After the launch of the Guyana Project (and AAA Guyana) on the 21st of June (summer solstice 2000), AAA Rosko started to debate the imposed dissolution by Seeyouinspace.org. AAA Rosko succeeded in its Four and a Half Year Plan and its so-called self-historification project. So, AAA Rosko gave its last appearance on the 6 of July, at the World-Information.org Event in the Brussels 2000 Centre, and then dissolved itself to enter the Guyana Free Space Base of the Autonomous Astronauts.
We arrived at Brussels Midi Station at 16H20
on Thursday 6th of July, year 2000 of the Christian Era. During
the trip we had talked about
various technical aspects of that night's musical performance.
We ran through the use of two record turntables, two Amigas and
a microphone connected to "spacevoice" multi-effects.
We decided to create a "Supersonic Space manoeuvres"
atmosphere that moves in several directions at once, by giving
an impression of always changing our trajectories.
We also talked during the trip about various
books and writers that deal with the new 4th dimension strategy
(which I will explain below), like Valerio Evangelisti from Bologna
(Urania Prize in Italy, Eiffel Prize and Imaginaire Prize in France)
and his fourth part of Nicholas
Eymerich's adventures, where the inquisitor meets Wilhelm Reich
somewhere lost in a space-time bubble between the USA in 1954
and the Sardegna six hundred years before. Orgone energy and uchrony.
Then we talked about P.K. Dick's work on uchrony and his surprising
conclusions about Parousy developed in his last conferences. Ubald
gave me also a book from Abelio entitled "Theory of the new
gnose" outlined by his own dead father. We also laughed a
lot, talking about the Guyana Project, Jean-Louis Costes and Desir
Clinique.
So, we arrived at 16H20 at Brussels 2000. We said to Simon Aranzi (a tall and dark-haired guy with glasses) from World-Information.org, that we would wear 333 extension orange t-shirts to be easily recognised. And so it came to pass.
We went quickly to the 4x4 car outside the station. During the trip to the Brussels 2000 Centre, listening to Lebanese music, we were surprised to be asked this question about the AAA. "So, the AAA is dissolved, I don't understand. Jason Skeet presents himself as a former autonomous astronaut, and generally English guys when they've got something new, they did it a second time to get the hype?". I answered that the AAA will not really disappear, this is simply another English strategy to get hype. We will not stop, and Jason Skeet will probably not stop either. Then we talked a bit about the Brussels architecture and town centre and shortly arrived at the Brussels 2000 Centre.
The Centre Hall is quite large, with an infoshop on the left, a bar on the right and a scene at the front. Three big digital screens provide a welcome message to World-Information Exhibition, "BUILD THE NEW INFORMATION ORDER".
We left our equipment in the exact middle of the hall, near the tables and monitors that were already installed, centred between the speakers, and open under a large window, 5 floors above, with a big rocket than could fall on our heads. We saw that the dominant colour was orange (with long sofa installed), the colour of the 333 extension. We concluded that we were well dressed in the correct colour scheme.
We took the elevator with Simon to the third
floor, to join the World-Information staff office. A fake ONU
flag is there, mixed with a
t0 logo. In the office various Cultural Intelligence Agents welcomed
us, especially Marie Ringler, aka Lola Chanel from AAA Vienna
(the true zero-G girl), with a big smile. We met Sophie, Rudy,
Simon of course, and behind, others persons, and of course Konrad
Becker from AAA Vienna (and Director General of World-Information.org).
After we exchanged a few words about the
journey, Konrad decided to take charge of the technical aspects
of the installation for the night. The Future Heritage Music Event
will present a sonic base for pilots, a big screen behind XKV8
with the AAA Rosko launch site
(http://espaceaaa.ctw.net)
and also on two digital screens, one near the bar, the other near
the infoshop. After sorting out all the technical
aspects, we returned to the office. We had a talk with Lola about
Riccardo Balli's book, "Anche Tu Astronauta", and she
said that she was
very upset about the imposed dissolution of the AAA, and that
we must talk quickly about that. She took it very emotionally.
I gave her an AAA Rosko internal report, and she laughed, talking
about "self-historification materials".
Then, Konrad suggested that we should have a quick look at the exhibition on the fourth and fifth floors.
We arrived at the fourth floor together
and went through the telesurveillance control (with finger prints
and face recognition),
considering that we are part of the exhibition. First, Konrad
showed me the 17th Century Leibnitz calculating machine (the expensive
object of the exhibition) and the general information poster.
Then we went through the geopolitical posters, looking at the
first IBM calculator, the biotechnology implants, various posters
about body attack, info body, revolution in the military and control
affairs (various things that AAA Rosko talked in Gravite Zero
bulletin 8), etc...
Then we entered a dark cube called 'para-information' with various leaflets about science, activist groups, millenarist revolutionaries, occultism, conspiracies, etc... from Invisible College, Unpopular Books, Gravite Zero, etc... Then we arrived in the Future Heritage Area, with various installations like: Captain Euro from rtmark (an activist group against copyright), Apsolutno, Cult of the New Eve by Critical Art Ensemble (about genome research), Earshot (a sound application) by Andy Freeman and Jason Skeet, etc... That is the fourth floor.
