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Very proud of Roger Dirk Bundschuh's beautiful libertarian manifesto in Berlin Mitte, right across from Volksbühne. Check out his exhibition in Hamburg.

Currently preparing reports in California.
This is San Francisco.

The night and perfume: a matter of sex, seduction, fleetingness and illusion. A night with perfumer Guillaume Flavigny also reveals that music has a scent, and tastes are an expression of our attitude.

By Hannes Grassegger


It’s a matter of life and death for Guillaume Flavigny: “If you had the choice,” I ask after spending a few hours with him on a spring night in Paris, “of being either blind or having no sense of smell or taste, which would you choose?” Flavigny’s small, beady eyes narrow behind his black-framed glasses, and the nostrils of his long, narrow nose flare. He leans forward slowly, his gaze fixed on me: “Most people believe that your sense of smell is less important. They’re wrong! Without your sense of taste, you wouldn’t be able to smell the spring air, taste different foods or love or sex…”. Life itself would become as a film, a play experienced from behind a veil: “It would be terrible. Without taste, you would have no life at all.”

Flavigny is a master “nose”, or nez as perfumers and oenologists are known in France. As one of the chosen sixteen at Givaudan, the world’s leading producer of fragrances and flavours, he develops scents for houses including Gucci, Dior and Lacoste, as well as niche brands, at the company’s distinguished Avenue Kléber address in Paris. Givaudan estimates that it creates thirty percent of all perfumes, although the company’s own name appears on its products as rarely as perfumers appear in public; few people know Flavigny “the nose” – but almost everyone knows one of his fragrances.

Vol de Nuit (“night flight”) is one of the longest-produced fragrances. Like Gainsbourg and Bardot, night and perfume are a perfect combination. It’s a matter of sex, seduction, fleetingness and illusion. Around ninety percent of aromas are synthetic. Naturalness is an illusion in this world, where everything takes place in the mind. What about the concept of fragrances as an “invisible second dress”, as the adverts promise? “On a summer night in Paris, you can smell the fragrances worn by both men and women on their way to the opera or the theatre. But the smell of the city is sweetest two or three hours before dawn, when the night becomes clean and the noise has faded away,” says Flavigny.

Our nights have become clearer with the deodorisation of public areas, since the stench in Berlin, London and Paris was tackled in the mid-18th century. In those days, fragrances were often used to combat disease. Before that, incense was burned in praise of gods: the word perfume is derived from the Latin per fumum (“through smoke”). Today, artists such as New Zealand-born Dane Mitchell create “fleeting sculptures” with fragrances, while others even understand them as a means of reconciling the major religions, as in the case of Berlin-based Daniel Josefsohn and Susanne Raupach with their scent MoslBuddJewChristHinDao.
And the cultural shift hasn’t spared the final bastion of collective natural bodily odours: discos and clubs. Since the introduction of the smoking ban, these venues, which once had a uniform scent of cigarette butts, sweat and alcohol, have become a veritable cacophony of fragrances. Clubbers now smell the aroma of dry ice mixed with a strawberry fragrance, the often perfumed flyers, and themselves. It’s become normal amongst clubbers to deride other people’s body odour. The “second dress”, which was previously a luxury, has become a must. This is a triumph for perfumers such as Flavigny, who are able to play on our illusions and bestow us with a particular aura.

At only 35, Guillaume Flavigny is a comparative adolescent in his field. He started working at “Kléber” aged a mere 26, having graduated from the only state-run perfumery school in the world, ISIPCA in Versailles. His award-winning final fragrance composition can still be examined at the Osmothèque in Versailles, the centre of the perfumery world. This opened the gates for Flavigny to the Givaudan Perfumery School, which admits only three applicants each year. There are thought to be around two hundred leading perfumers worldwide. Precise figures are not available; the industry keeps its secrets closely guarded.

A language of music and fragrances

When I arrive, Flavigny is listening to the Beastie Boys. He is lean, in his mid-thirties, with short, slightly ruffled hair and designer stubble. He is in the process of dripping a tincture onto one of the test strips he is holding, fanned out between the fingers of his right hand. Flavigny can create fragrances based on music. This is a unique skill. The language of fragrances resembles that of music, but the fragrance scale has almost four-thousand notes.
Givaudan’s students learn to describe these notes, to bring together similar notes to create scales, to combine notes to form chords, and to join together chords to produce harmonies. When composing a perfume, the flow of the fragrance is what counts, how the top, middle and base notes accord – to create a symphony. A fragrance consists of between 15 and 150 tones, orchestrated in all three registers. But while musical harmonies can be described in technical terms using acoustic vibrations, olfactory harmonies are left to perception.

