THE WAITING ROOM
FURNITURE, SPIDER PLANT, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINES, RADIO AND A CONTINUOUS LOOP OF THE ARTISTS RE-MIXED VERSION OF LEONARD COHEN’S WAITING FOR THE MIRACLE.
2017, ARTBOX, ELLA BERTILSSON & ULLA JUSKE, DUBLIN, IRELAND.
PRESS RELEASE
THE WAITING ROOM IS AN INSTALLATION THAT CHALLENGES OUR PERCEPTION OF TIME. WAITING ROOMS ARE LIMINAL AND TRANSITIONAL, A PLACE WHERE YOU WAIT TO GO SOMEWHERE ELSE, IMPERSONAL AND QUICKLY FORGOTTEN. IN WAITING ROOMS, THE VISITOR HAS LITTLE CONTROL ON HOW MUCH TIME THE WAIT MIGHT LAST. HERE, ELLA BERTILSSON AND ULLA JUSKE’S WAITING ROOM AT ARTBOX CREATES A ZONE OF ATTENTION; EMPHASISING AND ACKNOWLEDGING THE SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF TIME PASSING.
THE PRESENT, AS IT IS EMBEDDED WITH MEMORIES, DREAMS AND HOPES, IS EVIDENT IN THE LYRICS OF LEONARD COHEN’S SONG WAITING FOR THE MIRACLE.
THE SONG IS ALSO THE OPENING SOUNDTRACK OF OLIVER STONES FILM NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994) WHICH WAS BANNED IN IRELAND UNTIL 2013. THE FILM TELLS THE STORY OF MICKEY AND MALLORY, TWO VICTIMS OF TRAUMATIC CHILDHOODS WHO BECOME LOVERS AND MASS MURDERERS, AND ARE IRRESPONSIBLY GLORIFIED BY THE MASS MEDIA. A REMIXED VERSION OF WAITING FOR THE MIRACLE CAN BE HEARD LOOPING THROUGHOUT THE GALLERY SPACE PLAYING FROM A RADIO.
AN ESSAY BY CSO KEEFFE TWO TEDDIES AND A WOMAN COMMIT WELFARE FRAUD AND AUSTIN HEARNE’S COLLECTION OF PAINTINGS LITTLE FLOWERS WAS INCLUDED IN THE EXHIBITION.
Two teddies and a woman commit welfare fraud An extract from The Devotions of CSO Keeffe.
It was a dark and stormy afternoon (wind, rain) and Ted, Big Ted and Cat, who could usually be found in Bed or at least in bedwear, have ventured as far as a south Dublin GP’s office in search of some answers. Cat has a medical card, the Teds do not , teddies are not eligible. Ted has a corporeal complaint; Ted is going to use Cat’s medical card, because they don’t have fifty euro to spare. In the room are some others who are waiting too. It’s not clear how many of these others are also committing what could be called fraud if you were to ask a particularly unsympathetic person.
CAT I’m thinking of trying to be a workaholic, I need something to knock me out of this stupor, and I’ve always wanted to contribute to economic growth. I feel like I missed out on the spirit of the Celtic Tiger.
TED Do you hear yourself? You don’t believe that, have you been watching those financial advice Youtubes again? Have you been reading Lifehacker?
Ted turns to Big Ted
TED BIG TED TED BIG TED CAT
Last time Cat took to the Bed she was on Lifehacker 247, ...
I know I was there.
... only ever taking breaks to run some tests on her personality elsewhere. I know I was there.
I was very alienated from myself you see.
Big Ted becomes very still, he stops moving altogether; he doesn’t move a limb. Big Ted doesn’t like to talk about madness. Big Ted clams up. Big Ted can’t help it. Big Ted doesn’t try to help it. Cat and Ted continue.
CAT And it wasn’t that I feared death so much as I feared that I would only have ever had nothing before the nothingness of death.
TED Like you wouldn’t have done all the things you wanted to do before you died? CAT A lot of the worry was about wasted time.
Big Ted remains frozen, breathing deeply and quietly, not moving much, other times not moving at all.
CAT TED BIG TED CAT
TED BIG TED CAT TED CAT
BIG TED TED CAT
BIG TED
Are you okay Ted?
Is time moving more slowly or quickly for you right now?
Slowly
You’re bigger than both me and Ted by a foot and closer to the Sun by a foot, so do you think that it evens out?
What!!??
What are you talking about?
The higher up you are the more quickly time goes?
What?
I read it on the Daily Mail.
Stop reading the Daily Mail.
Yeah Cathy it’s really bad. They’re awful and they steal content.
I don’t believe in intellectual property.
You don’t believe in intellectual property because you’ve only ever made halfthings your entire life.
CAT ....
CAT TED BIG TED TED CAT TED CAT TED BIG TED
CAT
BIG TED CAT
BIG TED CAT
TED
CAT TED
Jesus Big Ted.
It could be good for your CV, to be a workaholic.
That’s a dark thing to say to me and it already a dark situation that we’re in. He could be dying.
I could be dying.
We’re all dying.
I could find out today that I’m dying.
Even if you are dying it would take 3 to 5 business days to find out.
Maybe we shouldn’t have all come here today.
If you die in an accident have you always been dying still or is death then a more discrete event?
I don’t believe in free will.
What do you believe in?
I believe in everything ten to ninety percent.
What things do you believe in ten percent.
Use both your imagination and your knowledge of my character and don’t make me announce the rotten things I believe in ten percent to this room of strangers.
You’d be liable to have blood on your hands if you did. Some of these are very decrepit
Shush
Look at that lad.
Ted gestures at an elderly man.
Cat and Big Ted turn puce with their healthy senses of shame. Big Ted thumps Ted.
CAT I believe in free will ten per cent. A child stands up.
CHILD “Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart.”
BIG TED That child is a princely philosopher.
CHILD’S ATTACHED ADULT : It’s this book he’s reading. It’s having a great effect on him.
TED BIG TED CAT
Surely you mean a philosopher king?
He’s only about ten.
“The only satisfying solution is the essentially religious realisation that we are not other than [time].”
In one gesture the child smiles and sits down.
TED What was that? BIG TED That was beautiful.
Ted’s shoulders begin to shake, Ted is laughing an unclean laugh.
TED What was that!!?? CAT I can’t help that
My voice has
The texture of farce And so do my eyebrows And sideways mouth.
Quoting Michael Ende, Momo (1973) and Linda Goodhew and David Loy, "Momo, Dogen, and the Commodification of Time".