- on measurements of consciousness
In the exposition Serious Personal Conviction (Allvarlig personlig övertygelse) we encounter two groups of people interviewed on different occasions discussing consciousness and ethics in relation to the military system. One of the groups are men that during the 1970s and ‘80s chose to perform non-combatant service and now reflect on the choices they made as 18-year olds. The other group consists of young people of today trying to answer several questions regarding the right to take another person's life. The interview questions for the 18-year olds are based on methods previously used by Vapenfrinämnden (The Conscientious Objector Board) when looking at applications for non-combatant service. These inquiries were intended to determine whether or not using a weapon on someone was so incompatible with personal conviction that it ruled out being able to fully complete conscription. Across the country, at the most 150 freelancing administrators interviewed young men applying for non-combatant service. The interviews aimed to explore the depth of seriousness in the personal conviction and used as a basis for decisions on either approving or rejecting the application of the politically assembled Vapenfrinämden.
In March 2017, the Swedish Government re-established conscription which was dormant since 2009. Today, if selected, all young men and woman have to submit themselves to take part in a screening process for conscription. In 1920, the first legislation was formed providing the possibility to assert conscientious objection in completing military service for the State. How these objections have since then been formulated and assessed has varied. Our reconstruction of the interviews is intended as a method to provide perspective on both the present and the past. In our case, it concerns structures formed by the State in response to an increasing questioning of the order and power relationship that the military part of society amounted to. This may refer to bureaucratic apparatuses in response to criticism and questioning, and to systems designed to measure and evaluate young people on the brink of adulthood. In the past, as well as today.
The exposition Serious Personal Conviction is part of the artistic research project Refuse to Kill – Stories of the Conscientious Objectors (Vägra döda – historier om de vapenfria männen). As a method, montage of a large number of voices is used that are collectively collected through statistical surveys, open-call procedure via advertising in newspapers and the internet, interviews and searches in archives. Our search for the histories of the conscientious objectors and their stories is also a search for the histories of Sweden and the society that we live in today.
In the work Muskelstolen – en apparat för mätning av män (The Muscle Chair – An Apparatus for Measuring Men) we examined one part of the bureaucratic and mechanical apparatus created to measure young men during military review and registration. In the so-called muscle chair, an average of 47-58 000 muscle capacity was measured yearly. The muscle chair tests were part of a two-day military review programme applied in assigning the cohort of young men to the 900 different positions in the military defence.
In the film INSARK, during 1:26 hours, collected results from the muscle measurements are scrolled through. Inskrivningsarkivet (archives for the enrollment register) covers data on all the reviews of young men conducted between 1969-1997, amounting to 2 346 246 posts/tests.
The book Direktupphandling av kortfilm om medicinsk åldersbestämning (Direct award contracts for a short film about medical age assessment)consists of a compilation of public documents on the public procurement and production of a "A film about medical age assessment", commissioned by Rättsmedicinalverket RMV (The National Board of Forensic Medicine Sweden)in November 2016, and completed during the winter of 2017. The film is available on Youtube, Vimeo as well on RMV's website.
Muskelstolen, Insark, Direktupphandling av kortfilm om medicinsk åldersbestämning are all different examples of a montage of collected voices and documents and point towards a sort of Swedish history of measurement.
Vägra Döda (Refuse to Kill) applies its web-site as an ongoing artist publication.
From 1 October 1966 Vapenfrinämnden was a public authority placed under the Ministry of Defence with the responsibility to administer cases regarding the law on non-combatant military service (nr 413). 30 September 1989, the activities of the board cease and the duties are taken over by Vapenfristyrelsen (The authority of non-combatant service).
The archives of Vapenfrinämnden can now be found in the archives at Krigsarkivet i Stockholm (The Military Archives of Stockholm).