Maria Barnas: Wo weilst du–An die ferne (entfernte) Geliebte

A conversation, a correspondence, a clash
between Alois Isidor Jeitteles, Ludwig van Beethoven, Someone and X.
Starring: Elizabeth Audrey, Susanne Leitz-Lorey, Martin Nagy and GPT-3

(2023)

Handwriting is communicating with a machine driven by an AI-chatbot; History is corresponding with the future. Various times overlap in this piece, in which the human voice strikes a disoriented note, looking for a connection with the Unknown.

Between the writing of a letter–based on a love letter by Beethoven that was never sent–and the waiting for an answer from the Unknown, fragments of Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte, new poems and technical devices clash and collapse, leading up to a distorted duet, reaching for bliss.

(Maria Barnas)

Someone is writing a letter to X.

It may be longing itself

that someone is addressing.

Mein engel, mein alles, mein Ich …

Is our collective intelligence artificial?

Is intelligence natural?

And what about intuition, someone wonders.

Is X a kind of love?

Is X the unknown?

Someone isn’t finding the right words,

as their images are rippling

in the hive-mind, adjusting to a shifting

past, a present, an immediate and a far-off future

and what is happening, breaking down

in between and meanwhile?

… und wenn ich mich im Zusammenhang

des Universums betrachte, was bin ich …

Someone writes, rewrites lyrics from an old song.

Does someone remember the melody?

It is something to lose.

It is something to hold onto.

Someone sings into a blue distance of hills

a blue of a flickering screen.

A sun is setting in shades of purple

fading into red.

Someone is waiting for an answer.

But what temperature should the hivemind be given.

What length should the answers have.

What does someone want to hear.

Ach–Es gibt Momente, wo ich finde

daß die sprache noch gar nichts ist …

Should someone consider an algorithm

for morality? For love and life and death.

Someone scratches shapes on a surface.

They remind someone of someone.

X considers a reply.

Maria Barnas (*1973 in Hoorn) is a poet and visual artist who lives and works in Bergen and Amsterdam. Her language-based work takes the shape of poetry, essays, audio works, films and installations.

Barnas studied at the Rietveld Academie and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. She has published three novels and five collections of poetry, for which she received several literary awards. Her most recent poetry collection is Diamond without an r (Prologue), published in 2022. She has been a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) since 2016.

In her work, language is a domain of power structures to be analysed and addressed, with all hesitations and questions this raises. A recurring question is: how does language influence what we see and believe we understand? Both her poetry and her visual art present startling narratives and alternative histories that invite reflection and upend our conception of reality.

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Maria Barnas: Wo weilst du–An die ferne (entfernte) Geliebte

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