Die Trauer der Fische   2019

Grief of the Fishes

(1) In the attempt to write a piece on the topic quantum physics and music a deep mourning arose. Why, I asked, do we put so much energy and wit into the observation of these smallest of particles, and yet are unable to observe ourselves and even look at the most fundamental problems of living together as human beings, never mind trying to tackle them?
(2) Jean Améry, in his Bewältigungsversuchen eines Überwältigten [roughly translated: Attempts to cope by an overwhelmed], speaks about his perspective on human history as a concentration camp prisoner: "The Greek civilisation had been built on slavery, and an Attic army had ravaged Melos like the SS had Ukraine. Terrible human sacrifices had been made, as far as light shines into history's depths."¹ Nothing new after all...
(3) One of these every day incidents forms the textual basis of this piece. In a hearing by the Jeju 4-3 Institute in 2004, Do-hwa Kang, born 1923, recounts the brutal acts of retribution by the South-korean military in 1948 during which she lost her husband and other family members. Until today, she says, she is trying to locate her husband's grave.²
(4) They aren't accidents. They're happening now, somewhere, even here some are happening. And there, there is music; too; fortunately: to mourn, to commmiserate, to listen to ... --- Listening as attention, listening as subtlety, listening as tenderness.
(5) Schwitters remarked that he liked to write nonsense so much, because he felt pity for nonsense being depreciated all the time.³ I feel similarly towards sinus tones, which are either mocked as totally out-dated or demeaned as test dignals, set onto our ears as vacuous noise, without inner movement, and always too loud. But how much potential rests in them "still", how much tenderness, beauty, sadness. Bernd Alois Zimmermanns Tratto is an important reference for this.
(6) A story from the Daoist text collection Zhuangzi, abridged: Zhuangzi and Huizi stroll along the bridge over the Hao river. Zhuangzi says: The minnows come out and splash about. That is the joy of the fish! Huizi counters: You are no fish. How can recognize joy of fish? Zhuangzi replies: From this bridge I recognize it.⁴ And so the mourning, of the fish.
Thanks to Younghi Pagh-Paan for voicing the text, to Tobias Klich for the recording, and to Seungwon Yang for the research and the translation of Mrs. Kang's testimony.
1  Jean Améry, Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne, München 1988, 26 [translation by Anna Heintz-Buschart]
2  http://www.jeju43.org/bbs/board.php?bo_table=evidence&wr_id=5&page=0&page=0 (Dez. 2018)
3  Vgl. Kurt Schwitters, Das literarische Werk, Bd. 5, München 2005, 77
4  Vgl. Hans-Georg Möller, In der Mitte des Kreises, Daoistisches Denken, Frankfurt 2001, 85