Lees dit eens een keer als je echt niets te doen hebt. Het is een HEEL LANG verhaal over geloof (iets wat je doen moet als je doorhebt dat de mensheid echt hulpeloos is).
ZOROASTER
Geloof is een gebied waar je veel wannabe sprookjesschrijvers tegenkomt. Logisch eigenlijk, want er zijn geen bewijzen voor iets dat niet met natuurlijke ogen te zien valt. En sprookjesschrijvers maken ook verhaaltjes van wat niet per se in de werkelijkheid voorkomt.
Geloof is een definitie van wat onzichtbaar is, toegepast op de zichtbare werkelijkheid. “Werkelijkheid-onzichtbare werkelijkheid” en hoe de twee samen gaan. Dat is waar het allemaal om gaat met geloof.
Iedereen die geboren is en zich ergens op deze aarde bevindt zal zich op een gegeven moment afvragen of er iets 'achter' de werkelijkheid is. Wat je uiteindelijk beslist is best wel belangrijk. Want je verbindt jezelf aan een geheim dat al bestond voordat jij zelf er was. Dit geheim wordt minder en minder geheim hoe meer je ervan te weten komt.
Geloof wordt ook meer en meer werkelijkheid al naar gelang meer mensen eraan mee doen. Daar is niets mis mee op zich, want als er een andere werkelijkheid bestaat is het denkbaar dat veel mensen hierin geloven en dit al vanaf het begin van de aarde hebben gedaan. Er is ook een soort veiligheid hierin omdat in de normale werkelijkheid veel mensen niet allemaal tegelijk ongelijk hebben. Maar het is ook vaak zo dat een 'waarheid' simpelweg meer 'waar' wordt naarmate meer mensen erin geloven. En dat betekent dus dat het niet meteen veiliger is als veel mensen in iets geloven.
Het is belangrijk voor jezelf wat regels te bedenken als het op geloof aankomt. Bijvoorbeeld; een geloof is goed of slecht als blijkt dat het de echte werkelijkheid wel of niet 'verklaart' (uitlegt). Als een geloof onzin verkondigt over wat je al kan zien dat is hun uitleg van het onzichtbare waarschijnlijk nog dommer.
Een geloof moet ook een beetje leefbaar zijn. Als je het gevoel hebt dat je geloof beperkingen oplegt die onleefbaar zijn moet je onmiddellijk ermee ophouden. Leefbaar kan zijn: ze hebben in ieder geval zo'n beetje 70% van hun opvattingen goed en veranderen als ze fout zijn zonder daar boos om te worden. Leefbaar kan ook zijn: niet forceren.
De werkelijkheid zelf (niet alleen het geloof) is uitbundig, levendig en vol logische tips voor het zo gezond mogelijk zo blij mogelijk en zo lang mogelijk leven. Als een geloof daar verder iets aan toe te voegen heeft is dat handig, maar een god heeft het niet nodig dat je hem helpt of zo door iets onnatuurlijks te doen. Anders had hij de wereld en het heelal wel anders gemaakt. Je moet om je heenkijken en het leven ten volle leven.
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Er zijn drie ‘wereldgodsdiensten’ – het christendom, Jodendom en Islam. Boedhisme en andere Oosterse godsdiensten worden niet als wereldgodsdienst getypeerd, maar zijn het nu bijna nog meer dan de andere drie.
Voor de drie wereldgodsdiensten ontstonden een paar eeuwen na de prehistorie, waren de mensen allemaal wel bezig met het geloof maar ze noemden dat niet zo.
Ze aanbaden natuurelementen zoals de zon, water, dieren. Alles dat groter of sterker was dan zij zelf. Ze hadden een ding gemeen: ze slachtten een dier om het niet op te eten maar aan de goden te geven. Dat gaf hun het idee dat ze iets goeds deden. De goden gaven hun zon water voor niets en ze voelden dat dit de juiste manier was om ze op hun beurt te vereren. Dat is vrij logisch. Maar veel verder kwamen ze niet in hun "definitie" van de onzichtbare werkelijkheid. Ook dat is weer logisch, want veel meer dan hutjes bouwen en jagen op wild deden die mensen niet. Hun geloofssysteem was ongeveer zo uitgebreid als hun normale leven. Ze hadden veel wilde verhalen vooral over wat ze beleefd hadden tijdens enge avonturen als ze op jacht naar onbekende gebieden waren gegaan. De verhalen werden hoe langer hoe ongelofelijker naarmate ze ze vaker vertelden 's avonds laat rond het kampvuur en later werden ze simpelweg van een bovennatuurlijke orde (een religieuze orde).
Een van de oudste denkers over geloof is Zoroaster. Hij leefde voordat de drie geloven ontstonden en veel van wat hij bedacht is ook opgenomen in de wereldgodsdiensten. Zijn verhaal is erg interessant maar het is ook een ellenlange waslijst met doe dit en doe dit niet en doe dit vooral. Voor ons is dat een beetje te veel van het goede maar in die tijd hadden mensen geen flauw benul van wat wijs was en wat niet en hij had praktische tips die enorm nodig waren om de mensheid 'op te voeden' en ze voor het eerst een idee te geven wat ze konden verwachten van het hiernamaals. Hij praat ongeveer evenveel over de dood als de meeste godsdiensten. Het bleek een goede verkooptruc, een van de beste van het geloof. Want de stap is makkelijk gezet van het verklaren van de onzichtbare werkelijkheid naar wat er na de dood zal zijn. Het zijn dingen van dezelfde orde want je hebt bij geen van de twee bewijzen.
Zijn verhaal begint als hij al dertig jaar oud is. Hij ging weg van zijn ouders zijn dorp zijn huis, weg van alles om in de bergen te gaan wonen. Hij leefde samen met zijn geest en de eenzaamheid voor wel tien jaar. Tegen de tijd dat die jaren voorbij waren was hij erg veranderd en vond hij het tijd om maar weer eens terug te gaan. Op een ochtend werd hij vroeg wakker, zoals je zou verwachten van zo'n man, en begon te spreken tegen de zon. Hij had door de jaren heen een nogal intieme band met de zon gekregen en daarom klonken deze woorden hem zelf niet vreemd in de oren. "U, grote ster! Hoe zou het mogelijk zijn voor u om blij te verrijzen als u niet over degenen kon schijnen waarover u schijnt. Voor tien lange jaren bent u tot mijn grot binnengeklommen. U zou moe geworden zijn van uw lange reis en uw eigen licht als u alleen voor deze dingen verrijzen zou en niet speciaal voor mij, mijn arend en mijn slang. Maar elke ochtend verwachtten wij u, namen wij van uw overvloed aan licht en bedankten en zegenden u hiervoor." [ zie je hier hoe hij de zon terug wil bedanken? de offers die mensen brachten kwamen voort uit hetzelfde idee].
Hij ging verder:
"Maar krijg wat, ik ben moe van mijn eigen wijsheid net zoals de bij die teveel honing verzamelt - ik moet eens wat uitgestrekte handen zien die het aannemen. Ik zou het uitdelen aan wie er maar van zou willen horen, totdat de wijze mensen weer eens blij zouden worden in de nieuwe kennis en de arme mensen blij in hun rijkdom. Daarom moet ik afdalen van deze berg. De diepte in, zoals u, o grote zon, doet in de avond als u zich achter de zee verschuilt en ook aan de onderwereld uw licht geeft, u grote uitbundige ster!"
Hij ging daarna al snel naar de bewoonde wereld terug en beleeft van alles terwijl hij zijn boodschap preekt. Het verhaal is best leuk. Zoroaster is erg gedetailleerd en moet je lezen als een ideeen iemand. Wat het belangrijkste is om op te letten bij elke religie die je uitprobeert moet je denken aan een paar belangrijke dingen die allemaal terug te vinden zijn in Zoroaster's opvattingen:
Is het wel een monotheistische religie? Monotheistisch betekent dat geloofd wordt dat er EEN godheid is die alles heeft bepaald van het begin tot het eind van de wereld. Alle drie de wereldgodsdiensten hebben dit element in zich; christendom gelooft in een schepper genaamd Elohim, Jodendom gelooft hetzelfde als het christendom en de Islam ook. Maar het christendom heeft vaak ook belangrijke rollen weggelegd voor beslissingen voor engelen die zowaar de status van sub-goden aannemen. Dit noem je dualiteit (duo niet een maar twee. Behalve op het aantal goden duidt dit ook op: GOED en SLECHT). Als er veel meer goden in het spel zijn heb je te maken met polytheisme (poly= veel theisme komt van theo=god (en)). In Zoroaster's ideeen was er voordat de wereld ontstond een godheid die een paar spirits in de vorm van engelen had rondfloaten en die hij een eigen persoonlijkheid gaf en ook de keuzemogelijkheid goed of slecht te zijn. De keuze was helemaal aan henzelf en dit is hoe satan en degenen aan de kant van de monotheistische godheid de wereld in kon komen. Satan was een enorme engel die voor het slechte koos en een heleboel andere bandieten met zich meenam in zijn val. De goede geest is nu nog steeds omringd door engelen.
Het is erg belangrijk te weten of een geloof iets in zich heeft van een divisie tussen goed en slecht. Want voordat je besluit in zo'n geloof mee te doen moet je even weten dat zonder deze distinctie je er een geloof opna houdt dat uiteindelijk een heel traject van je denken wenst te beslaan. Het is nogal wat te bedenken dat alles wat jij goed of slecht noemt tot de keuze van de rondfloatende spirits is te herleiden en dat misschien wel 50% van de wereldbevolking dit helemaal niet gelooft zelfs. Dat zijn nou de abnormaliteiten in het geloof. Als je het statistisch (in cijfers) nagaat zijn een heleboel stellingen van een heleboel religies niet eens haalbaar.
