To the mountains

Soundtrack – Revolution Square, Tehran, Nov 24, 7.10 pm -- "Don’t take out the flag. Please don’t take out the flag. They’re taking out the flag!" -- Cameraman 2 (Translated from Farsi).
A silent revolution - carried out on behalf of a people? To revolutionize a people? Or—for the sake of the twisted libido of two individuals? Then a call sounds out: To the mountains! To the mountains!

Tonight at 7

After having established a position in the public discourse – on the streets and in the media – we’re preparing ourselves for the climax on Revolution Square. Tonight at 7. Will the people unite in a unique expression of their general will? Will they rally around our white banner?

[And then there is Bob. Persistently nibbling food – pecking crumbles like a starving sparrow on a bird table. In the taxi I can hardly contain my irritation – a few crumbs left in a roll of biscuits – for minutes on end he fiddles, the crackling sound piercing the fragile mental equilibrium in the taxi. People are not meant to be together for more than a few hours. More than that goes against nature. His diet consists of little cut pieces of cauliflower, tomato, cucumber, beet root, all kinds of nuts and bread. In between – apples, bananas, pomegranate, mandarin. Occasionally a proper meal – but not enough to prevent the nibbling – the constant, persistent nibbling.
And then there is Bob -
In-sich-hineinstopfender Nielsen
In-sich-hineinwuelender Nielsen
In-sich-hinein-und-ueber-sich-selbst-gehender Nielsen
There is the pencil sharpening, the questions, the never ending questions, the barrage of questions, the myopic leafing through wads of Rial notes in the wallet, the outbreaks of panic if strangers should take an interest in his eating habits; the outbreaks of panic as his cries cut through tranquil meetings: "My notebook! Where is my notebook!" -- Everyone scrambling accommodatingly, until Nielsen finds it on the chair next to him.
And then there is Bob –
Skeptischer Nielsen
Wohlgesinnter Nielsen
Ueber-den-Gebetsteppich-hinauslaufender Nielsen]

Delivering mail to the President’s office

Taxi down to Pastor St. The streets around the Government offices are closed off. The main street leading towards the Presidential Palace is broad and empty. It feels a bit like Downing Street – now with plane trees. We pass by a Presidential Guard post. We leave the car on the boulevard midway between to posts and continue on foot with the letter. Bob has the letter. I have the camera (our film crew is in total disarray. Local staff is on strike). As we approach the main entrance post, guards come on to the street behind us. They call out ‘hey! Hello! Mister! Mister!’ But at this point we’ve heard so many ‘hello-misters’ in Iran that we’ve become quit deaf to it.

Accordingly, a moment after the two protagonists are left standing, kicking the dust in the street without props. Guards walk off with camera, passports, letter and disappear inside a booth on the middle strip of the road. Bob curses under his breath while managing to send innocent touristy smiles towards the opaque windows of the booth. I take out the cigarettes. Prisoners of our own overconfidence. Two battered Trabant replicas (Peykans) pull up after a few minutes. The superior along with his superior and assistants. All in brown suits, no tie of course. The style is right out of a SED fashion magazine from the Seventies – the proud mouldy brown colours of the GDR. They look to be related to the police that picked us up in Yazd. Same stubbles, same elusive greeting (non-greeting), same squatness, same slight chubbyness – caused by extensive sitting inside the Trabant.

So, it is not allowed to film the Presidential Guard. The GDR superiors stand behind the booth – reading the letter, assistants pushing all the buttons on the camera, taking out tape and still-photo memory chip. A moment after they all huddle in a circle around the poor chip, discussing.

They question our hapless taxi driver. ‘What are you doing here with these people?’ Going through his papers, they tell us to go back to the car and wait. We spend a joyful hour on the backseat going through various scenarios that all has us ending up in Evin prison. Our eyes are fixed on the tiny figures bustling down at the gate. The whole thing has the feel of Checkpoint Charlie in Friedrichstraße – we’re waiting to get word on our exchange. The little brown men have our fate in their hands.

The wife of the driver calls incessantly on his cell phone. Bob is on the phone with his diva who pleads with him to delete all the footage of her – where she is without Hejjab, where she is drinking alcohol, where she is kissing, cheating on her husband. She has an actress friend whose life was ruined when DVD’s started circulating on the streets with footage of her making love.

I have lesser problems. I’m a white middle-class Scandinavian. How boring is that. My biggest dilemma is to decide before I turn 35 whether I want join the early retirement scheme and start paying instalments. Oh, to live in a totalitarian society. To be a hero!

I spot footballs in a bag outside a nearby kiosk and leave the car to get one. It’s hard plastic, very poor quality, 20 cents, clonking sound when it hits the ground. I play by myself in the deserted boulevard with the plane trees as silent spectators.

After a while the two Peykans come clattering up the boulevard. All smiles, handshakes all around. They like the letter and promise to send it on to the President’s Office.
Relief – we thought we were going to loose everything this close to our exit, in a stupid moment of hubris. We get back the camera, passports. They’ve recorded the flaking GDR wall of their office over the bit with Bob walking down the street with letter in hand. This film is going to sell well at Art Basel. An art film shot by Iranian Secret Police – who can top that?

Selling out

[...]
Two hours long meeting worse than going through ten gas chambers. Iranian Academy of Talents. A distinguished institution associated with such notable universities as the University of Baku, Azerbaidjan and Georgia State University. Talking points: the importance of education for world peace. The importance of Iranian talents to return to Iran. The protection of Iranian students in the US from being assaulted by American police. The greatness of the Iranian nation two thousand years ago.
I’m handed copies of letters in Azerbadjanian written by the Azerbadjanian Ambassador to Iran addressing the all important issue of world peace. Also a diploma:

“In the name of God, the beneficent [sic!], the mercifull [sic!]
Dear Mr Altimer [sic!]
We sincerely want to thank you for coming to the Academy of Iranian Elites. Our constant invitation and friendship for being in the areas of global peace hopefully will be accepted by you [sic!]. It will be deeply appreciated if you mention about this Academy to you friends and corporates [sic!].
Sincerely,
Prof. Dr. XXXX XXXXXXX”

About to shake hands in appreciation of my new diploma, my eyes incredulously register the fast approach of the Dean’s lips. Paralyzed, stunned, I let myself be violated Soviet-style. Kisses on either cheek. Oh, the tepid, soft, revolutionary stubbles of a Central Asian Apparatchik! And all in the name of Global Peace...

