2. An absolute lack of self-determination

Birth is a coerced experience totally bereft of any possibility of choice. Before foetuses start to exist, they have not
selected suitable parents, and they have not been consulted about the place and time of their gestation. Nor could
they have been asked whether they wished to be born, once conceived and settled into the womb, or before they left
it. How could incomplete beings comprehend any query, let alone answer one? And even if they could, what would be
the point of telling them, that they have no choice? As the sayings go... Existence is forced upon us, but your family
hails (or endures) your birth. One can choose one’s friends among the living, but neither among those whose life has
ended, nor among those who have not yet lived. While an absolute lack of self-determination presides over our births,
our lives are typified by a completely opposite condition, a constant yearning after self-reliance.

Yet, no saying contends that one should pick one’s preferred countries and languages instead of submitting to the
expected acknowledgement of a national and linguistic identity bestowed by birth. Irrespective of one’s nationality and
mother tongue, a de facto allocation which stands beyond questioning for most, a further nationality and another main
language are nevertheless realistically achievable for some. Feelings of patriotic pride are based on an utterly random
initial occurrence, birth. As a rule, neither an in-depth knowledge of a nation’s history and culture, nor a proficient
usage of its official language or languages presides over the allegiance to the culture, in which one happens to have
been born.

3. Topologies of choice

The happiest moment of my entire existence was when I was asked, aged 11, which foreign language I wanted to
learn first: English or German. I had never heard a word of English or German, had no idea that foreign languages
were taught for free at schools; furthermore, I had never set foot in England or Germany. Yet, in a single mind-blowing
epiphany unleashed by a straightforward question, I knew that I had a goal and a purpose that could never be taken
away from me. When I learned English words, I was to some extent in England, and when I began to read English
books, I came with every page nearer to the moment when I would be understood in a green and pleasant land. To
some extent, I did not have to travel to my long-term destination, to be over there, and I did not have to leave the place
where I lived, to make my partial presence, namely my cultural detachment and reattatchment, unmistakably noted.

4. The folly of wanting to make things happen

My first solo journey took me, aged 17, to Budapest for reasons which, as I write this sentence, strike me as totally
unreasonable. For a whole week I walked up and down historical streets from morning to evening, as is a tourist’s
wont. However, not mostly to stare at monuments listed in illustrated guides, but in an overconfident bid to find
Hungarian friends. Does one make friends on the street? At the end of the week, the futility of my enterprise dawned
on me, and I decided to curtail a strange trip, before it became even stranger.

5. The reality of things happening

In Budapest, Hungaroton LPs were good value. So, I thought that I should indulge in a last-minute shopping spree of
Number 2’s recordings, before my return home. Like a welcomed ghost, the topic “home” haunts conversations held
by people of various origins and persuasions, who are keen to elicit an awareness of what “the others” make of that
idea. If anyone should rank as an expert on “home”, it would have to be “the others”. Home for me as an adolescent,
was listening to music two hours long every night, so that I fell asleep wonderfully mellowed. Either Bach’s ultimate
balance between silence and phrase: The Well-Tempered Keyboard or anything by Bartók Béla, or by my
“Habsburger” Nr.1. Gustav Mahler was my top idol because he mixed classical and military music with children’s and
folk songs and, to boot, had no qualm about experimenting with dissonance. I later found out; he also was the first
Western composer to have heard recordings of Chinese music and to have integrated these field sources in his
compositions. That influence further accounts for my preference. Mahler made a patchwork mess of melodies that
had been played too often, as they were intended to be played. Whereas Stockhausen delivered the welcome relief of
producing sounds one had never heard, Mahler brutalised musical traditions without turning his back on them. His
schizophrenic compositions mixed musical conventions and experiment without fear of contradiction, as if it were
quite normal to acknowledge madness. The oppressively familiar airs that filled his symphonies and Lieder had in a
way never, but in countless other ways always been heard, before he fused them. He mocked harmonies entrenched
in patriotic reverence and forced memorable melodies to reveal their mentally or at least emotionally deranged
momentum.

6. Would esse, by any chance, be percepi?

If esse were percepi, then listening to Mahler would yield an experience of presence. It does the opposite. Listening to
Mahler’s music infuses a sense of transience. What I perceived was not a tonal construction that linked melodic
phrases, but a transformative aural landscape moving at the polymorphous pace of clouds (long before Ligetti
invented clusters). Redolent of many places, the roots and weeds of Mahler’s music belong to everywhere and
nowhere; not exclusively to the collapsed Austro-Hungarian Empire, from where they spread. Here and there, now
and again, they shoot through all sorts of soil and address my foreign vocation. They comfort me in a lifelong quest to
become someone on the condition that I remain no one, an atheist wanderer, a multiple migrant.

Nean?

