Dr. JO Maier | jomaier@nic-las.com
REGARD_IN (Y)OUR NOMADIC CHAIR’S SMALL PRINT
oases. Nurope’s chairs figurate as placeholders for dialogue. They really are this enterprises’ spirit. And sit next to the other two key elements with_in Nurope’s pedagogic approach: our mirror table (symbol for community) and our notebooks (symbol for reflection). Every chair bears a number: mine is 24, Christmas. This text departs from a close reading of the Nomadic Chairs Small Print (referred to in UPPERCASE) and loosely associated attributions (referred to in lowercase) --- followed up by no explicit conclusion. Cause obviously, the small print already stands very well on its own feet, says it all, and every annotation is essentially superfluous. Our small print at hand reads as following...
A Materialistic Appreciation Collected by Dr. JO Maier, in relation to various encounters within Nurope (the Nomadic University for Art, Philosophy and Enterprise in Europe). Relying on a series of anonymously processed contributions that have occurred in_between spring 2006-2007. During Nurope’s oases in Turku (Finland), Biella (Italy), Kassel (Germany) and Ljubljana (Slovenia). The applied methodology is most adequately described in terms of a Materialistic Rapid Result Ethnography. By means of getting hold of an(y) (un)familiar object (thus Materialistic) and attempting to approach this object (a Nomadic Chair) from within. Based on an insignificant set of resources like time, money, intellectual capability and familiarity to its proper context (thus claiming a Rapid Result Ethnographic stance). This text is going to depart from the Nomadic Chairs Small Print.
WARNING (...and / because this chair is...) MADE IN CHINA Apparently, the deployment of hundreds of foldable chairs marks the end-point of a questionable sourcing decision. It might as well be read as Nurope’s contribution to China’s sustainable growth in the form of development aid. Beware: Objects under your bottom may contain more truth than they / you can bear. (In Memorandum to Jean Baudrillard.) 1. DO NOT STAND ON THIS PRODUCT
It appears to be a common place for contemporary (design) objects, to being shipped with a small print (deutsch: Kleingedrucktes). Small leaflets or labels describing the do’s and do-not’s of product usage --- mostly to limit the producer’s liability...
Because you cannot stand this product? Is not the true self of Nurope’s nomadic chair a means for mobility and the creation of movement? A tool to realise Walter Benjamin’s age-old utopia of a transformative practice through move in standstill (Bewegung im Stillstand)? A selforganising fabric of proper time and space? Sheltering in_stands, in order to defy the frictionless tides within our current world order? Sufficiently auratic to nurture the desire to remain_in embarked on the nomadic quest? When was the most recent time, when Nurope actually was capable of producing precious in_stands of the kind Benjamin was having in mind?
For the coming 20 minutes of reading time, (y)our focal object in relation to the small print at hand, is going to be a nomadic chair. One of the symbolic tokens that make up Nurope. Like in every Academy, affiliation to the Academy(a) is marked by the reception of a chair. In the case of the Nomadic University we give it to our guests, too. And we sit on the chair once we stop moving in the course of our 1
Dr. JO Maier | jomaier@nic-las.com
2. DO NOT SIT ON THE BACK SUPPORT OR ARM SUPPORT OF THIS PRODUCT
This product is a toy. Enjoy it in as many playful varieties as you might. Make sure there will be as plentiful as possible a crowd of children to populate it. Now, if the experience of playful encounter really is key to this, why don’t we move in more and many different ways? What are the adult game moves that Nurope’s chair (holders) can and will and want to support.
Gee, go and have a look at your chair, here, the obvious punch-line is the following: (y)our chair, as of now, does not have any arm or leg rest! Rests very obviously lack, their present absence marks a_void. And most likely grants the absent common ground for Nurope’s selforganisation to take place. Presumedly, once comfy leg & arm supports (goal, vision, aim and claim) come into place, Nurope’s appealing narrative is dead. Similar to the referred to rests, other often referred to objects (methodology for moving in_between, radical pedagogic stance, philosophical enlightenment, ...) usually remained present only through their very absence. Thus, Nurope’s regenerative existential quest haunts its crusading: How to celebrate and prolong its inevitable death in living ways. In short, how to measure death by live?