The meeting proved to be the turning point for our activities in Iran. The revolution became a travesty the instant I fastened our pin – the flag – to the Dean’s lapel. To our complete and utter surprise, our friends, our cadres, broke into violent applause when the deed was done. I couldn’t help but join in. We – the fathers of the future – had become claqueurs of the frauds of yesterday. A complete sell-out.

[...]
Three hours long play in Farsi with Ayatollahs, Khomeni and Khamenei, on either side of stage staring silently out at the audience. It’s as entertaining as strolling through 8 gas chambers. Raymond Carver -- Iranian style. Bob is in the seat in front of me, expectant, thrilled, fixed by the visage of his Iranian diva on stage. He is on his second date in Iran. Traitor!

[...]
We left Europe 42 days ago. We’ve tried to stay true to the script we worked out with Hollywood consultants. But – as we descend into reality - it is increasingly difficult to ascertain on the level of actor where we are on the level of structure, in terms of the larger narrative span. It has been all about playing with reality – just until you realize that all along in effect reality has been playing with you. Also – you work out the script in close sync with the media – the way the world is narrated in the media; sitting there in front of your laptop far removed from the analogue world -- then you enter reality, the world outside the media – the offline world – and then everything becomes totally different. The causal chains are different here. The analogue world knows nothing of its own representation and narration in the mediatic system. On the mediatic level Iranians are just as far removed from Iran as a New Yorker reading about Iran. On the level of media, we all exist in the same abstraction. There doesn’t seem to be any links between the analogue and digital world. This is why the aim we took months ago could turn out to be so off-target. Maybe a truly cosmopolitan world should be founded on the level of media – in a complete abstraction – then we leave the analogue world, the world of friction, the world of necessity to the hyenas and the vultures.

I miss the swim in the Pacific.

First snow in Tehran

It is cold in Tehran. It is cold in Tehran. There is the cold steel of millions of cars that stubbornly resist to be revolutionized. There are the icy streams of Vodka that flows in narrow canals along roads; roaring forth from the affluent residential areas in the North; to enter the Southern areas of the city diluted in dull, dirty and shallow streams. There are the cold steel of hundreds of plastic surgeon’s scalpels cutting into the flesh of thousands of upper middle class teenagers; who all carry the banner of the revolution in the flesh; white band-aids on the bridge of their noses. There is the cold rim of Ayatollah Khamenei’s heavy-set glasses on roadside signs, reflecting the scattered rays from the silver steel sun disk up there far above the smog dome of Tehran. There is the warm light from a tiny fire on the sidewalk, soaked up by the contours of a little girl, clutching some cardboard as she turns to warm her bum – appropriately wearing a petite hejjab, of course!
There is the cold blue and green light from the fair ground lighting in meticulously manicured gardens and greens in the middle of endless highway loops and bridges. Was there ever such a desolate sight? Parks and greenery made for cars.
There is the icy peak of the far away, majestic Damovand, which still hasn’t been reached by the news of the outcome of ’79.
There is the flat golden sepia light from street lighting reflected off windscreens of cars as they park outside malls on Friday nights (Thursdays). Such is the public space in Iran – car compounds and malls.
The snow has started falling in Tehran. My weary Beckett shoes slips along the sidewalk – there is no revolution without friction. Foothold, we need foothold -- a revolution needs friction to be able to take off. Get us some salt, Nielsen!

(I turn towards Nielsen but he’s not there. He has abandoned ship. Off on a personal adventure. In pursuit of love. Has there ever been such treachery? Kill him, kill him – calls the mob. He’ll be the first to go...)

Plot loops

Closely knit community in the suburbs of the south of Tehran. It’s a poor area. Everyone knows each other; there is no abstract government expressed in the public positions of clerics, Basij, police – they all have first names, they all grew up together with the grocer, the hairdresser, the teacher, and the unemployed that hangs out at the grocer’s. Because of this lack of abstract power, the feel of the community is much less tense than what we’ve experienced in the bigger cities. Aside from the titles, these people would be the same in any system.

Sitting on a carpet, lunching with a local family, a moment of revelation when the talking head of an Iranian TV host appears on the obligatory screen in the corner. It’s Channel One TV, broadcasting from Independence Avenue in Woodland Hills in California. The slick host was the same man that gave us a tour of the facilities when we visited Channel One a month ago. We have footage of us in the studio on either side of him as he announces to the camera: “Iran welcomes the European Initiative in Iran!” There is a sublime truth to this loop in our narrative, No words can express the gap between the manicured world of California and the sitting room in the run-down humble living quarters in this part of messy Tehran – the grandmother going on in incomprehensible Farsi about her love of dancing despite weak knees, her son talking in incomprehensible Farsi about his beloved motorcycle. – The guests trying to swallow a second round of some sort of pickled fruit that reeks of perfume, with the consistency of rubber.

Grand fantasies of Claudius and the madness of a nephew

My uncle married mother while I was in Germany. He took the throne and slipped into the sheets of my mother. The wind is northerly.

