The section titles in this text are all from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Created by John Koenig, this dictionary consists of neologisms (and their corresponding definitions) that designate emotions hitherto unnamed in English →. Anticipointment refers to the sinking feeling when anticipation fails to be the greater part of pleasure.
This pool was part of Cécile B. Evans’s immersive installation that consisted of her works What the Heart Wants (2016), Endurance Study – A Pictorial Guide I, II, III (2016), and Handy if you’re learning to fly I, II (2016).
The word can be defined as the bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self.
Quoted in Tim Jonze, “Malcolm McLaren’s son to burn £5m of punk memorabilia,” Guardian, March 16, 2016 →.
The word can be defined as the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.
The word can be defined as the awareness of the smallness of your perspective.
The word can be defined as the default expression that your face automatically reverts to when idle; amused, melancholic, pissed off.
The word can be defined as the fear that your connections with people are ultimately shallow.
The word can be defined as the state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence, which force you to revise your image of what can happen in this world.
As a BFAMFAPhD report shows, there are about two million arts graduates in US, with bachelor’s degrees in fields such as music, drama, theater arts, film, photography, art history and criticism, studio art, visual art, and performing arts. Fewer than 200,000 – just 10 percent – make their living primarily as artists. The rest are dispersed across other occupations: 23 percent work in professional and managerial occupations, 17 percent are employed as sales and office workers, and 17 percent work as educators. Another 14 percent are not in the labor force at all. See →.
This word can be defined as the exhilarating dread of finally pursuing a lifelong dream.
This word can be defined as the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.
Chris Dercon’s contested appointment as director of the Volksbühne Theater started a new discussion about rethinking the role of theater in Berlin and in Germany as a whole. However, the Maxim Gorki Theater and the Impulse Theater Festival have been taking up this challenge for years, sometimes in an even more progressive way than most contemporary art institutions.
Haben und Brauchen: “In contrast to other big cities, Berlin was devoid of any exceptional pressure on the housing market, and the range of available spaces enabled diverse and often self-organized art practices. Now this situation is beginning to change dramatically. Rents are on the rise, and pressure on the conditions of production and living is increasing without any increase in money making opportunities. Most people engaged in cultural production still earn most of their money outside of Berlin. The bustling art scene in Berlin evolved less through the specific support of the city and more through its historical situation. Nevertheless, at the very moment when the conditions for people engaged in cultural production are worsening dramatically, the city prides itself on its artists; and the attention is welcome—in principle. Formed in response to these issues, Haben und Brauchen seek to be advocates in the field of art as well as in art’s neighboring occupational fields with a platform for discussion and action.” See →.
Haben und Brauchen: “We demand the implementation of the statement made in the coalition agreement between the governing parties that they wish to increase support for independent cultural production and to improve its structural framework in concrete, active political action: independent of if and when the City Tax does eventually become reality. We demand a new, qualified and sustainable cultural policy which recognises the reality and social relevance of a self-organised artistic practice which has grown out of the specific historical conditions and free spaces to be found in Berlin.” See →.
Discomfort with the genre-fication of politically engaged artistic practices was addressed in a public letter collectively written by a loose group of Berlin-based artists and cultural workers during the three-day congress of Artist Organizations International at HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin, January 2015.
This word can be defined as the desire to be struck by disaster.
In the summer of 2011, the “research agency” Forensic Architecture launched the Forensic Oceanography project. Its aim was to support a coalition of NGOs demanding accountability for the deaths of migrants in a region of the central Mediterranean Sea that, starting in March of that year, was being tightly monitored by NATO as part of its arms embargo against Libya. During the events of the “left-to-die boat” case, this monitoring enabled NATO and participating states to become aware of any migrant distress signals—and therefore be effective in assisting. The Forensic Oceanography report turned the knowledge generated through surveillance into evidence of responsibility for the crime of nonassistance.
This word can be defined as the moment a conversation becomes real and alive.
This slogan was part of a marketing campaign called “Not in the Berlin Biennale,” created for the biennial by Radboy, Roe Ethridge, and Chris Kraus.
Mike Meiré in an interview with Peter Martin, Branding Interface, June 2002.
See Tess Edmonson, “The Present in Drag,” 9th Berlin Biennale, Art-Agenda (June 4, 2016) →.
Tess Edmonson, “The Present in Drag,” 9th Berlin Biennale →.
The author would like to thank Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle, and Noah Barker, for their challenging conversations and generous input. A special thanks to Kinga Kielczynska, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Puck Verkade, and Emily Roysdon. All photos courtesy of the author.