Würden Sie zustimmen, dass "Lovebomb" aus radikalen Audio-Fenstern auf und aus (Zeit)-Geschichte besteht? Warum geht es um Liebe?

Viele Soundquellen und Poltitsche Themen werden absichtlich entsorgt, sind daher"outdated", manchmal einfach nur ausgespielt. Mich hat dieses Dilemma herausgefordert, es war regelrecht initialiserend, um ein Projekt über Liebe zu forcieren, was ja auch ein sehr poltisches Thema ist. Liebe ist definitiv played-out, vor allem in der Musik. Es ist gar so sehr ausgespielt, dass es wieder interessant geworden ist, darüber Aussagen zu treffen. Daher ist in Lovebomb alles als eine Art Regurgitation (Rückstau) zu begreifen. Auf diese Weise verwende ich auch politische Themen, die ähnlich "regurgitated" und "overfamiliar" sind, um sie dann in das Spiel der Erwartungen einzubinden. Aber eigentlich handelt mein Album von der Rolle des Vergessens in historischen Prozessen.

Für herausrragend halte ich "between empathy and sympathy is time." Worin bestand die Idee des Re-Writings einer historischen ANC-Radio-Ansprache, deren Verwandlung in ein skurilles Wortklangbild?

Die Idee des Track's besteht darin, reflexartig ein mitfuehlendes Ohr auszuloesen, so dass der Zuhoerer sich dann selber dabei erwischt die zuerst uneingeschraenkt erfahrene Sympathie in Frage zu stellen. Apartheid ist solch ein irritierender Punkt: Jeder ist frei davon, weil jeder weiss, wie er dazu stehen sollte. Wir wissen, dass der ANC in der Lage gewesen ist, viele der Verbesserungszielsetzungen zu vollenden, sie friedlich zu realisieren. Der ANC war aber ursprünglich eine militante Gruppe, die Terrorismus befürwortet hat: Wie schreiben wir Geschichte und sogar unsere Gefühle neu, um diesen Widerspruch von Kontexten und Tagesordnungen unterzubringen? Der Track benutzt Aufnahmen vom alten ANC-Radio-Sendungen. Er beginnt mit Maschinengewehrensalven, gefolgt von Geschichten des Ansagers über Repression unter dem Apartheids-Regime: Alles dreht sich schliesslich im Kreis, indem der schwarzen Gemeinschaft geraten wird, sich in der Vergeltungsgewalttätigkeit zu engagieren und die schwarzen Frauen anregt, wenn sie in" weissen Häusern" arbeiten, Handfeuerwaffen zu suchen und auch zu stehlen, usw., um sie gegen Weisse einzusetzen. Alles wird sehr alarming - mindestens denke ich, dass es alarming sein sollte. Eine scheinbare Nähe, gar eine Sympathie weicht plötzlich einem Zustand der Depression und wird von Abstand zwischen Radiosprecher und Zuhörer überschattet - geographisch, kulturell, persönlich und möglicherweise am wichtigsten: Ein Abstand zu dieser Zei wird hervorgerufen. Wenn Sie so wollen, ist es gar ein Stück schwarzen Humors: Schliesslich wird es auch eine Metapher für den Schock, den Glücklich-Verliebte erfahren, wenn sie auf diesen "Ich-weiss-gerade- gar-nicht- mehr-genau-wer-du-bist-Moment" stossen.

Sie haben Queer-Investments in elektronischer Musik auftauchen lassen ohne von "Politik kann ganz schön sexy sein" reden zu müssen. Was hat sich mit Lovebomb verschoben? Welcher politische Einschnitt wird markiert, wenn Sie sagen: "The beat. The Dancefloor. What a senseless territorial claim."

Yeah. Wenn Sie mir schon ermöglichen, weiter Salz in diese Wunde zu streuen, werde ich selbverständlich davon Gebrauch machen und noch eine Spitze hinzufügen. Es heisst ja: "The "global" dancefloor:" Was für ein sinnloser territorialer Anspruch! Wie jede andere Nation benutzt die House-Nation einen Schwall von Liebe-Samples, die in finanziellen Gaunereien, faulen Abkommen, Unterschlagung, Ausnutzung, Drogen und organisiertem Verbrechen regelrecht ertrinken. Der zu Fall gebrachte Vorwand der Clubszene den anderen zu lieben, kann nicht vom gedämpften Ambiente der Happenings hinter geschlossenen Türen getrennt werden. Ich denke, dass der soziale" CUT" dieser Situation auf eine Weise erfolgt, in der Leute dazu neigen, die Rhetorik des Dancefloors (als ein zu errichtendes und erweitertendes Territorium) von diesen sehr ernüchternen Wirklichkeiten der Infrastruktur zu trennen, die das Haus stützen, das Jack errichtete. Es wird immer als harmloses Wort-Spiel beschrieben. Aber es gibt auch etwas sehr aufdeckendes, fast hoffnugsvolles darin, weil sich die House-Szene mit ihrer pseudo-nationalistischen und selbstgerechten Sprache selbst dekonstruiert.

