Say It Again
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Say It Again was my exit degree show piece.
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Afgang 2021, Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Photo: David Stjernholm
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Conveyor
Convey
Convey
How do we Convey?
When We wish to Convey a message, We wish to be understood. We hope for the receiver to understand our message, so our desired outcome will occur. What is the Relationship between Conveying of Messages and Conveyors of Materials and Conveyors of Meaning? You would be hard-pressed to find an Industry in 2020 that is Not utilizing Conveyor Belts in their Production. In that Sense, Conveyors are Everywhere and in Essence, Our Whole Modern Civilization is Built Upon the Conveyor. The tRain of tThought usually goes like this; capitalism is a Train, or something.
What is the conveyor and What is the Belt? The movement of information. Mass media Conveyed.
“1. to carry or take from one place to another. 2. to communicate; impart: to convey a wish. 3. to lead or conduct, as a channel or medium; transmit. “
How do we think about moving images? Moving images seem to have been here since the day we first started putting our hands-on cave walls. Then you had to move your body to animate a story. The moving body.
Then came the conveyors. The storytellers. The factory workers. How did they move? Why do we move as we do? So the wish to convey images and the wish to move has always been with us.
To be moved, or to move oneself. “To be told, or to tell” as a famous danish writer once said.
The Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory. It is interesting to note that in one of the first films ever produced, one is seeing the workers that are working at the factory, owned by the very same people shooting the film, producing the technology required to shoot the film. Since the conveyor belt was first invented 3 years prior, perhaps the factory is yet to utilize the technology at that time. Cinematographic technology was invented and made by people with money and access. Making clear the connection between The Factory, Conveying, Films, Capitalism (and more)
The Rain keeps falling.
The Capital keeps circulating.
The conveyors keep Conveying.
When thinking about the Conveyor, One must not forget The Tanks and the Snowmobiles.
Vehicles that bring Conveying to the forefront. These machines There are different types of Conveyors. Some Conveyors remain stationary, Some Conveyors reign freely. The end goal remains the same, Push and Pull, Kinetic Energy, Power, Capital. But the motion is always ambivalent, is it pushing, or is it pulling? When the Tank moves over the ground, is it Pulling itself forward, or it is Pushing itself forward?
The development of the War Tank is closely related to World War I, beginning in 1914, vehicles were needed that would be able to penetrate enemy defenses, cross uneven terrain, and be hardened to attack. Qualities seemingly inherited from the Conveyor, as we can see with historical knowledge, seeing as this meme still exists, nothing has changed in the design since 1915
The design of the First Tank is uncannily similar to the design of the Tracks on a modern-day Snowmobile. Instead of riding inside the Conveyor, You now Ride on Top of the Conveyor.
Its ability proven in War, The Conveyor was kept around, soon to cover the whole globe in constant motion and traction. Tank Treads are often referred to as “Caterpillar Tracks”, but people forget the other abilities of the Caterpillar, one of them being the ability to camouflage itself, the other being a larva. The Tank is the Ultimate symbol of Power, The Tank is a Pure Conveying Machine, Rolling onto Enemy Territory, It will setup Camp, and just like the larvae transforms into a Beautiful Butterfly, The Tank Transforms itself into an Extraction Machine, shedding its Camouflage, Its War Paint. The Forest, Desert, Urban, Snow, Digital Camouflage.
It will hide in Plain Sight, Hide in Ideology, In the Idea of Capitalism, Nobody questions the Conveyor, It simply is, The Conveyor is Old News. The Conveyor Seems Unexciting. Unintelligent.
Conveyor belts made in Minecraft, Conveyor belts made in Lego,
Conveyor belts made in Lego Minecraft.
Our world is an M. C. Escher Conveyor Belt Loop, or is it a Piranesi Loop?
Fractals of Conveyors
So imagine, a conveyor belt, transporting items. What are these items? Some of these items will be Rigid bodies. Some of these will be soft bodies. And Others will be liquids and some will Be gasses. In this world, it’s an endless conveyor. Endless fields of conveying. In a place where Time has No Meaning. But Scale Will Be Present. There is No Destruction. There is No Drama.
But there are Forms, Shapes, Words, D33ds. VideoGames! Simultaneously Expanding Viewpoints!
In early video games, especially racing games, the vehicle which the player-controlled, would stay still on its axis, it was rather the environment that would move past the Player. Creating the illusion of movement relative to the Player/Vehicle. That image is what I’m talking about when talking about Riding the Conveyor, or when I’m talking about being a Conveyor. Believing the Story that We’re really in Control, Believing that Our Ideas are Our own, Believing that we’re moving through this world, Believing that We have any Agency WhatSoEver. Believe that to be a successful artist, you just gotta create good art. Believing that all the money being laundered through art sales is not blood money (it is).
Instead of creating tapestries representing modern wars and conflicts, we began to use the conveyors to show dominance. From embroidering images representing dominance onto 2D planes, the surface became the medium of dominance itself.
