Een voorspoedig 2133!Wie zich verdiept in de geschiedenis van tijdcapsules vindt genoeg redenen om er geen te maken. De meesten verdwijnen, omdat ze vergaan of omdat ze worden vergeten. Toch zijn we bezig om er een in Rotterdam samen te stellen. Want ook al zijn we tegenwoordig geneigd om alleen met ironische distantie naar tijdcapsules te kijken, ze bieden nog steeds mogelijkheden. Niet zozeer voor onze nazaten, maar voor onszelf.
Food ComaDe inhoud van FOOD COMA wordt twee keer opgediend: een keer als theater, de tweede keer als tijdschrift. Centraal in voorstelling en tijdschrift staat Marcel, een 44-jarige computerdeskundige uit Wavrin, een klein dorpje onder de rook van Lille. Marcel wil en kan het maar over één ding hebben: voedsel. In FOOD COMA heeft Marcel een "monologue intérieur", een manische opeenstapeling van feiten over voedsel die begint waar dieetgoeroe's, chefkoks, boulimie-patiënten, slowfoodactivisten, fruitariërs en andere lekkerbekken ophouden.
Re-MagazineRe-Magazine's great virtue is its willingness to expose sentiments that seldom find public expression, most often relating to the apparently trivial experiences and memories that make up the larger part of existence. Alongside this editorial idiosyncrasy, it is beautifully designed and photographed, each issue adopting a form to suit its subject - Emily King, Frieze, October 2003.
On ne touche pasOne image is not the same as the other and there are also images that know their place: images that not only form a world in themselves but also refer to a more complex reality beyond themselves. And this is what I would like to focus on in this lecture, with the help of my film Museum, dating from 1998. For me, reflection on earlier works is not meant to dwell in the past. It is meant to stimulate preciseness and to develop internal coherence.
InterieursZoals een ander naar de slijter loopt om zich te bezatten, zo loop ik wel naar het venduehuis of de veiling of naar de antiquair om me visueel te bezatten. Zo zou je het eigenlijk best kunnen noemen ja. Je bezat je d'r an. Het heeft daarbij nog het voordeel dat dat bezatten langer duren kan dan die slok die je naar binnen werkt. Maar wat het verwerven van die dagelijks weerkerende pret betreft kan me dat dan wel eens zo ontzettend bezig houden dat ik er helemaal high van word.
Co*starDus toen kreeg ik heel erg de wens, als mens maar ook als kunstenaar, om me te bevrijden van al die dingen... om werkelijk iets nieuws in te slaan. Maar dat gaat niet, want je kan het nieuwe niet bedenken op basis van al die ouwe zooi. Dus ik dacht, ik wil daar van af... en toen bleek dat soap ... bleek een deur te zijn naar... zeg maar dat je die ruimte in je hoofd weer werkelijk leeg zou kunnen maken en als een soort potentie zou kunnen gaan vullen... zelf.
Re-Magazine #11 (Marcel)I forced myself not to spit, but to swallow. The undissolved salt got stuck to the back of my throat and oesophagus. I ended up nearly choking. It was as if I had eaten a mouthful of sand. I then began to drink one glass of water after another, but the salty taste persisted. It was terrible and wonderful at the same time, and in some strange way physically exhausting. I had eaten about 30 grams of salt, only five times the recommended daily allowance. Committing suicide can be very easy: one kilo of salt is all it takes.
Re-Magazine #12 (Hester)The door slammed behind us and we got locked out. We decided to deal with that later and first take the furniture down to the car. So we got into the lift with the filing cabinet and then the lift stuck. There was hardly anyone in this building, I was maybe one of only five people that had moved in. We were stuck in the lift for three hours and every time we heard a noise we’d bang on the door. Eventually somebody came past and realised we were stuck and went to get help. When we got out of the lift we found out the car had been clamped while we’d been stuck, which meant a penalty of 120 pounds.
NowWhat happens is that the grit under your feet mixes with the noise in your head. And in the monotony of the constant succession of footsteps, residual thoughts escape like intestinal slugs. Initially this is unpleasant. The physical exertion is a booster, the cadence of your breathing and your footsteps become the haunted baseline under the story of your life, as you recount it to yourself at that moment.
