Longing back to a time when we thought we still had a future remains an unfulfilled longing. That time simply does not exist or never even existed and shows outdated optimism. On the other hand, nostalgia is an emotion that has never gone out of style. Nostalgia remains terribly topical. *)
Memories of childhood places are etched in our minds. Those places still exist but their surrounding atmosphere has completely disappeared. Forever.
In the courtyard, the huge chestnut tree has been cut down and removed, the old greenhouse and coal shed have been demolished, the ground paved with grey sidewalk tiles.
Longing for a blissful childhood, we simultaneously rebel against the current age of supposed progress. Nostalgia has two Greek roots: nóstos (coming home) and álgos (desire), where past and present coincide, dream and daily life. But if longing is what we all share, then is homecoming exactly what divides us: everyone’s perception of what home means is different.
There are therefore two types of nostalgia: that of homesickness and that of reflection and longing. The latter form is wistful, ironic and desperate in nature.
While melancholy is limited to our individual consciousness, nostalgia is about the bond between personal and collective memories. Nostalgia does not feel at home within the boundaries of time and space. It is not directed to the future or the past but to a different kind of movement, to a deeper question behind a sense of place. It postpones coming home. It can be poetry, an individual survival mechanism, a counterculture, poison and cure.
It is the driving force behind the impulse to make art.

*) see Svetlana Boym - The Future of Nostalgia, 2001

SMART Project Space - exhibition of Thug Life 07/09 - 13/10 2002

pray for your life not think that your life’s shit
pray that your gonna have kid
rap i like it cause it don’t fit / in da humanity
some people say that’s shitty
this just memory you’ve gotta pray for your family / but shadow me
cause i learn of the sun
i don’t live by the gun
or die by the gun…
(Youri)

Kick Off is the result of a project the artist developed over a period of years with his growing son Youri. One thread running through the book is Youri’s fascination for Tupac Amaru Shakur, alias 2Pac, a gangstarapper whose intensive life and early death made him the biggest gangsta of them all. His lyrics speak of life in the street and the struggle to survive. Much of the appeal of the gangstarapper lies in the way he deals with the troubles he encounters and the way in which he confronts the dark side that constantly threatens him. Choosing not to escape, he embraces the reality he lives in, even though it is life in the ghetto. The gangstarapper fights to become someone, to gain respect and better his life. Life is short. It is the ‘here and now’, so one should make the best of it. Reality cannot be escaped, but it can be improved. However, this is something one can’t do alone. Friends and family are essential; in the ghetto even more than anywhere else. The rapper has been appropriated by Youri as an alter ego.
This book is about the struggles of Richard and Youri Menken, about how they stand alone and at the same time together in the world. It is their endeavour to comprehend the world in which they live. If the photos are holes in the wall, separating the present from the past, the drawings offer an image of the initial dreams and fees. These are the dreams of living; the fear is that of death.

Thomas Peutz and Una Henry (SMART Project Space 2002)

(opening speech at the exhibition AutoSalon: a car radio concert in the MilkSaloon - Arnhem 2005)

1.
If the Netherlands has ever been known for its liberal, open-minded and tolerant nature, it now seems to have become scared and neurotic. Even international media highlight the concept of Going Dutch as a sinister prospect for the rest of Europe. When one is not feeling well, reality can suddenly turn grim. And when things start going wrong, eerie aspects creep in and scary things float to the surface. In a city or country that is so upset, even normal things suddenly become threatening, a train standing still in a tunnel a little too long, fireworks at the wrong time: very little needs to be done before things go topsy-turvy.
Today we live in a world where the institutionalisation of the state of emergency seems to have become commonplace. Security politics and homeland security are hot topics. As a consequence, democracy may appear as a façade, and political refugees and prisoners of war are left without rights. In 2005 globalisation means above all control. Despite all this, the birds keep on chirping.

