MIX; Scenario no. 1:
EGEN HAVE_A GARDEN OF ONE’S OWN

YEAR: 2001.

SOLO EXHIBITION: OVERGADEN – Institut for Samtidskunst, Copenhagen, Denmark.

MATERIALS: Photocopy.

The title of Scenario no. 1 is inspired by Virginia Woolf’s short story A Room of One’s Own. The short story was inspirational to the women’s liberation movement in the 1920s. In a corner of the first exhibition room a photocopy collage has been assembled. Each sheet of paper features a text, a drawing or an image. All the photocopies together produce a fragmentary tale, dissolving time and space. The narrative comprises a subjective, an objective and a third narrative voice. This is not one story, but several little stories crossing each other.

The story is about modernism, portraying the architect Mies van der Rohe and a description of a skyscraper that he designed in 1922 intended for Berlin and which was never built. This is also a portrait of the writer Virginia Woolf and a description of the form of narrative behind the novel Jacob’s Room likewise from 1922. The collage also displays a narrative about a fictitious man and his imaginings about a fictitious woman. The fictitious man is lying in a bathtub, imagining a garden of his own and a woman. The garden is mounted on the exterior of the outside wall of his third-floor apartment. In the garden
he imagines an outdoor bathtub. He imagines the image of the garden with the bathtub, himself and a woman, while lying in the bath in his present apartment.
The collage also contains a plan drawing of his apartment,
a photograph of a model of a house and little stories containing references to a view at the sea and an aerial view of an island.

