Sunday, August 21, 2011

Thee One True TOPI Tribe Compilation: TOPI members Speak

What we have for you, dear reader, is a article in part about the One True TOPI Tribe (OTTT or TOPI), as well as the One True TOPI Tribe Compilation, coming out 23 August, 2011. We will start with a little information from a few of the projects/groups/individuals connected to the compilation, and then move into information on the OTTT from Thee Uncondemning Monk. See also: Outer TOPI projects.

This is the list for the first fourteen tracks of the compilation, rumor has it there is 23 tracks in all, tracks are subject to rearrangement on the final version of the album, this is only a pre-release/realization preview
 loopool (Jean-Paul Garier) and Sisiult (Benj Carmeron)
Excavation by loopool (Jean-Paul Garnier)
Sound artists loopool (Jean-Paul Garnier) and Sisiutl (Benj Cameron) collide together with a piece inspired by the poem "I live Yet Do Not Live In Me" by Saint John of the Cross, this piece written while imprisoned, is about longing for death so to be brought closer to god, yet is reminiscent of a dissociative disorder call depersonalization [see track 6].  Depersonalization strikes us as thee ultimate goal of control and power, to strip one of self and identity, to make one a hollow shell that only acts without feeling and is exiled from thee present.  The aim of the OTTT is to thwart control and to give thee self back to thee self, its essence is one of self empowerment, and this can be achieved through discipline and collaborative action such as thee comp itself.  Acting together in thee present. (For more information see loopool site as this information was provided by Garnier, all-rights reserved, 2011, see site for details)

see also: audio version of TOPI Talks here
 credits for pictures and rest on TOPI Talks: Visualized blip.tv site
From the studios of Iff wreckords Detroit S-5841: Obiekt 172
The projeckt:
Obiekt 172 is a long morphing projeckt of the Artist/Composer R.S.KikIV. Originally started in 1989 as a Performance art project called Apparitions of Desire (A.O.D.). A.O.D was dedicated to unraveling music, Culture and the Human Mind. Later in the mid 1990's we began separating out into two projects. The performance Art and the Music / sound Ritual. A.O.D. remained Centered more on Cultural resistance and examination into control. Obiekt 172 was our more Esoteric / Magickal experimentation and exploration.

On OT3:
All aspects of Iff Wreckords, Obiekt 172, and AOD ended initially in 2004 with the death of a very close Friend, composer, Magickian and Artist... Thomas Van Eck.. of whom we worked with very closely with many different projects both Artistic and Magickal. We gave away or sold off everything and ended all work in this area. It is sort of Irony that on the Fall Solstice of 2010 that we began thinking again about this work again. We then began the task of re-forming the mind and also a studio in which to begin again with a new mission and new ideas.. Obiekt 172 performed it's first performance in six years on December 23rd 2010. I really do not even remember how we came across the OTTT...It just sort of happened somehow. We feel we have always just been in tune with this current of energy and when the call came out we just naturally and intuitively found it. We have long been thinking about the UN-raveling of society and have longed to look at new concepts to inter- relations with others of like mind and with alternatives to what is called "community".. We do feel that it was something in the air that re-activated us again. The founding of the OTTT clearly kick started us back into the Occultural mix again.. In just a short period of time we have been transformed, in a since, to a newer realization that an "Art Cult" and coum-unity can be realized. This has especially been shown by the people of the Tribe and their drive and determination to make this real.. We really can not say enough about the Beings that are the backbone in this..It is TRUE Coum-unity ov which the operators behind Iff Wreckords studios and Obiekt 172 fully support and are proud to call OUR TRIBE..
"Mr. Fist likes to make music. Mr. Fist likes to make creepy music, assembling sounds and words that ferment together into a bubbling broth of hallucinogenic mayhem. He’s been stirring this pot of perversion for over 30 years, so you can be certain that this potion is potent enough to unhinge the most stalwart of minds. Once this door is open, you’ll be ushered into a weird, wild world populated by a motley assortment of questionable characters in peculiar places. This is a place where the mundane becomes mutated and the dross is delivered unto the heavens because Mr. Fist knows how easy it is to get stains on white." (see webpage of details, Blood 'n' Tongue)

(breaking OTTT compilation news---Leyba is now officially on the album)
Who is Steven Johnson Leyba you ask?
Well, here is a bit from his Wikipedia article: Steven Johnson Leyba (born September 3, 1966) is an artist, painter, fine art book maker, author, spoken word performance artist, and musician, who claims Mescalero Apache ancestry. He has been called the father of “Sexpressionism” by art critic Carlo McCormick. His work has been criticized for using the swastika symbol and sexual imagery for the purposes of shock and controversy. In 1994 he was made a Reverend in the Church of Satan by Anton LaVey.
For the work please visit these sites: 

Hoodoo Engine: friendly to TOPI/TOPY 
(on the 'bonus' inner tracks album)
Music "Nothing Is Sacred" from HoodooEngine's album Murder The World.

