29/04/2005

“Do you have any hobbies?” My favorite question. It is asked by a small blond girl. Before I can answer the teacher completes the question. “Besides taking photos off course.” I want to kick her. But that wouldn’t be a good idea in front of this class of sweet boys and girls. The girls sit at the left side of the room, the boys at the right side. They are terribly shy, the boys. Keep their lips tightly closed. The girls are also shy but too curious. They ask girls-questions. “What is your favorite colour?” “What is your favorite food?” “ Do you have pets?” “What is your favorite month?” Difficult questions. Well, not the one about the pets though.

Next week I will go to Holland. I asked the children from the Slovak and the Hungarian primary school what they want to know about my country, my city or myself. They can ask anything. But just one question each. In Holland I will film the answers. They gave me a long list.
“Why don’t the Dutch people like soup?” A question always reflects the person asking the question. Or in this case, not just a person but a whole nation. The Hungarians eat soup every day. A meal without soup isn’t a real meal. Therefore people who don’t eat soup every day, don’t eat properly.
Another one: “Did you ever meet Edgar Davids?” This must be a boy. Just like the one asking “King William III had a daughter, her name was Wilma. Is there a street in Holland named after her?” A special interest in history. He must be spending his pocket money on books. Reading stories about knights and kings and heroes. And he isn’t the only one. “Are there any statues in Amsterdam showing kings or national heroes?”
Some kids are interested in nature. “Are there sharks in the Northsea?” Or about me. “Did you ever smoke soft drugs?” Curious little bastards. “What are your hobbies?” Again.

The teacher prepared them well. She asks the children what they know about Holland. I hear some interesting stuff. How most people in Amsterdam live in a “boathouse”. How we eat mainly fastfood. How there is a windmill in every village and city. They tell me about their country too. The teachers asks about their traditional food. The children hesitate. “What do you like to eat?” she tries again. Two of the girls answer simultaneously: “Pizza!”

24/04/2005

24/04/2005
Originally uploaded by bridge guard.

24/04/2005

I like sun in the morning. I like sad songs. I like spaghetti. I like removing splinters from my fingers. I like the smell of mowed grass. I like weeds turning into beautiful flowers. I like carrots, raw, not cooked. I like silence. I like fields. I like the colour of the sky just after twilight. I like old cars. I like wrinkled faces. I like French villages. I like bumblebees.

What on earth am I doing here?

Zilina. A city in the northwest of Slovakia. It is 10 ‘o clock in the morning. The sun is shining. So far, so good. The breakfast table is standing next to the ticketmachine, about 2 metres from the single track. Marek bought ham and orangejuice and white breadrolls. The coffee is almost ready. Traffic zooms by, cars buzzing like big insects. A handfull of viaducts tower over us. When I take the first zip of coffee, a train stops. People leave the train, a woman wishes us a pleasant breakfast. The train moves on. I drink my coffee. Smiling. Smiling?

Did you ever see the French movie “Irreversible?” I did. It is terrible. It is terribly good. The worst scene happens in an underground passage. A woman alone. A man passing her. Haunting music. I’ll spare you the cruel course. But I can tell you a friend of mine saw the video and didn’t want her boyfriend near her for a whole week. She almost got into a fight with the person who had encouraged her to go and see the movie. This made me curious. That is when I rented it.

I arrived in Zilina in the middle of the night. It takes 3.5 hours from Bratislava. I couldn’t leave earlier because I didn’t want to miss a lecture by a British D.J. The lecture was part of the Multiplace festival, an international new media festival. I saw a lot of videos, attended a “walking workshop” and hung around in the “Trash cafe”. It was a relief to see some real contemporary art and talk to people who work in the same field as I do. The dj was an excellent lecturer. The subject of his lecture was “Sonic warfare”.
He talked about sound being used as a weapon during the Vietnam war and by policemen during violent protest actions. About shops attracting customers with music, about rappers and D.J.’s and about the movie “Irreversible”. “It isn’t just the terrible images that make you feel sick” he explained. And he turned on his sound system. Loud. Louder. Louder. It was the music from the movie. The music in the underground passage. Just before my stomach turned around he switched the sound of. A terrible sound. With tunes so low they actually make you feel physically unwell. I hadn’t experienced that while watching the video. But it must have been like that in a cinema with a good sound system.

