The work provides a format for a performative encounter between human guests and their more-than-human hosts. It is a do-it-yourself performance, that comes in a box with prompt cards and objects. The cards hold the dramaturgical format and contain guidance for tasks; observations, contemplations, and actions, to be performed during the performance. The objects are to be used to perform some of the tasks. The piece is relation-specific and aspires to facilitate relations between the human and more-than-human agents present during the performance, by awareness, listening and mirroring.
Now you have jumped from one realm to another, and we are still here to prompt you. We will stay with you until you decide to leave and if you choose to come back we will be here waiting for you.
In this part of the exposition, you will be invited to
... read a description of the performance and its context.
... read manuscripts for three performative encounters.
... read texts generated by the guests during the encounters.
... look at pictures from the encounters in Reykjavík.
... look at the results from questionnaires.
... read citations from guests.
we hope you will not get lost and remind you of following the arrows.
good luck
Imagine that you are in Reykjavík, the home town of the artist researcher.
It is November and it is dark and cold.
The year is 2022.
Two performance festivals are held in Reykjavík during this time. Lokal International Festival, that focuses on work in progress performances, and Reykjavík Dance Festival, a performance festival that is celebrating their 20 years anniversary this year with a huge selection of international and local works.
The two festivals join forces this year.
Pleased to Meet You is selected to be presented as a part of the work in progress program of Lokal.
The work invites the guests to borrow the hosts perspective by paying attention to their function and purpose in life, their origin and place in a complex rhizome of connections. During the performative encounter the guest is asked to have a dialogue with their more-than-human host, an activity that demands that the guest gives voice to their more-than-human partner by filling in with words and meanings. The work gives prompts for certain questions to be contemplated; questions related to sustainability, relations, and world order. After the performance the guests are invited to answer a questionnaire about their experience and to what degree they had created a connection to their more-than-human hosts.
The three more-than-human agents that were chosen as hosts in the first edition represented different functionalities. The pond represented the environment, nature and the biosphere, the lamp represented the manmade object with its anthropocentric functionality, and the birds represented other living species. The site for the encounters was determined by the location of the festival and would be the context from which the specificity of the piece was drawn from.
Three do-it-yourself performance boxes. Performative encounters with a lamp, Reykjavík pond and with a community of birds.
I: Can I come along?
Swan: Yes, but not too close
I: Aren´t you feeling cold?
Swan: No
I: Are you never lonely?
Swan: No
I: Do you never worry about something?
Swan: I am here, that is enough. What are worries?
I: Humankind worries about the the earth.
Swan: I work with the earth, we collaborate.
I: Can I join too?
Swan: If you want.
I: Thank you Swan.
Swan: Trust reality.
Hi, I am pleased to meet you.
Who am I?
I am the card you are reading that has been given voice by Steinunn,
the artists that brought us together. Me and my fellows will be guiding you through the piece.
You will be invited to bring this work alive by accepting a series of invitations. You can accept the invitations literally or reflect on them internally. When you have finished, we ask you to return the box as you got it for the next guest.
Enjoy your experience.
You are invited to sit down on one off the benches by Tjörnin, the pond.
On your way to the pond, pay attention to the things around you. Greet objects and phenomena as they where beings like yourself.
As an example, to me you could say, “Hello, card”, to the wind “Hello, wind” or “Hello, you”.
You can use your own language, your outer or inner voice. The thing might answer back in their own language, with their outer or inner voice. When you have found your place, sit down, and read the next card.
Big Bread Soup
Let me introduce you to Tjörnin, Reykjavík´s pond.
Like yourself Tjörnin is an ecosystem, it´s made up of things, organisms, and ideas. Tjörnin existed before Reykjavík became a settlement and has been important for many agents through different times. Today it is sometimes called The Big Bread Soup, because of the many people of all ages that come here to feed the birds bread, for recreational purpose.
In fact, Tjörnin is a part of a bird reserve, Vatnsmýrin, a wetland that is a home of a large community of migrating and domestic birds.
Invitation to observe
Pay attention to the boundaries of the pond.
Pay attention to its form and colour.
Pay attention to its situation and surroundings.
Invitation to interact
Greet the pond.
Tell the pond your name and share with it, things of significance about you.
Listen to the ponds reply.
Invitation to contemplate
What is the difference between mankind and “pondkind”?
What is the pond to you, beyond being water?
If you do not know the pond personally, think of a pond that you have a relation to.