But perhaps the Conveyor is even more Essential to our understanding of Capitalism. Watching the YouTube video “Die Hard 2: Stunts: Chaos on the Conveyor Belt”, one can see All the Glory of Hollywood and Charlie Chaplin and The Production of Meaning Machine in full action. Violence is movement, Colonialism is movement. I’m sure I’ll find a way to describe the relationship between violence, narcissism, capitalism, movements. Language Conveyors. A flow of Words. Words stacked Upon Words, Forming nothing but Word Salad. Endless streams of Words, but do they Mean Something? “Meaning Production” Western civilization and its Obsession with Meaning Production. One is Not Allowed To Step Off the Conveyor, One is Not Allowed To Stop Conveying.
Convey Or Die!
Unlike the film roll, the conveyor roller is not cut, the cut must lie elsewhere. The cut does not happen to the medium itself, but instead, it is transformed from the content of the image to the content of the conveyor, the cut happens to the materials on top of the conveyor. A cut in time and space. The movement of materials to another space.
Continental Drift, Tectonic Plates, if we are to think about The Earth as a Conveyor belt, With plates so big that we Don’t even feel it shifting, that is very much what the Tectonic Plates are about.
In that sense, we might be able to think about the Tectonic Plates as an Earth-sized Conveyor Belt, Moving at the Speed of Deep Time. Always moving, so very slowly, the very ground we see as so massive and stable. As I said earlier, we’re living in the reality of the Fractals of Conveyors.
Is Silence the opposite of Conveying? What is The Desire to Stop Conveying? To be Conveyed or To Be the Conveyor. A human Conveyor Machine.
But what is the Belt? The belt is a loop. The loop is Endless. Doomed To Endless Conveying.
Endless Systems. Systems of Simulations. Water Flowing. Wind Blowing.
Do you believe that poetry can blossom from the Entertainment Industry?
Paper Thin Cloth Material
I have no mouth and I must scream.
Physics? Friends? No friends.
Endless Conveyors Moving Models, Architectural Models, Filled with Fluids. Unknowing Fluids. The Primordial Soup of Meaning. Before the Conveying Machines, we had Conveying Techniques.
Walls, Tapestries, Scrolls. Then came the Conveyors and around the Same Time, Film was Invented! The Moving Image (1890) and The Moving Belt (1892) were invented at the same time. Essential Inventions to Our Modern Civilization. The Conveyors Started Speeding Up, The Films Started Speeding Up. Production Machines.
The Conveyor belts in the Factory, The Conveyor belts in the SuperMarket, Waiting to be Activated, Waiting to Invade, To jump Off Their Rails, To UnHook Themselves and Take part in the, just like Hito Steyerl writes in her text on the Tanks in Ukraine. We must see all Conveyors as Potential actions at all given times.
Every time the belt removes something from its environment, it adds something too, In the shape of Colonisation, Culture.
Fractals of Things
Colonialism and the conveyor, “The Colonial” shop with global goods, Like an arm that stretches out and pulls objects back toward the sender, like a black hole with massive gravity sucking everything in. Colonialism and The Tank. The Snowmobile as representing Instead of The Tank.
The Snowmobile as Entertainment Object, The Scout, The Adventurer, The Colonialist.
The Slow (moving) violence of The Conveyor Belt, Globalisation and The Conveyor Belt, Notions of “Freedom” associated with Snowmobiles and “Vehicles”
Things that Stick, The Not So Obvious
Things that Cling On To
Much focus has been on the top side of the conveyor belt, we need to investigate what is going on with the lower part too. The way I see it, the essence of the conveyor is the two-way movement.
It’s an abstract movement. The belt is moving in one direction, but as soon as the belt turns around in the end, the movement is going in reverse. It is now pulling instead of pushing.
On the “top” side, which would have to be the side that is facing towards the sky, and which makes gravity hold things onto the surface, the heavy items are transported. When it turns the end, items are let go of, and the belt goes underneath. Gravity does its thing, and now only what sticks remains. But what sticks? Gooey stuff sticks. Debris stick. Memories Stick. Words stick.
We can begin to understand the conveyor as not only pulling, but also pushing.
It’s the exact function of a Tank or a Snowmobile. The belt pulls, but it also pushes, it’s in reverse. The top then pushes, but the bottom pulls.
This goes along with the function of Colonialism. To Extract and Replace. Pull Out What is Desired, Push in What One wishes They Should Desire.
But then again, it’s all a matter of perspective, from where one stands concerning the belt.
The belt is pure motion and needs to be in relation to.
The essential thing about moving is Objects Relation to Each Other. That is How we determine if a Thing is Moving, Or if We are Moving. But Basically, Everything is in Constant Motion. Right now we’re on a Sphere, Going thousands of miles an hour in an endless space (67,000 mph/30 km per second). We don’t feel a thing, Because The movement is so big, and we have no way of observing ourselves. From The Outside, we could see The Earth’s movement in RELATION TO, The Sun. For example. So this is what I mean when I’m talking about things and relationships. Everything Is In Relation To. So how does one See an Endless Field of conveyor Belts in relation to it? If the whole belt is moving in the same direction, at the same speed, With Nothing Standing Still, Then there is no Way to Even Perceive Movement, Except, of course, The Borders Of the Screen, Which lets us Know an Objects disTance with the Exit of the Screen.