Six years old girls singing, playing on the middle strip in junctions. At the red light they run to the cars, peddling envelopes, band-aids; squinting through, talking to rolled up windows. And Claudius believes that his country has potential for another 70 million people. And there is a complete break-down of traffic, city imploding, and Iran deliriously thinks itself a model nation. Iran is universal entropy. It spews its children out across all corners of the world. It holds its children in an iron grip – shackles made up by fantasies of California, religion without belief, death to its enemies, poverty, islands of middle class refuge, fear, fear above everything, and then soccer. Iran is universal. We are all Iranians. Complete and utter insanity. We are not allowed to see the nape of our women’s necks, and the children don’t go to school, they sell postcards in the streets, we’d rather support Hizbollah, and broadcast ridiculous propaganda in broken English from mock CNN studios, and launch war exercises in the name of the great prophet, and spend money on martyr’s posters instead of schooling. And then we all huddle in a cancerous cage of a city at the feet of beautiful snow-capped mountains. Content to glimpse majestic peaks through the dense smog; not scaling its sides but staying put in the moving rubber cell of our exhaust filled car. Iran a universal prison. Universal Auschwitz with a dab of Parisian Elan. Lined by melancholic plane trees. Everything is fine – we just need a bit of opium – and then there is always Afghanistan and backward Arabs. We are a people of culture and sophistication. Iran – a model nation. Bad car accidents are fine as long as we are good muslims – hold on to that chador (even if you’re desperately trying get out of a burning wreck). We say Inshallah and then our team wins.
Tupperware leads the way into the Iranian 22nd century. The advent of the Microwave along with Tupperware rendered collective action superfluous. Asphalt is excellent for preventing the building of barricades. Summing up the fourth international plastic expo: Global warming will help the plastic industry gain ground in the publishing business. Temerity in government leads to higher sensitivity among children. Koran: A book mostly about women, by Mohammed. Poetry is best sung by reckless bachelors.

"A city guerilla should be like the fish in a shoal"

Scene: A flat in Tehran. Second floor, stairwell reeking from gas because of leakage (plenty of gas in this country). 402 – behind the door, amid the petit bourgeois knick-knack, a revolutionary cell is forming. Gas fireplace with logs of plastic. Clay plaque on the wall: "God bless this lousy apartment." Embroidery on tables, chairs, drawers and in windows. Mattresses in back rooms, entrance with fresh flowers on a mahogany chest to appease suspicious neighbours.
In the street outside no 90, a single street lamp pushes impatient shadows through the grating of the gate. Steps resound on the stairs. The clatter of locks. Muted greetings. Door phone perpetually buzzing. It's a beehive. Something is in the making.

The Avant-garde

TEHRAN. Paradisiac Absolut Vodka in house next to Evin Prison. Satellite TV from Los Angeles. Cell phone network blacked out all around to prevent interception of guard communication. – Fresh out of a meeting with a Mullah friend of Khatami. Nielsen wanted to attach a pin to his turban. But most disappointingly he was all turbanless and casual on this Iranian Sunday in his house with family. He talks of Khatami’s Dialogue of Civilization. The Europeans make the point that there is only one – that to speak of it in plural only reinforces differences (being slightly dishonest – the distinction between a toilet and a hole in the ground, speaks of insurmountable differences).

It has been decided to change strategy (swayed by alcohol?). No more inconclusive dialogue and intercultural courtesies and niceties. The gloves are off. We are throwing the gauntlet at the feet of this regime. From now on we – as an intellectual avant-garde – will take command of the revolution. Thus we comply with the unison demand heard across Iran for us to take leadership. ‘We need leaders!’ ‘You must lead us!’ – this is the mandate from the Iranian Youth.

Stardom in Qom

QOM. The revolutionaries have become superstars. Outside the Khomeini Shrine – on a square striated by the comings and goings of Mullahs -- people crowd and push to get autographs. Whispers -- ‘Bayern München’, ‘Real Madrid’ – ripple through the lines. The flag is a team streamer. You can kick a ball through the hole in the middle. Police arrive on the scene. The two men are led off. But not to the station. Just away from the crowd. The officers are inquisitive -- they want to know which position I play for Real Madrid. One saw me play last week against Sevilla. Another arrives and informs his colleague that they have David Beckham before them.

Isfahan Idyll

QOM. At last happiness has found them. Bliss, heavenly joy. Love! The scene: two couples - walking arm in arm, caressed by the unruly, rustling foliage of weeping willows: the path winding along a rushing river. Mr. Fallah, their servant up ahead carrying fruit basket, blanket, cloth, flowers and gifts. As he finds an ideal spot on the bank, he gesticulates and calls out to the couples behind him. When he has arranged everything, the couples approach to stand for a moment; admiring the sight, the river – eddies and foam, the willows on the opposite bank, in the distance the mountains.

Having helped seat the girls on the blanket the two men gets bouquets and presents from Mr. Fallah. The eyes of the girls sparkle and gleam as they see their lovers approach. Sighs and whispers -- ‘khodosh’, ‘my god,’ – are carried out across the waters.
Unwrapping the present, taking care not to tear the cherry coloured fabric with golden filigree, fingers impatiently working the stubborn bows, a shriek of joy as they recognize the portrait of their grooms: a 70 x 50 cm poster showing the two men on either side of their cream-coloured Chrysler on Mulholland Drive... Pictures are taken; the men – again -- on either side, girls seated, holding the poster between them.

Giggles, sighs as each couple cut and eat fruit from each others hands. Looks of wonder as the Delster Beers -- 0.0 % alcohol -- are popped open with the flick of a teaspoon. A moment of contemplation, a gust of wind, the sound of a distant river fall, the play of autumn sunlight, a stubborn beetle scaling the leather wall of a sole. Then a shade of gloom. It will not last. The gap separating cultures and geography is immense. But then -- in a storm of desperate hugs and furious kisses – the dark cloud dissipates. Only blinding light is left.

First date

An evening worse than any in the streets of Baghdad: A crushingly tacky hotel restaurant – the by now familiar Iran-style tourist makeover – an imitable overload of bad taste etched onto every square centimetre of panelling; there are mirrors, chandeliers, fountains, plastic flowers, figurines, enamelled ceilings, reliefs, arches, columns, TV-screens and – as always – the required portraits of Khomenei and Khamenei. Waiters in uniforms, poor English, rush about empty tables as if they were serving hundreds of patrons. Lethal shopping music plays from speakers in the ceiling.