Guillaume Flavigny’s great skill is translating music into fragrance. He describes his Azarro Duo Men as soul-pop with a retro feel; it originated from the Amy Winehouse track Back to Black. “Her song is warm and sensual, like tonka beans, vanilla, benzoin resin, figs; fresh like green leaves and pepper,” he says. “It resonates, like when cedar wood is combined with earthy, bitter vetiver grass.” For Flavigny, music is the starting point.

Every morning at 8.30 a.m., he launches the music player on his computer. The files range from Erik Satie to Jill Scott to Arcade Fire. He starts with two hours of Mozart. Unlike his colleagues, who often travel far and wide to gain inspiration (for example, the well-tanned Christophe Raynaud, co-composer of what is currently the most successful male fragrance, One Million by Paco Rabanne, who is setting off on a trip to Africa), Flavigny discovers the world in music. It was the relaxed jazz of pianist Laurent Assoulen that first persuaded him to translate music into fragrances in 2009. Since then, they have co-composed five fragrances. Flavigny fetches the resulting fragrance album and plays the CD. He expresses his perceptions enthusiastically, using a wide range of characteristics.

It’s getting dark outside. The lights in the corridor have been dimmed. Our plan had been to go to a restaurant an hour ago, then on to a concert. The most sacred, most secret item is wide open in front of me, alongside Flavigny’s music files: the formula for a perfume. It looks just like an Excel spreadsheet, with the substances in the left-hand column, quantities on the right, and the total cost at the bottom. I discover the Concierto de Aranjuez amongst Flavigny’s files. I decide to test him, asking, “Can you translate this into scents?” The lament of the adagio resonates, carried by the cor anglais and violins. The famous second movement of the piece by Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo, who was blind from an early age, evokes sorrow and pain, letting go of life after the miscarriage of his first son and a plea for the health of his wife. Flavigny’s eyes glaze over, he becomes perfectly calm: “The vibration of the violin evokes heavily smoothed musk with cedar wood. But it is swathed in vanilla, yearning, sweet, faint.” The lament begins: “Those are particularly woody notes; that creates strength. There is tension here, it’s almost nostalgic, but still considerably more sombre. It’s extremely powerful, quite dramatic, theatrical”, he says. “It would be great to compose a scent based on it. It’s dark, moving; there are a great number of contrasts, it’s very extreme, I see a scent.”

Flavigny translates the music into words, describes feelings, colours, even textures of materials that he then relates to aromas. This gives a certain structure to the associations he makes. He has created a language that combines music and fragrances. “I had never worked on something like this, but it works right away. I have to internalise the music, to understand it. I was frequently in contact with the musicians during the jazz project. Assoulen didn’t always agree with me right away.” The musicians and Flavigny then went on tour together, giving “fragrance concerts”, including an appearance at the Vienna jazz festival. Assoulen played piano on the stage, while Flavigny distributed appropriately perfumed test strips among the audience. “Visitors told me that it enhanced the information.” He adds that music helps people to understand ideas afresh. “A perfume creation is enriched by this understanding, people start out with genuine emotions.”

I put on Bonnie Prince Billy’s Wolf among wolves, the soundtrack to the paradigm shift in the US during the 2000s. Billy’s melancholy, fragile vocals are accompanied by a soft Western guitar. Flavigny is listening to Billy for the first time. “I like it. It’s pure, simple. It’s clear, like a modern sculpture. But it also has something romantic, something sweet about it. I see a woody aroma, with a little musk. Everything is very simple, but only quality ingredients. The sound is extremely coherent, beautiful, almost happy. I like the slowness. It would be a scent you applied before going to sleep, something that develops slowly. A sweet flower that fades slowly; a wood, slow, sweet, something that triggers gentle sleepiness. Sweet cedar, white cedar, slowly melting away. Creamy, floral, but not heady, and absolutely no spice notes, but something that wafts over you. It would be quite a rounded fragrance. Not too complicated. I have something similar here.” Flavigny picks up a vial from the table and sniffs it. “No, that’s not right,” he says, “too sunny, too much light.” It’s late. We have to leave.

“What is that? Garlic?”

The night watchman has locked us in. We try doors, run along empty corridors, Flavigny dressed in heavy biker gear; he avoids the metro and its odours. He loves jazz. And rap. He makes fragrances for Sisley and Balmain. I ask myself what makes up his world. Jean Guichard, Director of the Givaudan Perfumery School, explained to me earlier that afternoon that he didn’t select his students according to their technical abilities, but their creativity. He stressed that the most important thing is that “A perfumer must, above all, live in and with his time.” Perfumes should describe the emotions of an era. Naturally, Givaudan also employs trend researchers to hunt out the zeitgeist. The night watchman lets us out.

