Editorial

Starship 20

apokolypse of the praktikal moment

spring 2020

Editors Starship 19: Gerry Bibby, Mihaela Chiriac, Nikola Dietrich, Martin Ebner, Ariane Müller, Henrik Olesen
Cover (image): Nora Schultz
Back cover (image): Mark van Yetter
Magazine Design: Dan Solbach and Starship

It’s been a year since we printed an issue of the magazine. The last, #18, was the 20 Years of Starship issue. A lot can happen in such a time span, not to mention that Berlin is not the world!
But now 2020. We’ve made it to #19. Obviously there's a mis-match, but time and the numbers given it do slip about—the magazine sure explores some leaps through time. This can provoke knots that are difficult to encounter. We try to not be afraid of either welcoming knots or attempting to unravel some either. In English, this year’s elegant echo, its form, its repetition—20 / 20—describes good eyesight numerically (strange enough in itself), and we might expect such clarity of vision would translate well to understanding. But the two are not the same. Mistranslations and displacements resound throughout the pages. Some respond to slippages in language and its applications with experiments in the potential of dismantling the hierarchies inherent to words, while others are about the consequences of power in the context of disinformation. Thankfully, threads from places and minds and times not entirely consumed by the insistence of the latter’s eye-sores look elsewhere; attempt to dodge the thriving of those particular political machinations. We have a new editor to help us consider all this, Mihaela Chiriac, along with some new columnists, not to mention all those that have been contributing to Starship for years.
However much previous iterations may have joyfully detoured, escaping the suggestion of an introduced preoccupation, slipping into other orbits, we did not enter into this issue with a central theme. Nº 19’s prefered entry into this nominally new decade is with a de-centred face—including a slight shift / glitch in our format that’s been around since Henrik and Nikola set re-start on the magazine. Borrowed from the new or old, or projecting an altogether non-face, this might be a mask if we’re to take Jack Smith’s lead. If it has organs that better sense the world around it differently, these might be submerged, sensing other spaces, as Nora Schultz’s cover and contribution reminds us. Swimming throughout these pages, fragments of surfacing whales make contact with a conversation between women who talk about women; confront the social deviations of a (dis)behaving inside outsider; locate the violence of a cage designed for a worker’s optimized productivity from a distance… & even sense a lamenting allegory about dogs in a desert without language. Before returning to what lies beneath the surface, leaving it for the activities of painters and poets.

We send this into the next decade of Starship, and project onto a future, for you. So stay with us and try us:
Art will be the main driving force of, and best paid activity in society, and will be replacing sports, once (in the near future) people will have found out that you actually lose more calories in a museum than on the cricket field. And the light is more flattering (this still has to be worked on). The weather will be terribly oppressive in a lot of places, but in Museums, this won’t be an issue.
The ongoing attempt to erase noses from faces, not only in representation but also through plastic surgery will peak in the next ten years, eliminating noses from collective memory. Until one day, a person of no specific gender; an on-site barber of wigs named Yakovlevich, discovers a long dead lawmaker’s nose in a compressed vegetable product resembling a rare yet still existing prehistoric crustacean. Bodies will change as well, arms will get longer.
The attempt by filmmakers to counter Themyscira (where Wonder Woman lives), and Wakanda (home country of Black Panther), and depict an all white male Utopia, where white males live just amongst themselves, let’s call it Apokolypse, will have failed spectacularly! They will have, to paraphrase María Galindo, grabbed each other in a duel to the death!

—Gerry Bibby, Mihaela Chiriac, Nikola Dietrich, Martin Ebner, Ariane Müller, Henrik Olesen

Starship 19: Apokolypse of the praktikal moment - Cover Nora Schultz
  1. Whales Nora Schultz
  2. John Boskovich John Boskovich
  3. Anonymus Place Nong Shoahua
  4. Plants and Fruits Rosa Aiello
  5. Freedom and control of others (including myself) Cornelia Herfurtner
  6. Art Crust of Spiritual Oasis in 5 chapters Jack Smith
  7. Talking with Elizabeth Ravn Julia Jung
  8. Entropic Delusional Culture Eric D. Clark
  9. How to tell a story? Francesca Drechsler
  10. A Visit from the Left Robert M. Ochshorn
  11. Lies don’t fact. On voices and fake news Mihaela Chiriac
  12. Unwirklichkeit und Wirklichkeit von sozialem Sadismus Stephan Janitzky
  13. things are scattered Max Schmidtlein
  14. Inferius Sorbilis Tinctura Elijah Burgher
  15. Looking like a human cat Stephanie Fezer, Vera Tollmann
  16. María Galindo Maria Galindo
  17. Introducing the parliament of bodies Paul B. Preciado
  18. Spukken trippen 2 Lars Bang Larsen
  19. Pieces and Masterpieces Jakob Kolding
  20. Still Lifes Vera Palme
  21. Nullerjahre Tenzing Barshee
  22. No Dandy, No Fun Hans-Christian Dany, Valérie Knoll
  23. Triplets Mark von Schlegell
  24. Kontaktlos ist nicht der Standard Ulla Rossek
  25. The Mythology of Modern Law David Bussel
  26. Another Fish Story Jay Chung
  27. A biographical interview with Huang Rui Ariane Müller, Huang Rui, Bei Dao, Mang Ke, Gu Cheng
  28. dp how many times Karl Holmqvist
  29. Save digital tech Mercedes Bunz
  30. Two dark patches Haytham El-Wardany
  31. Reflecting in Sizes Yuki Kimura
  32. Amazon Worker Cage Simon Denny
  33. La Escuela Nueva Florian Zeyfang, Lisa Schmidt-Colinet, Alexander Schmoeger
  34. I hope you keep in mind you and I are left behind Michèle Graf, Selina Grüter
  35. da ich nichts weiter tue als mich in mir umzutun Elisa R. Linn
  36. Basketcase part 1 Gerry Bibby
  37. A conversation between Daniel Herleth and Samuel Jeffery Daniel Herleth, Samuel Jeffery
  38. Dear Starship Julian Göthe
  39. The Boulders Amelie von Wulffen
  40. Other people's clothes Carter Frasier
  41. Damn Forest Mark van Yetter
  42. Imprint 19 Starship
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