The World Question Center
First broadcast: BRT 1, 28/11/1969, 22:10
Black and white, 62’04”
Coordination: Walter Van Dyck and Reine De Locht
Studio manager: Marcel Peeters
Floor manager: Rik Vandensande
Lighting: Robert Guldentops, Willy Elskens, Albert Rowies, Urbain Verbesselt and Raymond Veeckmans
Camera: Leon Balthazar, Albert Devos, Etienne Limbourg, Jan Peetermans and Roland Roels
Image correction: Jo Jacobs and Jean Neys
Simultaneous translation: André Galle and Lydia Dolder
Sound recording: Jean Derkinderen, Emiel Vleugels, Jozef De Troyer and André Lemmens
Mixing: Carlos De Vuyst
Props: Wide White Space Gallery
Assistant director: Lilian Corneillie
Director: Jef Cornelis
Production: Jerome Verhaeghe
Programming: Ludo Bekkers, in collaboration with Frans Boenders (BRT 3 radio) and Chris Cleeren (BRT 2 radio) and the Public Telephone Company
[00’01”] [Title]
‘The World Question Center’ by James Lee Byars (Art. in Res.) at Hudson Institute of New York sponsored by the Los Angeles County Museum’s Art and Technology Project on Belgian Radio and Television.
[00’17”] [Studio Belgian Radio and Television; long shot; James Lee Byars sitting next to four unknown female participants, two on each side of him; James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants sitting in the middle of a ring of 29 participants]
[Silence]
[00’43”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [Monique François]: Clone me, clone me, c-l-o-n-e m-e.
[00’45”] [Tracking shot; close-ups of Georges Adé, unknown male participant, Hubert Peeters, unknown female participant, Marcel Broodthaers, unknown female participant]
Voice-over [Monique François]: Do you have an affection for questions? Did Plato forget question? Man is dead. Imagine the palpability of question. What’s the speed of an idea? Which questions have disappeared? Is all speech interrogative? Make a 1969 question. Do questions require more energy than other sentences? I ask to explain everything. Is a single question the synthesis of you? This question is capable of questioning itself. What questions are you asking yourself? Imagine being possessive of a question. Question is big art. I’ll get her question grammar. All questions rise in intonation. Look at public question on the street. Exalting question is surprising. Think yourself away. Maybe questions don’t exist. Drop hello. How to fall in love with a phone call? To present the opportunity of possible response is the exhibition.
[02’11”] [James Lee Byars, close-up]
James Lee Byars: I’m the self-appointed World Question Center. If you ask for something that doesn’t exist, do you deserve it on the intelligence of the request? Recently I got my Phd-fic from the University of California for asking for all questions that existed in simple English that I could gather from all of the research areas of the University, by using the University phone that is free up and down the coast and collecting these questions to list on an orientation program slip for entering students at the University of California. And they were so in advance of this particular process for example, that they thought it was such a good idea that I was awarded my doctor’s degree as a fiction and the students now are working out the Phd-degree. I’m Phd-fic. Tonight we have an opportunity to extend this, to call celebrities around the world and we will have the cooperation of the telephone company, the radio and television to make this possible.
[03’13”] [Camera zooming out until James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants are visible]
Voice-over [James Lee Byars reads an excerpt from Housing: New Look and New Outlook by Marshall McLuhan]: It is equally conceivable that the electric extension of the process of collective consciousness, in making consciousness without walls, might render language walls obsolescent. Languages are stuttering extensions of our five senses, in varying ratios and wavelengths. An immediate simulation of consciousness would by-pass speech in a kind of massive extrasensory perception, just as global thermostats could by-pass those extensions of skin and body that we call houses. Such an extension of the process of consciousness by electric simulation might easily occur in the 1960s. [1]
[03’50”] [Long shot]
[Silence, followed by noise]
[06’54”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: James? James?
J.L.B.: Yes.
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: [inaudible phrase]
J.L.B.: Viva? Viva?
[Noise]
Viva: …suicide note… in the paper… irrational… [inaudible phrase]
J.L.B.: Viva?
V.: Yeah!
J.L.B.: Can you hear me?
V.: Yes.
J.L.B.: Can you speak louder please into the phone, we can’t hear you here.
V.: You can’t hear me?
J.L.B.: Now we can hear you.
V.: Now can you hear me?
J.L.B.: Yes.
V.: OK.
J.L.B.: You know we’re trying to collect questions that are important to the people that we’re calling.
V.: No.
J.L.B.: Questions that are important in the sense you know of their own possible evolution of knowledge.
[07’49”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
V.: Right! You want the question now?
J.L.B.: Yes, please.
V.: OK. Why are subliminal messages in films now forbidden by the government, when we’re being brainwashed everyday anyway?
J.L.B.: Thank you Viva, that’s a very fine question.
V.: Did you understand it?
J.L.B.: Yes I did, thank you, thank you very much.
V.: You’re welcome.
J.L.B.: Goodbye.
V.: Bye.
[08’27”] [Long shot]
J.L.B.: Yes. Yes.
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Doctor Kronhausen.
J.L.B.: Doctor Kronhauser [sic]?
Eberhard Kronhausen: Yes, good evening.
J.L.B.: Good evening. As you know I am the self-appointed World Question Center. And we are looking for questions, hopefully, that are the synthesis of the person that we are calling.
E.K.: Yes.
J.L.B.: And looking for questions that are really pertinent to them in regards to their own feelings of an evolving sense of knowledge.
E.K.: Yes.
J.L.B.: I wonder if you might offer us a question like that by phone.
[09’02”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
E.K.: Well, instead of offering you a question, I can say that you’re calling us, my wife and I, on a very special day, because today we have presented for the second time our film Freedom to love, which we shot in Holland last June, to the German censorship board and they were very liberal, very generous, fair-minded and they passed the film – which has very strong erotic content – with only very minor cuts.
J.L.B.: Yes.
E.K.: So this is a very happy occasion.
