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Thing.net: interview on line – mostly between wolfgang staehle and rainer ganahl
(remember the old interface of thing.net) 1994
Msg#: 1910 *ART*
01-29-94 13:08:43
From: WOLFGANG STAEHLE
To: RAINER GANAHL (Rcvd)
Subj: SNAP TO GRID
When I talked to you yesterday you expressed some disappointment that some people read your show as purely autobiographical. I understand that you would like to establish a context for your work that allows for a much broader interpretation (and we will have ample opportunity to talk about that), but how can you %avoid% the autobiographical element? After all it was Rainer Ganahl who went to Japan, made it his project to learn the language, took the snapshots, did the audio and video recordings. Why are you so vehemently opposed to an autobiographical reading?
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Msg#: 1941 *ART*
01-29-94 22:31:21
From: RAINER GANAHL
To: WOLFGANG STAEHLE (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 1910 (SNAP TO GRID)
I don't mind at all that there is also an autobiographical reading of this
particular project, I call 'basic japanese', but what disturbes me is if the objects on display are only seen as such, without the context I put them in. Obviously, if seen without the context some of these objects would be silly, uninteresting, even offending and would make no sense if taken at face value. Then they would have to be seen only as fetishistic souvenirs representing the Japanese in a very problematic way.
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Msg#: 1998 *ART*
01-30-94 23:00:17
From: WOLFGANG STAEHLE
To: RAINER GANAHL (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 1941 (SNAP TO GRID)
I am very interested in the architectural aspect of your work. You measure your spaces with rulers and grids and you investigate the "movement" (import, export, transfer) of language, data, and code. You created a model based in large parts on paradigms borrowed from computer space. It is a very open and flexible structural model to operate in. Doesn't this create conflicts when this model is imported into the rather rigid and closed spaces of the traditional exhibition circuit?
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Msg#: 2006 *ART*
01-31-94 01:19:00
From: RAINER GANAHL
To: WOLFGANG STAEHLE (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 1998 (SNAP TO GRID)
well, you are right, that a lot of those models or systems stem from computer space. But I wouldn't confine them necessairily to this space, because they also not just have a life outside technological spaces (every interface controlled machine) - metaphorically, linguistically, practically, and so on but they often are imported from this realm: interactive control of operations with a mouse for example basically follows a logic that we are used from daily spatial interactions. Now, if you ask me about the "rather rigid and closed spaces of the traditional exhibition circuit" as you put it, I have to first ask you back: what do you mean? Do you refer to the architecture of a gallery, or do you refer to the gallery as an institution, an administrative and ideological entity? If you mean the first, I would like to answer that precisely this mapping of an actual architectonic space is what interests me for a variety of reasons and the rigidness and closing of the space can be a constructive condition. If you want to see the gallery as a rigid institution I wouldn't agree a 100% with what you say since those spaces are what you make out of them. One can use them in indefinite ways. And this is precisely what interests me - playing with them in all kind of ways. Using Rulers and Grids almost literally points to these possibilities. Nevertheless I don't find myself only confined to those places and try to be open to accept all kinds of different infrastructures (obviously including the one which is right now the carrier for this interview where theoretically any other user could jump in with questions or comments).
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* Origin: THE THING NYC (42:1001/1)
Msg#: 2094 *ART*
02-01-94 12:23:12
From: WOLFGANG STAEHLE
To: RAINER GANAHL (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 1941 (SNAP TO GRID)
> without the context I put them in. Obviously, if seen without the
> context some of these objects would be silly, uninteresting, even
> offending and would make no sense if taken at face value. Then they
Your project 'Basic Japanese' is about learning a language. Learning a language is a process. How do the objects in this show then function? As a documentation? Isn't learning the language, or the language itself, already the object?
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Msg#: 2120 *ART*
02-02-94 00:11:20
From: WOLFGANG STAEHLE
To: RAINER GANAHL (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2006 (SNAP TO GRID)
> If you want to see the gallery as a rigid institution I wouldn't agree a
> 100% with what you say since those spaces are what you make out of them.
> One can use them in indefinite ways.
