speaking truth to power through humor

mexico city is a very large city. it often feels very small. There are a few neighborhoods which are connected by a myriad of backstreets and clogged avenues–la condesa, roma, polanco being the favorites of the cultural (and economic) elite. If you have a destination in mind, you’d better know your way, though, as cabs seem to be reluctant to use maps. Perhaps this is because Mexico City (aka DF, day effay), like the Zona Sul in Rio De Janeiro, operates on a different logic than traditional cartographic mapping strategies can provide.

Here, like Brazil, red lights turn to green at night, both for the safety of the driver, as well as for the speed of the streets. Accidents are frequent, but it is a small price to pay for convenience. I look everywhere for things that connect to each other. Street signs, bodies, waves of cars and psychotic bus drivers only seem to interrupt the flow of Mexico City. The city itself seems to move sluggishly, shifting its weight around, fed by a steady diet of Tequila, Tacos and Tumult.

I used to try to connect the dots in Los Angeles, but there, the sprawl and the car culture seems to overdetermine even the smallest of quotidian desires–a trip to the supermarket is like a small expedition, connected by quasi-anonymous superhighways and bumper to bumper traffic. Here, as I sit in la Condessa, I am reminded more of the Zona Sul in Rio, where I could walk from Leblon to Ipanema, to Copa Cabana, to Leme,or head in to Lagoa, Jardin Botanico and Gavea. I could walk now to la Roma, or to my work, and in a matter of 20 minutes along tree-lined streets, arrive at my desination.

But then there are the connections that go beyond the streets, the ones we can’t quite map. Tomorrow night, I will go see Jose Gonzales play again. Here, in DF, there is a separation from the cosmopolitan Rio. The North/South Divide seems to be ebbing and flowing. Rio, though receptive to visitors from “the exterior”, feeds more from itself, relies on its own ever-expanding repetoire of sounds and art to create its discourse. Perhaps it is the geographic proximity that affords DF the opportunity to have so many artists arriving from metropoles around the world.

Or maybe it is due to a lack of fear, an implicit understanding that no matter what, a strong, fortified, rich national culture only grows with each new arrival, each new guest, each new ex-patriot, each new sound. There is no fear of representation, and a critical gaze towards multinational and transnational corporate power can be felt from all sides, despite the overwhelming participation of its citizens in these power sites.

On the surface, once given the opportunity to nationalize and grow, Mexico seems to emulate this international model, not oppose. Here one only need think of Carlos Slim, the second richest man in the world, owner of just about everything national one sees—from a cellphone monopoly, to a k-mart like store “Sandborns”, to a large stake in phillip morris and all the national production— to understand that what is needed is not “success” but new models for distribution. The average income of a mexican is $7,450 dollars a year. Carlos Slim’s worth is conservatively estimated at 60 billion.

Yet, if one turns on the radio, or walks in Centro, it seems it is as Attali reminds us, that music always leads the way. And the sounds from the streets now are definitively local, often pointing to the depletion of the most cherished national resources–the population of mexico only rises 1% a year, due largely to illegal and legal migration North. What one hears more often than not, like Rio, is a calling for the nation to unite based on local representation, civil strength.

One video: yo soy de puebla–a classic from grupo sonador for those who haven’t already heard. Of course, it’s Puebla, not DF, but the amazing shopping mall starbucks montage vs. old city comparison still sticks…and hard. It is from Eddie..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddHgeAi2NXY

My embed here

Get the Flash Player to see this player.
And a second Sonideiro track, which led me to the first video above: La cumbia de los barrios

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I am pleased to announce that I will be having a solo show at the yautepec gallery,
opening this thursday, may 8 in mexico city, mexico.

Below is the press release:

DANIEL PERLIN - House as Speaking Organ / Casa Como Organo Parlante

Thursday, 8 May 2008 - Thursday, 22 May 2008

Opening Reception

Thursday, 8 May 2008:
08:00 pm - 11:00 pm

In “House as Speaking Organ/Casa como Organo Parlante,” Daniel Perlin transforms Mexico City’s Yautepec gallery into a house-as-speaking-organ (HSO). The unique layout of the space has inspired a series of site-specific pieces, in which Perlin will create networked works that treat the house as organ, works as cells and tissues, tissues as foundations for an organ, and organ as a political force within social bodies.

Individual works will be centered around networked and remote communication within the organ. Mini FM transceivers, fm radios, a single monitor with multiple keyboards for input, telegraphy, cables, internal telephony, cups and lines, and other works serve as conditions of possibility for bodies to work within and beyond the house, as sites as residues of potential communicative actions.

Daniel Perlin is an artist based in New York. He works across media creating sound, video, objects, performances and installations. His work has been shown and heard at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The New Museum, The Chelsea Art Museum, Postmaster’s Gallery, D’Amelio Terras, TN Probe Tokyo, Temporary Contemporary Gallery London, Guggenheim Film and the Centre Pompidou. Recently, he has collaborated with Natalie Jermijenko on the installation For the Birds for the Whitney Biennial 2006, Rem Koolhaas and Sanford Kwinter on the installation of Mutations, and with Vito Acconci on the public sound installation Viraphone in Madrid, Spain. He has also been a sound designer for such films as as Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy, Errol Morris’ Fog Of War and Phil Morrison’s Junebug. In 2006 he completed a residency as studio artist at the Whitney Independent Study program. Currently, he is researching traffic and mapping techniques.