J.L.B.: Well I’m sorry to ask you, but can you pose the question out of such good fortune?
E.K.: Yes, I would like to pose the following question.
J.L.B.: Yes, please.
E.K.: How long will it be before censorship is going to be abolished once and for all in the whole civilised world?
J.L.B.: Thank you very much, that’s a very fine question. That’s certainly a lot to think about, isn’t it?
E.K.: Very much on our hearts and minds, believe me, because we don’t believe that censorship has any kind of place in a true democracy.
J.L.B.: Thank you very much.
E.K.: Thank you also.
[10’11”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Doctor Jungk.
J.L.B.: Doctor Jungk?
Robert Jungk: Yes.
J.L.B.: Can you hear me?
R.J.: Yes, not very well.
J.L.B.: As you know I am James Lee Byars, the self-appointed…
R.J.: …yes I know.
[10’22”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
J.L.B.: Would you offer us a question that you feel is pertinent in regards to your own evolution of knowledge by phone now?
R.J.: Yes, I don’t know – I have no idea what you wanted to know.
J.L.B.: Well I would like to know a question as I have just said that you feel is very important to you in regards to your own personal evolvement with the area that you think you know the most about.
R.J.: Well I would say that the most important question for me is how we could enhance imagination? I feel imagination is in chains now and we don’t know how to free it.
J.L.B.: I beg your pardon, could you speak a little closer?
R.J.: I say, for me the most important question with regard to my own, not only to my own evolution, but also to the evolution of other people and of society, that I feel that imagination nowadays is in chains and that I wonder what we could do to free it and to make it more systematic, how to get away the blocks from imagination in people and society in general?
J.L.B.: Fine, thank you.
R.J.: Yeah.
[11’33”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: James?
J.L.B.: Yes.
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Doctor Denton Cooley.
J.L.B.: Doctor Cooley?
Denton Cooley: Yes.
J.L.B.: We’re looking for questions… Doctor Cooley?
D.C.: Yes.
[11’46”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
J.L.B.: I’m James Lee Byars and we’re looking for questions and calling people around the world trying to find questions that are very important for their own evolution, I wonder if you might offer us a question like that on the phone?
D.C.: …something important for man’s evolutions?
J.L.B.: For you in regards to the evolution of your own sense of knowledge, in your discipline: what question is very pertinent to you for example at this point? For yourself.
D.C.: You know, I don’t understand exactly: I want to get the question exactly straight before I try to answer it.
J.L.B.: Yes, for example do you have a hypothesis at this point that you can put into a question of general intellectual quality that you could offer to us on the phone? In medicine or in the area that you are most concerned with at this time?
D.C.: Well let’s see what I could offer in this regard. It is truly a sort of a speculation but I believe that man resists change so much that he may handicap his future, that he tends to think negatively towards any new… or… unrealised… any new or – let me see – a revolutionary change, there’s been a resistance expressed to space flight…
J.L.B.: …yes…
D.C.: …and a resistance expressed to drastic or dramatic efforts such as heart transplantation and the use of an artificial heart.
J.L.B.: …yes…
D.C.: We should be more tolerant and more understanding or easier acceptant for new experiments.
J.L.B.: Thank you very much.
D.C.: Does that help you at all?
J.L.B.: Yes, it does, thank you.
D.C.: [inaudible phrase] …work that into something.
J.L.B.: Thank you.
D.C.: You’re welcome.
[14’04”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: James? James?
J.L.B.: Yes.
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Uri Avnery.
J.L.B.: Hello?
Uri Avnery: Yes.
[14’14”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
J.L.B.: We are looking for questions that are very important to the people that we’re calling. Could you offer us a question that you think is important to yourself by phone now?
U.A.: Would you please raise your voice?
J.L.B.: Raise my voice?
U.A.: Yes, I don’t hear you very well.
J.L.B.: Yes, can you offer us a question by phone that you think is very important to yourself as far as your own evolution of knowledge is concerned?
U.A.: You want me to offer a question?
J.L.B.: Yes, if you will.
U.A.: Well.
J.L.B.: A question that is very important to you as far as your own development is concerned personally.
U.A.: Well I think the most important question for everyone today is: whether humanity can adapt itself to the present state of technology in warfare, I mean, if humanity can survive this century.
J.L.B.: Thank you very much.
[15’24”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: James? James?
J.L.B.: Yes.
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Mies Bouwman.
J.L.B.: Hello?
Mies Bouwman: Hello!
M.B.: Hello!
[15’34”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
J.L.B.: Yes, we are looking for questions that are particularly important for your own personal evolution of knowledge, could you offer us a question like that on the phone?
M.B.: Yes.
J.L.B.: Please.
M.B.: You want to know what exactly mister Byars?
J.L.B.: Well I would like to know a question that you feel is important for yourself, that you feel is really significant in regards to your own evolution, mentally.
M.B.: Mentally?
J.L.B.: Yeah, like a hypothesis that you feel is very important, that you can put into general intellectual language.
M.B.: That’s very difficult.
J.L.B.: Yes.
M.B.: But listen, I thought a bit about it and it wasn’t so difficult to find a question which keeps me busy the last few weeks, but I don’t know if it’s in the field you just mentioned now.
J.L.B.: Well please in your field, but if you can in general language.
M.B.: OK. Well a question I’m asking myself the last few weeks over and over again is: why do we – the ordinary people of the whole world and that includes you, I think, and me especially as ordinary… and everybody who’s listening at this moment – why don’t we do anything about some terrible situations in the whole world?
J.L.B.: OK.
M.B.: I know there are a lot of parts in the world where happen terrible things but I mean especially the war in Vietnam and Biafra.
J.L.B.: Yes.
M.B.: I mean people do give money for children in Biafra and for orphans in Vietnam, but that’s all we do and the question I’m asking myself the last few weeks, for I saw a few pictures, a few films one day after another that made a big impression on me and did something. I’m asking… [2] [3]
J.L.B.: Well that’s a very serious question certainly.
M.B.: Yes and it’s not the purpose of your program perhaps.