4. KEEP CLEAR OF ALL OBSTACLES, CHILDREN, PEOPLE WHEN FOLDING OR UNFOLDING THIS PRODUCT Focus on the action. Sequences of folding and unfolding our chairs make up our nomadic passages. When, where, how and why do we stand still and unfold, or fold back the chair to move on. And how do we go about cultivating its enfolded complexity? When, where, how and why will we cross & re-enter into the fold_in process? How many a present chair_holders does it take for to form a centerfold? Ultimately, how many aparallel moves (by obstacles, children and other people) could a centerfold bear and support? If the oases during our nomadic journey really was the centerpiece of our experience, how could we have nurtured it with the vital complexity of in_between states of in_difference? 5. CHECK YOUR DAMAGE OR TEAR IN FABRIC TO USE, IF ANY DAMAGE IS FOUND, DO NOT USE THIS PRODUCT Or go create alternative modes of reusability. Genuinely getting ahead by misusing your chair in any form and fashion that might prolong its life-cycle. Re-cycle and forget about security checks before take offs. Skip endless rounds of introduction, presenting yourself and the project to others, lay-out your expectations: all bollocks! Go right into the action. Every large and small flock of nomads is and can and will counter-act a break-down, if only every-body tightly relates to two or three soul-mates. Out there in the desert of the nomadic real, most of the time, classical approaches to
3. THIS PRODUCT IS NOT A TOG, DO NOT LET CHILDREN PLAY ON IT Here ‘tog’ must be a spelling mistake. And much rather be a ‘toy’ or ‘dog’? No it (the nomadic chair) cannot be a dog, because the tripod has one leg missing ;) Unfortunately, punch-lines of this kind work only in a Pub after a third beer. Maybe here, more than ever, Slavoj Zizek’s signature quote applies, and really ‘every sentence always truly means the exact opposite of its statement.’ Meaning: 2
Dr. JO Maier | jomaier@nic-las.com
process facilitation invite damage-talk and accelerate break-down. In case of emergency your chair might actually disintegrate, who cares? Why not? Because out there in the primitive, the community will halt for a rescue and in the same move re-vitalize its stronghold. Expose yourselves!
explore the conditions for a family reunion? 7. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO LIFT THE FRONT END OF THE CHAIR WHILE SITTING DOWN ON IT Means: do not negate the ground you are stand_in on. Examples from previous oases are manyfold (Emma / Bengt, Jo / Michelangelo, ...). E.g. do not give up on Deleuze’s nomadology, while a big part of Nurope’s attractiveness relies on it (Ljubljana). Do not pretend to being able to talk about methods & social transformation, while facilitating a social transformative process, without explicitly applying one (Biella). And if you do so, be at least prepared to counter-balance this performative self-contradiction that makes up (y)our stance in the first place.
6. USE THIS PRODUCT ON LEVEL GROUND ONLY
8. DO NOT SIT ON THE END OF THE COT
Bluntly, from this point of view, the nomadic chair and the related traditional pedagogic stance have been ill-designed. Its attempts to lure us into a consentobsessed harmonic group-working mode have not produced the desired results. It has been the imbalance, the dealing with unleveled ground that kept us going (--and some of us going for good, unfortunately). How can / will we go about dealing with the anticipated un-leveled territory in Istanbul? If only we could redesign our chaired & shared moves. In Istanbul, we are all going to be strangers and cannot pretend otherwise. Like a flock of ethnographers who set out to describe and relate to a foreign country. Unless them, we won’t have a years time to selfreflexively entertain in our goingnativeness. We are going to spend four days, and either buy into being tourists right from the beginning, our take on a suitable methodology: rapid result ethnography is the way! Is it not time to break up the family table? To give its fragments a fair blend of experiences? And maybe, occasionally attempt to
Sit_in_between the three holding-points of your cot. Right where the lines meet, that do connect the tripods’ three cots and the chairs epicenter. In_between the forcefield of Nurope’s soustain_in pillars. Here, Nurope and its chair share a striking similarity. In what-ever way we look, three is the magic number: 3 cots. 3 themes: Philosophy, Art & Enterprise. 3 symbols describe Nurope’s pedagogy: the chair, the table and the notebook. Brought to you by Nurope’s holy trinity: Michelangelo (the father & table-carpenter), Bengt (the son & chair-holder) & Pierre (the holy ghost & main notebook content provider). According to the eternal wisdom of the band Schoolhouse Rock, as expressed in 1973: “Three is a magic number, yes it is, it's a magic number. Somewhere in the ancient, mystic trinity, you get three as a magic number. The past and the present and the future. Faith and Hope and Charity, the heart and the brain and the body, give you three as a magic number. It takes three legs to make a tripod, or to make a table stand. It takes three wheels to make a vehicle called a tricycle. Every 3
Dr. JO Maier | jomaier@nic-las.com
triangle has three corners, every triangle has three sides, no more, no less. You don't have to guess. When it's three you can see, it's a magic number.” But wait a minute --- how about Mona, Nurope’s mother who left the picture quite silently? 9. KEEP YOUR FEET ON THE GROUND WHEN USING THIS CHAIR If indeed, the chair figurates as the symbol for dialogue, we should think about walking the talk and join into The Pixies 1988 hit-single ‘Where is my mind’: “With your feet in the air and your head on the ground. Try this trick and spin it, yeah. But your head will collapse and there's nothing in it and you'll ask yourself, Where is my mind Where is my mind Where is my mind Way out in the water See it swimming” 10. WEIGHT LIMIT OF THE CHAIR IS 200 LBS (90,6 kg). How much is enough?
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