Dit is een heel belangrijke distinctie omdat er op een gegeven moment een soortement eindstrijd plaatsvindt in elk geloof waarin deze machten enorm veel power toegeschreven krijgen. Dat is alleen maar onzin maar goed, wel belangrijk om te weten want een heleboel mensen kunnen een heleboel bewerkstelligen als ze allemaal in iets geloven als wilde beesten.
Het is ook heel belangrijk dit te begrijpen in verschillende verschijningsvormen omdat je dezelfde distinctie terugziet in nieuwe vormen van veronderstellingen die mensen erop nahouden voordat ze iets geloven. Het is vooral belangrijk als het gaat over hoe mensen zichzelf of anderen zien. In hoe mensen invulling geven aan andere begrippen zoals de menselijke ziel en hoe ze rol van de mensen zien tov kennis en wetenschap. Je hebt namelijk diegenen die zich lieren aan de ideeen van de monotheisten die nogal hetzelfde zijn als anderen die zeggen dat mensen behalve een lichaam ook nog een ziel hebben en degenen die zeggen dat mensen alleen lichamen zijn.
In het kort: monotheisten hebben het over goed en kwaad. Ze zeggen dat alles al beslist was door God, voordat de mensen op de aarde kwamen. De stap naar het idee dat de mens geen ziel heeft is hiermee snel gezet. Ik vind Het is niet makkelijk om een geloof aan te hangen dat zegt dat alle mensen op aarde slecht zijn. Maar het is nog moeilijker te geloven dat mensen geen ziel hebben en enkel een lichaam hebben.
Dit is niet zo heel duidelijk te zien in veel geloven omdat het niet zo'n heel belangrijk punt is voor de praktijk, maar het simpele feit dat het idee bestaat maakt de opvatting dat mensen dieren zijn of niet veel makkelijker te verbinden aan weer andere concepten.
De tweede groep mensen hebben vaak meer vooronderstellingen over hoe dingen gaan zijn en kunnen totaal verkeerd zijn in hun zin om de toekomst wat te voorspellen of verklaringen te doen over de werkelijkheid. Je moet ze gewoon een schop geven en zeggen Ga maar Trappen en je hebt een gratis peepshow van onzinnigheden die zich verbreiden op de meest vreselijk aanstalterige manieren die je maar kan bedenken. Het gaat juist om het bedenken ervan - dat is het hele eieren eten - who's in control here? Who claims to be? What's the plausible vs impossible debate about.
Ik geloof wel dat mensen een ziel hebben en zich van dieren onderscheiden, maar de peepshow is vaak wanstaltig in vergelijking met de diepten van de ziel. Misschien zijn die wel van een heel andere samenstelling dan de theorieen die wij allemaal zo enthousiast ophangen.
Je zou kunnen zeggen dat wat je van iets vindt beinvloed wordt door 'wat het is' en het 'waarom ervan'.
http://webware.princeton.edu/vanfraas/mss/World92.htm
De orde van dingen - en rizome persoon heeft ook iets leuks te zeggen.
Het is heel belangrijk te weten waarom dingen gebeuren. Sommige dingen zijn zo noodzakelijk dat als ze niet gebeuren, je dood gaat. Er is een natuurlijk mechanisme dat op zo'n punt en wat erna komt, het eventjes overneemt of zo lijkt het in ieder geval. Dat is de natuur in een extreme vorm maar waarneembaar bij extreem ongemak. Dit is het punt waarop wat en waarom hetzelfde zijn. De natuur is zowel wat en waarom. Er is heel veel van en dit te begrijpen wanneer de vlakken wat en waarom zo dicht mogelijk bij elkaar komen is de klus voor de mensheid. We zijn aardig op weg om deze klus te klaren. Wat en waarom is nog steeds het onderwerp van biologen bijvoorbeeld die proberen uit te vinden wat een bepaald berkeboomblaadje z'n genetische constructie is in vergelijking tot de boom waar hij van afgevallen is en of wat ze hierover weten het waarom ervan verklaart. Stel je voor dat iemand denkt dat hij een goed antwoord heeft geformuleerd dan is het nog heel goed mogelijk dat een eikeblaadje iets heel anders oplevert. En dat de theorie van het waarom helemaal in duigen valt, en ook nog even een heleboel andere theorieen onderuithaalt. Dit is waar wetenschappers zich het hoofd over breken en waar de mensen nog eeuwen over door zullen zagen. Desalniettemin hebben we een stadium afgelegd waarin alles wat we kunnen begrijpen hebben begrepen en nu zijn we aangewezen op niet natuurlijke middelen om de rest in kaart te brengen. Computers kunnen de problemen veel makkelijker vergelijken met elkaar en komen tot een onpartijdige conclusie en goede ideeen over wat voor informatie ze nu weer nodig hebben om betere inzichten te krijgen in de geheimen van het hoe en waarom in biologische systemen. Stel je voor dat het hoe en waarom van een klein dingetje in de natuur wordt bevestigd en voor waar wordt aangenomen. Dan is het systeem enorm waardevol voor andere takken. Maar dit is allemaal heel moeilijk om helemaal rond te krijgen zowel als compleet. Er zullen altijd vragen overblijven.
Wat we van iets vinden is dus voor een groot deel al uitgewerkt door onze voorouders, die heel omslachtig met pen en papier hun theorieen gingen opschrijven op perkamenten rollen enzo. De eerste ideeen die zij hadden zijn vaak niet helemaal snugger in onze opvattingen. Dat komt omdat we hun methodes om iets te toetsen verder hebben ontwikkeld. De toetsen noem je experimenten. Onze voorouders moeten dit al eeuwen geleden hebben gedaan en tot allerhande conclusies zijn gekomen. Zo moet er op een dag een Jantje zijn geweest die in zijn hoofd had dat je water kan laten branden. Deze Jantje (waarschijnlijk Adam zelf al) zal met alle macht water aan hebben geprobeerd te steken met zijn vuurtje dat hij na veel moeite aan de gang had gekregen. En hoe hard hij ook probeerde, het water brandde niet. In tegendeel het maakte het vuur alleen maar uit. Hij zal geprobeerd hebben het water te druppelen, wat niet hielp, hij zal het bij de vleet eringegooid hebben wat ook niet hielp. Daarna zal hij hebben geleerd dat vuur alleen uitgaat door water. Zijn experiment was voltooid toen hij concludeerde dat vuur en water elkaars tegenpolen zijn.
Alles waarover we op deze wereld een mening hebben is ooit eens tot stand gekomen door letterlijke experimenten. Vuur en water gaan niet samen is er daar een van. Een heel nieuw experiment, van de laatste dagen is dat glas informatie sneller verzendt dan koper. Daarom is de hele telecommunicatie en televisie industrie nu bezig overal glasvezelkabels aan te leggen, en de koperen bedradingen (waardoor je nooit zo'n superscherp beeld kreeg) eruit te rukken.
Behalve de conclusies die mensen trekken en ervanuitgaan dat dit nu 'de werkelijkheid' is die wij kennen en die steeds maar verdergaat en blijft veranderen, is het zo dat er grote onenigheid bestaat over de uitgangspunten en dit is zo ongeveer hetzelfde als zeggen
god schiep de wereld nadat hij vrijheid had gegeven aan twee geesten goed en kwaad en de kwade geest beheerst de wereld. En dat is het vertrekpunt waarvanuit mensen een heel speelpark aan ideeen maken. Er is niets helemaal slechts aan dit speelpark, behalve de false pretentie dat het geen vastomlijnd geheel is. Het IS een vastomlijnd geheel met vooral alle menselijke beperkingen heel duidelijk weergegeven, behalve als je een goede treft. De meeste mensen zijn niet ecth in staat om in te zien waar de hell ze nou in godsnaam zijn. Dat vinden ze nogal erg en zullen ze projecteren op de eerste de beste gek die ze tegenkomen waarvan ze overtuigd worden die hun garbage well in zich opzal nemen. Erg leuk om dit af en toe een beetje te doen en te zien wat er uit voortkomt. dit is juist weer de space die niet bestaat en waar je goed use van moet maken als je denkt dat dit interessant is. Als je het niet interessant vindt, moet je ervoor zorgen dat je iets anders vindt, want elk mens heeft een 'mentale' (waar iedereen het over eens is dat het of wel of niet bestaat maar in ieder geval waar iedereen zijn grijze grond heeft) speelgrond nodig. Een ding is belangrijk: je denkt dat je control alles bepaalt hier. Maar omdat je je bij definitie in een gebied begeeft waarin iedereen zijn rotzooi neergooit ben je bezig met een heleboel mensen hun onzin terwijl je er zelf ongeveer iets van 10% aan bijdraagt. Je leert dus meer dan je zelf bijdraagt, maar het gevaar hiervan is dat je ook de ziektes en de slechte opvattingen van de rest ziet en dat je niet alles voor waarheid kan aannemen. Dit is niet zoiets waarbij je kan denken - boy dit vertrouw ik maar eens even allemaal. Het leven is voor minstens 80% niet te vertrouwen. Er is een enorm amount van ongelijkheid en onredelijkheid en degenen die winnen zijn vaak de vreselijksete mensen die niet meer winnen omdat ze goed zijn maar omdat ze vreselijke deals maken. Ze zijn slecht en de wereld is erg slecht. Het beste wapen tegen de slechtheid is kennis en een wil om het goede te doen. De waarheid werkt zeggen sommigen. Maar in de werkelijkheid moet de waarheid eneorm veel meer moeite doen om bewezen te worden dan de onwaarheid. De aarde is ziek omdat de meeste macht in handen is van zieken. Wie de macht heeft is vaak de baas.
