A is running in the middle of the
street. K runs after her and films her from behind.
A turns around: Around here somewhere?
K a bit hesitant, looking around: Yes, I don't know. It's not bad here.
A pulls the billboard from the back and
starts to set it up. K approaches slowly.
A: this thing has really turned out well!
So portable! One can take it anywhere.
A looks around: Do you think it is better horizontal or rather, ouch, damn!
She has jammed her fingers on the
foldable billboard and lets it fall on the floor. She holds her hand.
K:
What happened?
A: Finger jammed. Fucking thingil!
Wants to kick the billboard, but keeps
her temper. K places the camera on the floor and looks at A's hand.
K: You should take the camera. And I'll
set it up.
A: What do I have to do?
K: Just record. It's already running.
A: Why do we have to film everything
anyway?
K: For the documentary. You will be the
first one to say, oh, did anybody record it?
K takes the camera and hands it over to
A.
K: Here.
A takes the camera
K: I would rather set it up like this
here.
A: Aha. But then it stands at an angle,
somewhat. I had rather thought it to be more straight.
K: How about this?
A: That's fine too.
K sets it up.
A: Strange with such a documentary. In the
end the most important things are not in there.
K: Things just don't appear, if one
doesn't document them.
A: Is that what it's about?
K: What?
A: Is it about appearing?
K: Oh man! It has to become visible
somewhere, no? What else do we do this for? Or is somebody paying you here?
A: Anyway, don't we chat too much? That
will all be on there later.
K: There will be music put on later.
Documentaries are always a bit strange for me too, but one has to arrange it
somehow. Besides the others will want to see how it went.
K almost jams her finger. A looks
around.
A: Do you still recall the first car free
Sunday?
K: Yes, absolutely. I was still very
small. It was cold, because I was dressed warmly. My sister was too. Her arms
were sticking out, because she had so much stuff on. I believe she had just
learned to walk, so she didn't really hesitate. But I was impressed. I had it
drummed into my head that one shouldn't run onto the street for any reason. And
suddenly everything was changed. I went off ... waddling in the middle of the
street with my sister. We stayed outside all day long. Everybody was walking in
the street. Like in a state of emergency. But a good one. That made an
impression on me.
A: Exactly. That was a kind of
extraordinary experience for many. As if the space suddenly escaped its
function and simply is. With something like that you can surely have a good
time. In the end, however, it was only an exemption ordered from above. Not one
that was created out of a movement.
K: Yes, but you realize that much later.
At first it explodes the field of action and in any case it holds potential.
A slightly ironic: If not, all those pedestrian areas and street festivals wouldn't have
appeared afterwards.
K: Really, did the pedestrian areas come
out of the car free weekends? I didn't know that.
A: I don't know. I just imagine it. But in
any case it made a strong impression on people, all of the streets without
cars. They were puzzled too, because the fantasies of mobility and growth
suddenly were blocked. But I believe they have suddenly discovered that realm
of experience for themselves, which since that time, they want to conjure up
again with all those roller-nights and street parades. The pedestrian area is
perhaps the most successful version of this because one can reintegrate it best
with this shopping craze.
K: But it was about discovering an
opportunity for oneself, wasn't it? One has to experience what is possible
before one can have an idea of it.
A: But anyhow it is strange that the
opportunity itself was characteristic of the crisis and is expressing the sovereignty
of the government without a split. Not in spite of, but because it was a state
of emergency. This has the side effect that people suddenly find out how good
it can be when cars are gone, and really go for it, that was surely not meant
to happen.
K: Yes, of course, that's what it is
about. You are in a state of emergency declared from above, but by the way you
learn what actually is possible in life, besides driving from A to B or waiting
at the traffic lights, surely this is an unintended side effect but you can't
take that experience away from the people. It leaves an impression.
A ironically: Exactly, and you can use it to push for having a 10th pedestrian area.
(More serious) Such an experience is
completely limited, because even though it happens in a state of emergency, it
comes in the form of an existing order. That is the perversity of such a place
for experience. In the best case, an opportunity will arise within what,
what... is defined to be possible, even if it seems to be outside the realm of
the possible. The people are running around in it and think, another world is
possible and in reality they confirm the system by waddling on the street when
they are allowed to.
K: But that is just like demonstrations.
A: Yes, exactly.
K: Mmm. nodding. Even though there is something that is not controllable. Such an
experience can initiate something that a sovereign cannot control. All those
kids that demonstrated against the Iraq War and by that only promoted Schršder
and Chirac. In any case, they might have experienced something that changes
them forever, that starts to work within them, that maybe will turn them into
independent, thinking beings. Who knows, if I hadn't been able to jump around
on the street...
A: Ah, it is frustrating to talk about
something like that. It only shows you how fucking limited, what one is trying
to do, is.