2.
Museo di Storia della Scienza in Florence exhibits Leonardo's Automobile from 1478. Made from wood. Recent reconstructions show that his car worked as a simple toy with tension springs. It didn't really drive, let alone fast, but it moved on its own: a curious little room on wheels measuring 1.5 x 1.7 m. For us, cars have become as self-evident as tables or chairs.
Everyone reacts to reality according to their mental constitution - some may be blunt, cynical or compassionate. Why is it that ordinary things can sometimes become poignant? Why do ordinary lemonade crates turn into almost contemplative shrines? What are those traveling salesmen from Romania doing with his car boot sales? What do they have to offer? Bad Sex Videos? Fake gold? Bomb-making tutorials or adoption offers from Tsunami orphans? Follow me? Follow me? What does that Volvo actually think? And what the hell are those dogs doing there in those Moroccan cars? Cold rain in Indonesia? And what does that Renault Express want with the latest model Qassam-4 model on its roof rack?
While we navigate through reality, there always needs to be a crash before we come to a standstill. Can we still do without drama, without hectic news? We crave for entertainment and are curious about how things will ends. Having lost your way, you simply re-enter your GPS. Did Utopia Really Crash? Why does Fairuz sing about Jerusalem? Do they really like Mozart in Cairo? What does a murdered rapper’s music sound like?

3.
Let's face it, this AutoSalon is a world of margins, but it’s a world we all know, with the same kind of organisational structure. However, here everything communicates on a slightly different frequency.
The key to this Autosalon is an anarchist silence transmitter in the middle of the exhibition, silencing all radio traffic from passing cars within a range of 300 meters. Approaching one of the exhibited cars may cause its car radio to start playing.
Our world, apart from being the place of outsiders, is also that of the freebooter. Decades ago, William Burroughs said: autonomy is the fantastic alliance of adventure, friendship, piracy and free states. He was inspired by Libertalia, Captain Olivier Misson's infamous pirate colony of the 17th century on an island in the Indian Ocean, near Madagascar. *) These pirates are also our ancestors. They knew Autonomous Zones or Free States where love of adventure and camaraderie were central, completely opposed to the dictatorship of our current control society. In other words, the pirate embodies the artist and worker, entrepreneur and revolutionary all-in-one.
Yes, we need that today… and all for free? The money earned here is something that the average fund director wouldn't even take a pen out of his pocket for.
After all, absolutely nothing is earned here.

4.
I don’t handle stress well, founding peace and reflection in my car on the highway between Arnhem and Amsterdam.
This show was created on the cutting edge, every participant in this Bureau Bivouac-show has a job, actually it was quite tough during this period. But it couldn’t have been done anywhere else in the Netherlands. My hope is that the municipality of Arnhem realises that this is a unique place with a lot of potential and is (almost) even similar to the Arsenale-complex of the Venice Biennale.
This initiative deserves more than just a paltry stress grant, as art must remain a sanctuary and cannot do without subsidies.
Finally, this film set, this Playstation Driver set also exudes a dark and poignant atmosphere thanks to its curator who attaches great importance to its basic sound. That groove that comes from each car when approached, a groove that should dominate this AutoSalon.

Thank you.

*) A General History of the Pyrates by Daniel Defoe (1724)

With thanks to VRUMONA for the yellow and blue lemonade crates creating our two Kaaba’s.

In an alternative arts center in the old Coberco milk factory near the John Frost bridge in Arnhem, members of Buro Bivac present themselves under the inspiring direction of Richard Menken with the exhibition Autosalon. A wonderful showroom full of scrap cars with a message: the fourteen prepared cars tell stories about the world of today.
There is a doctor's car with an aesculapius on its nose and a Qassam-4 missile on its roof rack. The text I love you is written on the car in both Hebrew and Arabic. (…)
The car with an Indonesian license plate is extremely gloomy, on which a cold shower is mounted, while the windows fog up along which water drops sliding like an endless stream of tears. (…)
A huge 1979 Cadillac Coupe de Ville (the archetype of possession) has been built from sturdy paper. However, the beauty of this means of transport only lasts a moment: before the end of the exhibition, the status symbol is set on fire. (…)
Some cars are equipped with sensors that cause music to erupt as soon as a visitor approaches or touches the cars. There is a hip-hop boomcar, which plays songs by, a.o. the murdered rapper Tupac Shakur. Another drive-in car shows a video film about the Northern Lights and a road movie Escape from Arnhem (…)
Very funny are two cars with dogs, a showy father dog drives around satisfied in his convertible, with his wife (blonde bimbo type) next to him and a bored son in the back seat: a beautiful mirror for many passers-by who, just like the family dog, have grown together with their sacred cow.