Zie je weer hoe hier het eeuwenoude onduidelijkheid van wie er nou de goedheid in pacht heeft opgeld doet? We zijn er redelijk zeker van dat slechte machten overheersen. En dat de technologie geen kant kiest. Sommige mensen geloven dat daarom er een kans bestaat tot de overheersing van het goede. Maar omdat ze zo bepaald zijn door de onzinnige theorie dat mensen slecht zijn, geloven ze dat de mens een offer moet brengen namelijk zijn menszijn.
In bepaalde opzichten is het niet nodig om een antwoord te kunnen geven op bepaalde werkelijkheden. Sommige realiteiten worden niet heel duidelijk geconfronteerd met hun vijand. Dit zegt heel veel over deze elementen van de werkelijkheid. Zoiets als een banaan en zijn voedingswaarde voor de hele voedingsleer wellicht. Alles is relatief.
Thursday, 30 August 2007
Wednesday, 1 August 2007
Amsterdam's Urban Renewal - The Difference Between Hippies And The New 'Creative Class'
Dit is een artikel dat ik ooit geschreven heb over Amsterdam en dat nooit gepubliceerd is. Ik ga het gebruiken voor mijn boek over de Duitse Monnik.
The low and unusually strong March sun beams in my eyes making the motorway tarmac blink in surreal blue. I have made sure that the drivers zooming along have no doubt about my intentions though - the sign in my right arm reads a big A, and then a comma floating flotsamjetsam to the next letter, a small 'd' followed by a hasty 'a' plus a final 'm'. I am hitchhiking the 20-minute trip to Amsterdam, where I will be meeting Onefeather, a US hippy from Santa Barbara. I met him on a hunt for Amsterdam's autonomous art scene and urban trends. That was the day before yesterday. The peace 'n' love spirit felt as real as it must have back in the 1960s, even though it was bred by a Yank. It was as if someone released the genie from the bottle once more. So encores now. I am hoping it works again.
The bearded, longhaired saint with a face the shape of an upside down heart had a nose seemingly sculpted with such deliberation it almost looked as if God stuck it on later. His official name Jameson plus the sirname Godlove are among the very few claims this guy has made on the system which he generally believes needs a re-think; he paid a hundred bucks to officially change his original names. I have two interviews lined up with people that will likely talk third hand of the Sixties Flower Power ideas and their intricate connection with today's Amsterdam. Onefeather is a bit closer. Generationwise also removed, but all the same he's living evidence that the hippy life is not extinct on the planet.
At 45, Onefeather remembers the 60s from the perspective of a 7 year old but he is convinced he is passing on the happy times from one generation to the next. It worked on me yesterday. I was so enthralled I totally forgot to ask even what an American hippy was searching for in Amsterdam.
We met totally by accident. I sank in the chair next to him trying to check out a live band playing on the bridge in front of coffeeshop Goa near the Nieuwmarkt. He looked like a hippy and the place being Goa, it would figure, but I wasn't expecting this calibre of authenticity as I befriended this brother with some Dutch charm that became simply cunning as the moments elapsed. A true hippie! Others have beaten me to him; he's already been in Der Spiegel, US papers and also on prime time US tv.
By now the interviews have taken place and Onefeather's turned out priceless. He has joined my list of email friends because he's gone back to the United States. Even walking the cobblestoned Amsterdam streets with Onefeather was an adventure in itself; I felt like a I am trying to revive the vibes with all my might, faced with telling the story of Amsterdam's past, present and most of all of the city's chances of future happy, artistic, times.
In the days before Onefeather and I met, I researched activity in Amsterdam's autonomous artist communities as well as the city's recent efforts to brand itself as a 'creative city'. I came across stories encapsulating the changes in tolerance for squatting communities. Over the last years, people have gradually been forced into becoming part of the economic circuit and the trend is almost complete.
The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that events ought to be narrated reality-style. I went on a journey to find out the living conditions of Amsterdam's post-socialist collapse art community and its way of dealing with commercial forces. And about how the town differs from the 1960s. I am about to find out what Amsterdam's modern day artists believe in and how they are being impacted by the 'creative city' initiative that brands them in an economic class. It is possible to drown in a sea of information, theories, enticing arguments and philosophies, but the city over the past days started to come to life to me in ways more interesting than most theoretical accounts of what is taking place.
One important buzzword that perhaps connects theory and what's happening on the ground is 'precarious existence'. It features in the jargon of city officials talking about the new creative class who have to be transformed into an entrepreneurial band of people that don't rely any longer on the state but execute serious business plans that initially will make them feel overly vulnerable. It is also a word that very much applies to my hippy friend, who for the last ten years has lived a precarious life, living 'of love'.
I have chosen a hitchhike spot close to the railway station of the village I am setting out from - it's only a stone's throw away. It might make a bad case for a hitchhiker or it might actually help my plight. Students in this country got free train travel in 1990 and the hitchhiking game has changed since then. Aside from that, the station's being a stone's throw away isn't all that unusual because virtually everything in this country is a stone's throw away. Everything except for toilet doors. These generally are intent on hugging your knees.
The upside of the limited space story reveals itself on the motorway though. It appears that the principle of dividing up spaces has a sanity of unparallelled dimension to it here - traffic is smooth and evenly spaced, yet cars travel along in an approximation that is that tad less spaced out than in other, bigger countries.
A brief moment of hope when someone steps on the breaks. A sucker, intent on causing grief. But it might be a good omen. The road is preparing for my take off, no doubt. And then a Nissan's back breaklights are suddenly hovering right next to my bag. The surrealism of the tarmac is even more real now that the direction's full speed ahead to Amsterdam. The road turns dark grey, almost black.
Minutes later and I am ruthlessly dropped in Gaasperplas, a suburb bordering on one of the more problematic areas of Amsterdam - the Bijlmermeer. I close the car door, ready to take the metro into town. A famous urban planning specialist, Ashok Bhalotra at KuiperCompagnons in Rotterdam who is involved in the current wide scale reconstruction of this 1960s neighbourhood, said in a recent interview that most urban planners and architects are too far removed from society at large. Guess what, walking through Gaasperplas toward the Metro station, I think this might just be true vice versa too.
The outskirts of Amsterdam resemble an urban sprawl that to the outsider literally is mostly that; urban sprawl. Trying to get an idea of the influences that surround you when passing through them is quite a task. Newspapers advertise over 12 architecture walks, each one of them dealing with a different theme, and it's not even an excess likely.
The great thing about my hippy friend is that he has all the time in the world and likely won't be hampered by preconceived ideas about life, living and originality. Onefeather himself lives in a camper van that he has stuffed with three-dimensional exterior artwork. He showed me a picture of the van. It hardly was recognisable as a vehicle, covered in a mountain of ready-made statues of rock artists, fairy tale figures and homemade artwork and designs. He attracts attention wherever he goes. He makes money by simply driving his van about and conducting impromptu shows. At night time he hangs out on the beach. He is an overwhelming ad for being carefree and happy.
To the side of the van, there's a string of apples, lined by a string of people holding hands. They're his friends, most of whom he invited to draw their own features in premade figures. Onefeather glued the apples on during the evening of the first attack on Afghanistan, on 12 september 2001. Rain caused the glue to run and it looked as if the apples cried - he said it was eery and symbolic.
He said his show is the living Van Gogh. Pun intended. If it didn't come from such an astounding guy you'd think it was naff. It works for his Yankee audiences all the more, likely. Onefeather's impact on people is profound and he makes as much as USD1000 a week from time to time. "I live of the love people have for me," he said. His ideas are not new but as a person he's someone that has evolved in a totally different way than anyone else. It's quite powerful. He breaths a kind of authenticity that has gone lost, I guess. My reaction to him is like the itch an amputee feels. He considers everybody his brother and sister, but in all reality he could be the biological brother of Goa Gil, the world famous hippy Trance DJ who featured in the film The Last Hippy Standing.
All this is going through my mind as I board the metro, having been dropped off on the outskirts of Amsterdam. The train into town runs through the Bijlmermeer, which was built at the height of the hippy movement. It has become one of the most studied suburbs of Amsterdam; sociologists, architects, intercultural antropologists, criminogists all have found ample tangible material supporting or detracting from presupposed ideas.
The late sixties followed thirty years on from Modernism and the Bijlmer was the first major project in which urban architects were supposedly experimenting with new ideas. Even as it was built many said that the ideas were still very much functional rather than the utopia dream that people were ready for. They also hated it because it ruined a nature reserve. The hippy movement as such has died out, but the spirit of freethinking has evolved and is throwing off some handsome ideas for multiculturalism.
Bhalotra is very aware of this too. He commented at a recent lecture that architects should be inspired by fantasy and intangible or real things that flow from it. "Being aware of the tension between the differences between human beings and simultaneously the existence of the need for equality of all and the preservation of the self demands a lot of thinking. To what extent do we really want that 'others' become like us. It is inspiring to cross the border of culture, land and economy. But nevertheless borders do not disappear, despite the ideals," he said.
Perhaps multicultural approaches offer the ideology that we all need. Since there is hardly a pronounced new paradigm in urban development and with the loss of leftwing ideals, it is hard to get a clear idea what urban renewal is about other than an economic calculation. The e connection Amsterdam's housing situation and the idealism of the 1960s offers a crucial yardstick for understanding what is evolving.