It is the first date in Iran. Elhal & Elham. The girls are twins – twenty three years old. Except from ‘I love you’ – not a word of English. We are seated across from them. Their older sister is at the end of the table with her two children. They’ve brought gifts. A rose for each revolutionary and a sugar bowl, which fits the style of the restaurant. We didn’t bring any. Instead they get our pins.

It must be difficult for the authorities to fit this activity into a meaningful pattern of suspicious activity. We are kept under surveillance; we do not see a sign of them when we’re out and about, but in the lobby of our hotel there are perpetually two or three shady looking characters hanging about. Asked by our interpreter, a receptionist whispered in reply that she had no idea who they are and what they are doing there. Nielsen took the camera – like any proper tourist -- and started filming the beautiful lobby -- mirrors, chandeliers, fountains, plastic flowers, figurines, enamelled ceilings, reliefs... Training the lens on one of our new friends sitting in a chair, the man holds up his right hand to shield his face. There is absolutely no doubt that the police have assigned a team to follow our doings. What an honour! For the first time in my life I am a very important person! A re-enactment of the GDR -- and I am one of the main characters!

I sincerely hope they will continue to follow my life in the future. Scenes of me in front of my computer, having corn flakes in the evenings. Me in front of my computer at night, spilling vodka all over the keyboard, sending off embarrassing, sentimental emails. Me in my bed watching episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Me in Sainsbury’s trying to decide whether I should buy orange juice or mixed fruit juice. Me in Bethnal Green Gardens at dusk playing football up against a wall.

When Elhal & Elham were born the parents arranged for them to marry their older cousins. Now they are desperate to get out of this deal. The question is whether we as revolutionaries can allow ourselves to take the path of private happiness. Of course this is a contradictio in adjecto. We must go on. We cannot go on.

Late arrival in Isfahan

Late evening arrival in Isfahan (three hours later than initial ETA). Too late for food in the hotel restaurant. Brightly lit fast food pizza restaurant – blaring Iranian pop music competing with blaring Iranian TV. Three girls, two children enter and seat themselves across from my table. Blatant flirting. One with a bright blue chador makes a gesture, offering me to have some of her sandwich. The usual fiddling-dropping-rearranging-chador-exercise. The rest of our Iranian company arrives. Giggling among the girls. As they get up to leave, Nielsen calls out ‘excuse me!’ and hands them his card. Sauntering back to hotel separately. A car parked in the dark, empty street across from the entrance, motor running. The police? Halfway through the revolving doors -- whistles, honking from the car – I turn to see Nielsen laughing in the back seat. The girls waves and signals me to come over.

Yazd - now with police

We have stopped handing out copies of our letter the Iranian president. After spending three hours at the Yazd branch of the police that deals with foreigners -- we also agreed not to raise the flag in the streets. This despite that the officers liked our letter very much (but declined our invitation to be added to the list of signatories) – also the look of the flag they found beautiful, but the problem with it is that anyone is able to read his own meaning into it. Nice sight -- watching adult men examine the tiny, tiny pin at length, discussing the make-up. Finally – we have an audience that takes us seriously!

Headquarters in the old part of Yazd, in a mud-built compound, with a nice cosy court yard outside the main office. As officers looked through hours of tapes with two men, box, and flag, the real two men had plenty of time to make use of the table tennis facilities in one corner of the yard – of course as always immaculate in their suits. An improvised tournament saw the smaller of the two men beat officers of all ranks (two junior officers and the kitchen boys), sporting a flashy Chinese technique. Later bored of his ineptitude in table tennis, the taller of the two fetched the football from the car and challenged the kitchen boys to a game around the fountain in the court yard.

We were told that our audience was not limited to Yazd, our act had been seen from we set foot in Bandar Abbas, and audience awaited us on our tour further northwards. After a lot of parleying and calls to HQ in Tehran, we were finally allowed to keep our tapes and continue the journey to Isfahan.

The youths – Linkin Park fans -- we met in Yazd had also been held for questioning. They later called to tell us they had decided not to go with us to Isfahan.

I gave the senior office my card and Iranian cell number but he didn’t offer his.

Yazd

We have started handing out copies of our letter to the Iranian president, building up a public position within Iran. One local paper is publishing the letter. Next step is to get it published in a national newspaper in Esfahan. TV in Tehran. Meetings with youths in Yazd. Handing out pins with the flag. It is turning into a symbol of a nameless revolution. Hashem is putting up a website with the flag as logo. A symbol for change, for the new – all form, no content. Is it possible to achieve anything of substance on the level form? Outside Yazd on a mountain knoll, two figures in contrast, one tall, one small, could be seen at dusk raising a flag with a hole in the middle. Iwo Jima.

The two men are no longer disguised. Always in full uniform they stand out from locals like decadent Martians. They wear the counterrevolutionary emblem, the necktie, and yet they carry out a revolution.

People like foreigners. When one says he wants to commit suicide, they respond ‘Denmark! Milk!’ When one says that he is making a revolution, they respond ‘good luck with your revolution!’

Meetings in the streets with students -- all tense and nervous, eyes flickering, scanning for police. One claims that ‘they’ are watching us perpetually. Handing out hundred copies of the letter – four police cars pass by without stopping to the surprise of the students.

This morning – a huge demonstration – children in the street outside the hotel, teachers as shepherds, like the Day of Sports in secondary school, chanting ‘down with America’ – as they notice the foreigners on the sidewalk they wave and call out ‘Hello Mister!’

The love story

We still haven’t done much work on the romantic story line. Yesterday was committed to research in the streets of Shiraz to get an impression of where and how young people meet. Jahan and driver Khasem took us up and down streets clogged with traffic. The two locals used the Readymade Westerners to increase their cultural capital – famous actors from Hollywood. – Khasem was convinced he’d seen us in several productions.
He was yelping ‘hello!’ out the window at veiled girls on the sidewalk, who didn’t seem approachable on distance (black tunic and veil seem to facilitate that impression). Neither up close – but most of them indulged in some sort of negotiation with Khasem, who, tracking them in the car at walking pace, went from randy barking to slightly longer raps.

