ARTISTS TALKING

# 15 [21 September 2010]

Day twenty two. Final night at the studio

It seems surreal thinking about a crowd of people basically 'invading' the space that has somehow became mine over the last couple of weeks. It took a while to settle in. Maybe only after a week of being here I felt that I could be in the studio as the main working space, which when it happened felt great.

This is what my studio looks like right now. The objects covered in white, the TV and the carpet are part of the installation, the empty packet of cereal and the bags obviously aren't. The carpet made all the difference. It is the same carpet that appears in the video and the photographs, and comes from my room here in Pankow. Despite my passionate dislike for the colour red it has become the equivalent of coziness, so that when I decided to make it part of the installation the studio regained it's charm. I stayed there for a while reading Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro (trying to finish the last few pages before donating is to the project library) delaying the moment I have to leave the studio. It's interesting how now and then what is being said in the book echoes the events or my thoughts at the time, especially here.

A couple of days ago I suddenly that this is the only reality that exists at this given moment, and there is nothing beyond it.

I can hear Coldplay from outside. How odd. That's definitely not the local radio station, they are into techno etc.

Tomorrow we open to the public...

# 14 [16 September 2010]

Good

# 13 [16 September 2010]

Not good...

# 12 [15 September 2010]

It's less than a week to go before the opening of the show, and there is hammering and drilling going on everywhere occasionally interrupted by some mellow jazz. It seems that the health and safety regs have gone out the window -if they ever existed here at all. I wake up every morning to the sound of construction work on the roof of the opposite building. My living room doesn't have a curtain so I can see the workers (and they can probably see me). I put a spare bed sheet on my bedroom window. All this time we have been working in a building which is under renovation. Cables hanging over the staircase so that I had to duck under while carrying a chair upstairs. It's great, though. It means people are getting on with their work at a much faster and more relaxed pace than in a similar situation in the UK where H&S issues sometimes seem to be more important than the work itself. This reminds me of my visit to the Venice Biennale last summer where the British pavilion was the only place I was told I could not sit in the walkway between the chairs as it's an emergency exit.

It's only an impression, though. The architect is here almost every day and the workers, even though they don't speak English or German, are incredibly helpful.

More to the work though... the plan is to black out this 11.5m room to create a controlled environment with a TV monitor showing a video, some photographs and an armchair. All furniture items covered in white bed sheets that I got from a local charity GAB (amazing what you can get for free here, I am so impressed).The window seems to the biggest, quite literally, issue -it occupies almost the entire wall so it's problematic to find the curtains that would fit such height. Besides, the light is incredible here and it would be a shame to get of it altogether. There has to be some sort of compromise that I am yet to work out. I may use the same sheets from gab to make a cover for the window, sew it together like a curtain but not sure it will look the way I want it to...

The floor is also a question mark... at the moment it's painted that generic gallery type of grey colour. I am thinking that I should be bringing some element of domesticity into this installation... a cup or a carpet or something else.

Like I said at the beginning, I have been documenting pretty much everything around me all this time on my Holga camera, so now I have a pile of 15x15cm photographs, some of which are also being made into a small book by own very own graphic design team on site.

# 11 [10 September 2010]

Whatever happens here does not exist elsewhere and is therefore unreal. The events that take place here will not affect the order of things back there. No one can get hurt here. Everything is temporary here and will not have a permanent resonance there.

# 10 [4 September 2010]

Saturday 4 September. Day six.

# 9 [4 September 2010]

I feel quite distant from the text I just wrote, and distant is a positive description in my case. I have always stayed away from making autobiographic work and will continue to do so. Each time I tried to ‘inject’ an autobiographic aspect into my work it failed in what it had set out to achieve. So in this case being distant is a conscious decision.

Even though the recent footage and photographs are taken in the space that I, temporarily, inhabit, these are not my spaces, not my memories and traces. They belong to everybody who has ever entered his room and nobody simultaneously. This is a space that is inhabited temporarily, every time. Therefore, nobody can describe  it a theirs and what I document and write about is not mine either.

# 8 [4 September 2010]

Deja-vu/Contradictions

By now I am more or less used to the feeling of cold. It never goes away, even in a warm room I get shivers as if my body doesn't remember how to be warm and is constantly fighting against the cold. So I gave up wearing a coat. Most people in the street seem a lot better prepared for the autumn weather ahead.

My mind is in the constant state of this sensation of deja-vu and the false impression of even a slight familiarity with this place, feeling at home almost, mixed with that pleasant feeling of complete novelty.

Suddenly, I recognise something. In the windows of the first floor apartments I see clown figures in swings, facing the street. They look freaky. At least every third window has one of even more. I realise this was that street, one of the first and, it seemed then, longest streets I ever walked in this city. It is not surprising I didn't recognise the surroundings straight away -covered in sleet and dirt like it was back in February, this was hardly a place to enjoy.

I remember the voice at exactly this crossing -'If you want to go to the Jewish Museum, it's that way'. The group carried on straight. Now, walking by myself, I recognise this large imposing building of red brick. I turn left -here I notice that I am constantly fighting against my temptation to get a take away coffee and dive into my comfort zone - I carry on walking.

03.09.2010

# 7 [2 September 2010]

3 days, 27 medium format photographs, €47.96, this is just the beginning...

# 6 [1 September 2010]

Today I had two rolls of 120 film processed and printed, both of them from Berlin. It turned out to be more expensive than I expected so it looks like I will have to cut down on my compulsion to document every little change around me. Still, I would like these to be part of the final installation in the studio, there just won't be as many as I'd like to.

All images here are from my phone.

It's just gone 10pm and am about to go over to the studios, looks at the images in situ.