J.L.B.: Thank you very much.
M.B.: OK.
[17’43”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: James? Jean Toche.
Jean Toche: Hello?
J.L.B.: Hello?
Jean Toche: …speaking…
[17’52”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
J.L.B.: Hello? Yes, could you offer a question, please, that you feel is most pertinent to your own personal evolvement intellectually?
J.T.: Could you repeat it, I didn’t hear it very well.
J.L.B.: Yes, can you offer a question that you feel is most significant to you in regards to your own personal evolvement of knowledge?
J.T.: Yes.
J.L.B.: Please.
J.T.: …euh…
J.L.B.: A question that you’re working with perhaps that is most significant to you?
J.T.: A question, well the question I’m involved with for the moment… is dealing with reality in human crisis. Euh… especially regarding problems which deal with the function of the artist in society.
J.L.B.: The function of the artist in society?
J.T.: Yes.
J.L.B.: Fine. Can you phrase the question very simply for us?
J.T.: Alright.
J.L.B.: As tersely as possible.
J.T.: I believe the artist has to involve deeply into the social crisis which surrounds him.
J.L.B.: Thank you.
[19’14”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: James? James?
J.L.B.: Yes.
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: John Cage, New York.
J.L.B.: John?
John Cage: Hello, how are you?
[19’26”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
J.L.B.: Fine. We’re looking for hypotheses that people are working with around the world that are reduced into some type of very simple synthesis, hopefully, that’s important to them in regards to their own evolution of knowledge, might you offer one… that’s personal?
J.C.: Well, are you speaking about individual problems or social problems?
J.L.B.: Well, whichever you prefer.
J.C.: Well, I’m extremely interested in the work of Buckminster Fuller. Are comprehensive designs science? I think that following his plans and using intelligence that we may be able to make a world that works for living rather than killing. I think principally the problem is to find what it is that people need in order to live and to change the environment – as Fuller says – so that people can have what they need to live. [4]
J.L.B.: Fine.
J.C.: In that case we would have a world not divided as it is now between those who have what they need and those who lack what they need, that we would have a situation of no division.
J.L.B.: Fine… John can you…
J.C.: The question of changing one’s own mind would remain the privilege of each individual.
J.L.B.: Yes.
J.C.: This goes in a sense, in a different direction from the history of the religions, philosophies and so forth, which have been concerned with the changing of individual minds. But what we need to do now is to change the world so that people will be in a position having what they need materialistically to change their own minds, shall we say spiritually.
J.L.B.: Fine. Thank you, John.
[21’48”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: David Pascal, Paris.
J.L.B.: David?
David Pascal: Hello!
J.L.B.: Hello.
[21’59”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
D.P.: Yes, you’re coming in rather faintly but I’ll try.
J.L.B.: Yes, I’m trying to find questions, very simple questions in English, that are very important to the individual people that we’ve called for their own sense of evolution of knowledge. Can you pose a very simple and very terse question in English that you feel is extremely important to you?
D.P.: I’m sorry, the reception is so poor, I can’t hear you.
J.L.B. Yes, euh… Can you hear me now?
D.P.: A little better.
J.L.B.: Can you hear me now?
D.P.: Very faintly, sir.
J.L.B.: Is it? Thank you.
[22’48”] [James Lee Byars, close-up]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: James, Luciano Berio.
J.L.B.: Luciano?
Luciano Berio: Hello!
J.L.B.: Luciano?
L.B.: Yes I don’t hear…
J.L.B.: Can you hear me now?
L.B.: Yes, try to talk as loud as possible, please.
J.L.B.: We are looking for questions!
L.B.: Yeah.
J.L.B.: Questions from the individual people that they think are important to them. Can you offer a very brief question that you think is very important to you?
L.B.: Euh… yeah, why can’t… why can’t world peace?
J.L.B.: Thank you.
[23’36”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: James, Simon Vinkenoog, Amsterdam.
Simon Vinkenoog: Hello, this is Simon Vinkenoog from Amsterdam.
[23’45”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
J.L.B.: We’re looking for questions that are very important. Can you offer us a question that you think is very important to you in simple English?
S.V.: Yes, of course, why not.
J.L.B.: Please.
S.V.: Well what’s the question?
J.L.B.: Well I would like to know what questions you are asking yourself?
S.V.: I have no questions, I have only answers.
J.L.B.: Well thank you very much.
S.V.: Yes, I think, what did you do in Belgium, it’s a funny country: middle ages, persecution, censorship…
J.L.B.: Well…
S.V.: You know it’s ridiculous.
J.L.B.: Thank you very much.
S.V.: What?
J.L.B.: Thank you very much.
S.V.: Well, it’s nice, I mean, let people get the clues – let them have all the answers by themselves…
J.L.B.: Well in this case the question is the answer.
S.V.: Aha, maybe you have questions which I could answer.
J.L.B.: Thank you.
[24’31”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Stefan Themerson, London.
[24’36”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
J.L.B.: We’re looking for questions that are very important to individual people. Might you ask a question that you feel is extremely important to yourself?
Stefan Themerson: You want me to ask you a question?
J.L.B.: No, I would like you to tell us a question that you are asking yourself. In this case the question is the answer, but we’re calling people around the world trying to find out what questions they are asking themselves.
S.T.: Oh dear, good lord, that’s very difficult. The meaning of a question depends on the context in which it appears, doesn’t it?
J.L.B.: Yes, but might you have a question that would stand on it’s own?
S.T.: Yes.
J.L.B.: Please.
S.T.: I thought you would be asking me a question.
J.L.B.: Well I have.
S.T.: Yes… Yes… Hello?
J.L.B.: Hello.
S.T.: Yes I’m listening.
J.L.B.: Yes, please, if you could pose a question that you think is important for your own evolution of knowledge. I realise that’s very difficult.
S.T.: Yes, well if I must say one thing, I have no ready-made statements on any subject, I haven’t got even any cliché and I don’t want to have any, even in the form of a question.