Some people talk about enigmatic signifyers in this context. Charles Jencks for instance believes in a new urban paradigm, the goals of which are wider than the science and politics that supports it and also than the technology that allows it to be conceived and built. This creates a flexibility which is the playground for all kinds of new styles, ranging from Organi-Tech who reflect modernists, Eco Tech, Datascapes and the New York Blob Meisters.
Dutch architects MVRDV are your quintessential Datascapes fanatics. They combine metaphors with numbers. By exaggerating metaphors, they calculate a number of alternating creations based on various assumptions and then run them by the public, the politicians and the press. Their buildings are clear statements. The bureau, which consists of four architects that started working together in 1991, is also pioneering new trends in approaches to urban residential development. They are at the hypermodern end of the spectrum which is dominated by designs for people that stretch from the late 1800s and the present.
On the train, I decide to hold off asking Onefeather what he is looking to find in Amsterdam. Instead, I will stay intent on the question throughout the course of our meeting. See if an answer materialises and how it does. Onefeather definitely came across as someone that has kept the option of utopia open in his life. With no fixed abode and 'living of love', he's bound to volunteer valuable insight into utopic life forms at personal level in contrast to the generally accepted idea of progress.
As the metro nears the center of town I am getting closer to the venue of my first appointment - the old Post Office which since 2001 houses the City museum. There's a police visibility throughout Amsterdam though and the cops are definitely 'interactive' with people on the streets. They are not wasting their time investigating a shooting-up hard drug addict, but arrest the cumbersome sorryass without hesitation. They cycle around on mountain bikes, patrol on foot and on horse back. Hardly the piece and love that Onefeather resonates.
There was a true drug-related crime problem here twenty years ago, but by now the situation is pretty much under control. The police back then allocated all their resources to the combat of hard drugs by turning a blind eye to soft drugs. By focusing on vicious crime and preventing creating more hard drug users, police has been successful - twenty years ago there were some 10,000 junkies that made the streets unsafe. At the moment, that number is only around 1,000. The violence subsided as the junkies died off over the years. That is the other side of Dutch tolerance.
The Post Office is situated along the railway tracks not far from the Red Light District, but at stone's throw's length again of course. Once outside the Central Station, I veer Eastwards, passing the old city corner tower, the Schreiers Toren (Tower of Tears). This tower used to be part of the old city defense wall until it was disconnected when the city expanded beyond the wall in late medieval times. Incidentally, the Post Office also lost its function, but a lot later than the medieval tower stopped being part of the city's defenses.
Aside from the City Museum the former Post Office building also houses Mediamatic, a smaller museum. The museums both host quite interesting art shows all year round. I find the entrance and go straight to the top floor, just the same way postal workers have done for the past sixty years. Upstairs, the views are spectacular; to the Northwest, a hoist of building activity is taking place. Five yellow cranes stationed in the Docklands area are lining the horizon, resembling gigantic yellow birds.
Merijn Oudenampsen, my first appointment for the day, arrives in the blue jacket he said he'd be wearing. He's a publicist who's well in the know about Amsterdam's urban issues. This guy has some answers. "Situationists were proposing organically evolving architecture. Nowadays that's back to some extent. Some developments start from the bottom up again. But other parts have just been messed up. That, for instance, is not organic at all." He points out of the window at a dozen or so ten to eleven story buildings to the Northeast, which all are of equal heigth. They are clearly examples of heavily regulated and unimaginative square building blocks.
Amsterdam has been branding itself as a creative city for the last seven years and urban development has been subjected to this trend. The city is undergoing revolutionary changes that will affect many of its inhabitants. And it's passing by virtually unnoticed. Merijn is among a handful of highly critical persons trying to wake up the rest of the population to the disguise of the creative class. Merijn strongly believes that what's going on isn't necessarily without consequences and writes regular articles about the subject on Flexmens.
Even though urban branding is taking place in many cities around the world, Amsterdam is exploiting every commercial opportunity conceivable to climb in the international ranking lists. This is unnatural given the city's past.
Preparing its inhabitants for the 'creative era', the city of Amsterdam pushing the case of the creative knowledge economy as the greater good for the whole economic sector. Art and culture never rated high on the priority list, and suddenly they appeared at center stage.
The authentic, true creatives have been drawn in a battle that is prely economic and which happens to revolve around the housing and urban planning situation more than anything else.
It is not all that surprising. What started the process was the upswing in the real estate sector ten years ago. Housing corporations were privatised successfully. The influence of the market also spilt over to related social activities which were previously subsidized. The result, Merijn points out, is a tangible reduction in places where artists can still be autonomous in the real sense of the word. The approach to squatting has become less tolerant as well. Since the 1980s Amsterdam has a lively squatting community and police clamp downs on squatters has always reflected what is happening in the wider context. At the moment there are only few spots where people can participate in low entry barrier art projects. The big Sail 2005 event concluded the most recent clamp down on squatters, with the closure of a popular dancing venue in Pakhuis Afrika. This was carried out on a 24 hours notice basis, and was an extremely tough action.
"Places that want to operate art for a wider public are required to have a business plan and starting artists do not find any space," says Merijn. "Compared to eight years ago, the experimental arts scene is virtually dead."
The rest of the scene is lively though. Walking around town you hardly get the impression that there's any less abundance than years back. All in all there are over 40 festivals in Amsterdam alone in the summer; museums have shows non stop and the live music scene in bars is thriving.
The real impact is taking place slowly but is of revolutionary proportions. "There's a culture here now that you live to work, rather than the other way around", says Merijn. People living by these rules will ultimately churn out different art. This is a very destructive development. Of the few initiatives that are still going Merijn is convinced the city risks alienating its population. Some 70 percent of Amsterdam's young adult population studies at lower educational institutions. The city's spending habits do not reflect this. What Amsterdam's population needs is investment in education, but the government chooses to build an economic power house, Merijn believes. By contrast, the city's high income earners that earned double the average income rose in the years 1999 to 2003 to 18 percent, from 10.8 percent. There's no real broad based public discontent over these trends.
The people in the Sixties were a totally different breed it seems. Creativity then also went through a huge transformation, but the protest spirit of those days has almost totally subsided. Groups active in the old fashion sense almost immediately are branded activists.
The Situationist Internationale, the artist group that triggered the 1968 Paris riots, were very focused on urban design too. Constant Nieuwenhuys, the Dutch member of the group, had a real problem with the cult of utility as embodied in modern cities of his and modern times. So he designed a project for a city where people could live and where automation had realised the liberation of man from the toils of industrial work. He recreated existing areas, lifting them from the ground on steel constructions and inventing sliding walls and climate controlled housing that was truly imaginative. He abandoned the project in 1969 because he realised that the functionalists would not cede their influence. But his influence on the younger generation architects has been profound.
The Situationist ideas differed vastly from today's the Creative City theoreticians' such as Peter Hall and Richard Florida, who sold governments the economic gospel of libertarian principle under the fashionable label 'creative class'. Yet, the Situationist lived ahead of their time. In a lecture at the school of architecture at Delft University in 1980, he said about New Babylon: "This was as far as I could go. The project exists. It is safely stored away in a museum, waiting for more favorable times when it will once again arouse interest among future urban designers."
Up till recently, the project has been left in the repository, even though many influential people, including some of the Netherlands' most famous architects the internationally active Rem Koolhaas and the leading agencies MVRDV are clearly influenced by the Situationists and by Constant in particular.
The next few years will be once more decisive in determining whether today's absence of ideological beliefs somehow also leaves the door open for the current neutrality in the urban paradigm being absorbed into the forces of commercialism, or whether it will be worth dusting down Constant's maquettes for a real showdown.
Commercialism's first defense is to assert that those artistic expressions that are truly worth it will ultimately win the day and that we have the free market forces to thank for providing us with an objective benchmark. But the way that process comes about is far from objective. There is a lack of clarity about the issues that these 'forces' are associated with. And furthermore, people's tastes simply cannot be the same as those of corporations, that are driven by purely economic motivations.The Amsterdam philosopher Karen Vinges has interesting ideas about this. She believes that people's disgust with the system has only increased as privatisation activity spurred societal developments which naturally would propel human beings to re think their ideas, but which instead gives them the experience of being personally subjected to market forces that only condition.
Nevertheless the scope for dreaming is a lot wider than in the 1960s. Perhaps earlier on, things went wrong because no one inaugurated this untrodden space and because being lost was more strongly associated with it than navigating. Dutch architects MVRDV are the prime example of a bureau doing its best to reinvigorate the dream of the ideal city.
In a bookwork entitled Metacity/Datatown, they ask the crucial question whether it is possible to analyse the city's quantitative components and manipulate them; "Imagine a city that is described only by data. A city that wants to be explored only as information. A city that knows no given topography, no prescribed ideology, no representation, no context. Only huge, pure data: Metacity/Datatown. What are the implications of this city? To what conclusions can it lead? What agenda for architecture and urbanism could this numerical approach provoke?" The architects at MVRDV started to design along the path of numerical logic and abundance of manoeverability and put down a few strong examples which have shaken up Amsterdam's urban design dramatically.
Their 2002 design for the Silodam Northwest of the town, is a prime example of the bureau's agenda setting. Some believe that the commercial and pragmatism involved in this kind of urban development hardly is a step forward. But it's also a shot at aiming for utopic ideals. The building is typically earning Amsterdam some real brownie points for international competitiveness.
