Being There, Exhibition in Public Space, Linz 1996, Excerpt from the Catalog
Everyone has a snake pit within them, a hidden, dark enclave for wild animals of hatred, disturbance, and fear, which pain, the hell of one’s own origin and upbringing could only lay down and give birth to in this dark dungeon, far from the clarifying daylight.
These are unwanted children, whose birth, whose complete presence would have destroyed one’s own existence. So they wait in this hole, the only space within a person where they could be hidden, for the brave, strong, and unflinching self to bring them to life. They know nothing of the fact that they are regarded as evil in the eyes of the world; they suffer silently, waiting for the moment of their liberation and redemption, occasionally releasing cries of lament through the organism, a slight whimper that can easily be misinterpreted as heartburn or a twinge of the heart, and often is.
When a person has come to themselves, when they have first (often with pain) understood that there can be nothing evil within them, that it is unnecessary to barricade oneself against oneself, because there can be no enemy in a universe of love, only then can this happen:
With an inquisitive step, the self begins to traverse its own realm. Every cupboard is examined, every speck of dust looked at with a loving, clarifying eye. Even the basement doors open, and illuminated by the light of affection and love towards all forms of life will the snake pit also be discovered; behind a heap of discarded files from endless appeals against deportation and the abandonment of unwanted life.
[The court proceedings to these files once developed a dynamic of their own when the thinkers believed they had to intervene massively, summoning a countless number of specialists who should investigate the repressed life with an accumulation of diagrams, tables, curves, and numbers, which clamored for its right with a painful whimper behind the dungeon door.
The specialists lost interest in their subject during their endless investigations, constructing their own conclusions from the series of numbers they used, proving that there could be no life outside of these series, as it was indicated by their investigative apparatuses, a multitude of electromagnetic, chemical, and physical devices.
Only occasionally did a court clerk stray with a bundle of files to the dungeon. Disturbed by the whimpering of the creatures in his chamber (of which few knew any details – it was rumored that one had caught a glimpse of them through a crack in the dungeon door, and that this person had spoken of gigantic snakes with a whitish sheen), to avoid having to hear these plaintive sounds, the clerk simply began sealing up the door with bundles of files.]
Returning to our story: Now the self discovers behind the pile of files the door to the snake pit. After its gaze has wandered over the diagrams and tables, but it understands nothing of science and causal reasoning, it opens the door to the prison, trusting its own strength while ignoring all warning signs such as: "Caution, monster!" or "Extreme danger to life and death!" Only faintly and quietly does a whimper reach its ear as it opens the door, which, although secured with countless locks, opens willingly with a light pressure on the doorknob.
What does our hero see now, in the light that falls through the opened door? – The floor, the walls, the ceiling, all are covered with blind caterpillars, which do resemble snakes, but are considerably smaller and exude no threat.
“And you have been locked up here, each of you a child of an unfortunate story. I will redeem you.” And he takes one after the other, without distinction, even the large ones with transparent skin, which look like stunted embryos, and carries them up the stairs into the open air. There he lays them in the shade, softly bedding them on green leaves, and watches with joy as, after a short time, some begin to unroll and eat the leaves.
The next morning, after a dreamless sleep, the self steps out of its house, the heart, and sees it covered by white cocoons. The caterpillars have pupated; life has continued. And then, one day, they emerge, butterflies in all colors and sizes. Some with transparent wings reflecting golden light, others shining dark blue like the sea. And one after the other, they lift themselves into the air. When all have emerged, they gather in front of the house, and the biggest among them, a golden, watery glowing butterfly with the most fragile skin, speaks:
“Know that we have stayed alive in this dungeon only because of you. We knew you would come one day, fulfilling the promise you made to us as a little child. Perhaps you no longer remember – we all played with you before you had to go to the school of the self, when there was no longer room for us in your life. You said goodbye to each one of us and called out, ‘I’ll get you out when I’m grown up.’
Now our time has come; we are flying back to the sun, ahead of you. Know that our love for you is eternal and that we will always be a part of one another. Be yourself, for a lifetime.” With these words, the swarm said goodbye, flew up, and rose into the sky.
And the self? – It had traversed its realm, tidied up, cleaned, and set everything in order (the dungeon was now a wine cellar). In the warm evening sun, it sits on the bench in front of its house and waits for the heart's friend it had lost a long, long time ago, with the promise to meet once more at the end of time.
But that is another story.