Maybe the whole point is that the Earth is one huge conveyor. It is turning, just like a conveyor belt is, so there is always a “top” and a “bottom”, north and south. the scale is so huge that we don’t even feel the movement of this conveyor belt. Just like on the Small Conveyor, On the Big Conveyor, Objects exist on the Top(North), and Debris sticks to the Bottom(South).
Concept Check!
It’s time to stop conveying, Get real, we’re all riding this Conveyor together. Nobody is standing on the outside. To live on Earth is to Live on the Conveyor, To live on Earth is to Be a Conveyor.
And so the thing is. Conveying. Information. Spacetime.
Human hands Human bodies, stretching to create bodily conveyors
What is a scroll? Before the book printing techniques were invented, one had to use scrolls. Paper that was in one long roll. Horizontal scrolling, Vertical scrolling.
Telling stories with a scroll. Scrolling. Conveying a story. Using a conveyor to tell a story. Telling a story using a conveyor. What are objects of conduit? What are good things to think through?
The desire to turn oneself into a conveyor.
Riding the conveyor
Snowmobiles. Continuous Track.
Besides the Outer (Seen) Conveyor on The Snowmobile, Inside (Hidden) There Exist Another Small Conveyor, This conveyor Is the Secret Ingredient to Transfering the Kinetic Energy of the Motor to The Outer Conveyor.
I had a snowmobile once. It was the best object I ever had. I was riding the conveyor belt.
The cheapest snowmobile in town, the biggest conveyor all around.
Snow. Particle systems. Water that becomes solid, but remains soft. 3D particle systems.
I think I saw my snowmobile as a vehicle for a story back then. That was before I realized its connection to everything else with its conveyor belt / continuous track/caterpillar feet
The self Moving Conveyor Meaning Machine
The Earth Keeps On Rotating, Moving and Transporting, The World Is A Fractal of Conveyors.
The Human Body Is A Conveying Machine
The conveyor is moldable. A conveyor is a tool. It is pure thought. The conveyor is nothing.
The conveyor is everything.
Is the Conveyor Belt being replaced by our Bodies? Is the future of 3D printing the End of the Conveyor as We know it, Will We Have Internalized the Conveying Function into our Own Homes? 3D Print Our Own Homes, To 3D Print Out own Food inside. Maybe there will Be a Part-Time Job for the Old school Conveyors to Keep Supplying the Printers with Materials. Straight from the Sources, The Old Conveyors will Deliver, Straight to the 3D Printed Homes, In Through The BackDoor, Effectively Eliminating the Middleman, we no longer have to Worry about Where Things Come From. “It is Made Locally”, they will say. A similar thing is happening in the digital realm, there we speak of “mining”, coins and crypto, straight from the source, no need for a conveyor in between, the miner can become the conveyor itself.
The Kinetic Energy of the Conveyor has been transferred into our bodies, Instead of Being Carried By the Conveyors, Our Bodies have become stationary, Concentrating all Energies at the Tip of our Fingers, Scrolling Endless Conveyors on Screens, being Moved by ourselves, We have effectively Become the Motors, Scrolling Endless Loops of Desire.
Scrolling and Rolling
Objects as Transmitters
Is there a difference between the wheel and the belt?
The Drama of The Silent Object
It’s also easy enough to create falling snow particles and create the illusion of depth. But It’s harder to simulate snow being walked in, being driven in, and molded and shaped. Snow has weird physics it seems.
Soft, yet solid.
I should listen to the silence more. I should stare out the window more. It’s healthy. Instead of always surrounding myself with noise and distractions and stimuli.
What do we do, as humans? We convey. Nothing but Convey Convey, all day, all day. What is the creation of Art, but a wish to Convey? It seems we’re all riding the Belt one way or (the other way)
What do we hope to accomplish with this conveying? Is it for enlightenment? Is it to save the world? Is it to gain fame? Is it to be loved (again)? As you see, even I Can’t stop conveying.
I do wish to know, why it is we spend time on this.
Cultural Production. Some people call it “fine art” and do all in their power to dress it up. To pump it with as much value as they possibly can, to pronounce the art as so much more important than everything else. Trying to hide the fact that this discipline is a circulating capitalistic project. Even this very piece itself. There is no way around it. Everything we do and create eventually, if not even before the idea is perceived, get swallowed by The Great Conveyor Belt of Capitalism.
We have many ways and methods of rationalizing these movements. Proclaiming to create “free art”, “art for art’s sake”. To claim a Vacuum, without any past and any future. A black hole of nothingness. But if we wish to convey Art for the Great Mouth of Gravity, why should we even bother questioning ourselves?
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Birk Horst 