Üben Üben Üben - Basel, 11.09.25 (Cotton Candy, by Raphael Loosli /[live] Mun Sing)

Totally schluffed. One more hour until the next performance. I really have to pull myself together so there isn’t too much to correct and translate later. Today feels like some kind of hump day. Feels that way at least, we’ve been in Basel for quite a while already. During the day you just kind of kill time with hands and feet. Of course there are nice things to do, plenty of exhibitions and stuff. Evenings in the same old hall. Definitely a challenge too, especially when you’re shining simply by being present every night. But I’m looking forward to it. Basel really is a beautiful place to let the summer fade out. Can’t really deny it anymore — that’s exactly what we’re doing. Unless, of course, you book that flight to the Caribbean. Yesterday, also, first time trying the cottage cheese... sheep-camembert combo. A highly recommendable culinary recommendation during ÜbenÜbenÜben. Maybe also a shoutout to that chandelier. With those tiny mini stage spotlights. A masterpiece of the balloonci… balloon… the ballooncier?

Many things were said goodbye to last night. Goodbye excess, goodbye money, goodbye shame, goodbye ego, goodbye fear, goodbye regret, goodbye anxiety, goodbye pride. Continuing from the night before yesterday there were postsacral insights into a church performance… extremely fitting... Bravo for the thematic execution. A video-and-sound constellation, with organ practice happening. You were basically live at the rehearsal. Lovely when the theme hits ‘like a fist to the eye’.

But anyway, it was a funny video. I keep saying things were funny, have to stop. It was kind of a beautiful video. Filmed off the screen, with constant optical distortions. You could see people cleaning up, balloons popping, the perspective from above into the belly of the church. At the same time, organ fragments kept coming through. But unlike before, you were kind of... or strongly encouraged to just walk around, chat, basically use the bar and the space normally. Which of course meant: walking around, standing outside, smoking. So I didn’t actually see everything there was to see. Not in full length. But I like that. I like it when it’s unforced. I don’t feel under pressure. Attention spent at one’s own discretion. Not exactly “observing” a performance, more like moving through a space that’s been shaped by a gesture.

And yeah, it was a nice kickoff for the vibe-change due on a Wednesday. After that videos the curtain was pulled and then... the bass vibrated so much, not just the tartan floor bouncing... what, how silly. Anyway, my beer was vibrating. At my ear or my mouth, the whole bottle felt the bass. That was funny. You really imagine it traveling through every single organ when you’re standing in front of such a massive system. A bit spooky too.

I was asking myself yesterday, while watching, what I would say about it the next day. And it’s actually not that easy. Because you want to really nail it, so it comes across in text, but... without just describing. Still, there’s no way around it. That crazy little guy with straw hat, blue-painted face, red lips. Who performed that live set straight through. Incredible, with video screen, like a double... whatever... like a mirror of him live and then in the video, with the same costume and the same crazily wide-open eyes. And the lip-syncing, sometimes fitting, sometimes I think not so much. But definitely sometimes very on point. The more atmospheric parts he lip-synced, and then suddenly just screamed into silence, which was weird... it was super loud of course, but you couldn’t actually hear what was being screamed. So it looked silent. Just distorted, grotesque mouth movements.

He was, I think, not exactly untrained... that’s not the right word... but not used to playing in an art context instead of in a club. Definitely club sound for the experimentally inclined. Hard, heavy. I even texted someone: heavy. Great and heavy. For a Wednesday though, the vibe was definitely giving for such a loud act. It was also a bit like a charade, like pantomime, but also with very classic elements of hand gestures. The theatrical element was strong. Which, weirdly enough, is a funny component when mixed with DJ/live/techno and that quirky aesthetic. Not exactly the cool mesh-shirt-Hör-Berlin-vibe. But as people sometimes say in art contexts: it “worked.” Over that weird aesthetic category we should really think more. When and why and for whom does an exhibition or an image or whatever “work”?

And thenI wanted to look at some symbols in the video: fff, arrow, triangle-in-a-circle, arrow, two grain pictograms. I mean, the f kind of rings a bell from math class, like function notation. At first glance it also looks like a treble clef, or something out of music theory. Anyway. fff: fortissimo. Very, very, very loud. Maybe that’s it... and then some Freemason... Harry-Potter-ish triangle-in-circle thing. And then the 2x grain. Maybe he’s gluten intolerant. Or maybe meta. The holy trinity: performance, sound, and disguise. Nope. Honestly, no clue. But it “worked.” Nicely layered over the video. Always that sequence of pictograms.

Man, I should really duck into the Flore Bar soon and turn this into a text over a beer. Sorry folks, should’ve gotten more out of that. Maybe we can think about it again. Anyway, it’s starting soon. See you.