The windows of my taxi are rolled down; the spring night smells of rubber on tar. Paris seems cleaner, but the social structure is the same as it was a decade ago – with little future.

Flavigny’s take on what the future will hold becomes clear over the first glass of wine. He has reserved a table by the window at Saturne in the 2nd arrondissement; the atmosphere is more like Copenhagen than its status as the new place to be seen would suggest. Sommelier Ewen Lemoigne proudly uncorks a bottle of Canon Primeur table wine. Flavigny raises the glass to his nose. Canon Primeur is a rare Muscat-Trollinger by Hirotake Ooka, a young Japanese winemaker who presses French wines as they were made in the old days. He moved to Saint-Péray in the Rhône region, bought caves and recultivated fields, and treads the grapes by foot. Ooka doesn’t even add sulphites. It’s a technological adventure.

“Floral, like peony, fresh violet rose, fruity, sour apple.” Flavigny is impressed: “This wine is the exact opposite of what wine advocate Robert Parker recommends. Always nothing but wood and vanilla. Wines no longer have any resonance or any acidity!” Flavigny is incensed. “Everything is so artificial. It kills the wine! It’s the same in the majority of restaurants, for every wine in Paris. Winemakers are damaging wine, damaging life. That’s why I like Saturne – because it respects nature, people, the earth.”

The cuisine of 24-year-old chef Sven Chartier is extremely local, and is generating much debate in Paris due to its puritanical purity and simplicity. It is as if Chartier wants to make a feature of the complexity of tastes of his ingredients – preferably unaltered. Many people find that this radical aspiration is going too far. We are served dishes comprising only the most intense herbs and blossoms, with suckling lamb from the Pyrenees, humus made from black lentils, and a smoked milk foam. My taste buds have been sensitised by the hours spent with Flavigny. Never before have I been staggered by fennel blossoms. At once animated and rapt, Flavigny analyses the rigidity of a spear of green asparagus, then his eyes fall on a white blossom the size of a pinhead. He sniffs it. “What is that? Garlic?” A woman at the next table says that it’s a garlic chive blossom. This results in a fifteen minute discussion on whether it might have come from the garden of Joël Thiébault, the “vegetable king” who has a stall at the Palais de Tokyo. “Organic doesn’t always mean the same thing. It depends on a number of factors,” says the woman at the next table. A waiter is summoned and explains that the herbs come from the restaurant’s own garden.

I ask Flavigny where this desire to check everything comes from. “I think it’s extremely interesting to find out about the entire value chain. When I buy bread, I want to try it first. Then I can say whether it’s good, or whether it contains unnecessary chemicals.” And how does he know that? “You can smell it!” Flavigny holds up a piece of bread: “They bake with honey and chestnut flour. It’s outstanding. No chemicals. I smell it: it smells alive! I don’t shop in supermarkets – for political reasons. Quantity kills quality.” He says it’s difficult to apply this type of idea in your working life.

Flavigny is involved in pitches for client orders. Even within Givaudan, a number of perfumers will compete with their concept; the best is then submitted. If the client is persuaded, this is just the beginning of months or even years of back-and-forth. Flavigny is currently working on around a dozen projects. “I have to be quick, think strategically, understand the target group, bear sociodemographic and cultural factors in mind, take the planned marketing and the allergy guidelines into consideration, and then minimise the costs.” He says there are two parallel trends in the world of fragrances: the mass market and chemicals, and exclusive lines made from expensive natural ingredients that exist based on the story of their product. However, originality is something that Flavigny could spend a long time searching for in the world of fragrances. The allergy guidelines have changed perfumes radically. They also affect a large number of natural ingredients, which now need to be replaced.

We order another bottle of wine. For Flavigny, it evokes a world of red sulphur, strawberries, a hint of gunpowder, and pepper. The son of an architect and a museum director, Flavigny recognised his gift for identifying tastes and smells at around age 14. When someone was cooking rice a hundred metres down the street, he could smell it as clearly as others saw the steam. Flavigny recognises people by their smell. When someone is afraid, it smells like sour ham to him. “I could smell it when Laurent Assoulen split up with his girlfriend.” Flavigny himself wears a cedar wood fragrance. Without it, he says he would feel naked. His nose is constantly becoming more refined. Nowadays, when hiking, he can smell what is over the next hill. If he takes the metro, with its typical smell, he has to make himself think about something else. But his sharp sense also enables him to enjoy the aroma of the early light when he goes jogging at sunrise in the Bois de Boulogne. Flavigny delights in the smell of unopened cigars, the aroma of whisky, and his passion for collecting. His strange and secret favourite smell is black wax crayons.