Ist "Lovebomb" auf die westliche Liebe-Matrix gerichtet, soll Liebe davon losgelöst werden?

Sie wissen, dass ich alles hasse, was nur ansatzweise kulturelle Transzendenz oder Trennung andeuten könnte. Obwohl ich über Liebe als trennenden Mechanismus spreche, markiere ich einen "Schnitt", der soziale Strukturen eher verstärkt, als sie abzubauen. Das ist vergleichbar mit diesem Akt des Erkennens, dass Gesellschaft auf Diversität beruht, dadurch aber noch lange keine romantische öffnung erfolgt. Es geht darum eine althergebrachte Trennung in den Griff zu bekommen und zu versuchen unsere Beziehungen in ein Gefüge sozialer Differenzen zu verwandeln. Ich bin wirklich weg von dieser Idee, dass es eine "Universelle Liebe" gibt, die grösser als ein Verständnis der Kultur "der Liebe" ist und uns alle zusammenbringen kann usw. Das ist der Mythus, den wir als Resultat kulturellen Trainings akzeptiert haben. Verstehen Sie mich nicht falsch - ich denke, es gibt etwas hilfreiches in einem trans-kulturellen Austausch, dass positive Sachen ergeben - aber wenn man die Erfahrungen genauer untersucht, liegen ihre Lektionen eher in dem, was wir DENKEN, was passiert ist, als in dem, was tatsächlich passiert ist. Und je mehr wir versuchen, uns von unseren Vorurteilen zu trennen, während wir in andere Kulturen eintauchen, und glauben, dass wir die Lücke überbrückt haben, desto klarer wird es jedem, dass wir alle Poser sind, die unsere eigenen Vorurteile verneinen. Es geht nicht darum, wie man Liebe von der westlichen Liebe-Matrix trennt. "Lovebomb" ist mehr von einer Geste motiviert, Anschlüsse zu bilden, Verbindungen sichtbar zu machen - möglicherweise sogar praktikabel zu machen? Nun, das ist wohl ein zu optimistisches Konzept für mich...

Lassen sie mich kurz John Lennon's "All you need is love" anstimmen. Sie aber summen eher "Need for disarming "thug lovin?" Sehe ich das richtig?

Hm, ich glaube, ich verstehe ihre Frage nicht. Aber Disarming" thug lovin" klingt super... Liebe ist da. Nur Liebe ist nicht die Antwort. Weder als Kulturelle Devise noch als emotionaler Mechanismus. Ich glaube, dass es Systeme der Verbindung gibt, die von Kultur zu Kultur schwanken und als "Liebe" oder eine damit korrelierende Folgebezeichnung definiert werden kann. Nur sind sie nicht gleich oder sogar ähnlich. Was ich versuche mit "Lovebomb" anzusprechen, ist die Weise, in der "Liebe" etwas verbirgt - normalerweise einen gegensätzlichen Gewaltakt oder eine kulturelle Trennung - demnach einen "Schnitt." Der "Schnitt" kann so einfach sein wie die stufenweise soziale Isolation eines Langzeit-Paares (Post-Marriage-Syndrom, man lässt die Freunde wegziehen) Schon die Vermutung von Liebe verursacht soziale Räume, in denen sich Leute einer Gewalttätigkeit unterwerfen, einer häuslichen Gewalttätigkeit, die in anderen sozialen Kontexten nicht annehmbar ist. Nochmal: Es ist wie mit Apartheid. Wir wissen, wie wir zu diesem Thema stehen sollten - jeder weiss es. Es ist Unrecht und niemand kann glauben, dass jedermann es tut. Es ist eines der grössten Probleme, die wir in dieser Welt haben, weil es Millionen unterschiedlicherFormen annimmt. Und eine der Schlüssel zu den Vorbedingungen dieser sozialen Räume, in denen diese "häusliche Gewalttätigkeit" auftritt, ist das Band der Liebe.

Und vor einigen Jahren, George Michael in den Cruisen Areas L.A.'s? Ist das nicht Liebe - auch heute noch?