Yautepec 103 (entre Vicente Suarez y Michoacan)
Col. Condesa, Del. Cuauhtemoc
Ciudad de México, D.F. 06140
México
http://yau.com.mx

Para citas / For Appointments: (044) 55-2849-5559
yautepec103@gmail.com

I always have a hard time presenting my work, I like to blaze through it, the same way I listen to the radio, skipping channels…

fortunately, tonight in Mexico City, I get to show using the pechakucha format: 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide, 8 minutes.

I will be showing an overview of works, and talking a little about my upcoming solo show at Yautepec Gallery (may 8!) here in DF.

—————————–

and now for something completely/////

as a side note I stumbled upon N-RON replete with photo by the magnificent Gaia in  this month in Kid Kameleon’s column…buy it, or better yet,

download it

art fairs— crowe´s critique and analysis of the market in this month´s art forum seems to get closest to my feelings about art fairs…

but there is something nice about FEMACO this year, some hopeful hopelessness at the very least. Getting to see some really compelling local works, slammed up against and harnessing the industry´s consumptive energies, only serves to further build my hopes up about the possibilities of a levelling of the playing fields in the art markets. The capital that circulates seems to overdetermine so much of even the most localized production. But sometimes some works sneak through unscathed.

Or others choose to point to the M-C-M1 farce by harnessing it´s very spectacle.

The complexities of the market here seem to me to lean towards concepts of hybrid markets, turning much more to  Jan Nederveen Pieterse than more traditional notions of world systems theories from Balibar and Wallerstein. Like the armory, this is an art fair. But situated against such obvious combined and uneven development, critical works seem to have a lot more sway…or at least point to the fallacy of the art market.

Damo Suzuki pasó los últimos años de la década de 1960 viajando por Europa, tocando en las calles, durante la etapa final de su adolescencia.

Cuando Malcolm Mooney, vocalista de CAN, dejó dicha banda, Holger Czukay y Jaki Liebezeit encontraron a Suzuki cantando en una calle de Munich. Invitaron a Suzuki a integrarse a CAN y se presentó con ellos en un concierto esa misma tarde.

En los años 70 Damo Suzuki, junto con CAN y otros grupos como Kraftwerk, Faust y Neu! inventaron un nuevo género musical conocido como Krautrock, que se definió como un sonido diferente al rock británico y norteamericano e influenció a musicos como Brian Eno, David Bowie y más tarde a Joy Division y los Happy Mondays, por citar algunos.

Desde 1983 Damo Suzuki, ya en solitario, ha desarrollado un proyecto en el que incluye músicos locales de diversos países (denominados “Sound Carriers”) en conciertos que son sesiones de improvisación. De esta manera integra y organiza una “red” de colaboradores llamada Damo Suzuki Network.

El próximo 18 de abril Damo Suzuki se presentará por primera vez en México en el PASAJE AMERICA.

Se integran como “Sound Carriers” Alexis Ruiz (Jessy Bulbo), Carlos Navarrete (Six Million Dollar Weirdo, Los Fancy Free), Carlos Icaza (Los Fancy Free, El Pan Blanco), Martín Thulin (Los Fancy Free), Jay de la Cueva (Titán, Moderatto) y Julián Lede (Titán, Silverio).

Después del concierto se realizará un evento en el que Nuevos Ricos presentará un nuevo lanzamiento:

CONFETI DE MIERDA, una compilación de nuevas bandas asesinas.

Invitado especiál:

dj n-ron (brooklyn, ny)

Concierto: 18 de abril
10 PM
Pasaje América
Calle 5 de Mayo # 7 int. 1, Centro Histórico
México D.F.
Costo: $ 50.00
Boletos a la venta en la sede el día del evento.

Para mayor información visite:

www.damosuzuki.de
www.nuevosricos.com
www.pasaguero.com

95% of 18-24 year olds steal music, if you are the RIAA.

what is the strategy? over and over, a struggle to respond.

one the one hand, trent reznor (of the Reznor industrial heating family, also of nine inch nails) says just give it away as mp3.

orthodox folks (like Reznor) dis Radiohead´s efforts as too low res (160 mbps not 320 mbps) and too difficult to use- nonetheless, seems like a new strategy. Their cd sales were still atop the charts–the fetish object can´t be denied.It is certainly a step away from the main industry´s commercial strategy, which seems to be catch theives and lose shitloads of money.

I think that it will be all about the live experience. The spectacle. The show. And the rarified fetish object sold as art.

Hence, all my upcoming audio releases will be all downloadable digital for free or donation, and I will create a few vinyl copies.

That´ll show em.

here´s a mix that will be played differently live at fashion week in Mexico City, the 17th of April. (tracklist)

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