The pervert's guide to ideology Partie Sept/Konsum fickt ego/The past is over

"So it's truly that we can imagine a kind of a pervert scene of universal fraternity where Osama Bin Laden is embracing president Bush, Saddam is embracing Fidel Castro, a white racist is embracing Mao Zedong, and all together they sing Ode to Joy, it works. And this is how every ideology has to work: it's never just meaning, it always has to work also as an empty container, open to all possible meanings. It's, you know, that gut feeling that we feel when we experience something pathetic and we say, "oh my God, I'm so moved, there is something so deep", but you never know what this depth is. It's a void.

Now, of course, there is a catch here. The catch is that, of course, this neutrality of a frame is never as neutral as it appears." 

"Así que, en realidad, podemos imaginar una especie de escena pervertida de fraternidad universal en la que Osama Bin Laden abraza al presidente Bush, Saddam abraza a Fidel Castro, un racista blanco abraza a Mao Zedong, y todos juntos cantan el Himno a la alegría; funciona. Y así es como debe de funcionar toda ideología: nunca se trata solo de significado, siempre tiene que funcionar también como un contenedor vacío, abierto a todo tipo de significados. Es, ya sabes, ese presentimiento que se siente cuando experimentamos algo patético y decimos, "oh, Dios mío, me ha conmovido, hay algo tan profundo en esto", pero nunca se sabe lo que es esa profundidad. Es un vacío.

Ahora, por supuesto; hay trampa. aquí. La trampa es que, claro, este marco de neutralidad nunca es tan neutral como aparenta." 

All pictures taken on 11th July 2016 around the East End Gallery, Kreuzberg, Alt-Treptow, Friedrichshain and Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, Germany.

Auf Kosten der Gesundheit Teil Zwei

Found the dead body of a BMW (not so sure about the model, kind of difficult to determine with certainty due to pyromania) last Monday noon while grocery shopping near Lohmühlenpark, the second most disappointing park of Hamburg just surpassed by the cash machine at the end of my street. This marvellously efficient work of German engineering had been burned to a crisp by someone who surely hated the guts of its proud upper-middle-class basic owner, probably due to various reasons, usually committing adultery with his wife. The four-wheeled vehicle's coachwork had melted and solidified, and ashes were covering the car of some monogamous gentleman parked on its right side. People passing by stared at it without the bewilderment I would have expected, maybe because it's a Central-European tradition and they're kind of used to it. I'll never know if the police photographer who took pictures of the corpse before me was Tom Petty or just a character in Guitar Hero 2. But its slow, merciless death looked like the most dramatic, thrilling thing I saw that day. One can never be thankful enough for the love and the insanity and the fire, specially all three combined.*


*This may or may not be the second issue of a series called Auf Kosten der Gesundheit, may or may not, depending on the rise or decrease of intentional homicide rate in Germany, Hamburg in particular.

All pictures taken on the 2nd May 2016 in the surroundings of Lohmühlenpark in Hamburg, Germany.