DIXIT: Zachàr Laskewicz

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 [on the potential dangers of cheat strippers... ]

“A well-learned lesson for the innocent among us designed to shape our prille encounters with the world of home and work. if someone brings home foryour personal enjoyment something like a cheap stripper it may not end up being exactly what you expected. Although it may come in attractive packaging you'd be best to check it out thoroughly before the performance can start. Cheap strippers can lead to unsatisfactory thrills and an unexpected kick in the ass as you fall down after having accidently slipped and touched the live wire. Don't economise on electronic tools just because you for some reason confused them with floozies. Electroction is dangerous and could cause real damage to you and any strippers still hanging around..."

- 8 July 2017
Zachar Laskewicz, Ghent

 

[on BREXIT: or how we evoked an ultranationalism fervour in order to personally enrich ourselves]

“There is no doubt that ultranationalism is being used as a smokescreen in what has become reductively referred to as the BREXIT referendum which essentially involves wrestling The United Kingdom out of the restrictions of the European Union, making it, in other words a non-contributing member. Ultranationalism is a political tool which found its earliest expression and most blatantly fictitious expression in enticing young soldiers to murder people for no good reason. It is in other words just a form of propaganda without apparent logic that attempts to make you feel united with your compatriots against the ‘other’; it sets a dangerous precedent in a toxic debate.  The Tories (a conveniently pleasant sounding reductive name for an increasingly more conservative Conservative Party), are essentially responsible for bringing about a referendum to decide whether or not the United Kingdom should continue participating as a member of the European Union.  That some of the Tories are using ultranationalism as a basis for the ‘leave campaign’ is both underhanded and desperate. Remember that this is a party whose members ultimately believe no matter what they may say to the contrary – that an elite group of landed gentry should remain as wealthy as possible. It is problematic precisely because it comes from a group of elitists who couldn’t really give a toss about Britain, England or the United Kingdom.  The actual agendas of the wealthy have a lot more to do with making sure they keep stockpiling as much money as possible than with anything as banal as nationalism.  There are those who have long been against the threat of further regulation enforced by a centralized Europe.  A ‘Brexit’ ensures that further regulation of banking be at least delayed and more likely streamlined to the advantage of the industry itself.  Worse still, there are those hoping to profit from the turmoil created by the economic calamity this would bring about.  In such an environment investment bankers would be free to continue whitewashing the dirty money of Russian politicians, and attention would be diverted from the funneling of enormous funds into personal accounts scattered across the various tax havens around the world.  It surprises me that despite the recent shocking revelations of the Panama papers, the propaganda system Britain is so good at disseminating is selling a such a nasty fiction to so many fools, and more embarrassing still that so many of them seem to be believing it.”

Zachar Laskewicz
7 June 2016, Ghent

[on black pride and coersive questioning]

 “I hear people talking every now and again about the obligation every black artist today has to define his or her work by referring it specifically to the ancient and turbulent  years of ‘black’ history and the art created as a result of their suffering and triumphs.  Imagine me being expected by others to create works that had validity if only because they related to a history of art produced specifically by persecuted white people? Worse still, what if I was expected to glorify the self-perpetuating stigma of power and persecution which originated in Europe and was spread around the world by colonialism.  It was ugly, brutal, killed thousands of down-trodden people (including but not only consisting of black people), but it did produce beautiful art which is idolized today in European museums. I suppose, however, I’m ultimately relieved not to be stigmatized into a set of artistic expectations as my work is very much about questioning cultural institutions like art and music and how they spread meaning in society. It covertly questions many things people accept unquestionably.”

