• CONTINUE TO "I"

What are we going to do about that?” And the man says, “But Mr. sir policeman sir, you caught a person who’s stolen the ontological crisis and at the same time has no ontology of his own, what is there to be done?” And the policeman says that there really isn’t much to be done and most importantly, the ontological crisis isn’t bananas and so the man is like supposedly free to go. The man rejoices, hands over the ontological crisis to the policeman and walks off. The policeman stands still with the ontological crisis on his hands and gaping at the starry sky above him. When he’s done gaping, he doesn’t know what to do then and so he walks. He walks and meets an old man. The old man is leading a donkey. The old man asks whether he wouldn’t trade the donkey. The policeman nods, gives him the ontological crisis and receives a donkey in return. The policeman takes the donkey to the station and the old man trades and when he does, a needle is all that he has left. And that’s the end of the story about the ontological crisis.

Or another man, walking along Na Příkopě Blvd, formerly Am Graben, meets a penguin. In a word, Prague, he thinks and walks on. He walks on along Na Příkopě Blvd and meets another two penguins. He dismisses the thoughts of a Pittsburgh Penguins away game and walks on. Na Příkopě Blvd goes by quickly and he keeps bumping into more and more penguins. Eventually he gets used to it. But what he doesn’t get used to is that Na Příkopě Blvd has ceased to end, there aren’t any side streets leading from it and all the doors are locked, the shops are having their inventory check and the mobile network is down, and penguins are everywhere. So the man walks on and on, Na Příkopě Blvd doesn’t end, but converges into infinity and before the man reaches the crossroad in front of U Hybernů Palace, he dies. That he would die amongst penguins on Na Příkopě Blvd is something that would never occur to him, occurs to him.

Or differently: One man wakes up, dresses and eats breakfast, locks his apartment and calls the elevator. Even more differently: One man is coming from work, he walks up to the building he lives in, unlocks the main door, calls the elevator now one of those boys I did an interview with walked by and whose story succumbed to disintegration, it occurred to me that he might come and knock the daylights out of me, but he was searching for someone, not searching himself, the elevator arrives and the man gets in and presses the six. It takes awfully long, suddenly the elevator stops and the doors open. He’s on an unknown floor, an antique matron with a palace poodle standing in front of him pushes her way into the elevator. The doors close and the elevator ascends. It stops, the doors open and the woman steps out straight into a park that stretches outside the doors. The doors close and the man in the elevator goes up. After four hours, the elevator stops, but nothing happens. Only –“You have time.” – is heard. And the man has to admit that that’s really true because he’s coming from work. After a minute the elevator starts moving again and ascends and ascends and the man is slowly starting to get used to the weird feeling he has in the elevator in his building, even though there are altogether only seven floors.

COLOPHON

Ondřej Buddeus — A me

Is part of Ondřej Buddeus‘s participation in the Adaptation.

“But the need to adapt, uncoordinatedly, individualistically, without any authority, leader and order, to changes we initiate ourselves. Adaptation signifies now (asynchronously) and here (various places) an affinity with Utopia, which remains a non-place. Adaptation to conditions of reality which the collective dialectic of individuals without leader and order themselves create.“

Babi Badalov, Hafiz, Lia Perjovschi, Loulou Chérinet, Ondřej Buddeus, Ruti Sela, Shady Elnoshokaty, Vít Havránek, Xu Tan, Zbyněk Baladrán.

Curatorial Consultant Visual Arts:

Anne Faucheret

Translation: © Tereza Novická, 2013.

Graphic design: www.mutanta.com

We would like to thank all participants of the festival who took part in the project.

We would also like to thank

the following individuals:

Hana Buddeus, Věra Krejčová,

Antonín Mareš

Published by Steirischer Herbst Festival

GMBH Graz 2012 in collaboration with

tranzit.cz

© Ondřej Buddeus, 2013

ISBN: 978-80-87259-18-4

steirischer herbst festival gmbh

Sackstraße 17 / 8010 Graz / Austria

Supporters:

Land Steiermark Kultur

Stadt Graz Kultur

Bundesministerium für Unterricht,

Kunst und Kultur

Programm Kultur 2007-2013 der

Europäischen Gemeinschaft

Graz Tourismus

Sponsors:

Legero / con-tempus.eu

Steiermärkische Sparkasse

Immovate