According to the perceptions of the two men, half of all women in the city are prostitutes. All winking at us as we pass them -- signals lost on the Europeans – but purportedly picked up on the finely tuned antennas of Jahan and Khasem.
Their language on women was beyond disrespectful and wearisome at length. Later left to my own devices and my own pace, standing in the street, I got a taste of how the procedure is: Two young girls passed giggling by me. Ten meters past me, one of casually walks back in my direction and we exchange a few courtesies. -- One has a chance to reinvigorate one’s romantic proficiency as girls apparently have a poor ability to judge age (or they don’t care). My old sorry self was found talking to a girl not more than twenty years old. I am then expected to hand over my cell phone number so we can arrange a later meeting in a coffee house or restaurant. Anyway, I lost it halfway as I failed to give her my number and she strode off back to her friend up the street.

As I turn in the other direction I find a bit of commotion because a Basij – the vigilante corps of moral enforcers – had noticed me, a decadent Westerner wearing a necktie, talking to a girl. Apparently he was asking people around me, which hotel I was staying at. Not approaching me but instead getting into a loud discussion with some youths, he raced off on his motorbike. One of the group, Amin, told me not to worry – ‘He is nothing. He is little police. Nobody.’ Displaying a by now familiar disrespect for the members of the Basij. ‘You cannot talk to girls in the street. This is the Islamic Republic of Iran! And he did not like your tie,’ he said pointing to the sloppy knot that hung halfway down my chest under the unbuttoned collar. The European version of a sloppily worn chador.

Yesterdays scene - now with action!

The actors returned to yesterday’s location at the grave of the poet Hafez Something. They took up the same positions but unlike yesterday they had not only brought additional props but also mobilized a small crowd beforehand. The enactment took its cue from the American live art performance on the Firdos Square in Baghdad in March 2003 where Pentagon directors and set designers brought in a group of exile Iraqis to create a first tableau in the history of a liberated country.

The expectant crowd milled around the two characters, astir with amazement and awe when a white flag with a hole in the middle appeared from the box. Judged from a strictly artistic perspective it was a very poor performance. The two actors hadn’t rehearsed their lines properly and there was confusion as to what exactly was being said; also the interpreter had disappeared. Phrases hovered briefly like soap bubbles in the light and cool October evening – ‘Old Europe is looking towards Iran for rejuvenation’ – ‘a new beginning’. ‘Iran harbours the vision of the future.’ ‘Together we will gather around the hole to see the new appear in our midst.’ A breeze took them out across an ornamental pond, over a wall and into the streets of Shiraz.

Most fortunately the regime came to the rescue. A group of uniformed police (unpaid extras) was attracted by the flag – now attached to a pole -- fluttering high above the crowd. One grabbed the flag. Another announced it was not permitted to raise any flag in Iran.
The scene was now in disarray. The camera man had followed the interpreter into hiding. Going beyond the simple assertion of the banning of flags, the police angrily indulged in a semantic inquiry. According to crowd organizer Jahan they demanded to know what the hole meant, what it represented. One of the crowd called out ‘the future!’ in Farsi. The actors claimed it was just an opening to look through.

One police officer started rolling the flag around the pole. Another hesitated, took the pole from the hands of his colleague and started unfolding it again – maybe to have a better look at it – maybe to signal a will to compromise; the actor Claus was demonstrating an abundance of intercultural goodwill -- smiling all over, shaking hands with the assembled policemen. Heated discussion all around. The point was made that the banner was an art object and thus should be exempted from a stipulation which targets union and association’s flags.

The police clearly didn’t know what to make of it all and settled on the view that we would have to have permission from the Ministry of Culture and Guidance to film and wave flags. In the end the actors were allowed to stay and talk with the extras who had played the part as a jubilant crowd.

Freeze frame

A scene on a square in Shiraz: The actors enter the frame with the box. They ascend a flight of sandstone stairs that leads to a mausoleum of a long dead poet. Turning towards the square where the audience is, they put down the box. Eyes shifting for a brief moment: they have no idea what they’re supposed to do, what activity to engage in, how to commence. The answer is supposed to come from the box. But there is nothing in the box, nothing just yet. Shifting is followed by freezing. Fixed gaze on a colonnade across; they stand there for a long time, the box between them. People are taking pictures with cell phones. Soldiers approach, one calls out: ‘Hello! I’m a soldier. Where you from?’ A young man offers to act as interpreter. But there are no words to translate. ‘I you interpret. Me professional interpret. You offering at your service. I would like to give my name. First name is... Surname is... My telephone, home, is....’ The two characters have no clue what to do. If Meysahm hadn’t called cut! -- they would have stayed there until the end of history.

Teatro Buffo

As we travel northwards Hamlet has become a dominant frame for this live fiction. I haven’t thought it through just yet, but I sense an enormous potential in our plot line. We have taken up the structural position of the theatre company in Hamlet, which enacts the truth within the fiction. Now the question is how far we can go in real life while playacting. And -- whether we will be allowed to enact scenes with Ahmadinejad in the audience.

This teatro buffo arrived yesterday evening in Shiraz in a mini bus. Altheimer and Beck-Nielsen plays the leading roles. Jaleh P has the part as the interpreter (romantic subplot?). Meysahm acts the cameraman. The extra Majid is our driver. The chorus is made up by the Iranian people.

