel)
ORIGAMI is to create something valuable by folding a piece of paper. ALCHEMY is to create something valuable by merging certain substances. In both cases you have to release artistic ENERGY.
Origami Republika ble opprettet som en frisone der kulturarbeidere med egne prosjekter og band skulle få lov til å uttrykke seg på andre måter enn de var vant med, og dette ligger fremdeles til grunn.
Et av hovedprinsippene bak er å synliggjøre alle deler av de kreative prosesser, dermed blir fotografer, designere, koreografer, faste arrangører, idémakere og andre medlemmer på lik linje med de tradisjonelle musikalske utøvere.
The process results focuses mainly on the effects of Making and Meeting in a ritually lit circle of consequence. Based on first hand experience and second hand thoughts. Not escaping people, but meeting them, as OR reject the separation between "us" and "them" et cetera.
Vi kjemper for retten til å være en del av folket, og vi ser oss priviligerte som har muligheten til å uttrykke oss til de grader. OR er et meget anarkistisk prosjekt, en Utopi for kulturarbeidere... Vi kjemper for retten til å være oss selv, og vi ser oss priviligerte som har muligheten til å slette ego-isolasjonismen fra intimiteten. OR er et meget zenarkistisk prosjekt, en Utopi for kulturarbeidere... Vi kjemper for retten til å delta uten å være interessert i [annet enn] helheten og skaperkraften.
"That
is to say that we have our own way, we always bravely say what is right
on this side and what is not, and what is right on the other side and
what is not. It should be clear to everyone that we cannot be no ones
appendage of nobodys politics, that we have our own point of view and
that we know the worth of what is right and what is not." Josip Broz
Tito
Now that
we are going (re)public.
New subunits and work has been popping up in Hungary, Puerto Rico, France,
Norway, Spain and the US, and who knows where else next.
"Ffoopp! Psssssjjj - the cork said - i'm leaving you on your own,
i can't stand the pressure!
Thanksssss - the champagne container said - off you go!" - aa
Not defined by what we're up against?!
The origamic quest and urge for otherness, for an utopian feeling of freedom (based on artistic discipline as KS put it), is hopefully not only a counter-reflex to the pressures of anglo-germania, as it would be degrading for it to be that dependent on the negative. OR should reflect nothing. I hope and must admit believe, that OR is more than that, that it is based on some primeordeal creative instincts or principles.
The more time passes - of which the origamic time zones and notions can of course be discussed in detail - the more agents of different background will hopefully interact, thus widening the scope between OR as cooked up in Norway as a serum against winter darkness and faceless people and as a flower opening up, leaking juices and spreading its pollen into its surroundings, reality as fertile soil.
I would like
to pick up the thread from 2000, when Mr. Bjarre curated a net exhibition
including our web index and Mr. Barcley was the first "outsider"
to try to apply serious art criticism to OR, finding it hard to place
it in the art 'discourse'. At that point I felt we were finally also allowed
into those circles, and it would be cowardice - and very unorigamic -
if OR didn't react to the chance. That's about the only rule you might
ever see a sketch of somewhere.
Not that the origamism wouldn't have lived a free life outside the art
world - many agents being brutally anti-academic and un-theoretical, and
with slapstick humour and controversies enough to fill the atlantic. But
as the form - now growing visible - that OR has taken and the very spirit/s
OR is based upon has some strong links to art history, it would have been
to sad to miss out. Anyhow, it is another room to be filled.
The limitations so far >>>
Time. Say no more.
What's In A Name? >>>
We're all on first names, yet we try to remember our numbers. Maybe we'll
just as well demand the ultimate dissolution of all single unities into
one all-embracing union where we all had to stand responsible for each
other. we all belong here, surely, only white, stale religious and chick
secularist supremacy shit says otherwise. all family names will be erased,
your individual status outside the origamism will be taken away from you,
equalised into the inner origamic hierarchy of activity. Starting up all
values are set one to one.
Let go of your family name: Again not cult style, you're encouraged to
have as wide a net of social contact as possible, and to brush your teeth.
