In this episode of “Die Erde spricht / The Earth is Speaking” we experience “an endeavour in deflection”. Having been denied the performance rights of Joseph Beuys’s performance “Ja, ja, ja, ne, ne, ne”, Andrew Stock and Seth Brodsky developed their own strategy to solve the deadlock situation with the Beuys Trust: “Small Talk”. Under this title the Chicago-based artist and musician Andrew Stock and the professor of Music at the Chicago University Seth Brodsky watch Beuys’s famous 1969 video “Soziale Plastik” by Lutz Mommartz. They start musing on ideas of persona, charisma, recognition, and hope, and a rambling conversation begins that spans from the broader logic of European self-definition, geopolitics and colonialism to concepts of autonomy and subjectivity.

Watch “Soziale Plastik” (1969) here: https://youtu.be/A8nypxGtkKo; listen to “Ja, ja, ja, ja, ne, ne, ne, ne” (1968) here: https://youtu.be/py_uEHL-la4