J.L.B.: Well.
S.T.: You know whenever I form an opinion and a question of that sort is an opinion…
J.L.B.: …yes that’s true…
S.T.: …I tell myself and I remember Henri Monnier’s Mémoires de Joseph Prudhomme, ‘c’est mon opinion et je la partage’ and then I tell myself ‘c’est mon opinion et je ne la partage pas’. [5]
J.L.B.: Well thank you very much.
[26’32”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: James Butler, Los Angeles.
[26’43”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
J.L.B.: I’m looking for questions that are very important in regards to the personal evolution of knowledge, can you offer one Jim?
James Butler: I have one. Why?
J.L.B.: Please.
J.B.: James?
J.L.B.: Please… Please Jim.
J.B.: Yes my question is: why?
J.L.B.: Thank you very much.
J.B.: Is that all?
J.L.B.: Thank you.
J.B.: Is that all?
J.L.B.: That’s all. Do you have another question?
J.B.: No I only have that one question… the one that applies to all answers.
J.L.B.: Thank you.
J.B.: You’re welcome.
[27’18”] [Long shot]
[Silence]
[27’23”] [James Lee Byars, close-up]
J.L.B.: Yes, I would like to open the questions now to the ring. But before we start with the ring I would like to say that we received a telegram from Herman Kahn. I was hoping that we would be able to get him on the telephone but unfortunately he’s involved in government meetings at this time. And his question was along the lines of: ‘What will a fully human being look like in the postindustrial era?’ – and I am sure he means that in all of the very fullest senses. ‘The postindustrial person, what will he look like?’ I mean after we have gotten along well into such a thing as this type of electronic revolution. Are there some questions from the ring, please? [6]
Georges Adé: I have a question about…
[29’18”] [Long shot]
J.L.B.: …once again please it is important that the questions are not directed to me but that the questions are free standing on their own.
[29’34”] [Georges Adé, close-up]
G.A.: Well, I have a question about a way out, a way out of a circle. In order to define words you must use some other words and to define these other words you need some new words and so on. This is a circle. My question is about a way out of this circle and in a certain sense I feel this question is related with another question about a way out of violence. I can’t really explain it but in a certain sense I feel these two questions are related. Can we find a way out of violence, this is warfare, this is aggressivity, this is imposed difference on people and so on? That’s my question.
[29’06”] [James Lee Byars, close-up]
J.L.B.: Are there other questions in the ring?
[29’10”] [Hubert Peeters, close-up]
Hubert Peeters: Well, I think I have a question, but it’s in a different field. My problem is: what amount of imagination we would need to make real good science and to make progress in science? I am afraid about science repeating always its own little mechanisms. What would we need now to make a real progress, in biology for instance and the knowledge of our own biological being?
[29’37”] [James Lee Byars, close-up]
J.L.B.: Yes, that’s very significant. I pointed out before for example – at least briefly – in regards to having a hypothesis as a person in science, assuming that there are many questions involved in that hypothesis and since we don’t know where answers come from, finally, like e = mc2 hitting Einstein in the bathtub or the DNA being decided aesthetically. Maybe it is of some value, like tonight, I mean, this is predicated on the idea or hope that it is valuable for brilliant people who have a hypothesis to put it into general language for the purpose of this type of collection and hopefully like tonight, for example, that it will be interesting to gather from brilliant people from all over the world the questions that they are asking in their discipline in the hopes that maybe it might even be catalytic in regards to some discovery. That’s quite along the line of that and extremely important. Thank you. Other questions?
[30’41”] [Marcel Broodthaers, close-up]
Marcel Broodthaers: Yes, I have a problem. It’s really… we live in a world of mechanism, a world of war, a world of technology, that special condition for to live and my particular question in this, in this condition of this strange world, what to do to make love?
Voice-over [James Lee Byars]: Thank you… Are there other questions?
[31’10”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: James, Arthur Clarke, New York.
[31’25”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
J.L.B.: We’re looking for questions that are particularly important for the evolution of the person’s sense of knowledge. Can you offer us a very brief one on the phone, please?
Arthur Clarke: I can’t hear you – do, do speak louder.
J.L.B.: Yes, I’m trying to find questions that are particularly important to the individual’s sense of personal evolution. Can you offer a question in very simple and very terse English on the phone, please?
A.C.: Well I’m not sure really what you mean by personal evolution.
J.L.B.: Well a question that you feel is important to yourself in regards to your own sense of development, mentally.
A.C.: Well I’ve been very much influenced of course by science all my life and it’s expanded my ideas of the universe and man’s place in the universe and – you know – this has perhaps been the greatest influence on me: the expanding horizons produced by science and this has resulted in a sort of personal, intellectual evolution.
J.L.B.: Yes, well, can you make some other very brief statement or question out of that? Or something that you are working with currently, in general intellectual language.
A.C.: I’m most involved personally in the subject of the impact of the communication’s revolution upon mankind and I’m on my way now to Paris to address the UNESCO conference on this, on communication satellites and what they are going to do to human society and the mentality of the human race and whether they are going to unify — I think — mankind ultimately. So we are having a sort of communication’s revolution which may result in a social revolution or evolution. [7]
J.L.B.: Indeed we’re having quite an experience tonight, aren’t we, in this sense. Yes, well, thank you very much. Thank you very much.
[33’18”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Christopher Alexander, Berkeley.
[33’25”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
J.L.B.: I’m looking for questions or some general statement of a hypothesis that is particularly interesting in regards to your own personal sense of evolution of knowledge. Might you give us a very simple direct one, please?
Christopher Alexander: Euh, are you talking to me now?
J.L.B.: Yes.
C.A.: Euh…
J.L.B.: Or some question that is particularly important to you, that you could put into general intellectual language and very simply, please.
C.A.: Mister Byars, please help me to begin with, I don’t even know the subject of your program…
J.L.B.: …well…
C.A.: …or the nature of your own work. Perhaps you could just tell me two or three minutes first what I am to talk about.
