Peter Sloterdijk: You Must Change Your Life: On Anthropotechnics (2009/2012)

“In his major investigation into the nature of humans, Peter Sloterdijk presents a critique of myth – the myth of the return of religion. For it is not religion that is returning; rather, there is something else quite profound that is taking on increasing significance in the present: the human as a practising, training being, one that creates itself through exercises and thereby transcends itself. Rainer Maria Rilke formulated the drive towards such self-training in the early twentieth century in the imperative ‘You must change your life’.

In making his case for the expansion of the practice zone for individuals and for society as a whole, Sloterdijk develops a fundamental and fundamentally new anthropology. The core of his science of the human being is an insight into the self-formation of all things human. The activity of both individuals and collectives constantly comes back to affect them: work affects the worker, communication the communicator, feelings the feeler.

It is those humans who engage expressly in practice that embody this mode of existence most clearly: farmers, workers, warriors, writers, yogis, rhetoricians, musicians or models. By examining their training plans and peak performances, this book offers a panorama of exercises that are necessary to be, and remain, a human being.”

First published in German as Du mußt dein Leben ändern, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 2009.

Translated by Wieland Hoban
Publisher Polity Press, 2012
ISBN 0745649211, 9780745649214
500 pages

review (Keith Ansell-Pearson, LA Review of Books)
review (Michael Hübl, Metropolis M)
commentary (Bruce Sterling, Wired)
commentary (Sanne van der Hout)

Publisher

PDF

Robert Filliou, et al.: Teaching and Learning as Performing Arts / Lehren und Lernen als Auffuehrungskuenste (1970–) [EN/DE, FR]

“Off and on 3 years of work and now VERLAG GEBR. KOENIG, KOELN – NEW YORK publishes the first draft of TEACHING AND LEARNING AS PERFORMING ARTS by ROBERT FILLIOU and the READER if he wishes, with the participation of JOHN CAGE, BENJAMIN PATTERSON, GEORGE BRECHT, ALLEN KAPROW, MARCELLE, VERA and BJOESSI and KARL ROT, DOROTHY IANNONE, DITER ROT, JOSEPH BEUYS. It is a Multi – book. The space provided for the reader’s use is nearly the same as the author’s own” (from cover)

Publisher Verlag Gebr. König, Cologne/New York, 1970
Editor Kasper König
236 pages
via Charles Turner

Commentary: Hannah Higgins in Fluxus Experience (pp 188–189, 195–207).

Reprint (Occassional Papers, 2014, added 2015-8-18)

Teaching and Learning as Performing Arts / Lehren und Lernen als Auffuehrungskuenste (English/German, 1970, no OCR)
Enseigner et apprendre, arts vivants (French, 1998, 34 MB, added on 2017-6-20)

R. Murray Schafer: The New Soundscape: A Handbook for the Modern Music Teacher (1969)

“Overheard in the lobby after the premiere of Beethoven’s Fifth: ‘Yes, but is it music?’

Overheard in the lobby after the premiere of Wagner’s Tristan: ‘Yes, but is it music?’

Overheard in the lobby after the premiere of Stravinsky’s Sacre: ‘Yes, but is it music?’

Overheard in the lobby after the premiere of Varèse’s Poème électronique: ‘Yes, but is it music?’

A jet scrapes the sky over my head and I ask: ‘Yes, but is it music? Perhaps the pilot has mistaken his profession?’ ” (Preface)

Publisher Berandol Music Limited, Scarborough, Ontario, and Associated Music Publishers, New York, 1969
67 pages
via Charles Turner

PDF (updated to OCR’d version via John Erik Kristensen on 2016-11-11, 2 MB)