On the fifth floor, (the 'You're always
being monitored' and Global Control floor), I was surprised when
Konrad presented me to the
telesurveillance control (finger prints and face recognition)
by saying "he's a former autonomous astronaut". But
considering that it is a controlled area, I understand I need
to be a "former" one to enter the area... So, we found
various surveillance screens, an installation from Foton records,
from Monochrom (Austria), an old secret service office as in the
first James Bond movies with microphones and cameras in the plants,
under the telephone, etc... Then a video library, an installation
of Airport surveillance and satellite surveillance on two big
screens, and the complete base piloted by Marko Peljhan from Atol
Project (Lubljana, the person who helped AAA Vienna to succeed
in zero-G flight). Then an Iridium Satellite Model (I say to Konrad
that's a famous scandal as AAA tried to talk about it in Gravite
Zero 9), a W-I special videogame on two big screens, and finally
the AAA installation.
Here is the English presentation (the French is badly translated) from the AAA installation :
The Association of Autonomous Astronauts
(AAA) was a planetary network
of people dedicated to the development of their own independent
space
exploration programmes.
Launched in April 1995, the AAA fought against
the government, corporate
and military monopoly of space travel. With the climax to the
AAA's
successful Five Year Plan for building a world-wide network of
local,
community-based groups, autonomous astronauts have been debating
a
proposal that the AAA should now dissolve itself.
A new phase of AAA self-historification
has also been initiated, in
which autonomous astronauts can organise for themselves AAA
documentation and consider the complex achievements of the AAA.
Contradictory and divergent assessments emerge that will prevent
a fixed
and static history of the AAA.
AAA self-historification materials included at world-information.org :
The Seeyouinspace website is cool, the music is playing all through the day. Various bulletins like: Escape from Gravity, Superfly, Suspension in Reality, Gravite Zero, Ad Astra, etc... I add some French leaflets like "Mir Station to the Autonomous Astronauts!", etc...
My major problem is that this installation
represents a collective effort on the monopoly on space exploration.
But the installation uses
the past tense and nobody signs it in their own name. Exactly
like other installations, the dome tent is signed as AAA, Jason
Skeet has already his own Earshot project with Andy Freeman in
the exhibition, Konrad Becker is part of W-I staff. So, there
is a confusion between a single vision and the collective aspect.
It looks like a one-way self-historification project, and kind
of hold-up of the existing groups - crypto-leaders took the decision
for us, maybe wanted to create an effective 'shock' of the Autonomous
Astronauts... I still plan to play music at the AAA night...
Anyway we decided to go back to the office and to have dinner before the concert and have a talk between AAA Rosko and AAA Vienna. We found a Turkish restaurant and ate houmous and pitas. Lola Chanel told us about her trip to Russia to climb in a zero-G training plane. I talked about future strategies from the point of view of AAA Rosko. I also talked about AAA Guyana. We agreed not to dissolve the network.
We then returned to the Centre and quickly began the concert. The crowd was not so huge considering that there was a big rock and tekno festival in Dour near Brussels... Anyway we introduced the concert with the "Rave In Space" CD, listening to the Desir Clinique, Nocturnal Emissions and Benoit Direct tracks. Then we played drum 'n' noise and convulsive rhythms with Ubald shouting in the 'spacevoice' microphone. I played records from Ambush, Cavage, Kool Pop, Praxis, Hangars Liquides, etc...
Then Ubald started the 'supersonic space manoeuvres' on the Amigas and I took the mouse of the webPC to make a special show of websurfing with espaceaaa. AAAA Cosmos was efficient with 'Fear, Obey, Enjoy' mouth of Gigabrowser, A.R.T. (Art-Religion-Terror) from AAA Paris Nord too, millions of stars too. I surfed on costes.org from AAA Guyana and that seemed to surprise various people (including Konrad), with Art Guerrilla, Eclipse or 'It makes no difference'... Harmony with nature... I also tried Space Station Homeless (not an AAA one) and it was successful too. The music went faster and faster until the end's explosion at 333 bpm and more, with noise, 2001 original soundtrack, electronic grindcore, weird tekno...
After the concert, we quickly decided to go to the Apartment with Evelyne and Konrad to have a good sleep (we think that maybe we drunk too much). Ubald and Laure (AAA 333 XKV8) followed their own trajectory.
That was the last appearance of AAA Rosko.
So, perhaps it is a good moment to talk about some of the new Autonomous Astronauts strategies that seem to be appearing in the year 2000.
- the Autonomous Astronauts International
Space Station (ISS) / seeyouinspace.org and five years plan one-way
self-historification
project.