Driving Miss Palmen I understand why you want to be a writer. It’s better to be mediocre and famous than just being mediocre. But the difference between you and me is that I’m able to create a character of myself in a story I choose to live in. And you, I’m sorry to say, are not. That makes me a writer and you just a character in someone elses plot. And as for my work: The big misunderstanding about my work is that critics keep comparing the fictious Connie Palmen with the real Connie Palmen, instead of comparing her to other great characters in litterature, like Madame Bovary, or Lolita...
MarcelLadies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, earth has disappeared. As we will not be able to crash, we will continue flying until we run out of fuel. Well so do something about it you’ve been wining about it for years. Well. Halfway. Everything’s fine. Stay calm. Come on guys what’s the big idea? You know, these days when somebody on the street says ‘sorry’ it’s a junky. You see you don’t get it. You’re just a character in someone elses plot.
Untitled (Onkenhout)Staring at the picture of the garden on the postcard I catch a glimpse of my mother in a version of her life that she never lived, one in which Nico had gotten in touch, after that evening out. Perhaps now she’d have a different surname and be sitting by a different fire drinking wine with a different child. In a moment that feels like an oedipal short circuit, I experience something impossible: that I never existed.
Aaltje KraakIn de Marslaan stond een rijtje van vijf jaren zestig-huizen te wachten op de sloop. De bouwnorm was in het centrum tot vierhoog verhoogd dus op die plek voldeden ze niet meer. De grote ramen, die de huizen ooit tot moderne doorzonwoningen hadden gemaakt waren nu dichtgetimmerd. Op het blanke hout van het underlayment stond over de volle lengte van het huizenblok met spuitbus geschreven: Weg met die zooi!
HesterIn the drawing, she has her head down because she was reading. She’s spent most of her life reading, its her way out of her depression. I remember being quite conscious of drawing her double chin, since she hates it. My mother hates the fact that she’s losing her jawbone. I thought, ‘No, I’ve got to scrub it out.’ So I drew a shadow there. But these dark areas, the chin and the bags, emphasize her depression more than they show her reading a book.
Life is a Dream Come TrueIn most of my dreams there are no images or storylines to assign to their nightmarish feeling. They are more about certain dynamics, of shrinking and growing, for example, or being crushed. My body caving in on itself. As a depressed person I live inside my head and there’s always a sense that my body is deteriorating and weak. So feelings of weakness and lightheadedness come to me naturally. There’s a vacancy in me that is connected to my dreams.
Susan SontagI’ve always thought of photography as something very magical and it is my belief that this is based on a genuine experience: in my early childhood there must have been no sharp distinction between a real thing and its image. In the same way that kids see themselves as inseparable from their mother until the age of three, I thought that object and image were simply two different manifestations of the same energy.
Bert LuttjeboerThat summer I was into the differences and parallels between drawing and photography. I saw myself as a human camera and tried to copy photos as precisely as possible. I was intrigued by the fact that I had to work for hours or days or weeks on end and would still fail to come anywhere close to what the camera had seen in a split second. One night, after a long day of working with minute precision and concentration, I went out to a bar and ran into Bert.
www.nieuwkomer.nlFor months after I first stood on that little bridge, I continued to circle around the windmills. Not only with my camera, but also with a microphone. When you look closer, the polder turns out to be an arena of conflicting interests. The cluttering of the landscape stands in opposition to climatological necessity; economic and ecological interests are locking horns for dominance; innovation oriented towards the future has to compete with the appreciation for history.
Immovably CentredEverything just chucked away. Subsidy handed back. A total failure. Fine. Well done. I’d like to know when you’re not going to be a failure. If you’re not. And whether I’m going to witness it in this lifetime. So vain. So weak. So lacking in backbone. I have to keep the whole show on the road while you just sit upstairs crying at your desk, your tears staining what you’re only going to scrunch up again any second and toss into the corner. On that laptop of yours.
Call meIt’s either filthy thoughts or intellectual blah-blah, and nothing in between. Look closer. More closer. Look at me! You hear me?! If there’s any reason for me to be ashamed, it’s you. The only reason I’m standing in front of the town hall is because I happened to have been ‘created’ by a world-famous sculptor: Rodin, the genius of deep emotions and existential gestures. Yeah right. The way I’m standing here, Rodin is the only person who’s never once laid a finger on me.