Video/motion and some still work by Daniel Warwick, other still visuals by James Curcio,
rest of the credits at the end of the video


The Uncondemning Monk started as a psychic(k) transmission to Algeaca’s team, The Jack Frost Staff (the 'k' is an old English spelling for magick as Crowley differentiates it from magic). This transmission was first announced on 19, November, 2010, on a blog site called Shitty Bear’s Corner, founded by St. Stephen. Together St. Stephen & Algaeca, in process, play to produce Thee Uncondemning Monk who is (and thereby becomes in becoming an) irreducible singularity, more than a simple composite of two in-dividual beings/persona(s). Thee Uncondemning Monk aides the artist/magickian in coming under erasure as thee opens oneself to the Third Mind, that virtual-real substrate, that manifests when individuals form a unity. Not unlike a blackout technique, the indefinable self takes on historic personalities in an unheimlich, uncanny, delirium in an attempt at the impossible finality of everything.

Since Thee Uncondemning Monk has crossed over the "bourne of no-return," skipping back in forth in the time space line, as if it was loop twisted on both ends, to form the handles of this sublime fool's rope. Indeed the personage of the uncondemning monk is of a sinner that judged not, that he might not be judged (by any being, even God). Taking hold ov this dual personality, these loop-holds at the end of a zodiac belt-loop, that forms a middle section, but align the star aright, Thee Uncondemning Monk has taken to re-explore the work of Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs, “the cut-up method”, the Dreamachine, and Third Mind. With that mission in mind, Thee Uncondemning Monk has become a member of the One True TOPI Tribe, founded by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, and through Algaeca we have been, hence forth, engaging in Thee Uncondemning Monk project known as Skiddoo 32, on 23 Skiddoo Street. The latest track of which can be found on the up and coming One True TOPI Tribe Compilation, realization/release date 23 August, 2011. The Compilation is worldwide in scope and is an expression of coum-unity, for the continued realization of thee emerging One True TOPI Tribe.

Thee Uncondemning Monk talks about the OTTT
The One True TOPI Tribe, thee OTTT, or simply TOPI (said like Hopi, see TOPI mission statement one), as you already know is a coum-Unity, a decentralized proccess network, founded by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. You will at once notice at least two unfamiliar terms, TOPI and COUM. Let us start with COUM or coum and see if we can then speak a little more about this One True TOPI Tribe. It’s hard not to notice, how coum is spelled (but how does it sound?), COUM (the capitalization is just to draw your attention to) or coum can be pronounced ‘cum’ or ‘com’.  Yet we do not stop at that level. The term also resonates with the word ‘come’ as well as ‘cum’ (like in your face). This portmanteau word, this phoneme/morpheme, coum invokes other terms that it may combine with, such as communication and all other (dot) com- related terms, even communion. According to Simon Ford text on the Coum Transmission & Throbbing Gristle, short-titled, Wreckers of Civilization (1999), the term Coum came out of P-Orridge’s early work with language restrictions inspired by the Exploding Galaxy commune/group ("when in doubt-be extreme", Genesis). P-Orridge has been since working on honing the idiosyncrasies of he/r (pandrogeny) speech, introducing terms such as o.v. and L.ov.E., but for now, that is all you get on that. Well, there is another interesting tidbit we can share before moving on, “coincidentally,” in 1973-4, the year that Genesis is said to start he/r language experiments is also the same time period as the emergence of the famous French writing group Oulipo.


Coum, this non-word would become a signal or a sigil, a symbol that embraces all contradiction and the polysemiotic of its truth, as it attempted, perhaps halfheartedly to blot out the art word in “a million and one way to Coum” (one will never know the “true” intention, as if it would be a singular e-motive). This multiplicity and ambiguity of these over determined words, their resonance attracted us, Thee Uncondemning Monk, to work towards realizing the TOPI Tribe. To explain it all would take life times (if not several books), but what I.T. IS takes no time at all… like a chaos matrix of dreams, we, in our worlds, tune into like minded frequencies. Much of the aforementioned information on COUM as well as Throbbing Gristle (TG) can be found in an excellent historical text called Wrecker of Civilization. I will stop now for the sake of those already familiar with P-Orridge related projects, such as The COUM Transmissions, TG, Pychic TV (PTV, PTV3), as well as the Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY), and now TOPI. See here for more on TOPI as wells as Thee Temple of Pyschic Youth North America, and their recent manifestion Autonomous Individuals Network (AIN or AIN23). For our recent work with AIN23, on their 23 Seconds ov Time Audio Project, see our blog for Thee Uncondemning Monk.


