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[ b.ookoi (i) | (ii) | 019 | 138 | 178 | 284 | 329 | 419 | 506 | 507 | 562 | 624 | 664 | 789 | 793 | 954 | b.ookoipera]

7 min read 🤓

d.ookoi writes b.ookoi (i)

may 31, 2021

« Tout au monde existe pour aboutir dans un livre »
(Stéphane Mallarmé)
—

b.ookoi is the labyrinthian and encyclopaedic printed-on-paper book_work_2_b that the ookoi currently are composing, writing, editing, covering all of their acts, works and proceedings from the very early 1980's onwards, in 1024 numbered paragraphs that, however, will not be listed in the approximate chronological order corresponding to their enumeration upwards from 1, but distributed over 1024 pages divided into 4 volumes of 256 pages each, according to one, contingent, listing of the first 2¹⁰ natural numbers. Not a logically or otherwise necessary order, just one of the 1024! possibilities accidentally happening.

Here is a taste of what one of your b.ookoi's may look like, wearing a dust jacket designed by Willem H. Lucas.

'Alle geschiedenis is toekomst
in z'n achteruit'
—

logic

The story of the manifold adventures and experiences of the ookoi are in part the outcome and sequel—we may call it 'the long tail'—of how groups of young aspiring artists and musicians (with emphasis, in our case, on the Netherlands) added their twist to the post-punk pop experimentalism that worldwide took over much of late 1970's post-hippie psychedelic symphonic-tech-rock's role as thé path to take to the epoch's Artistic and Musical Grails. The post-punk alternative was a path that (in the social-economic context of cold wars, severe economic crises and the resulting, sort of obvious, anarchic tendencies among many youngsters that saw no future and with the passing of years felt themselves deemed to become a 'lost generation') incorporated and assimilated pretty much all of the (revolutionary indeed) accomplishments and tricks of the trade of early 20th century and post-WW II western artistic avant garde (that questioned the very notion of 'art' and broke down many walls and frontiers that used to delineate what it is and what it not is), brewing the 'whole chaotic noise together' into an ever-growing and highly fascinating corpus of 'unofficial releases'. It was not yet the case that (in Joseph Beuys's words) jeder Mensch ein Künstler is, but we were getting close.

You can discover and read this part of the story, where lay the ookoi's roots, in great detail in 'ULTRA. Opkomst en ondergang van de Ultramodernen, een unieke Nederlandse muziekstroming (1978-1983)', a fine, bulky and exhaustive book that was published in 2012 by Lebowski Publishers, Amsterdam (ISBN 978 90 488 1240 0).

Most beating hearts of post-punk experimentalism then came to a grinding halt almost simultaneously a bit all over the world. That was some forty years from here (sic), around 1983, 1984. As happened before and continued to happen after, counter culture slid (or was dragged into) a period of main stream recuperation and integration that rounded many of the movement's overtly sharp and 'subversive' angles. It was also when the industry, and especially the by then already post-budding music technology industry, realised that counter culture was a growth market, and that the musical and artistic D.I.Y.-ers, quickly rising in number, were eager buyers of equipment and instruments that were relatively cheap and scaled-down versions of the sophisticated analogue multitrack music recording and sound synthesis machinery used in commercial and academic studio settings. And on stage. It was the point in time where (sic), and a bit of the why, that 'long tail' started growing and began to wag.

From there (sic) and to this very day, tail and industry continued to generate evermore duplicating cells waving multiple flags of D.I.Y. ('Do It Yourself') and bearing the stamps, the signs and the symptoms of evolving and ramifying counter- and subcultural branches, all of them rarely deemed worthy of attention by main stream media, largely autodidact and happening mostly (but careful! certainly not completely) independent of (in several exemplary cases very) related academic endeavours. Almost all of it was and is thought to have little or no 'commercial potential' nor 'entertainment value' for the bulk of consumers, and was and is produced and sustained with only occasional and minimal financial support from local and (inter)national funders of art and culture.