My train left at 21.30. I slept -or did an attempt to- the biggest part of the journey. The landscape was invisible. It was only from my reading about this area I knew I was in the presence of mountains. The pension I booked was situated outside the centre. The 5 euro rate per night didn’t promise a lot, but it was near my destination.
I crossed the whole village, it was past one ‘o clock already. A big road led to a huge interchange. Big roads crossed bigger roads. Viaducts. A graffiti jungle. Only one way to reach the other side. When I walked down the stairs into a dark tunnel the music started in my head. At the end of the tunnel a man was walking in my direction. I tried very hard not to feel scared. But trying didn’t work. The music got louder.

But here I am. 33 hours later. Zipping my orange juice outside a trainstation in the middle of the interchange. Cars like bumblebees. Graffiti like flowers. Yesterday evening we danced on the platform. Inside students from the art academy showed their videoworks.The D.J. played terrible music, but we danced anyway. Did the others think about the Jews who were transported from this same platform? I didn’t. I forgot. But I remember now. My footsteps on their footsteps.

What is it with this place? When I got here I couldn’t believe somebody would fall for this location, would put all his energy into changing this railwaystation in a culture centre. Now I drink my coffee smiling. I don’t want to leave.

I have to leave.

I enter the underground passage and hope I will walk it again soon.

23/04/2005

23/04/2005
Originally uploaded by bridge guard.

22/04/2005

22/04/2005
Originally uploaded by bridge guard.

20/04/2005

During my Residency in Sturovo, Slovakia, my husband send me the cultural supplements from Dutch newspapers now and then. This morning I read an old one. On the front page an article by the artcritic Anna Tilroe. The headline being “There is a major lack. The responsibility of artists in dificult times”. Among other things, Tilroe writes about the European soul and where it can be found: “the soul of Europe is incredibly rich, patterned and sensitive, heavy of visions of a possible, better world, impregnated by a sense of adventure and experiment, prepared to create space by throwing traditions overboard and expose moral dilemmas”......”.this sparkling soul is to be found in her art.” I read it carefully, pondering over her words. But not too long, since there is more to be read. A big article by the writer Benno Barnard, starting with the headlines saying European art doesn’t exist. “Forget Europe!”.... “Europe is our sublime combined invention, being part of the nominal reality of scholasticists, of the categories of “evil” or “beauty” ......... “why try to make European art?”.......”There are at least about fifty Europes, voila Europe”.
Here two persons speak. Two well known, intelligent persons. It might be a coincidence they are both published in the same newspaper at the same time. It might be not. As a reader I am asking myself: who is right? I tend to believe Benno Barnard but I am not sure if it is because I think he is right or because I won’t believe the opinion of somebody who titles her article “There is a major lack. The responsibility of artists in difficult times.”