- Zachar Laskewicz, 8 November 2015, Ghent (Belgium)

[on sensitivity to criticism and bad reviews]

“I don’t like to write bad reviews just as I don’t tend to like being criticized negatively for work I know is misunderstood. You have to forgive them for their inability to perceive the possibility of another’s opinion being valid much less worthwhile, right? Well take heart! Because of the quality of what is coming out of Hollywood these days – I’ve seen some truly atrocious trash I’ve felt obliged to rubbish in the few reviews I have written. For all those victims of criticism, just in case it wasn’t painfully clear to you already (and it wasn’t to me) it’s SO much easier to write a bad review than it is a good one; i.e. to say someone’s work is simply pretentious ,unwatchable, unreadable or unviewable piffle just because you didn’t like it by spicing it up with a few trendy academic references and a sleight of hand with your placement of words is a hell of a lot easier to achieve than the opposite: searching for, finding and commenting positively upon those things in any given work of art in order to appreciate the reasons for the amount of effort that goes in to its production. My bad reviews may have needed to be written, but at the same time they rolled off the press like a knife off butter in a desert and showed me the cowardice and the ultimate laziness of the critic who continuously creates castratingly painful reviews – so whatever you do, don’t be like me and spend your life being oversensitive to criticism.”

- Zachar Laskewicz,
2 November 2015, Ghent.

 

[on the precarious nature of existence]

"UNDERNEATH the chandelier
he stood there, bravely in good cheer
A pity then that when it fell
the sinner he went straight to hell !
You see, he'd hung the heavy thing;...
with only sticky tape and string..."

- Zachar Laskewicz
7 June 2015 (Ghent).

 

[on the personal nature of creativity]

"I used to set myself complex goals, imagining that my work as a creative artist had an intellectual foundation and was in fact a type of research external to myself. In retrospect, everything I've done, no matter how detached it itnitially may have seemed to be, has ultimately always revealed itself to be a running commentary on my own struggle with existence, the world and my place in it."

- Zachar Laskewicz
14 January 2015 (Ghent).

 

[word-play on the ludicrous adoption of gender which no longer performs a grammatical function in the English language]

"My sweet little sister was on a boat which sank recently killing its passengers; luckily for us she was able to return to the surface and thank god we were able to retrieve her; I mean, although it's sad about my little sister and everything, at least we didn't lose the boat . . ."

- Zachar Laskewicz
18 June 2014 (Ghent).

 

 

[on the raw truth of my first name and some ironic travesties it's evoked]

"At last I'm going to reveal all there is to know about my first name. I was actually Christened in the Russian Orthodox Church as Zachar as a favour to my fervently religious grandmother. Seeing I was travelling to Russia I think she saw it as her chance to get another one of my generation into the fold. This happened in 1991 if I remember correctly and it was a happy coincidence seeing I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the name I felt branded by. For the first year of my life I was actually called simply Alexander Leonid Laskewicz; the idea was to call me Sasha according to the Russian tradition. By some quirk of fate my parents decided that Zackery was an appropriate and trendy variation on this and added it to my birth certificate. You hear all sorts of variations of this particular misspelling they used, but in the mid-seventies it was a living nightmare and I was teased mercilessly for the crime of having not only an unusual surname but at that time extremely uncommon first name. It turns out that ‘zak’ in Dutch is firstly an insult and secondly a direct reference to the testicles, so the Russian name Zachàr [Cyrillic: Захар] became a convenient change to my birth certificate and passport. I’ve since found out that Zachar in Hebrew refers to stud-like masculinity; in Arabic it literally means penis. I made the embarrassing discovering that in Indonesian ‘Zakar’ also refers to the male genetalia after introducing myself as such (seeing the Russian ‘x’ sound is not one shared with Malay) to repressed giggles while living in Bali. In Belgium, I’m often referred to as Zachartje by people who know me well. The funniest travesty on this particular diminutive form was from my friend the pharmacist Luc in Sint-Niklaas: he observed that ‘zakhaartje’ literally refers to a testicle hair! The nicest variation was a warm felt ‘zacht-hartje’ which translates to ‘kind-hearted’ invented by another friend in Boom called Wim."

- Zachar Laskewicz
10 May 2014
Ghent (Belgium)

 

[an extremely cynical insight into human relationships and other fictions which harbour various forms of violence...]
 
