KOANmachine

公案機械

project 2018

Story

While the ringing in my ear became louder and louder, a herd of blue ponies ran past me. The ground became chrome, and I could see soul fragments in the mirror image.

My wisdom tooth began to throb and sang Irish orphan songs while the cold steel of the huge machine came closer and closer. I slowly tripped closer to it, irresistibly. In the hope of finding everything there that I was not. Or at least what I had heard in innumerable stories about the machine.

A roaring storm rose and almost every part of the metal mechanism began to move. A thousand reflections and lights became visible without a sound to be heard. The storm covered everything and changed into a maelstrom.
I hovered over the landscape of chrome, coming closer and closer …

Koan Machine II is about a world in which it has not been possible to separate consciousness and intellect. Helpless people seek liberation and project this wish on a machine that by its sheer size and presence generates the feeling that only what is true, meaningful and good can proceed from it. The machine stands for everything that simple minds would call God. Withdrawal from personal responsibility. The Koan machine reveals us as what we really are. Fearful children in search of recognition and meaning.

Context

We seek security, meaning and recognition. Drunken from the feeling that there is more there than we have and are. Having replaces being, and being is hard to find. Similar to happiness, whatever that may be.

How much sense does it make to seek sense, how much sense does it make not to seek it?
Many unanswered questions lead to the desire to understand. But this understanding does not really come about. We invent substitute realities that are just small enough for us to understand.
If they are also non-complex, we have the feeling of understanding and being understood.
However, the desire for understanding blocks our ability not to evaluate; the world of things impedes our ability of non-adherence.

The world of the true essence remains closed to us. But as a substitute, we have invented machines in which we can believe. Social rituals as a meta-machine.
Operated and invented by the television and advertising industry, they facilitate our presence in a natural environment that we cannot control or even understand without modification.

In our rationalized society, comprehending by means of thought and logic seems to be the prime and sole duty. It is for precisely this reason that we so often fail. Whatever we cannot understand makes no sense. And what makes no sense seems to have no value.
But what fool will expect sense of the world? If we look at everything, what makes sense in the grand view of things? A presumption that is capable of devouring our soul.

The natural enemy of logic is the paradox. But the paradox surrounds us, it is everywhere, it permeates us. And that is a good thing. “Stop making sense” is a purifying process, it is liberating if we can stand it. The paradox helps us reach a state like homeostasis, floating like free bodies and happy about it. We drink to the health of “existence”. Consciousness and intellect are disunited. There is no need of an outside, we are the outside ourselves. We are the machine.

Koan Machine II is about a world in which it has not been possible to separate consciousness and intellect. Helpless people seek liberation and project this wish on a machine that by its sheer size and presence generates the feeling that only what is true, meaningful and good can proceed from it. The machine stands for everything that simple minds would call God. Withdrawal from personal responsibility. The Koan machine reveals us as what we really are. Fearful children in search of recognition and meaning.

Während das Sausen in meinem Ohr immer lauter wurde ritt eine Herde blauer Ponys an mir vorbei. Der Boden wurde zu Chrom und ich konnte Seelensplitter im Spiegelbild erblicken.

Mein Weißheitszahn begann zu pochen und sang irische Weisenlieder, während der kalte
Stahl der grossen Maschine immer näher kam. Ich stolperte langsam weiter darauf zu, unaufhaltsam. In der Hoffnung dort alles zu finden was ich nicht war.

Oder zumindest das, was ich in zahllosen Geschichten über die Maschine gehört hatte.

Ein tosender Sturm kam auf und nahezu jeder Bestandteil der metallenen Mechanik fing an sich zu bewegen. 1000 Reflektionen und Lichter zeigten sich ohne das auch nur ein Geräusch zu hören war. Der Sturm überdeckte alles und wandelte sich zu einem Sog.
Ich schwebte über die Landschaft aus Chrom, immer näher, immer näher…

Der natürliche Feind der Logik, ist die Paradoxie. Aber das Paradoxe umgibt uns, es ist überall, es durchdringt uns . Und das ist gut so. “Stop making sense“ ist ein reinigender Prozess, er ist befreiend, wenn man ihn aushalten kann. Das Paradoxe hilft uns dabei, einen Zustand zu erlangen,
in welchem wir in einem homöostatischen Zustand gleich, wie freie Körper schwimmen und uns darüber freuen.Wir prosten dem “Da Sein“ zu. Bewußtsein und Intellekt sind entzweit. Es braucht kein Aussen, wir sind es selbst. Wir sind die Maschine.