K: It is limited until it is not limited
anymore...
A: That sounds like utopia, how sweet.
K makes a face: No, no, no, no.
K has finished setting up the
billboard. Walks around it and looks. A follows her.
A: Could you roll me one?
K Takes out the tobacco and rolls one
for A and then one for herself. A is filming the billboard.
K: Why did we actually use this picture?
A: I have no idea. We found it searching
the Internet and it looked like it went with it. Could have been another one as
well.
K: The quote is not in...
A: Which?
K: The world extends in front of the
viewer, or something like that. The world expands in front of the
viewer...observer. No actually: the world extends to the observer.
A: You are referring to the Kissinger
quote?
K: Exactly, Kissinger the old pig.
A: The West is deeply confirmed to the notion that the real world is
outside of the observer and that knowledge consists of recording and
classifying data.
K: Precisely. And goes on: the cultures in the developing countries have
retained a pre-Newton view that the real world is almost completely internal to the observer. Why isn't that included?
A imitating K: Why isn't that in?
K: What? But tell me, why didn't we include that?
A: (pauses lets the camera sink in annoyance) Can you talk about that the next time at the meetings where these
matters are decided?
K: Hey, hey, hey....no sweat, ok. Which meeting was that? Day? Time?...
A: Oh man. turns away
K: What?
A: We have endlessly discussed this. There were four contents meetings.
On three of them you were not present, on one you came, when we were about to
leave.
K: And what did I do at that time? Mmh? I worked. Mmh? Ever heard of
something like that? Had we applied for money for the thing, I could have saved
myself that and could have attended the c o n t e n t s meetings. Now I have
built the billboard. Aims at the billboard; both pause, eyebrows quiver
K: At least. A takes up the camera and goes on filming the wall. I thought the quote was important, because it stresses what
construction of the world is behind this structure. How capitalism is forming
the world, how experience has disappeared. Even though it still exists. There
is empiricism but it doesn't count anymore. It doesn't come into the picture,
because now one has the knowledge, one has information, then you don't need the
experience, the personal experience anymore to design anything. This apparent
'non-involvement', this ability to 'stand outside' and to look at things as if
one was a kind of a mega-telescope that can look at things as close as one
chooses but is actually living on a different planet. Did you ever read the
thing of Gramsci, in the Prison Notebooks?
There he explains that power gets manifested inside of you, that historic
processes leave a trace in you somewhere and that analysis and the critical
work start with knowing yourself and to know how that has shaped you, where
that is manifested in oneself. It's as if one practically had to take an
inventory of the whole garbage to begin with. I think it is as if he
contradicts Kissinger completely. Completely kicks him out! Whoosh! Because
these things always leave traces in
oneself. Because one is, at the same time while one is O N L Y watching, a part
of those things too. They write themselves into yourself, they go through you,
if you want it or not and I think that Kissinger actually knows that as well.
He has to know it. I think he is completely freaked out because things write
themselves into him, go through him. He doesn't want that to happen. He wants
to make completely sure that nobody writes themselves into him.
A: The old pig!
K: That's why he is into this model.
A: He has the power. K smiles, holds an invisible remote control
K: He needs the power so that nobody can inscribe themselves onto him.
A: And still it happens.
K: He cannot keep it from happening at all.
A: It's not in his
power.
K: It's not in his
power, even though he believes he has it completely in his hands. But the information doesn't stay with him. It wanders on and
distributes itself. Goes through us too. If he had staged this oil crisis, like
a theatre play then it would go through us just the same, his oil crisis. And
it did change something. But not necessarily like he had planed. That the
people experience the streets without cars and that never goes away, because it
was a personal experience that he hadn't calculated with. That triggered
something other then he was able to calculate with. Smiles triumphantly. Ha, yes. Lies down perhaps draws something with chalk on the street
or just does one of those reclaim the streets sit-ins.
K: You.
A: Mmh
K: Sorry that I started with the dough again.
A: We didn't sleep much, both of us.
K: Did you pull an all-nighter too?
A: Yeah, we fit the texts together and then we tried to print it out
again, the damn printer again...
K: Where did we get the Kissinger quote from, again?
A: I don't know anymore.
K takes the cigarettes: Do you have a
light?
A hands K a lighter. K lights both cigarettes and hands A one. A then
sits next to K, positions the camera next to her. Both smoke.
K: Should we go on? gets up
A: Ok. looks at her bandaged finger, holds it in front of the camera.
K starts to dismantle things. A comes towards her and helps
K grabs the camera. T-shirt pulled over her mouth and nose. Fingers
form the victory sign, posing in front of the camera: The street is ours. Make no mistake.
A straps the billboard to her back and starts walking, K is some
distance behind her.