What we are also writing to you about is our, Thee Uncondemning Monk’s (a.k.a: TUCK or t.u.c.k; the ‘k’ is for Magick & Aleister Crowley), relation to THEE ONE TRUE TOPI TRIBE and its compilation, which is to be release on August 23, 2011. Please notice the date, because instead of spelling everything out for you, we will rather point out some (not all) of the significant allusions that are part of our work, such as the number 23.

The number, or the mystery of the number 23, also the 23 enigma, is a signal at least to those who are at a minimum aware of the work of William S. Burroughs, and Brion Gysin, especially their collaborations as told in “their”  text The Third Mind (see the chapter titled, “23 Stitches Taken by Gerard-Georges Lemaire and 2 Points of Order" by Gysin). The word, "their," placed in quotation in the preceding sentence, is there for a reason, there is a rationale, at least some would like to think so. The rationale for this is that what they, Burroughs and Gysin, produced was no longer attributable back to them, or  merely to them. The work had gone beyond them; it was a product of what they call the Third Mind. And so the collage and the cut-up technique become a "next new way on," as P-Orridge, E, is apt ov saying. It also put writing back in the hands of the people, in much the way the "dadaist" Trstan Tzara, put poetry back in hands of the people. As Trstan Tzara is famous for saying "Poetry is for Everyone", as he cut up a poem, put the words in a hat, and randomly pulling one then the other, construct new and novel poems. And yet this technique will be pushed beyond being merely instrument, as occultural artist Genesis P-Orridge has h/er done with Pandrogeny, which is the becouming one where there was two, see the documentary, The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, as well as, the film Pandrogeny manifesto (2006), for more information on Pandrogeny (aside note to the readers of St. Stephen--in time we will be exploring much of what is being talked about here in greater detail). Yet the Third Mind is re-produced through the “cut-up” method, as well as what Gysin calls “the fold in method,” a variation on the “cut-up” technique (The Third Mind, p. 95; chapter title, “Fold In”).

When one starts to put all these things together, to arrange these things, to utilize these methods to render in some sense thee individual to the Third Mind, that unconscious but collective substrate, not unlike the surface effect of language that covers "the depth of bodies," as Gilles Deleuze writes, in his text, The Logic of Sense. Not only does Deleuze make explicit reference to Burroughs, by quoting a remark Burroughs made in regards to Brion Gysin’s Dreamachine being an alternative to psychoactive (and other reality augmenting) “drugs,” but from here Deleuze embraces the cut-up method and its variations by collaborating with Felix Guattari.

Felix Guattari also embraced the cut-up method, applying this technique to La Borde, Clinique. Deleuze and Guattari (D&G), will hence forth forward their work on transversality, as desire cuts across a subject-group (see transversality link for more info). For instance, in the case of La Borde Clinique, the roles of the hospital where cut-up and rearraged, that is “the doctor”, lets call him Bill, might be assigned the role of janitor, and former janitor, Frank, might then be given the temporary role of counselor. By moving peoples into different "stations and places" desire and “the special delirium that is capitalism” becomes something other than it was, as these desires express themselves. Perhaps one of the key things to note here is that roles and people who assume these identities are randomly shuffled and that which is thought as simply natural, our identity, is understood as not identical, such that the normativity of these roles is brought into question. This is quite similar to the work done by Erving Goffman, in a little book called, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life; an outstanding work which may prove more accessible to American and Anglophone readers.

Let us look at what we have covered so far.  
We have spoken of “the cut-up method” a gift to William Burroughs from Brion Gysin. We have made mention of the Third Mind, both the book, as well as the concept. We have also made mention to desire and the self, as it relates to identity. If you blend in Deleuze & Guattari, some non-dogmatic Lacanian Psychoanalysis, then you have our project. We would now like to focus on our relation to all the above.

Thee Uncondemning Monk is St. Stephen & Aglaeca. 
 Each name was chose for the semiological signs they represent. St. Stephen was the first deacon of the Catholic Church, and if often known as the patron of social work. Aglæca means a poetic warrior. Combined these two names signify all that could come under the term occulture or even cultural engineering.  Of the Uncondemning Monk of historical church lore, little is known, but it is said that “this monk died joyfully because he had never in his life condemned anyone…” and when “the brethren asked him about how he could die so joyfully with all his sins,… he replied, ‘I have just seen the angles, and they showed me a page with all my sins. I said to them: ‘The Lord said: ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged.’ I have never judged anyone and I hope that in the mercy of God, that He will not judge me” (jen-o, An Uncondemning Monk). Neither St. Stephen nor Algaeca could or would ever try to live up to this tale, and yet together they embrace its beauty.