The End of Billabong

We are continually debating to what extent we should disguise ourselves. We are no longer going with the Billabong Malibu beach identities as it seems that Iranians think we’re tourists whatever outfit we wear, whatever actions we undertake. We decided on the ferry to take off our necktie thus positioning ourselves tangentially to Iranian revolutionary semantics where cravattes condensate all things evil from the West. Two days into the mission, we go around in our suits blatantly looking like agents. Handing out business cards with the emblem of the European Initiative, corresponding with the pin we wear on our lapels. Enacting our arrival in Iran for the camera in a motor boat at a pier in Bandar Abbas, someone called out "Mr. Bond!" In that way it seems like a clever strategy to combine the making of a Hollywood production with a real life enactment of the script; because no one will suspect that what they see has real effects. Cameras, crew and microphones are the perfect disguise! But of course, we are still far away from the urbane centres where authorities and vigilantes abound. On this third day, we are still in Bandar Abbas, a bustling, dusty town committed to trade because of its proximity to Dubai and Khesh Island, where goods are exempted from toll.

We had our first crowd experience yesterday when we put down the box on an open square at the sea front. In the box was a football. We challenged the Iranian youth to a game – Nielsen and I on either team. This was an opportunity to measure mobilizational potential of Iranian youth as well as organizational abilities. The results were rather poor. Nielsen’s team mates didn’t play together. He fluttered around bidding his team to play the ball around in vain.
It was a great intercultural moment when Nielsen, in hectic pursuit of the ball, collided with an elderly, completely veiled woman who was sitting with her family pick-nicking at the bluff.

My team played fairly well. But everything dissolved into a confused melee when Nielsen, insisting on the general inclusive nature of the game and the revolution, invited another group to join. We suddenly found ourselves in the dark centre of a crowd of youths. Somewhere someone started to push and yell. It was very intense. Out of nowhere a hand appeared and slapped me on the right ear from behind. The stinging pain and surprise inverted the signs of the situation. I suddenly feared the consequences of actions. What if. Then someone kicked the ball violently into our group from behind us. A small boy was hit on the head and started crying. Complete misanthropy, depression and disappointment set in – we hastily withdrew from this first crowd experiment. There is no revolution without violence. But it is not that kind of violence we’re looking for. If we deduct the pathos, the key question is: how to act with effect in a world with children?

Landfall in Bandar Abbas, Islamic Republic of Iran

Crossing Hormuz, part two

"What do you want to do? -- I have no desires. None."

Rear deck. I woke to find myself in a solid grey soup. 6 in the morning. An eerie twilight helped to create a truthful rendering of how the crossing of River Styx must have felt. Early morning fog was indistinguishable from the sea. It was still the same heat as yesterday evening. No wind moving. On the rear flag pole an Iranian flag hung lazily above the unassuming wake.
The soup was broken occasionally by dark bulky blots, drifting past. All oil freighters -- STOC Persia. Persian Queen. Hormuz IV – we were obviously now passing along the main road and lifeline of the Iranian economy.

Claus sitting next to me, head hanging, sleeping at one end of the now extremely uncomfortable bench. On surrounding benches other passengers were coming round to see the mist give way to a flat yellow sun disk, horizon and open seas.
Had a nice liquefied white Toblerone for breakfast – teeth biting into nougat and aluminium foil. No coffee or hot water. On Claus’ suggestion I have tea mixed with Nescafe. Taste buds in riot, but the caffeine does its work nicely.

Approaching noon, white light blinds the eyes and obliterates all contrasts. Rapid motor boats criss-cross in between freighters. Iran, Iranians everywhere. The blurred contours of the popular Iranian holiday resort Khesh Island passes by on the port side. Inside in the passenger lounge, children, women and men are astir, gathering belongings and getting ready to disembark. The spectacle is accompanied by pictures on a big TV screen of martyrs from the war with Iraq. These are inserted next to battle footage dubbed with songs of mourning, interspersed are segments with tearful relatives recounting joyful memories of the deceased.

Last visit to the rest rooms to wash hands yet again. More water on the floor than in the Gulf. Behind the doors of eight booths are the holes in the floor that are the single most import reason that Western and Islamic civilisations will never merge.
It is a night mare to get out without having to touch the door handle. I feign to have problems with my zipper in order to let another pass me. He is most courteous and patiently waits till I’m all sorted. I will not touch the handle. I must touch the handle. And so we enter Iran.

Crossing the Hormuz Strait

"We were sent for. Yes. That’s why we’re here. Travelling."

We spent three hours in Port Khalid, Sharjah going through Emirates immigration and a standard crowded, tepid waiting room experience along with hundreds of Iranians. -- Families with children, babies and nappy bags, arguing with UAE immigration officials. Young daughters, jeans under tunics, wielding huge beauty boxes. Tiny tribal tradesmen wearing all kinds of exotic multicoloured headgear, dragging oversized packages, barrels, boxes -- animal feed pellets, maize, rice, wheat trickling from punctures in cardboard and sacking.

Finally we were let through to board a bus that would take us to the ferry ramp. Equipped with non-alcoholic malt beverages, cigarettes and adrenaline pumping from the excitement of authentic, analogue travelling, we boarded the aged, four-deck car ferry, Hormuz 14 in the dusk a little after six o’clock. Securing myself a bench outside on the passenger deck, beverages were opened, cigarettes were lit.
The excitement took the edge off the oppressive heat and we would soon be out on the open sea. The melancholic sepia lights of the port and its cargo ships set the proper tone for a voyage into the darkness. Huge cranes were doing their work on surrounding quay berths – off-loading freight containers with goods that the lazy, SUV, racehorse and Golf-crazed desert country cannot supply on its own. That is everything but oil.

At nine o’clock the ship hadn’t moved an inch. Lines were still keeping the vessel firmly in place. I was at the bottom of the non-alcoholic malt beverage stash. Workers had only just started to load cars on to the two upper car decks. This was done by way of a hydraulic mechanism, sounding a piercing siren when in operation. Two hours later cars were still being hauled up on decks. South Korean KIA’s as well as BMW’s with no license plates bound for Pakistan and Iran, a passenger let us know. All covered with a dense layer of desert sand.
The night heat was just as insufferable as the daytime edition. With no wind moving in the port, adrenaline subsiding and drowsiness setting in, the depression of inertia crowded out the last traces of excitement.