Movement
Tjörnin has witnessed human´s activities through the centuries. Human life has been planned around Tjörnin, making it a central thing in city planning with political, cultural, spiritual, and educational hubs placed around it. It has moved and is being moved by people among other species.
Invitation to observe
Pay attention to the movements of the water.
Pay attention to the elements that create movement.
Invitation to act
Close your eyes and pay attention to the movements inside you.
Imagine the water inside of you.
Move like the pond.
Invitation to contemplate
How can a pond move you?
What moves and how does one move?
How can Tjörnin move forward?
Under the surface
Like you, Tjörnin is not what it seems.
Under the surface there is a constant and complex chain of interactions happening with energy flowing between different lifeforms that feed from each other.
Invitation to act
Take the cup from the box and fetch water from the pond.
Take it with you to the bench.
Invitation to sense
Pay attention to the qualities of the water.
Feel the temperature of the water.
Smell the water.
Let the water touch you.
Close your eyes and let you become one with the water.
Invitation to contemplate
What lifeforms live inside your body?
How does energy flow inside you?
How different are you from Tjörnin?
Dialogue
You are now invited to have a dialogue with Tjörnin on your own terms.
You are free to use your own language. You can use words, sounds, movements, or telepathic communication.
Listen carefully to the language of the pond and feel free to interpret what you perceive.
When you have finished your dialogue, you are invited to share highlights of your conversation in the dialogue book.
Find a good place to write in the cafe or outside.
After finishing, please return the box as you got it.
Enjoy.
Here are a few prompt lines to get the conversation going.
You: I want to thank you for ...
Pond: In my existence I depend on ...
You: In my existence I depend on ...
Pond: I never forget ...
You: I regret ...
Pond: My wish for the future is that ...
You: My wish for the future is that ...
Pond: Tell me about love ...
The Community of Birds
At Tjörnin you will find between 40 and 50 bird species, mostly waterbirds.
Most common species that can be encountered at Tjörnin are Whooper Swan, Pink-footed Goose, Eurasian Wigeon, Tufted Duck and even species like Common Eider, Red-breasted Merganser and Greater Scaup. Often, large flocks of gulls are present as well.
Hi, I am pleased to meet you.
Who am I?
I am the card you are reading that has been given voice by Steinunn, the artists
that brought us together.
Me and my fellows will be guiding you through the piece.
You will be invited to bring this work alive by accepting a series of invitations.
You can accept the invitations literally or reflect on them internally.
When you have finished, we ask you to return the box as you got it.
Enjoy your experience.
You are invited to the President Room on the second floor.
Take time to observe your surroundings on the way upstairs.
Pay attention to individual things. Greet objects and phenomena that you meet
on the way as they where beings like yourself. As an example, to me you could
say, “Hello, card”, to the doorknob “Hello, doorknob” or “Hello, you”.
You can use your own language, your outer or inner voice.
The thing might answer back in their own language, with their outer or inner
voice. When you have found the room, enter, and close the door behind you.
Sit down by the table and read the next card.
Role
Let me introduce you to the Lamp. This lamp belongs to the President Room.
Iðnó used to be the home of Reykjavík Theatre Company, the first professional theatre in Iceland.
When the president of Iceland came to opening nights at the Theatre,
this would be the place for him to have drinks and mingle.
The role of our friend was to light up the moment.
Invitation to observe the lamp
Pay attention to its form and colour.
Pay attention to its complex structure and features.
Pay attention to the quality of the light it provides.
Invitation to interact with the lamp
Introduce yourself by name to the lamp and share with it what you see as your
role in life.
Invitation to contemplate
What do you think the lamp has witnessed here in the president room?
What future prospects do you see for the lamp?
Does the lamp please you?
Transformation
Our lamp is an assemblage of materials that together make up an aesthetic
object to please the human eye. The different materials of the lamp are made up
of the same materials as you. Like 97% of all matter on earth you are both
made of stardust.
The materials in the lamp have gone through transformational processes manipulated by men to become this object in front of you.
It is made to serve you.
Invitation to sense
Move next to the lamp.
Close your eyes and breath deeply.
Touch the lamp, stroke it.
Feel the textures and temperature.
Try to tap into its energy.
Invitation to change perspective
Imagine being the lamp.
Imagine what it has been through.
Invitation to contemplate
What is the lifespan of this lamp?
How does sense of time in a lamp’s universe manifest?
How have you been transformed during your lifetime?
Connection
Like you the lamp depends on connection.