Black is black and white is white. But what is the colour of the Danube? Is it blue? Is it grey? Is it colourless? I can tell you. On sunny days, when the water reflects the sky, it is blue. After the aprilrains, when the high water drops and takes earth and dirt with it, it is grey. And in fact it is colourless, since water doesn’t have a colour. But don’t put a gun to my head and force me to answer the question. You’d have to shoot me.
I started this article writing I am living in Sturovo, Slovakia, but a lot of my fellow citizens here life in Parkany, Hungary. When I enter a shop saying “Dobry den”, the shopemployees answer in Slovak, when I enter the same shop saying “Jo napod” they answer in Hungarian. I am sure. I live in Slovakia. When I look at the map there is no discussion possible. But what about the 88 year old man I was drinking some homebrewn liquor with the other day? He never moved in his life. He lived in the same house for 88 years. He was born in Hungary. So he is still living in Hungary. No discussion possible.
The new Hungarian-Slovak border was formed in 1920. Since there was a river, it was an easy job. The Danube became no mans land. Her left bank Hungarian, her right bank Slovak (facing west) or the other way around (facing east). Slovakia became Czechoslovakia. Bridges crossing the Danube were build and destroyed. Czechoslovakia split up in the Czech and the Slovak republic. The European Union came into being. Hungary, Czech and Slovakia joined. A new bridge was build crossing the Danube. In the middle of the Maria Valeria Bridge there is a line. Stand with one foot on one side and the other on the other side and you are in two countries at the same time.
I cross the bridge almost every day. I know I am entering another country because I have to show my passport. The patrolguards always study it carefully and always let me pass. I walk the bridge, enter Esztergom, I see the same cars, the same plants, the same cats, the same shops, the same people as on the other side. When I walk back I see a bridge, I see patrol guards, I see people showing their passports, but I don’t see a border. The border is invisible. It is colourless like the water in the Danube. Which doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Maybe I don’t see a border because I’m not overly interested in politics. Borders are always political. And don’t get me wrong, I try to keep up with the political situation, I vote, I do my duty, but it is all merely a game, isn’t it? There is more to life than politics. Making art. Meeting 88 year old Slovaks. Walking in the Amsterdam Vondelpark. Or maybe there isn’t. Maybe life is politics. Living in a country with borders invented by politicians. Having the right to vote and this vote being used by political parties even if you don’t go to the polls. Buying groceries at the supermarket, the prices being determined by the economical situation which is inextricably wedded to the political situation.

In the same newspaper I found the two articles about art and Europe there is an article about the hiphopsinger Nelly. He talks about the language he and his friends use. How negative words get a positive meaning. “Pimp” meaning “friend”, “gangsta” meaning something is wonderful, “bad” meaning good. And there are more examples. Like “wicked” or “awsome”. Or in my own language the word “wreed” (cruel) meaning “te gek” (brilliant).
Lets face it: we live in a world where bad can be good and the other way around. A world where borders aren’t borders at all, a world where every european citizen has his own Europe. We live in a relative world. There are facts, I won’t denie that. In 1917 Sturovo was located in Hungary. In 2005 it is located in Slovakia. But what should we call the man who was born in 1917? And what should we call his son? There are a lot of answer to this question. Should we call them what they calls themselves? Should they call themselves what the politicians call them?

Living here, people ask me about life in Holland. They ask me what I like about being here and how it differs from Holland. I tell them I measure the things I encounter. On the one side of the balance is a Dutch event, experience, person, on the other side I put a similar Slovak event, experience, person. The balance always stays equal. The things are different but have the same weight. Do I prefer apples or chocolate? It depends. As a drink, I prefer apple juice, but at a party I prefer the chocolatecake over the applepie. In the morning I eat an apple for breakfast, with my coffee I eat chocolate.
For example. Things aren’t that efficient here. Things go slow. I hate that when my heatingsystem needs to be fixed. I love it when I don’t feel the pressure I feel in Amsterdam to get my duties done.

Apples and oranges. In Holland we compare apples and pears though. Anyway, in the supermarket in Sturovo you can get anything. Mango’s, kiwi’s, banana’s, lichees, rambutans, cockonuts, any fruit you want. It feels like shopping in the Albert Heijn in Amsterdam. It feels like shopping in the European Union. But only until I reach the checkout and have to pay an amount which is ridiculously low for a Dutch mind. Then it feels like shopping in the Slovak republic.
I could tell you I eat a kiwi every morning. I could tell you I eat a piece of fruit every morning. I could tell you I eat some food every morning. There is a difference, off course. But does it matter?

