REPORT ON THE OCCUPATION OF THE CABARET VOLTAIRE

End of December 2001,one of my friends from Zürich’s punk scene  told me about an empty house he had seen in the Niederdorf, the cities historical centre. He described the object as a five stories high medieval structure, with a strange memorial plaque on its side entrance, which was dedicated to some sort of cabaret. The description of the house matched a very familiar object in Spiegelgasse. I made a reconnaissance through the Niederdorf area & there it was: the birthplace of Dada actually stood abandoned. After a few inquiries, I found that the building was to be renovated & actual conversion plans had already been submitted. All permissions were obtained. A renowned auction house intended to move in after renovation. The owner of the property was the Rentanstalt, a Swiss insurance company. I called up a meeting to discuss technical details & a cultural program for a weekend of some squatting action. I was amazed at how little the future art squatters knew about the importance of the Cabaret Voltaire, & it seemed essential to me to initiate a dada revival by occupying the building.

Im Bett mit Alienisten: Interview with the Interior Ministry

After a mutual friend put me into contact with the Alienist cell, the interview was conducted via email correspondence with an anonymous “committee representative” of the Interior Ministry of The Republic of Žižkov. I was explicitly instructed that “the number of questions would be limited to a prime number less than 19.” The dear madam, sir, or other sapient invariably responded promptly and efficiently, making me suspect a chatbot doing the writing from the other end – although I don’t fathom the they could quite script that special cocktail of hard-boiled blassé and high-brow détournement just yet…

ALIENIST BROADSHEET

Alienist Broadsheet #1 (November 2017) PDF

LINES FOR A MANIFESTO OF ALIENIST POETRY

AUTOMATON 1           The continuing adventures of.

                                       To seize power, firstly they had to say, We will seize power.

                                       Breakneck over the rooftops,

                                       to go where no language dared to go.

                                       In a collision of neutron stars.

                                       Inside the impossibly massive particle at the heart of everything.

LONDON CONGRESS

THE MOVEMENT OF HISTORY COURSES WITH PROBABILITIES WHOSE “OUTCOMES” ARE INDETERMINATE, WHOSE PERTURBATIONS BEAR THE POTENTIAL TO CATASTROPHICALLY DESTABILISE ANY PROSPECTIVE FUTURE & THE SYSTEMS ERECTED TO FORTIFY THE CLAIMS OF POWER UPON IT.

– INTERIOR MINISTRY

LINES FOR A MANIFESTO OF ALIENIST POETRY

TOWARDS AN ALIENIST POETICS

(NOTES ON THEORY & EXPERIMENT)

 

THERE ARE ALSO WORDS NOT IN DICTIONARIES

Poetic experiment reveals interactions in language that uncontrollably alter the situations in which they occur, because of the discontinuous changes characteristic of signifying processes.