On Parables.
Many complain that the words of the wise are always merely parables and of no use in daily life, which is the only life we have. When the sage says: “Go over,” he does not mean that we should cross over to some actual place, which we could do anyhow if the labour were worth it; he means some fabulous yonder, something unknown to us, something too that he cannot designate more precisely, and therefore cannot help us here in the very least. All these parables really set out to say merely that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible, and we know that already. But the cares we have to struggle with every day: that is a different matter.

Concerning this a man once said: Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that rid yourself of all your daily cares.

Another said: I bet that is also a parable.

The first said: You have won.

The second said: But unfortunately only in parable.

The first said: No, in reality: in parable you have lost.

Photography by Darren Almond

Dancing on the Ceiling: Art & Zero Gravity, is a major group exhibition in which contemporary artists explore—and on occasion recreate—the condition of weightlessness on earth. The exhibition will present the work of multiple national and international artists, including three newly commissioned pieces for the exhibition. Distributed throughout the public spaces in the building the exhibition is itself un-tethered from the confines of the traditional gallery exhibition paradigm.

Arts Catalyst • Benjamin Bergmann • Denis Darzacq • Edith Dekyndt • Chris Doyle • William Forsythe • Julia Fullerton-Batten • Thom Kubli • Tomás Saraceno • Jane & Louise Wilson • Xu Zhen

Dancing on the Ceiling will bring together artworks that use the metaphor of floating or weightlessness as an expression of the relationship of the individual to social, political or personal contexts. In addition, several of the pieces relate to lightness as akin to an agility of mind, freed of entrenched perspectives.

Curated by Kathleen Forde, Curator of Time-Based Arts, the exhibition will be accompanied by an exhibition catalog including essays by Italo Calvino as well as interviews with commissioned artists Chris Doyle and Thom Kubli.

The exhibition is also contextualized by a series of related performances, talks, films, and events; see the schedule for complete information.

Robert Longo, “Men in the Cities”, 1980s

NB: Don’t miss Aaron Schuster’s essay on levitation, love, and space sex in SB5!

In Between Out & Black Mirror was & will be a set of two exhibitions taking place in the basement of Theatre Arsenic in Lausanne (Switzerland), curated by Marco Costantini, the book is designed and conceived by Maxime Büchi & Florence Tétier.

IN BETWEEN OUT (past)
from October 28th to November 28th, 2009

with:

Jean-Luc Manz
Luc Mattenberger
Sébastien Mettraux
Annaïk Lou Pitteloud
Ana Roldan
Steve Van den Bosch

BLACK MIRROR (upcoming!)
from March 2nd to April 18th, 2010

OPENING ON MARCH 2ND at 6pm, followed by A CONCERT BY JEAN-LUC VERNA at 9pm !

with:

Emmanuelle Antille
Davide Balula
Jérémy Chevalier
Olivier Dollinger
Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard
Elise Gagnebin-de Bons
Enrik Plenge Jakobsen
Vincent Kohler
Elodie Lesourd
Théo Mercier
Olivier Millagou
Sandrine Pelletier
Germinal Roaux
Steven Shearer
Erik Smith
Jean-Luc Verna

BOOK SOON AVAILABLE HERE

MOM: Hello?
ME: Hi, Mother.
MOM: I can’t hear you; I have sand in my ears.
ME: Then why did you answer the phone?
MOM: Call me back in five minutes.

SB contributor and friend Aaron Schuster will defend his doctoral dissertation:

“The Trouble With Pleasure: Philosophy and Psychoanalysis”

on Friday, March 26 at 3pm at The Cardinal Mercier Hall, Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (BELGIUM).

No idea if this is a public defense, but I thought we should all know it. Hopefully, Aaron will be then sundered from life, and death will become shy of him.

Gray and rainy, as usual. Point of view: Deckard. Out the windshield, the road streams by. He glances at the indicator lights: translucent signs scrolling vertically, like a series of post high-tech hieroglyphs. ‘The secrets of the Egyptians were also secret to the Egyptians’, he thought to himself. Where was Rachel? She had left her purse in the car, but no forwarding address. Or phone number. Only that metallic colored lipstick. Everything was metallic in his universe; it was difficult to tell her lips from anything else.

Text by Aaron Schuster
Image by Jeanne-Salomé Rochat

Every time I come home I stand in the doorway and say, “It’s time for a monster to eat me now.” Then it does.

When I go to bed and pull the covers open, I say, “It’s time for a monster to eat me now.” Then it does.

Every time I get out of bed I say, “It’s time for a monster to eat me now.” Then it does.

Every time I leave my home, I say, “It’s time for a monster to eat me now.” Then it does.

Illustration appears in the May 1957 issue of Sexology: Sex Science Illustrated Volume 23 Number 10.

Text was written by Sam Pink.