Text in PDF:

7. An unexpected confirmation

An article I wrote for the Encyclopédie Universalis’ annual supplement was published, but as I failed to sign the
contractual agreement which never reached my temporary address in Italy, no more work was offered. The editor
expressed her disappointment. More interesting (and even rewarding) was a publisher’s reaction to another article I
offered for their magazine. I was asked from which language I had translated it! While initially perplexed by the
allegation that I might be the translator, rather than the author of the article, or that I wrote it in a language other than
French and translated it myself (obviously not very well) or had it translated, I quickly realised the reason for doubted
authenticity. The term linguistic transfer refers to rules or characteristics pertaining to one language, such as word
order, intonation or spelling, that are involuntarily applied to another, to which they do not belong. Multilingual
speakers try, as we all do, to keep knowledge sorted out in categorical compartments. For example, we have a box for
WW1 and a box for WW2, or one for Italian and another for Spanish. But because of similarities between information
of a similar type, be they real or imagined, leaks occur between the boxes. Standard linguistic transfers are from
mother tongue to a studied language; however, in my case, by my early twenties they moved the other way around.
Being taken for a foreigner by my “Landsleute” gratified me no less than accolades from native speakers,
complimenting my command of their language, even though it could not have been free of mistakes. When
considered beyond the grids of normative grammars, so-called mistakes gain specific aspects. Linguists make use of
a communicative competence that does not have to sound perfect, to be effective.

8. The importance of being unimportant

As to another key biographical component, the single-minded pursuit of a career and the overriding ambition to
become an entity defined by that goal, it never interested me a great deal... I did not strive to teach art in Doha; I
decided to move there on a whim and was offered an art teaching job, even though I had signed a contract for another
post. Like everyone else, I have a factual biography but, somehow, I think that the decisions to reject or seize
opportunities illuminate biographical facts. If the importance granted to personal achievements were equally given to
these decisions, they should shine under a different light. I happen to think, that my life is not particularly important,
and I also happen to have decided that it does not have to be important, which does not imply that it is devoid of
significance. Anyway, V.I.P. does not stand for very meaningful person. The idea that I could have been born
somewhere else at a different time animates me to consider concrete affinities with other cultures and other periods,
in a positive way. What about the urge to make the best of one’s life? Does it not turn deep dissatisfaction into
exhilarating panic? Even a prearranged feast falls short of a carefree picnic. We were gossiping about Budapest...
Seriously, why look for Better and Best, when there are Buda and Pest? For those into magic, I’d say more beautiful
cities should top their list. But, hey? In the middle of a nippy night, when heavy snowflakes gather and drift in quasi-
geometric patterns that blow your mind like Shahsevan diced flowers, it ain’t that bad.

9. At first, they were two, and then there were five of them

To help me choose from their LPs kept in storage, a sales assistant in the Hungaroton shop brought a catalogue of
Bartok’s complete discography. The voluminous tome was opened on a counter and examined with all sorts of
remarks. This attracted the attention of local customers, who felt chuffed, that I liked Bartók so much. They suggested,
we should go for a drink and talk about modern music. By the way, all of a sudden, these music students became my
Hungarian friends, and my strange trip was lengthened, not shortened. At first, they were two, and then there were five
of them.

10. Archaeological discoveries first made in the 21st century

My closest Hungarian friend responded to the first name György (like Ligeti), but this does not mean, because I
respected him, that I was indifferent to his lover, Zsuzsanna. When she played her vinyl recording of the Wesendonck
Lieder, she wasn’t the only one to go weak at the knees. We all loved Isolde, and Tristan. But tell me, why were so
many women wearing what appeared to be rivers of diamonds, when we visited the opera house on Margaret Island?
Evening dress and diamonds in a communist country? The only question that really mattered, and upset me, came
from György: “Why do you want to be a writer and an artist if you like animals more than people? Whom are you going
to write for? And why?” Fair point. “I am writing to keep myself amused” would not have been an adequate reply.

I was unable to answer György’s question until, decades later, archaeological discoveries first made in the 21st
century proved that Neanderthals already had a command of spoken language, and crafted artefacts with symbolic
meaning. Sapiens’ assumed cultural superiority was finally undermined, and since they had mixed with Neanderthals,
Neanderthal genes have survived the race’s extinction. Yet these extinct early societies still influence our genome,
even though to a minor extent. Or perhaps with an elegant sufficiency? At any rate, enough for me to talk to them and
for them, I feel or imagine, to react with Prehistorical proficiency in my subconscious.

Bingo! My public consists of dead people. “Hello, dead people! How dead are you?”
“You’re talking to me? You’re talking to me?”
“Yes, I am (Nean, aka Wolfgang Ink mark Ziegler). Nice to write and to make art for you.”

W.I.M.Z.
aka NEAN,
AUTOFICTION

1. NeanSite’s autobiographical section

Mastering several languages, especially if they are practised in their respective countries, feels at times like living
more than one life. Hence, the relevance of this essay entitled Autofiction in NeanSite’s autobiographical section.

The section also includes the hyperlinked Nean? which provides navigating orientation about the site and a more
conventional Biography with factual data.

The essay Autofiction reflects on my personal experience of multilingualism in a globalised world that offers new
types of nomadic opportunities. In a nutshell, it suggests, that I cannot conceive spending my life in a single place,
where I would think in only one language.

Nean?

W.I.M.Z. aka NEAN, AUTOFICTION

W.I.M.Z.
aka NEAN,
AUTOFICTION