I like the train very much!

Result #1

I like the train very much!—Joel Ottersons interview with Theodor Adorno in the first issue of the Futurist No U-turn (1968) and Henry James essay The Coming Race (1968). The attraction of the Theoretical History of Modernism is the way it suggests that the future, or at least the present, is a self-consciously determined and self-evident flow of knowledge, rather than the product of a random flow of images and ideas. This is not to suggest that such a future can be predicted or foretold; rather, the theses of an ordered future are encoded in the practice of representation itself. It is this cast of mind that binds together the very notion of posthumanism. The human and the machine are made one, as they are in the case of all technologies, and this is the reason why the world today is one in which humans are the least autonomous, the most vulnerable, and the most remote from the norm. The idea that machines are biologically driven, that they can create their own future is often implicitly introduced by technological progress as the only path to a deeper understanding of the world. Thus, when technological progress leads to the creation of new machines, it inevitably leads to the creation of new human identities and feelings, which in turn leads to the question of whether humans are even human at all. Is this the case, as in the work of artist and techno critic Kevin Burdens, which is to say that they are not a simple question of whether human beings are machines, but of whether they are beings at all. This is the crux of Burdens project, which was presented as an exhibition of new work, which was the ultimate example of the exhibition as an occasion for dialogue.

Result #2

I like the train very much! What are you going to do with it? I am going to ride it! I am going to have a party on it! Nothing is to prevent me! Nothing is to prevent you! I am going to have a party!Theres a lot of Klee in the voice of this camera, and it was a great pleasure to see it. The voice of Tchelitchew, the cultural theorist who inspired this exhibition, is very Klee. In her interview with the curator, Tchelitchew speaks of her desire to take part in the celebration of something other than the revolution, for it was a part of the revolution. . . . Klee is saying that celebrating the revolution is a good idea and not a bad idea. In a sense, her words are true. . . . Let us celebrate in a nonhierarchical way, and let us forget that in Tchelitchews eyes, we are all interlocutors in a revolution. Her statement is an appropriate one for the future of art, a time when all institutions must be reexamined in order to provide more effective and honest social relations.This show was also a moment of celebration for the new Brazilian artist Sérgio de Andrade, who, as one of the most interesting artists in Brazil, had not been part of the countrys art scene since the 70s. His paintings, which were exhibited alongside his sculptures, took their inspiration from the history of art in Brazil, from Matisse and his followers to Budwig von Königsberg and now de Andrade. Andrade took the audience to a place of honor, recalling not only the importance of a new, modernist art in Brazilian society but also the equally important role of the past. But the paintings, with their playful formality, were a proper tribute to Matisse and a memory of him.

Result #3

I like the train very much! (Here, it appears, the journey was nothing but a means of ascribing the next form of communication to its origin) and, on another level, the absence of the artist. The distinction between the ideas of the artist and the ideas of the viewer is not clear. It is not clear whether the artist is being critical or is merely reinforcing the same values that he rejected in order to gain artistic recognition.The train travels, indeed, of a dream, but in the end it only travels on its own. The journey is a form of communication and the viewer is merely a passerby. The viewer is not the artist, who reflects on the self and enacts an action, but only the spectator who accompanies the journey, whose position is passive and who becomes the object of the action. The journey has no beginning, but one thinks of the journey as a sign of the passage of time. The journey is an event, and the actions of the artist and of the viewer are intertwined. The images that the train takes on the road are itself images of the journey. In this light, the fact that it is painted on a building—the ICA, after all—is a form of construction. The paint indicates a definite, almost manifest movement. The artist, who only knows the transit of a form of communication, must have been constantly aware of the fact that he is a pedestrian on the street. His only aim was to portray the moment that he stopped, to perceive his own position in relation to the car. He recognized his own limitations and identified himself with the passengers, whose position is already clear. The artist, who is always conscious of his own limitations, has no need of allegory and therefore cannot be too concerned with the viewers position on the train.The same is true of the painting that accompanies the work. The image of the train as a dream is a reflection on the transit of time and of the passage of time.

Result #4

In another version, he offers an untitled painting of a train with a woman in a skirt and panties, in front of the window. Her voice is a voice-over, but one that is distorted, and it is the distorted voice that stops the train.

Result #5

I like the train very much! But to the extent that she is a symbol of the feminine, her tendency to be passive and self-interested, her fascination with the ways in which cars may be the vehicles of conquest, her absence of any overt criticism of the way in which capital controls the bodies of the poor and the powerless, her dependence on male capitalism, her reliance on the advertising of her own bodies and appearance, her belief in the authority of the body as a sign of power—all this is problematic. If, as Freud has argued, women have traditionally been subservient to men, and are therefore implicated in the exploitation of the male gaze, it is not surprising to find that one of the first themes of the feminist art world is the sense that this patriarchal gaze is an essential part of our nature. Although the work in her recent show, which was focused on the video projection and installation work that can be seen as the new series of sculptures, is full of such references to both the maudlin and the beautiful, it is also full of ideas that also deal with male power and domination. The video The Way My Car Is, 2007, is a reminiscence of a car in the shape of a penis. In it, one can catch glimpses of a mans nose, a bit of pubic hair, and the word MY CAR in broken Spanish. But no matter how much we watch, we never become aroused. Or do we? The video is a wryly ironic comment on the advertising strategies that make our way through the world. And, in fact, we are never aroused by it, because the car has become a spectacle of power.The video installation A New Species of Car, 2007, is perhaps the most compelling work in the show. It is a small projection of a car. We are given only glimpses of its silhouette, but they are of a small car that is parked on a pavement.