SAY BOW-WOW AND WEAR AN ELEPHANT’S TRUNK

Me: I’ve just flown over the Alps in an aeroplane. Honestly, you really did surprise us all with your elephants!

Hannibal: Go to hell, mate!

Me: I just wonder why you didn’t flatten Rome while you were at it.

Hannibal: I’ll let time itself take care of that.

The Alps as a reverberation chamber for the impossible: the thundering roar of elephants! It was mid-winter when the Carthaginian commander Hannibal took military manoeuvring to an entirely new dimension. Leading 50,000 men on foot, 9,000 horsemen and a good three dozen war elephants he left the Iberian Peninsula and crossed an Alpine pass (today it is no longer possible to ascertain exactly which one) in order to destroy the Roman Ally System. The part that remains engraved in humanity’s elephant-like memory is this: the greatest triumphs (this also applies to art) result from outrageousness, from taking a huge No and making it into a huge Yes.

AR

Image: A marble bust, reputedly of Hannibal, originally found at the ancient city-state of Capua in Italy (some historians are uncertain of the authenticity of the portrait)

EVER THE FOOL

Me: Oh no! How did I come to land on you?

Ship of Fools: You needn’t start priding yourself.

Me: Do you think you know what I really think?

Ship of Fools: I don’t think; I know: Do something you like doing. Get rid of all of the bosses in your life and make your own time schedule. Spend as much time as you can with the people who mean the most to you. And make sure that you get something done every day.

“In dunce's dance I take the lead, / Books useless, numerous my creed, / Which I can't understand or read.” This rather amiable self-assessment was written by Sebastian Brant and precedes his main work. His moral satire ‘Ship of Fools’ was written in 1494, a few years after the invention of the printing press. Whether poor or rich, young or old, male or female, human depravity seemed to know no bounds. The scene is on one of the ships, if not the Ship of Cockaigne itself; society appears as a microcosm upon a kind of ark of madness, and by all means feel free to read any connotations into this. Human blunders and weaknesses are revealed with satirical exaggeration. So the human being feels capable of venturing out to sea, into the sphere of the gods? Insolent pride was always considered to be the first and therefore the worst of Christianity’s seven deadly sins. The appropriate roll of thunder will not be long in coming. Ship ahoi! P.S.: Brant’s opening quote can easily be applied to the art trade; if the word ‘books’ is merely replaced by ‘artworks’, the feeling of unease once again makes itself felt.

AR

Image: Sebastian Brandt: "Ship of Fools" (Coverpage), Woodcut, Basel 1494

Why only, why?

Why Oh Why?

When does Sisyphus ever contemplate his actions? Does he do so while arduously rolling the stone, little by little, up the mountain? Does he pause for thought during that short moment in which, after countless attempts that were all in vain, it appears that he has finally achieved the impossible? The mighty stone rests for just a moment before thundering back down the slope of its own accord.

There is something wrong about the phrase “the journey is the reward (or goal)” and I believe that it is in the notion that there has to be a goal in order for something to BE. If the way itself were sufficient, then we would have to ask for a destination. Question: could “goal” also be replaced by “meaning”?

Does the meaning of existence lie in existence itself – or does the quest for the meaning lie in existence? Ever-recurring questions.

Rethink!

CS

Image: Mount Esja (Iceland), Photo: CS 2008

NOTHING IS MORE ETERNAL

Me: So is it bad?

Sisyphus: I’ve seen worse.

Me: Really?

Sisyphus: I’m way past all that.

For anyone playing with death the way Sisyphus did, that death will not come as a relief. There is no end to Sisyphus’ torment of rolling a gigantic stone up a mountain, pushing and heaving with no end in sight; barely has the stone reached the top, it becomes impossible to hold and rolls all the way back down to the bottom. And the toil begins all over again. Camus believed that Sisyphus stood for the human being in the midst of an absurd existence, performing acts in order to generate some kind of sense. Sisyphus is in good shape. He has to be a monstrously strong man. And each trip up the mountain will provide him with even more strength, both physically and mentally, to be one for all: if his plight goes on forever, then all other life continues. A worker against finiteness, a hero, the type who holds doors open for us.

AR

Image: Sisyphus punished. In the background Hercules with his lion skin. Monumental southern Italian Greek vase (330 BCE) from Canossa in Apulia, Italy. Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek, Munich, Germany

  

Endurance

Endurance

Endurance was the name of the ship that Shackleton had to abandon in the ice at the South Pole. He could only stand and watch as it was crushed by icebergs. Last century’s voyages of discovery have come to symbolise humanity’s strive for progress. Higher, quicker, further. A small step for one has to be a greater one for mankind. But at some point it is nothing more than a pure question of survival.

CS

Fitzcarraldo – Of Course! Shackleton – Who?

Boat over mountain = Fitzcarraldo. Get it? Such an obvious quotation (or is it homage to a great film?) requires a second glance: what do they have in common; what are the differences? Ultimately, Fitzcarraldo is about a purely cultural conflict, as Western civilisation and its messianic culture sought to convert so-called primitive civilisations by way of an opera house.

In the film the boat stands for the steadfast faith in the achievements of one’s own culture and civilisation, whereas here at passage the boat is a manually crafted artefact, both a functionalised means of transportation and a metaphorical object.

A fire-red boat upon a glacier, this whale of the climatologic conscience, the individualised attestation of our destruction of the Earth, starts off as a strong image. But it is also a human battle, the artist’s battle – not only against Nature but above all against a self-imposed objective. The boat was intended to cross the Alps to reach Venice, that concentration of Western culture turned to stone, to the most significant art event in the world. Great! Sensational! The louder the drums, the stronger the echo. But up on the mountain, all is calm. The same old game: the battle against the elements and the laws of nature. Dangers abound; landslides, storms, snow. The chance that it will fail is big. Will the boat ever reach Venice safely in order to make contact with water for the very first time? And if so, where will its journey head?

CS

Press-conference, Munich, yesterday: the team introduced itself and the project. A crowd of journalists had the chance to ask questions. The self-made boat (and definitely not a rubber boat as was written in many of the already published articles) was presented in front of St. Lukaskirche.

Two teams will start tonight after the symposium: The artists with the boat towards the Zillertaler Alps, the other team towards Venice to set up the show.

The expedition itself will start on May 28 after the basecamp will be installed. From there the two will drag the boat over the Zillertal Alps. You can follow the route on our map.

No one asked the question: Why? - Follow the blog, and maybe we will find answers or some additional questions.