July 2009
"Clawing at a not yet of Telepathic bureaucracies, Time Monopolies, Control Drugs, Heavy Fluid Addicts:
"I thought of that three hundred years ago."
"Your plan was unworkable then and useless now"... Like Da Vinci's flying machine plans..."
W. Burroughs Naked Lunch
It is a peculiar ritual referring to the Jewish-Catholic roots of our society. Twenty men around the age of thirty were sitting in the rows of church pews in one of the halls of Letovice Chateau. The room is dimly lit with candlelight. The men are wearing smart clothes in faded colours, in an unspecified outmoded style, looking like the lower-middle-class trying to dress up but having not enough means. Common folk that pretend to be successful businessmen, dressed by a second-hand shop or a religious sect.
In front of the pews stands a speaker's lectern. At it, the men take turns reading aloud from the book Naked Lunch by William Burroughs. Each of them reads for about ten minutes and then is replaced by the next one. The other men just sit in silence, listen to the text of the book, and contemplate… This situation repeats itself until they have read the whole book. There is a meditative atmosphere, like during a breviary prayer or some peaceful ritual.
All this took place exactly a year ago, on July 12, 2008
On the same date – July 12, 2009, I am opening the video installation Naked Lunch in etc. gallery in Prague.
The time of the performance is approximately 7 hours. The whole thing was filmed by three cameras from three angles, in real time.
The video thus created is screened in three projections in real time.
The book Naked Lunch doesn't have a beginning or an end: it is a flowing structural analysis of human needs; a precise description of passion in its many forms; the journey of the desire for beauty and fulfilment reaching also into the spheres of the dark side of filth. The journey towards light leading through all aspects of darkness. It represents passion on a wide scale as a means to the manipulation of the masses. Burroughs' work is the most profound criticism of humanity.
The situation that I create illustrates the current mutated state of society, wholly manipulated by emotions and addictions of all kinds. The most addicted individuals are those claiming to be independent, as (according to Burroughs) that very word represents the most dangerous virus.
Thanks to:
Noam Darrom, Adam Borzič, Kamil Bouška, Pavel Dušek, Václav Beitler, Norbert Žid, Vladan Kolář, Yael Ben Horin and Vilém Novák, Mikulaš, Radim Labuda and Loopin
Darina Alster, 2009
© 2007, etc. galerie
Kateřinská 20, Praha 2, Czech Republic / info@etcgalerie.cz