Some of the names could obscure the equal status of every agent (and even
jump to the workbench to be part of it). Leading back to 80s and 90s literature
from TOPY, FIRST credibility lies in participation, proof that you DO
and that you SHARE. WHAT it is you do always comes SECOND, and does not
have to include making anti-music out of oil barrels or even be part of
the 'artistic' dialogue.
The hypes and trends of 'public' life we don't even have to mention here,
but some should lower their criticism, as we've seen 'provocative' art
become hyped too, and fed to the herd of post-industrial sheep. THIRD
- the good mediator of all things semi-arousing; HOW (well) you do it.
Triangular in shape, like the komkol logo.
There is even a hole in the middle of this theory similar to that in the
logo, and furthermore there is a bow to the open sky that is to be found
in the logo too.
Being forced into a defensive position can make anyone go wrong. Wrong
strategies are being chosen, we see it over and over again.
OR works in the tradition of artists like A. Wölfli, the Residents, K. Schwitters, B. Gysin and W. Burroughs, and organisations or movements like TOPY, NSK , and is both as old as the past and as young as the future. Information is timeless. Words are words, only experience is experience. We respectfully include to our advantage all suitable quotes from literature, friends, allies, enemies, heroes, cartoon characters, crime series... We search for our common roots to place our selves in some kind of intercontinental and multidimensional continuum.
It is important to understand that or_/ have no typical artistic language. They do not belong to any special trend or genre, simply by belonging to them all. Their quest is to try to make expressions in as many tongues as possible, this is slowly growing visible through their cd/vinyl releases, but the most important is still their use of the cassette media and xeroxable artwork as a test zone.
Medlemmene har svært ulik bakgrunn, noen med og andre uten utdannelse, noen med klassisk bakgrunn, noen med akademisk og de fleste rett fra 'rockmiljøet'. Dette gjør at vi i det ene øyeblikket kan komme med innspill i den pågående moderne kunst/filosofi-debatten for å i neste spille en ren techno-konsert, gå fra larmende harde fysiske performance-ting og rett til stille meditative tablåer, fra skarpe politiske uttalelser til poetiske romantiseringer, fra å lansere en plate med brask og bram til å lage en kassett i ett eksemplar.
The more
regular releases, manifestations and live performances would probably
happen anyway
OR sat out aiming at breeding culture - thus there had to be people present,
an audience, receivers and further sharers. Yes, simplicity is complex,
and you are now a part of that equation.
Vi har i mange sammenhenger opplevd at publikum uten noe som helst referansebakgrunn likevel kan se mye av det vi gjør som interessant, kanskje fordi vi legger til grunn det å kunne kommunisere, på tross av til tider såkalt 'smale' og eksperimentelle uttrykk. Vi har våre tanker om det vi gjør (motivene er til en hver tid flere enn antallet medlemmer), og vi lar publikum se den eller de deler av helhetene de selv ønsker. Man må søke for å bli informert om 'kryptologien', og slik informasjon er noe av det viktigste vi arbeider med sentralt: Detaljer, biografier, dokumentasjon, tilgjengeliggjøring, synliggjøring...
The first 15 years as amateur professionals, the next as professional amateurs, or "having no ambitions is pretty ambitious."
---------------------------------------------------------------
This is as free as it gets, people join us all the time, new constellations show up, more or less temporarily, in good fashion and only following the inner clock of the origamism. The more 'regular' bands and artists are adding weight to their cv's, the inner dialogues are kept up and visible for those who really read these pages in detail. The tales of weird places and events are multiplying, new and exciting tasks will be given us.
Denne mangfoldigheten og tildels kompromissløsheten gjør det naturligvis vanskelig å 'promotere' prosjektet i sin helhet, det fokuseres stort sett bare på enkelte ledd (realease-parties, utstillinger, bokprosjekt osv...).
