outreach | a-stra 2007


"WHO AM I TO DISTURB HISTORY?"

"In Socrates' time, an orator was accustomed to ask his audience which genre or mode of expression was preferred: myth, i.e. narrative, - or logical argumentation?"
(Tzvetan Todorov, in "The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other", 1982).

For the office-warming party on 23 November 2007 of the new navreme headquarter — now located in the Columbus Center, a shopping center with office facilities towering above the Columbusplatz — Todorov's interpretation of Columbus' discovery of America and its aftermath, has been rightly appropriated.

In fact the evening has been organized according to the table of content of the book:
1. Discovery, 2. Conquest, 3. Love, 4. Knowledge.
As the a-stra recipient taking part in the evening, Love has been assigned to me!

My concern in this context has been where I'm talking from and whom I'm adressing. Rimbaud said "Je est un autre", but - "others are also 'I's", to quote Todorov one more time.
While, according to him, he can only answer the question "How to deal with the other?" by telling an exemplary story, I would better opt this time for a narrative micro-design — i.e. in the terminology of the cognitive sciences, a pattern that make it possible to piece together individual facts collected at a local level into a broader, rational structure.

1969 sees the release of the French comics magazine Charlie Mensuel which took its name from Charlie Brown, the lead character of Peanuts — and was possibly also a nod to Charles de Gaulle. Charlie is actually coming after the Italian magazine "Linus", 1965, also named after another Peanuts' character. Borrowing in turn to American comics' classic, I've resolved to emphasize the migrations of identities and representations by announcing the release of PigPen Magazine.

Afterall it might be time for Austria to have its own Charlie.

Remember PigPen in the Peanuts? He was always covered with dirt and grime. He was cute, but he was a walking sludge heap, filthy and proud of it:

Charlie Brown—
"PigPen, why are you always so dirty? When in the world are you going to clean up?"


Pigpen. —
"I have affixed to me the dirt and dust of countless ages… Who am I to disturb History?"

(In: Peanuts, 15 September 1954)

Narrative oder logical argumentation?

What would you prefer today?

David Jourdan
a-stra artist 2007

The eventual outcome of the a-stra 2007 cooperation will be a magazine, jointly produced with the artist in 2008. Inspired by the installation at the opening event, we at navreme have taken the idea further ourselves: a combination of modesty (Who is navreme to disturb history?), of realism (How could navreme think of changing history?) and magnaminity (How to change the history of navreme?).

In his choice of image and message, David Jourdan provokes us to reconsider our self-conception, and forces us to re-size our aims, in a realistic manner - neither too humble, nor missing golden opportunities, at their "right point in time" (i.e. na vreme).

Bernd Baumgartl
navreme

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