J.L.B.: Well, we’re calling people throughout the world tonight, trying to collect questions that they are concerned with themselves and I wonder if you might give us a question that is particularly important to you, that’s all.
C.A.: Alright, well the greatest question that occupies me at the moment and has occupied me for the last few years is the problem of treating an environment that is a city in a way which will allow it to grow into an organised, into an organised form, under the act of the millions of people who live in it. I think that architects and planners have thought for too long that a few individual creative experts… – they do by themselves – can influence the form of our environment in a serious way. In traditional environments, take an African village for example, every single member of society plays his part in creating the form of the whole and it’s clear that in our own metropolitan societies this process is broken down almost altogether. Now the reason that it has broken down almost altogether is that there is no shared language of any kind which would tell each one of us as a citizen, what kinds of buildings we would need to make, or how to shape them, so that they do play a part in the evolution of the whole. Most of my direct work in the last few years has been concerned with the evolution of such a language with the hope that we can one day again get into a situation where all the members of society can build the environment together…
J.L.B.: Yes, may I…
C.A.: …that it becomes whole and integrated under that process, that it’s not just millions of people doing entirely different things.
J.L.B.: Yes, well, may I thank you very much.
C.A.: Alright.
J.L.B.: Thank you very much.
[36’38”] [Title]
‘The World Question Center’ by James Lee Byars (Art. in Res.) at Hudson Institute of New York sponsored by the Los Angeles County Museum’s Art and Technology Project on Belgian Radio and Television.
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: John Brockman, New York.
[36’45”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
J.L.B.: Johnny – wonderful – Brockman?
John Brockman: Mister Byars, Mister Brockman.
J.L.B.: I’m looking for a brilliant hypothesis in general intellectual language, expressed absolutely in the shortest single liner that is really a ringer.
J.B.: In English?
J.L.B.: Please.
J.B.: Man is dead.
J.L.B.: Thank you.
[37’13”] [James Lee Byars, close-up]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Paris… Jean-Pierre Faye, Paris.
J.L.B.: I’m looking for very simple questions in English.
Jean-Pierre Faye: Hello?
J.L.B.: Yes.
J.-P.F.: Yes.
J.L.B.: I’m trying to find very simple questions in English that are very important to the people that we are calling.
J.-P.F.: [inaudible phrase] …very difficult to hear.
J.L.B.: Can you pose a very simple question in English that you think is very important to you?
J.-P.F.: Yes.
J.L.B.: Please.
J.-P.F.: I will try to.
J.L.B.: In very simple English and very terse, please.
J.-P.F.: …euh shall I?
J.L.B.: Please.
J.-P.F.: Shall I say it now?
J.L.B.: Please.
J.-P.F.: Hello?
J.L.B.: Please.
J.-P.F.: Just now?
J.L.B.: Yes.
J.-P.F.: When?
J.L.B.: Now.
J.-P.F.: I’ll ask this question. Is there going to be a revolution in the United States?
J.L.B.: Thank you.
J.-P.F.: And if that is the case what sort of?
J.L.B.: Thank you very much, that’s a very fine question. Thank you.
J.-P.F.: So… bye…
[38’36”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Gisela Elsner, London.
[38’46”] [James Lee Byars, close-up]
J.L.B.: Can you pose a question that is extremely important to you in regards to your own sense of evolution?
Gisela Elsner: Well I just wanted to ask you before: why do you want me to ask you questions?
J.L.B.: Well I’m interested in what questions brilliant people throughout the world are asking themselves and we’re trying to compile a list of those questions.
G.E.: Oh yes.
J.L.B.: And I’m interested in questions because I wonder if that’s a way that people ever find anything in discovery, that’s one interesting question.
G.E.: Well see I thought the first time you wanted to ask me questions and that’s why I wondered. Well euhm… So I ask you a very simple question.
J.L.B.: Yes, the question, please, being a question that is you are asking yourself.
G.E.: A question I am asking myself?
J.L.B.: In regards to your own development and extremely simple please and as brief as possible.
G.E.: As brief as possible…
J.L.B.: Yes.
G.E.: Well, that’s the question, why do I phone now with you?
J.L.B.: I couldn’t quite hear you, can you say it again, please?
G.E.: Well, perhaps the question: why did I answer this phone call?
J.L.B.: Thank you very much.
[40’12”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Miss Lenita Airisto, Helsinki.
Lenita Airisto: Hello?
[40’18”] [James Lee Byars, close-up]
J.L.B.: Yes.
L.A.: Good evening.
J.L.B.: May I ask you what questions you are asking yourself? And might you give us one by phone in very simple English, please.
L.A.: What I would like to ask myself?
J.L.B.: Yes one of the questions that you’re asking yourself, that you think is important but in very simple English and very brief, please.
L.A.: Well I am asking myself what in my life is worthwhile living?
J.L.B.: Thank you very much. Thank you, that’s a very significant question of course.
[40’55”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Burt Prelutsky, Los Angeles.
[41’02”] [James Lee Byars, close-up]
J.L.B.: Would you mind asking yourself a question that you are asking yourself currently that you feel is important for your own personal evolution? Can you hear me?
Burt Prelutsky: Yeah, I think so.
J.L.B.: I’m trying to collect questions tonight that are important to the people that we call and a question that is particularly important to you… perhaps you would offer on the phone in very brief English… that you think is really significant for your own sense of evolution of knowledge to yourself. Might you do that, please?
B.P.: Euh, I don’t think so. [inaudible phrase]
J.L.B.: I can hardly hear you — can you speak up some?
B.P.: I was saying that I don’t really think that I could give you that off the top of my head.
J.L.B.: Well would you try a very simple question though, would you try?
B.P.: …euhm…
J.L.B.: Edward DeLand assures me you’re a genius. [8]
B.P.: …euhm…
[Silence]
[40’18”] [Long shot]
B.P.: I’m afraid not, not like this. Maybe next time.
J.L.B.: Well Burt… Burt?
B.P.: Yes.