I can tell you I am a Dutch citizen. I can tell you I am a European citizen. I could even tell you I am a world citizen. But does it matter?

Naming the things is necessary to life our lives. Without names there is no order. Without order there is chaos. The human being can’t survive in chaos. That is why there is a country called Hungary and a country called Slovakia. That is why there is a continent called Europe. That is why there is a European Union. That is why there are writers and artists and artcritics and border patrol guards and hiphoppers and cats and bridges and rivers. And that is why there are borders.

There is something which Anna Tilroe calls Europe. I put it on the one side of the balance. There is a collection of fifty countries, the ones Benno Barnard mentions. I put them on the other side of the balance. Two different things. But they have the same weight. The balance stays equal.

17/04/2005

17/04/2005
Originally uploaded by bridge guard.

15/04/2005

I have to be careful. A small insekt, a brown beetle, just crawled under my keybord. Without hesitating a moment it dived under the “alt” key and I haven’t seen it since. I don’t know under what letter it has hidden itself. I waited for it to crawl back out but it hasn’t. I hope it is under the “q”. I have to avoid typing my name.
Maybe it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t watched “Kafka” last night. Jeremy Irons (playing Kafka) and of all people Jeroen Krabbé in a Steven Soderbergh movie.
Maybe it didn’t happen.

14/04/2005

Ik liep in het bos. Het denkbeeldige water woelde ter hoogte van mijn borsten. Mijn voeten zakten weg in een stinkende modderachtige kleigrijze substantie. Ik kon de kleine golven horen klotsen op de oever. Een korte visser met lange hengels liep door mijn blikveld. Hij opende zijn mond om mij te groeten. Een maand eerder en de vissen hadden zo naar binnen kunnen zwemmen, rechtstreeks via zijn slokdarm naar zijn maag. Het enige wat hij had hoeven doen was de onverteerbare delen weer uitspugen. Graten en grauwe vinnen. Ik groette terug. Met gesloten mond kan iedereen voor een Hongaar doorgaan. Ik had mezelf blootgegeven.
De visser keek om. Zijn bruine gezicht verried een werkend leven in de buitenlucht. Of herhaalde vakanties op Ibiza. Ik zette mijn hele vermogen in op de eerste optie. Waar waren zijn gevangen vissen? Hij lachte een klein lachje en wees omhoog. Daar zag ik alleen vogels. De bomen kraakten. Ze hadden het zwaar.
Met zompige schoenen zocht ik mij weer een weg naar de dijk. Aan de andere zijde kleine containers achter kippengaas met prikkeldraad. Zomers gezellige vakantiewoningen voor het hele gezin. De Donau op een steenworp afstand. Idyllisch Esztergom aan de overzijde. Het zwemparadijs in eigen dorp. Wat wil de toerist nog meer?
Het bos zou dan het bos niet meer zijn. De veelvuldige aprilregens zouden de klei-jassen van de bomen gewassen hebben. De denkbeeldige boven- en onderwereld weer samengesmolten tot de saaie werkelijkheid.
Ik liep nog één keer terug en maakte een foto. Maar wie gelooft er tegenwoordig nog in een foto? Ik? Ik geloofde mijn eigen ogen nauwelijks.

14/04/2005

14/04/2005
Originally uploaded by bridge guard.