Ja, das ist interessant, weil es die populäre Tendenz reflektiert, ständig Sex mit Liebe zu assoziieren, etwas worauf wir ja seit frühster Kindheit gedrillt werden. Gleichzeitig denke ich aber, dass diese Art von "Gay Cruisen" die Erwartungen an Liebe und Sex total verkompliziert. Ich denke da an eine Situation vor eine paar Jahren in Berlin. Es war 4 Uhr nachmittags und ich suchte einer dieser öffentlichen Toiletten auf, weil ich dringend urinieren musste. Also rannte ich förmlich zu einer der Urinale und realisierte plötzlich, dass der ganze Raum PACKED mit Männern war, die rings um die Urinale standen. Einige holten sich einen runter, andere hingen herum. Ich war der einzige, der die Toilette nutzen wollte. Der Typ auf der rechten Seite schien es richtig zu geniessen, dass ich dort urinierte, während die anderen wegschauten. Es schien als wäre diese WC-Nutzung so etwas wie eine Brücke zwischen einem hyper-sexualisierten Moment und der Zerstörung von Romantik. Ein Gefühl der Störung blieb in mir haften. In diesem Momet gab es dort keinen Platz für Liebe...aber etwas anderes ging vor sich, eine Art gemeinschaftliches Band hatte sich dort erhalten, das durchaus als Form der Liebe analysiert werden konnte. Ich verletzte dieses Band für einige, während ich es für andere aufrecht erhielt...Best Piss of my Life!

Dann ist Liebe...

ORIGINAL ENGLISH EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE FOR THOSE WHO CAN'T READ GERMAN - IN DESPERATE NEED OF EDITING

1. You are dealing with sound-pictures, with audio-windows on history. why you are going into the past, into this material? for creating new relations of sounds and words? How important is it to dissect the historical and contenmporary meanings of western love?

Yeah, a lot of the sound sources and political themes are deliberately "outdated" or played-out. For me, this related to the initial dilemma of doing a supposedly "politically themed" project about "love." Love is totally played-out, especially in music. I mean, played-out to the point that it really becomes a challenge to find something interesting about it. Everything is a kind of regurgitation. So I thought it was suitable to use political themes which were similarly "regurgitated" and overfamiliar, then play with those expectations. Also, this project uses a lot of spoken word, and I wanted to avoid the problems of people feeling compelled to respect "testimonial" or "documentary" language - something I think would happen if this album was only using contemporary samples. Maybe the opposite kind of project is B'O'K's release on Illegal Art, "Afraid of Enduring Freedom: A 'War on Terrorism' Documentary." That's a fucking brilliant album about the whole terrorism in America business, by the way... but it's a different approach with a different focus. I think that album is about creating alternative histories by remembering from a new perspective, while my album is about the role of forgetfulness in historical processes.

2. the short dialog between the korean girl and the american man: is it an example for how invisible powerstructures could be? is it about totally normalized but in fact ill comunication?

That is my father and my younger sister, who is an adopted first generation Korean-American. Yes, for me it really is a kind of normalized communication which contains a lot of cross-talk about people writing cultural identities... my father identifying my sister as coming from Korea, and my sister struggling in her youth to find the right words to describe herself as an American... or perhaps she was simply struggling to parrot a description taught to her, like "Hey, be proud, now you are an American!" Growing up in an inter-racial American family always revolved around this conflict between a White Liberal tendency to continually reassure everyone that all family members are "equal," while witnessing the reality of our different relationships to experiences of racial bigotry (ie., the difference between my sister being harassed by White classmates, or the White-on-White harassment experienced by my parents or the rest of us kids for having an Asian family member, and our various individual responses, etc.).

As a youth I used to draw parallels between my sister's experiences with racial harassment, and my own experiences with fag-bashing. And this actually became an issue for my participation in groups such as ACT-UP NY, where I really could not identify with the Gay White Male dominance of the "Main Floor" during meetings. But, on the other hand, being a White Pansexually Queer Drag Queen who often sported a beard in those days tended to complicate my interaction with People of Color or Women's Caucuses - even though those were the groups trying to deal with issues of cross-identity associations. They were "safety zones," and I didn't want to make people feel "unsafe," but I also did not feel comfortable grouped with the GWM scene... there were all of these microcosms of normalization and ill communication, as you put it. I think it is important to not always try and resolve this kind of crosstalk, and realize that nonresolution does not only mean reinforcing pre-existing conflicts. I think crosstalk is important to compromise.... I guess this lack of resolution is what most of my projects are ultimately about.

3. did lovebomb become an kind manifesto for U?

No... but I sure do prattle on in the text, don't I?