Thee Uncondemning Monk brings together thee social animal and the radical individual, in a manner not unlike something from the writer Fernando Pessoa. Each persona speaks in a "language that is not one" (a play on Luce Irigaray's The Sex which is Not One), a unit that is only a unit as it is many. As William Peter Blatty wrote in the Exorcist, “we are no one, we are legion.” Indeed even the unit that is the human body is a multitude ov life. Yet to understand the process, that the process is the product, one might be well to understand the great dictate of Hassan-i Sabbah (the son of Old Man of the Mountain), that “Nothing is true. All is permitted,” which is then taken again by Gysin, and transformed into another truth that it conceals, that “all is permutable,” and they key here is the permutations. Read for you self what Gysin has to say about “the fold in method”:
I take page one and fold it into page one hundred—I insert the resulting composite as page ten—When the reader reads page ten he is flashing in time to page one hundred and back in time to page one—the déjà vu phenomenon can so be produced to order—This method is of course used in music, where we are continually moved backward and forward on the time track by repetition and rearrangements of the musical themes-- (The Third Mind, 96)

The music for the song, “In Site 23, Insight 32” is in itself at once a time track as well as kind of signal, which utilizes repetition in order to explore themes in & of time as gestalts within gestalts. This thought is akin to an irrational number, to the infinity that exists in between the finite.


Even in the title there are clues to the work at hand, as if each piece was the whole, a type of holotropic organism or an autopoietic machine. The mysterious number 23 appear again, but this time as a site, a nonlocation, a virtual hotspot, access point, station (ratio (_)). Twenty-three marks the various nomadic sites of our workings, creating a tradition the spreads by the touching of hand (see Mission Statement One). It can be also found alongside Psychick Cross (P-Orridge's trademark symbol, and TOPI sign), its an antenna of sorts, a crowning mark the TOPI back patch; look bottom right.

 
The next number, also in the title, is number 32, which is directly related to the occult, as there are 32 path ways on the Sephiroth. As such it can be said that in site 23 we have (an) insight of the 32. But one may wonder how one gets in (Da'at) and what is one getting into? Indeed, “a warning flashes in the mind.” To be on guard, to take the name “caution” is to know that "fear [can be a] is the mind killer," in as much as it paralyses thought (Frank Herbert, Dune & The Santaroga Barrier). But this flash, like a flaming sword, like an aleatory point (Force the Hand of Chance), this roll of the dice that hints at a secret spot, a point which is not a point (Da'at on the tree of life, or the delusional vantage point of God, see the all seeing eye, and panopticon). A lacking sphere known as Da'at (what Lacan might call Lack or manque) allows us to enter into these fractal-spiraling-worlds-worldings. As Genesis states in Mission Statement One that:
those people who wish to have a fulfilling, creative, and more free-flowing and free-thinking way of life, they need to take it up themselves to build autonomous units that give them that. The way to do that is to find enough like-mined people to create this super organism that is the sum-total of everyone involved.
But, as Genesis is mostly likely aware, what is produced is more than the sum-total, something exceeds us. It is the work. And speaking of Dune, the individual (as creator), and the third mind, we turn to the writing of Alejandro Jordososky’s:
There is an artist, only one in the medium of a million other artists, which only once in his life, by a species of divine grace, receives an immortal topic, a MYTH... I say "receives" and not "creates" because the works of art its received in a state of mediumnity [sic] directly of the unconscious collective. Work exceeds the artist and to some extent, it kills it because humanity, by receiving the impact of the Myth, has a major need to erase the individual who received it and transmitted: its individual personality obstructs, stains the purity of the message which, of its base, requires to be anonymous... We know whom created the cathedral of Notre-Dame [yet, we do not know who created], neither the Aztec solar calendar, neither the tarot of Marseilles, nor the myth of Don Juan, etc. (“The Film You Will Never See”).
Of us, for us, thee/we that be TOPI, for Thee Uncondemning Monk and the larger project Skiddoo 32: on 23 Skiddoo Street, the question of the individual is constant. As such Thee Uncondemning Monk is a schizophrenic unit, a "blending" or mixture (part of Fusing & Slumping, a glass blowing technique applied to literature and now music, for a new theory meant to forward the cut-up into a "next new way on", is being worked out by St. Stephen, future works to coum). The subject is not identical, identity is not, rather it is a composite that must remain ultimately undefined (or die).

