In the mornings I have been waking up early, sneaking out of the room as quietly as possible so as not to wake ___, tip toeing out the door and down the stairs and out into the courtyard of the converted 17th century monastery that we have been inhabiting. My impulse is to walk towards the sun, to bathe in it, and I am repeatedly drawn to the giant marble tables flanking the sides of a seemingly ancient marble effigy, but as soon as my face senses the warmth I begin to anticipate its omnipresence throughout the day and quickly decide to retreat into the shade of the trees at the center of the courtyard. With my little plastic cup of steaming espresso - dispensed from a machine in the lobby of my dormitory - I walk a few circles around the rough marble pedestal standing at the center of a small alocade of oversized cobble stones and ruinous looking marble benches. Everything here appears ancient, and that which has been added more recently is visually obvious, a clean layer smeared over the top and failing to adhere to the temporally concentrated mass underneath, peeling off in layers, colors flaking off to the touch to reveal the cold calm gray of bygone epochs of sturdier human memory. It's here, in the shaded middle, surrounded by the sounds of foraging morning birds and a sea of wild strawberries, that I sit to think and breath and listen and write an account of my time upon the floating city.

I realize now that I have yet to take into account the massive quantity and myriad qualities of artwork I have been observing, focusing instead on the social element and my own affective resonance to the place rather than its contents: a failure in perspective in itself. Where to begin - always the beginning? No total account is necessary, but there are certainly some themes who elucidation may help me think through my current orientation towards the contemporary art milieau. I will not be able to recount it as a narrative, for sake of time and concentration, but also because this may prove less useful than a more fragmented form of note taking. I should try instead to mentally walk through while taking account of the most pertinent aspects of what I have experienced, as there are moments everywhere which I can assimilate into my own plane of considerations.

FRAGMENTS

A circle of television repeating images of Amazonian people in such a way that they can be easily dismissed: a horror of neglect and forgetfulness to the delicate jungle peoples.

Anna Halprin and The Farm: remember the Bay area traditions of radicalized (failed) utopias. Halprins diagrams for world dances are relevant to the OOFKAUU.

The underwhelming presence of drawing and painting throughout the exhibition, and to some extent of static sculpture and material concerns in general. It seems as though the velocity of novelty is speeding up to such an extent that I can no longer stomach those still frames without their being supplemented by a strong dose of lived existence. Static art is dead experience.

Artistic focus which becomes overly myopic, upon a single medium or process or sense of identity, becomes easily dismissable. I am eager to dismiss excessive expressions, and just as hungry to seek out relevant, pertinent, even essential modes of inquiry. This is not purely a desire for ever increasing novelty, nor necessarily reduced to mere personal bias, but perhaps rooted in the acknowledgement of artistic responsibility and questions of relevance for the present moment. Art should be involved in the dialogue of immanence, seeking to feel the peripheries of its disciplinary compartment, not prodding towards its non-existent center or attempting to recatagorized a delusional sense of wholeness. Where does "universal humanism" fit in to this schema?

Positive standouts:

• The ontological techno-sci-fi opera of Mariechen Danz: Ore Oral Orientation

• Chladni-cymatic vocal formations of Kader Attia's Narrative Vibrations

• Cosmic world-animal paper-cast primordial stone sculpture - Erika Verzutti's Turtle

• Edith Dekyndt One Thousand and One Nights + Slow Object 008: dust carpet and silver curtain

• Alicja Kwade's WeltenLinie: linear mirror frame stage with archetypal geological sculpture prop-forms designed for a performance for twins

• Geoffery Farmer's poetic destruction at the Canadian pavilion

• Simple brutal political stage at the Uruguay pavillion - Mario Sagradini: Law of the Funnel

• Jordi Colomer's anti-aesthetic political organization for Spain

• Philippe Parreno's Cloud Oktas = quasi-objects, AC/DC snakes, transparent walls

• Lee Mingwei's zen chair of contemplation in the garden: When Beauty Visits

• The sense of humor in cinematic narrative in the Greek and Finish pavillions, funny and entertaining and decidedly relevant, although also incredibly dumb and better suited to another venue.

Negative reactions:

• French pavillion: what a failure! I really wanted to like it but it's riddled with conflicts

• Swiss pavillion: regressive and horribly unproductively boring

• Ernesto Neto's ayahuasca ceremony hut

• The terror that comprises the Russian pavilion

• German pavillion's faust

• Austria's instagram self-making machine: Erwin Wurm and neon lights in infinity mirror boxes

• Olifur Eliason's weird fucked up light workshop utilizing immigrant labor

• Almost without exception (can I recall an exception!?), all of the paintings and drawings throughout the international pavillion and comprising the rest of the exhibition.... this certainly is indicative of my own bias but for good reason, concerning the necessity in arousing certain sentiments of our contemporary condition through the material mode of transmission joined with high-fidelity conceptual paradigms

An incredible (surprising) emphasis on narrative forms, conveyed through theatrical and cinematic techniques.