You're right, there is an invocation of manifesto language, incorporating quotes by Marinetti, etc.... Still, I hope it comes across a little more self-critical than manifesto-style writing.

There is a trick to reading the text - a sort of cast of characters which I guess I should spell out while I have the chance here. In general, text in italics represents my personal commentary, or a kind of subjective voice. Non-italic text represents a third-person voice, such as the transcription of a spoken-word audio segment, or a "factual" narration of events (such as in "Musical Synthesis of Futurist Lynching"). So in the booklet, after the introductory essay, most tracks have a transcription of spoken words from the recording followed by a brief, italicized one-liner of how that particular track ties in to the larger theme of the album... and these one-liners usually have a double-meaning which applies to cultural relations as well as a relationship between two lovers.

4. my favorite "track" is defintily "between empathy and sympathy is time" what was the idea for this kind of re-writing the historical anc-radio-stuff? for bringing it into a ludicrous, (even sexy) groove? to give it a more illustrious vibe and to produce a lucid poltical speecact?

Thanks. For some reason it seems to be everyone's favorite... and I'm not really used to people finding such clear favorites in a project. It's kind of fun for me, especially since it is one of the least "musical" tracks on the album (hey, are people trying to tell me something about the quality of my more "musical" tracks?)....

The idea of this track was to trigger a knee-jerk sympathetic ear, and then have the listener catch herself in second-guessing that initially unquestionable sympathy. Apartheid is such an issue... It's clear where everyone should stand on this issue. And we know that the ANC has been able to accomplish many of it's reform objectives peacibly. But the ANC was originally a militant group advocating terrorism, so how do we rewrite history and even rewrite our emotions to accomodate this contradiction of contexts and agendas? The tracks uses recordings of the old ANC radio sign-on starting with a barrage of machine guns, followed by the announcer's tales of oppression under Apartheid eventually turn full circle by advising the Black community to engage in retaliatory violence, encouraging Black women working in White houses to search out and steal handguns for use against Whites, etc... It all becomes very alarming - at least, I think it should be alarming. The intimacy of sympathy is suddenly violated by this awareness of desperation and distance between the speaker and listener - geographical, cultural, personal.. and perhaps most importantly, a distance of time.

If you think of it as a bit of dark humor, it also becomes a metaphor for the shock felt by happy lovers when things go sour - that "I don't even know who you are anymore" moment.

5. for bringing queer-investments into electronic music you dealt not with a superficial term of "how sexy politics can be." but what changed since House-Nation. can you explain again which political CUT is behind saying: "The beat. The Dancefloor. What a senseless territorial claim...."

Yeah, if you'll permit me to just flesh that quote out a bit more, "The 'global dancefloor.' What a senseless territorial claim. Like any other nation, the House Nation uses a barrage of 'love' samples to drown out financial rip-offs, sour deals, embezzlement, exploitation, drugs and organized crime.... The club scene's deafening plea to 'love one another' cannot be separated from the muffled ambiance of happenings behind closed doors."

I think the social "cut" in this situation is the way in which people tend to sever the rhetoric of the dancefloor (as a territory to be built and expanded) from these very disillusioning realities of the infrastructures supporting the House that Jack Built. It's always written off as harmless word-play, but there is also something very revealing (and hopefully deconstructing) about locating this kind of pseudo-Nationalist and self-righteous language within the House scene.

6. I think it is the first time that an electronic music artist focused the lacks of futuristic experiments in such a radical form: lynching and experiments? Is it a remake of passolinis sodom? a forgotten soudtrack?

Hmm, by invoking Marinetti and the Futurists I had hoped to establish a sense of unoriginality which would prevent anyone from concluding anything I do is a "first." I firmly maintain that nothing I have ever done is "new" or "fresh" or "first" or whatever... but reference points get forgotten or lost.

So we are talking about a track which uses quotations from Marinetti's 1909 "Futurist Manifesto" to frame a basically forgotten story of three African American men who were lynched in my hometown of Springfield, Missouri back in 1906. But the "forgotten" lynching actually triggered a huge exodus of African Americans from the Ozarks region up to larger Northern cities like St. Louis and Kansas City. It totally changed the development and history of the region. I chose to use the language of Futurism as a discourse of that same era dealing with the aestheticization of violence, especially since the hanging platform in Springfield was constructed with wood from oak piano crates, and the majority of Futurist compositions used the piano. From a narrative perspective - the narration of history, "forgotten" history - I wanted to incorporate this relation between the material mechanisms of lynching from piano crates and a cultural industry of aesthetics (ie., story telling). Futurism has a reputation of using images of death and violence only as reified fantasies. But these guys, Marinetti and his cronies, were also real volunteer militarists who fought in the Italian army. I think the language of Futurism was as much a formalist retreat as a means to comprehend their investment in certain cultural missions.

