Window with Books

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Window sealed with books as if they were bricks

From the last Documenta in Kassel, Germany. Documenta 11, I have many memories, one of them is stronger than the others. This, for me, was the first time at Documenta, and my first time in Germany as well. The amount of things that you are being exposed to on this international event is, on one hand, beatiful and inspiring, and on the other hand it is exhausting, you get to see so much that it becoms hard to folow the prosses that the artists went thrugh or even the whole point of his or her work.

This one specific work which I can not remeber either the name of it nor the name of the artist who had made it, was a window of a room, maybe meant to be a jail cell, the window was completly sealed with books, the books were used as if they were bricks, they were conected to each other with real concrete, they were there forever, it was not posible to see the title of the books or even parts of their covers, moving the book was not an option just like moving a brick in a wall is not one. The room from the inside was totally dark exept these two little night lamps conected to the bed that was located in the center of the room. You could see that there is somthing happening in the wall but only by looking at it from the other side, Outside of the room, you could understand that it was books.

This work comes back to my thoughts every day since then. For me, it was saying that the more you read, the more you learn, the more you know, the more you get your self blind. Books are a big part of our knowledge, everything that we know comes or goes thrugh a book. While reading a book one gets answers for ones questions, by giving these answers you kill the qestion and get yourself forward without really being in the qestion.

I have heard that 95 precent of the whole world is religious in one way or another, my belief is that religion is a system of answers, when one cannot live with his natural qestions, he finds himself looking hard for the answers, I believe, that everybody is looking for answers, that life is all about giving answers , doing so, the human being gets calm and satisfaid. I wonder how come? How come it is so dificult for us, humans, to live calmly with some open qestions. If you look at the modern person from the modern, western, society you imediatly see that when a qestion comes up it goes only in one direction, the direction to the answer. personaly, i am trying to think about believing only in things that can be proven to me, in the word prove I find an iner problem, things proven, as we know them, are based on our sences, when you smell smoke you think about a fire and then when you see the flame you are sure about your assumption, and from now on it is a fact, there is a fire. In my opinion, believing these hints, these “feelings” is just the same as giving answers. Believing in your sences is just like believing in god, you base every movment and every thought that comes up in your mind on the feeling that you get from your eyes, nose, ears and so on. Think about the moment that you recognise the smell of the fire, in this moment, nothing is sure, you are basing your thought, soon to be, your action, on your smell sence. This sence you know about only because you trust your eyes, giving you a virtual image of it and your memory that tells you that this is the smell of a fire. These are all asamptions that are being made in the same way that their are people that claim that when they smile to the world, the world smiles back or even the same as those who belive that there is one big power that created all we know.

One thing was sure, for me after seeing this window blocked with books in Documenta, these books that we read, they all give us ideas, and by doing so they block our imagination, they create a picture in our mind. They give us an idea about the way things are. It is like hanging a picture on the wall, and by doing so, not leaving space for other pictures. By reading a book, by learning some detail about somthing, you block a spot in your brain from other way of uses. When a window is open you leave place for things to happen, either infront of it, beside it, or thrugh it. By reading a book you block your vision, your point of view, you kill this unique thing of us humans, the possibilty of observing things without touching and changing them. Three weekes ago, I met a man, Dr. for English litrture, a philosopher in his nature, this man said to me, and it is obvies that he spent his hole life reading books, :” schools are for idiots, books are waste of paper, trust me on this, here I am 30 years older then you and I know nothing more than you.” The questions stay the same allways, they just get difrent costumes each time.

I am dislectic, I was never a big reader, for me reading a book is a real effort, I need to read everything a few times before i really get it. I like reading, when it goes fluently, it gives me peace, it gives me things to think about, I love them, the thoughts, but I do ask myself: is it real? The joy I experience might be like drugs, it gives you heaven, peace, no worries. Still I wonder where would I get with my thoughts if I could stop trying so hard to block them with fairytails of other frightend people.

I can only imagine the magic, bright light that would go in to this room in Kassel if only someone would take even just one book out of the system that blocks us all.