Reading what squatters had to say about the large warehouse where they resided from 1987 until the Millennium, you get the impression that the architects were very much inspired by similar ideas. Both the squatters and MVRDV say they were venturing into the unknown. And both are holding on to ideas that are to some extent the proven methods for connecting. The experiences of Andrew Carr Smith, who used to live with the squatters on and off for five years to study the lifestyle, are quite insightful. At once they were totally unverifiable, yet make such sense, it is likely that the human connection to 'things' is finally beginning to be understood. He's published an e-book in which he records his experiences that are a valuable insight for what serves human well being in their immediate surroundings.
In a chapter headed by a quotation by Baudelaire '... is there no escape from Numbers and Beings!", Smith extensively describes what it is like living with objects in your personal space that are out of the ordinary; 'First-time objects' are the norm in the Silo. Things are made (and found) in a very immediate way that conveys the present-moment of the act. There is nothing especially 'original' about the majority of Silo objects and arrangements except this 'present-momentness' - a characteristic of things made in a 'real-time' state of attention/action, as economically as present means allowed.
Describing the Silo hall as physically and psychically eventful, he believes that because there is no style, skill, or finish excessive to the need of the objects, not only is their behaviour freed: falling in their curve of gravity, warping with the visible grain, showing the impact of the hammer; but untrussed by taste and tidiness, their forms are more complex and various, more efficient projection-screens for potential fantasies.
Match that with something new and squeeky clean. MVRDV kept to the spirit and fitted autonomous housing within the outside walls, a numbers game that the original builders likely could not have begun to imagine, but which might be of the same order as the 'freed behavior' of objects that Smith noticed.
Area 9 in the West was way less pretentious than the Docks and involved a local population that was a lot more difficult. Not without reason. The new MVRDV design caters for less than three dozens of the original population while over 190 appartments are sold in the free sector. Some say that the sense of beauty that's created is lost both literally and figuratively. Public sector investment in the project amounted to EUR11 million. Of this amount, EUR1.3 million was used to create greenery.
Architecturally the building is interesting because it pays tribute to the ideas that most preceding architects have stuck to and is surprisingly playful; there are accessible spaces with plenty of see-through designs plus lush greenery. It is also seen as a beacon in urban development here, almost more so than the Silodam, because of the intensive negotiations with the locals. MVRDV reportedly made considerable concessions to their original design, altering many slanting sides on the inside into proper rectangles and square corners. This is something that the previous generation Amsterdam architects are especially known for.
Today's Amsterdam has all the characteristics of a modern city with modern challenges. It is holding on desperately to its authenticity where it is possible. Activists' last protest against commercialism took the shape of destructive action when at the end of 2006, a group calling themselves the Pollock Commando threw paint-filled eggs at the facade-tuned-billboard of the Sandberg institute. The institute had taken the bold step to cross out the boundaries between art and commerce, openly saying on its website "Culture defines and most important is defined by market dynamics." It subsequently had auctioned off its facade brick by brick to advertisers and claimed to have created art. The national papers didn't even pick up on the story, but video footage circulated widely over the internet.
Most landmark new buildings are more imaginative than you generally associate with urban residences, and city living also dominates less tangible projects. In 1995, Amsterdam 2.0 was started, aiming to find a new truly imaginative approach to city planning.
Sponsored by the Mondriaan Stichting (after the painter) and two small public sector institutions, it employed an architect, a photographer and a painter, who kicked some ass, invigorating the debate about city life. The three subjected the domain of architecture and city planning to a test of the value of ideas to create the 'unimaginable'.
Amsterdam 2.0 was conceived as a 'decentralized and polycentric constellation' providing space for the living experiments and survival strategies which an era of failing politics and compulsory political correctness have made necessary, they said.
The project had much going for it but ended up almost literally copying the Situationalists idea to divide the city into districts. Amsterdam 2.0 created some 400 possible cities, and artists were commissioned to write stories about life in those cities. Amsterdam 2.0 was considered an 'empty framework within which many different legal systems can be active at the same time and place'. The ideas it thrived on also are potent beyond the project's immediate scope, likely. In an article entitled Reality or Utopia, the architects/artists at bureau ZUS in Rotterdam study the project in the context of the shifting balance between public and private space. "Amsterdam 2.0 is a possible answer to the question what's after democracy the way we know it now?'.
That is resonated in some of the contributors' ideas. Those that were responsible for 'the City of Homeless Pigeons' write that utopian architecture as we know it either radically extrapolates what takes place already, or it explores a radical break with its context. "Homeless Pigeons differentiated itself by combining the two extremes. Constant and the Situationalists chose for a radical break", the contributors say. Perhaps it's way to go.
The projects, just like those of the Situationists, were all discontinued. Nobody really mourns their loss all that much because in the case of Amsterdam 2.0, it was meant to be a thought experiment anyway. And there's nothing to stop one from dreaming. Some critic said once that if the Situationists had been given a couple of cities to experiment with, everybody might have realised their weaknesses too and that their impact might have been a lot less as a result. And perhaps it's true.
Mr Smith, the squat observer, at one point says that the presence of unusual objects tires him out. Which might just indicate that human beings need their sofas, their tables, their walls, their toilets in some standardized form or other, to be human. We might just have hands to scratch our noses when they itch, but also to handle a spoon, open and close doors, make beds, throw stuff in the rubbish bin and weed the gardens. That might just be all that is there is to us.
But Onefeather on the contrary, has been able to live quite a sustainable life as a nomad, making money by seizing the spirit of the moment and exploiting, you might say, a niche that humanity generally has learnt to deny itself pretty much. Precariousness is nothing new to him either. But he has been happy the past decade and he's also happy to start building a house on a plot of land in Southern Kentucky - well above sea level.
Modern life might just be all about designated spaces and what we do with it. Virtually each and every idea that the Situationists ventured was blocked even though they were very talented designers, because of subversive ideas preached. My second interview is scheduled in a place that makes a middle ground between squatting and utopic design. I am taking a boat across the IJ estuary behind the central station to the Northern part of Amsterdam. I am on my way to a massive hall named NDSM (Netherlands Dock and Shipbuilding Company). I have an appointment with theatre group Pickup, an ex squat theatre platform which has won prestigious awards. As I arrive, Marc Coolen, who founded the organisation, takes me on a guided tour of the hall. Inside it is even bigger than it looks outside. The vast carcas looks like the inside of a deepfreezer. The 100 artist organisations are strewn across the hall as individually packaged entities. They include former squatter artists who opted to go legit and start paying real rents in return for real square meters. The hall has been made fire proof and architects have created divisions of space but that's all.
The place looks like a squat and I ask Coolen if he feels cheated in any way by the council for charging him real money for loss of autonomy. He doesn't view it this way, but there are people who do. Coolen used to host dance events of over 700 people. "The great thing was that we could continue until Sunday afternoon three o' clock, rather than eight in the morning like other places," he says. The reason he chose to rent in the Hall was that these venues were illegal because the building had serious fire hazards. "We from time to time had to stack people in cupboards and blind passage ways if the police raided us", he says. All might have been quite adventurous for first time visitors but taking yourself seriously as an artist has little to do with such antics after a while, Coolen says. Now his organisation is working hard at completing their three 15 by 15 square metre practice/performance rooms.
The floors have just been painted and decorations are starting to appear on the walls. The Pickup story is similar to many squatting sagas. Amsterdam hosts 29 squats at the moment and key truly autonomous artist places are Ruigoord and ADM and Academie OT 301. Coolen was tired of playing the cat and mouse game with the authorities. The Pickup website radiates professionalism that is neither inspired by commerce nor undue idealism. Coolen is practical most of all. "We get the audiences here, we connect the right instructors with the right people and what's more, from time to time we are invited by the mainstream venues such as Paradiso in town to fill an evening," he says. His business is to get as much recognition as possible.
The docks will likely stay in this squat like style and it's a sought after outfit. Mtv chose the docks as its European headquarters and opened nextdoor to the hall last February. Aound the corner, students are housed in colorful iron cabins, stacked on top of each other - pretty trendy. There's also a skateboarding place in another hall which is equally derelict.
Before it moved here, Pickup had been squatting on the Kloveniersburgwal in the centre of town for almost ten years. Instead of charging manual labor in return for practice space for performing artists, it now charges E60 an hour. It's already fully booked with performing artists until next September. The group has a good reputation and some of its shows went on to mainstream venues like Paradiso and the Melkweg.
This is the opening night of Pickup's very first performance in the new habitat. A group called Tomaten Najagen (Chasing Tomatoes) plays a performance entitled A Broken Halleluja, directed by Leela May Stokholm. The play seamlessly connects with the theme that I have been so vigourously been exploring earlier on in the day; can art and commerce coexist without one of the two suffering. If there's a verdict on the matter, it would be that it won't be easy. The subject matter is the clash between personal madness and public life.
The actors, after experiencing convincing madnesses, all sort of dry-swim out of their troubles. Undoing professionalism by breaking down personally, each cast member leaves the audience with the memory of vulnerability. Their cyclist movements to sanity have no direct connection at all with the rat race or so, but resemble something beautiful. There's sincerity.
When the play is over I rush toward the city centre and find Onefeather again in Goa, the one and only Amsterdam cafe where this hippy likely feels most at home. His wooden hashpipe on the table, he's drinking coffee in the sun. After checking his face and making sure that I am not accidentally talking to the DJ - I would't realise it if I sat next to our Queen, I am that senseless- I decide to go ahead with my experiment to ask him totally nothing about his Amsterdam connection unless it really is not obvious. Completely soft perhaps, but the approach works. He tells me his story in no particular order. Some ten years ago he used to dress up as Jesus, complete with a Franciscan robe, conducting a show including real miracle workings. People were thrilled and true believers got totally offended. Kids thought he was a Jeddai master. So he bought the swords and stuck them on top of his van.
