It’s the book from which I learned to play chess: Bobby Fischer, Schaaklessen, geprogrammeerde cursus voor beginners en gevorderden (1974). It was a present for my 9th or 10th birthday. I still remember so much of it that I suspect it had a big influence on my strategic/logical thinking. (In so far as I am able to think logically/strategically…) Bobby Fischer – who became worldchampion in 1972, never lost the title according to himself – died this week. The most controversial chess champion.
The book, I now see, is originally from 1966, entitled Bobby Fischer teaches chess, the co-authors are Stuart Margulies, of Basic Systems Inc. (? Basic the computer language?) and Donn Mosenfelder, a leading figure in ‘programmed instruction’. It was published by Xerox. It’s still available at Amazon.ca: http://www.amazon.ca/Bobby-Fischer-Teaches-Chess/.
On the 25th of January (ah), Loudthings, the first 35mm film of Telcosystems will premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival: http://www.telcosystems.net/index.php/projects/2008-loudthings/.
Screenings are scheduled on friday January 25 at 16:15 in Pathe 6 and sunday January 27 at 22:30 in Venster 2, both times as part of the programme Science and Beauty. Furthermore it will be screened saturday February 2 in the Short Marathon programme.
Tonight we expect a packed OT301 (Overtoom 301, Amsterdam) for the DNK-concert of Ultralyd and KTL. Ultralyd is Anders Hana, Kjetil Moster, Kjetil Brandsdal and Morton Olsen. KTL is Stephen O’Malley (Khanate, Sun O))), Lotus Eaters) with Pita (Peter Rehberg). I’t going to be wonderful immersive and really loud drones/noise and exquisite electro-acoustic dark freerock. Or something like that.
Stephen O’Malley: http://www.ideologic.org
Ultralyd: http://www.n-collective.com/index.cgi?article=14&dept=groups & http://www.myspace.com/ultralydh.
DNK: http://www.dnk-amsterdam.com/
Monday 19th, 21.30h, Overtoom 301, Amsterdam. (I guess it’s 5 euro’s).
Aankondiging:
Een vrolijke avond met Onno Kosters, Han van der Vegt, Arnoud van Adrichem, Joost Zwagerman, Fabian Stolk en Arie Altena
Waar: in Perdu, Kloveniersburgwal 86, 1012 CZ Amsterdam, 020 4220542
Hoe laat: 20.30 uur. Zaal open: 20.00 uur.
Datum: woensdag 21 november
We beleven opnieuw een bloeitijd in de Nederlandse epische poëzie. Er worden weer meeslepende verhalen verteld in een dichtvorm die zich uitstekend leent voor voordracht en commentaar. Vandaar deze avond, die door literair-cultureel tijdschrift De Gids wordt georganiseerd ter viering van het verschijnen van haar themanummer met en over epische gedichten.
Poëzie:
Onno Kosters leest Lonely Planet, een hellevaart op een soms ondraaglijk lichte toon.
Han van der Vegt draagt een halfuur voor uit zijn in Homerische versmaat geschreven, meeslepende epos De Paladijnen, dat integraal en verticaal is afgedrukt in De Gids.
Arnoud van Adrichem komt met een aantal gedichtencycli uit zijn debuutbundel Vis.
Commentaar:
Joost Zwagerman licht wat achtergronden toe bij Roeshoofd Hemelt, zijn eerste proeve van epiek.
Fabian Stolk legt uit waarom nu juist de epiek het zo goed doet in de Nederlandse poëzie.
Arie Altena plaatst de epische poëzie in het tijdperk van internet en andere communicatienetwerken.
U wordt door de avond geleid door Dirk van Weelden en Arjen Mulder, beide redacteuren van De Gids.
Het nummer van De Gids is inmiddels uit, en te koop “bij de betere boekhandel”.
If you’re in or nearby Groningen: there’s an Audio Office Audio Art Event running from the 9th till the 11th of november (at the Steenhouwerskade 9). Sound art, deejays, installations. With a.o. Steven Jouwersma, Jobbe Holtes, Sjanet Bijker and Pascal Petzinger. More info: http://www.audiooffice.nl/.
Available in december in Dutch, and in spring 2008 also in an English translation: De Monografie, a complete overview of the works of Dutch avant-gardist, conceptualist, theatermaker, composer and pioneer of electronic music Dick Raaijmakers.
Arjen Mulder and Joke Brouwer of V2_ have worked by now almost three years on the book, and have gone through Dick Raaijmakers papers and other archived ‘stuff’ for it. (I’ve seen quite a few originals pass by here in the V2_ office…).
If you order the Dutch version now, you’ll get a discount. More info: http://www.dickraaijmakers.nl/
A new work from the German (new media) artist Ralf Baeker: Rechnender Raum. He describes it as follows: “”Rechnender Raum” (calculating space) is a contemplative machine. Strings, weights, leavers and motors are connected to circular neural network. Touching one leaver will release an impulse that runs through the whole system; it will compute its possible states to infinity.” The term ‘Rechnender Raum’ comes from Konrad Zuse, one of the ‘fathers’ of the computer.
Take a look here (also video documentation): http://www.no-surprises.de/rechnender_raum/
Pictures of the exhibition Cluster of Benjamin Gaulon, Geraud de Bizien and Antoine Lejolivet in Strassbourg: http://www.esad-stg.org/chaufferie/2007.10.html.
Coming monday you’ll have a change to see and hear the work of Telcosystems at DNK (Amsterdam, OT301, Overtoom 301, 21.30h). Telcosystems is of course Lucas van der Velden plus David and Gideon Kiers.
You’ll get Jozef van Wissem + Tetzuki Akiyama that night as well.
(And a good atmosphere).
http://www.telcosystems.net
http://www.dnk-amsterdam.com
For whomever wasn’t there last week: you missed a superb and very radical performance of Mattin.
Tomorrow = thursday night Alex Galloway will lecture at Mediamatic on Debord’s Game of War and a modern-day translation of it in java. I suppose he’ll also talk about his 2006 book Gaming — Essays on Algorithmic Culture, and his 2007 book The Exploit, a Theory of Networks. I’ll be introducing him and moderating the night.
Mediamatic: http://www.mediamatic.net/artefact-23815-en.html
Alex Galloway: http://cultureandcommunication.org/galloway/
Btw, I registered at the Mediamatic-website. “To hell with privacy, Google will find out anyway”. (But I want to access my data too, to do ‘things’ with it!)