Web log performance 15-18 October

With the endeavor to record my presence while installing the proposed artwork, I took residence in the Museum during the 4 final days before the opening reception. While installing I abstained from my everyday needs or duties such as eating, or taking care of family life and performed a 4 day water fast. During a fast the metabolism changes and during times one can expect a fatigue, thus slowing the work.

These times I spent reading and writing a web llog (a first for me). I have mostly access to Swedish literature and quote texts in Swedish. I have not a possibility to leave comments, but if you have one email me at annan@avnstudio.com and I will add it to the page.

15 October
Day one. Putting up a plastic sheet taken from a scene in Tarkovskij's Nostalghia, and attempting to pour water into it. I have not enough wall space to hang it right and me and the floor gets mostly wet. But the little water I managed to stay pools into drops and I am reminded of my endeavor.

Tarkovskij sade i ett föredrag om Apokalypsen;
"ett fenomen som till sin natur utrycker all de lager som ovan givits människan".
Apokalypsen som vision, Andrej Tarkovskij, Christo Burman, Atrium 2010, sid. 99.

De grekiska tidsbegreppen:
Chronos - linjär tid.
Aion - en tidsperiod (eon).
Kairos - "den rätta tiden".

"Ein Sof (utan slut)"
Kabbala: en introduktion, Joseph Dan, Hillelförlaget 2007, sid. 48

"[Domenico] picks up a bottle of oil and pours one drop on to it. 'One drop,' he says, like a schoolmaster, and repeates the exercise. 'Plus one... makes one drop, not two.'"
Collected screenplays, Andrei Tarkovsky, Faber 1999, p 490.

"Modern analys av nostalgin hanterar den som ett utmanande, tveklöst kulturellt fenomen, en kultursjuka. Antingen görs den till tillbakablickande som en form av söt tillfredställelse, eller till förljuget drömmande om ett "bättre förr". Så betraktad känneteckas nostalgin av brist på just den autenticitet den tror sig representera. Den förfalskar historien, spänner en duk av känslosamhet och grumliga synvillor över förflutenheten."
Nostalgia: en känslas historia, Karin Johannisson, Bonnier 2001, sid. 8.

Nothing brings about the feeling of Nostalgia better than old family photographs.
I am about 5 years old sitting with my mother. My father holds my brother Albert when he is about 2. My son is about the same age and there is a family resemblance.

Jeanette Path, artist from Visby, stops by to talk about her travel to Riga in search of her father's birthplace. I made her a small drop for safekeeping.

I work all day, feeling hungry but ok, until 19, when my body and head aches. Hot shower at BAC, where I stay, helps and in bed a create this blog page.

16 October
Day two. Wake up at 4.30 and feel like I have the flue. I was prepared and start reading and my mind is on internal speed. I can't walk and I wonder how I will be able to meet the press at 10, but as I was hoping my creativity is bursting. I have 2 good ideas I need to attemps today. I call my mother to ask her to be standby helper for friday when I have to install the art work. I get up at 9.30 and take a shower. The hotwater is off, I faulty main pipe I learn in the newspaper at night, and the cold shower (I have to wash my hair) wakes me up. I feel great!

I can finally make drops after Anders Larsson tapes up the smoke detector.

Trying lace curtains but I am not interested in evoking feelings of nostalgia in the installation, I wish visualize the notion.

Lena Pasternak, from the Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators, comes by and gives me her thoughts on the notion of Nostalgia. She reflects how the feeling of longing evokes an active responce, but the feeling of missing a rather passive one. I was most inspired, but failed to photograph her as she walks away precariously carrying her little drop.

Mikaela Ek, jeweler from Valleviken, stops by and describes how gasoline fumes evokes memories from her childhood in Korea. Only certain gasoline stations has the perfect mixture and when she finds it she sniffs it with pleasure! I will go to her house later and make her a bunch of drops I hope she can use in her jewelry.

I wonder if nostalgia is a brain chemical, like a hormone.

Final lace curtain. A double layer creates an optical view and filters the Visby cityscape.

"I sin ursprungsmening betyder Nostalgi förkroppsligat minne." [embodied memory]
Karin Johannisson, sid. 156

A glass drop that embodies the frosen moment of time - an embodied memory of rain...

My dental hygienist Mezhdeta Nyrén, with a background from the former Yugoslavia, visits me late after work when we are both getting tired. She gave me a great feeling of comfort to bring back to my bed.

17 October
Day three. In the morning I had finally got the idea for the installation. I was going to create a shape of the window in the room by drawing the shape with glass thread. The window shape is suspended above the floor, in front of the real window, thus framing the drops.

But I woke up very weak and called in my mother to ask for help. She came to the rescue.

The day started with a false fire alarm. Anders tried to cover the smoke detector so that my drop-making would not accidentally start an alarm. Unfortunately he somehow activated it and the full fire force came!

At 15 she had to leave, but then my father and his wife Gittan came and took over the assistance. Luckily for me because it was hard work to make drops and glue them in place. The thin strings kept getting tangled and also the glue made strings. I had to remake several drops.

I was nervous about making drops, because it is the speed of my responsiveness that controls the length of the threads that suspends the drop in mid air. Yesterday night I was too tired and burned of the thread and they ended up burning the floor (the glass is about 1100 degrees centigrade when it melts into a drop).

But as the day passed I felt more and more invigorated and today drop-making went fine. Gittan managed to photograph as the drop is falling!
Also reading glasses helped...

I did not managed to photograph the installation when I was done about 18. The light is Ok for the show, but I need to come back with other lights for documentation. Daylight may also work.

18 October
Day four. I sleep at home and my children are very happy. I am happy and had the first morning where I could get out if bed without feeling faint.

Opening reception. I wear Harriet Löwenhielm's (the older) Konstfack robe I inherited from Harriet L the younger. It is similar to the robe on the poster in the Museum bathroom I have visited frequently during my water fast (I should call it tea fast because the taste of water was often unbearable).

William Blair Bruce portrait of the sculptor Carolina Benedicks Bruce.

I tried to document before the crowds arrived. I need to bring lights.

One can see the window in a close up of the drop. Not visible with the naked eye.

The installation was barely visible in the camera.

I was explaining the process and melting drops.

In exchange for a little drop I asked visitors to leave their thoughts on Nostalgia in a notepad. I will post them here as soon as I have time to write them down.