STRANIŠČNA ŠEPETANJA / TOILET WHISPERING : Spending half an hour on the toilet with your favourite intellectual whore can bring up amazing conversations

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STRANIŠČNA ŠEPETANJA / TOILET WHISPERING

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(tekst v slovenščini spodaj)
Toilets have always aroused human curiosity. What are they like at our neighbours, in first-class hotels or designer restaurants, in Asian villages? How do they make it in Arab countries, or Japan? As if in a normal sequence, travellers in their accounts frequently mention toilets right after speaking about the country’s culinary delights. Is this an obscene curiosity – obscene in the sense of repulsive, morally offensive, but at the same time also irresistibly sexually attractive? Sex in a toilet is a frequent sexual fantasy.
Toilets are among material evidences of actual life that carry ideological contents and orientations of a particular state apparatus. In his book The Plague of Fantasies, Slavoj Žižek mentions Lévi-Strauss’ distinction based on the preparation of raw, baked and cooked food, which allows for an inference of “the spiritual food” of the person that cooks. Some authors took a close look at different ways of washing the dishes, or even of (non)shaping of pubic hair. As to the toilet culture, we can discern German toilets in which body waste remains on a porcelain shelf for detail examination and ambiguous fascination; Italian and French toilets where, in a revolutionary manner, the waste is quickly flushed away and out of the sight and smell; and, as a synthesis of the two, American toilets filled with water in which one can see the excrements without smelling them and can thus consider them pragmatically as refuse.
What could be said about Roman toilets as predecessors of the contemporary ones? Their users sit on benches with holes, and excrements fall into running water. It is most interesting that Roman toilets are a social place: these benches outside public baths have some twenty holes in the form of the letter U. Thus, more and less wealthy people meet there, face-to-face; the latter frequently cherish hopes that they will be invited to the table of the rich, or catch any other benefits.
As in every cosmopolitan city, whores were living also in Emona. Some of them offered their services outdoors, humble and cheap; others had their premises arranged in a house with small bedrooms – as can be inferred from the Roman Pompeii.
Toilets and whores, public debates and oral eroticism are the connective links of the DIWO (Do It With Others) artivistic street performance Toilet Whispering featuring Petja Grafenauer, Aleksandra Saška Gruden, Ida Hiršenfelder, Sarah Lunaček, Slađana Mitrović, Neža Mrevlje, Tanja Petrič, Ana Porok, Maja Smrekar, Jasmina Založnik, Irena Žmuc, and Bernarda Županek. These women intellectuals, artists and humanists offer their knowledge to passers-by in toilets-art objects designed by sculptors Marko A. Kovačič, Andrej Štular, and Zoran Srdić Janežič. Acting as a pimp,theradio speaker and narrator Rok Kušlan invites people to intellectual toilet debates, as well as to a re-evaluation of the frequently under-rated precarious intellectual work.
The intellectual whores await exciting intellectual debates, while the visitors also expect entertainment. The former are equipped with knowledge, wit and verbal skills, and the latter have questions and money. The narrow, intimate space with four seats in which conversations take place between up to four persons, regularly brings them closer to each other and opens a path to existential considerations. Perhaps the clients wish to discuss Von Trier’s last film, or grumble about contemporary art, or ask about the sponges for wiping buttocks that were used in Emona, or simply want to hear a certain text in its original language – there is a plethora of subjects on the list. According to their own estimation and satisfaction at the end of the visit, the customers evaluate and compensate for the intellectual work and ingenuity of the ladies.
Let the ancient exchange take place on the square, let the ideas strike and, when parting company, let the heated heads be filled with stars.

 

