E. P. I.
Zentrum
Europäisches Performance Institut
DIE GABE the gift, donation, offering, talent, endowment, potlach, present,
For several years
ASA-European has been conceiving ideas and formulating thoughts on the theme of Die Gabe. ASA-European endeavors to shape these
ideas into project ready forms. This is undertaken in collabration with the
"nodes" of the network; various artists and other people working interactively.
Some of the basic elements are shown in the "Gastgeber-/Gastprinzip" (the
Host/Guest Principle). ASA-European will arrange a Jour Fixe for the first Saturday of the
month, beginning in March 1994. Each event will be organised in collaboration with a
guest.
The dissolution of all
social phenomena into "free floating processes" through quasi-alchemistic
structures a) of money b) other models of communication
Why people form ideologies is so as not to be influenced. The appropriate form of
participation is to make use of the world and value it in the most active form. What are
the most active forms?
Create spaces for
influence, exist in intensities.
Die Gabe is the causal sense of society, the intervention between the current and the
potential.
Art was once existence without reality in that it formed a world that allowed no
conclusions. The conclusions that are now being drawn in art and becoming reality have
lost their bond to Die Gabe.
Die Gabe is the transformational at the beginning of each culture.
Die Gabe as a corpse is an undeniable necrophilic fact. Die Gabe doesn't exist. Once
we start, then we are confronted with this every day: that Die
Gabe doesn't exist. (Peter Farkas)
Thought: Refer to no
aesthetic, no datable ethic. Develop a gestalt, a sign.
If there was a
beginning and if that beginning was the beginning of community, then that was Die Gabe. And, if there was a first understanding
of value and if this understanding took the form of the honor of providing a stranger a
friendly welcome, then Die Gabe was
also expressed.
In old Greece when
someone left the community, a plate or another earthenware vessel was broken and a shard
was given to the person leaving. It was the duty of the host or the leader of the
community to break the shards. If this person came back, then his right of hospitality was
renewed upon producing the fitting piece.
Think of the history
of ethics as the history of Die Gabe,
as the history of values. Die Gabe and
the national economy. In that a person's wealth, along with his performance, also defines
an ability, then the wealth is not his property; it is obliged to be passed on. The party
and the Service are among the techniques for doing this. A cultural obligation manifests
itself in the fact that people receive (among other things) their wealth through other
people and that they express themselves with and through values as fellow humans.
The world is
everything, as is the case (Wittgenstein)
(From the abundance of cases, one of them led me to Die Gabe.)
Die Gabe, the Service Space and the Transfer of Values for every situation and the
special service performance, for every specific request... Thus, even the first expression
of the request and the expression of the desire, develop and shape the form and the
performance of the service.
That which binds is
the intention to be at and in something at the same time. Although the place and time of
the performance need not be simultaneous. Crystallisation of the existing network
Wistful moment in the
construction of the network.
Make the network
recognizable in its materiality and its values.
The mental network :
Inter-Ment
The self-defining
placement of material and action into an idea is the common bond between: the media, the
artists, the protagonists of finance and science; and interdisciplinarily thinking and
interactively acting people. Idea and action enter into self-transformations which we
hereby name, Die Gabe. Displacement
allows that no more objectivity be demanded than each is entitled to and every observer
decides this for himself each time.
Anonimity of the
Motive, Lack of Relationship, The Present
A gift becomes Gabe when it is given as a sign of sovereignty.
Information - Gabe, antagonists
The Gabe done is "the" social contract.
View the Gabe as the given, as the causal religious.
Everything is given and independent from everything else. But, is everything also given
without expectation?
Outline the field of associations with Gabe as a concept, as an action, as the influential, etc.
Research Gabe as a concept in space, in time and in gravity.
Determination of place. Gabe and
publicity, Gabe and action.
In a state of excess,
a Gabe that once aided survival is no
longer appreciated.
Create frameworks,
situations, which act as an INTERFACE showing the perpetual implosion of values and the
wealth of form therein.
At the foot of every Gabe lies barbarity.
Gabe as an instrument in the critisism of every value system.
Gabe: Transitive Procedures, The Network. Merleau Ponty: In order to connect
yourself, the untouchable is required.
In the sign of Gabe, work is transformed. The value of a completed work is measured in its legibility through time. The Gabe is the expression of composure. It transforms work into communication. The implosion of capital.
Gabe:
the self-sufficient form, principle of sufficient reason, the one-sided place of osmosis.
As the realization is
wealth, the ability is a gift. The traumatic productive force of people.
Gabe
is a free floating many-sided morphological event that seperates energies from form and
binds the otherwise unsuspected.