I briefly drifted into a sort of consciousness around 2 to see the big moment slowly pass by as in a dream. The tips of cranes, lights passing by our vessel. Somewhere a voice urged me to open the last can and light another Benson & Hedges but I had become another person by then.

Cultural Desert

It’s warm here. Very, very, very warm. This place is utterly unpleasant and culturally dead. Europe, oh Europe, where are you?
A lot of building is going on. To what purpose I do not know. Tallest building in the world! A zillion corridors with water coolers. Thousand bazaars offering cell phones and cell phone accessories.

Next to Claus in one of the many bumber car type water taxis among Bengalis, Arabs, Pakistanis, gazing at the hazy skyline with Rolex and HSBC written all over, the mind is overflowing with postcard visions of the good life in Gstaad.
Later driving down a dusty highway lined by detached houses in the style of desert forts. New York Dental Clinic. Manchester Clinic. American Dental Clinic. Carpe Diem Plastic Surgery. A mental lifeline is the thought of the sea nearby and Iran a ferry ride to the north. At the beach, one expected to see an American aircraft carrier passing through the Gulf. There were several – could just as well be oil tankers – in these times one resembles the other. It’s a question of what filter the mind is equipped with.
Still at the beach -- the sun drove us into the sea which turned out to be not only as warm as the air but also extremely salty and sticky. Claus’s bird frame made a couple of futile attempts to dive under. Feet, legs stubbornly clinging to the surface.
Out of the water a bit further up the beach, washing off the salt in a nice freshwater shower with 90 degrees hot water, then back in the nice sweaty black garments. I wonder whether the Congo will be like this. What’s Gstaad like in October?

Claus got the ferry ticket for Bandar Abbas. If it’s still Ramadan we have to be at the port Tuesday at 1 pm. If it’s no longer Ramadan it’s 3 pm. Clearing by authorities takes something like 6 hours. Ferry leaves in the evening. It reaches Iran in the morning Wednesday, Oct 25.

Dubai, Oct 20

We’ve got a new sign on our box written in Cantonese. Any good narrative starts in China. ‘Always go through China!’ is the new imperative to any journey. As we carried it through the densely crowded streets of Hong Kong, people craned their necks to read the words. Only Westerners who knew Cantonese would ask questions. We made quite a circus in the streets with the two merry locals, Spring and Benjamin, helping us out.After a day in Dubai -- still processing impressions from Los Angeles and Hong Kong. The mind is tardy, always in the past, being thrown by an alien self into the future. In Los Angeles the perspective was that of the framer. Now the perspective is that of the framed. But we’re still only in the preamble.

Hong Kong

Spring

From LA to Hong Kong. Trying to catch up on my drinking. Drifting through locations, talks and people. Claus thinks it is important to meet and talk with people. I think so too – when I’ve had some beers. There’s a girl here in Hong Kong – Spring – who has a beauty parlour. She thinks I look 18. She speaks very broken English. I enjoyed the swim in Malibu. We were given a surfboard by some people at the beach. I got up on it only to fall off in the next instant. I would have liked to stay in California. To marry, surf and swim. But I cannot stay. Must go on. Cannot go on. I will go one. I hate it.

Malibu -- a day before take-off

Sunday, Oct 15. Los Angeles

Chamber music in a strip mall coffee bar. New York Times Sunday Edition $5. I like it here. North LA criss-crossing a flat basin resembles a sci-fi version of my hometown in the Netherlands.

Incongruous California experience: Yesterday’s visit at an Iranian TV network ended in chatter in German over the death of Benno Ohnesorg at the demonstration against the Shah in Berlin in ’67 and Gudrun Enslinn. The network manager did film school at Hochschule der Bildende Kuenste am Steinplatz in Berlin in the sixties. I recognized the immaculate face of Gudrun on a poster for his graduation film – Das Abonnement. Channel Four paid $8000 dollars for the footage to use in a documentary on Baader -Meinhof. It was her only film performance ever (besides the real-time performance with Baader). Ali spotted her face in a crowd at a demonstration and later asked her to play the lead role in this film that took on Axel Springer. The poster credited her as ‘Rosa Enslin’. Both lead actors later died by hanging. Ominous
It is not my destiny to die by hanging. No, I will die in a ridiculous cream coloured car with Claus in the driver’s seat. Only a miracle will save me.

Claus and I visited Scandinavian Lars who lives in Santa Monica near the beach. He’s set himself up nicely with Pynchon, Bellow, Roth in piles surrounding his comfortable chair, bed. Oh, would I give up my own self to be able to do that. Happiness!

A Dutchman and a Dane walking next to each other is such a spectacle here that people should be charged for the pleasure of staring at us unhindered. On UCLA campus Claus began asking by-passers if ‘they’d like to talk about God’ – a question that almost caused people to break into running to get clear of the European pilgrims. I walked briskly ahead to avoid the embarrassment. The rigid conformity of American middle class culture makes it very unpleasant to break the flow of reality. Self-consciousness has no place here. Postmodernism was just a naming act to control and deflect European irony and secularism so it would have no particular impact on society.

But I am not going to address the cultural divide and the clash of civilisations. The shock waves from the first impressions have receded and I’m now getting through on Flaubert, cigarettes, Fox News and coffee.

Bill O’Reilly believes that the weakness of Europe is caused by her secularism.

No sign of Larry David yet. And my enthusiasm is curbed (as always).

