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First Flush was performed as part of
the Ottersberger Performancetage festival. I held a 45-minutes
lecture, while at the same time an assistant
prepared five teas.
The purpose of the talk was to prepare the audience for the special
quality of a tea ceremony which was to take place after the lecture.
To have one of the infusions provided the possibility of consuming
material that was once synthesized in famous thinkers and musicians
as Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison and Heinrich Böll.
To prepare the performance I had travelled to different cemeteries
and collected leafs of trees growing near the graves of those
personalities. These delivered the material from which the infusion
drinks were made during the performance.
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Five of theteas were offered to be tasted. In Ottersberg 66 of the approx. 100 visitors took advantage.
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When
the lecture had finished the audience was asked to come to thefront
where the infusion assistant just completed her job:
The teas were ready and in front of each tea pot stood a little
arrangement consisting of some of the original leafs, a photograph
of the corresponding personality and a card giving some basic
information on the person (sample on the left) |
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The lecture was accompanied by slides. Only the final ones made direct reference to the origin of the teas. |
The lecture was structured in 13 Chapters, each of which was illustrated by slides.
(selected examples, the images were not part of the text sources. They were produced for the performance):
1. Extract from a talk of the psycho therapist
Rainer Mahr on the subject Energy and Identity, held in
Rome in 1995 From a physical/bioenergetic point of view: How life should be influenced by subatomic particles. |
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2. From the introduction of the book Expeditionen
in den Nanokosmos (Expeditions into the Nano Cosmos) by Michael
Gross
Molecules: Without them there was no life |
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3. From the chapter Processes of the Transformation and
the Christian Communion taken from the online reader Geisterleben.
Menschenessen (Ghost Life. Man Eating.) by Andrea Sick
"The cannibal act appears as (...) a process of the metamorphosis: it converts the dead into the living" |
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4. Extracts from the chapter The assimilation
of nitrate is required for the synthesis of organic material
taken from the textbook Pflanzenbiochemie (Plant Biochemistry)
by Hans W. Heldt |
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5. Extract from the article Kurt Cobain: Die Stimme einer
Generation (Kurt Cobain: the voice of a generation) by Lars
Friebel, Rhein-Zeitung 02-20-1997 Subject: Star cult and the way how to deal with the cinder of the popular Nirvana singer |
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6. Extract from the 5th chapter of the book Wie
der Mensch den Tod besiegt (How man defeats death) by Klaus
Reinhard
Description of a laboratory test in which it was demonstrated that rats and other animals show a similar behaviour as trained congeners after having been given an injection of the latter's brain substance. |
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7. § 13 from John Locke's An Essay concerning
Human Understanding. (1689)
Topic: The question about the possibility of transmigration under materialist premises |
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8. Extracts from the textbook Introduction
to Organic Geochemistry by Stephen D. Killops Subjects: organic decomposition and the enrichment of inorganic nutrients in the soil |
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9. Extracts from the chapter about Isoprenoides
from the textbook Pflanzenbiochemie (Plant Biochemistry)
von Hans W. Heldt
Essential components of etheric oils, as they are found in infusion drinks, are phosphate and nitrogen. Plants absorb them above all from the vegetable mould. |
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10. From the homepage of the Swiss undertaker's
institute Waldesruh ("tree funerals")
"the cinder of the deceased is brought in the ground near a young or newly planted tree or shrub. Symbolically it gives it strength ..." |
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11. From the text Beim Staubwischen (Cleaning
off the dust) by Moritz Gerber - diary of an alternative servant
:
"The future dust which I am, wipes present dust which has once been on his part nose, bellybutton and skull cover of someone. Who sticks to my cleaning rags, dust today and human being yesterday? ... " |
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12. Extract from Die Physik der Unsterblichkeit
- Moderne Kosmologie, Gott und die Auferstehung der Toten (Physics
of Immortality - Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the
Dead) by Frank J. Tipler |
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13. Solutions and hot infusion drinks: a short
text about the composition of teas and the chemistry of making tea. |
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*thanks once again to Anna und Angela. You were the
best infusion assistants I could have wished for!
Quoted sources:
| Work in Progress | Actions | Installations | Miscellaneous | Jozwiak |
| Antipodes (I) | First Flush | Snow Letter | Page Flipper | Realtime |