Internt i Origami Republika er vi opptatt av å utfordre oss selv og hverandre, innad i miljøene vi vanker i blir vi ofte sett på som oppsternasige, dilletanter og provokatører, eksternt er vårt mål å sette publikum i spesielle stemninger, gjerne med Forundring, Forvirring og Fascinasjon som kjernepunkter. Hver hendelse og handling settes i en nærmest rituell kontekst, hvert objekt og hver tanke blir en del av puslespillet Origami Republika.
Vi aksepterer
ikke grensene for hva som kan defineres inn i Origami Republika. Vi vil
derfor alltid være større enn summen av de enkelte hendelser
og handlinger, fordi det reelle alltid vil speiles opp mot det fiktive:
utopien om en total og funksjonell kropp.
Vi har gått til kamp mot enfoldigheten og isolasjonismen som ofte
preger det etablerte musikk og kulturliv. Vi prøver å se
hvor langt vi kan la det gå. Vi opptrer dermed under høyst
ulike omstendigheter, som f.eks. rockklubber, teatre, gallerier, en jødisk
synagoge i Praha, et okkupert fort i Roma, tidligere kommunistlokaler
i Slovakia, en bakgård i Slovenia, i gatene i Oslo og Trondheim
osv..., med viljen til deltagelse og innsats som høyeste ideal.
Hvor langt kan den fulle kunstneriske FRIHET følge med inn i det etablerte? For hver seriøse plate eller konsert vi står bak - for hvert seriøse innspill i en pågående debatt og for hvert gjennomarbeidede konseptuelle utspill - kommer prosjektet selv opp med kontradiksjoner og 'motangrep'. Kritikk, refleksjon og kommentarer kommer som regel innenfra før media og publikum engang har visst hva som foregår. Det er blant annet alle disse kryss-referansene som nå blir synliggjort.
---
WORK (maximalism; intellectual s/m to intelligent s/m)
There´s no business like no business. Like in any form of prostitution - capital is only accumulated on a offer-demand basis. Also a certain amount of deprivation can be traced in many of the tasks.
A break with
the idea of consumerism, not by denying the value of matter, which in
our record-collecting youthculture is a contadiction in terms, but by
restructurizing it. Spiritual materialism. OR want to show that mediocrity
is the enemy of humanity, enthusiasm being our weapon. By behaving in
a good manor, even having a good reason for the hardest attacks on triviality,
we live under the guiding light that Charm is a sharp sword. OR know our
efforts are limited, so OR try to define our role as caretakers of what
OR might call human expressions that fall between the rigid cathegories
of amateur or professional work.
----
DEMOCRACY
The momentary magik of networking
The first manifestations of OR stressed the point that democracy only works when all expressions and reflections are considered as important. This belief equals democracy with multi-cultural anarchy in it´s most positive, responsible and constructive sense, and has nothing what so ever to do with the control and capitalism disguised as social democracy. OR only accept one world, but dimensions.
OR seriously judge even the most messed-up low-tech recordings and reproductions to be as important as cd´s and other high-tech products, OR are not willing to rate one type of expression over another, as all parts make one whole. OR see genius only to be wo-man minus mistakes. OR is about honesty and sincerety. OR see the music- and art-production only as tiny fragments in a greater task. Our work is a live field-research in modern street-philosophy/psychology, magik, myth and folklore.
OR fight for the right for every wo/man to be taken seriously when transmitting, even though the transmissions themselves can be of a humorous or unserious kind. OR believe that all expressions are important, justified by their existence. OR want to produce and document as much as OR can, thus making the invisible visible and unveil the fact that every wo/man have a strong urge to create.
It can be perceived as a paradox that OR state an almost naïve belief in Communication, as a lot of their work and processes are quite impossible to understand. But they express themselves on a lower frequency, tuning down the importance of Words and fading up the power of Logo, Symbol and Human Abstracts.
They state their belief that all cultural expressions are of utmost importance to the evolution of mankind in the right direction. OR focuse on the extreme importance of opening up senses in order to be illuminated by the trivial but divine bliss of momentary magic. Not on the mystical new age trip, but as a reasonable framework for continuity.