Now, years on, his performances are not all that different, he says. He simply takes hold of the spirit of the moment and jumbles it a bit around, transferring power. "It's all good. One love, you know." And more such stuff. Truly hippy. He bought the vehicle shortly after his divorce, gave up his dayjob as a male nurse and decided to camp out on the beach and be happy.
The connection with Amsterdam becomes clear when we hit the streets. He's done the museums years back and is just enjoying smoking, drinking and relaxing. Amsterdam, he says, gives him a nice break from busy life in the van. I am won over in an instant; we throw our heads up to the clouds, walk, stop off in bars, end up for a short spell at Vrankrijk (pictured), a squatter habitat, and then we decide to go dancing. Someone tells us there's a place not far away from here - only a stone's throw away.
The low and unusually strong March sun beams in my eyes making the motorway tarmac blink in surreal blue. I have made sure that the drivers zooming along have no doubt about my intentions though - the sign in my right arm reads a big A, and then a comma floating flotsamjetsam to the next letter, a small 'd' followed by a hasty 'a' plus a final 'm'. I am hitchhiking the 20-minute trip to Amsterdam, where I will be meeting Onefeather, a US hippy from Santa Barbara. I met him on a hunt for Amsterdam's autonomous art scene and urban trends. That was the day before yesterday. The peace 'n' love spirit felt as real as it must have back in the 1960s, even though it was bred by a Yank. It was as if someone released the genie from the bottle once more. So encores now. I am hoping it works again.
The bearded, longhaired saint with a face the shape of an upside down heart had a nose seemingly sculpted with such deliberation it almost looked as if God stuck it on later. His official name Jameson plus the sirname Godlove are among the very few claims this guy has made on the system which he generally believes needs a re-think; he paid a hundred bucks to officially change his original names. I have two interviews lined up with people that will likely talk third hand of the Sixties Flower Power ideas and their intricate connection with today's Amsterdam. Onefeather is a bit closer. Generationwise also removed, but all the same he's living evidence that the hippy life is not extinct on the planet.
At 45, Onefeather remembers the 60s from the perspective of a 7 year old but he is convinced he is passing on the happy times from one generation to the next. It worked on me yesterday. I was so enthralled I totally forgot to ask even what an American hippy was searching for in Amsterdam.
We met totally by accident. I sank in the chair next to him trying to check out a live band playing on the bridge in front of coffeeshop Goa near the Nieuwmarkt. He looked like a hippy and the place being Goa, it would figure, but I wasn't expecting this calibre of authenticity as I befriended this brother with some Dutch charm that became simply cunning as the moments elapsed. A true hippie! Others have beaten me to him; he's already been in Der Spiegel, US papers and also on prime time US tv.
By now the interviews have taken place and Onefeather's turned out priceless. He has joined my list of email friends because he's gone back to the United States. Even walking the cobblestoned Amsterdam streets with Onefeather was an adventure in itself; I felt like a I am trying to revive the vibes with all my might, faced with telling the story of Amsterdam's past, present and most of all of the city's chances of future happy, artistic, times.
In the days before Onefeather and I met, I researched activity in Amsterdam's autonomous artist communities as well as the city's recent efforts to brand itself as a 'creative city'. I came across stories encapsulating the changes in tolerance for squatting communities. Over the last years, people have gradually been forced into becoming part of the economic circuit and the trend is almost complete.
The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that events ought to be narrated reality-style. I went on a journey to find out the living conditions of Amsterdam's post-socialist collapse art community and its way of dealing with commercial forces. And about how the town differs from the 1960s. I am about to find out what Amsterdam's modern day artists believe in and how they are being impacted by the 'creative city' initiative that brands them in an economic class. It is possible to drown in a sea of information, theories, enticing arguments and philosophies, but the city over the past days started to come to life to me in ways more interesting than most theoretical accounts of what is taking place.
One important buzzword that perhaps connects theory and what's happening on the ground is 'precarious existence'. It features in the jargon of city officials talking about the new creative class who have to be transformed into an entrepreneurial band of people that don't rely any longer on the state but execute serious business plans that initially will make them feel overly vulnerable. It is also a word that very much applies to my hippy friend, who for the last ten years has lived a precarious life, living 'of love'.
I have chosen a hitchhike spot close to the railway station of the village I am setting out from - it's only a stone's throw away. It might make a bad case for a hitchhiker or it might actually help my plight. Students in this country got free train travel in 1990 and the hitchhiking game has changed since then. Aside from that, the station's being a stone's throw away isn't all that unusual because virtually everything in this country is a stone's throw away. Everything except for toilet doors. These generally are intent on hugging your knees.
The upside of the limited space story reveals itself on the motorway though. It appears that the principle of dividing up spaces has a sanity of unparallelled dimension to it here - traffic is smooth and evenly spaced, yet cars travel along in an approximation that is that tad less spaced out than in other, bigger countries.
A brief moment of hope when someone steps on the breaks. A sucker, intent on causing grief. But it might be a good omen. The road is preparing for my take off, no doubt. And then a Nissan's back breaklights are suddenly hovering right next to my bag. The surrealism of the tarmac is even more real now that the direction's full speed ahead to Amsterdam. The road turns dark grey, almost black.
Minutes later and I am ruthlessly dropped in Gaasperplas, a suburb bordering on one of the more problematic areas of Amsterdam - the Bijlmermeer. I close the car door, ready to take the metro into town. A famous urban planning specialist, Ashok Bhalotra at KuiperCompagnons in Rotterdam who is involved in the current wide scale reconstruction of this 1960s neighbourhood, said in a recent interview that most urban planners and architects are too far removed from society at large. Guess what, walking through Gaasperplas toward the Metro station, I think this might just be true vice versa too.
The outskirts of Amsterdam resemble an urban sprawl that to the outsider literally is mostly that; urban sprawl. Trying to get an idea of the influences that surround you when passing through them is quite a task. Newspapers advertise over 12 architecture walks, each one of them dealing with a different theme, and it's not even an excess likely.
The great thing about my hippy friend is that he has all the time in the world and likely won't be hampered by preconceived ideas about life, living and originality. Onefeather himself lives in a camper van that he has stuffed with three-dimensional exterior artwork. He showed me a picture of the van. It hardly was recognisable as a vehicle, covered in a mountain of ready-made statues of rock artists, fairy tale figures and homemade artwork and designs. He attracts attention wherever he goes. He makes money by simply driving his van about and conducting impromptu shows. At night time he hangs out on the beach. He is an overwhelming ad for being carefree and happy.
To the side of the van, there's a string of apples, lined by a string of people holding hands. They're his friends, most of whom he invited to draw their own features in premade figures. Onefeather glued the apples on during the evening of the first attack on Afghanistan, on 12 september 2001. Rain caused the glue to run and it looked as if the apples cried - he said it was eery and symbolic.
He said his show is the living Van Gogh. Pun intended. If it didn't come from such an astounding guy you'd think it was naff. It works for his Yankee audiences all the more, likely. Onefeather's impact on people is profound and he makes as much as USD1000 a week from time to time. "I live of the love people have for me," he said. His ideas are not new but as a person he's someone that has evolved in a totally different way than anyone else. It's quite powerful. He breaths a kind of authenticity that has gone lost, I guess. My reaction to him is like the itch an amputee feels. He considers everybody his brother and sister, but in all reality he could be the biological brother of Goa Gil, the world famous hippy Trance DJ who featured in the film The Last Hippy Standing.
All this is going through my mind as I board the metro, having been dropped off on the outskirts of Amsterdam. The train into town runs through the Bijlmermeer, which was built at the height of the hippy movement. It has become one of the most studied suburbs of Amsterdam; sociologists, architects, intercultural antropologists, criminogists all have found ample tangible material supporting or detracting from presupposed ideas.
The late sixties followed thirty years on from Modernism and the Bijlmer was the first major project in which urban architects were supposedly experimenting with new ideas. Even as it was built many said that the ideas were still very much functional rather than the utopia dream that people were ready for. They also hated it because it ruined a nature reserve. The hippy movement as such has died out, but the spirit of freethinking has evolved and is throwing off some handsome ideas for multiculturalism.
Bhalotra is very aware of this too. He commented at a recent lecture that architects should be inspired by fantasy and intangible or real things that flow from it. "Being aware of the tension between the differences between human beings and simultaneously the existence of the need for equality of all and the preservation of the self demands a lot of thinking. To what extent do we really want that 'others' become like us. It is inspiring to cross the border of culture, land and economy. But nevertheless borders do not disappear, despite the ideals," he said.
Perhaps multicultural approaches offer the ideology that we all need. Since there is hardly a pronounced new paradigm in urban development and with the loss of leftwing ideals, it is hard to get a clear idea what urban renewal is about other than an economic calculation. The e connection Amsterdam's housing situation and the idealism of the 1960s offers a crucial yardstick for understanding what is evolving.
Some people talk about enigmatic signifyers in this context. Charles Jencks for instance believes in a new urban paradigm, the goals of which are wider than the science and politics that supports it and also than the technology that allows it to be conceived and built. This creates a flexibility which is the playground for all kinds of new styles, ranging from Organi-Tech who reflect modernists, Eco Tech, Datascapes and the New York Blob Meisters.
Dutch architects MVRDV are your quintessential Datascapes fanatics. They combine metaphors with numbers. By exaggerating metaphors, they calculate a number of alternating creations based on various assumptions and then run them by the public, the politicians and the press. Their buildings are clear statements. The bureau, which consists of four architects that started working together in 1991, is also pioneering new trends in approaches to urban residential development. They are at the hypermodern end of the spectrum which is dominated by designs for people that stretch from the late 1800s and the present.