Starting from the fact of the subjectivity of the agent/subject, as experiential, larval, and experimental, forever in-complete, such that we exist without final escape, which could only be oblivion, as such we fight the sleepless dream(s), we devise and improvise to be every changing, as a means to survive. We adapt as we change, we are the swerve (of Titus Lucretius Carus & Gillies Deleuze), and as an em-bodied being we change all our worlds—ever so populated, ever so rich in being—inside and out—we change our personal worlds to change all that is connectable, butterflies flapping their wings, stripped away from meaning in their/there intensities. Yet as we are “stitched tight into time” (Voivod, Nothing Face, “Nothing Face”). And that is why man in his potential to receive and create, to permute that which is into that which may be, have devised these practical methods/thread-pullers always at our disposal.

With a seam-ripper in hand, Thee Uncondemning Monk calls out to all Chaos Magicians (as well as Khaos Magickians) to unite in their war against reality, “Death to the Image, Hail to the New Flesh” (DeathbyLollip.com, “Hands on Chaos Magic”). “Nothing is Sacred,” as Genesis repeats, "everything is lost" admits Hoodoo Engine, and with that TOPI knows that our bodies are not sacred (perhaps to ourselves, as Jason Doherty states in TOPI Speak), they are Divine, and ours to do with as we see fit.

Ellis--the connective meta-sigil

The Work is practical, the Play is Real; for T.u.c.k it can be nothing but a holographic ritual that is unfolded, permuted, spun-out, a track taking on the debris of history.

 If one pays attention, they may notice that there are three major parts to “In Site 23, Insight 32.” The lyrics make a single repetition by being spoken twice, that is, chronologically, the first part, and then the second part. The third quasi repetition is a tonal panning overlaid thrice (voice, two synth tracks) in a back and forth loop, arrow forward, lulling us into lucidity with its ketamine tones saturating your space ready to bring you furthur; if one allows it. If one allows it, it may bring them to an ecstatic present, the moment now.

The tune was itself built using a computer generated synth played over constructed square tones and pink noises that had fallen into blended sonic waves of sound, that slowly pop in ambient space of the third-theme. Alone the song can be used as a ritual, as it is a ritual in and of itself (in-compete, the missing ingredient is no thing… you are no-thing). The lyrics were taken from a spontaneous poetic recording provided by Algaeca, yet spoken by A.A. (a third party anonymous player—the dwarf of two puppets), and are directly related to Algaeca’s experience (thus far) of the emerging TOPI Tribe.

The songs taken together with the album, creates a what Jason Dohrety, of TOPI Talks, calls “a strange and wonderful tale.” Our hopes are for furthur intensification, as well as participation in coum-unity.

And to that end, there will be 200 downloads made available upon release/realization: August 23, 2011. For the download compilation to be considered official, one needs to make a physical copy of the compilation, with bonus materials (not available on the preview). After making their physical copies they are to submit it to the One True TOPI Tribe, via the tribe’s only online access point, the OTTT Ning site. As the bandcamp is the site that host the preview tracks states, “this [puppy] is inter-active.”


To end, to make our departure, our "line of flight," our get away, to 23 skiddoo, we would like to say that all meaning(s) may be found/created after the fact, in the act of arrangement, of setting to record, and record again, as such this action of continual augmentation and deviation, will demonstrated by a video for, "In Site 32, Insight 23," called "Monsteration of the Desert Sound," (the video directly above) is included as a bonus feature on the "inner tracks/album"… FYI its not the only video, there are little animated gifs to see (hint: use your browser to view)! That our work, on the compilation, coum(s) from the most personal recesses of each artist (indeed from the space that is their most in their home) came forth “In Site 23, Insight 32” growing on the recording in time (K). What was the work of an individual or individual group transforms in and by its relation to all others, the various artist/tracks on thee album, as such, each now bears a relationship to the others, bring out something that was already there, that which I.T. IS waiting to be, 23. 

Pre-order a copy of The Immanence of Myth, published by Weaponized. (Or sign up to be notified of its release on Amazon.com)

4 comments:

  1. You have all been fooled by Derpil, you must repent now, your soul is in grave danger you were created incorrectly and only Jerpus can fix this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rusty - "Sour Grapes" by Puscifer, ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is some serious hoodoo love.

    ReplyDelete
  4. to be clear, AIN23 is in no way related to Genesis P-Orridge

    ReplyDelete

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