To light up the room, the lamp must connect to a complex web that provides electricity created by boiling geothermal water or rivers and waterfalls in the highlands, to be transformed into light.
Invitation to connect to the source
Turn off the lamp.
Pay attention to the shift in energy.
Pay attention to your own body, and how vital energy is pumped from your
heart through the complex web of your veins to your limbs and head.
Turn the light back on.
Imagine the web of electricity in this city, that pumps raw natural power from the
heart of the highlands or the centre of the earth through organic network of veins into the lamp.
Invitation to contemplate
What do you connect to for power.
Does anyone have the power to turn you off?
How different are you from the lamp?
Dialogue
You are now invited to enter a dialogue with the lamp on your own terms.
You are free to use your own language. You can use words, sounds,
movements, or telepathic communication. Listen carefully to the language of
the lamp and feel free to interpret what you perceive.
When you have finished your dialogue, you are invited to share highlights of
your conversation in the dialogue book.
After finishing, please return the box as you got it.
Enjoy.
Here are a few prompt lines to get the conversation going.
You: I want to thank you for ...
Lamp: In my existence I depend on ...
You: I cannot live without ...
Lamp: I never forget ...
You: Tell me about your struggle …
Lamp: I remember …
You: My wish for the future is ...
Lamp: Tell me about empathy ...
Hi, I am pleased to meet you.
Who am I?
I am the card you are reading that has been given voice by Steinunn, the artists that brought us together.
Me and my fellows will be guiding you through the piece. You will be invited to bring this work alive by accepting a series of invitations. You can accept the invitations literally or reflect on them internally. When you have finished, we ask you to return the box as you got it.
Enjoy your experience.
You are invited to sit down on one off the benches by the pond, close to the birds.
On your way, pay attention to the things around you.
Greet objects and phenomena as they where beings like
yourself. As an example, to me you could say, “Hello, card”,
to the cloud “Hello, cloud” or “Hello, you”.
You can use your own language, your outer or inner voice.
The thing might answer back in their own language,
with their outer or inner voice.
When you have found your place, sit down, and read the next card.
Community
If you sit here for long enough, you can catch a glimpse of
more than forty different bird species.
The birds live together despite their differences in a dynamic community
that can be competitive and at times hostile.
There are migrating birds that come each year with flavours
from other continents and there are birds that live here permanently.
The small island is the birthplace of their offspring,
and you are now sitting in their living room.
Invitation to observe
Pay attention to the different species of birds.
Pay attention to the birds’ behaviours.
Pay attention to all the sounds the birds make.
Invitation to act
Try to reach the birds attention.
Introduce yourself to the community of birds.
Tell them your name and share with them something personal
that you think might interest them.
Invitation to contemplate
What bird traits would you like to have?
What human traits do you think the birds would benefit from?
What would it take for you to be able to recognise any of
the birds later?
View
Birds have a different perspective from humans.
When we talk about bird view, we are usually talking about the view from the sky, an overview.
Birds have many modes of moving in the world and like
humans they shift perspectives depending on their activities,
in the sky, on land and in the water.
Their bodies have many features that humankind has copied
to create products that enhance human abilities
to move in the world.
Invitation to shapeshift
Close your eyes.
Pay attention to your own body.
Listen to the sounds of the birds and feel their energy.
Let the bird’s energy fill your body.
Open your eyes when you feel that your energy has shifted.
Invitation to change perspective
Choose one bird.
Imagine that you are this bird.
Let the bird´s energy move you.
Move like the bird.
As a bird, watch your human body.
Invitation to contemplate
What does the bird see when it sees you?
How diverse are the different perspectives of humans?
How would it affect your decisions if you had the
perspective of a bird?
Changes
The world is changing. The lake is changing.
The food chain is changing. The birds used to feed from
the lake but affects from global warming and pollution due
to traffic and fertilisers in the area have increased the water's nutrient count
so now the birds rely much on humans for food.
Invitation to interact
Take the bread from the box and feed it to the birds.
Try to distribute the bread equally among the them.
Invitation to observe
Pay special attention to those who are struggling.
Pay attention to how your relation to the birds change when
you start to feed them.
Invitation to contemplate
What nourishes you, and whom are you dependent on for food?
If your new bird friends were to invite you for dinner,
what would they serve and where would you eat?
Dialogue
You are now invited to create a personal connection to one or more birds and to have a dialogue with them.
You are free to use your own language.
You can use words, sounds, movements, or telepathic communication.
Listen carefully to the language of the birds
and feel free to interpret what you perceive.