Smell changes the way you hear

We step out of the restaurant into the night. At the nearby Social Club, Paris house-artist Kavinsky is DJ-ing. My nose feels like a sharpened pencil. The crowd are from a range of backgrounds. The Middle Eastern contingent prefer natural aromas: saffron, rose, sandalwood, heavy and powerful. A group of Asians in subtle, clean, fresh tones head to the bar where two Latin Americans are smooching, floral with woody notes. They could be Germans, but they lack the comfortable tones of vanilla and sandalwood. Russians are not so easy to pick out, and intensely floral in general.

The dance floors writhe with people in their mid-20s, but it’s not the bass lines we feel: sweat levels have increased. Smoke from the smoking room gradually masks the sweat as the door opens and closes. “Clubs actually used to smell worse than this; the mix of alcohol and cigarette ash,” remarks Flavigny. Nonetheless, he finds the smell of sweat repellent. He draws back from a cloud of garlic. I complain that the music is bad. “The music hasn’t changed at all,” replies Flavigny, “it’s the smell that’s changed your perception of it.” He can’t stay any longer: “I can smell the men.”

It’s 3.30 a.m. Flavigny climbs onto his motorbike and heads home through the cool summer night. Shortly before hitting the road, he says that he often dreams of fragrances. He sees them as sculptures that change over time. In his dreams, he approaches them, moulds them, and in the morning writes down the formula. For Flavigny, fragrances are feelings. Even in his dreams, he works in this world that is beyond logic. Surreal, I think, taking another deep breath of night air, and flag down a taxi. The roar of the air streaming by and the smell of the leather seats merge to form a symphony.


Hannes Grassegger (b. 1980) writes on culture and industry for newspapers including Die Zeit, the Financial Times Deutschland and the Tages-Anzeiger.

April 2011, during short trip to Milano and Portofino. A nice, warm evening at the beach. Maybe 23° Celsius. Great music.

..in my garden, reading "The Nightmare of Participation" by Markus Miessen.

For some time now, Miessen has been waging war against the hollowness of the popular idea of "participatory strategies". In this recent book, he outlines an alternative definition of participation. The idea of the "uninvited outsider" who is "forcing himself in" even if he is not an expert. Miessen's ideal is the productive debate rather than "Harmonistan".

To me this sounds like an investigative journalists everyday-job.

It's a beautiful day. No work. Just thinking and reading.

a friday night in Zürich in 2011

Wadi's Night



Snipers in Tripoli



Benghazi in the aftermath




Al Jazeera Live Blog

Muslim Brotherhood - serving whom? This is actually an interesting analysis of the current situation in Egypt. I received this letter Monday 14th of February - which was actually valentines day - from an egyptian friend who works as an artist from his studio in Alexandria.

dear Hannes,

Thanks a lot for all your messages and care, and i am very sorry for this late answer, but as you know the internet was off for some time and the SMS services was off too, and then when they turned it back we were all busy with the revolution and the streets here,
last days was supper exciting, dangerous and confusing. most of us had lots of ups and downs during the last 18 day but now as you know it feels supper supper great, i am incredbilly happy to be in town in the last days,
we figured out too many things since the revolution started but the most important thing is that they managed to raise up my generation for 30 years (i was born one year after moubarak took the power) on this scary idea of choosing between moubarak or living under the power of the Muslim Brothers and the extremists, but we find out in the last days that it was a big joke for 30 years.

The majority of people in egypt dont want MB to take over and they wont let them take the stage after all, this is not a liberal ideological optimism but i can say from my experience of the last days in the streets, and after talking to people and social classes i never had a chance to interact with them before that it is really a fact indeed,

i really wish you were all here to celebrate with us the big success, it was absolutely such incredible moment for all of us,

keep you fingers crossed for us and really hope to see you soon somewhere,
big hug from the rainy Alexandria,
M.

By Maha Maamoun, during her visit to Switzerland 2007

Am 02.02.2011 um 18:48 schrieb Mattathias Schwartz:

Hannes,

I loved your P.S. -- the news from Egypt is so exciting and I am still trying to figure out what to make of it. I am very curious how it is being received in your country.


Matt,

It's absolutely amazing times. You are right.
I have visited Egypt several Times and quite recently Tunisia. I wonder whether we are all missing a chance.

