Page 8 - OCTOPUS COMMISSION REPORT SCHWARZKOMMANDO ENG
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OCTOPUS COMMISSION REPORT NOV 3TH 2101

          can itself be used as a pure signifier.           shown that it is an alloy of aluminum,
          Dr Zam: In poetry?                                zinc,  and  magnesium.  A  quick  search
          Dr Recht: You are ahead of me! That was           also revealed that it used to be called
          exactly where I wanted to take you. Just          ergal, and its lightness and mechanical
          to give you an example, which I take              strength meant that it was mainly used in
          from the history of Italian poetry, think of      the aerospace industry.
          the hoopoe. The cheerful bird slandered           Dr Zam: So, can we say that in addition to
          by poets, writes Montale, reproaching             the obelisk and the cross, the totem has
          Foscolo for having made it a lugubrious           something of the rocket?
          nocturnal bird that inhabits the sepul-           Dr Recht: The fact that it reaches upwards
          chers, when it is actually a colorful bird,       confirms this.
          that is anything but gloomy.  The que-            Dr Net: It does not resemble much to Sa-
          stion is what it is that drove Foscolo to         turn V, but I give you some credit on its
          make such a mistake. Clearly, the sound           material.
          of the word and its almost onomatopo-             Dr Recht: I must agree with you too, it
          eic resemblance to the owl’s cry; the si-         does look very little like you. However,
          gnifier, not the meaning. The example is          we must now come to terms with the
          blatant, but it prompts us to think, that         tendency towards mixing and the multi-
          driving the poet is not reason in search          directional symbolic overabundance of
          of meaning, but language in its musical,          Schwarz’s body of messages, which we
          signifying, therefore fluctuating and con-        are accustomed to. It is not surprising
          tradictory essence - in a word, crazy.            that the totem pole is somewhat deco-
          Dr  Mart:  Do  you  want  to  tell  us  that      rated.
          Schwarz is a poet?                                Dr Zam: So, let’s start with the dodecahe-
          Dr Recht: Somehow.  As he is codified,            dron.
          he does not want to convey information            Dr Recht: Yes; twelve faces made up of
          or meaning, but move towards the crazy            regular pentagons. If we draw the dia-
          signifier of the poetic, the sacred. His ye-      gonals of each pentagon, we obtain
          arning to become a body is therefore an           golden triangles inscribed in the figure
          act of pure poetry.                               of the starry pentagon. These are clear-
          Dr Net: In addition to the haiku and the          ly hermetic and Pythagorean references,
          video signal, we must not forget the to-          for two reasons: the presence of golden
          tem pole. The more I look at it, the more         proportions, and the creation of a smal-
          confused I get. Honestly, it seems to me          ler regular pentagon at the intersection
          to be a discontinuous jumble, and folklo-         of the triangles, wherein - by drawing the
          ric at best.                                      diagonals again - a new star is created
          Dr Zam: Of course, it’s an assemblage.            with a new, even smaller pentagon, and
          It’s a material rendering of the fragmen-         so on, in a recursive manner.
          tary jumble with which Schwarz reveals            Dr Zam: This would seem like a referen-
          himself to us, and I understand that it           ce to moving towards the infinitely small.
          may be irritating, but I would suggest gi-        Dr Recht: That is a good interpretation,
          ving it a second look.                            especially if we consider how much
          Dr Mart: The first thing I notice is that he      Schwarz loves the coincidence of op-
          also has something relating to the obeli-         posites. In fact, the dodecahedron is the
          sk and to the cross.                              Platonic solid related to the quintessen-
          Dr Zam: I’m not surprised. Schwarz’s re-          ce, to the universe, to light, to space, to
          ligiosity seems to me like an established         the cosmos. Therefore, the infinitely lar-
          fact.                                             ge and the infinitely small, the microco-
          Dr Mart: Faith and reason.                        sm and the macrocosm, coexist within it.
          Dr Recht: Yes, and here I would not over-         Dr Mart: What about the numbers 1 to 4?
          look the totem’s material. Analyses have          How should we interpret them?



           OCTOPUS COMMISSION REPORT NOV 3TH 2101
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