"The complex web of socially accepted rules based on dubious and outdated concepts of human nature and which ultimately repress personal emotional and sexual development are often applied by two (or more) individuals to create the illusion - whether towards the world or one another - of a cohesive and harmonic unit. The unfortunate truth is that whereas people inevitably and often quickly change and develop with time, the conventions themselves that result in relationships are far less malleable and the resulting conflict between maintaining the illusion of emotional and sexual stasis results in a forum for inflicting enormous emotional and sometimes physical pain. When this elaborate fiction woven into the structure of society receives legislative and sometimes religious credence celebrated in complex ceremonies known as 'weddings', the restrictions and repressions are even more binding and as the individuals involved in them battle to maintain an illusion that is not only emotional but political and even divinely dignified, far worse forms of violence often result, including incest and even murder. Although suicide is often used as an excuse to escape the restrictions of such socially imposed and entirely questionable forms of human interaction, because it's only really successful when the individual actually succeeds in performing his or her task, the attempt itself is used as a tool to further bind the other party to participate in a fiction he or she may no longer believe in. The ironic thing is that the children that are often used as the reasons for creating these artificial social constructions are not only the ultimate victims, but also go on to further perpetuate this illusion, believing that they will do a better job than their parents did. And so the painstaking cycle continues generation after generation..."

- Zachar Laskewicz
13 February 2014, Ghent

 

[on the choices we make to place ourselves as the result of a history which is, in fact, entirely meaningless]

"Although my unusual name reflects a largely Eastern European family history, it actually hasn't influenced the person I have become as much as one may think. The complex process of resculpting my sense of self into the into the person I am today was only possible in Belgium, a busy country in conflict with itself that, fortunately, respects creative artists . Recent researh through my film and music work has helped me realise that the sociocultural conventions one feels comforted or trapped by are in fact artificial and can be unlearned and replaced by acquiring knowledge or exploring new cultures. My work in all its apects questions the complex linguistic, social and cultural ways of behaving or experiencing the world that unite people as much as they make each individual unique. As a creative artist I've felt necessited to use this aspect of my work to help make sense of the absurdity which surrounds me..."

- Zachar Laskewicz
22 December 2013
Ghent (Belgium)

 

[on questioning sociopolitical over-coddling]

"BOODSCHAP VAN TWIJFELACHTIG NUT ('public announcement of dubious significance'): Sometime last week saw the umpteenth 'klantendag' in Flanders, an event which could only be thought up for a community by a government way up its own ass to realise that no one's listening or needs being taught such senseless lessons. This Flemish 'day devoted to the client' is an instruction of sorts to Belgian 'middenstanders' [owners of small businesses in this country; the people who truly do, ironically, receive the least amount of financial support from the government and have to work incredibly hard to stay afloat]. On this day which occurs yearly, a finger is raised and a lesson is taught to direct the attention of these hard-working crowd to the people they so obviously need to pay attention to anyway. So how do small businesses actually respond to this call for action? They give you a free pencil but otherwise treat you with the same amount of disdain as they would on any other day. No wonder; as if they have time to do anything else; the whole concept's about as stupid as being reminded that you need to go to the bakers not just for something as inane as, well, bread; no, you need to get up early to improve your social skills, get useful advice on how to save your marriage and be kept up to date on the health of your great-aunt's sick cat. You know you're being over legislated and pondered to when you've got government officials inventing words like 'sportelen' to describe new ways to get healthy. Someone must think that people are so dumb that they need to be reminded that in order to stop sleeping you need to wake up, therefore I find such forms of sociopolitical over-coddling not only laughable, but condescending towards the public it's aimed at (and ultimately a waste of public money."

- Zachar Laskewicz
2 October 2013, Ghent

 

 

[on a secret society...]

"As a child, I discovered that the human race as I understood it then was divided into two types of people. Firstly there were those that thought anything written by Tolkein (specifically those relating to a singular ring and the group of malformed hobgoblins who spend more than 3000 pages trying to get rid of it), were sacrosanct, unquestionable & practically sacred pieces of writing that were deserving of an enormous amount of attention and multiple rereadings to find new ways to apply that set of meanings to their own lives. And then there was the second group, clandestine and hidden; a secret society lost and dangerous in an incredibly large majority. Members of this clandestine group found the whole venture a boring, pretentious and meaningless load of hogwash written by some Oxford academic and Sanskritist who evidently needed to find an expression for his fantasies about having big feet (and all you can guess that entailed) as well as the gall to misapply the mythology of great works of ancient oriental literature to medieval occidental culture. I suppose it isn't hard to guess which of those two groups I belonged to..."