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Stranišča so vedno zbujala radovednost v ljudeh. Kakšna so pri sosedih, v imenitnih hotelih, dizajnerskih restavracijah, azijskih vaseh, kako to počnejo Arabci in kako Japonci? Pogosto popotniki takoj za deželno kulinariko po nekem ključu naravnega redosleda vključijo v pripoved stranišča. Gre za naš obsceni interes? Obscen v pomenu gnusen, moralno žaljiv in hkrati neustavljivo seksualno privlačen. Seks na stranišču je ena pogostih spolnih fantazij.
Stranišča spadajo med tiste materialne kazalce iz praktičnega življenja, ki vsebujejo ideološko vsebino in usmeritve določenega državnega aparata. Žižek v Kugi fantazem omeni Lévi-Straussovo delitev priprave hrane na surovo, pečeno in kuhano, iz katere sklepamo na »hrano duha« tistega, ki kuha; nekateri avtorji so vzeli pod drobnogled različno pomivanje posode ali (ne)oblikovanje sramnih dlak; tako tudi v kulturi stranišč opažamo nemška, kjer drek ostane na porcelanasti polički v natančno preiskavo in dvoumno fascinacijo, italijansko-francoska, ki ga v revolucionarni maniri kar se da hitro odplaknejo izpred oči in nosu ter dialog obeh – ameriška stranišča, polna vode, kjer je drek viden, vendar ne smrdi in se pragmatično obravnava kot odpadek.
Kaj lahko povemo o rimskih straniščih, predhodnikih sodobnih? Obiskovalci sedijo na klopeh z luknjami, iztrebki pa padejo v tekočo vodo. Najbolj zanimivo pri rimskih straniščih je, da so družabni prostor: na klopeh ob javnem kopališču je okrog dvajset lukenj, klopi tvorijo črko U. Sedé se iz obraza v obraz srečujejo bolj in manj premožni, slednji mogokrat v upanju, da bodo povabljeni na večerjo bogatih ali deležni kakšnega drugega privilegija.
Kot v vsakem svetovljanskem mestu, tudi v Emoni prebivajo kurbe. Nekatere svoje usluge nudijo bolj preprosto in poceni na prostem, druge imajo infrastrukturo urejeno v hiši z majhnimi spalnicami, na kar sklepamo iz rimskih Pompejev.
Stranišča in kurbe, javne debate in oralna erotika so povezovalni členi DIWO (Do It With Others) artivističnega uličnega performansa Straniščna šepetanja. V njem nastopajo intelektualke, umetnice in humanistke Petja Grafenauer, Aleksandra Saška Gruden, Ida Hiršenfelder, Sarah Lunaček, Slađana Mitrović, Neža Mrevlje, Tanja Petrič, Ana Porok, Maja Smrekar, Jasmina Založnik, Irena Žmuc in Bernarda Županek, ki v straniščih – umetniških objektih, ki so jih izdelali kiparji Marko A. Kovačič, Andrej Štular in Zoran Srdić Janežič – nudijo svoje znanje mimoidočim. K intelektulanim straniščnim debatam jih nagovarja zvodnik, špiker in pripovedovalec Rok Kušlan. Namen akcije je v 12 večerih vzpostaviti prostor javne debate, ki v Ljubljani umanjka ob razdružujočem vplivu medijev in splošni družbeni klimi ter ponovno ovrednotiti pogosto podcenjeno prekerno intelektualno delo.
Tako kot intelektulane kurbe pričakujejo vznemirljivo intelektualno debato, so tudi obiskovalci tu zaradi zabave. Intelektualne kurbe so opremljene z znanjem, duhovitostjo in verbalnimi veščinami, obiskovalci z vprašanji in denarjem. Ozek intimni prostor s štirimi sedišči, v katerem se preigravajo pogovori med dvema do štirimi sogovorniki, vedno zbliža ljudi in odpre pot eksistencialnim premislekom. Morda želijo navezati debato na Von Trierjev zadnji film, godrnjati nad sodobno umetnostjo, povprašati o tistih emonskih spužvicah za brisanje riti ali enostavno slišati določeno besedilo v originalu – mnogo tega je na voljo v meniju tematik. Iznajdljivost sogovornic ob koncu obiska stranke nagradijo in s tem ovrednotijo intelektualno delo po lastni presoji in užitku.
Naj na trgu poteka pradavna izmenjava, naj se trejo duhovi in vroče glave razhajajo polne vrtoglavih zvezd!

 

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Kaj: Ulični performans v okviru festivala Svetlobna gverila
Kdo: Petja Grafenauer, Aleksandra Saška Gruden, Ida Hiršenfelder, Sarah Lunaček, Slađana Mitrović, Neža Mrevlje, Tanja Petrič, Ana Porok, Maja Smrekar, Jasmina Založnik, Irena Žmuc in Bernarda Županek
Avtorja: Jana Putrle Srdić, Zoran Srdić Janežič
Avtorji stranišč: Marko A. Kovačič, Andrej Štular, Zoran Srdić Janežič
Risbe: Zoran Srdić Janežić
Tekst: Jana Putrle Srdić
Prevod v angleščino: Borut Canjko
Kje: Trg francoske revolucije, Ljubljana
Kdaj: 8. september – 10. oktober 2014, od 20.30 do 22.30 ure
Produkcija: Strip Core / Forum Ljubljana
Koprodukcija: Zavod za sodobne umetnosti in kulture Gulag, Mestni muzej Ljubljana
Projekt je podprla Mestna občina Ljubljana – Oddelek za kulturo. Program Svetlobne gverile je del mednarodnega projekta Spectrum 14/15. Izvedba tega projekta je financirana s strani Evropske komisije.