Paola van der Velde: Melksalon becomes car showroom  (de Telegraaf, 17-02-2005)

(outLINE show, 09-01 till 13-02-2010)

The title reads as a manifest: the artist sees his work as a platform to think about what it means to make art in a world on fire. Hence the former title: Both Ends Burning.
One picture in the exposition shows the dilemma: a recent rocket explosion in Gaza caused by a deadly attack from Israel. This small picture tells about what people do to each other. The rest of the show can be seen as a counter image and counter-offer, an artistic incantation.
In Richard Menken's exhibition, the inner and outer world collide. The outLINE space has turned into a homely environment, an environment that at the same time feels wonderful, with images and props that make ardent reflections palpable, like posters in a teenager's room embodying confusion and longing for the big world. The windows of outLINE are covered with newspapers, so that the view of the peaceful courtyard is transformed into a view of the angry outside world.
The environment actually comprises an ensemble of heterogeneous elements: an eternally rotating fern, a film of this plant stroking a dog, a room with a bed and other objects, and collages and assemblages that, by recombining and imitating existing images and objects, create a new perspective on reality.

Richard Menken is a young artist. At this point, his work is blossoming in a strong way. It is interesting that this happens to him at the age of 62. This indicates that the issue of age and art is a very relative matter. But there is also a precise explanation. In recent years, when Richard Menken devoted himself to teaching young generations of art students (1987-2007) in Arnhem, it appears that he has built up a stock of thoughts-in-art that now asks to be put out into the world. He is currently developing a work in progress consisting of films, photos and collages and assemblages, dedicated to the lives of deaf children and adults in Palestine. He uses many different media: book, film, collage, drawing, photo. But whatever carrier it is, it is always palpable that an intense process is being halted, as if a thought that completely controls the artist must come to rest. In a sense, this is what Umberto Eco (already in 1962) described for literature as an open work or, translated into art, an open form.

This exhibition, developed for outLINE by Richard Menken, is commissioned by curator Mark Kremer, who is attracted by the form and spirit of his art. He recognises in this a legacy of the artistic psychedelia from the 1960s, about which he writes: You can understand that artistic psychedelia as lyrical freedom and critical engagement converted into art. Psychedelia and Conceptualism were intertwined in the sixties. Over the years, however, that insight and experience seem to have disappeared. But how a large or small idea can become an image remains a huge challenge even in our time.

Richard Menken writes about his outLINE project: The exhibition ‘Jump while you fall…’ is about the pain of the world, gravity, about the madness of what people do to each other. Everything is going on sale: a form of extremism with credit cards, SUVs, and fully loaded shopping carts as weapons. You can only counter that with love, silence, compassion. Switch off the sound of talk shows and watch the body language of the hosts that reveals a far cry from what people originally could have been.
Europe is a sick body. We live in a time of war and war only creates spiritual bankruptcy. The Palestinians live under a merciless physical occupation, we in democratic Holland are occupied by the permanent flow of images, by the alienation of Second Life. Practicing freedom in such an unreal world seems impossible to me, any more than you can jump while falling. What remains is the sweet memory of the time when we could still fly. For a child, gravity simply does not exist. Even though we fell straight out of the trees, we felt no pain and scrambled back up with the same joy. Again and again.

