Seriously: Seriousness and the way it looks today is somewhat out of pace with the dramas of our time. I for one find it very difficult to take things seriously. It seems to me that the practise of taking things seriously is merely a crafty execution of symbolic grown-up- ness. Even though I am not usually troubled by symbolic layers and aesthetic communication, I am sceptical of the symbols of seriosness of our day. They seem to me to be mystical incantations to confirm that we are actually real enough to be taken seriously. If you can tighten your necktie to near - death, then you know you are probably alive, if your name is in the bank as a big loaner, then you are probably old enough to be taken seriously, and if you own a Philips 42PF7321D 42 Plasma television to watch the news, there is no-one who will doubt your reality. This abracadabra reality reminds me of being 8 years old and playing adult. I remember one particular childhood performancein which I was the regular pick for playing the grown up because I could always conjure up a solemny serious atmosphere with great creepy words such as ”ronna reagan” - that none of us knew what meant.
Now I am quite grown up but it still seems that it is this strange symbolic seriousness that defines the concept of reality. In my personal efforts to be taken seriously I don’t want to confirm this dull matter of fact grown-up ness, and my defense and counterattack is a silly detour to what I hope could be a kind of ”alternative seriousness”. The cabaret is an attempt to discuss what is in the world without contributing to a concept of reality that is based on household-savings, neckties, lugubrious newsmens pokerfaces, and other platitudal seriousness.
Silence and beside the point-ness: ”Welcome to the prison of free speech, here you are free to tell me everything I need to know, my name is Comandante Frederico de la Rocha. I am a warrior. But my battlefield is here - with you! My skills are extraction of information, so I will share my knowledge with you, and you will share your knowledge with me, Sooner or later. That I promise you” (from Cabaret of War)
On the basis of a common understanding of jokes: that something is not funny anymore , once you say to much and explain why it is funny, I work in the field of concealments, beside the pointness, suppressions and between the lines insinuations.
Modern profets of serious are so preoccupied with being frank, saying things as they are, bluntly and straight out; without beating around the bush. Therefore I must make a virtue out creative beating around the bush, by encouraging and staging various performances and artistic presentations to write and talk betwen the lines. I intend to make people laugh hysterically when theres is nothing to laugh at, I will take things seriously that no-one else will, and evade the creepy language of seriosness by talking beside the point. This is good cabaret tradition, the best kind of joke, and a quality in the art that I find necessary.
”Cabaret of War” ended with a recorded silence from the record Kenotaphion. Kenotaphion is a collection of solemn silences held each year on armistice day in London. The silences have been collectted by the british artist Jonty Semper. This record is an example of silence as action, and I think, in order to rework the present concept of ”talking straight – serious” , that silence is a potential way of action. Earlier artists cautiously spoke beween the lines because of harsh censorship. Today I voluntarily suggest this strategy against a sort of dictatorship of free speech. It is a system where it is a widely held belief that anyone thinks the same horrible capitalist self-saving things deep down. A system against political correctness where people think they know what I would have said if I would have said it, and wasn’t scared of saying it as it is.. It is a system where silence is deemed suspicious and subversive selfcensor-ship and grave negligence of my duty to speak. Enclosed in the compilation of silences is a text by Dr. Adrian Gregory. With Jonty Semper and Adrian Gregory, I hope for the potential transformative power of silence!
“once again a receptacle into which a diverse range of meanings can be poured. In 1995, I observed a small and spontaneous protest outside the gates of King’s College in Cambridge. The students involved carried a banner protesting the arms trade. They reverently observed the silence whilst bearing witness for peace. The spirit in which they did so would have been familiar in the 1930s. Perhaps the transformative power of silence is not yet finished.”
Dr. Adrian Gregory, tekst til “Kenotaphion”
