No. I immediately was inclined to say no. And in a way I guess I do. But I love invitations. I guess everyone does. And because I don't know whether or when I'll get an invitation again, I cannot say no to this one, at least not entirely. The Secession invited me to send in a video for their online presence. Like every other institution at the moment, the Secession is closed due to Coronavirus.

An invitation to contribute a video -- I don't do video. (Imagine me in a Jacuzzi with a cigar, fancy sun glasses, and a sheriff baseball hat. Same accent, or almost.) I'll only do this because there might not be any invitation for a really long time.

What carries you? my exhibition in Secession closed this February. After the opening I had time to re-listen to the audio guide, and I was quite surprised how many not's and no's I (not only) consciously included there.

So in this vein, here is another no.

I am against more content. I don't know about you, but I was/am exhausted for quite some time already anyway, and receiving more and more newsletters with links to extra content in times of this shutdown, for this shutdown is driving me nuts. How dare they/you? Now despite all new anxieties concerning our and/or other people's bodies (which we mostly keep forgetting while being busy with content online), death, already broken bones/hearts/hopes, unprecedented market crashes, and a quite real loss of normalcy, and most of us indoors/at home (though the reality has no doors), this could have been a time of relative calm new content-wise. A time to also be lazy, maybe even bored. A time of a little bit less stuff to swallow, of finally having some time to chew on all the information and read all the unread texts/pdf's, books and bookmarks, links and pictures of the last years. A time to maybe get a bit of a grip on what we didn't had time to get a grip on before. This time of cancellations could be a time for reflection, for using the distance we need to take to understand where we are, where we stand, what we want. A time of not only personal, but finally very real and official instability/uncertainty with no apparent outcome. Everything everywhere will be different after the Corona pandemic. And instead of being able to watch every arthouse film, virtually enter every exhibition, every theatre online, we could use this distance that we need to perform to reflect, and think about what's next. There might be a window here, if not doors or maybe just door handles all by themselves. If only because nobody knows yet what will happen next.

The only good thing about this crisis could be that many of us for now have a little bit more time in an unreal and more and more prolonged now. I should have bought this t-shirt with FUTURE written on it on sale online (70% off!) two, three months ago.

But no, more and more new and special content is piling up. Every institution, every magazine, every gallery, everywhere everyone puts more extra content online. And there are innumerable live-streams to follow. And it is too much. And it is wrong. And no fun.

So no, I refuse, I do not want to put more information online, I want to try to get a grip on what's already out there, or be lazy. So please stop piling up more extra consumable “we hope it will be entertaining to you during quarantine” content, like fucking pancakes, it's not. There's more than enough we didn't get a chance to think about already. More is only working to overwhelm, to occupy us even more, to maintain a status quo (or the idea of it as it disintegrates before us) which we so often already agreed on as wrong. More is just an ever exhausting nerve-wrecking trap. Enough of what we need to know is already out there. We need time to figure out what to do with it. Or simply enjoy that the analog world is closed for now. Or be ready, even if unprepared/scared/embarrassed and probably too pale, or at least aware if there's a window or some other kind of opening (the reality has no doors) to shape a next, or? A FUTURE? So no, and don't, just stop.

Text for No, 30.03.2020, a video contribution for #ArtistClips, Secession, 2020, Lisa Holzer