On the train, I decide to hold off asking Onefeather what he is looking to find in Amsterdam. Instead, I will stay intent on the question throughout the course of our meeting. See if an answer materialises and how it does. Onefeather definitely came across as someone that has kept the option of utopia open in his life. With no fixed abode and 'living of love', he's bound to volunteer valuable insight into utopic life forms at personal level in contrast to the generally accepted idea of progress.
As the metro nears the center of town I am getting closer to the venue of my first appointment - the old Post Office which since 2001 houses the City museum. There's a police visibility throughout Amsterdam though and the cops are definitely 'interactive' with people on the streets. They are not wasting their time investigating a shooting-up hard drug addict, but arrest the cumbersome sorryass without hesitation. They cycle around on mountain bikes, patrol on foot and on horse back. Hardly the piece and love that Onefeather resonates.
There was a true drug-related crime problem here twenty years ago, but by now the situation is pretty much under control. The police back then allocated all their resources to the combat of hard drugs by turning a blind eye to soft drugs. By focusing on vicious crime and preventing creating more hard drug users, police has been successful - twenty years ago there were some 10,000 junkies that made the streets unsafe. At the moment, that number is only around 1,000. The violence subsided as the junkies died off over the years. That is the other side of Dutch tolerance.
The Post Office is situated along the railway tracks not far from the Red Light District, but at stone's throw's length again of course. Once outside the Central Station, I veer Eastwards, passing the old city corner tower, the Schreiers Toren (Tower of Tears). This tower used to be part of the old city defense wall until it was disconnected when the city expanded beyond the wall in late medieval times. Incidentally, the Post Office also lost its function, but a lot later than the medieval tower stopped being part of the city's defenses.
Aside from the City Museum the former Post Office building also houses Mediamatic, a smaller museum. The museums both host quite interesting art shows all year round. I find the entrance and go straight to the top floor, just the same way postal workers have done for the past sixty years. Upstairs, the views are spectacular; to the Northwest, a hoist of building activity is taking place. Five yellow cranes stationed in the Docklands area are lining the horizon, resembling gigantic yellow birds.
Merijn Oudenampsen, my first appointment for the day, arrives in the blue jacket he said he'd be wearing. He's a publicist who's well in the know about Amsterdam's urban issues. This guy has some answers. "Situationists were proposing organically evolving architecture. Nowadays that's back to some extent. Some developments start from the bottom up again. But other parts have just been messed up. That, for instance, is not organic at all." He points out of the window at a dozen or so ten to eleven story buildings to the Northeast, which all are of equal heigth. They are clearly examples of heavily regulated and unimaginative square building blocks.
Amsterdam has been branding itself as a creative city for the last seven years and urban development has been subjected to this trend. The city is undergoing revolutionary changes that will affect many of its inhabitants. And it's passing by virtually unnoticed. Merijn is among a handful of highly critical persons trying to wake up the rest of the population to the disguise of the creative class. Merijn strongly believes that what's going on isn't necessarily without consequences and writes regular articles about the subject on Flexmens.
Even though urban branding is taking place in many cities around the world, Amsterdam is exploiting every commercial opportunity conceivable to climb in the international ranking lists. This is unnatural given the city's past.
Preparing its inhabitants for the 'creative era', the city of Amsterdam pushing the case of the creative knowledge economy as the greater good for the whole economic sector. Art and culture never rated high on the priority list, and suddenly they appeared at center stage.
The authentic, true creatives have been drawn in a battle that is prely economic and which happens to revolve around the housing and urban planning situation more than anything else.
It is not all that surprising. What started the process was the upswing in the real estate sector ten years ago. Housing corporations were privatised successfully. The influence of the market also spilt over to related social activities which were previously subsidized. The result, Merijn points out, is a tangible reduction in places where artists can still be autonomous in the real sense of the word. The approach to squatting has become less tolerant as well. Since the 1980s Amsterdam has a lively squatting community and police clamp downs on squatters has always reflected what is happening in the wider context. At the moment there are only few spots where people can participate in low entry barrier art projects. The big Sail 2005 event concluded the most recent clamp down on squatters, with the closure of a popular dancing venue in Pakhuis Afrika. This was carried out on a 24 hours notice basis, and was an extremely tough action.
"Places that want to operate art for a wider public are required to have a business plan and starting artists do not find any space," says Merijn. "Compared to eight years ago, the experimental arts scene is virtually dead."
The rest of the scene is lively though. Walking around town you hardly get the impression that there's any less abundance than years back. All in all there are over 40 festivals in Amsterdam alone in the summer; museums have shows non stop and the live music scene in bars is thriving.
The real impact is taking place slowly but is of revolutionary proportions. "There's a culture here now that you live to work, rather than the other way around", says Merijn. People living by these rules will ultimately churn out different art. This is a very destructive development. Of the few initiatives that are still going Merijn is convinced the city risks alienating its population. Some 70 percent of Amsterdam's young adult population studies at lower educational institutions. The city's spending habits do not reflect this. What Amsterdam's population needs is investment in education, but the government chooses to build an economic power house, Merijn believes. By contrast, the city's high income earners that earned double the average income rose in the years 1999 to 2003 to 18 percent, from 10.8 percent. There's no real broad based public discontent over these trends.
The people in the Sixties were a totally different breed it seems. Creativity then also went through a huge transformation, but the protest spirit of those days has almost totally subsided. Groups active in the old fashion sense almost immediately are branded activists.
The Situationist Internationale, the artist group that triggered the 1968 Paris riots, were very focused on urban design too. Constant Nieuwenhuys, the Dutch member of the group, had a real problem with the cult of utility as embodied in modern cities of his and modern times. So he designed a project for a city where people could live and where automation had realised the liberation of man from the toils of industrial work. He recreated existing areas, lifting them from the ground on steel constructions and inventing sliding walls and climate controlled housing that was truly imaginative. He abandoned the project in 1969 because he realised that the functionalists would not cede their influence. But his influence on the younger generation architects has been profound.
The Situationist ideas differed vastly from today's the Creative City theoreticians' such as Peter Hall and Richard Florida, who sold governments the economic gospel of libertarian principle under the fashionable label 'creative class'. Yet, the Situationist lived ahead of their time. In a lecture at the school of architecture at Delft University in 1980, he said about New Babylon: "This was as far as I could go. The project exists. It is safely stored away in a museum, waiting for more favorable times when it will once again arouse interest among future urban designers."
Up till recently, the project has been left in the repository, even though many influential people, including some of the Netherlands' most famous architects the internationally active Rem Koolhaas and the leading agencies MVRDV are clearly influenced by the Situationists and by Constant in particular.
The next few years will be once more decisive in determining whether today's absence of ideological beliefs somehow also leaves the door open for the current neutrality in the urban paradigm being absorbed into the forces of commercialism, or whether it will be worth dusting down Constant's maquettes for a real showdown.
Commercialism's first defense is to assert that those artistic expressions that are truly worth it will ultimately win the day and that we have the free market forces to thank for providing us with an objective benchmark. But the way that process comes about is far from objective. There is a lack of clarity about the issues that these 'forces' are associated with. And furthermore, people's tastes simply cannot be the same as those of corporations, that are driven by purely economic motivations.The Amsterdam philosopher Karen Vinges has interesting ideas about this. She believes that people's disgust with the system has only increased as privatisation activity spurred societal developments which naturally would propel human beings to re think their ideas, but which instead gives them the experience of being personally subjected to market forces that only condition.
Nevertheless the scope for dreaming is a lot wider than in the 1960s. Perhaps earlier on, things went wrong because no one inaugurated this untrodden space and because being lost was more strongly associated with it than navigating. Dutch architects MVRDV are the prime example of a bureau doing its best to reinvigorate the dream of the ideal city.
In a bookwork entitled Metacity/Datatown, they ask the crucial question whether it is possible to analyse the city's quantitative components and manipulate them; "Imagine a city that is described only by data. A city that wants to be explored only as information. A city that knows no given topography, no prescribed ideology, no representation, no context. Only huge, pure data: Metacity/Datatown. What are the implications of this city? To what conclusions can it lead? What agenda for architecture and urbanism could this numerical approach provoke?" The architects at MVRDV started to design along the path of numerical logic and abundance of manoeverability and put down a few strong examples which have shaken up Amsterdam's urban design dramatically.
Their 2002 design for the Silodam Northwest of the town, is a prime example of the bureau's agenda setting. Some believe that the commercial and pragmatism involved in this kind of urban development hardly is a step forward. But it's also a shot at aiming for utopic ideals. The building is typically earning Amsterdam some real brownie points for international competitiveness.
Reading what squatters had to say about the large warehouse where they resided from 1987 until the Millennium, you get the impression that the architects were very much inspired by similar ideas. Both the squatters and MVRDV say they were venturing into the unknown. And both are holding on to ideas that are to some extent the proven methods for connecting. The experiences of Andrew Carr Smith, who used to live with the squatters on and off for five years to study the lifestyle, are quite insightful. At once they were totally unverifiable, yet make such sense, it is likely that the human connection to 'things' is finally beginning to be understood. He's published an e-book in which he records his experiences that are a valuable insight for what serves human well being in their immediate surroundings.
In a chapter headed by a quotation by Baudelaire '... is there no escape from Numbers and Beings!", Smith extensively describes what it is like living with objects in your personal space that are out of the ordinary; 'First-time objects' are the norm in the Silo. Things are made (and found) in a very immediate way that conveys the present-moment of the act. There is nothing especially 'original' about the majority of Silo objects and arrangements except this 'present-momentness' - a characteristic of things made in a 'real-time' state of attention/action, as economically as present means allowed.