COLLAGE TEXTS

VIRGINIA WOOLF
Born 1882, died 1941. England. Writer.
Her authorship is an endless battle with
the impossible balance between the flowing
and solid aspects of artistic form. Her work
is part of the modernistic attempt to write
back the dead, while also exemplifying the fact
that the better part of modernism always knew
when a project was impossible. Awareness and
experience come to her selflessly. When she
writes, she writes away herself. Writing liberates
her from her ego, and this experience of
absence gives rise to Virginia’s writing project:
textualising collapse on its own terms in order
to configure breakdown and withdrawal.
Later her goal becomes not just to narrate the
generative process of death, but also to display
it linguistically. In her novel Jacob’s Room from
1922 the narrative voice does not originate
from a single point; rather Jacob’s life and
personality are pieced together through a
mass of secondary characters reflecting him.
Whether the image of a person is actually
created through this prism-like hall of mirrors
is debatable, but the fragmented narrative
angle allows for the disclosure of a parallelity
between the identities of the main character
and that of the narrator. Just as Jacob is
no-one and hence free to be anyone, the
narrator can freely pan between different
positions, chronologically as well as geographically,
thus becoming the result of an
indirectly circling narrative motion. The
narratives often consist of an associative
rhythm rather than a narrative sequence.
MIES VAN DER ROHE
Born 1886, died 1969. Germany/USA.
Architect.
His designs unite classical tradition with the
new dream of »flowing space«. Mies practiced
a way of thinking that reduced architecture
to an abstract system of signs through which
various conditions for building activity were
organized. His abstract system has strong
parallels to euclidian geometry, resting as it
does on certain axioms shaped within a system
of logic. Likewise, human activity and the
surrounding landscape constitute indicative
circumstances that may influence the system.
The system is subject to questions indicating
a given expression in relation to events and
circumstances. These events constantly refer
not only to a geometric construction but also
to an integrated sense of development. Mies
reduces architecture to the »transparent legs«
of a geometry initiating technical and aesthetic
significances, using them as tools to promote
the building process. In this practice »seeing«
and »thinking« are two actions that at once
become his programme and the structure of
his work. To him, architecture was a discussion
of space, proportion and material. Mies used
the expression »less is more« to hint that it
is the absolute and clarified that should be
sought. In 1922 he designed a skyscraper for
Berlin that was wrapped in glass where reflections
in the facades constituted the main
architectural effect.
INNER MONOLOGUE IN BATHTUB_HIM
» ... you are like the sweet juice of the fruit
and your body smells of milky caramel, your
breath is like crystalline ice. You move and
throw me a glance? – I want you; you are
my weakness. You slowly open your mouth,
unfolding; your tongue springs out like a
rocket. You remain, hanging in the air, like
a gleaming ice flower, your hair floats and
you fall slowly across my lips. I behold your
wet body; moving back and forth. And I
disappear into you – your body floating,
your nails growing ... «
INNER MONOLOGUE IN BATHTUB_HER
» ... or did your mother always do it? –
Everything is a big mess around your spongy
feet. Is there no escape from your groaning? –
»That depends on the individual« – you say,
manipulating foul-smelling air from your
intestines; air that gathers in bubbles and rises
up through the water. The bubbles explode
and the air escapes across the surface of
the water – you never say anything when
you’re taking a dump. Your breath noisy, your
body floating, and why do I have to listen
to your stupid comments on the weather –
the sun rises and sets – yes, yes, yes, … «
NARRATIVE No. 1
Opposite the main door, in the hallway, there
is a door leading to a toilet. After the toilet
door one can go to the right and enter the
kitchen. The kitchen is oblong; in the wall
to the right there is a back door. At the end
of the kitchen is a window overlooking the
rear courtyard. Opposite the kitchen door in
the hallway there is a third door leading into
the sitting room. The room is almost square
with two windows overlooking the street.
In the opposite wall – the one with the door
to the hallway – there is another door. This
door leads to a bedroom; to the right of
this door there is another opening into
the hallway. At the end of the room there
is a window overlooking the rear courtyard.
NARRATIVE No. 2
A man is sitting in his bathtub. The bath stands
under the kitchen window, which overlooks
the rear courtyard. He is looking out into the
courtyard. He imagines how he could build
a platform onto the outside of the house. This
is where he will create a garden in which he
will place his bathtub. He imagines exiting
through the kitchen window into his garden.
He sits down in his bathtub. He lies in his
bathtub – outside his kitchen window – and
begins speaking out loud: »I am sitting in my
bathtub in my garden and there is sunshine
here from 9:00–13:30.«
NARRATIVE No. 3
While I am sitting in my bathtub, I think of
the day you said you had to get rid of all your
things. You began by saying: I have a dishwasher,
an iron, a cooker, a washing-machine,
a toaster, pots and pans, bowls and ovenproof
dishes. A juicer, an electric drill and
a living room lamp. A dining table, a bed,
bed-linen, duvets, pillows and tablecloths.
A sofa, cupboards and shelves. A coffee table,
an armchair, some knives, forks, spoons,
carving knives, large wooden spoons, flour,
tea, sugar, spices, cans and kitchen cupboards.
A bathtub, towels, soap, shampoo
and orange-sticks. A bathroom cabinet,
a toothbrush, a shaver, an emery board,
a hairdryer and a pair of scissor. A television,
a stereo and a video. A rug, an armchair and
chairs. A washing-up brush and a floor-mop,
a cloth and a hoover.
NARRATIVE No. 4
You sat in the bathtub, wanting to be on
an island. You also asked me to come. You
spoke of a house that was really a public
toilet – where we could live. It was next to
the water with a view of the beach. We all
went: you, your son and me. We arrived at
the little island by ferry. The house included
a door, a window and a covered terrace –
where we left our bikes. Inside the house
was about 10 x 10 ft. We bathed in the sea
while your son told a story about you.
NARRATIVE No. 5
He told me that he had arrived a few days
ago. He was waiting for her. Sitting in his
bathtub, imagining what would happen when
she came. She would come to him and caress
him. She would take off her clothes and get
into the bath with him. She would caress his
entire naked body. He would probably want
to enter her. They would be surrounded by
plants and the sky would be open above
them. Afterwards she rose from the bathtub
and said that she had to go. He grabbed her
ankle, but she vanished, humming a tune.
NARRATIVE No. 6
She said – »I saw him lying in the bathtub
and I took off my clothes. I put my foot
into the warm water and he smiled at me.
I carressed him across his back, his shoulders,
his arms, his chest, his belly. He penetrated
me with his member. Afterwards I got out
of the bathtub. He grabbed my ankle, asking
me to stay. I had to travel with my son.
We were going to stay in a house on an island.
I began humming a tune.«

BACK TO PROJECTS