J.L.B.: Tomorrow, by tomorrow if you should think of one, there’s a number 02 49 37 43 – if you should, I would appreciate it, tomorrow from twelve to four.
B.P.: Was that 02 49.
J.L.B.: 37.
B.P.: 43?
J.L.B.: Right. If you should, please call. Thank you.
B.P.: OK.
[42’51”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Cedric Price, London.
[42’58”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
J.L.B.: May I ask you a question that you are asking yourself that you think is very important for your personal evolution of knowledge?
Cedric Price: I’m awfully sorry, mister Byars, I can’t hear you.
J.L.B.: Can you hear me now?
C.P.: It’s getting worse.
J.L.B.: Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?
C.P.: Just, yes.
J.L.B.: Just. I’m trying to find questions tonight that are important to the people that we telephone and I wonder if you have an important question that you could tell me by telephone.
C.P.: I think the question that I ask and we all ask in the office is: why is it so difficult nowadays for persons like ourselves, so called technologically advanced, rich citizens of rich nations, why is it so difficult for us to make useful mistakes?
J.L.B.: Thank you very much.
[44’08”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Michael Scriven, Berkeley.
[44’15”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
J.L.B.: May I ask you to ask yourself a question that you think is important?
Michael Scriven: Yes… would you like me to tell you the question?
J.L.B.: Please if you would.
M.S.: The question is: how can we now individually alter the paths that we’re treading, which appear to be leading into disaster for us?
J.L.B.: Fine, thank you very much.
[44’47”] [James Lee Byars, close-up]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Walter Hopps out of the Corcoran Museum, Washington.
[44’50”] [Long shot]
J.L.B.: Walter?
Walter Hopps: Hello James.
J.L.B.: Are you hooked up with many speaker phones?
W.H.: There are five of us here.
J.L.B.: Marvellous. I’m trying to find questions that are particularly important in regards to the individual sense of evolution of knowledge. Can we receive five questions by phone, please?
W.H.: Yes, Sam [Rosenkranz?] you want to ask the first question about the evolution of knowledge. [9]
J.L.B.: Personal evolution of knowledge. Walter to be a little more close or careful on this, I mean, for example, if a person has a hypothesis in a scientific area or I would say in an artistic area maybe even, that could be put into general intellectual knowledge, it doesn’t have to be in such grand terms, but questions that are important to you, I suppose, is adequate enough.
W.H.: Yes.
J.L.B.: Please.
Sam [Rosenkranz?]: Well, I suppose… I think the most pressing question in terms of knowledge today, is the body equivalent to or the parallel of the eye, the ear, the nose and other aspects of traditional sensorium: is the total body as good a cognitive instrument, and if it is a cognitive instrument what do we have to have in the way of schools or education?
J.L.B.: Very good.
S.R.: [inaudible phrase and noise]
J.L.B.: Thank you. Can people who are asking, posing the questions move closer to the microphone, please? Walter?
W.H.: …ask that again a little closer, Ed…
J.L.B.: No. We got that one, but can the other people get closer please if they speak?
S.R.: As I understand the most pressing question today is… what’s the state of…
J.L.B.: I’m sorry we can’t hear you!
S.R.: …that is to say traditional knowledge is located and isolated around notions such as the eye, the ear, the nose, the throat, sense of touch and so forth, each one having a certain amount of autonomy. Some biologists have talked about experiments in the synaesthetic notion, this comes close to what I’m talking about, but there’s a… the body in the world has a way of knowing as well as a way of feeling, as well as being a mere supporting vehicle for the other aspects of the sensorium. And I was wondering what status could we give the body as a cognitive instrument?
J.L.B.: Fine thank you.
S.R.: Maybe a synaesthetic instrument or… synaesthetic-cognitive…
J.L.B.: Thank you.
S.R.: [inaudible phrase] …or some other word, a word that isn’t at my fingertips at this moment… That’s my question, please.
J.L.B.: Fine thank you, but Walter…
W.H.: Yes.
J.L.B.: Please… You are at the proper distance from the microphone.
W.H.: Yes, I hope so.
J.L.B.: Please and as simply as possible on the questions.
[47’51”] [James Lee Byars and the four unknown female participants; camera zooming in to a close-up of James Lee Byars]
J.L.B.: I mean as tersely as possible.
W.H.: Am I coming through?
J.L.B.: Yes you are.
W.H.: Yes I’d like to repeat Sam Rosenkranz’s question.
J.L.B.: Please.
W.H.: What status do you give the body as an instrument or as a total sensorium to receive information…
J.L.B.: Beautiful.
W.H.: …which we can consider valid adding to the state of knowledge?
J.L.B.: That’s very fine… beautiful question. You have other questions ready?
W.H.: Ed, go ahead!
Ed[ward de Grazia?]: Well, I mean there is the… euh… Yes. An interesting question is concerning growth. Up until now capitalism or the business enterprise philosophy in the United States has been infused with a doctrine: ‘grow or die’ and it has paradoxically become death through growth, the growth of… that some people call cancerous. And in light of the fact that growth in business is becoming problematic at best and perhaps lethal. What way can we substitute this notion of growth, how can we transpose this notion of growth, so that it is a living organic notion of growth and not growing towards death. [10]
J.L.B.: Marvellous.
E.d.G: For instance by growing by an [inaudible phrase] notion of growth, I’m talking about the growth in the amount of smoke, deposited in the air, the growth of the amount of lead, leaded gasoline, fuels being ejected, and so forth, DDT-growth, which is all a function of a manic, maniacally growing notion of industry…
J.L.B.: Yes…
E.d.G: [inaudible phrase], the notion of growth is…
J.L.B.: I think we understand…
E.d.G: …it’s matter of transpositioning it, how do we learn to live with a new notion of growth, what is it?
J.L.B.: Yes… thank you. Walter?
W.H.: Yes.
J.L.B.: I think we are going to have to go on and… but thank you very much.
W.H.: Were you able to receive those questions?
J.L.B.: Yes we were, thank you.
