What was your first thought today?
After a night of laughter …
the thoughts that accompany that grin.
Looking back what do you hear?
D — D — D — DE DE — E — R — R RA — RA — RA — RAC I — I — I — I — I — I — I — I — INNNN
IN – IN – N A – N – A – N – A NA T – NA – TT – T – NA – T – TE TE – EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Closing your eyes, what do you see?
Shivering giants.
What should happen after death?
The peripheral vision of a shroom-bloom.
Your remedy for gloom?
Depth-dive into the doom-drone-tones to transform that murk to gold.
A poem or song you will never forget?
Klaus what power art thou? That Cold Song.
Another word for beauty?
Gravity and Grace—those beautiful monsters.
What is wrong with reality?
Who’s?
How can you differentiate between lies and truth?
Empathy for all those mythologies.
What knowledge?
Embodied.
Which faith?
All your late ancestors and their friends, sit down at the table. Offer them a drink …
Which words you were fond of have disappeared?
Darn it (miss you grandma).
A question to which „yes“ is always your answer?
Cocktail Chalice?
Valerie Solanas or Valie Export?
Val met Val and they decided to collaborate.
You’re favorite enemy?
The one who remained at the table.
What would you like to get rid of?
The entitlement of the pathological narcissist.
How do you draw movement?
Systematically buttress abstraction.
How do noted ideas look like?
Flustered symphonies.
What is your center of gravity?
It shifts depending on a point, or many points,
that I choose to be tethered to at any given moment in time.
What kind of lies can you forgive?
Ouch.
Where does the wind blow?
Never Eat Shredded Wheat … and all the spaces between.
Egalité ou sisterhood?
Egalité & sisterhood …
The antidote for meaninglessness?
Myth.
When do you blush?
When someone gets my joke.
How does the mood of love feel like?
Defibrillation.
Poetry or music?
The poetry of music.
Judith or Octavia Butler?
Octavia sipping kahve mit Judith.
Can you describe the face of strangeness?
The pressure to make sense of that which
feels nonsensical.
Artichokes or hand grenades?
Artichokes as hand grenades.
What would you be if you weren’t you?
Chimera(s).
Why are women always showing one naked breast
on old pictures?
For the chids.
Your favourite stereotypes?
The Specials over Blur, or a solid plate made
from a mold known as a flong.
Which language?
Body language.
What’s the problem with solutions?
Solutions multiply problems.
Can you tell the first sentence of a story that doesn’t end?
They ran ahead to see what all the fuss was about …
Please finish the following sentences:
– as he spoke with his eyes… they saw an end.
– as she saw with her heart… they saw no end.
Do you want to leave a message after this?
Yes. Fail abundantly and with glee, fallible creatures.
IMAGES:
Emma Waltraud Howes,...
What was the first word today?
Words don’t come by themselves in the morning. It must have been something like… it’s still dark outside.
How to write?
Let the hand do the work.
Looking back, what do you hear?
A cacophony of sounds. Am still looking for that red thread.
Closing your eyes, what do you see?
Darkness. I listen.
Welches Buch lesen Sie gerade?
The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit.
What does why mean?
Never certain.
2 oder 3?
Binary is never good.
What is the problem with solutions?
No multiplicity but a fixed singular avenue to achieve a certain thing.
Peaches or melons?
Watermelon on a field in southern Italy.
Gehen oder Fahren?
Walk – an alternative way of thinking.
Where lies your navel of creativity?
It’s an elusive creature.
Blind or mute?
Blind.
Please complete the following sentences:
– As she spoke to me…
I wondered whether she’d say it again.
– When I speak to him, he…
listens intentively just to lick my hand in response.
A dog’s love.
Joyce or Stein?
Stein. Tender buttons.
American female writers it must be.
What would you like to get rid of?
Ouf, that’s a long list. Let’s start with hypocrisy, torture, violence, hunger.
Egalité ou fraternité?
Sisterhood.
Are you serious?
Indeed.
The first sentence of a story that doesn’t end?
This is the story of Mucla the worm who went to look for égalité for all sentient beings.
Do you know what you are hoping for?
I think I do until I realize I don’t which would lead you back to the snark.