In this project, the strategy is to escape from the AAA and show
it as a movement started 23/04/95, that comes from the past to
be efficient in the future. With old concepts of the 20th century
like: a Five Year Plan, a caricature of the famous Bolshevik strategy
during the dictatorship in Russia in the 30's, and also used by
the national space agencies during the cold war; the "psychogeography"
concept, a culture of deriving promoted by old avant-garde groups
like Lettrists or Situationnists run by Guy Debord and others
in the 50's and 60's, from Sputnik to the Moonlanding; the Dionysus
Program and Disco's influences from the 70's and end of cold war,
that represents the B-side of the Apollo program; a "Rave
In Space" concept that shows how AAA can laugh about the
false myth of the "Golden age" of the early 90's tekno:
Space Is The Place! ; sex in space - AAA's successful investigations
in 95-96 (and its recent achievement); three-sided football matches
of the AAA, a concept opposed to the bi-polarity of classic two-sided
football; etc... (http://www.seeyouinspace.org).
The three-sides concept is related to a certain notion of "triolectics"... which overthrows the old notion of "dialectics"... But everybody knows that since we entered in the 20th century, the notion of dialectics (developed by Hegel and Marx) was already old (but the fight against the Law of Value is still necessary), especially when Albert Einstein introduced in the 20's, the 4th dimension, Time, in physics theory (that influenced lots of avant-garde artists, sci-fi writers and poets in their works). Even when Niels Bohr introduced the relativity of the observer with the quantum theory in Copenhagen during the 30's, 4th dimension started to be overthrown too... Now mathematicians are trying to give a definition of the 5th dimension...
So, maybe I can now present a new graphic that is my proposition about the AAA future:
________________________________________________QUINTOLECTIC___________
/
_________________________________QUATROLECTIC____________________
/ \
_______________________TRIALECTIC________________
/ \
__________DIALECTIC___________
/ \
Thesis Antithesis Synthesis Antisynthesis Cosmothesis
IS WAS MAY BE IS/WAS Asso dissolved AA (only two A)
and QINTOLECTIC...? Anticosmothesis : Astronauts (only one A)...
- The 333 Extension
In this project, we extend the 5YP for 333 days until the launch
by Gerard Z, the freelance occultist and alleged founder of the
AAA, of the Pimax technology, a kind of pataphysic structure of
esoteric space technology that tries to capture the cosmic forces
until lift-off at 333 bpm. In this extension, it will be very
interesting to talk about the 4th dimension, Time. That will be
a great moment for the AAA to deal with science-Fiction (and show
how we can talk about it and still remain serious) and plurality
of temporal worlds. Like works about Uchrony
(parallel worlds and space-travel) by Evangelisti from Bologna,
work by Riccardo Balli in the novel "333", AAA books
and videos, and the GZ festival and various AAA events. This great
notion of Practical Time Travel will show the necessity of a quatrolectical
evolution.
(http://www.echodesign.net/mattia/333/).
-The Zero Gravity Theatre Project
In this project, the plan is to introduce Autonomous Astronauts
into National space agency training flights to become effective
astronauts
and to study from the inside how to destroy completely the monopoly
of space exploration. Lola Chanel has already succeeded (with
the ATOL project) in taking part in a zero-G flight from Star
City in Russia. This project definitively proves that the AAA
is not a metaphor.
(for more details write to marie@t0.or.at).
-StopStarWars strategy
The Stop Star Wars strategy seems to have appeared two years ago
in the AAA network. This strategy shows how some AAA goals have
been shifting (AAA was not supposed to be a classical 'militant'
movement and to develop independent space programmes by building
our own spaceships). During the Space 1999 festival in London,
AAA-ers protested in front of arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin's
building, with the slogan "Stop Star Wars, military out of
space". Stopstarwars.org is a web site of "Greenpeace"
movement. For the moment, the plan is to take part in the global
7th of October movement against the militarisation of space.
(http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk/index.htm).
-The Kiwi Astronauts
AAA Aotearoa launched a Mars Mission for Autonomous Astronauts.
They already organise training sessions in New Zealand for the
Mars Landing.
(http://www.oldfarm.co.nz).
-The Guyana Free Space Base Project
Autonomous astronauts now have a free space base in Guyana's jungle
(thanks to the efforts of AAA Guyana). The plan is to organise
a trip to Guyana to shoot a movie near the Kourou launch pad in
September 2001. The movie will present an AAA press conference
in the jungle, an Autonomous Astronauts' protest on the ESA launch
pad, and a trip into the jungle with crazy astronauts... The movie
will be a mad one (half fiction, half true), utilising the influence
of Stirner's autonomia concept, Artaud's Attrocity Theatre, Porno-Social,
Sub-commandante Marcos and Gerard Z, Herzog's Aguirre, and of
course the AAA... Guyana Free Space Base will be also a web site.
The final plan is to free Guyana and the Kourou launch pad.
(http://espaceaaa.ctw.net).
Here is my vision of a few strategies (others
exist) of the AAA for the future. We must work on the necessity
of distancing ourselves from
militant or lobbying movements and more in an analytic way (as
AAA Vienna proved in World-information.org). But an association
will not be necessary anymore in the future. Autonomous Astronauts
created a social movement everywhere on planet Earth.