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>> Those respectless rascals Rechenzentrum

by ADAM GOLLNER

The idea of "interesting" being an underhanded criticism or even a euphemism for bad is at least as old as mother Egypt, but it is a noteworthy etymological flip-flop nonetheless. Interesting things aren't half as cool as things that are really easy to understand, like things that cost a lot of money, or even better, things that are unhealthy. Interesting things are strange, borderline unpleasant and they sometimes involve learning, and who wants to do that when there's already barely enough time to party?

Rechenzentrum are two really interesting Germans who make visuals and music too. They say things like, "We want to forget as much information as possible, but it takes more energy than gathering information." The point is, these Rechenzentrum rubes have ideas. They are interesting. They are clean-cut, shiny Berliners, but they are also troublemakers who call their music "maladjusted electronica."

"It's good to do stuff that irritates people," says visual mastermind Lillevan (no last name, just Lillevan--like Liberace). "Being self-satisfied is one of the worst things one can be. We are nervous, jittery."

"When we started collaborating, we decided to be uncomfortable together," continues the other half of the duo, Marc Weiser, the musical mastermind. The two of them keep on using the word "respectlessness" to describe what they do--maybe eight times during our conversation. "When we say respectlessness, we mean it not in a brattish way like Merzbow or these types. Our aim is not just to annoy, but to shake things up."

As if to clarify, Lillevan recounts a recent experience at a museum in Berlin wherein Rechenzentrum collaborated with 75-year-old artist and filmmaker Maurice LeMaître, one of the main proponents of Letterism as well as Situationism (a collaboration reproduced at the FCMM this year).

An old-school judge once condemned Situationists as "cynics who do not hesitate to commend theft, the destruction of scholarship, the abolition of work, total subversion, and worldwide proletarian revolution with 'unlicensed pleasure' as its only goal." LeMaître himself once claimed that a true film performance must involve "disruptions, forced jostling, dialogues spoken aloud, confetti and gunshots aimed at the screen." Whoa there, Sid Vicious!

Rechenzentrum are totally into this guy, so they were pretty stoked to be able to do an audio-visual performance with him. "He told us, 'You have understood! It's all about no respect!' After six minutes of our show, he took off his shirt and burned it. This is in a museum, remember. Then he took off his shoes and threw them into the seated audience and started dancing."

People call Rechenzentrum minimal techno, but they are a lot more fun than most of that and they even smoke cigarettes. "We are disillusioned by the lack of playfulness in electronic, or 'new' music. Like these forums in Europe like the ICMC which is just a bunch of old doctors getting together to talk about new directions. That pisses us off. People think art cannot have a sense of humour. Our music is sad but it has a sense of humour. We find a lot of people we are involved with don't laugh a lot. We like to move around and laugh."

Interesting...

With T. Raumschmire and Fairmont at FCMM's Media Lounge (SAT) on Friday, Oct. 19, 10pm, $17