I can see the the strategies you employ to get around the limitations of these traditional spaces (both institutional and architectural). But whether you make the gallery your living quarters or have people teach you Japanese (as you did in the weekend museum in Tokyo) you still basically treat it as a "stage." You are the master of ceremonies and you define the parameters of the interaction with your "audience." For me this defines a space as elitist and exclusive.
Let me try to illustrate: In your current NY show there was a piece that was a kind of guest book from your Tokyo gig in which visitors were invited to write comments. After one visitor went berserk and decided to write obscenities in it, you decided to cut out the pages and present them
seperately with a label "A Japanese person showing signs of madness." Now that's your privilege when you consider yourself the sole author of that piece. What bothers me is that the "madman" now has no opportunity of recourse.
I am afraid I am opening a can of worms here, but these are questions I am trying to come to grips with in my own work.
PS: I just found this piece in the Lindinger + Schmid Groessenwahn catalog. It's by Dellbruegge / de Moll and its title is "Laura Cottingham."
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* Origin: THE THING NYC (42:1001/1)
*Enclosed File: cotting.gif
Msg#: 2123 *ART*
02-02-94 02:22:35
From: RAINER GANAHL
To: WOLFGANG STAEHLE (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2094 (SNAP TO GRID)
The objects of my "basic japanese" project at Nordanstad gallery - in NY and not in Tokyo - function on different levels: first, these objects are layed out to literally illustrate some kind of 'basic japanese' sentences you can encounter in study books. actually, severeal of them - for ex. "japanese are greeting in a cheerfull manner"- I even encountered in my 'japnese for everyone' study book. This already confronts me with a particular logic that isn't neutral at all and often hides a lot of prejudices about the people who speak the language in question. second: these objects also, within the given format of presentation, have a particular narrative task: to speak about an exhibition I did at Person's Weekend Museum in Tokyo, to be the show of a show (with the help of the catalog but also with other objects I destillated from there: including 20 10 minutes long conversations I taped with visitors) , to complement and expand the Tokyo project, to export (or re-import) it into another context. They also are telling you some particular activities I worked on during the several months of my stay and my show. third: those objects also can be seen partially as decoys for all kinds of questions: dealing with the intrinsic problem of the representation of the self and the cultural other, the presence or absence of the anthropological (fake) narrative, the complex of stereotypes and (cultural) prejudices - is now a greeting machine good or bad, superficial or practical; an 'elevetor girl' gratitious, humiliating, rediculous, efficient, sexist or traditional (to name just a few of the questions one is confronted with -- I simply refuse the way in which Roland Barthes in the "Empire of Signs" came to terms with all these for a western context unusual looking phenomena --. forth: those objects as a whole also can be seen in relationship to the "file, basic japanese" , hanging next to it with the "special comment" on it that studying japanese brings you to a limit where orientalism and exotism are at the point of revenge,a point where it was working against myself (as a european), where it destabilized me. So adding some almost fetishistic objects to it for a show at my return was once more for me a challenging thing confronting me and others with precisley these questions. A last task of the "basic japanese" shelf I see in the fact that I don't really want to chose another way of representing the process of the studying of a foreign language as a cultural exchange modus but a negative one, one that comes accross as superficial and irritading - since you are right that it is a process, something not really interesting to be documented as such.