Egypt:

I haven't received any news from my friends in Egypt. I do actually worry about them. some of them seem to be at Tahrir place right now, according to another friend. Some others are in Alexandria.
I fear for their lives, as these guys are artists, who in many ways lead a different lifestyle.
Currently there seems to be anarchy. No protection for nobody. A mix of hope and fear.

From my perspective Obama has missed a historic chance to attract huge part of the young hearts of the arab world. There is momentum comparable to 1989/90 eastern Europe.
European politics failed even worse. Berlusconi supports Mubarak, Westerwelle does nothing but "fear the islamists taking over".

Me, I do fear an islamist Egypt could be really bad for Israel of course.

My idea was to set a clear, very symbolic meeting, but strictly non-interventionist signal from the so called free world, that "free arab nations" would be welcomed.
Knowing the region a little bit and speaking some few words in arabic I feel like there is movements pulling in several direction, towards secular democratic or theocratic directions. but people want to be more free.

Most of the people over there are part of our generation or younger. Like us, they mostly despise political ideologies as outdated. People neither have nor want general directions. This pluralist generation, some might also say egoistic, is prone to be overrun by small, well organized groups who share common goals i.e. ideologies.

My Egypt Friends:
- http://www.acafspace.org/main.html
- http://www.ciccairo.com/

Tunisia
My tunisian friends are doing okay, by the time. I think my May visit to Tunisia was one of my biggest fails as a journalist. I was invited by some agency who together with the tunisian government had set up a luxurious rallye for wealthy westerners. Their idea was to send a signal to the western world, that Tunisia has potential.

I saw another potential. The power of the internet. Look at that picture. I stopped our driver - a government guy who wouldn't talk about politics - because I was fascinated. this painting was in one of the medium sized towns (it could even have been sidi bouzid) which we crossed on our way back from the sahara to tunis.


pre-revolutionary mindset. evidence in Tunisia, May 2010.

now, in this setting, the graffiti is amazing. it talks about porn and punk rock, it's several authors, who join together. also they mix english, arabic and asian letters. these are globalists. most fascinating to me: they use the internet heart <3.

Back in Tunis, I met a young actress, beautiful, former miss arab world, who had short hair. Because she was starring in a movie about a young student, whose traditional daddy would shave her head, because he had found out about her relationship to another guy in her student town tunis. she was together with an elitist guy, who was actually quite cool personally, surfer dude and former fashion apprentice for a well known european designer. even though he was involved in some kind of Ben Ali family issues, he openly admitted he disliked the system. It was all to obvious. Even the elites were fallin apart, joining hands with different minded people.

I felt something was going on, I felt it was internet and politics. but I felt like nobody would understand me if I write about it. I didn't write anything. I failed.

That was the rally in NYT: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/burning-fish-rally/

Now I think it might be interesting to follow the transition in Tunisia and Egypt from a personal view. "How does anarchy and revolution feel at home?" Like an ongoing story.
I have people down there who would talk about that. One of them had set up a branch of an international model agency in Tunisia back then. Later on Gaddafi ruined his business by not paying him for a certain event.

Any better ideas?

Best, Hannes



Hannes,

Wow, thank you for this. I haven't been to Egypt or Tunisia--I'm super grateful to you for all these insights. I don't think that you failed on your mission in Tunisia. It seems like you came away with experience, and insight, which is more than what usually happens on a
junket. It would be such a cool travelogue for you to write up now, with everything that's happened since. Yeah, that could be such a great story.

I think we here in the United States feel at a further remove from what's happening in Egypt and Tunisia, although we are excited and always in favor of people clamoring for more freedom. But really,revolution hasn't been a serious subject here, domestically, since 1969, so people have sort of lost their mental vocabulary for thinking it through, except as something that brown people do, from time to time, on other continents. Even the Tea Party / anti-Obama people here in the U.S. are not very serious--they are frustrated, and they like to talk, but they are highly aware of how much they benefit from our current system, flawed as it is.

I wish there were some way to organize direct, ground-level communication between people in Egypt and Tunisia and other places. Twitter is the beginning of this, but it doesn't feel very collective, deliberative, or substantive.

This ...

Now I think it might be interesting to follow the transition in Tunisia and Egypt from a personal view. "How does anarchy and revolution feel at home?" Like an ongoing story.

... is such a terrific idea. How do you think it could be accomplished?

This ...

Most of the people over there are part of our generation or younger. Like us, they mostly despise political ideologies as outdated. People neither have nor want general directions. This pluralist generation, some might also say egotistic, is prone to be overrun by small, well organized groups who share common goals.


... really struck me. Yeah, that's the problem in a nutshell. How can we, the global anti-ideological egoists, organize ourselves into a collective political force while maintaining our essential independence and free thought, with succumbing to any ideologies?

