INSIDES: INOU KI ENDO
Hello, how are you?
Living day by day. Feeling fine.
Where are you right now?
In a house at the countryside
Which sounds surround you?
During daytime it’s birds and sounds of physical labour, in the night it’s frogs and the wind cutting along the walls.
Have you been productive so far? What are you working on?
Everybody seems to have slowed down, I don’t reply to messages as fast as I used to, stuff like that. But I’m still working my part-time job and preparing a lectureship, meaning a lot of reading, thinking, writing, also a bunch of articles piling up. I agreed to do a mix for Dennis Tyfus De Nor, but failed to finish it… too distracted lately. But I’m quite busy propagating plants. It relates to quarantine period quite well, the time elapsed manifests itself in the growth of the plants. I started the first seedlings one week after lockdown and now they are carrying their first blossoms…
What inspires you right now?
Can’t name sources really.
Reading material you can recommend?
Books by Salome Voegelin, Dieter Roth “Da drinnen vor dem Auge”, Jean-Luc Nancy. “singulär plural sein”
Listening material?
Working my way through various mixes and demos from friends, apart from that: Ventil Records compilation, Etat releases, Klara Lewis “Ingrid”, Robert Ashley
“that you can sense each other through the distance you feel”
To watch?
Finally watched Chernobyl, Alan Parker “Angel Heart”, Louis Malle “L’Ascenseur pour L’Echaffaud” (each spring), early films by Koji Wakamatsu and Mamashibas. Looking forward to Daniel Hoesl’s and Julia Niemann’s „Davos“
What’s your opinion on live-streams?
In the beginning I was actually considering to stream live shows, but the two clubs I wanted to cooperate with, wouldn’t do it. And after a while I noticed that my concentration span is just too short to keep up with a streamed 1h concert. Also I doubt this kind of visualization of music. Being forced to stare at a musician or DJ performing is just not very fulfilling to me, neither is opening another browser window to do other stuff in the meantime… I don’t know. It’s really a fucked up situation as live music – shows, clubnights, is all about bodies and minds coming together and the physical impact of sound.
Still I think any form of exchange is good and comforting.
What are you missing most? What are you afraid of?
I am afraid of this feeling… it’s hard to describe. In Japanese there’s a word for the inbetween, the space that’s between people and between people and things. You could say the flesh of the world, somehow, I’m afraid that this inbetween – at least regarding people you are not friends with – gets solidified, that you can sense each other through the distance you feel. This might stick around for quite a while. I feel annoyed by people easily right now. I feel pissed off if someone is telling me what to do, taking my responsibility from me. I don’t like the way it feels walking on the street, meeting household units, comprised cells of people. It feels as if we’re to some me vs. the others mentality.
I’m missing the smell of fog machines, perfumes, cigarettes & sweat, I miss the vibrations of a good bass, the high frequencies that mess with my brain, I miss smiling faces and brief encounters. I miss losing myself in loud waves of music and the energy of the crowd.
What will change you think?
Can’t tell. I was disappointed by the reactions of contemporary Post-marxist philosophers. I would have expected them to be more present. Nancy and Žižek were talking about a strengthening of community and solidarity through separation, which I doubt really, Agamben has failed by taking the virus seriously in the beginning, after that it was all about “bare life” and the threat of a permanent “Ausnahmezustand”, so just a re-iteration of his philosophy. Badiou was elaborating that it needs new figures of politics, but failed in sketching out any such new figure. But ja, I suppose gaps will be growing, like after the financial crisis in 2008…
What is the gig or occasion you were most looking for, that was cancelled in this period?
Performing a silent movie score at Salzburger Festspiele to a film by Max Reinhardt and a handful Struma+Iodine gigs that were already confirmed & had to be cancelled.
Inou Ki Endo