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* Origin: THE THING NYC (42:1001/1)
Msg#: 2153 *ART*
02-02-94 11:14:42
From: RAINER GANAHL
To: WOLFGANG STAEHLE (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2120 (SNAP TO GRID)
I agree with you that the gallery or museum is a stage where the parameters of
interactions with the audience are mainly defined in advance, mostly by the institution and the artists. But I am not so sure whether everything is said by reducing it to the fact, that they are somehow elitist and exclusive (like the network we are writing on as well - since it takes less of an effort to just walk into a museum than log on here, even if there is a virtual space for interaction, that de facto is as regulated as anything else -): I can't resolve these aporia even if I try to address them in all kind of ways. But I would like to say something to the example you choose for good reasons: the book you are talking was laying in the museum in Tokyo with a sign that encouraged visitors to write words and sentences in Japanese they want the artist to learn: one day I was surprised by an entree of 50 pages constantly repeating in Japanese and in English: death, be dead, dead etc.... I found it a little disturbing since I didn't want the book to be an outlet for all weird expressions taking away so much space (50 sheets). So I became, against my own intention, an editor or, if you want, a censor in a mediaeval way. Nonetheless I do show then these pages illustrating my problematic but still carefully put
phrase: "A Japanese person showing signs of madness". I agree that this is an intervention that is decided on my part: but as I don't know the author I can't invite him for a reaction to my reaction (given the content of his message: I wouldn't be too interested in knowing it). Now, what I find interesting in these obsessive reiterations is the fact, that they were one of the rare examples, (next to the police), where I encountered personally signs of aggressions and repressions in Japan. And if I hadn't singled them out they wouldn't have become so visible as they are now accompanying a "basic japanese" sentence. But again I find your demand for a participational space very interesting but I have my serious doubts about a possible, satisfying and devinite equation between full participation and equal communication within the framework of cultural production even if both states would be desireable.
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* Origin: THE THING NYC (42:1001/1)
Msg#: 2157 *ART*
02-02-94 14:35:08
From: BARRY SCHWABSKY
To: RAINER GANAHL (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2153 (SNAP TO GRID)
I'm going to take the risk of being simplistic here. Your intentions with your show at Nordenstad seem to have to do with a very finely weighed calibration of judgements--a very complicated analytical attitude toward what is being displayed. But these are hardly articulated within the exhibition itself; they are all quite implicit. Aren't the means and contexts you are using, then, perhaps too fragile for the load you want them to bear? Shouldn't you perhaps tried to develop a more obviously discursive, more clearly multi-layered rhetoric?
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* Origin: THE THING NYC (42:1001/1)
Msg#: 2167 *ART*
02-02-94 22:37:29
From: RAINER GANAHL
To: BARRY SCHWABSKY (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2157 (SNAP TO GRID)
I appreciate that you see also the analytical attitude of this installation
some people don't want to see. The question to what degree my analytical and narrative interests are manifest I have been asked all the time, even being accused of formalism. I am refering here to the works of my "windows" that are dealing with indexical textual footage only. Now, with "basic japanese" I am playing in an almost Wittgensteinian sense with objects. (Wasn't Wittgenstein obsessed with elementary sentences going like: "but what if a child learns the word...", or "given somebody that studies a foreign language... "?) This involvment with indexical objects seems to make the readability of the
analytical layering of this show more difficult, since it is not so obvious to abstract from the single, partially seducing elements and see the entire shelf as a kind of "Lernkasten" (learning box) for a student yet to come. But in spite of this, one cruxial sentence on the shelf is "having a museum show" that is illustrated with a catalog that comprises an extensive analytical interview and images of the Tokyo show and activities (studying) I spent 6 months with in Japan. Therefore I would say that I have never had anything so explicitly discursive in a show before. Through this kind of door, one is invited to enter a different show, that relates to this piece without necessairily absorbing it.
But in the end I agree, it is my particular decision to chose a discrepancy between what you assume as a "load" and what is there. Wouldn't the shelf break otherwise anyway?
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Msg#: 2221 *ART*
02-04-94 11:50:53
From: BARRY SCHWABSKY
To: RAINER GANAHL (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2167 (SNAP TO GRID)
Yes, the "load" is "lightened" by some of it being projected elsewhere by means of the phrase "having a museum show" and what goes with it. In fact this idea of the "show of the show" is for me one of the more interesting aspects.
But more importantly, I have got to find a way to convince you to
accept the rubric of "formalism" with equanimity! Someone (I can't remember who) once said that a little formalism takes art away from the real, but a lot of it puts it right back. What I like about your work is precisely the way it is possessed by this sense of what I think I called in the Art Press essay "hyperformalism" that brings the world back in from the margin.