- Zachar Laskewicz
2 June 2013 (Ghent).

 

[on physical idealism...]

"Symmetry is for the individual an ideal (and for the plastic surgeon a living) . . ."

- Zachar Laskewicz
6 May 2013 (Ghent).

 

[on shocking confessions and debilitating truths...]

"I must be the only person in the world who is not only glad Steve Jobs is dead, but who wished he had died much earlier (or been excised at or before birth). The creation of the Smartphone as such has decimated the Pocket PC and I find myself grappling against being forced to adopt technology which, purely thanks to a purile invention based on dragging fingertips across a tiny screen, other people seem to find mind-numbingly convenient (but which irritate me to no end). I still use my stylus, Pocket PC technology, Bluetooth keyboard and headphones, but for how long will this be possible? Oh, woe the day you realise you've become old-fashioned..."

- Zachar Laskewicz
22 April 2013 (Ghent).

 

[on partially quoting Shakespeare]

"Although something may be rotten in the state of Denmark, thank almighty fuck things are improving for me in Belgium!"

- Zachar Laskewicz
8 April 2013 (Ghent).

 

[on the comic nature of tragedy]

"When my life leads me into a series of events so dreadful that their tragedy can't help becoming comic, I'm left with the feeling that although I can't find any way to implicate myself, that I'm still ultimately responsible for its over-theatrical drama."

- Zachar Laskewicz
5 December 2012 (Ghent).

 

 

 

[on the maternal habit of misquoting their sons]

"During our brief and mostly joyful trip to Umbria with my mother in September this year, she wonderfully misquoted me on my anecdote referring to the needlessness of searching for a play to be happy 'cause you can basically be miserable anywhere you want. She was convinced that I'd said, 'why look for a place to be happy when you can be miserable at home' which I thought was hilarious. I've rewritten it specially for her: 'why travel abroad when you can be miserable at home?'"

- Zachar Laskewicz
1 October 2012 (Ghent).

 

[on verbal confusion]

"Sometimes it can be quite absurd to switch a noun with its correlating verb;
e.g. In order to shoot you COCK your GUN; but GUN your COCK and spoil the fun!"

- Zachar Laskewicz
22 June 2012 (Ghent).

 

 

[on life's regretful lessons]

"Experience is the term we use to gloss over that awful collection of embarrassing blunders and shameful mistakes most of us refuse to admit actually happened."

- Zachar Laskewicz
29 May 2012 (Ghent).

 

 

 

[on the linguistics of one's relationship with 'homehood']

"In the Malay language group, it's interesting to note that they have a verb - pulang - which specifically refers to the act of going home, meaning conversely that you are at that moment not in the process of going anwhere else. The Germans, in comparison, are well known for relating themselves in a spiritual or emotional rather than a deictical way to this particular social space. There is no adequate translation in English for the German term 'heimat' which refers to the very particular relationship they maintain with their sense of 'homehood'. Although we may have no exact way of translating this very Germanic notion which became popular during the Romantic era and was idealized by the Nazis, I don't think I'll ever be able to adopt this term from a German perspective, even if I do more or less understand what the word is referring to. Although it may have became a popular and well-understood concept called forlornly by poets and painters alike who were distanced from the fatherland, I'm always left with the following glaring question: who in god's name would actually want to back there?"

- Zachar Laskewicz
13 April 2012 (Ghent)

 

 

[on the geographical limitations of happiness...]

"Who needs to find a special place to be happy when you can be miserable just about anywhere!"

- Zachar Laskewicz
Friday 13 April 2012 (Ghent).

 

[on the trouble with tweeting]

“Why don’t I tweet? Being a naturally honest person, I fear I'd find it a trifle annoying having to constantly lie. If it's REALLY supposed to be about keeping the world informed of what exactly one is getting up to at any given moment, I think a large percentage of male tweeters both at home and at work lie about what holds them at their screen, feigning dynamic activity other than wanking.”

- Zachar Laskewicz
6 April 2012 (Ghent).

