hello // requiem for the listserve

November 16 2015

hi all,

my name is david. i'm from new haven, connecticut in the US of A. i dropped out of school and moved to germany at the beginning of september to make electronic music and sound art outside of the confines of the stifling academic-industrial complex. if you'd like to listen, i'm on soundcloud as DIN//VOID.

being in berlin has been a blast, but it comes with its own set of privileges and difficulties. so far i've had trouble finding a job with which to support artistic production, and getting settled in takes a long time. so i'm at a weird crossroads at the moment- thinking of moving to new york if i can't get a visa but also i'd really like to stay here and keep getting to know people. this is my first time ever off of north america so i'm also trying to travel around europe at the end of the month, to see what i can if i won't be living here. email me if you want to meet up in europe, or if you know anyone interested in hiring an english-speaking artist in berlin, or if you'd be interested in booking me in europe or NYC area.

i'll be unsubscribing from the listserve soon. i've been here since its first month, and it was yuppy-ish from the start, but since then the listserve seems to have degenerated into a bland self-congratulatory self-help fest. the idea of hearing from a random voice from the internet in your inbox every day is appealing, but we're a self-selecting bunch and the impassioned life advice or start-up ideas get tiresome. with that said, i want to share the "delicious movement manifesto," written by one of the most influential teachers i've had, the dancer eiko otake. this is not a hard set of rules, simply a guide to movement that's really applicable anywhere - moving is all we're ever doing.

//

Move to rest, sleep, and dream.

Move to pass time, bloom, and linger.

Move to taste and share.

Move to forget and remember.

Move to experience a body as part of a landscape and landscape as a body; both breathe and move.

Look at dance as a flower that grows, blooms, wilts, to be noticed, be nurtured and be savored.

Appreciate life as movement (even in relative stillness).

Feel everyone’s life as an unrecoverable, transient, precious process within a larger sense of time and space.

Nurture kinetic imagination and kindness to oneself and others living or dead.

Be with others (present or lost), find a way to enjoy conflicts, and negotiate. Learn by experience.

Be sensual. Be beautiful and inviting in ways that are not necessarily sexual.

Dance a solo as a duet with a shadow. Dance a duet as a solo remembering a shadow.

Enjoy the flow of life but also enjoy being stuck. There is always something that can move even when one is stuck.

Move to create sustainable culture of peace.

Think about what dead people might want from us.

Move to value artistic and philosophical differences.

Honor silence

Please add your own

//

please write to me if you'd like to learn more or teach me, or discuss things like object-oriented ontology, gender theory, art theory, berlin, permaculture, anti-capitalism, aesthetics, bicycles, rap, björk, or club music.
shouts out to the elm city/anyone reading this i know! give a holler.

solidarity!


david elkin-ginnetti
[email protected]
berlin, germany


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