In N. O. right now, trying to put together a long piece about XXXX.

Best, Matt


Dear Matt

funny. the moment I read your thoughts I thought, maybe I wanna ask him, whether I can publish this dialogue on my website.

You said ...
I think we here in the United States feel at a further remove from what's happening in Egypt and Tunisia, although we are excited and always in favor of people clamoring for more freedom. But really, revolution hasn't been a serious subject here, domestically, since 1969, so people have sort of lost their mental vocabulary for thinking it through, except as something that brown people do, from time to time, on other continents.

-That's amazing. I thought, americans would feel much more self confident and powerful. Also, I was wondering how do american people with a non-western-european background feel about revolutions? Ukrainian, persian, african americans?

...I wish there were some way to organize direct, ground-level communication between people in Egypt and Tunisia and other places.

- This sounds like a good idea. Do I understand you correctly: You mean, like a dialogue between people from different countries? Or a tool to enable many-to-many communication amongst people? Something like the internet, but more direct? More like an issue related channel?

....This ... Now I think it might be interesting to follow the transition in Tunisia and Egypt from a personal view. "How does anarchy and revolution feel at home?" Like an ongoing story.

... is such a terrific idea. How do you think it could be accomplished?

I thought about publishing a daily thing, maybe just copy-paste a skype chat between me and some tunisian/egyptian friends?
The format of skype dialogue is great. I have used it for print, it appears familiar. A very international tool. An additional feature could be letting readers send in their questions.

...This ...

Most of the people over there are part of our generation or younger. Like us, they mostly despise political ideologies as outdated. People neither have nor want general directions. This pluralist generation, some might also say egoistic, is prone to be overrun by small, well organized groups who share common goals.

... really struck me. Yeah, that's the problem in a nutshell. How ca we, the global anti-ideological egoists, organize ourselves into a collective political force while maintaining our essential independence and free thought, with succumbing to any ideologies?

yours is a much more straightforward way of bringing it to the point.

It's exactly this point I have been thinking about for years. How can a liberal society exist when there is fear of radical minorities? How, without becoming totalitarian and oppressing all kinds of ideologies? To me, this has been the number one big issue of the zero years. Being german, I have experienced this situation first hand with tiny naziskin minorities literally ruling public spaces in eastern germany.

Then I was thinking about the late 1980s, early 1990s. Happy times, walls were crumbling. Fukuyama thought the end of history was here. All kinds of micro cultures were developing. From counterculture to subculture to pluralism. Remember this italian clothing brand "United Colors of Benetton"? It had a very interesting integrative approach. Uniform cuts, made to suit everybody, but in all kinds of colors. Advertisements were featuring all races, with everybody wearing "his" color of the ever same very bourgeois V-neck pullover. The greatest common denominator.

Then the towers were brought down, 911, and distrust, fear, suddenly developed. Like, wait, maybe what if all these other micro-cultures were dangerous? how can you establish a society, with groups that don't have now common denominator, no universal concept of human rights etc? Look at hiphop, maybe the most dominating worldwide musical trend of these years. A friend of mine, a "real guy" said: "what if hiphop could become a political system?" I just started laughing. But he was right. Its a musical form of the "ghetto", where micro groups in a setting of distrust just look for themselves. Fuck the common denominator, gangster. In Switzerland, were I live, people just started throwing out foreigners (picture of political campaign of the leading swiss party (30%): http://ch.indymedia.org/images/2007/09/52920.jpg). Hiphop is amazingly popular here, still.

Maybe because there is much less physical threat and also because you don't have to have a "coherent identity" I think the internets has recently shown an approach to act collectively without falling back into outdated, potentially totalitarian "collectivism".

look at "anonymous" attacks on certain websites like paypal etc. From the outside, this looked like a well-organised, collective action. activists, terrorists, like fox news said. from the inside, it was just single persons, out for the lulz. acting freely. somebody came up with the idea: "let's attack this and that. because of, er.....okay: they are against wikileaks." someone else liked the idea and found the justification legitimate. then somebody else popped up and said: "hi, here is the ion-cannon. download here and use for/against whatever." all those who downloaded the ion thing to use it against "the enemies of wikileaks" just acted a single entities, out for fun. but individuals grasped a collective feeling at the same time. they were just following an idea on an opt-in opt-out level.

But, as you were pointing out in your trolling report, this is not truly a liberal society. But it's a society, where as a matter of fact, you don't have to fear other peoples totalitarianism so much.

What will be the impact of this on peoples minds, if they grow up in the internet a 50% of their time?

sorry for tl;dr, hannes



Hannes, this is a very cool conversation. It made my day yesterday.