Describing the Silo hall as physically and psychically eventful, he believes that because there is no style, skill, or finish excessive to the need of the objects, not only is their behaviour freed: falling in their curve of gravity, warping with the visible grain, showing the impact of the hammer; but untrussed by taste and tidiness, their forms are more complex and various, more efficient projection-screens for potential fantasies.
Match that with something new and squeeky clean. MVRDV kept to the spirit and fitted autonomous housing within the outside walls, a numbers game that the original builders likely could not have begun to imagine, but which might be of the same order as the 'freed behavior' of objects that Smith noticed.
Area 9 in the West was way less pretentious than the Docks and involved a local population that was a lot more difficult. Not without reason. The new MVRDV design caters for less than three dozens of the original population while over 190 appartments are sold in the free sector. Some say that the sense of beauty that's created is lost both literally and figuratively. Public sector investment in the project amounted to EUR11 million. Of this amount, EUR1.3 million was used to create greenery.
Architecturally the building is interesting because it pays tribute to the ideas that most preceding architects have stuck to and is surprisingly playful; there are accessible spaces with plenty of see-through designs plus lush greenery. It is also seen as a beacon in urban development here, almost more so than the Silodam, because of the intensive negotiations with the locals. MVRDV reportedly made considerable concessions to their original design, altering many slanting sides on the inside into proper rectangles and square corners. This is something that the previous generation Amsterdam architects are especially known for.
Today's Amsterdam has all the characteristics of a modern city with modern challenges. It is holding on desperately to its authenticity where it is possible. Activists' last protest against commercialism took the shape of destructive action when at the end of 2006, a group calling themselves the Pollock Commando threw paint-filled eggs at the facade-tuned-billboard of the Sandberg institute. The institute had taken the bold step to cross out the boundaries between art and commerce, openly saying on its website "Culture defines and most important is defined by market dynamics." It subsequently had auctioned off its facade brick by brick to advertisers and claimed to have created art. The national papers didn't even pick up on the story, but video footage circulated widely over the internet.
Most landmark new buildings are more imaginative than you generally associate with urban residences, and city living also dominates less tangible projects. In 1995, Amsterdam 2.0 was started, aiming to find a new truly imaginative approach to city planning.
Sponsored by the Mondriaan Stichting (after the painter) and two small public sector institutions, it employed an architect, a photographer and a painter, who kicked some ass, invigorating the debate about city life. The three subjected the domain of architecture and city planning to a test of the value of ideas to create the 'unimaginable'.
Amsterdam 2.0 was conceived as a 'decentralized and polycentric constellation' providing space for the living experiments and survival strategies which an era of failing politics and compulsory political correctness have made necessary, they said.
The project had much going for it but ended up almost literally copying the Situationalists idea to divide the city into districts. Amsterdam 2.0 created some 400 possible cities, and artists were commissioned to write stories about life in those cities. Amsterdam 2.0 was considered an 'empty framework within which many different legal systems can be active at the same time and place'. The ideas it thrived on also are potent beyond the project's immediate scope, likely. In an article entitled Reality or Utopia, the architects/artists at bureau ZUS in Rotterdam study the project in the context of the shifting balance between public and private space. "Amsterdam 2.0 is a possible answer to the question what's after democracy the way we know it now?'.
That is resonated in some of the contributors' ideas. Those that were responsible for 'the City of Homeless Pigeons' write that utopian architecture as we know it either radically extrapolates what takes place already, or it explores a radical break with its context. "Homeless Pigeons differentiated itself by combining the two extremes. Constant and the Situationalists chose for a radical break", the contributors say. Perhaps it's way to go.
The projects, just like those of the Situationists, were all discontinued. Nobody really mourns their loss all that much because in the case of Amsterdam 2.0, it was meant to be a thought experiment anyway. And there's nothing to stop one from dreaming. Some critic said once that if the Situationists had been given a couple of cities to experiment with, everybody might have realised their weaknesses too and that their impact might have been a lot less as a result. And perhaps it's true.
Mr Smith, the squat observer, at one point says that the presence of unusual objects tires him out. Which might just indicate that human beings need their sofas, their tables, their walls, their toilets in some standardized form or other, to be human. We might just have hands to scratch our noses when they itch, but also to handle a spoon, open and close doors, make beds, throw stuff in the rubbish bin and weed the gardens. That might just be all that is there is to us.
But Onefeather on the contrary, has been able to live quite a sustainable life as a nomad, making money by seizing the spirit of the moment and exploiting, you might say, a niche that humanity generally has learnt to deny itself pretty much. Precariousness is nothing new to him either. But he has been happy the past decade and he's also happy to start building a house on a plot of land in Southern Kentucky - well above sea level.
Modern life might just be all about designated spaces and what we do with it. Virtually each and every idea that the Situationists ventured was blocked even though they were very talented designers, because of subversive ideas preached. My second interview is scheduled in a place that makes a middle ground between squatting and utopic design. I am taking a boat across the IJ estuary behind the central station to the Northern part of Amsterdam. I am on my way to a massive hall named NDSM (Netherlands Dock and Shipbuilding Company). I have an appointment with theatre group Pickup, an ex squat theatre platform which has won prestigious awards. As I arrive, Marc Coolen, who founded the organisation, takes me on a guided tour of the hall. Inside it is even bigger than it looks outside. The vast carcas looks like the inside of a deepfreezer. The 100 artist organisations are strewn across the hall as individually packaged entities. They include former squatter artists who opted to go legit and start paying real rents in return for real square meters. The hall has been made fire proof and architects have created divisions of space but that's all.
The place looks like a squat and I ask Coolen if he feels cheated in any way by the council for charging him real money for loss of autonomy. He doesn't view it this way, but there are people who do. Coolen used to host dance events of over 700 people. "The great thing was that we could continue until Sunday afternoon three o' clock, rather than eight in the morning like other places," he says. The reason he chose to rent in the Hall was that these venues were illegal because the building had serious fire hazards. "We from time to time had to stack people in cupboards and blind passage ways if the police raided us", he says. All might have been quite adventurous for first time visitors but taking yourself seriously as an artist has little to do with such antics after a while, Coolen says. Now his organisation is working hard at completing their three 15 by 15 square metre practice/performance rooms.
The floors have just been painted and decorations are starting to appear on the walls. The Pickup story is similar to many squatting sagas. Amsterdam hosts 29 squats at the moment and key truly autonomous artist places are Ruigoord and ADM and Academie OT 301. Coolen was tired of playing the cat and mouse game with the authorities. The Pickup website radiates professionalism that is neither inspired by commerce nor undue idealism. Coolen is practical most of all. "We get the audiences here, we connect the right instructors with the right people and what's more, from time to time we are invited by the mainstream venues such as Paradiso in town to fill an evening," he says. His business is to get as much recognition as possible.
The docks will likely stay in this squat like style and it's a sought after outfit. Mtv chose the docks as its European headquarters and opened nextdoor to the hall last February. Aound the corner, students are housed in colorful iron cabins, stacked on top of each other - pretty trendy. There's also a skateboarding place in another hall which is equally derelict.
Before it moved here, Pickup had been squatting on the Kloveniersburgwal in the centre of town for almost ten years. Instead of charging manual labor in return for practice space for performing artists, it now charges E60 an hour. It's already fully booked with performing artists until next September. The group has a good reputation and some of its shows went on to mainstream venues like Paradiso and the Melkweg.
This is the opening night of Pickup's very first performance in the new habitat. A group called Tomaten Najagen (Chasing Tomatoes) plays a performance entitled A Broken Halleluja, directed by Leela May Stokholm. The play seamlessly connects with the theme that I have been so vigourously been exploring earlier on in the day; can art and commerce coexist without one of the two suffering. If there's a verdict on the matter, it would be that it won't be easy. The subject matter is the clash between personal madness and public life.
The actors, after experiencing convincing madnesses, all sort of dry-swim out of their troubles. Undoing professionalism by breaking down personally, each cast member leaves the audience with the memory of vulnerability. Their cyclist movements to sanity have no direct connection at all with the rat race or so, but resemble something beautiful. There's sincerity.
When the play is over I rush toward the city centre and find Onefeather again in Goa, the one and only Amsterdam cafe where this hippy likely feels most at home. His wooden hashpipe on the table, he's drinking coffee in the sun. After checking his face and making sure that I am not accidentally talking to the DJ - I would't realise it if I sat next to our Queen, I am that senseless- I decide to go ahead with my experiment to ask him totally nothing about his Amsterdam connection unless it really is not obvious. Completely soft perhaps, but the approach works. He tells me his story in no particular order. Some ten years ago he used to dress up as Jesus, complete with a Franciscan robe, conducting a show including real miracle workings. People were thrilled and true believers got totally offended. Kids thought he was a Jeddai master. So he bought the swords and stuck them on top of his van.
Now, years on, his performances are not all that different, he says. He simply takes hold of the spirit of the moment and jumbles it a bit around, transferring power. "It's all good. One love, you know." And more such stuff. Truly hippy. He bought the vehicle shortly after his divorce, gave up his dayjob as a male nurse and decided to camp out on the beach and be happy.
The connection with Amsterdam becomes clear when we hit the streets. He's done the museums years back and is just enjoying smoking, drinking and relaxing. Amsterdam, he says, gives him a nice break from busy life in the van. I am won over in an instant; we throw our heads up to the clouds, walk, stop off in bars, end up for a short spell at Vrankrijk (pictured), a squatter habitat, and then we decide to go dancing. Someone tells us there's a place not far away from here - only a stone's throw away.
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