I am obsessed with fire.
Or let’s say, fascinated.

On Sunday morning in Berlin, in collaboration with the Freie Universität, I attended a strange event.
On the basis of John Cage’s scores Branches (for amplified plant sounds and 4 performers, 1976) and Inlets (for water-filled conch shells and 3 performers, 1977), several artists created their respective instruments and performed for hours in a massive greenhouse. Those “instruments” were plants, preferably cacti, which were touched, plucked and “played”, as well as water-filled conch shells of different sizes, tipped in order to produce gurgling sounds.

Herbert Draper is well known for interpreting mythological stories into paintings and here he has adapted the legend of Icarus in a truly lavish manner. Draper was inspired by the wings of the birds of paradise when painting this overwhelming piece of art at the turn of the century. To me this painting encompasses the Pre Raphaelite/Symbolist feeling of living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse in all its extravagant glory.

The Lament for Icarus is currently on display at the Tate Britain in London.

In groups, when first gathered, they receive direction. They ask questions about chains. The ones they like best will be mirrored by one hand rising into the air. Their bottoms will not rise into the air, no, not now. So sitting, they wait until they are asked the question they like best. They raise their hands. Some of them do not raise their hands. Some of them raise two hands. These second hands are severed with the metal edge of a yardstick. The severed hands are confiscated and placed in the drawer where unauthorized items gather. The stump is placed underneath their bottoms. Only one hand may rise. One or none.


Place your knees on our throats and we choose you. We love what is green. We love what is good. Place your knees. There is no you. We mean, not now. Now we want you to love us. There is no you. Place your knees. Dig deeper. Dig for the green. When we wake, you are us. There is no you. We are born deep beneath the earth. We are not green. We take the chains. We love what is good. There is no you.


They wait in their seats to be asked. They know that they will be asked and this is good. It is good to practice the raising and the choosing. Now they must decide what colors they like. No matter how much of their hands rattle in the air they will only be counted once. There is only one value each hand may assume. We know that this is good. We love what is good.

‘When rhythm has become the sole and unique mode of thought’s expression, it is then only that there is poetry. In order for mind to become poetry, it must bear in itself the mystery of an innate rhythm. It is in this rhythm alone that it can live and become visible. And every work of art is but one and the same rhythm. Everything is simply rhythm.’ (Hölderlin in conversation with Sinclair, 1804.)