12/04/2005

I didn’t know him at all. And here I was, eating his biscuits, drinking some strong homebrewn liquor. Wondering who put the fresh flowers on his table. Admiring the small painting which reminded me of Francis Bacon. I am looking straight into a young man’s mouth.
He told me he had been fighting in France in the Second World War. There was a moment he considered fleeing to Belgium an option. But he couldn’t get the image of his parents out of his head. He had to return, if only to see if they were still alive. They were then. But not anymore. Of course. He was 84 now. Still living in Sturovo.
I had been on my way to the other side. But things don’t always turn out the way you plan them. I filmed a garden behind a long wooden fence. At the end of the fence, a man stood in his doorway. If you film somebodies property and he invites you in, you can’t refuse. Besides, if you are on your way to the other side, a chance meeting can’t be a coincidence.
He poured us another drink. It was three o’ clock.
He used to be a “menegdzser”. He travelled at a time when most people couldn’t. He had been in Amsterdam before I was born. Before my mother had even kissed a boy without any other intention than to tease him. He tried to find the name of the hotel he had stayed in during his days in Amsterdam. But the memory was buried under other memories. When you are 84 they pile up. Hide themselves between more recent ones. He took a new one. “Julia, wie Julia Roberts. Sie ist acht Jahre alt.” He got that look in his eyes grandparents get when talking about their grandchildren. When you can’t walk as fast as you used to, they do the running for you. Maybe even the living.
At four 'o clock, she walked in, Julia, just like Julia Roberts. She brought her aunt with her. I knew her. She had brought me beautiful flowers once. Probably from the same garden that got me in this house.
She offered me some homemade coockies. They were delicious.

11/04/2005

I was waiting. I didn’t really know for what. Or whom. Naturally for the sun to start shining again, but that wasn’t just it. I played music in the meantime. Only jazz trio’s. The Bad Plus, Bobo Stenson Trio, Peter Erskine Trio, van Veenendaal/Kneer/Sun. I like this traditional setting. Drums, double bass, piano. A clear choice. Like red, yellow and blue. You can make whatever coulour you want out of it.
Every early morning I wake up at 5.30. I listen untill I get tired of the birds welcoming the day. I fall back asleep again and have disturbing dreams. In my dreams I am waiting but I don’t really know for what. Or whom. I open doors to see what is behind them, I walk through hallways and hear birds whistling. The cellar is where the attic should be. In the dark small birds are being eaten by white cats.
The doorbell rings. I open the door. A friendly face. Familiar words. But I don’t understand their meaning. She doesn’t speak any English or German. She walks away, still smiling. I wonder what she was looking for. When I go back into the livingroom she walks past my windows. Her hair is blue.
Sometimes my grandmother’s hair turned blue too. Too much of the colouring stuff to keep her hair nicely gray. She would panic, stay in for days. She didn’t like hats.
The doorbell rings again. I open the door. It is a man wearing a hat. I can’t see his hair. His coat is blue though. He takes of his hat. There is no hair left. His eyebrows are very black. His hair must have been too. He clears his throat and speaks some words in Slovak. As I answer in German the sun starts to shine and one of the four black neighbourhood cats runs by with a mouse between his teeth. The man shakes his head. Puts on his hat and walks the same way the cat went.
In the big chestnuttree in the courtyard a bird is playing a trumpet. I continue waiting.

09/04/2005

Bratislava the sequel. Hotel Kyjev hasn’t changed. The weather has, though, and the room we find ourselves in is hot and on top of that very noisy. Partly because it is on the city side but also because one of the windows doesn’t close. That isn’t very strange. It is a miracle the other three windows close well.
We change to a room at the other side. It is the same room. Every room is the same room in this hotel. Even the colourless reproduction of a tree painting is bought in bulk.

To get here, we took a fast EC train. It stops only once on the way here but at every small station the train passes, a railway employee in full uniform is waiting outside the trainstation, the green/red round device buried under his or her armpit. Not moving. Maybe smiling. We are going too fast to see the details. Why on earth are they standing there like that? Whatever it is, I’m sure it makes them feel more real. Maybe that’s why they all grow moustaches too.

The second time you visit a city is the best. From the first time you know the rough outlines, the different rules. Where to get your tramtickets, where to find the galeries, restaurants, cafés. Where to go and where not to go. But still you don’t know it well. You can be surprised. You can be lost. You discover new places. You return to the old ones.

I only get lost in Hotel Kyjev.

I am up before the sun is. I see Albert of at the Bratislava airport. I walk back to the hotel for the famous Kyjev breakfast. These are the small pleasures in life. The extra’s you get for free.

