Suรฐurlandsvegur
Suðurlandsvegur
May 19th, 2012. A petrol station with a diner along Suðurlandsvegur, Iceland. In a corner of the room is a man drinking coffee. He is shabby, troubled, and he wears an elegant but dusty and somewhat ragged coat. [He gets up and walks over to a spotlight, plugs it in and returns to his place. Remains standing. A few moments of silence.]
It was a group, an investigative body … Not, like I know has been
claimed, a shapeless and nomadic organization. As a matter of fact it
was a very simple and quite primitive alternative …
[Without any greater effort lifts his index finger:]
… and in theory … a fairly well-functioning alternative … Of course,
they also had the ambition to build something more advanced … and
they were well on their way to …
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3 [Walks back and forth. Frowning.]
Here … in a job like this … if you want to create autonomy … you have
to avoid too much instrumentalization … that’s what they tried to do …
[Stops, turns to the audience. Sarcastically:]
… but what good is an institution that has neither power nor money?
Only a fool would claim it lasts in the long run …
In any case, you have to question your form and existence … and it’s an
important part of the work: not stopping … not settling … [To the audience, in confidence:]
Above all, it’s important to say it …
[Pause. Like a conductor standing still with arms raised, turned to the orchestra, just as it is about to begin. Eyes wide open.]
But then …
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21 Notes
boards, clothes are organised on hangers. It is also important to separate between the regular cleaning routines and the more thorough cleaning where you
1. (A) [p.5] I had taken the habit of spending the nights
move heavier furniture and other objects in order to
in an office space that was empty of people from ear-
reach surfaces and spaces that cannot normally be
ly evening until the morning. As long as I didn’t leave
accessed.
any traces there was no reason to worry about my presence being noticed. I thought about it like an of-
3. (A) [p.6] To organise an efficient cleaning organ-
fice job with a strict time schedule. It is one of the first
isation it is often necessary to specify how to con-
nights, past midnight I think, I sit in the archive read-
trol and perform the cleaning. There are many ways
ing a magazine when the lights on the entire floor
to design such a contract (more or less formal). In
are turned on. I hear footsteps, someone walking
the following are three examples of how cleaning
back and forth as though searching for something, a
contracts are set up. One way is to make a work
tinkling noise. Then, I look up just to catch him when
specification document. First you specify where to
he swiftly passes by with the mop along the corridor.
clean and how often, then you go into detail about
I would like to believe that there was some form of
what to clean and how. Such a specification might
mutual understanding in that first encounter while
be a good model for smaller organisations where
in reality his gaze was completely indifferent to my
there is close communication between cleaner
presence. He wasn’t even surprised. It took a long
and employer. There is however a risk of estab-
time before we got to know each other, even longer
lishing an inefficient and inflexible agreement that
before I was accepted as one of them.
delegates cleaning where it is not needed but on the other hand doesn’t cover a temporarily bigger
2. (A) [p.6] Cleaning means to clear a space from dirt
need. Sometimes it might not be motivated to clean
and put things in order. Cleaning is often performed
a room if for example someone has been ill or on
with the help of cleaning agents and everything from
holidays, and sometimes more cleaning is required
simple tools such as dusters, brushes and brooms,
due to season or activities that cause a lot of dirt and
to electrical machines. Cleaning is a routine em-
disorder. Another way of designing the contract is to
ployment that includes vacuum cleaning, dusting,
specify a “quality level” for each space. The quality
wiping off walls and edgings, scrubbing floors,
is defined in accordance to the level of cleanliness,
cleaning kitchens, bathrooms, toilets and sinks.
based on a standard. Naturally, the use of such
Cleaning also includes emptying waste bins, pol-
standards requires regular inspections. The benefit
ishing mirrors, windows and furniture, to shake the
of this model is that it strives to guarantee a quality
cloths, curtains, carpets and other interior textiles,
in terms of result. A problem, especially for small-
and sometimes operations such as washing up the
er organisations, is that someone needs to manage
dishes. To create order in a space means that you
and control the cleaning regularly, which of course
also make sure that all movable objects are put in
also requires a thorough knowledge of the stand-
place: chairs are organised around a table, cushions
ard. It is also important to specify how frequently the
are shaken and neatly ordered on a couch, books,
standard must be attained. A third alternative would
china and glasses are placed in shelves and cup-
be a combination of the above two models where
22 it is the cleaner that has the responsibility to esti-
8. (O) [p.19] As the patient began to show signs of
mate how much cleaning is required. It is necessary
recovery from what had been thought to be a chron-
to still have some basic work specification but it is
ic catatonia beyond all hope of cure, one of the first
the cleaner that determines what, where and when
peculiarities that the doctors noticed—they were
cleaning is needed. This is often combined with
a team of doctors, all very distinguished—was the
more thorough inspections by both employer and
patient’s hand moving as if it were holding a pen,
cleaner and continuous communication about the
writing. For a long time this was the only obvious
quality. Needs-based cleaning is however depend-
change in the patient’s condition, the body still as
ant on competent cleaners with enough experience
petrified as ever and the eyes staring into thin air.
to make efficient estimations and plans.