Also, I was wondering how do american people with a non-western-european background feel about revolutions? Ukrainian, persian, african americans?

This is a great question, one that I don't know the answer to. My hunch is that African Americans have a very wide range of opinions about it, and what it might mean for the rest of Africa, if anything.
The other minority are probably more homogenous. One interesting thing about minorities in the U.S. is that they are the real bearers of the "American Dream," the idea that you can work hard, get a good job, lead a materially rich lifestyle, and have your children go to college and prosper even more. White elites don't buy into this, having experienced firsthand all the spiritual void that the luxuries of the neoliberal order can't satisfy. And most working-class whites have given up on the hope of ever getting there. But the folks who come here from India and China and Latin America are still on the rising side of that mountain. And many of them lived through real revolutions, or had parents who did. Still, I have no idea how they're reacting to Egypt.


There is huge uncertainty in europe about how serious the tea-party should be taken. It looks like we need some good information or a great report about this.

I gave this a shot, a few months back ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/magazine/01Appleseed-t.html ... the Tea Party is sort of an accidental conspiracy between the hypersensitive liberal U.S. media and tough-talking conservative wannabe extremists, to create the illusion of a threat. It serves both of their purposes. At least that's my opinion.

...This.... sounds like a good idea. Do I understand you correctly: You mean, like a dialogue between people from different countries? Or a tool to enable many-to-many communication amongst people? Something like the internet, but more direct? More like an issue related channel?

Honestly, I have no idea what this would look like. It would definitely happen over the Internet and is starting to happen.
Basically, once you give everyone the tools to communicate with one another, instantly, you're going to see the emerge of a cosmopolitan global consciousness, and it's going to start talking to itself and about itself and getting more and more advanced. Wikipedia and Couchsurfing are probably my two favorite examples of this so far..

I thought about publishing a daily thing, maybe just copy-paste a skype chat between me and some tunisian/egyptian friends? The format of skype dialogue is great. I have used it for print, it appears familiar. A very international tool. An additional feature could be letting readers send in their questions.


Yeah, you should totally do this. People want to know what's happening on the ground. I only fear that I won't be able to read it, as I don't speak German or Arabic.


... following an idea on an opt-in opt-out level.

We need more ways to do this, and for the act of opting in to have consequences in the street, not just the Internet. I read one analyst who said the dumbest thing the Egyptian government did was turn off the Internet, because then all of the kids had nothing to do but go out and protest. I don't know if that's actually true, but I like the idea. In some ways, a person sitting alone in a room hitting keys is the greatest threat to the totalitarian state; in other ways it's exactly what the state wants--a way for people to vent without initiating real action.

Hip-hop is indeed fascinating. Such a rich and potentially revolutionary cultural movement, that literally came out of nowhere and took over the ghetto, and was then almost completely co-opted by capitalism. But you can still find that original Public Enemy strain in certain places ...



How can a liberal society exist when there is fear of radical minorities? How, without becoming totalitarian and oppressing all kinds of ideologies?

Yes, this is *the* big question. I think we have to be really careful about publicly labeling certain people as "extremists." There's a certain population that says (and sometimes does) crazy things because they feel like no one's listening to them. If they feel like someone on the other side heard and understood them and somehow wove them into the consensus (this is different from agreeing) then they'll calm down and moderate their own views. The real trouble comes from the folks who won't be appeased by listening, or whose views are so abhorrent that they can't be incorporated into the liberal consensus. But a lot of these folks, even, if you pick away at their surface beliefs (hatred of racial minorities, say) you'll find some valid concerns (fear of globalization, distrust of elites). Part of the hardcore trolls' agenda is to create an ideology so self-consciously abhorrent that it will resist any of these attempts at engagement. And yeah, engagement is impossible unless you start with sincere people, communicating in good faith, and the trolls are certainly not that.

You should feel free to publish any or all of this on your website, if you like...

PS Also, I should ask, what's your best answer to this question ... >> How can a liberal society exist when there is fear of radical minorities? How, without becoming totalitarian and oppressing all kinds of ideologies?

>> Aggregate live ticker: Link
>> Graph showing Egyptian internet activity: Link
>> A February 5th postcard to Mattathias Schwartz in the US

Türen auf! Her mit der Demokratie!

Tunesien, Ägypten, Jemen, Algerien. Es ist eine Welle historischer Ereignisse. Stehen wir, wie damals 1989 beim "Zusammenbruch des Ostblocks" vor einer echten "Wende" im arabischen Raum? oder zumindest in Nordafrika?

