vrijdag 30 april

vrijdag 30 april

Remember to Forget the Congo

Remember to Forget the Congo is a five day performance by Adam Geczy in Belgium about the Belgian Congo. Beginning with a blackened room, Geczy will write out in white paint the entirety of Andre Gide's Voyage au Congo, an early twentieth century text exposing the iniquity of the Congo, that lives on today. Curiously enough, few people remember this text, although at the time had a considerable effect, and was indeed cited as something that ought never be forgotten. Taking this book as a symbol of a conservative repression, a negative osmosis if you will, Geczy will simultaneously enact political and social remembrance of trauma, whilst at the same time being complicit in its repression, since the end result it is a white room. The white room will be a dense palimpsetic residue of words, a beautiful skein, that is both beautiful and menacing, acting as both conscience and amnesia. At the end of the performance (five days, five hours on the fifth month), the installation will remain as a set of melancholy material remnants. (AG)

vrijdag 30 april

donderdag 29 april

I remember Adam said something on a project he could have had in Brussels.
I remember it was on Andre Gide and a Congo novel.
I remember Adam would talk for half an hour using Vlad the Turd as basic metaphor and explain a whole new idea on modern species.
Tourists spend one thousand euros making a couple of photographs of a castle and in the long end it turns out Vlad and the castle have nothing in common.

I remember Adam toasting on the world food crisis during an opening night end of 2008. He mentioned the Congo project. It was on Andre Gide and a Congo novel.
I had an early edition of Voyage au Congo with André Gide on the black and white cover, a Gallimard edition. Couldn't read. Never read a book.

Aafke, Eric and Adam discuss the project. It's end of April. Eric and Aafke have been working on a project on attitude and affectuation. Adam starts on metaphors. But you read the book, Aafke says.
No, I didn't, he says. (van)

donderdag 29 april

27 april

Hi Marc /schrijft Adam op 16 april/
/on April 16th Adam wrote/
Sorry to bother you with more stuff.
I checked the website and the title of my work is: 'Remember to Forget the Congo'
Also for people to login to the webcast do they go to the crox site?
Many thanks /Adam wrote/
Op dat moment hebben we Voyage au Congo als titel, de titel van het gelijknamige boek van André Gide. Ik heb zelf een exemplaar, een vroege editie, dat ik voorlopig niet terugvind. Op de cover zie je André Gide op het dek van een oceaanstomer.
Uit een mailtje van Marc leid ik af dat hij eerst wat weigerachtig staat om de titel van de blog, voyagaaucongo, in remembertoforgetthecongo te veranderen, en /but/ let's switch to English, Anyway, after a short period of hesitation Marc finally goes for the title of the project and changes the title of the blog, at that moment still voyagaaucongo, in remembertoforgetthecongo, which - as even a blind man may notice - is a very good title.

By the way, the specimen of the book /see cover/ has been purchased by Adam Geczy and was directly sent to croxhapox at Lucas Munichstraat 76/82. (van)

dinsdag 27 april

Voyage au Congo