Arthur Berkhoff - I Know Fiction At Space 13 -1983- (Cassette, APB5), Netherlands

Here is another cassette by Dutch home-taper, neoist and multimedia mail-artist Arthur Berkhoff. Neoism is an art movement that was based on playing with collective identities, the reproduction of artworks as well as the usage of fake art, plagiarism and mockery. Most of the neoist artists created and published under the commonly used moniker of Monty Cantsin. Neoism became strong within mail-art and cassette culture circuits throughout the 80's because of the relatively easy way of combining various media and the possibilty to create and publish artistic expressions anonymously.

Arthur Berkhoff created many cassettes during the 80's based on his self-envisioned futuristic "Pregroperativism" movement. It was a strange one-man mythology that consisted (from what I can tell) of a mix of space, technology, cybernetics and neoist and multimedia art concepts. All the music connected to it was recorded in his Orguna Laboratory in Amsterdam.

I Know Fiction At Space 13 is another lost piece of Berkhoff's alienating music. It consists of different longer pieces of analog experimental electronics containing processed casio keyboards in combination with dark and eerie synthesizer sounds. I tried to index the cassette but gave up eventually.

Korm Plastics D has recently released a nice reissue of the industrial cassette Katacombe Vol.3 (1984) which also features Arthur Berkhoff and many other Dutch cassette culture protagonists.

From the Collection Allard Pierson/NPI

Get it HERE

Arthur Berkhoff - Spectrum Analysis At The Computer -1983- (APB5, Cassette), Netherlands

Arthur Berkhoff was a Dutch representative of the international Neoist movement who was heavily involved in mail-art and the home-taping culture. Neoism is a specific art movement that was based on playing with collective identities, the reproduction of artworks as well as the usage of fake art and plagiarism. Most of the neoist artists create and publish under the name of Monty Cantsin, a name that was created in the late 70's and mostly adopted by the Hungarian artist István Kantor as the identity for an "open" popstar to be used by others. Actually neoism has a great concept that could be applied even today to topics like the dissolvement of identity, open source platforms, collective art projects, copyright etc.

Neoism and its Mail-art output ofcourse also flourished within the home-taping circles and many protagonist home-taping artists have used neoist concepts and contributed to the movement. From Graf Haufen to Monte Cazzaza and from GX Jupitter-Larsen to Vittore Baroni just to name a few. Dutch artist Arthur Berkhoff was making art and cassettes in Amsterdam during the 80's through which he established his own futuristic "Pregroperativism" movement. It was a strange one-man mythology that consisted (from what I can tell) of a mix of space, technology, cybernetics and neoist art concepts. All the music was recorded in his Orguna Laboratory and most of the tracks are long improvised experimental electronic pieces with voices and noises.

Spectrum Analysis At The Computer is another great cassette from the Dutch home-taping culture of the 80's and a real alien piece of music. The music also reflects Berkhoff's strong dedication to his Pregroperativist universe. Some of his other works can be found over at No Longer Forgotten Music and check out a collection of his conceptual films over here.

This is some cyberpunk avant la lettre (or at least an early example). 

From the collection Allard Pierson/NPI

Get it HERE