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* Origin: THE THING NYC (42:1001/1)
Msg#: 2229 *ART*
02-04-94 17:24:07
From: RAINER GANAHL
To: BARRY SCHWABSKY (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2221 (SNAP TO GRID)
As we all know, "formalism" like "modernism" has turned into a token coined for all kinds of usage. I find myself particularly interested in "applied formalisms" - how I encounter them in daily live, whether in a supermarket, in a credit card or in any kind of electronic interface. Their designers probably
have first, second or third hand art school/history education and are therefore vaguely familiar with formalist vocabulary but don't show any interest in the ideological package that these visual rhethorics came with. So here too, I see the real with its pragmatics bleeding in like black ink even if it comes a little bit later. As a reader of Adorno, the most important European apologetic voice of hermetic modernism (that can partially be equated with formalism), I can't overlook, that precisely his favorite composer, Arnold Schho got a job in Hollywood - and guess as what: being a teacher for those film musicians who produce dramatic psychological background noises for movies.
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* Origin: THE THING NYC (42:1001/1)
Msg#: 2230 *ART*
02-04-94 17:44:24
From: RAINER GANAHL
To: BERRY SCHWABSKY
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2229 (SNAP TO GRID)
"hyperformalism" as a term is very intriguing as I see it as much in relationship with words and concepts like hypertexts (hypercards - a brand name) and hyperframes as with formalism.
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Msg#: 2256 *ART*
02-05-94 16:03:11
From: BARRY SCHWABSKY
To: RAINER GANAHL (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2229 (SNAP TO GRID)
"Applied" reads at least 2 ways--as meaning "put to work" (opposing the uselessness/art-pour-l'art aspect of formalism) or as meaning "laid on top of the surface, e.g. like a decal" (opposing the organicism/internal logic aspect of formalism) but in either case, isn't "applied formalism" an oxymoron?
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* Origin: THE THING NYC (42:1001/1)
Msg#: 2300 *ART*
02-06-94 14:50:57
From: RAINER GANAHL
To: BARRY SCHWABSKY (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2256 (SNAP TO GRID)
yes, it is so, "applied formalism" can be read as an oxymoron, a "figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms are combined to produce an epigrammatic effect" (webster's).
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* Origin: THE THING NYC (42:1001/1)
Msg#: 2336 *ART*
02-08-94 02:27:26
From: WOLFGANG STAEHLE
To: RAINER GANAHL (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2123 (SNAP TO GRID)
One piece in your show consists of a small row of books. The title refers to them as coffee table books. The authors - Said, Bourdieu, Spivak, Krauss,... - are frequently cited by you in interviews in support of your work. Like buoys they mark the intellectual terrain of your investigations.
Is the coffee table presentation an attempt at self-persiflage?
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* Origin: THE THING NYC (42:1001/1)
Msg#: 2554 *ART*
02-08-94 01:35:30
From: RAINER GANAHL
To: WOLFGANG STAEHLE (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2336 (SNAP TO GRID)
The work you are refering to is called: "A Portable, (Not So Ideal) Imported Library, or How to Reinvent the Coffee Table: 25 Books for Instant Use" and was conceived for the Tokyo show. There it was to function as something IMPORTED, that together with my study activities should allude - even ironically - to the arrogant and missionary attitudes of classical orientalists. The selection of the 25 books was at least partially reflecting this problematic issue of uneven cultural exchange. The work was on display in the coffee area of Person's Weekend Museum, and intended for use by visitors. I tried to encourage this by stating an example with the weekly 2 hour performance piece - "reading in the library". This performance was in direct oppostition to the highly consumption oriented quatier that the museum is located. As an Austrian, I am aware of the coffee table as a site where, historically, cultural issues were written, negotiated and discussed, something that was for me impossible to conceive in contemporary Japan.(I am talking about coffee tables). Now, being back to the country where most of the literature was selected from, I made another work with the same title - but as an "US-Version". This version further confronts and questions of import, its means in the cultural field, how it is different according the countries involved, how the import is perceived etc. Having
addressed these issues further, makes me want to continue with some more country specific versions. To what degreee the selected titles correspond with the work, and the context I am putting them, and to what degree ironies of all kinds may be involved is decided from version to version. I would like to add that I do read these books and I wouldn't be able to set up these shows without having studied them but this doesn't imply that I pursue like Wittgenstein at the end of the tractatus comparing his sentences with a ladder that ...