[50’04”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Reyner Banham, London.
J.L.B.: Will you ask yourself a question that you think is important to yourself please in very simple English, in a very few number of words?
Reyner Banham: Ask myself a question which I think is important to myself? I ask myself this question, why do I sit here on the telephone waiting for some electronic game, which I do not understand to actually begin, at this hour of the night it’s quite an important question for me.
J.L.B.: Yes, well thank you very much.
[50’46”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Jörg Immendorff, Düsseldorf.
J.L.B.: Will you ask yourself a question that is personally important to you, in a very, very few words, please?
Jörg Immendorff: No please ask first, if you have a question.
J.L.B.: I just asked you one.
J.I.: Hu?
J.L.B.: I just asked you one.
J.I.: If possible let me tell short something.
J.L.B.: I can’t understand you, I’m sorry.
J.I.: Let me tell shortly something please, ja?
J.L.B.: As a question, please.
J.I.: Yes it’s, it’s not a question, it’s an answer, it’s a proclamation. You know, you know Nestor Makhno? [11]
J.L.B.: No I don’t. I’m not sure that I’m understanding you correctly.
J.I.: OK. I try to speak better.
J.L.B.: Please can you possibly pose your statement however in an interrogative form.
J.I.: Yes.
J.L.B.: Please.
J.I.: Today it’s the day of Nestor Makhno, he was a Russian anarchist and I want to tell you to study the works of Makhno and I want to tell to the people that they always look for themselves to work for the community.
J.L.B.: Fine.
J.I.: Do you understand?
J.L.B.: Thank you very much.
J.I.: OK.
J.L.B.: Thank you.
[52’28”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Joseph Beuys, Düsseldorf.
J.L.B.: Will you ask yourself a question please that you think is important to you?
Joseph Beuys: [inaudible phrase]
J.L.B.: Can you hear me? Joseph Beuys?
J.B.: Ja Byars. Can you hear me?
J.L.B.: Will you say a question please over the phone that you think is important.
J.B.: Yes I can give you a question but it is perhaps better to say in Germany [sic], because my English is not so very…
J.L.B.: Well, please try in English, but very simply.
J.B.: It is better I say anything and you give me a question and I can say anything, yes?
J.L.B.: I would like you to make a very simple question that is important to you.
J.B.: Byars, I beg you now for a question, give me a question.
J.L.B.: Yes, I just have. Will you ask yourself a question that you think is important?
J.B.: Yes I think I now go to Germany [sic]. Ich bin der Überzeugung dass ich diese Gelegenheit ausnützen muss, in einer… auf der Informationsebene zu sprechen die im allgemeinen besetzt ist… durch die Machtsgruppen besetzt ist. Ich meine dass es in Zukunft notwendig ist, dass die Informationsebene von der Machtsgruppe befreit wird, und dass freie, oppositionelle Gruppen Sendezeit haben in diesen Informationsmedien. Das würde ich zum Beispiel unbedingt notwendig heissen für ‘A’ – ‘A’, eine Gruppe in Antwerpen, die eine Oppositionsgruppe werden kann, wenn sie ein politisches Programm impliziert in ihr künstlerisches Programm… Have you understand [sic] me? [12]
J.L.B.: Joseph, thank you very much.
J.B.: Byars!
J.L.B.: Thank you very much.
J.B.: It’s a real step forwards in the development of the world.
J.L.B.: Thank you.
J.B.: Thank you very much.
[54’46”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Hans Hollein, Vienna.
J.L.B.: Would you mind telling by phone please a question in very simple English that you think is important to yourself?
Hans Hollein: Hello?
J.L.B.: Can you hear me?
H.H.: I don’t understand you so could you repeat?
J.L.B.: Yes would you mind asking yourself a question by phone now that you think is important to you?
[55’22”] [James Lee Byars, close-up]
H.H.: Well asking myself a question which is important to me that’s… well, why I’m here talking with you for instance?
J.L.B.: Thank you very much.
H.H.: …euh…
[55’35”] [James Lee Byars, close-up]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Kronenburg, Breda. [13]
[Hubert?] Kronenburg: Hello?
J.L.B.: Can you hear me?
H.K.: Ja.
J.L.B.: Yes I’m trying to collect questions that are important to the people that we’re calling. Can you offer a question that you think is important to yourself by phone now in very simple and very brief form.
H.K.: Yes mister Byars, I’m a religious man and I have the following question. I wonder when Christ will come on the clouds, because then I can ask him if the disaster in Tunisia was planned from heaven. [14]
J.L.B.: Thank you very much.
H.K.: That was all thank you.
J.L.B.: Thank you.
[56’16”] [James Lee Byars, close-up]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Jerzy Kosinski, New York.
J.L.B.: May I ask you to ask yourself a question that you think is important in very simple English please and very few words.
Jerzy Kosinski: I need to ask in simple English?
J.L.B.: Pardon me?
J.K.: …or to answer it in simple English?
J.L.B.: Well to pose the question in simple English, please. A question that you are concerned with for your own sense of evolvement.
J.K.: What is the question?
J.L.B.: The question is, will you tell me by phone please a question that you think is important for yourself.
[56’16”] [Long shot]
J.K.: Well I guess the most important question I’m confronting right now is how to combine the sense of freedom, the sense of personal freedom with the necessity of satisfying my own requirements for being productive, for being part of the community.
J.L.B.: Fine, thank you very much.
J.K.: …writing… [inaudible phrase]
J.L.B.: Thank you, that’s very clear.
[57’26”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [unknown male voice]: Michael McClure, Stanford.
J.L.B.: Would you tell me a question by phone that you think is important to you, please?
Michael McClure: Pardon me?
J.L.B.: Can you hear me? Michael?
M.M.: Barely, if you could speak a little louder that would help.
J.L.B.: Michael, I’m trying to find questions that are important to the people that I’m telephoning. Can you offer a question that you think is important to yourself?
M.M.: First of all: can I ask a question? Why are you calling me? Apparently the person who informed me of the call earlier said that I had signed an agreement to speak with you.
