This month, HomeShop embarks on a series of exercises in “cultural exchange”. As some of us have been already thinking about this question in relation to a Swiss-Chinese cultural exchange project, we wonder where ‘coming closer together’ begins and ‘exclusivity’ takes over. What is being learned in this process could be a mere mocking, or composed accidents and collisions in repeat formation. The guise of cultural exchange offers ample opportunity, through the cloudy difficulties of language, to easily binarise one another, see the you as you-all and make hit-and-run types of meeting that can’t help but feel colonialistic, too strategic. What could be “natural” in this case? How long does it take, or what kind of ‘serious events’ (to the extremity of Bataille?) should occur to ‘naturalise’ a new kind of community?

Reading 1: “Friendship, Assymetry, Sacrifice: Bataille and Blanchot” by Patrick ffrench [download PDF, 320kb]

Exercise 1: Zhang Shuo (aka Bobby) and Fotini (aka Fontini, Fotina, Fontina,
Fortini, Fotimi, Finito, Fotoni, Foutini, Fontine, Fontino, Fontani and Fontana) engage in a Beijing-Berlin video web chat, commencing in a series of language exercises in “Name This Object”, including ‘书 book’, ‘脚 foot’ and ‘猴子 monkey’. Running out of objects within arm and vocabulary’s reach, they resort to physical exercises, including Jumping on One Foot, Laying Back in Relaxed Fashion and Walking on Hands and Feet Together Like Slow Animal.

Coming up next week: Twist, Xiao and Elaine at HomeShop will work with Re:Activism co-creator Leanne Wagner to develop an urban game to be played in the streets of B-town among students of Parsons School of Design in New York and Beijing’s Tsinghua University. If you are located anywhere around the 后海 HouHai/鼓楼 Gulou/景山 Jingshan areas of the city and you would like to participate, please e-mail us at lianxi[at]homeshop[dot]org[dot]cn.