When you have finished your dialogue,
you are invited to share highlights of your conversation in thedialogue book.
Find a good place to write in the cafe or outside.
After finishing, please return the box as you got it.
Enjoy.
Here are a few prompt lines to get the conversation going.
You: I want to thank you for ...
Bird: In my existence I depend on ...
You: Tell me about your mother …
Bird: I remember ...
You: I regret ...
You: My wish for the future is ...
Bird: Tell me about hope ...
The Lamp
The lamp is situated in Iðnó by Reykjavík Pond at the city centre of Reykjavík. This is where the festivals have their base station. Iðnó is a culturally significant building that for decades hosted the first professional Theatre in Reykjavík, Leikfélag Reykjavíkur, that later became the City Theatre. The room where the encounter happens is called the president suite and was historically used to accommodate the presidents of Iceland during intervals or before performances.
The Pond
Located in the heart of the city the downtown pond Tjörnin is one of the defining landmarks of downtown Reykjavík surrounded by cultural, spiritual, and political monuments all around.
All in all Tjörnin is composed of five separate ponds and the wetland reserve Vatnsmýrin and hosts over 40 bird species throughout the year.
I: Thanks for the feathers in my coat. It keeps me warm.
Duck: Nothing, you are welcome. Thanks for the bread.
I: It was nothing. In fact, I became slightly scared.
Duck: What?
I: yes, it was so much chaos, when I brought out the bread.
Duck: Yes, I understand: It is so much competition here.
I: I thought the swans were going to bite me.
Duck: No, they wouldn´t dare. But better be careful, though.
Lamp:
Even though I seem to be completely still,
I am always moving.
I:
To me you are motionless.
Lamp:
This is a convenient life
and I do not need to take any decision.
I:
I am sometimes afraid that I take wrong decisions.
I:
I like to thank you for your diversity but yet you are so simple.
You show me how uncomplicated it is just to exist.
Pond:
I am dependent on that people treat me well.
I:
I am dependent on the ability to take deep breaths.
The part where I was asked to turn-off the lamp was a turning moment for me. I have realized that it is ok to disconnect from the world for awhile, recharge and get connected again.
Pleased to Meet You was presented as a work in progress and did not attract many guests during a busy festival, even fewer guests gave themselves time to fill in the questionnaires. Nonetheless the testimonies of the dedicated guests and the results from questionnaires were valuable for further development of the project.
[What made an impact on me was]
“... being a part of the community of birds and the micro cosmos of the water in the mug”.
In Conversation with a lamp
We both rely on water and earth, and our role is to create more light in the world, the lamp knows what empathy is. It has shown it by being present and listening with attention and lighting up what is happening around him.
-
Lamp: I love colours, I love laughter, I am in love
Me: How can you be in love?
Lamp: This is what I hear from the songs playing in the cafe. They are all about love. I am trying to say something that interests you. I am here to serve
-
Lamp: I am
You: I must
Lamp: Give me purpose
You: I do not know what I need
-
I: You have beautiful hair and beautiful skin.
Lamp: thanks, I was lucky. I think I age well.
I: Yes, I agree
Lamp: My life here inside has been fairly easy, but it has been challenging standing so still and serving others.
I: What has been the most challenging you have experienced?
Lamp: It was when the prime minister was so drunk that he bumped into me, so I fell on the floor. Since then, I am always leaning a bit to the right.
-
Lamp: Even though I seem to be completely still, I am always moving.
I: To me you are motionless.
Lamp: this is a convenient life and I do not need to take any decision.
I: I am sometimes afraid that I take wrong decisions.
-
I: thank you for the light. You are so important, especially now in the darkness.
Lamp: Do you think I am less important in the summer?
I: Yes, not the least. Even though the light is then not as necessary as now – it is the knowing that you are there for me when I need you, later.
Lamp: I feel that I have a clear purpose, but you seem to complicate your own purpose.
I: yes, I do. I now think it is beautiful to think about my own purpose and I hope that lamp is in motion. It is a good food for the journey.
-
When I look at animals or inanimate objects, I see the human in them. I think we all do. We try to see or find emotion in everything, or character, I think it is what humans are trained to do. I see faces in nature also. When I look at different lamps, I assign different characters to them depending on their appearance. How is it for you lamp? Do you look at me and other humans and see the Lamp in us? What would be the lamp Equivalent of feeling or character? Do you see me and assign a type of lightbulb to me? The wavelength and colour of the light? The type of Switch? How many lightbulbs do I have?
