The Ecologies EP, released in the summer of 2015, marked not only the birth of Joe Shakespeare and Kuedo’s curated Planet Mu-sublabel Knives [see zweikommasieben #11], but was also the official debut of Lithuanian artist Gediminas Žygus, better known as Jacques Gaspard Biberkopf. This was no coincidence, given the convergent nature of Biberkopf’s and Knives’ aesthetic and conceptual undertakings: with their common interests in the conditions, architectures, and technologies of power and a shared will to explore these connections with (club) sounds, it was fitting that Biberkopf’s 2016 album Ecologies II: Ecosystems of Excess was also released by Knives. The musician also teamed up with Lausanne design studio Maximage and New York-based author and zweikommasieben-contributor DeForrest Brown Jr. to include an artists’ book within the album’s sleeve.

In the winter of 2017 Biberkopf presented the album at Bern’s Norient Musikfilm festival. Despite technical difficulties, the musician managed to create an out-of-body feeling using in equal measure sublime and disturbing sounds, as well as drones and GoPro recordings from Southeast Asian metropolises. Remo Bitzi and Biberkopf spoke after the concert for zweikommasieben—briefly in person, then at length online.

Remo Bitzi I thought that icons were the central motif of the video you used during your performance in Bern. There were churches for a distant past, architecture for a more recent past (and/or present time), and—which I found interesting—the drones and cameras, invisible to the viewers, as icons of the (near?) future. Am I completely wrong here?

Jacques Gaspard Biberkopf Not everything worked perfectly with the video in Bern as I told you before, sadly. Nevertheless, I am interested in the architectural environment and its user, the fictions that space imposes on us via abstract codes and via the creation of the symbolic orders.

I have an image haunting me of a peasant in the European Middle Ages being confronted by the interiors of churches. You live this humble, resource-scarce life and you face this spectacular alien environment, interior… and you just fall on your knees and pray. It is hard not to submit to a myth materialized in such dramatic form.

I suspect there’s a lot of that in contemporary architecture (especially if you think about the contemporary not only in Western-centric terms)—the need to overcome the human, the need to become holy and monumental. I am astounded by Singapore and Dubai; I suspect there is a lot of that there, the need to impress by putting up architectural, spatial spectacles, performances. It’s useful to think about cities as events. I saw Burj Khalifa recently—it is entirely uncanny, it’s almost double the size of the World Trade Center in New York City, and now there is a kilometer-high building being built by this neo-futurist Spanish architect—how it’s projected to look is just absolutely supernatural.

The libidinal forces of society that drive us to create these environments for ourselves to inhabit is astonishing. Why do we need a monstrous almost phallic architecture in our shared space, what does it do?  It is interesting that in Thailand, in the kingdom of Siam, not that long ago they used to draw maps entirely based on places of religious architecture. Monasteries—relics these days—would mark the territory and create cosmographies and imaginaries of the space. You have that in some form in other religions as well. In contemporary globalization, we have centers of neo-liberal cosmographies. Cities participate, compete, and perform, in the (post?-) neo-liberal spatial order to perform power and attract value to put itself on the map.

RB I like the image of the peasant falling on his knees. Do you really feel like this yourself? Or do you see people who feel like that today? I’m asking because that feeling is absolutely alien to me. There’s not much that overwhelms me really. For example, I went to New York for the first time about a year ago—and the people I was traveling with were making fun of me because I was constantly underwhelmed. Everything was fine and it was okay to be there, but that was it actually. There are two reasons for this maybe: a) we’re connected to everything anyway and thus are in a way present everywhere—so me as that peasant kind of knows about that church already; b) things are moving too quickly—so me as that peasant just got used to those crazy churches… I reckon you wouldn’t agree with a) nor b)?

JGB I would not want to agree it is universal.

If it does not overwhelm one in the symbolical realm, it does contain one’s body. The myth, the utopian is embodied in the infrastructure in one way or another, and if the body is more precarious—in the sense that it cannot afford autonomy or safety—the containment can be more overwhelming.

However, architectural performances can become kitsch, underwhelming, pathetic failures—failed utopias. Maybe it is possible to make some connection between the charisma of the monument and the charisma of the cult leader? Some do get taken away by it—if it speaks one’s language—some not; and the charisma itself is a process, a dialogue. Myths, utopias have to prove themselves—create a sense of them working. Technological innovation can be mobilized to create the charisma, the performance, the magic. I find it weird when thinking about it more in a way that one inhabits (the remains of) somebody’s messianic dreams.

There’s so much one can do to escape material obstructions, if one has to inhabit these places. There is a term when talking about interface design called “dark pattern,” which is a type of design that tricks into doing what it wants. The logic of the platform can be hard not to submit to, avoid, when it becomes physical law. I do still get taken away by going to Ikea… The digital spaces, software interfaces are even more complicated. I avoid using Facebook because its design is built on the deep knowledge of people’s desires and carefully plays on them. It seems like a group of sadist psychoanalysts and architects constructed it, violently teasing and playing desires—it is living algorithmic architecture, playing with the strength and weakness of a social body.

Architecture is a symptom of abstract processes. The religious, messianic imaginaries, the godly are shared and mobilized both by the capitalist, the dictator, the religious/spiritual leader. The Wizard of Oz inspired the architect of Burj Khalifa.