Msg#: 2590 *ART*
02-09-94 14:51:06
From: BARRY SCHWABSKY
To: RAINER GANAHL (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2554 (SNAP TO GRID)
I feel a need to interject here--to bring things to my usual "literal"
level--but it seems that your reply, interesting though it is in itself, goes past what I understood as Wolfgang's question, which has to do with the English-language phrase "coffee-table books" in the sense of big fat picture books (whether "Rembrandt's Greatest Paintings" or "Decorating Santa Fe Style" is irrelevant) that people buy not to read but to leave on their coffee table so people can idly flip through them while waiting for the coffee to be served (or whatever). I take it from your reply that you did not have that reference in mind at all--is that right?
Msg#: 2597 *ART*
02-09-94 17:31:49
From: RAINER GANAHL
To: BARRY SCHWABSKY (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2590 (SNAP TO GRID)
I did have also this reference in mind since I called it "how to reinvent the
coffee table". This can be seen as wishfull thinking that wants to turn the fat picture book tables into the marble ones Karl Kraus wrote on. But this is then nostalgic and confronts me with eurocentric, stereotypical prejudices of how and what culture has to be. As such the paedagogical and somehow arrogant impulse to teach, to preach, to be somehow missionary that is already implicit in the act of puting up these "imported books" shows once more even there. But I would not want to be cynical and have the books selected be equated with
"coffee-table books" even if I want this tension to be there.
Msg#: 2840 *ART*
02-11-94 14:28:54
From: BARRY SCHWABSKY
To: RAINER GANAHL (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2597 (SNAP TO GRID)
So is it that the marble table of Karl Kraus is closer to the stone tablet of the Law?
Msg#: 2842 *ART*
02-11-94 14:48:44
From: RAINER GANAHL
To: BARRY SCHWABSKY (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2840 (SNAP TO GRID)
it might appear to certain people like this. and who casts that marble table?
Msg#: 2865 *ART*
02-13-94 12:19:51
From: RAINER GANAHL
To: BERRY SCHWABSKY
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2842 (SNAP TO GRID)
Berry, I know you are giving me a hard time and the problems starts smelling "high" - "low" something you interestingly enough don't take up with the selection of books -that are all from the range of the so-called h-category -
but with the title. Now, with Karl Krauss as just an example from Vienna, I have cited somebody whose relationship to the authority of the law is very interesting: Most of his critical writing he started almost with an obsession for grammar and correct writing targeting out primarily the bad and inconsistent daily business of journalism and other media oriented publications. But what he did was not just comforming to a rule, a grammar, an authoritarian logic, the Duden's "snap to grid" but connecting social and ideological arguments with bad writing. To mass with grammar and words (something I unfortunately can't avoid here since I am not a native English writer, and right now without editor) was equivalent for him with the manipulation of narrative, representational, social and ideological meaning. He then became a very influential figure for Wittgenstein who too started his "tractatus" in the format of a law codex, even if he invites the reader at the end, to throw the ladder away after use. But from there, and somehow Wittgenstein really took his advice seriously (by the way a book he wasn't writing on a Kaffeetisch but partially on the battlefield of world war I) he develops almost out of Krauss his philosophical investigations that I think belong to the most deconstructive philosophical works in this century, far beyond any Derrida or Heiddegger who ignored him more or less totally. Another little anecdote, concerning the law has to do with James Welling. I met him during my show in Tokyo.He had a strong reaction to the books on the shelf but he did a nice thing: he send me a copy of a book he highly recommended and suggested to add it to the shelf. By the way a book that Mat Mullican was reading also at the time. I admit I hadn't payed any attention to this book and wouldn't read it normally. I tried the first 50 pages to get an idea: The book was called "The Firm". Ironically enough this story develops around a law firm in a very unrealistic but entertaining, seducing, "Dallas" tv-series like style. Now, the point I want to make, with all this is, that I do think - and this could produce more arguments - that the writers I somehow have chosen - as well as the writers I alluded to with the marble table - are in a more subversive way going against the stone of the law then any writers of the range of "The Firm" even if they gain high popularity and garantee full entertainment from the first page on. But I totally agree with you that the only thing that matters is the relationship to the "law" (Lacan would say the "father") and the ways one can break it.