 

[A quip on being miserable as said in Dutch with a free translation into English]

 “Het heeft lang geduurd voordat ik gerealiseerd heb dat ik in om het even welk land ongelukkig kan zijn. . . België is waarschijnlijk de meest geschikte plaats voor mijn miserie.”

translation :

“It took years of exploration around the world to discover that I could actually be miserable anywhere . . . I probably chose Belgium because I felt that it in some ways was most deserving of my misery.”

- Zachar Laskewicz
5 April 2012, translation 12 April 2012 (Ghent).

 

[on the metaphoric nature of blooming]

“A flower is a deeply human metaphor for beauty; the pleasure it gives us is inevitably tied to our knowledge that it will so soon lose its petals and fade into decay. . . Deep down our conception of beauty depends on the knowledge that the irrevocable forces of time bring ageing and death to not only the desired object, but to each and every one of us...”

- Zachar Laskewicz
4 April 2012 (Ghent)

 

 

[a caption for your W.C. (or what your toilet would tell you if it could talk)]

"I TRULY DESPISE YOU! But for what it's worth, if I kept you in a small dark room and fed you shit all day, you'd probably hate me too..."

- Zachar Laskewicz
8 March 2012 (Ghent).

 

[on fatherhood and indifference]

"Have you ever known someone so indifferent to your bestwill that even if they saw someone attempt to ride you down while you're trying to cross the street, they'd drive on by so as to avoid the risk of damage to their sports car? I do and he is my father."

- Zachar Laskewicz
6 March 2012 (Ghent).

 

[on postmortem communication]

"I often find that people who claim to be able to speak to my friends and family postmortem should really improve their communicative skills with me before I die."

- Zachar Laskewicz
4 February 2012 (Ghent).

 

[on awkward parenting]

"Some people complain about awkward parents who attempt to provide their lives with meaning purely through their children. Mine, however, are welcome to this quest because - who knows - if they're successful at finding some meaning there maybe they'll fill me in on what continues to completely elude me."

- Zachar Laskewicz
15 January 2012 (Ghent).

 

[on being the butt of all jokes]

"Obscene book title of the day: 'Why I Went Ass over Tit' by Guy Huntingbum."

- Zachar Laskewicz, 5 November 2011, (Ghent)

 

[on bullies]

"It's a truly sobering moment when you realise that the peers who made your life so unbearable and continue to influence the way you see yourself, were not only uninfluenced by your suffering, but have, in fact, forgotten you entirely."

- Zachar Laskewicz, 4 August 2011, (Ghent)

 

[on the magic lense of understanding]

"I am as frenetically creative as I am vulnerable if only because I reveal myself so personally through my art. In retrospect, I've always applied my creativity to sculpt a sort of lense through which I can gaze at the world in an attempt to understand it better. The bitter pill of experience has taught me that this sword cuts on both edges; although on the one hand I long for people to return my gaze, I always fear that the focus-providing glass on my side will not produce the desired effect in reverse. All the same, I've realised that those who find what they see unusual would probably understand me better if they realised they were looking in the wrong end of a telescope!"

- Laskewicz, 4 August 2011 (Ghent)

 

[on life passing you by]

"You know your best years have passed you by when you realise the major thing you achieved in the last 12 months was getting a year older. . ."

- Laskewicz, 29 July 2011, Ghent.

 

[or alternatively]

"Why would I need to move in with someone to found a relationship based on lies when I'm perfectly good at self-deception without anyone else's interference..."

- Laskewicz, 28 July 2011 Ghent

 

[a variation on my attitude to another relationship]

"Why would I consider a new relationship? I really don't need to live with someone who'd make my life a misery. I'm perfectly capable of fucking up my own life."

- Laskewicz, 28/7/2011 Ghent

 

[the shorter arrow]

"T'is love's prick to ease requited ill, yet still an arrow can point (and not kill)."

- Laskewicz, 27 July 2011 Ghent (Belgium)

 

[on the prospect of another relationship]

"Why would I want to live with someone who'd fuck me around and make my life a misery? I'm perfectly good at doing that on my own."

- Laskewicz, 26 July 2011 (Ghent)

 

[on the arrow and the index]

"An arrow, used for love's lament,
redeems an unrequieted ill;
Yet it can be a useful tool
when used to point
and not to kill . . ."