The cathartic, chaotic and therapeutic effects of the process is what is important in the quest to establish a new set of values, to pave way through our own prejudices and preconceptions, to give birth to the new body conceived in the womb eon, to construct a frame for a more all-inclusive life in the future.
We have won
the battle for the individual, so now we have to take one step ahead and
see how we can make all this individuality fit together without the big
cultural clashes. Again we´re into the importance of all these "fake"
or loose labels, slogans and organisations splashed around on album sleeves,
in interviews, flyers, press-releases etc…
OR fight fascist emotions on all levels, we also search inside our selves.
It´s a question of definition, it´s a giant task, we need
facts, and that justifies all documentation.
We are aware of the fact that mutual respect also includes a certain aspect of responsibility, which should be taken in the counting by for instance stating your right to ask unpleasing questions also about our selves, our closest friends and social relations. We know that this is the edge that very easily makes us unpopular, and there is few debates in which we´re not called neo-moralists.
half-way
to modernism.
(quote: movements in art)
----------
UNIOMYSTIKA
- spiritual maximalism
OR have no bounds regarding political, religious or other beliefs.
The androgyn ideal; not one, but opposites put together.
Balance; all senses alert.
Be both the whole and a part of it. The big picture mirrored in the small
things. As a world war is mirrored in the family quarrels. As the fascist
movement is mirrored in the prejudice of friends. As the ecological problem
is mirrored in your record collection.
What in one moment can materialise in high-tech academic art, can in the
next moment perfectly well carnate as street-wise direct actions. Our
main slogan is taken from the mail art scene: MAXIMALISM NOW!, forcing
the involved to take a step away from triviality and mediocrity and stumble
into the giant puzzle of a spectral life. Actions, products, processes
and performances are re/defined as icons, relics and rituals. This is
the core of the Spiritual Maximalism.
OR stated early in the career the importance of Process over Product,
but it should soon be clear that if the Process accumulated a good Spirit
and Atmosphere, the Product would end up better than expected after the
"ordinary quality standards". Over the years OR have performed
their various "public rituals" well over a hundred times, using
every simple means necessary. From this grew the term "Spiritual
Maximalism", which means to canalize all effort and energy into Life
as well as Activity, without separating "art" from "existence".
Most of their work is very situationistic and low-tech. They do not have
a lot of equipment or safe record deals, it is all worked out through
Friendship, Trust and Mutual Respect.
It should be noted here that in the context of the OR myth, the public
field-research, the very process of "figuring it out", cd´s
/ videos and vinyl are counted as completed / interlocked / "dead"
matter for our part. This is why OR so eagerly seek labels and access
points interested in releasing/reproducing our works, thus giving them
life again, as OR have to go on. Their time is of different reasons limited.
OR is in the end about making all these ravings, reflections and reconsiderations
avoidable, going for a life with an occasional bliss of the Purest of
Light. It is about Erasing All Preset Patterns. About Erasing All Present
Patterns. It is all about the nothingness of Peace.
----
ORGANIC
VIRTUAL REALITY - the origami game
"Surrealis Muss Sein!"
OR is a kind of organic virtual reality, as there is so many spectres
and angles to be considered, both in joining the vast and over-exposed
industry of musical production and in creating a test zone for various
street-philosophy. After so much output, the life put into the projects
seems to accumulate, and the project now exists on it´s own. In
peoples minds and memories. Seen in this light OR is a two-way mirror,
sometimes the involved stand on the outside just acting as traditional
performers, and sometimes they stand on the inside checking the effects
of what they do on the audiences, their friends, the media and most important
themselves.
Although at this stage of the process it might seem as OR only deal with total chaos and deconstruction, as OR are changing the (official part of the) concept, the involved, the style and the contexts repeatedly. It is in fact our belief that the basic philosophy and motives of the project will become obvious, yet undefined, as more and more work is nailed down in public, and more and more processes are interlocked. OR will therefore spend less time trying to explain what we are up to, thus canalizing the energies into doing instead of talking. The exception from this rule is the publishing of this book, where all connections are reveiled to those interested.
merz vs
the origamism
"Somewhere over the merzbow".
