In the life of a claustrophobic or a review of “512 Hours” at The Serpentine Gallery:
In my head even trying to plan to go to Marina Abramovich’s interactive (inclusive) performance felt scary for a long time. Exactly a months time. Maybe it was the past performances of her’s that were still haunting my mind, what would she be doing this time?
Then when I went to see the 2014 Pavillion at the Serpentine by Smilja Radic I realized that the Abramovich exhibition was still on too.
As I reluctantly and with baby steps approached the young host at the door to ask her whether the exhibition would at all be very scary for a claustrofobic as myself, she assured me that it wouldn’t be claustrophobic, nor intimidating. Still one could sense that she had been “London-trained” to keep the concept to herself and not giving away the details to the visitors coming to see the performance.
I found myself taking a deep breath and I went inside the gallery leaving the real world outside for a one in a quiet locker room, where one had to leave all of their personal belongings (here you should bear in mind that my bag is always packed with emergency-behavior in case I get scared of something).
But as I really wanted to see Abramovich and her new work, even I let myself be stripped bare of my possessions, leaving me only with an elastic wristband/strap with locker key and the clothes and shoes that I was wearing.
I was now being handed a pair of headphones that kept almost all sounds out. I didn’t like the soundproofing either. It felt lonely and isolating. Like being all alone in the world, but still being able to see others, but they wouldn’t be able to hear you. This was another phobia that I remember from the Coma film from my childhood and from the film Scream, where the girl killed was screaming but there was no sound and thus no one could hear her to save her from her murderer. I didn’t like this when I once watched a film late night as I was doing my teacher’s degree. It was about a man in surgery, he could feel and see everything that happened to him during the surgery, but he couldn’t talk or move. That was so frightening to me. (at least I know of other friends who has this phobia too!) I kept taking the headphones on and of my ears. I first had to understand the whole setting to also letting go of my hearing and feeling all alone in the world.
When I first went inside there was total silence (when moving the headphones, without them on there were still sounds but a tranquility something transcendental and almost religious was evident). This was a special space that had been created to facilitate both a loneliness and a spirit of togetherness for all of us.
The uncanny feeling that I felt all through the exhibition, seeing all these everyday simple things like a strap bed, (reminding me of an institution where you would have no say in your own life) but still being to scared to letting go of my control by simply laying in it and letting Abramovich’s young helpers dressed in black tuck me in. No, that was too much for me and then they would get really really close to me and I would create a scene because it would be too much for me and it would be very embarrassing and kill the whole spirit of the exhibition.
In the main room people where watching from where they where standing up against the walls. They where the newcomers in the middle some people where standing on a scene holding hands with their eyes closed. All very strange.I kept thinking how did they end up there, did they choose to just take somebody they didn’t know’s hand, I saw some where taken there by the helpers. It felt relaly strange. In the other room everyone was walking very very slowly.
I went out of the exhibition and couldn’t really make sense of it. I started talking to the host at the door about the whole thing, she didn’t give anything away still, but when I asked about where Abramovich was she told me that she had just been on a lunch break and that she was now in the toilet. I then got a bit excited and felt less scared now that I hadn’t been forced to stay inside the exhibition and had the assurance that I could leave anytime I wanted.There was nothing forceful about the exhibition.
I went in, left my things, took the ear phones. I stood a bit up against the wall as many others in the first room and suddenly Abramovich that had been come back from her break had been standing next to me and now left for the rooms with the beds. I didn’t want to immediately follow her therefore I stayed a bit more before going next door. But when I got in Abramovich had already taken one of the ebds and had already been tucked in. I wanted to stay in that room too and for a while I was standing in the door way and then pulled myself together to at least be able to sit on one of the beds. So I did. It felt good I even kept my ear phones own. It was a little bubble and it felt uncanny but safe. I laid myself on top of the sheets so that no one could come and touch me or tuck me in. I wanted things my way, in my pace. I was now on the bed.It felt amazing. I felt that it was ok to be me eventhough there were lots of other people there.my pace, my lentoness was ok. No one questioned it.
At the end I felt like I ddnt even want to leave the exhibition and this world, where I felt I belonged with my slow steps and movements from the 3rd room especially. I did notice that people was staring because of my enjoyment of the quietness and slow motionness of things.
A friend came from Denmark and I urged him and his daughter to go and see the exhibition, but then when they were telling me about the exhibition and I was telling them about my experiences there it wasn’t the same things we had been through. The whole exhibition was designed so that in the room where there had been beds the day I was there, there had been rice and lentils that needed to be sorted.
I cant stop thinking about the fact that Abramovich had planned that every day would be a bit different from the day before for her performances. This way someone coming to the show another day than me would get a totally different experience at her show. And thus no critic could really write about her show, unless he would go there every day and also wait till the show had ended.