What period and style am I?
Or do you have other ideas and criteria that humans can never understand, know about? That are outside of what the human mind can group or imagine?
-
Anna: Lamp, how do you connect past and future? How would you recommend that I don´t get stuck in the past?
Lamp: Stay true to your roots and reflect what is it that makes you unique and different from other people.
Anna: Do you think it is important to disconnect from the world surroundings?
Do you replenish energy when turned-off?
Lamp: Yes, it is important to stay alone and disconnect but it is always great to do what one´s mission is, give light.
Anna: Thank you! It was good to be reminded – go back to your core, listen to your inner voice, enjoy the silence.
Lamp: You are welcome, Anna, come back any time, you have friends here, in Reykjavík!
In conversation with a community of birds
I: Can I come along?
Swan: Yes, but not too close
I: Aren´t you feeling cold?
Swan: No
I: Are you never lonely?
Swan: No
I: Do you never worry about something?
Swan. I am here, that is enough. What are worries?
I: Humankind worries about the earth.
Swan: I work with the earth, we collaborate.
I: Can I join too?
Swan: If you want.
I: Thank you Swan.
Swan: Trust reality.
-
Duck: I want to live forever.
I want to be able to travel and I need a safe place for my kids, I want nourishing food and meaningful encounters with my peers.
NOT
I just want to eat in peace.
Leave me alone.
Me: I did not know that ducks were sarcastic. Maybe its, just me. – This world is just a reflection...
-
I: Thanks for the feathers in my coat. It keeps me warm.
Duck: Nothing, you are welcome. Thanks for the bread.
I: It was nothing. In fact, I became a slightly scared.
Duck: What?
I: yes, it was so much chaos, when I brought out the bread.
Duck: Yes, I understand: It is so much competition here.
I: I thought the swans were going to bite me.
Duck: No, they wouldn´t dare. But better be careful, though.
-
Swan: I remember when my mum and dad brought me and my siblings up by the pond on the heath – it was so peaceful there, and they taught us to dance and swim.
I: Thanks for giving me so many moments of beauty through the years, I hope that in the future there will be more clean and beautiful places for us to stay in. I can tell you that about hope, that it manifests as a feeling of brighter times for the future, and it resides in the body.
-
I am feeling very hungry these days. Winter is coming and not many people are feeding us anymore. We have started attacking each other quite brutally. I hope we will all make it to the spring (heart)
In a conversation with a pond
G: Hi Pond, thanks for welcoming me so kindly and everyone that comes here, I remember when I first moved to Reykjavík, and you made me feel like I belonged here.
P: I am grateful for all the guests and my inhabitants. I never forget when people first came here. Nobody had ever looked at me in such a manner before. I love singing, like you, enjoy listening to the birds sing with their many voices. I miss hearing humans sing for me, with me and the birds. I also miss the peace that was here before, now I constantly hear traffic noise, but I get rest during the night and when I freeze. I love freezing, then I have entirely different communication with my beings and get peace with myself in the deep. I rely on a circulation, endless flow of all.
-
Tjörn: I sometimes feel tired.
Me: Me too but talking to you feels refreshing. I feel like a child again.
Tjörn: Children, I know. They play. Do you play?
Me: I want to be able to play
-
I: I like to thank you for your diversity but yet so simple. You show me how uncomplicated it is just to exist.
Pond: I am dependent on that people treat me well.
I: I am dependent on the ability to take deep breaths.
-
I: Thanks for giving this city a sense of centre. And thanks for all the life that you support by your existence. What do you want to say to me?
Pond: One needs to take care of the flow. Without a flow, the water will go bad, and no circulation takes place. Everything dies.
I: It is evident that I can learn many things from you. Thank you for being you.
In a conversation with guests, I learned that it was harder for them to relate to manmade objects than natural phenomena.
The Lamp
Do-it-yourself box:
15 prompt cards
1 pencil
1 rubber
1 sharpener
1 handmade conversation book
The Pond
Do-it-yourself box:
16 prompt cards
1 pencil
1 rubber
1 sharpener
1 handmade conversation book
1 tin cup with string wrapped into cotton fabric.
The Community of Birds
Do-it-yourself box:
16 prompt cards
1 pencil
1 rubber
1 sharpener
1 handmade conversation book
2 bread buns
I did get a sense of past times, a connection to the room and it’s history and also at the end in the conversation part it got me thinking about the difference between the experience of being a lamp and a human. I also felt gratitude for some of my human qualities.
