Say no more: https://marcuwekling.de/en/translations/
Let’s go on with my own German thoughts and review:
Late, but still topical, a literature recommendation that I often have to think about when I walk through a room with a coffee cup in my hand and concentrate very hard not to spill anything. Supposedly, this is one of the long unsolvable problems of robotics. While science can now imitate intellect and speech surprisingly well, with seemingly intelligent chatbots like ChatGPT and painting software like Midjourney or Canvas text-to-image), not only emotions but also physical elegance remain a major challenge. Tech enthusiasts and traditionalists often argue over irrelevant criteria, similar to holding a coffee cup straight, while more important arguments are overlooked. Science and politics can also be very boring. How good that carbaret (or “little arts” in German) is now also taking on such topics.
Kling became famous for the Kangaroo Chronicles, a satirical tale with wordplay and social criticism, told from a self-deprecating and alternative, but nevertheless rather masculine perspective with allusions to action films, rock music and compulsory academic reading. The boredom left behind by the low-budget adaptation proves one thing above all: Marc-Uwe Kling is a great narrator! He reads his own books live with different voices, pitches and speech melodies, accompanied by a single guitarist, and only then does the enthusiasm reveal itself – or not: the kangaroo polarizes, similar to “Linkin Park, you have to love them or hate them”.
Qualityland is just as political, but holds back on Marx and Kropotkin and instead parodies the modern digital society, which Germany is taking a long time to create, sometimes for the wrong reasons, sometimes for exactly the right ones. The protagonist, Peter Unemployed, is at the bottom of the social rankings in this first-world dystopia, which severely hampers his chances at work and in love. While he befriends robotic creatures that he should actually scrap, two politicians are courting voters, both of whom seem unelectable in their own way. Candidate Koch embodies the supposed conservatives who reject developments such as artificial intelligence out of a naïve technological skepticism. The opposing candidate, John of Us, is himself an artificial being, stands for progressive, inclusive politics, but lacks empathy and emotion and fails to carry a coffee cup to the table without spilling anything. However, I often have to think about this allusion to the challenges of robotics when I myself try very hard to carry a coffee cup to the table.
I had been hesitant to write an article on the topic, partly because of the clichéd nature and the awful movie, and because I still haven’t read Qualityland 2. But thanks to the current AI debate about chatbots and other types of so-called artificial intelligence, and the slightly older but similar controversy about algorithms and social media, Qualityland is still a highly topical and amusing read! And the term “asocial network” was obviously not my own invention. I haven’t read Qualityland 2 yet, so maybe I’ll add a few sentences later.
Better than the books, and better than the disappointing first movie, is Marc-Uwe Kling, as I said, live on stage, alternatively on video or as an audio book.