- Zachar Laskewicz, 22 July 2011 (Ghent)

 

[on nostalgia and other dangerous lies]

"Of the forms of human fiction, perhaps nostalgia is the most dangerous of all because there are many people who believe that the comforting lies it tells are really true. . ."

- Zachar Laskewicz, 20 May 2011 (Ghent)

 

[on purchasing angry gym equipment]

"Of course you shouldn't waste sixty dollars on a Cross-Trainer no matter how nice the merchandise may look on the webpage. Stick to friendly ones but be warned: the trainer I bought got more than just cross after I told him my intentions. He punched me and left forthwith. Now that was an awkward blunder!"

- Zachar Laskewicz, 6 April 2011 (Ghent)

 

[on the ultimate purpose of self-deification]

"You'll find that erecting temples for the purpose of self-deification while you're younger is not an entirely wasted endeavour; at least then on reaching old age you'll have something that will stay erect!"

- Zachar Laskewicz, 1 April 2011 (Ghent)

 

[on the semiotics of Laskewicz: the ultimate reflexive sign]

"Confronted with my artworks overflowing with semiotic content I've come to accept that the tendency to categorise it with a single set of meanings is a convenient and understandable way to make sense of my art. I feel, however, that the dynamic process between an individual and his or her world in its creation is sometimes lost or even forgotten. With the advantages of interactive multimedia technology and the internet, I hope that I'll be able to help people understand how ideas are stimulated into core concepts which become the inspirational source for many different kinds of artistic 'product''. In this introduction, I'd like to point out the fact that this 'bracketting off' (or framing) of artistic experience and the very way we classify and make sense of it has become the primary palette I use; language and music are the instigating metaphors but also their primary form of expression. The necessity I feel to direct the audience's attention to the absurdity of a frame is something I share with an accomplished comedian. It is true that when I point at the frames of my art I do so with a smile; but if it may at times seem wryly ironic or downright funny, the absurdity hides always the ultimate fear facing every individual; that when the show is over, when the music stops or when I become lost for words, it is a very frightened silence that remains. It's a primal fear we all share and that I've called Stage-Fright.* To conclude, I've come to realise that when my work does succeed in communicating more than frustration; when it makes you question something or it makes you feel an emotion (such as joy or dread), it does so in spite of and not because of its deliberate semiotic self-insulation. Achieving this is for me the ultimate sense of personal success as a creative artist."

- Zachar Laskewicz, 27 March 2010 (Ghent)

 

[on maternal ties]

"Did you have one of those mothers who you're embarrassed to bring your friends home to because you were worried that she may try to chat them up or belittle you? In this regard, I was lucky. I didn't have any friends..."

- Zachar Laskewicz, 10 March 2010 (Ghent)

 

[on primordial relationships]

"The most important relationship men develop outside the womb is the relationship they have with their language."

- Zachar Laskewicz, 24 February 2010 (Ghent)

 

[on my tombstone]

"Of Zachàr, what more can be said?
There was just one,
and now he's dead . . . "

- Laskewicz, 23 January, Ghent.

 

[on paternal ties]

"My father taught me two things. The first one was the single windsor. The second the double windsor. Although this may seem little, it's a practical application I use almost every day."

- Laskewicz, 20 January 2010, Ghent.

 

[on people who sieze the day but deny yesterday]

"People who say the past means nothing to them and that they only live for the present moment are either deluded fools or fatuously prentious."

- Zachàr Laskewicz
8 December 2009 (Ghent).

 

[on caring about what people think]

"Being young and naive, we aspire to please others by finding out a lot about many things and mastering contrasting crafts. In becoming older and more cynical we realise that the doors are opened for people specialised in a single field. The path is only complete, however, after we've become old and wise, and realise that we shouldn't really care about what people think."

- Laskewicz, 17 January 2008 (Ghent) [last updated 3 March 2010[

 

[on losing loved ones and a sense of perspective]

"Having to cope with close family and friends dieing has proved bearable although I've observed the following : as the circle of friends diminishes with whom you share some kind of history, the less you'll be able to double-check on how things happened.  An isolated person who only has his or her own memories to make sense of the past is doomed to warp it out of all proportion.  I dedicate this with love to my dear brother with whom I’ll no longer be able to share anything with. . ."

