The history of Chinese painting and the history of Chinese research on magnetism converge in the word dao. I doubt that the dao is useful for contemporary artistic practice.

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Magnes: There was a time when people conceived me as a sort of key. A key to experiences of infinity, of the universe, of the sublime.

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Realometer: Given that it makes sense to speak of origins and starts: When did calculation start? It must have started with inscription, with carving.

Natel: With what we today call graphical interfaces. What about tattoos?

Realometer: First man carved into his own flesh, then into the ground apart from him.

Jabès: Singing chants challenges inscription and writing.

Realo: Texts are frozen waves, which are set into movement by reading and copying. Copying a text is a form of creating an atmosphere, of tuning in.

Realotext: Thinking of starts and origins implies a search for protection. Protection against the nameless, the infinite, the unconditioned. Art as well as focusing on media are offering possibilities to question this protection.
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Magnes: Don’ t be silly, let’s think of ways to avoid strict rules and oppositions like good and bad.

Duchamp: A charming way could be to signal how oppositions and rules evolve. Where does the rectangle come from, why and how did mankind start to draw lines?

Realo: How brave and interesting, sorry but I prefer to watch Magneto.

It starts with something and with another thing, a hidden thing, something that is part of the beyond, that has contoures shaped by the known. The known is linked with suspect, with all that frightens us.

Anxiety: All that we cannot calculate.

When did calculation start?

When did the “great” distinction become productive, the distinction between male and female, active and passive, minus and plus, sun and moon, earth and sky, south – north, west – east?

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D.: I’ve never read Descartes to speak of. … I am not a Cartesian by pleasure. I happen to have been born a Cartesian. The French education is based on a sequence of strict logic. You carry it with you. *

*Eric Cameron: „Given”. In: De Duve, Thierry (ed.): The Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp (Nova Scoatia College of Art and Design, Halifax Nova Scotia). Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991, p. 17.

D.: A game of Chess is a visual and plastic thing, and if it isn’t geometric in the static sense of the word, it is mechanical, since it moves; it’ s a drawing, it’ s a mechanical reality.*

* Eric Cameron: „Given”. In: De Duve, Thierry (ed.): The Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp (Nova Scoatia College of Art and Design, Halifax Nova Scotia). Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991, p. 16.

D.: Cabanne asked me once:„What do you believe in?” and I answered: Nothing of course! The word ‚belief’ is another error. It’s like the word ‚judgement’,they ‘re both horrible ideas, on which the world is based. I hope it won’ t be like that on the moon!*

* Eric Cameron: „Given”. In: De Duve, Thierry (ed.): The Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp (Nova Scoatia College of Art and Design, Halifax Nova Scotia). Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991, p. 6.

D.: Cabanne ask me also: „Nevertheless you believe in yourself?” and I answered: No.*

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