Three hours later I set foot in a sleepy town called Cunovo. No living soul around. A flat metal Jesus hangs on a cross in front of the church. His eyes are closed. Just outside the cemetary a flashy folder is nailed on a tree. Gravestones for reduced prices the whole month of april! In Cunovo you can save a lot of money when you die.
I am here for the Danubiana museum, founded by a Dutch guy named Meulensteen. I am promised to encounter some of the “more cutting-edge art in Slovakia”. The three kilometer walk is surreal. I can’t find a way out of the dusty cluster of houses, walk in circles for three quarters of an hour. Next I find myself in a Tarkovski movie, walking through the woods, out of nowhere the wind starting to blow at full volume. A deserted restaurant followed by a deserted highway. A river, followed by a dike, followed by a huge and entirely empty parking lot. I hear a hammer hammering but I don’t see anybody. There is a lake and on the other side a silvery museum, shining in the sun. Swim or walk? I walk. And walk. And walk. And reach a dam. The sky has turned greenish. Cars pass me by. Big cars, bigger cars. Enormous cars.
Exhausted I reach the museum. And feel betrayed. Respectable paintings in charming colours. Soft easy listening music fills the majestic rooms. Shit, I forgot to wear my “good taste is the enemy of art” button! The coffee is nice though and the waiter charmingly shy. And what can be more soothing than the promise of an exhibition coming up with the once so famous Martina Navratilova. Yes, you are right, there is a tennis player with the same name. In fact, it is the tennis player.

Back to Sturovo. At the window an elderly couple carrying a large container filled with home made wine. Opposite a girl dressed in white, obviously wearing a wrong bra, the whole trainride she keeps adjusting it with one hand, the other one she needs to hold her phone to her ear. Next to me a smelly man, trying to talk to anybody but me. Sometimes it is a blessing not to speak the language. A border patrolguard comes by to check our passports and doesn’t believe I am not travelling to Budapest but get out at Sturovo. “What are you doing there?” he asks. “Living” I answer. He gives me back my passport without a word.

08/04/2005

08/04/2005
Originally uploaded by bridge guard.

07/04/2005

07/04/2005
Originally uploaded by bridge guard.

06/04/2005

06/04/2005
Originally uploaded by bridge guard.

05/04/2005

Spring has defenitely started. Pregnant women are out on the streets carrying big bellies. In the last few days friends of mine gave birth to two new world citizens. The woodpeckers have cut out a nest in the big chestnut tree in the courtyard. A man proudly drove his harley davidson around the park this morning and from my window I spot people carrying big backpacks and cars with luggage carriers on their roofs: the tourists are coming!

Suddenly there appears to be a nice sunny terras behind a door I have never seen open before, a new shop selling icecreams pops up in the main street playing the cheerful song “I’m walking on sunshine”, women wear skirts which are actually suited for a temperature we didn’t experience yet.

The level of the Danube is still high. No beachwalks yet, but strolling along the dikes is possible. Couples in love sit on sunny stones or block the small path, having only eyes (and lips) for each other.

04/04/2005

04/04/2005
Originally uploaded by bridge guard.

03/04/2005

“Don’t flush the toilet!” he shouted. Too late. Automatically I pushed the button and the cistern emptied itself without being refilled. Valuable water gets lost. We still have a small supplie of yellowish water in pans, bottles and buckets. The bathtub is filled with brownish water I took a bath in yesterday and can be reused for the toilet. Maybe tonight the tabs will run for another 20 minutes. Maybe they will have fixed the watersystem by tomorrow.

The sun is shining again. I didn’t know this is the land of eternal sunshine. The few days there were clouds and rain have dissapeared from my memory. The road outside looks like a miniature hilly country. I’m very happy the roadmenders don’t work on Sundays.

01/04/2005

01/04/2005
Originally uploaded by bridge guard.