The ookoi's story plays within and around a longish sub-t(r)ail, emerging alongside and spiraling the long tail that emanated from the ULTRA days and then tentatively began its sprouting in pre-digital days, at the very dawning of the cyber age, a dawning that spawned visions of yet another utopia: a digital and electronic cyber space, a space of creations by free minds, accessible to all. Though arguably less physical, it turned out not so very different from the psychedelic paradise that was promised us in the 1960s. Also this one quickly went the way of other utopia's: the cyber dream got shattered at lightning speed, as did the earlier psychedelic one, of a far out expanded human consciousness that would bring love and peace to all.
Splintered, cracked, smashed.
So much more than merely fractured.
Shattered.
And not only by the sledgehammers of hyper-profits for the few through around-the-clock mega-surveillance of all.

about

This is the first in a series of writings that will follow how the ookoi finishes the writing of its b.ookoi. It is also about what b.ookoi is about, about the ways in which it structured, and about the paths along which it is about to go. In that sense these are meta-writings. Some of it might eventually find a place somewhere within the b.ookoi's 1024 slots. These pages are meant to feed the interest and keep the attention of you that are interested, and then spark the interest of a few, even more than a few, more. We of course depend and count on you to spread the word. For you are right to be interested. The b.ookoi is a document unlike any other. Never mind what your Facebook friends or the newspapers say. Go and draw it on the walls! Its labyrinthine structure, its contingent va-et-vient in time and space, the minute and meticulous descriptions of the ookoi's œuvre, a collection of unique digital creations, many of which turned out to be highly ephemeral (without actually having been intended to be)... Its power lies in what is said as much as in what maybe is omitted. It adds up to a unique kaleidoscopic picture of decades of cutting-edge art making. Which, curiously, has always kept us in the margins. Not by choice. But, yes, by fact. Not as chosen-to-be-outsider-artists. But still, there we were, for decades on end: always on the outside looking in.

art

Start reading the b.ookoi at any page in any one of its volumes.

Then continue in whatever way and in whatever direction.

The bulk of the book's writing will be in english. That is the language in which we have been reporting on our doings at least since fpcm one spring day came over from Amsterdam, to join me in my chasing sounds on the Dutch wadden island Ameland.

That was a little over 18 years ago.

...

up - time

In the course of our living days the experience of time—'time as we feel it', we may call it our up-time—gradually but dramatically changes. When we were k, as kids, most days and weeks felt endless. They seemed to last forever. On the rear side of life's mirror, the one that we now dwell in as inverse kids (as k^-1), years sadly feel as if a malicious genie has them last like once did our months and did our weeks, on that other side...

There is sort of an inversion involved here, a 1 over L that parallels k's transformation into a k^-1. If the 1 is a clock time unit, a year, say, then L denotes one's age measured in those clock years. For a one year old k, that makes a one over one: a year is all of a lifetime; it lasts forever. On the backside of sixty however, there where now the ookoi roam, the year's fraction's starts pushing a mere percent of the lifetime L. And somehow our experience of time, e(t), is (or rather feels) proportional to this fraction:

e(t) ∼ γ(t) × 1/L.

It's what makes the felt passing of time speed up relentlessly when L increases, with evermore year beads strung unto its thread. That's what makes a year remembered from the k-days feel like it lasted at least as long as ten of the ones us k^-1's are living now.

mean - time

It also explains why it feels as if we just recently began thinking and talking about b.ookoi, thé book that tells it all and we will write; whereas checking times and dates reveals that mention of the book goes back as far at least as early 2015, which was when fpcm made this brilliant brief vimeo announcement.

See? Feels like only yesterday.

To receive updates on the ookoi's b.ookoi's progress and all related events and activities, follow Stduio on Bandcamp!

The b.ookoi are coming!

—next up on b.ookoi:—Awesome Foursomes (i)

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tags: ookoi, b.ookoi, ULTRA

# .506.