Among the doctors was a young Vietnamese woman who had recently become a widow. She recog-
4. (A) [p.7] See Rosalind Williams, Notes on the
nized her own displaced sorrow in the patient’s
Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society and
frozen, muted being and in the manic movement of
the Imagination (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The
the hand. And it was she who suggested they put a
MIT Press, 1990).
pen in his hand, and some paper in the other. When scrawl and seemingly random lines and dots gradu-
5. (A) [p.8] “In the post-Hegelian world the bound-
ally turned into letters, words and sentences, as you
ary that once separated Fall from Abfall, fact from
know, and eventually became readable even for the
garbage, was no longer easily drawn. Whereas in
group of doctors, she sat in her chamber at night
Hegel’s time data that were deemed worthy of enter-
and read the notes with the same sensibility and
ing the archive of culture had been limited to those
delicate judgment as when she had carefully exam-
that reflected in some way the systematic workings
ined the evolution of lines and squiggles into text on
of the Weltgeist, now literally everything—including
the first few hundred or so papers, quietly sipping
Abfall, which in German means both ‘garbage’ and
on a glass of red wine, in grief.
‘hearsay’—was considered historical and thus worthy of being archivized, preserved, documented.”
Her husband, the collaborator, the dreamer, threw
Sven Spieker, The Big Archive: Art from Bureaucracy
himself into a garbage press in Cuiabá, taking his
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2008).
masterpiece with him, an anthropological study on the “interpenetration of the vegetal, animal and ge-
6. (A) [p.9] How much life has changed and how un-
ological” among some newly Christianized indige-
changed it has remained at bottom. I recall the time
nous tribe.
when I was still sharing the preoccupations of the office, an official among officials, and find on closer
My beloved Dũng,
examination that from the very beginning I sensed
How does your work proceed? Will you be
some sort of discrepancy, some little maladjustment,
finished by May as you said?
causing a slight feeling of discomfort which not even
I dreamed that my white coat was made of feathers,
the most important assignment could eliminate.
and that I couldn’t take it off unless I first took it on. The error was very hard to diagnose.
7. (A) [p.10] Like the underground’s underground.
I wanted to run away but I just stood there.
23 I knew exactly what to do.
It will be the object that the role relates to, some-
What do you think, my little squirrel?
times reads from but most of the time only holds in
And by the way, the catatonic guy still
his hands, searches for or puts back into his pockets.
has not moved. I guess maybe I was him in my dream?
On the sheets of paper the role finds suggestions
When will you come to Europe? Are you
for more or less all the scenes: He will be in the
not fed up with the jungle?
lines, vowels and gestures. At the same time these
Please come soon!
sheets make up the privileged object of his gestures and his being. Thus, to copy and rehearse the script
I kiss you.
through the making of the manuscript is also to listen to the script’s becoming-prop-for-the-role, and it
9. (F) [p.20] [Script—manuscript—immanence]
is in between these parallel processes that the role
A document written by hand is a manuscript. The
will unfold; between the manuscript as the matrix of
actor copies the script by hand, and so he writes the
his gestures and the manuscript as the prop that the
manuscript, determined to inhabit the foreign lan-
gestures treat, handle and relate to. Hence, he can
guage (notice the “Icelandic touch” on the curves of
only read the text through his gestures, in what he
the “a”) and make it constructive for the performance.
is doing—in being the role—and as the tension be-
It is all very simple: The manual labor of copy-
tween the manuscript (the matrix of his actions) and
ing, the writing of the manuscript, serves as pas-
the manuscript (the object extension and counterpart
sage to the moment when the script is performed,
of his act). This is the struggle which theatricality is
transformed into the language and the gestures of
made of. It is a trap, but a trap wherein the role can
the role. He engages in this first phase of rehearsal,
maneuver in free space and in which he will time
listening to the differences between the script and
and time again clash against the opacity of the ob-
the coming performance. He re-hears the script a
ject, the ‘objective’ result of the process that birthed
second and a third time, listening to the movements,
him—the document, his roll, the role’s double.
gestures, utterances and scenes that constitute the future performance.
Now and then, as he glimpses down into the manuscript, he recognizes someone else’s unfamiliar
The repetitive copying doesn’t end in a perfect circle
handwriting, and suddenly he remembers the out-
or a restoration of the script; writing writes to es-
side world, as if there were an author or director.
cape the text as text and to transform it into something that cannot only be read, and that can only be read through the role. This is a main point: The copying of the manuscript as the first phase of the rehearsal means the transformation of the subject as well as of the meaning of the text: The document is now becoming prop. Actually, the manuscript will eventually become the role’s main companion in the performance of the monologue Suðurlandsvegur.
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Suรฐurlandsvegur: Performed at Litla Kaffistofan, Iceland, on May 19, 2012, by Hilmar Guรฐjรณnsson. Written and directed by Fredrik Ehlin, Andjeas Ejiksson, Oscar Mangione. Editors: Fredrik Ehlin (F), Andjeas Ejiksson (A), Oscar Mangione (O) Graphic design: Andjeas Ejiksson Contact: info@geist.se ISBN: 978-91-980703-0-9 GEIST PUBLISHING
GEIST PUBLISHING ISBN: 978-91-980703-0-9