The Utopian

by Sven Muendner on a performance by Manon Awst & Benjamin Walther
May 14, 2008

ON 'ISLAND UTOPIA'

A performance by

Manon Awst & Benjamin Walter

All images are part of 'Island Utopia' by Manon Awst and Benjamin Walther, exhibited at Zollverein in Essen, Germany and Swansea Museum, UK during Autumn 2007.

Photographs by Mikko Takkunen
© Manon Awst & Benjamin Walther 2007

There is no need to wonder why there is being; there is a luminous evidence. Which does not mean that it cannot seem dazzling, terrible, unbearable, lethal - and as a matter of fact it seems that way to many people.

Umberto Eco

Destroy my ugly system face so that I don't see my own darkness anymore when facing myself in the morning, in the afternoon, in the night.

System Being Manifesto, Island Utopia

Island Utopia is a two part performance that starts with the being, with the self-awareness of the being, with its discomfort and imperfection. Yet, the plot doesn't stop by depicting this misery. It sets out to transgress the limits of the being and to enact the change into something better, into something utopian.

It takes careful thought to construct a new, utopian world. By default it must be significantly different to what we know, otherwise it wouldn't be an alternative. At the same time it must, however, have similarities with the worldly existence we are familiar with, so we can relate to it. The utopian world must be an imaginary extension of now and, as a direct consequence of this, we will never be able to live in this realm of imagination. For, if we were there, the new world would deflate and collapse into something real.

Speaking with Habermas, this trap between aspiration and collapse is owed to reality which imposes restrictions on our cognition in the sense that it refuses false interpretations. As this text is to introduce an artwork it would be inappropriate to discuss the category true/false at this point. It is the dilemma of the utopian concept, rather, being trapped between reality and cognition which makes it intriguing and challenging for our mind.

Many artworks play exactly in this field. If we think of the experience of art as a a permanent corrective of our cognition, very much like a discussion over scientific results, we can see any challenging work of art like a utopian extension of our world here and now. Accepted readings of our environment and familiar symbols with which we structure our thoughts are thrown back by a work into an interpretative chaos just in order to open up new ways of thinking about ourselves and the world. Kazimir Malevich's Red Square (1915) would be just one obvious example of how the Russian Avantgarde challenged thought in the Twentieth century. The bright red geometric form on the canvas exceeds the idea of a red square, a fact that is reflected in it's full title: Red Square. Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions.

Manon Awst and Benjamin Walter have taken on the utopian dilemma and translated it into contemporary performance piece Island Utopia. It provides a permanent corrective to our perception of being entrapped in our world. They stage a utopian world on a real world stage filled with common props and familiar symbols like white lillies, skeletons and gold dust. And it questions the prevailing, sarcastic idea that we are thrown into this life as a system being awaiting a one-dimensional and timely death.

Island Utopia is one artwork that was staged as two performances during autumn 2007carried out at Swansea Museum, UK, and Zollverein in Essen, Germany. The two parts took place in semi-familiar spaces. Each of them was staged in a large warehouse of different purpose; large steel structures with heightened roofs and lacking heating. Within these architectural grids, each of the performances had a central stage that lay island-like and mysterious, somewhat off the geometrical middle of the room. The audience was free to roam the space, but evidently, the focal point was the mysterious island and soon there was a circular gathering around what became a glimpse into the new world.

Inside the two plots we witness the creation of a new being (Intruder) and the transformation of an existing being (System Being) for the new world. Both narratives relate directly to the realm of imagination and draw the attention of the audience into the symbolic world of Island Utopia which seems to be a sanctuary for our longing for a better world.

This longing for a new world is not new, it is inherently human and universal. By using notions like 'Sytem Being' and 'Intruder' the performances carve out the very moment when we realise that our environment, our social hierarchy, politics, our existence is constructed. And it alludes to our inclinination to to deconstruct it in our minds and design an alternative to it. The 'System Being' agrees to its own destruction and contrives itself with the help of a perfect being as new, imaginary being in response to the world it comes from.

By embracing this theme Manon Awst and Benjamin Walter place Island Utopia in the context of a rich canon of utopian literature. Many similar narratives that have been knitted along this pattern come to our mind: the poetic and fictitious worlds in Borges short stories of planets and endless libraries or Plato's ideal societies described in texts like Republic. It reminds us of Early Modern fictitious travelogues such as Thomas More's Utopia and the better world depicted in minute detail by Marx in his vision for a Communist society.

In this sense Island Utopia is traditional and universally applicable. Yet, underneath this plot is a rich and contemporary body of dream-like, wishful thinking embedded in a rigid set of laws that rule these utopian worlds. Within this cosmos it is possible that new beings are brought into life and that existing bodies turn golden, as the somewhat alien Creator announces: "Let the new Golden Age emerge. The New Man". As romantic as it may sound, there is a tiny hope for the Golden Age in all of us and while some are chasing this utopian vision in virtual world of SecondLife, Island Utopia maps out a highly refined version of it that is rooted in the occidental literary tradition.

Yet, even utopian worlds have restrictions and rules and so does Island Utopia. When the Intruder is born, it is faced with the fact that its life is but a 'battery life' and its body a 'life spending body'. Likewise the System Being must lose its 'Ego Ich' as a prerequisite for its transformation. Island Utopia is not an idyll, it is just a better world under different conditions.

This change for the better requires effort, a state of heightened consciousness which is interwoven with the thick textual manifesto that the System Being declares when it is prepared for the new existence: "All my senses are awakened and my instincts are sharpened."

In comparison to many gruesome, dystopian scenarios like the ones created by H.G. Wells, it is noteworthy that both narratives of Island Utopia are ultimately successful. They spread an air of optimism when the Intruder embraces his new life and when the System Being completes the process of purification. Gold dust, lilies, blood infusions, Golden Age are all symbolic cornerstones for an optimistic future of the two new beings.

Both scenes then end in celebration and reach out for the audience. Whereas the Intruder shares a block of 'Demut' (a sweet temptation made of chocolate) with the observers the System Being watches a hundred white lilies flying from an erupting volcano into the audience. We are bathing in sweet innocence while inspecting the essence of good in our souls.

Then the curtains are drawn and we realise that Island Utopia is as ephemeral as colourful bubbles. The lights are switched off and all we can do is collect the remains. If we wish, we may conceal the gold dust in glasses, the lilies in formaldehyde and shelve them, conserve them as a precious memory of a glimpse into a better world.

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