How to deal with neutrality?
You have to take sides. Raise your voice.
Ihre Lieblingssportart?
Ping Pong.
Lark or nightingale?
Mornings are my dark side.
What drives you mad?
No milk in my coffee in the morning plus the other obvious ailments of the human race.
Your favorite painting? (Please describe)
Hanging on the wall opposite where I’m sitting. It’s not figurative. Easier to say what is not.
Red yellow blue green black. Held back by gray. Quite small, unassuming, no frame. I love it.
It’s by Anna Bauer.
What is the snark?
If only I knew.
A poem or song you won’t forget?
“You Want It Darker” by Leonard Cohen.
Birds or cats?
Birds.
Qu’est-ce qu’un miroir sans regard ?
Ben voilà la question du moi.
Wald oder Wiese?
Wald.
Your remedy for gloom?
See Laurie Anderson and Philip Glass at the Barbican in London (as if they played there all the time).
A question to which “yes” is always your answer?
Would you like to come for dinner?
Do you want to leave a message after this?
Always.
Images:
I Say (2017)
3 audio channel 1 screen installation
Duration 15 mins, excerpt shown 5 mins
Performed by Anna Tierney, Patricia Langa and Kip Johnson
Dance choreography Patricia Langa
http://nicolebachmann.net/work/i-say/
Hush Now Ha Part Two (2016)
Performed by actor Anna Tierney
at Eastside Projects, Birmingham.
Duration 10 mins
http://nicolebachmann.net/work/hush-now-ha-part-two/
What was your first thought today?
A snow storm apparently hits New York City. I’m wondering if today or tommorrow.
Is it true?
I’m not sure.
East or West?
East, if anything.
How old is your consciousness?
28 years old.
What is the problem with solutions?
Unchosen choices constantly create all the countless parallel worlds.
Can you recite a poem?
I can’t, but only in fragments.
What is the personal form of “our”?
Bokutachi-no.
Where is your center of gravity?
Around liver.
What is your description of the word “anonymity”?
A voice without a face.
Duchamp or Warhol?
Duchamp.
What is your spur?
An absolute difficulty of understanding the other
Are you serious?
Probably.
What does “why” mean?
Throwing a stone into a pond to stare ripples on the water.
Which groups do you belong to? Choice of three to five.
Something not being male, something using words, and something walking on two legs.
Do you translate these questions into your mother tongue and back?
この質問をあなたの母国語で翻訳して返してもらえますか?
What is the name of that difference?
Things like holding a sponge hammer to face each other.
What book are you actually reading?
The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster.
Dogs or cats?
Cats.
What would you do if not art?
I would harvest honey in a damp thicket.
What should happen after death?
Staying there for a while, I gaze my body like through binoculars.
What is the personal form of “your”?
Kimi-no.
Where do you think you are going to?
Voice, the place where voices come from.
Blind or deaf?
Deaf.
Who does your past belong to?
Aged mother.
What Knowledge?
To find a new constellation.
Which faith?
Depriving while giving.
Can you describe the face of strangeness?
Surely different, although they’re pretty similar like twins. However, I don’t know what makes them different.
Your favorite geometric form?
Triangle.
What drives you mad?
The label of bottles. I couldn’t peel them off properly.
North or South?
To south, definitely.
What are your main worries?
After my death, no longer do I clear up all the misunderstandings in the past.
If you wouldn’t be you. What would you be the most alike?
A leaf-mimicking insect.
Looking forward, what do you see?
A white squeaky door.
Your favorite food?
Japanese wild plants, taste bitter and a bit earthy.
What would you like to get rid of?
The exploitation of something, that I wouldn’t intend.
Thinking back, what do you hear?
I hear someone singing high notes. That’s in foreign language though.
What would be the antidote?
A diary of the other.
Your most valuable possession? Only things.
Something to write memories down.
Your temporary frame of mind?
What if these simple days in our life had its script written by someone, as a series of these answers itself shaped a certain narrative just here.
All illustrations:
Lesson (Japanese)
2015, Single channel video, 7'16'' (looped)
© Aya Momose
Questionaire by Michael Heitz