Roaming Academy: New York, May 2013 - Anneke Ingwersen

Text for contextualization of the video 'The Sunny Side of....'

The grid of Manhattan

The structure of Manhattan up north from the Wall Street resembles a grid, orientated towards the directions of the North, the South, East and West. The first settlers: According to Lucas Ligtenberg, a Dutch journalist, they first removed any natural element of the surface of the island, they flattened hills, stopped rivers, cut trees down.

A grid resembles a cross – the symbol for holding ambivalences together. This pattern of streets is based on a Cartesian coordinate system which symbolizes the spirit of rationalism of that era.

"A Cartesian coordinate system is a coordinate system in that specifies each point uniquely in a plane by a pair of numerical coordinates. ...Cartesian coordinates are the foundation of analytic geometry, and provide enlightening geometric interpretations for many other branches of mathematics." ( Wikipedia)

The Broadway is the only street on the Manhattan Island which doesn't follow this system of a clear grid, as this street is the only diagonal street. The Broadway holds the old Dutch name of the Breedeweg and follows the route of the Native Americans from the tip of Manhattan until the Northern point of Sleepy Hollow, above Manhattan.

The Broadway is a symbol, the street of fame and glamour, as the top point of commercial showbiz.... In the video I react on the manner of self-presentation or self-promotion, the art of telling a good story, presenting your belief, goal, mission by high lightening aspects and hide others.  I walked on this Broadway, focusing on the sunny and shady parts of the street.

The manner of self-presentation of the people we met in New York is striking to me.

To begin with the people who step into the subway-cabins to tell their story:

An Afro-American woman steps into my cabin in the subway. She starts to declare how she has been addicted to alcohol until a few years ago she finally has found the faith in Jesus. Her voice is strong, her rhetoric's rich. She knows how to tell a good story. Oral-story telling is her second nature! She addresses her story to nobody in particular. But she finds an audience in the subway. She is on a mission.

.... TED Talk - as the modern 'Preaching from the soap box... '

The different people contacted by Reneé Ridgway share their goals, ambitions, beliefs and disbeliefs with us. During the first week I feel uplifted by this energetic and optimistic spirit. Then the struggle started: The ambivalent feelings and thoughts are overwhelming: Feelings of repulsion, resistance and admiration are mixing up inside me. Jimmie Durham pops up in my mind. In 'Unpacking Europe' he writes:

"I would like to talk about this strange European concept of God, and especially the concomitant concept ( Law) of Belief. ....Belief is weird. It is to accept a kind of brain death. ....The Americans are the best Europeans because they fulfil your most secret and passionate European desires. Well, they say, "I don't care what you believe in; but you must believe in something, " and cross-reference it with the accusation, "He is a man who believes in nothing.""Whenever I go on about this stuff someone says, "But has your own society no religion, nothing sacred?".... ... in fact I think we have no religion and everything sacred. There is a Grandmother Spider spirit and a Grandfather Vulture spirit, and so on. But they are certainly understood as metaphor. They are group of stories, and to believe a story would be to miss it. One might learn from a story. "

The craft of telling a good story..

In the small-talk with Robert Kloos, the cultural attaché of the Dutch embassy, I get a new insight about the connection between the term opportunistic and taking opportunities. He says:

"Take your opportunities – If you have a story to tell then tell it. There are more  people here, more than in the Netherland, who want to listen to you... But you have to tell your story in an excellent way and at the end you have to back it up."

He works at the Dutch embassy for twenty years. He knows how to take the opportunities which come across, to bring up an idea and realize it. He is fed up by the typical Dutch manner of cynical-critical response towards ideas. As an example he tells about his initiative to offer a present from the Netherlands to the NYC municipality on the occasion of the celebration of 400 years of Dutch-American relationships and how he got the money for that together. He got what he fought for... He admits that he knows to play the game well and even behaves like a slut[sic] sometimes. In the sake for his goal.

This practical, self-confident and optimistic approach towards the realization of ideas was striking to me. I immediately think about the format of the TED talk–the all American way of communicate Ideas worth spreading...

I imagine myself appropriating this gestures for a performance lecture. For once not being stuck in between ambivalent opinions. Stuck in the state of Zaudern.  The German philosopher Vogl elaborates on the German term of 'Zaudern': This German term Zaudern addresses a state of special hesitation. It marks the barrier between action and non-action, a moment when pure creative potentiality and contingent is opening up. ...It is a break, a pause. You hesitate before you act, not yet certain which systems of values to choose. Ich zaudere mich zu entscheiden.

I am more interested in the philosophical realm of posing question than giving answers. Gregg Bordowitz during the talk about Queer politics at an e-flux evening mentions his book of 1000 questions and says it brought him nowhere. I recognize that... I can understand a lot of different opinions... I can follow a lot of thoughts and pose a lot of questions. But what do I stand for, at the end?

I found the book "On Ambivalence – The problems and pleasures of Having It Both Ways" by Kenneth Weisbrode. The author calls the 21century the era of ambivalence, which means that in time of globalization there is "now the universal realization that there is one planet,  on which we all coexist... " Everything is interconnected and therefore complex and ambivalent....