Merz was a personal art movement verving on the mystical. Through poetry,
collage, constructions, it evolved into a Cathedral.
The origamism
is a bio-mass of rest, work and worship.
Merz is a building for worship, restlessly worked upon.
Let it be known that the origamism on the other hand can be seen either as the village and scenery surrounding the church, or as the inhabitants there. All professional and non-professional parts filled. In the earliest stage of the origamism, one even considered to rename it The Village People, only to find out that that name had already been taken.
It clearly must be mentioned here that origamism has been alive in churches, a synagogue, museums and a mausoleum. The Republika was declared, a word that gives entriely other passive-aggressive associations. Absolutely not in tune with the "Hoisting The Transparant Flag" campain around the same time. Rainbow flag seen in black&white maybe, but surely not a Cathedral.
The Hannover Merzbau grew from pictures hung on a wall in an artists studio, to be intertwined with threads, then wire, then plaster, then wood. Two rooms, the basement, the hallway, up the skylight and out down to the ground, stopping inches over the watertank surface. From including a myriad of allegorical items carefully placed in "grottos" and on "columns" it was painted over and covered over so that the reference material was no longer visible. Yet still present.
It ended as Kurt A96 had to flee with hos son Ernst to seek refuge in Norway. His original Hannover Merzbau was later bombed - ironically by the allied forces.
He tried
a new Merzbau - Haus Am Bakken outside Oslo, but again had to flee. This
time trying to hide on the west coast, starting another less known Merzbau
on Hjertøya outside Molde. Not working.
(i am living...)
Going to England, spending over a year in prison camp where he was well-known for his smelly glue-pot and love for merzing beauty from the little they had. Released, travelling north to Ambleside, where he started his last Merzbau, the Merzbarn. The remains of this is stacked away safely but unseen by a museum in Newcastle.
It is a great pleasure to tell that no less than four origami agents have seen and touched this piece of wall. That happened in 1997, as a starting point in the middle is within conceptual consistency, origami seem to cut up time.
We have earlier declared that maximalism also includes a place for minimalism.
TRADITION - stepping away from sub-culture
Our methods are based on the knowledge that Now is a fine balance between Then and When. We get our strength simply through comparing the options.
Of course we´re obviously inspired by various movements and predecessors from history. In the bliss of the Spiritual Maximalism we shamelessly cut and edit from the vast load of accessible information handed down to us. But as an Intelligent, not Intellectual origamism, its inspiration comes from wholly different sources, as all expressions hide a bit of the truth.
Most journalists and audiences of OR put us in some box as "avant-guarde", "post-industrial", "post-modern", "alternative" or "independent". We are totally dependent. We are dependent on belief in what we do, in the trust of our friends and families, in the separation between "us" and "them" (still including both in our selves).
We have already broken away from or broken down the limitations of the main steam or normal. This is the time for cautious contemplation, self definition, self discipline, self justice and self criticism (mainly through self irony). For OR, to be part of the socalled alternative or sub-/counter-cultural scene is not at all the final stage of self-realization. OR will not rest here, we still have gained little, our dreams are not at all that limited. We are so tired of all the resignated conservative "radicals" within our own social circles.
We are not afraid of raising our voices in these matters, even though we are aware of being attacked by lots of those people close to us. When they repeatedly return any attempt of making a dialogue of where we stand, they simply show who they are. To be frightened or uncertain is human, it´s both the greatest task and the sorest experience. But to hide it behind easy images and appearances is not forgiveable. We all do at times, sure, but this should not interfere with our utopy. We do not turn our back to our idea, that the simplest way of changing Things is by starting with your self and your closest friends. It would be cowardice, so we rather go in battle with our selves.
Of course we wish we could be the moral majority, as we believe in our own values and methods. We are suffering from Horror Vacui (the fear of empty rooms).