Derzeit bietet sich eine einmalige Chance für einen Paradigmenwechsel in Nordafrika. Aber wie im Falle Irans 1979 steht die Gefahr im Raum, das nicht die freiheitlichen Kräfte gewinnen.

Die Europäische Union und die USA sollen die friedliche Transformation unterstützen und die Hand reichen in dieser schwierigen Zeit der Ungewissheit. Nicht durch aufdringliche Interventionen sondern durch die richtigen Gesten. Durch starke Symbole, die der Bevölkerung in den Transformationsländern zeigt, wie willkommen sie in einer freien Welt sind. Ein Vorbildfall muss geschaffen werden. Es gilt schnell zu handeln.


Update 3. Februar: Jakob Augstein (Spiegel / Der Freitag) scheint dasselbe zu denken.

Aber es wurde nicht schnell gehandelt. Und die Schande ereignet sich vor unser aller Augen. Der Diktator Ägyptens schickt in seinem hoffentlich letzten Akt der Ruchlosigkeit Schergen in Zivilkleidung gegen die auf Frieden und Demokratie hoffenden Bürger Ägyptens.



Ägypten, Alexandria, 2007

Alexandria ist eine schöne Stadt am Meer mit prächtigen Jugendstilvierteln und einer langezogenen Seepromenade, die vom alten Gefängnis bis zur neuerstandenen Bibliothek von Alexandria führt. Der laute Verkehr der Prachtstrasse stört die jungen Pärchen nicht, die dort entlangschlendern. Schüchtern und ganz kurz wird Händchen gehalten, junge Frauen schieben die Kopftücher weiter zurück. Niemand stört sich daran. Vorderhand. Statt Cocktail Bars gibt es hervorragende Saft Bars, an denen Abends rumgehangen wird. Immer weht eine mediterrane Brise.

2007 verbrachte ich dort einige Wochen um einen Freund, der als Konzeptkünstler im arabischen Raum arbeitet, zu besuchen. Er führte mich durch seine Heimatstadt, wir besuchten Galerien und ich staunte über den wunderbaren, im dritten Stock eines Altbaus gelegenen Off-Space des ACAF. Nicht in Berlin, Paris oder New York, hatte ich je so einen Kunstraum gesehen. Der offene alte Aufzug mit den stählernen Ziergittern, die vier, fünf Meter hohen Räume, zweihundert Quadratmeter, Lichtstrahlen im warmen Ton Nordafrikas, Wände abgezogen bis aufs Mauerwerk.

Der Stolz mich so zu überraschen war meinem Freund und den Betreibern des ACAF anzusehen. Gemeinsam zogen wir noch zu einer Vernissage im Goethe Institut gleich um die Ecke. Gegen Abend luden mich die Betreiber des ACAF ein, mit Ihnen ein Seafood Restaurant nahe des alten Forts zu besuchen. Wir assen hervorragend, es war ein Fest.

Diese Leute hätten überall leben können. Sie hatten sich für Ägypten entschieden. Im Gegensatz zu meinen ebenfalls jungen Gastgebern allerdings hatte ich damals nur drei Kontinente je betreten. Und ich sprach auch neben ein paar Fetzen Arabisch nur drei Sprachen. Es ging um Kochrezepte, Pop, die Relevanz des Bidoun Magazins im Nahen Osten, die Freude an der Kunst, Tendenzen in der Schweizer Grafik, das Contemporary Image Collective in Kairo, und die Ignoranz des Westens, nicht verstehen zu können, das man auch als arabischer Künstler nicht unbedingt politisierte Arbeiten schaffen will.

"Wieso verstehen sie es nicht, dass ich beispielsweise lieber Sternbilder abzeichnen will, als den Kampf der Palästinenser zu bearbeiten?", meinte Mahmoud Khaled, der damals für eine Ausstellung Mützen von Schulanfängern mit Schokolade übergoss. Khaled wollte frei arbeiten. Und seine Arbeit ist sein Leben. Auch wenn es niemand in seiner Familie verstehe, was er genau tue.

"Les Arts pour les Arts", ich habe es erst dort, in Alexandria verstehen gelernt. Das Ausleben der Freiheit, nichts und niemand anderem als der Kunst zu dienen.

Vor lauter Freude beging ich einen Fehler. Ich wollte die Rechnung übernehmen. Alle waren beleidigt.

Seitdem habe ich etwas gutzumachen in Alexandria. Ich muss wieder vorbeikommen. Und ich will Bessam Baroni, Maha Maamoun und Mahmoud Khaled dieses Mal in einem freien Land besuchen.

Was auf Bing reinkommt, lässt mich hoffen.