1 L
I can’t nearly imagine that I’m now fifty-four years old. It’s like having woken up some days ago. It’s a terrible thing to think that I have lost forty years.
What can save me in this situation? That I only look at what I reached in my life?
Maybe first of all, what I own – it’s not much what I own. I don’t have much money, I don’t have a big house, I don’t have more than one used car, I don’t have things of high value.
What is going to save me in a country where the rate of suicide is the second highest in the world after Hungary? Only when I go on doing meaningful things which I can support and which I can respond to.
I also take care a little bit of my body and soul – it’s maybe a way for the future.
I can see clearly now that youth doesn’t last the whole life. You can try to keep thinking, behaving young, but it can’t last for life. Sometimes you also have to accept that you can’t do what you did when you were twenty or twenty-five when you reach the age of fifty.
My success is in my life. There are more successes which I see as successes. Maybe others don’t see these as successes. Also my experience now is that a lot of success is hidden, but not only from me, from everybody.
Somebody working thirty years in a profession, for example a plumber, has serviced in his working life maybe two thousand sinks or toilets or showers and so many people took benefit from it because it is absolutely necessary that it works to keep the body in a healthy condition and to have a standard of life which is acceptable. But nobody, after thirty years when the plumber goes into pension, will invite him for a TV talk show or for a radio interview or for publicity on posters to tell him what success he had in his life. It’s in a way true. It’s really an experience that one has to accept, that a lot of success is hidden.
I think that our life is like the movement of a screw a little bit. We have to screw through life. Maybe sometimes it screws slowly, sometimes it screws back, maybe sometimes it screws fast, maybe the screw gets lost when somebody can’t reach high age, for example by accident.
For a long time, my movement was like a sea movement, like waves: Below and on top, below and on top, below and on top.
But now I’m coming to a movement more like a slow screw, put into the surface where it should be. Yes, it is that way. And I don’t know my surface yet. I don’t know my fitting position yet. So this may be the last surprise of my life. Sure, it is clear that the last layer where we will end up in is the earth, the earth as a planet. But the material where I am screwing in, I don’t really know it yet.
2.1 L
I.
The Near Imagination
I can’t nearly imagine
I’m now.
It’s like having woken up.
It’s a terrible thing.
I have lost.
What can save me?
I look at what I reached.
2.2 L
II.
Going on
I own.
It’s not much: I don’t have
things.
What is going
to save me?
Rate of suicide is.
I go on.
2.3 L
III.
A Way
I can support.
I can respond.
I take care a little bit.
It’s maybe a way.
2.4 L
IV.
I can see clearly
You:
reach.
were twenty.
can’t do what you did.
have to accept.
But it can’t last.
You can try.
2.5 L
V.
My success is
I see
my experience is now.
It’s really an experience.
It is absolutely.
One has to accept.
2.6 L
VI.
The Screw
I think
life is.
We have to screw.
It screws slowly.
It screws fast.
Screw gets lost.
Can’t
reach.
2.7 L
VII.
The movement
Now
I’m coming to a movement
put into the surface.
It should be.
Yes, it
is.
It is clear.
We will end.
I am screwing.
I don’t know it.
I was born in 1984 and I think it wasn’t an accident, but a coincidence that preceded the date of my birth by about 40 weeks. I was born in 1984, but in 1983 the organic matter that I developed after birth already existed. I was born in 1984 and in an upright position my head was 40 cm above ground, currently it is 144 cm more. I was born in 1984 and currently my live weight including bones is more than about 23.5 times higher. I was born in 1984 and until recently I was convinced that people born in the same year are young. I was born in 1984 according to a calendar used in Europe, America, Africa, Australia and a part of Asia. According to the Chinese calendar, I was born in the year of the Rat. I was born in 1984 and that’s lasted to this day.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling that I truly know something.
On more occasions I’ve had the intense feeling that I don’t know.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling
that I have something.
The feeling that I don’t have something doesn’t worry me. On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling that I have responsibility.
This intense feeling keeps me company on a daily basis.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling that I can afford not to bother with something.
