Rockerilla 19 : December 1981
S.P.K. Talks...
Maurizio Bianchi: With which projects you started your
activities as "operators of S.P.K. system"?
S.P.K.: S.P.K. was created in 1978 as an experimental duo,
but the first product was the EP "No More / Contakt /
Germanik" in april 1979, followed a month later by the EP
"Factory / Retard / Slogun". Those involver were Ems
Aks (still alive), Ne / H / iL (deceased), Danny Rumour and David
Virgin (members of a poor australian band), Karmel E-Clastic (position
unknown).
M.B.: Some more informations about your past, present
and future activity.
S.P.K.: In June 1979 the group was discontinued to
relocate in Europe. In May 1980 the single "Factory / Slogun"
was issued by Industrial records. The group was composed by
Operator, Tone Generator, Clean and Wilkins. In March 1981 "I.O.U."
was issued. In May the group ended once more. Some of the members
went back to Australia to record the second LP titled "Leichenschrei"
with new members. We are now starting to shoot S.P.K. first
movie, using a lot of subliminal (anatomical...) material in a
way to confuse the organisation and to decode the activities in
the unconscious. It's not only important to affect the conscience
but also (and especially) the unconsciousness.
M.B.: What about your main influences ?
S.P.K.: This has always been a difficult question for us.
Anyway we think our music is different from the one produced by
previous composers. But we have to admit that we were probably
influenced by the music we had listened to; in the same moment we
are aware that we are really trying to do something completely
new. Therefore the music wa assimilated was probably a bad
influence. We are not trying to be like them. In Australia we
listened to Neu!, Faust, the first Kraftwerk, Can, Metal Urbain,
Martin Davorin Jagodic. We were rather influenced by all the
other media/literature: interesting authors like Joyce, Kafka,
Artaud, Deleuze, Ballard, Borges, De Sade, Canetti, and the
movies Jodorowsky, Godard, Marat/Sade (Weiss), Herzog, Bunuel,
Pasolini, Fellini, Tarkovsky.
M.B.: Are the artist like you free to express
themselves in Australia ?
S.P.K.: No, it's very hard for us in Australia, and this
is for two reasons : 1) simply because there are not many people
interested in this kind of work, so that we could economically
survive; 2) there is an evident amount of apathy and pure
corruption, normality, resistance to changes, relaxing
entertainment as the only function of culture (and life),
missionary-heterosexual sexuality, sun and fun. There is also an
exagerated respect for America (see West Coast) so that
Australian products are considered to be valid only when they
represent the direct copies of the US originals. So our
activities are not directly restricted, but we are actually
completely ignored ! For example the only place where we have
absolutely no air-play at radio stations is right here in
Australia.
Anything "experimental" is considered "pseudo-artistic"
because Australian respect solely the lowest common-denominator
of the boring mass culture.
M.B.: What kind of relationship do you have with people
coming at your concerts ?
S.P.K.: We want our public to take part in the event, thus
creating something beyond our "sound". We try to avoid
imposing any specific mood which we consider equally fascist.
What we are doing is to supply a certain kind of depth (rather
than a linear organisation) of the sound material with a high-pitched
dynamic intensity so that the listener is unable to reorganize
the information in a normal, acceptable or usual condition. We
try to inspire people to do something different with themselves,
since it is very difficult to duplicate our material. We don't
need the boring "copyright".
M.B.: You assert you do not exist as human entities. Do
you consider yourselves normal persons ? And why ?
S.P.K.: I'm disgusted and tired. But it doesn't make me
feel bad. I feel I'm not able to give a representation,
physically, emotionally, behaviourly, since people expect me to
give a representation. I feel as if there is something wrong or
exhausted in me. All of this "impotential" gives rise
to anxiety. The bourgeois world always had his myths in the
progressive development, in the centralized control, in
communication.
In the mental sphere the myths of personal exploitation, of
growth, of centralized ego, and of mind's dissemination arrange
these myths. But they are only fiction, the efficient means of
the standardizing repression. Changes does not happen in an
evolutive sense of the development from a lower to a better state.
It happens when an alteration breaks into a sequence, when a
convulsion dismembers a static condition.
M.B.: Does your music express passion or is it a safety-valve
of your inner anxieties ?
S.P.K.: For sure it is not an expression of our feelings.
At the same time it's much more than just a safety-valve of our
inner anxieties; we are not only concerned with ourselves. We are
not pretending to be "sensitive artists". We are more
interested in inner anxiety than those who are tormented on the
ground of physical, mental or behaviour abnormality. And we
juxtapose all this with real and pathetic nausea, with structured
pornography, entertainment, bio-chemical/nuclear tools, prisons,
tortures, mental instructions and treatments, and so on. But we
also want to show the positive creative sensibilities of these
experiences and the skill required to win on them.
M.B.: The photos you are distributing always feature
horrifying, desolate and coldly submitted images; please explain
why.
S.P.K.: Because we want to show the dark side of history.
The side always hidden by those who have the power. It has always
been there. All the rest is nothing but fake and looking to all
this sparkling beauty can be boring.
We need the "turpitude", not to be recovered as public
bodies or to obtain the status related to the "marvellous".
All this should be destroyed as much as it has been hidden. We
want it to be idolized and considered as something particularly
interesting. We could also learn something out of this.
M.B.: How do you consider the current "electro-wave"
? Do you feel you are part of it ?
S.P.K.: The main feature of "electro-wave" is
that everybody is trying to be different from anyone else. So
it's difficult to know who is actually in it. We are not even
sure that it exists. We never really felt we belong to something;
we are not in contact with many people. I think "electro-wave"
has been affected by the current slow technological development,
but the attitude towards alternative experimentations is always
healthful.
M.B.: What do you think about the contemporary society
?
S.P.K.: Tomorrow, I would like to talk a lot. Today, I say
with Anglo-Saxon sophistication: "This world and everything
in it suffers from a lack of immagination. It's frustrating. And
if all this doesn't change, the sooner is destroyed the better it
is.