Msg#: 2879 *ART*
02-13-94 15:03:33
From: BARRY SCHWABSKY
To: RAINER GANAHL (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2865 (SNAP TO GRID)
There's a lot to consider in what you said--and one thing I for one can be very sloppy about is keeping up the distinction between The Law and the laws. The latter we break all the time, and I think it's pretty obvious that in doing so we maintain The Law (Zizek can talk about this, but the same goes for Sartre or lots of others--I know I'm stating something well-known). But perhaps the effort to attain The Law forces it to crack a bit...
Incidentally, I would be very interested to know more about the relationship K. Kraus/Adorno. I've been reading the latter's "Notes to Literature" and things like his essay on "Punctuation Marks" seem very much related to what I understand about Kraus and his way of criticizing style. (I have to admit I've never read Kraus but have read lots about him, by Canetti particularly, also Benjamin, but also many others.) Does Adorno cite Kraus much and in what way??
Msg#: 2887 *ART*
02-13-94 16:25:50
From: CAROL BROAD
To: BARRY SCHWABSKY (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2879 (SNAP TO GRID)
Excuse me, I don't understand what law or laws you are talking about. I find the discussion quite interesting, but sometimes the context is lost on me. I would very much appreciate if you could establish some context for those of us who have not read all the books and authors you are constantly refering to. Or
an I asking for too much? Thank you very much. I would like to see Mr. Ganahl's exhibition, where is this Nordenstad Gallery?
Msg#: 2908 *ART*
02-14-94 11:32:18
From: BARRY SCHWABSKY
To: CAROL BROAD (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2887 (SNAP TO GRID)
I agree that all this "referencing" can be a problem, and in fact it's a
problem not unrelated to ones I was earlier trying to analyze with regard to Rainer's show at Nordenstad (upstairs from Pat Hearn, on Wooster between Broome & Grand--stop in for dessert at the Gourmet Garage while you're there!),
problems about what seemed to me a too-great assumption that viewers could be "complicitous" with him in assuming certain kinds of attitudes towards the cultural materials (including books) on display.
As for my particular references, some of them are pretty inessential in the sense that I hope that the point I'm making can be clear without them, but they are there as an extra "example" to make even more sure that things are clear for anyone who might be familiar with them (and in some cases I know that Rainer, to whom I was replying, is familiar with them. Slavoj Zizek would be one of these, for instance. In another case I myself was asking for more information, namely Karl Kraus. But if there are particular allusions you'd like me to clear up for you, let me know what they are and I'll do my best.
Msg#: 2910 *ART*
02-14-94 11:51:42
From: BARRY SCHWABSKY
To: CAROL BROAD (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2887 (SNAP TO GRID)
After replying to you a few minutes ago, I decided to take the liberty of finding some of your other contributions to discussions on the Thing in the hope it would give me more of a sense of who I was talking to. What I noticed was that you often emphasize your non-understanding of what's going on, what's being said. Is it that you really feel you don't understand, or perhaps that your understanding is "other" than what you think others are understanding? Or are you taking a Socratic stance, trying to prod people to examine their statements more closely? Come clean, Carol!
Msg#: 2914 *ART*
02-14-94 12:46:47
From: MORGAN GARWOOD
To: RAINER GANAHL (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2865 (SNAP TO GRID)
two distinctions that deserve unpacking: *snap to grid* and *the stone of the law*.
Msg#: 3124 *ART*
02-15-94 02:21:07
From: JOSEFINA AYERZA
To: MORGAN GARWOOD (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2914 (SNAP TO GRID)
Morgan I think the word "tablet," which you seen to omit, helps to clarify the concept. It reads: "the stone tablet of the law.'
Can't help with "snap to grid..." American slang?
Msg#: 3127 *ART*
02-15-94 03:45:04
From: RAINER GANAHL
To: MORGAN GARWOOD (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2914 (SNAP TO GRID)
"snap to grid" is first of all a computer command, something you can find in
all kind of programms that allows you to structure the space you use. then it is also a name of a piece, I once showed in the US in english and in japan in japanese. then it is the name of this interview, wolfgang came up with. plus you can imagine all kind of things (the network shuts me down in 2 minutes) I got to go. concerning the stone, I refer you back to barry schwabsk.