- Laskewicz November 16 2009, Ghent [Belgium]

 

[on caring about what people think]

"Being young and naive, one aspires to please others by finding out a lot about many things and mastering contrasting crafts. In becoming older and cynical one realises that people don't care much for those who know a lot about many things or those who have mastered only one craft. The path is only complete, however, after one has become old and wise, realising that they shouldn't really care about what people think."

- Laskewicz, 17 January 2008 (Ghent)

 

[on creativity]

"Creativity is a joyous activity ; it gives me pleasure and provides me with satisfaction . The creative products, whichever form they may take, are a bonus.  I used to be confused about the importance that others appreciate my creations , but I now know that although appreciation and criticism are very important aspects of the creative process, particularly in our society, and are personally wrapped up with complex issues such as self-image and low self-esteem, I know that while I’m creating something a transcendent process of sorts is taking place – I know the work will provide me with an increase in sensual and factual knowledge.  ..."

- Laskewicz, 27 December 2008 (Ghent)

 

[on appreciation]

"In the end, if you can laugh at your own jokes then at least you can't complain about nobody finding you amusing..."

- Laskewicz, 11 May 2008 (Ghent)

 

[on the unholy alchemy of history]

“There is a monster lurking in everyone's dim shadows… When it speaks to you – don't listen to it, whatever you do! It is lieing. The deceptive thing about this monster is that the further away you get from it, the more dangerous it becomes; every step further you take, its voice doesn't seem to dim but ever louder become its cries! This evil monster's name is the Past and History is the unholy alchemy of its resurrection…”

- Laskewicz, 9 March 2008 (Ghent)

 

[on reality and/or existence]

"Is it an objective lesson in coherence or an incoherent object lesson? "

- Laskewicz, 4 March 2008 (Ghent)

 

[still more on sperm]

"I've taken too many chances in a given day for to fish in; thus I've never needed nocturnal emission... "

- Laskewicz, 2 February 2008 (Ghent)

 

[on this spinning cycle]

"Rhythmically the shifting cycle vibrated forth mechanically; set in motion, he could not stop it and he felt like he wasn't in control. It was a truly awful feeling, and although it wasn't as if any of the totally complacent looking people around him were speaking to or (worse still) touching him, still if he closed he eyes he could feel the vibrations jar him to his very bones. Even worse were the noises it was making; it was klanking away atonally in a key which entirely displeased him. Everyone else stuck in the small room seemed entirely nonchalent as to the primal drama that was taking place right in front of his eyes. And on top of all that it kept getting faster and faster. 'Will this awful spinning never end?' is the thought that kept recurring - he felt truly glad that his experience of music was not like this as the spin cycle came to a sudden but violent close and he considered moving his ragged (but at last clean) clothing to the dryer..."

- Laskewicz, 3 January 2008 (Ghent)

 

[more on sperm]

"From any erection lacking protection
Positive sperm swimming in the wrong canal
(but the right direction)
You won't conceive;
Instead we'll speak
of deconception..."

- Laskewicz 1 January 2008 (Sint-Niklaas)

 

[on insanity and indifference]

"A far worse danger than your insanity or our willingness to suffer your delusions, my friend, is the magnitude of the indifferent complicity towards the psychotic lunacy of our co-existence..."

- Laskewicz, 22 December 2007 (Ghent)

 

[updated riddle for Christmas 2007]

Q: What is transmitted during sexual intercourse, can cause enormous suffering and despite the continuous and expensive research attempting to find a cure to it, will end up killing you?

A: Life, of course!

- Laskewicz, 20 December 2007 (Ghent)

 

[on logic]

"There is no doubt, my friend, that zero is a number - nothing, therefore, must be a type of something. Following this logic, then, nowhere must be a place and nonsense a type of sense that makes arbitrary any given reason, n'est-ce pas?"

- Laskewicz 19 December 2007 (Ghent)

 

[on ageing]

“In an Age of Irony, the Irony of Age: the realisation that the longing for rest during youth was just a practice for the inability to act as we age.”

- Laskewicz, 1 November 2007 (Ghent)

 

[on unprotected sex]

"Sperm up the wrong canal in the right direction could lead to HIV infection!"