-- T. Bouvard

The Script

Two European artists travel to Washington, DC with the intention to co-opt the American plans for Iran to use in a large-scale art happening in Iran. To their surprise, they find themselves co-opted as agents for the US. They are sent to Iran via Dubai to gather intelligence and to identify possible partners to the US Government. Inside Iran they hire a local film photographer, a driver and an interpreter, travelling through Iran under the pretence of wanting to engage in an intercultural dialogue. Acting beyond their American mandate they seek to instigate a democratic revolution, attempting to mobilize the Iranian people for a new ‘Movement’, a re-enactment of the collective movement that caused the overthrow of the Shah in the ’79 revolution.The Iranian regime discovers the real intentions of the Europeans and the two are sent to the infamous ‘Evin’ prison. In the meantime Washington realizes that their European partners had been triple dealing them all along and sends orders for their assassination to the American embassy in Dubai. Concurrently, an Iranian court denounces the two as agents for ‘the Great Satan’ and issues a death sentence. As they await hanging, their fate has the world media spellbound. Because of their accelerating prominence, the Iranian President decides to pay them a visit. The Europeans succeed in winning over his sympathy as they explain that their role as secret agents was a cover for the intention to hijack the American plan. The president pardons the two and they are soon after released. As they walk to the car of the interpreter an American sniper shoots the two from a nearby roof terrace. In parallel events it turns out that the new movement has taken roots and spread throughout Iran. Different from the events in ’79, ‘the movement’ not only causes the downfall of the Iranian regime but spreads to all corners of the globe.

Launch

Speech held by Thomas Herzen at launch event at the Institute of Contemporary Art on Friday March 24 in London

I will first briefly outline a point made by the German art theorist Boris Groys concerning the nature of the new and the archive - based on this I will then go on to propose a cultural programme that renders specific cultural sites obsolete.

Now, we usually think of museums as second-order spaces of mediation, spaces of representation where a painting of a cow or – say – an old fisherman tugging his boat across a beach – can be exhibited. The actual mooing cow or the exhausted fisherman – who belong to the first order, the primary space of reality, are left to their own devices after we have secured our painting.

This task of representation concerns the archival function of museums to select and collect from reality what is valuable and relevant for a given culture. Now, I claim - following the analysis of Groys - that this seemingly innocent task has profound implications for our perception of reality and in a wider historical perspective for the course of our civilization.

The archive, the museum, collects and mandates what has not yet been collected which in turn means that the so-called reality is essentially nothing but the sum of what has not been collected.

What happens is that the new and real is not recognized or cannot be diagnosed before it has entered into a relation with what has died - dead objects and memories being the stuff of archives. Thus it follows that the function of the archive not only consists in the depiction of human history – to represent history– to fixate the memories of human history, memories of how real events took place. Instead the archive – the museum – is a prerequisite for such a thing as history in the first place –an archive must be in place for comparisons between new an old to take place – comparisons, which works to produce history as such. The archive is a machine for the production of memories – a machine which fabricates history out of the material from unarchived reality.

This results in a tension where on one hand the museum, the archive, has a task to collect and represent what is outside of the archive – but on the other hand at the same time it is reconfiguring archived objects – archived objects are seen as valuable and worthy of keeping whereas the decay, mortality, and transience of the profane objects outside the archive is accepted as a matter of course. Thus a fundamental difference between the objects in the archive and objects outside the archive emerges, a difference which subverts any attempt of representation at the outset – a difference in worth, in fate, in relation to mortality, in relation to death…

Now, if one for a moment assumes that objects collected in a museum are supposed to represent the world outside the museum, then one will quite soon realize that these objects are to be found in the museum – not because of this mandate of representation – but as a result of the fact that they differ favourably from other objects in the world – maybe because they were paintings of a particularly good painter, or because they’ve been framed very well, or because they cost a lot of money.

The museum system as a whole then strives to avoid the loss of these paintings. What no one cares for - is to save the objects of reality from perishing. To go back to our old struggling fisherman on the beach – assuming that the fisherman has been painted well - there will be an effort to save his image – but no one cares for the fate of the poor fisherman or the mooing cow for that matter, it is simply of no interest.

This in turn means that the defining quality of reality – its transience – cannot be depicted or represented in the museum or the archive. And addressing those of you who would object by referring to artists like Jannis Kourellis who brought horses into the gallery - this also goes for the artwork that tries to stage its own transience in art sites – because this too will be documented, archived and stored.

With the assertion that reality is nothing but the sum of what hasn’t been collected, the museum suddenly emerges as an all-powerful institution that decides through negation what is real and what is not real.

____________

In my view this results in a disastrous devaluation of reality and public space as the locus of heroic deeds and accomplishment.
Thus, the museum has become a privileged space of the first order vis-à-vis the secondary residue of reality.
We - the children of the middle class - experience this as impatience with all that occurs outside the archive or the cultural site – all that is unframed, unmediated, contingent and so seemingly meaningless. When we determine what takes place in reality, we apply our pristine criteria, which originated in the mediated spaces. This has as consequence that we do not object to the spin machine of New Labour because of its real, political consequence but because of its amateurish use of techniques inherent to the arts. Thus we ridicule Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair not because of their politics but because of the fact that they suck as actors and artists. We ridicule the staging on the Firdos Square in Baghdad when a crowd of exile Iraqis was brought in to cheer while US soldiers took down the statue of Saddam – not because of its real message but because of its dilettante aesthetics. Thus – we children of the middle class - loathe the dilettantes of what has become second order reality and seek to flee from it - into the – essentially - never-changing mausoleum of the archive.

The programme I wish to propose here is a programme where reality reclaims its first order status. Not by retaking reality’s lost territory, but by completing the takeover and to declare the whole world a museum– an expansive art space – and praise dilettantes like Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell and the Pentagon in their bold attempts to introduce aesthetic practices into the real world thus revaluating, reinstating the order of reality as a framework for meaningful, aesthetic action. We need more of this. My middle class colleague Thomas Altheimer, who’s here with us today, is one such distinguished character who try to reverse the movement away from reality - tomorrow he will travel to Washington, DC to seek inspiration for the scripting of a democratic revolution, which will open this fall in Tehran – a sequel to the ’79 revolution.

But not only Iran will be saved - by declaring the whole world a museum, a gallery, an archive – I extend the sphere of eternity to include the mooing cow and all its offspring and extended family in all future; I save the struggling fisherman from obscurity and death to place him, his family and his boat on the eternal pedestal of life.

THOMAS ALTHEIMER