Two or Three Things That I’m Dying to Tell You*

I dreamt of you this morning- you were singing a sweet tune and I wanted to keep it in mind. But then I woke up and everything in my room was lying around wild and my favourite guitar was broken. It took a while until I realised that I was still sleeping. When I woke up the melody was gone… but at least the guitar was all right.**

If I were to describe how my work is constructed, I would say that I juxtapose layers of narratives, usually a text that is accompanied by a visual narrative or space that doesn’t illustrate the story in the text. In the friction between these narratives a new dimension emerges that is more than the sum of the different parts. New images and associations are created by the viewer who by watching and in a way filtering the work completes it. The final piece is an unseen and untold narrative space, different to everyone who sees it.

Stories are told to explain and make sense of the world we live in. They are a way of relating to the world and decide how much distance we want to put between the experience of real life and our inner lives. This is something that goes on continuously and not only when we tell stories to other people. Victims of  trauma tend to see themselves from the outside. The near death experience usually starts with people looking down at their own bodies. To cope with some situations we need to see them from the outside, alienation from the self suggests that this isn’t really happening. We write the fiction that is the reality of our lives.

Detachment from time and space can be very restful. If you sit down somewhere to look at a nice view of a landscape you never end up looking at the landscape but in your own head. Thoughts are little emergency exits from places but they are linked to places as well. In the space of your daydream you are always alone; even if you’re in the same room with other people who are experiencing the same thing you each have your own dream.

Dreams you have when you sleep are different, these are stories that you write for yourself at night and even though they are not realistic you believe in them because you have no other point of reference in your sleep. You live in your perception of reality and all times exist juxtaposed.
You take this for the truth until you exit the story and wake up. The most frightening nightmares are the ones where you dream about the room you are sleeping in. You can’t tell afterwards how much was a dream and how much was real.
What is “normal” – how can it be defined what level of connection between inner and outer reality is ok and what is abnormal? Are we all the time negotiating this fine line?

How does the way we think of the world determine what we see? I know an old man who suddenly developed a fear of water when he realised how much there was hidden beneath the surface of the ocean. All at once the little boat he was sitting in became so brittle.
Realising that for example the ocean contains more than what meets the eye and that we don’t know exactly everything about it creates a void in our minds. It is hard not to fill this void with fictional knowledge that confirms the way we are used to think about the world. How does the way we think of the world limit our ability to see what our closest surroundings are? Maybe the best thing is sometimes to leave what we don’t know undefined, a space for possibilities.

Lisa Stålspets 2007-16-12

 

* Two or three things that I’m Dying to tell you by Jalal Toufic, The Post-Apollo Press (June 1, 2005)

** sms received on the 15/03-2007 at 23.32