J.L.B.: I’m not sure of that but thank you for your question Michael.
M.M.: …euh… what was the question?
J.L.B.: The question was: what question are you asking yourself and you asked it. But maybe you have another question that you would like to ask yourself?
M.M.: What question am I asking myself: this is rather bizarre.
J.L.B.: Yes, well I’m sorry about the confusion before, but might you have another question?
M.M.: Euh yes…
J.L.B.: Please.
M.M.: Hello?
J.L.B.: Yes, please.
M.M.: Can you speak up any more?
J.L.B.: Alright thank you.
[59’05”] [James Lee Byars, close-up]
J.L.B.: I’ve always loved layer cakes and this is quite like a hundred layer cake of language tonight. You could see how incredible it is to try to collect questions spontaneously from people. I’ve run The World Question Center for months and I’ve made more than 2.500 such calls. I do have perhaps 10.000 questions but I’ve used many methods of trying to do that. Tonight, I would like to say special thanks to Monique François for the, for her lovely voice, who has read the introductory and will read the concluding questions and also thank you to Marshall McLuhan for his introductory quote about the possibility of a psychic breakthrough in communication. Also I would like to invite the audience to the open telephone number tomorrow of 02 49 37 43, I’ll repeat that: 02 49 37 43. If you have any questions that you think are personally important to you in regards to your own sense of mental development, I will be on the telephone from 12 until 4 tomorrow and it’s open to anyone to telephone into the television studio. It will not be televised but I will be there and would be very delighted to receive questions from anyone who has heard the program.
[60’46”] [Long shot]
Voice-over [Monique François]: Do all questions consist of establishing the notion of asking followed by a nomi[na]tive? Question bully. Read Plato’s nonsensical definition of the Good. Forget it is a treatise. What is your general honorific, sweetie? Questions are gifts. Where is question inside the Encyclopaedia Britannica? Look and don’t decide. Her questions are her ornaments.
[61’16”] [Titles]
Voice-over [Monique François]: Can you ask a direct question? I can repeat the question but am I bright enough to ask it? How does he question and how does he eat? I listed all the universal questions before. Suddenly he is a collar, a necktie and a lapel. The world is so fantastic, why make up? Questions about questions ho ho. Is self-conscious option enough? Are all people interchangeable at some live level? What does pretend mean? At first sight do we perceive the full potential of a circumstance? Make a question was the whole exam. Multiply the question. Imagine what you can’t say.
[62’04”] [The end]
Notes
0 General note: the info in the notes and in the short biographies of the celebrities is largely based upon Internet research, more specifically Wikipedia.
1 Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) was a Canadian communication theorist. His text Housing: New Look and New Outlook was publised in his book Understanding media: the extensions of man (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1964).
2 The Vietnam War (or the Second Indochina War or the Resistance War Against America) took place in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodja from 1 November 1955 until 30 April 1975. North Vietnam (supported by the Soviet Union and China) ultimately won the war against South Vietnam (supported by the United States, the Philippines and other allies). In November 1969 it was revealed that the U.S. army was responsible for a mass killing of hundreds of unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on 16 March 1968. The massacre was referred to as the My Lai Massacre.
3 The Biafran War (or the Nigerian Civil War) lasted from 6 July 1967 until 15 January 1970. On May 30 1967 the Igbo and other ethnic groups living in Southeastern Nigeria proclaimed the independent state of Biafra. The secession of Biafra induced the Nigerian Federal Government to invade Southeastern Nigeria. The blockade which was imposed on the Biafrans caused severe famine, of which images reached the Western world around mid-1968.
4 Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was an American architect, theorist and inventor, especially known for his geodesic domes. John Cage was particularly interested in Fuller’s ideas about technology enabling social change.
5 Henri-Bonaventure Monnier (1799-1877) was a French playwright, caricaturist and actor. In 1852 Monnier wrote the play Grandeur et décadence de M. Joseph Prudhomme; in 1857 he published Mémoires de Monsieur Joseph Prudhomme, two volumes of drawings devoted to his fictional character.
6 Herman Kahn (1922-1983) was a military strategist at the RAND Corporation (a global policy think tank) and the founder of the Hudson Institute (a conservative non-profit think thank, first based in Croton-on-Hudson, New York). Kahn published On Thermonuclear War in 1960 and co-authored (together with Frank E. Armbruster, Raymond D. Gastil, William Pfaff and Edmund Stillman) the book Can we win in Vietnam? The American Dilemma in 1968.
7 From 2 to 9 December 1969 a meeting of governmental experts from 61 countries took place at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris to discuss international arrangements in the field of space communication.
8 Edward C. DeLand was an American mathematician who was employed in the Mathematics Division of the RAND Corporation (Santa Monica, California) in 1969. DeLand had forwarded to James Lee Byars a number of names of scientists as potential participants in The World Question Center.
9 It’s unclear who posed the two questions from the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. Walter Hopps was the host of probably five guests. It’s not unlikely that Sam Rosenkranz participated in The World Question Center. Sam Rosenkranz as well as Walter Hopps were associate fellows at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, a left-wing think tank which was founded in 1963.
10 It’s not unlikely that Ed — Edward — de Grazia participated in The World Question Center. De Grazia, Rosenkranz and Hopps were associate fellows at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.
11 Nestor Makhno (1888-1934) was a Ukrainian anarchist, who fought during several wars to secure the autonomy of the Southern Ukrainian region.
12 Joseph Beuys refers to A 37 90 89, the Antwerp alternative art institute, which was founded in May 1969.
13 We dispose of only two clues to determine who ‘Kronenburg from Breda’ exactly was: his name and the place from which he phoned. It’s not unlikely that the Dutch lawyer and politician Hubert Kronenburg participated in The World Question Center. He was based in Breda in 1969.
14 In November 1969 Tunisia was hit by a massive flood, causing the death of more than 500 people.
Transcription: Jeroen Staes
Final editing: Koen Brams
