Sudurlandsvegur

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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


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