In Macedonia, in recent decades, there is systemic monument building to create a sense of heroic history that is considerably imagined/falsified, but is needed by nation-builders as a tool to create a homogenous nation, a community with purpose, a national identity. To some extent, the same thing happened in Lithuania, and in a lot of post-Soviet countries, with traumatic Soviet memorials being torn down, and those supposedly precious to the nation rebuilt. The monument becomes an embodiment of heroic, romantic history. It happened throughout history and still happens now.

In one extreme case, in Vilnius, a very controversial Soviet monument was torn down by the newly elected liberal city government and by some accident, some insensitivity of a bureaucrat, it was replaced by an advertising display for a German car brand. One can observe the process of monuments being erected and understand how bullshit it is, but these things can be manipulated by who is interested and has the resources to do so. History/memory is a battlefield, and if one plays the cards right, and there is enough violence, interpretation of history/memory can be created. I don’t think history has moved much further from mythical thinking. And with the re-emergence of nationalism, in Europe, there might be a turn towards the nationalist architectures, nationalist interpretations of history, again.

RB And who’s in charge—in whose messianic dreams (or the remains of it) are we living in?

JGB I don’t believe in the idea of chaos nor determined/fixed power structures either. It is a dynamic, amorphous system. Recently I read how McLuhan was leaning towards seeing the history of religion being just a part of the history of the media, which makes sense in a way, and just goes on to show unlikely origins of social phenomena. On the other hand society, its collective intelligence, needs those dreams to function, to legitimize a particular hierarchy/order. Like a king who is needing to prove her/his power chooses to sanctify herself/himself, or a particular group is looking to unite and define themselves in order to legitimize a racist order for example—these things unite people and create symbolic orders. I would say it is the group or individual need to overcome ecological precariousness, insecurity, articulating itself in a pathological form that becomes the drive for the dream.

RB Do you see any connection between the mentioned physical monuments and technological innovations? What I’m hinting at: do you think immaterial achievements can survive in time as well?

JGB Recently, I was thinking about cult/religious/spiritual leaders, Trump, innovators, scientists, artists, and it is challenging to comprehend what this messianic ambition is, where this desire to overcome (and dominate?) shared reality comes from. Is it personal pain becoming so strong that the only way to accommodate one’s desire is to reshape reality?

RB In an interview with RBMA you also talked about overcoming death, though in a more pragmatic way—it was about Tupac no longer needing a body to exist as an artist/idea/concept. Where is that interest coming from? I mean it is a very common theme, but there seems to be more to it…

JGB I always remember the story of the invention of the gramophone and people’s initial reactions to it: they were scared of recording their voices because it seemed that the technology was stealing their souls. Tupac does not need to have a living biological body for him to function as an artist, to continue to produce. Tupac had a strong spiritual presence, so the way his legacy, his ‘spirit’ lives on—sometimes even materializing—is special to me. I wonder whether it was different in his case because people were willing to capitalize on his image, his recorded traces, and so in the process they activated the traces, and he became a ghostly/godly figure.

A friend of mine says that the digital public/social space is a post-subjective one since there is no clear separation between personality and content… Adobe recently showcased a technology, which they are working on, where if a long recording of a person’s voice is inputted it is possible to edit and synthesize words, sentences… Will Tupac materialize as a sex doll/bot eventually?

There is also the xenofeminist drive, which I share the belief in—although here, I have to point out that I find it difficult to agree with a lot of accelerationist ideas. It’s the belief in mobilizing technology to change ‘unjust nature,’ although I want to think about the problem in a less anthropocentric way. I read somewhere that the ‘innovation’ of Christianity was that it desacralized nature, and this allowed for its exploitation for human needs. I feel we need to escape that thinking; nature shouldn’t be sacrificed.

RB When you performed in Bern—in terms of where you placed yourself onstage—was pretty standard. What was the reasoning behind this? I just remember you playing CTM Festival in Berlin a year back (or two?) with Marija Bozinovska Jones aka MBJ Wetware and you were in the middle of the dance floor (if I remember correctly)…

JGB That depends on the stage/environments—a lot of the time practical realities corrupt the performances, which is interesting to observe. I often do things in an iconic way—position myself in the center, position all of the equipment in perfect symmetry, hopefully mimicking and embodying these messianic drives. Sometimes it is more about synthesizing/designing the climate, the atmosphere, in a way where space becomes the primary actor. Spaces and social conditions rarely allow it and only now, after having performed more and having been challenged by different conditions, do I start to get the sense of how these things work and what it is needed where… How to act and prepare in a 60-minute sound check where nothing is ready and nothing is working [laughs].

At CTM it was a different, one-off performance. It was, in a way, about technological identity, so in our logic, we were hiding in-between layers of transparent screens.

RB From whom were you hiding?

JGB We were cyborgs. Every physical gesture that we would make would become magic. When performing in some of her projects, Marija is re-synthesizing her voice and controlling lasers with it, gesture-controlling strobes, standing behind a screen/images, etc.—she is doing a lot. It is a conscious continuation of Donna Harraway’s xenofeminist schemes.

I framed the thought in that way because I grew disillusioned looking for liberty, expression, harmony in this kind of manner. There aren’t many more neurotic individuals than Marija and me—we are the top one percent for sure—so in a way, its border becomes an very disembodied way of speaking, a form of escapism… both escapism and empowerment. A form which is, of course, incredibly relevant—embodying cybernetics, the complexity of contemporary identity… But recently I started believing that more embodied ways of speaking might be more beneficial. It is a luxury to do so, but at the moment I am interested in exploring embodied sexuality, the human flesh more.