- Laskewicz, 1 July 2007 (Ghent)

 

[on being kinky]

"If repression is the source of all fetishes, then surely clothing is sin qua non the most ancient source of such sexual variation in existence, seeing that it was the first thing that seperated us from animals and helped, therefore, to turn sex into far more than just a reproductive act. In wearing clothes (apart from the obvious function of keeping ourselves warm) we are also telling the world that there is something 'not' to see too, and our clothing tells a great deal about the sort of things we're hiding."

- Laskewicz, 10 October 2006 (Sint-Niklaas)

 

[another uncomfortable metaphor]

"The puppet springs on its strings so highly strung, it's tangled tied; trapped thus it cries, sighs then dies..."

- Laskewicz, 8 October 2006 (Sint-Niklaas)

 

[a penetrating thought]

"Brave knight,
Fear not
My idle bidding;
Come ride
Your steed
On a path
Well-ridden,
You'll find
A dark Tunnel
That may be
Well-hidden -
But you'll
Discover there
My secrets
Forbidden."

- Laskewicz, 7 October 2006

 

[on deception]

"Why are we all so trapped within
Those wicked fictions that we spin?"

- Laskewicz, 1 October 2006 (Sint-Niklaas)

 

[on convincing other's of the truth of your own deception]

"At first I thought that pigs might fly
Before you'd eat of my sky's pie;
But when pigs flew
I saw you with them
Flying...
Then I saw the reason why
You must've known of my pie's lie;
I saw you'd seen it
As it soared
The sky in."

- Laskewicz, 15 September 2006 (Sint-Niklaas)

 

[on life]

"Life IS a sexually-transmitted disease, although unlike most STDs, at least you know you'll end up dying from Life."

- Laskewicz, 1 September 2006 (Sint-Niklaas)

 

[on the eternal question of the chicken or the egg]

"Neither the Chicken nor the Egg came first;
in fact they both didn't come -
It was only the Cock who ended up having any fun!"

- Laskewicz, 22 June 2006 (Sint-Niklaas)

[a word-play on nothing & anything]

"So, then, is it really true
That as a gift, she also brought NOTHING for you?
Yes! Who needs that awful stuff!?
Of NOTHING I already have enough!
You know, I've ended up putting mine
With the ANYTHING she didn't bring last time!"

- Laskewicz, 21 June 2006

 

[on silence]

“Silence is not my friend; he’s my enemy. I fill my environment with sound to keep him away. I despise him so because I know that when he finally appears at my doorstep, I sure won’t be hearing anything else but the deafening sound of his absence.”

- Laskewicz, 1 June 2006 (Sint-Niklaas)

 

[on arrogance and vulnerability]

"You shouldn't even stand on a tower you've built from mud and dry sticks, let alone preach from it!"

- Laskewicz, 23 April 2006 (Sint-Niklaas)

 

[on the nature of existence]

"Life is a is a ridiculous cabaret really; it's embarrassing if you forget the words of your song while you're singing and you can't stop the performance while it's happening, but at least you can try to have a good time during the show."

- Laskewicz, 2 April 2006 (Sint-Niklaas)

 

[on eccentricity]

"If you are eccentric on purpose you're the eternal comic and people generally laugh with you, whereas if you're eccentric by chance you're the eternal fool and they often laugh at you. If, however, no matter how hard you try, you can't help being eccentric, then they tend to ignore, miscomprehend and sometimes even despise you..."

- Laskewicz [an unwilling eccentric], 1 April 2006 (Sint-Niklaas)

 

[on gender]

"There should actually be 3 facilities available for public use ; one for ladies, one for gentlemen and finally one for those who aren't quite sure..."

- Laskewicz, 1 January 2006

 

 

[on communication and the performance text]

"The sign is brought to life by human performance: we weave it so intricately into our understanding of experience that we can sometimes only feel its presence. Through my work as composer and also as theoretician I am attempting to get closer to that elusive 'sign' by exploring its application in cultural systems. I want to demonstrate that we dynamically create and recreate the reality around us by performing it, and that this 'performance' should become a given application in contemporary theory."

- Laskewicz, 1 March 1998 (Brussels)