Msg#: 3141 *ART*
02-15-94 10:55:09
From: MORGAN GARWOOD
To: JOSEFINA AYERZA (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 3124 (SNAP TO GRID)
Hamurabi ? Moses ? The Kaaba ? Whose, which, where, when?
Msg#: 3142 *ART*
02-15-94 10:57:21
From: MORGAN GARWOOD
To: RAINER GANAHL (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 3127 (SNAP TO GRID)
but, also like the idiomatic American "snap to", to get with it, to orient to expected roles, know what is required, no extra attitude, just do the job.
Msg#: 3166 *ART*
02-15-94 21:33:46
From: JOSEFINA AYERZA
To: MORGAN GARWOOD (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 3141 (SNAP TO GRID)
I was only getting the phrase together--since you send me back to it. However
about its meaning you should ask Barry Schwabsky, he wrote it.
Msg#: 3174 *ART*
02-15-94 22:39:42
From: BARRY SCHWABSKY
To: RAINER GANAHL (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 3127 (SNAP TO GRID)
I think Josefina's reminder should clear up the question regarding the stone
tablets of the Law--except of course for those blessed with ignorance of our "judaeo-christian" heritage!
Msg#: 3200 *ART*
02-16-94 13:21:38
From: BARRY SCHWABSKY
To: MORGAN GARWOOD (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 3142 (SNAP TO GRID)
I wouldn't call "snap to" American slang exactly, I hear it as more
specifically military in origin--though perhaps that's no great difference. Shall we consult William Safire?
Msg#: 3219 *ART*
02-16-94 18:51:58
From: MORGAN GARWOOD
To: BARRY SCHWABSKY (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 3200 (SNAP TO GRID)
"Snap to" has the feel of a response to a powerful presence, dispelling reverie and focusing intently on the present circumstances. If a rock is hurtling down a mountain slope straight for you, the appropriate response is to "snap to".
Back in Texas, "snap" was an undefinable property that certain people were better endowed with than others; it was the capacity to gather oneself on moments notice, a precision of response. "Slugs" lacked "snap". Snap was that little extra degree of spiff, a pinch of alacrity in daily undertaking. Not a bad concept, all in all.
Msg#: 3224 *ART*
02-16-94 20:12:09
From: JEFFREY SCHULZ
To: BARRY SCHWABSKY (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 3200 (SNAP TO GRID)
In some research that I did a few years ago -- which I can't locate -- I think Ifound that the etymology of "snap to" derives from the expression "doe dem
tap too," or something very close to that. It's Dutch, I think, and it means that a military compound should "bug out." There is also the military traditions of tattoos which, as I recall, were competitions/spectacles based on military drumming.
Msg#: 3233 *ART*
02-16-94 21:49:44
From: BARRY SCHWABSKY
To: MORGAN GARWOOD (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 3219 (SNAP TO GRID)
But "snap to!" is an order, and perhaps implies that the addressee is, as you say, a slug.
Msg#: 3631 *ART*
02-20-94 17:24:25
From: CAROL BROAD
To: BARRY SCHWABSKY (Rcvd)
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 2910 (SNAP TO GRID)
I'm so embarassed that you read my early messages! I wish I could delete them! I try hitting the Delete key on my keybord but nothing happens. My
understanding may be "other", but I don't know if I understand what you're talking about. Your statement leads me around in a circle. I feel like when I'm in a plane circling the airport and never landing. But I read that understanding is circular, so maybe you neverland!
Msg#: 3643 *ART*
02-20-94 23:26:50
From: BARRY SCHWABSKY
To: CAROL BROAD
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 3631 (SNAP TO GRID)
Well, you never land in Never-Never-Land anyway. Not only have I read your past messages, but they were even the subject of conversation at a party I was at last night! The person I was talking to opined that you are "too good to be true"--in other words it seems I am not the only one to whom some of your interventions seem disingenuous. (That's not a criticism, by the way.)
THE THING
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