Elephant shit has gathered around the void (comment, Tanel Rander, September 2022)
NOTES FROM THE SHASHLYK BAR
First visit 03.07.22
There is a former shashlik bar in Rakvere, now taken over by weed. In the garden I saw some brown heads with teeth. These heads are going to talk, as they told me.Went inside. There is a town built by elephant shit (okay, it’s clay mixture). Houses that look like swallow nests. The work is titled “Kiss and Fly” and it is supposed to speak about remembering, chewing, sense of security, attachment and letting go. Instead of elephant shit, there is clay plaster, mixed with straws and teeth (artificial) that have been gathered from dentists. I see also granules and plants. There is smoke. Small sculptures made of dentures and dental clips. Nice shadows they lay. A cloth falls down from the ceiling. There is a human figure on it, with a slight oriental touch.
White threads come out of it as it gets attached to the elephant shit houses of the city. It really is a city. And there really is something that is standing above the city. And this something is really connected by white threads. The city is made of shit and the material that swallow nests are made of. What is about the white threads between this human figure and the houses? Kiss and Fly means separation from what is habitual, homely and intimate. Separation and flying away. Lets say, this habitual, homely and intimate means life. Lets say, flying away means leaving life, letting it go. Kiss and Fly is the leaving zone that exists in airports. Kiss is a symbolic last contact with life. After which you leave. What are the rituals that we do before leaving and letting go? The clay (or shit) city reminds me shit and humus, leftovers of decomposition. False teeth have been mixed into it – these are the few things that are left from contemporary humans.
And the hollow houses that look like swallow nests say that the spirit bird has flown away. Or on contrary – the nest is empty and waiting for a new resident. Because life is a circle, we come and go, we come and go, etc. Under such conditions that last longer than we can grasp, there is no point to separate the past, the present and the future. If shit and humus are always there, then the spirit is also always there. We can search for the spirit from the form (trace) that it has left into shit. Without spirit, the shit would be shapeless in our sense. Without spirit there wouldn’t be no shit at all.
TEETH! THE TEETH OF TIME!
05. 07. 2022
Pičku Matter
If there is matter, let’s say, humus or shit, then what is its most elementary structure that a human can give to it? We should start from your relationship with the matter. Let’s say, you are inside of the matter up to your neck. If so, then you have already given a structure to the matter. From the neck down, your body has left a trace into the matter. It is shaped like a human without a head. But a human being is impermanent. It fades into the air, but its structure will remain. If there is no one to recognize the trace of a human, then let’s call it just a hole inside the matter. A hole is the most foundational structure. Either it is a hollow inside of The Matter. Or a matter that surrounds The Hollow. Although we can doubt in the act of surrounding. Even if the matter (elephant shit) holds an air bubble inside, I cannot say that the pile of elephant shit surrounds that bubble. What if someone is dwelling on the inner surface of that bubble? And let’s say, his/ her sight is very short, compared to us. He/she is totally free to move along the inner surface of that bubble. Therefore he/she can keep moving forever. Although he/she can be affected by gravity, depending on what he/she is like. If he/she is like us, then he/she would spend most of his/her time at the bottom of that bubble. Sometimes he/she can also lean against the wall of the bubble. But if he/she is a bat, he/she would hang from the “ceiling” of the bubble. So, how should we call a hollow object that has been made of clay plaster or elephant shit?
Let’s forget about containers and other instruments, a human being doesn’t just live out of bread, this conventional life doesn’t let our spatial needs to be expressed at all. Is this really the attempt of humus to swallow air? Or to gather around the air? But how does’t it select its shape? Is there something in the air (like there was a human inside of shit up to his/her neck) that designates the shape? There is human psyche in the air. It dwells in places with lots of space, so that bones, flesh and internal organs won’t become an obstacle.
Those instruments belong to an agent that serves the psyche and builds monuments after its manifestations, and you can hear its bones rattle.
Notes from the garden:
Waiting. Scaffolding.
If you want to move to another town, but for some reason you cannot, then give less water.
The house of Jung. Floors.
Dental plaque of the ancestors – fossilized micro-organisms.
People who have been chewing one and the same tales for a long time have huge chewing
muscles but poor imagination.
Monument – a social dowry.
Monument – memory clip that organizes the space.
A red dot that leaves an uncontrollable trace line.
No sight from the mask, no sight into the mask.
The sun rises from the east and sets into the west – a measure that you can turn.
Notes from the site:
The city sits on a hill, there is architecture next to flowers and plants that grow by themselves (although in pots). There are granules and it makes sense. There are fragments of ceramic tiles that refer to excess. White threads fall onto the architecture from a higher power that is symbolized by an oriental human figure, bright light glowing behind its back. Steam rises behind the city, which is a symptom of staging. So are the light projectors. There are graphic works on the wall, made in the past. They represent ghosts. And are called as “Visitor”. They look like ghosts that hide under bed sheets. A ghost uses the matter to take a shape. We see human shaped ghosts. But how is it with plants and flowers? They are not man made. We don’t know who’s ghosts are behind them. Who’s ghosts take such shape?
These are the ghosts of nature, while man made ghosts are “Visitors”. The objects of the city contain teeth, while the dental clips constitute a separate exhibition next to the city. These clips lay nice shadows.
What is the plant gathered around? (comment, Tanel Rander, 2022)
06. 07. 2022
A short visit. A cock with wings has emerged on the wall. Today someone said that finding your Self means conquering the power of cock (see Nikolai Baturin’s “Bear’s heart”). The cock – a will to live or an obstacle? Let’s imagine a monument of a horseman and his victory over a cock that he stabs with a spear. The space is full of smoke. Low drone sounds like a warning. It is a temple of remembering mortality.
A new visual work has emerged on the walls, into the corner and under the shelf with dental clings. And there are two mirrors leaning against the wall. I took one of them and brought it into the guest apartment. Here are funerals every day. In the middle of the room there is the deceased one. On the walls there are pictures of ghosts. Free beer is in the distance.
07.07. 2022
TEETH OF TIME
They bite everything that exists. Transform everything into a mass to be swallowed. SWALLOWING TIME. CHRONOPHAGIA. ARCHIVES. The teeth of time need chewing muscles. The more you chew, the more you are stuck in memory, the stronger your muscles are, the smaller is your imagination. So says Inga Salurand.
Those garden dwarves are nothing else but rotten chewing muscles together with fake teeth. As there is no chewer, there is no memory.
Because teeth alone are not enough. We need muscles, we need organic life. Organic life that has same natural shape as plants will become the matter, sooner or later. We cannot say that the humus surrounding the fake teeth contains chewing muscles. It contains endless amount of things. Everything that once used to breathe, move, grow and whisper in the wind.
I EAT TIME, I EXCRETE TIME
(paraphrasing Wislawa Szymborska via Katrin Koskaru)
Time becomes space through teeth and chewing muscles.
To remember, to imagine?
To remember, to grow muscles, to produce shit.
Holy white threads, holy white fetter (comment, Tanel Rander, September 2022)