I experience the feeling that I can afford not to bother with something rarely.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling that I wanted to have something so bad, I would steal it.
When I was ten and I got caught stealing chewing gum in a store, this feeling left me.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling that I don’t have time. This feeling is current, even though I have a feeling that time plays no part in this. I didn’t have that feeling during my childhood.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling that I needed to be
praised. Until recently, I thought this feeling had disappeared with adulthood, but it turns out that isn’t true and currently, this feeling is intensely pissing me off.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling that I can do whatever I want.
I don’t have it anymore.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling that everyone loves me.
This feeling turned out to be a utopia after I started kindergarten.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling that I was rich.
It was only an ephemeral occurrence.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling that I’d done something good.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling of being like Beuys in his performance with the coyote.
On several occasions, however, I’ve also had the feeling of being like the coyote in the performance with Beuys.On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling that I couldn’t go on anymore.
On several occasions, the fear of failure has driven me to the edge of mental of physical ruin, but it prevailed over the desire to not bother with it anymore.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling of being beautiful.
On a number of occasions, it was exactly the other way around.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling that it isn’t possible to write a single word.
This feeling recurs periodically.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling that I couldn’t eat another bite.
But usually I managed one or two more.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling that I would throw up.
On several occasions, I did.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling that I would fly off the handle.
So far, it hasn’t happened.
On several occasions during my life, I’ve had the intense feeling of having an intense feeling.
It was only intense on several occasions and it hardly ever had anything to do with art.
While writing this in the gallery, two girls showed up, unpleasant. One of them noticed the text on the wall “it is” and took a photograph. That made me happy. Reproduction, the opportunity that someone might read it again one day. I’ve been writing for almost 10 hours now and it still feels pretty much the same as it did in the beginning. The greatest experience was writing blind. Here in the gallery. I didn’t have to think. As a lazy person I don’t like to think, at the same time it satisfies me. I wonder if maybe Babi, when he did his textual ornaments on the wall, thought about it. Or rather, I don’t suppose he did it in the same manner as me, philosophizing. When Lukáš plays the guitar, it looks as though he were thinking with his fingers and ears. When Babi tattoos his wall, he thinks with his brush, paint and eyes. When I’m writing this text, I think with my hands and eyes and words and vocabulary and head and these last two things as if block the thought process of the text. The text is a medium against immediacy. A master’s brushstroke? A slogan!
Against the weight loss of the mosquito maggot!
Shove your fingers into flour!
For the brighter future of our bugs!
Pull out grass, it won’t diminish!
A fair approach to itchiness!
Blink, you will feel relief!
Be sure to do your best drizzle!
Buy a pinecone!
Love one another and eat bananas!
For a brighter past!
Say no to the shelf-life of bullshit!
Don’t scratch and drive!
Keep your bellies tucked in!
The world wants waste bins!
You can’t please a carrot!
Wave, you will have memories!
Persevere, nothing will change!
Fold paper, it will stay folded!
Go vote, at least you’ll get fresh air!
Don’t smell good!
Slogans broaden horizons!
Because I work with text, I’m capable of not thinking about anything. I would like to know what time it is. Half past nine. You can hear it when I scratch my nose. Some woman wanted to talk to me, I started to indicate with my hands in the air somehow and she understood that it won’t be possible. I smoke when I don’t know what to write. I can’t keep writing constantly as I had thought I could because with my fingers on the keyboard I think in words that link into syntagmata and create clause webs. Those are complex to such an extent that I can’t produce them by the yard in the same quality. Or I don’t know how to. With the same richness and meaningfulness of content. The amount of written words should be minimal. Writing also means editing. I’m going to go edit. From the top. I didn’t edit much. I’m still waiting for something awesome to happen one day that I utterly won’t be able to understand. To understand:
to mentally grasp
to mindlessly grasp
to perceive and still comprehend as a whole
to imagine what it means
to feel that it directly affects me
to physically react to it by flooding out endorphins at an extraordinary rate
to share it
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
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