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Decade
ephemera and brief identifying facts repeated
120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
3 people want to read
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August 17, 2012
http://www.goodreads.com/review/new/1...
Décade is a book by Anne-James Chaton, accompanied by a CD of “pièce sonore créée avec Alva Noto et Andy Moor”. The book is attractively laid out, and the glitch sounds and effected guitar of Noto and Moor create a pleasing and suitably eerie accompaniment to Chaton’s vocal performance. In French, Spanish, German, Dutch, English, and Japanese (the latter five languages mainly distinguished by purple font in the book) we are presented with various ephemera (application forms, bank statements, recipe ingredients, and the like) and simple sentences indicating times, locations, and activities. Representative selections follow:
He reads The Guardian. He reads an article. He comments. He analyses. He talks about the French referendum. He talks about Europe. He talks about France. Il a une carte. Il est de première class. Il est dans le magasin. He is with the crew. He is at the launch pad. He is at the European Space Agency. He does research. He talks about benefiting mankind. Il est chez H+M. Il parle de PEUGEOT. Hij is in de CITIBANK. He is with a pediatrician. 彼はカーニバルにいる。彼はクリーニング室にいる。
Across more than 100 pages, various identities (for men) are created through a seemingly infinite supply of simple information – times, locations, and activities. The activities locate identities in certain taste cultures and means to acquisition, and are strikingly generic. Nothing is accomplished: identities arrive in certain places at certain times, are present with certain parties, do things, and say things. The things they say are valueless and have no effect. All things are presented in the same simple sentences (simple subject, simple object, verb) and are therefore of equal value: “He talks about benefitting mankind” is equally as (un)important as “Il est dans le magasin.” Identities are empty and actions are absurd, in the sisyphean sense. Lives are determined through identities, and identities are meaningless.
Décade provides a hopeless view of existence – specifically, existence in (post)industrial consumer societies. Some of its targets are less expected than others. The US border is a less original target than the Guardian reader, whose knowledge and interest in European affairs are of equal significance to shopping at H+M, and are simply part of an identity.
In satire, we expect a demand for betterment, and so it is hard to know whether Décade can be classified as such. Certainly, it creates demands on us to question. Are actions effective, or simply a means to situate oneself, or an expression of means? What is efficacy? If standards for identification are so valueless, why are they deemed important for crossing borders? What is the purpose of borders? Décade provides little in the way of answers, resulting in a heavy hopelessness.
Décade is also, however, an immensely enjoyable artifact both for reading and listening. Its content – ephemera – tells us something unpleasant about our existence. But it is presented as a kind of riddle, like a Zen koan. The text’s transmission of ephemera and empty acts is repetitious and hypnotic. It is somewhat mystical in granting unknown significance to what normally is not venerated. And it is perhaps sinister, because we can deduce what systems need to collect such facts. It is an original expression of the absurd, and an expansion of language, pushing gently at the avant-garde. Thus it is, as an artifact, hopeful.
Décade is a book by Anne-James Chaton, accompanied by a CD of “pièce sonore créée avec Alva Noto et Andy Moor”. The book is attractively laid out, and the glitch sounds and effected guitar of Noto and Moor create a pleasing and suitably eerie accompaniment to Chaton’s vocal performance. In French, Spanish, German, Dutch, English, and Japanese (the latter five languages mainly distinguished by purple font in the book) we are presented with various ephemera (application forms, bank statements, recipe ingredients, and the like) and simple sentences indicating times, locations, and activities. Representative selections follow:
He reads The Guardian. He reads an article. He comments. He analyses. He talks about the French referendum. He talks about Europe. He talks about France. Il a une carte. Il est de première class. Il est dans le magasin. He is with the crew. He is at the launch pad. He is at the European Space Agency. He does research. He talks about benefiting mankind. Il est chez H+M. Il parle de PEUGEOT. Hij is in de CITIBANK. He is with a pediatrician. 彼はカーニバルにいる。彼はクリーニング室にいる。
Across more than 100 pages, various identities (for men) are created through a seemingly infinite supply of simple information – times, locations, and activities. The activities locate identities in certain taste cultures and means to acquisition, and are strikingly generic. Nothing is accomplished: identities arrive in certain places at certain times, are present with certain parties, do things, and say things. The things they say are valueless and have no effect. All things are presented in the same simple sentences (simple subject, simple object, verb) and are therefore of equal value: “He talks about benefitting mankind” is equally as (un)important as “Il est dans le magasin.” Identities are empty and actions are absurd, in the sisyphean sense. Lives are determined through identities, and identities are meaningless.
Décade provides a hopeless view of existence – specifically, existence in (post)industrial consumer societies. Some of its targets are less expected than others. The US border is a less original target than the Guardian reader, whose knowledge and interest in European affairs are of equal significance to shopping at H+M, and are simply part of an identity.
In satire, we expect a demand for betterment, and so it is hard to know whether Décade can be classified as such. Certainly, it creates demands on us to question. Are actions effective, or simply a means to situate oneself, or an expression of means? What is efficacy? If standards for identification are so valueless, why are they deemed important for crossing borders? What is the purpose of borders? Décade provides little in the way of answers, resulting in a heavy hopelessness.
Décade is also, however, an immensely enjoyable artifact both for reading and listening. Its content – ephemera – tells us something unpleasant about our existence. But it is presented as a kind of riddle, like a Zen koan. The text’s transmission of ephemera and empty acts is repetitious and hypnotic. It is somewhat mystical in granting unknown significance to what normally is not venerated. And it is perhaps sinister, because we can deduce what systems need to collect such facts. It is an original expression of the absurd, and an expansion of language, pushing gently at the avant-garde. Thus it is, as an artifact, hopeful.
Displaying 1 of 1 review