But I guess the track did turn out very "soundtrack-ish," didn't it? ...I'm not sure if that is good or not. I am working on a pseudo-"Futurist" video/film component - a shadowbox reinactment of the lynching with text interspersed on cards like a silent film - which might push that soundtrack aspect over the edge.... Actually, I hope to do videos components for the entire album. I'm looking for sponsors, if anybody is interested... (The sound of crickets chirping).

7. is there a need for "real" love, i mean not to continue the modes of western-pop-culture. do you wanna disarm "thug lovin." why?

I'm not sure I understand your question. But I love it... disarming "thug lovin" sounds great!

Well, I don't think it is a question of "needing love." I think there is "love," but love is not the answer. As a cultural device... and as an emotional mechanism... I do believe there are these systems of association which vary from culture to culture and are defined as "love" or a corollary term... but they are not equal or even similar.

What I tried to talk about in this project was the manner in which "love" usually cloaks an antithetical act of violence or cultural separation - a "cut." The cut can be as simple as the gradual social isolation of a long-term couple ("post-marriage" syndrome? that drift from friends...) to the cultural boundaries drawn out of a nationalistic "love of country." The presumption of "love" also creates social spaces in which people are allowed to subject each other to violence and behaviors that are unacceptable in other social contexts, such as domestic violence. Again, it's like Apartheid, we know where we should stand on this subject - everyone knows it's wrong and can't believe anyone is doing it, blah, blah, blah - but it's still one of the largest problems we have in this world and it takes a million different forms. And one of the key preconditions of social spaces in which "domestic violence" occurs is a love bond.

8. how can we seperate love from the western Love-Matrix? ist it possible?

You know I hate anything which even faintly implies a moment of cultural transcendence or separation. Even though I'm talking about love as a mechanism that "cuts" between people, it is a cut that reinforces social structures rather than dismantling them. Similarly, the act of recognizing diversity is not about some romantic opening-up of society. It is about coming to grips with longstanding separatism, and attempting to transform our relationships to social differences.

I'm really trying to get away from this idea that there is a "universal love" which is greater than one culture's understanding of "love" and can bring us all together, etc. That is the myth we already buy into as a result of our cultural training. Don't get me wrong - I think there is something healthy about cross-cultural exchange, and it can result in positive things - but if you break those experiences down, their lessons usually lie in what we THINK happened, rather than what actually transpired. And the more we try to separate ourselves from our preconceptions, "immersing" ourselves in other cultures and believing we have transcended the gap, the clearer it becomes to everyone else that we're all poseurs denying our own biases. It's like in Japan there are tons and tons of books about the differences between American culture and Japanese culture - all written by these "respectable" American ivy league doctors who have lived in Japan for ten years or more, but they all read like they could have been written by anyone in America without ever leaving the country. They feed into the most basic cultural preconceptions Americans have about Japan, and disclose more about where the authors came from than where they have been living for the past decade.

Rather than trying to figure out how to separate love from the Western Love-Matrix, I think "Lovebomb" is more motivated by a gesture to understand those connections and make the links visible - maybe even manageable? No, that's too optimistic a concept for me I guess... but hopefully you get my point.

9. a few years ago, george michael in the cruisen area: can this be love today? how important is this micropolitical option in the "world perspectice" of lovebomb?

This is an interesting question, because I think it reflects the popular tendency to always associate sex with love - something most of us are drilled on since childhood - but at the same time I think that kind of Gay cruising is about totally complicating expectations around love and sex. I keep thinking of a time many years ago when I used a public bathroom in Berlin around 4:00am. I really had to urinate badly, basically running up to the urinal, and realizing the place was PACKED with guys standing at the urinals - some jacking off, others just hanging about, but I was the only one using the toilets to pee. The guy on my right seemed to really like the fact that I was pissing, while others looked away. It seemed like my using the toilet was somehow a bridge between a hyper-sexualized moment and the destruction of romance... and this feeling of "intervention" stuck with me. It's like there was no place for love in that moment... but there was also a kind of communal bond going on before I got there which might be construed as a form of love... and I violated that bond for some, while envigorating it for others.... Best piss of my life!

10. what's love?

I think Howard Jones pretty much answered that question with his big hit song back in the '80s. If I remember the video correctly, I think love has something to do with a stupid mime guy carrying around big plastic chains... I'd say that's it in a nutshell.