Motherdeconstructivism
2008
When my mother grew old, she returned from exile in Switzerland to her Czech homeland. She moved into her parents’ house, which she had inherited, where she was born and where she eventually died a few years later, in the small village of Karlstejn near Prague, which is known for the magnificent Charles IV Castle. To enrich our communication, I bought my mother a computer with a built-in camera, which was not a given in the 1990s. Back then, there were no cell phones with cameras, no video chats and no WhatsApp. But the new Skype program had just come onto the market and after some difficulties, I was able to see my mother’s face shining on the screen of my Apple computer. It took a while until she too had learned the right clicks with the mouse button and she too could see me and Anna. The increasing process of detachment that every son experiences condensed for me in a series of Skype conversations. Due to poor data transmission, digital distortions occurred that brought my mother closer to where I had already seen her slipping: into nothingness. The nature of mathematics is inseparably linked to our bodies. The computer is subject to the same laws as the universe as a whole. Why should it be surprising that technology expresses what we feel or fear? Everything is one. Unfortunately, the new media have long since lost their transcendent abilities. We have chained them too closely to reality. I recorded the digital disappearance of my mother’s face by pressing Apple/Shift/3 on the keyboard – i.e. making a print screen. My mother was a brave, devoted woman. She never complained, but she got on many younger people’s nerves. That is the fate of many old people. When she died, I had her laid out in an open coffin according to Catholic custom. I pressed something personal into her cold, stiff hand and carried her coffin to the grave. Her spirit remained in the house for several days and weeks. (see Souvenirs, in s. Kunstforum 230, pp. 136 – 143). Long after my mother died, I had these pictures printed on square canvases. Mother deconstructivism. A moment of premonition, not without cheerfulness and foresight, that there is something good about disappearance. The disappearance of the bodies and the disappearance of the pictures.
When my mother grew old, she returned from exile in Switzerland to her Czech homeland. She moved into her parents’ house, which she had inherited, where she was born and where she eventually died a few years later, in the small village of Karlstejn near Prague, which is known for the magnificent Charles IV Castle. To enrich our communication, I bought my mother a computer with a built-in camera, which was not a given in the 1990s. Back then, there were no cell phones with cameras, no video chats and no WhatsApp. But the new Skype program had just come onto the market and after some difficulties, I was able to see my mother’s face shining on the screen of my Apple computer. It took a while until she too had learned the right clicks with the mouse button and she too could see me and Anna. The increasing process of detachment that every son experiences condensed for me in a series of Skype conversations. Due to poor data transmission, digital distortions occurred that brought my mother closer to where I had already seen her slipping: into nothingness. The nature of mathematics is inseparably linked to our bodies. The computer is subject to the same laws as the universe as a whole. Why should it be surprising that technology expresses what we feel or fear? Everything is one. Unfortunately, the new media have long since lost their transcendent abilities. We have chained them too closely to reality. I recorded the digital disappearance of my mother’s face by pressing Apple/Shift/3 on the keyboard – i.e. making a print screen. My mother was a brave, devoted woman. She never complained, but she got on many younger people’s nerves. That is the fate of many old people. When she died, I had her laid out in an open coffin according to Catholic custom. I pressed something personal into her cold, stiff hand and carried her coffin to the grave. Her spirit remained in the house for several days and weeks. (see Souvenirs, in s. Kunstforum 230, pp. 136 – 143). Long after my mother died, I had these pictures printed on square canvases. Mother deconstructivism. A moment of premonition, not without cheerfulness and foresight, that there is something good about disappearance. The disappearance of the bodies and the disappearance of the pictures.