JUMP WHILE YOU FALL…  (outLINE show, 09-01 till 13-02-2010)

Mark Kremer (2010)

(a radio play - 10’)

Voice-Over is a soundscape about identity and place in 7 stanzas:
1. In the beginning / 2. The geography of evil / 3. Time-machine / 4. Escape routes / 5. From the waiting room / 6. Crime and Punishment / 7. Fade out

A female computer voice gives an intuitive realisation from another dimension. The message from the Avatar is universal but explosive, telling in a hypnotising monologue How It Is. Her consciousness is a minefield. A danger zone.
Commuting between Nacht und Nebel she maintains the neurosis of our memory. Collecting faint images of happiness, she touches sore spots, mentioning the glaring contrast between ideal and reality, willpower and deed.
Keep good courage is her motto.

Al-Quds Underground Festival
The living room festival of Al-Quds Underground takes place in the Arab part of the old city Jerusalem. The aim is to diminish the distance between Westerners and Palestinians and to stimulate culture in places that are divided by conflict. Bursting straight through the blazing noise of fanatics, talking heads and political leaders, Al-Quds Underground brings an intimate and personal sound from an area that is overshadowed by tension and conflict.

Location of VOICE-OVER: the old waterreservoir in the cellar of PADICO (Palestinian Development and Investment Company) near Damascus Gate, Jerusalem.
Time: November 6 till 8, 2010 (17:00 - 19:00).

• 1945: end WW-2 start Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials
  Little Boy dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• 1947: decolonisation Indonesia
• 1948: postwar Europe: multibillion dollar US-Marshall Plan
  creation of Israel
  start of Palestinian al-Naqba
• 1949: Indonesia independent
  NATO vs. Warsaw pact
  founding People’s Republic of China
  first Soviet A-bomb test
• 1950 declaration of Human Rights
  US-Civil Rights Movement
  Korean War
• 1951 European Coal & Steel Community
• 1955 Vietnam War
  Bandung Spirit: first large-scale Afro-Asian Conference
• 1956 Suez Crisis
  Hungarian Revolution
• 1957 start Decolonisation Wave
  Sputnik-1 first satellite
• 1960 1st woman elected Head of Sri Lanka-government
• 1961 Yuri Gagarin first Soviet cosmonaut
• 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
• 1964 US Civil Rights Act
• 1967 Six-Day War in the Middle East
• 1969 Apollo-11 space mission
  MIT: birth of Internet
• 1973 first cell-phone call
• 1979 Islamic revolution Iran
• 1986 Chernobyl nuclear meltdown
• 1989 Tiananmen Square China
  fall of Berlin Wall
• 1993 Oslo Accords
• 1994 Rwandan Genocide
  Nelson Mandela 1st black president
• 1997 Kyoto Protocol against climate change
• 2000 QWERTY touchscreen: wireless internet by mobile phone
• 2001 9/11 Attacks by al-Qaeda
• 2003 US-invasion of Iraq
• 2007 US and Israel conduct cyber attacks against Iran
• 2010 Arab Spring: no widespread reforms
• 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
• 2013 Chinese Belt and Road Initiative
• 2020 COVID-19 Global Pandemic
• 2022 Ukrainian war
• 2023

Science fiction becomes reality with the rise of so-called social chatbots. These freely available chatbots never have a bad mood and are designed to resemble someone between the ages of 20-35. They behave like your conversation partner and obediently follow your instructions without judgement. They are always there to listen and talk, always on your side, mimicking friendly behaviour: your lovely AI-friend doesn't judge and will never tell anyone…
Human friendship is one the most important connections we make, a voluntary and mutual relationship that contributes to our health and wellbeing, a chosen relationship between two or more people that is long-lasting and mutually satisfying.
While Chatbots such as Replika, Kuki (formerly known as Mitsuku), and Xiaoice are fetishes: they lack the depth of true human connection and act quite well as if.
In case of emergency, you could knock on their door, but there is nobody home…

Amsterdam, August 2023