Instruktion, kamera og klip: ANJA BEHRENS
Musik, lyddesign og klip: CRISTIAN VOGEL
Second unit kamera: CARL JOHAN SENNELS og MALIK GROSOS
Tekst: MYCELIUM
Konsulent: HANS CHRISTIAN POST
Medvirkende: CAMILLA MUNCK, KAJSA BOHLIN, MILLE MARIE DALSGAARD, FREYA EMILIA BEHRENS
Filmen er en selvstændig videreudvikling af filmmateriale skabt i samarbejde med Sydhavn Teater til værket Requiem for en tidsalder, som blev opført i Sydhavn Teaters kapel i 2020.
Liquid as the ever-changing sea
Firm as the ever-changing soil
I was nothing and no one
Before reborn as the new one
Acherontia atropos, the hawkmoth, also known as the death’s-head, lives among nightshades.
On its back it carries a skull.
It was baptized in the river of pain.
It thrives among carcasses and where epidemics rage.
On a leaf of nightshade, an egg hatches.
The sacred is nothing but an egg that hatches.
On the empire state building, an egg hatches
On the dow jones index, an egg hatches
On Creek Tower, an egg hatches
A glowing yellow body born, like a star in the night sky, like a flash of light that briefly displaces the shadow.
Life seeks nourishment and fills its fat deposits. Sun converted to tissue, blood and fat.
Exchanged into capital, infrastructure and highways.
A luminous globe seen from space.
A dull starless sky seen from the city’s illuminated night.
In the process, it digs its own grave. Rich with accumulated sunlight, it seeks an underground chamber where it can pupate.
In its self-chosen grave, its dark exile, it undergoes histolysis, i.e. that the dissolution of its tissue. Also called phylogenetic necrobiosis.
“The larva undergoes the same process of death in the pupa as the body in the grave that turns it into ammonia fat.”
The sacred undergoes the same process when it enters matter,
which first flourishes, in order to slowly dissolve.
The sacred is nothing but this descent and dissolution.
Necrobios: Life and Death. Death and Life.
Nature draws its veil over its offspring.
The mirage of the sun in the sky.
And everything is fire.
The sacred is nothing but this fire
The shimmering air
makes every building dance.
“The larva is dead in the cocoon
it has lost all form
consists only of masses of fat!
But how can he live?
How?
He’s dead, but he’s alive!
Maybe there is no death? ”
“Why should the luminous dots on the firmament be less accessible to us than the black dots on the map of France? As we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, so we travel with death to a star. It had been thought that the earth was flat, but that does not prevent science from proving that it is round, which no one today would doubt. But still it is believed today that life is flat and extends from birth to death. But probably life too is round and stretches out with a scope much larger and richer than the half measure we know today. ”
What process does it undergo in the cocoon? The breaking down of tissues! The larva is completely dead. But a new life is nourished by this death. The death of the larva is a new beginning, a new conception.
Virus attacks the lung tissue.
Respiratory impairment.
The world is put on a ventilator.
The memory slips.
The air gasps for world.
Have we finally entered the our pupal stage?
A new geological grave?
Antroposema
Maybe that’s why the winged moth rises from its underground tomb marked by death.
What life is there when we have dissolved the tissues of this world?
Who weaves the silky wings of the decomposed masses of fat?
Naturally, the winged life is an extension of the dead larva, but they must be understood as two different individuals, as no individual can reasonably be said to preserve itself during the transformation.
Born by its own death.
How do we break down the tissues of capitalism?
The oil industry’s burning of accumulated summers?
The artificial ventilation of the economy?
Hyperventilation!
Hyperventilation!
Whitewash
The cell wall is so hard and keeps its sacred judgments hidden.
Histolysis, phylogenetic necrobiosis.
Break down the tissue. Dissolve, make new patterns.
Make constellations across the dark.
Give birth to new zodiac signs
With no meaning other than the one they reveal:
Celestial bodies in a celestial dance.
Connected and reborn in the swarm.
We weave ourselves into each other’s arms, out into umbilical cords.
Woven together
Into my arms, my love
Dissolved
In tears
In dance
In laughter
In love
”Through loss we can regain the free movement of the universe, we can dance and swirl in the full rapture of those great swarms of stars. But we must, in the violent expenditure of self, perceive that we breathe in the power of death.”
On our backs we carry the mark of death.
How much does death weigh?
And who measures?
We must weave death into our motif.
Only life gives it gravity
And life must be born.
But what does the winged one know about our mythologizations?
Necrobiosis: That something must die in order to live.
That something is living death.
The sacred is nothing but that, that life is death and death is birth.
Cosmic death masks are the flicker of life
Cosmic death masses are the flourishing of diversity
Photos: Carl Johan Sennels & Malik Grosos
One of the most popular Google searches in the wake of COVID-19 has been variations on the question “Are birds louder now?” Therefore, Mycelium have been looking toward the birds to revive the art of augury, the art of reading birds. However, today the most prominent signs are not found in the majestic eagle, but rather in the poultry factory and the wet market. Also, to listen to the birds is to listen to the absence left by the coronavirus, the raspatory gasps of a dying race.
The spoken text is a tapestry of cut-outs, ready-mades, quotes, original poetry and prose written collectively by Mycelium.
The video is a “becoming bird” ritual, a desperate attempt to engage with nature, which involves the self-inflicted painful process of being rolled in tar and feathers.
“And the birds are getting louder” is a short film made in collaboration with Mycelium, Anja Behrens, Cristian Vogel and Nathalie Mellbye. Starring Nathalie Mellbye, Anja Behrens and Freya Emilia Behrens.
It was originally made for Pythia’s Journals during the wake of the pandemic (13.05.20-16.05.20)
It has later been picked up by additional festivals: Lift-off Network Film Festival, Miracle Film Festival
Watch the movie here:
Additional festivals:
Lift-off Network Film Festival, Miracle Film Festival
Full texted used in the movie:
AND THE BIRDS ARE GETTING LOUDER:
One of the most popular google searches in the wake of the COVID-19 has been variations on the question “Are birds louder now?” Phenomenologically, birds are louder due to less human activity in cities which makes them bolder in song and territorial approach, but we are also better able to hear them with much less noise to distract us.
Augury (or oionistike (οἰωνιστικὴ) in ancient Greek) is the art of reading birds. A divine madness, an erotic endeavour.
The birds are messengers
The eagle looking for prey
The poultry waiting to be transported to the slaughter house
The vultures circling a corpse
The trash-eating seagulls
The pigeons in the yard
The magpie stealing shiny objects
The black sun of starlings
The peace carrying dove
The raven that does not return
The aggressive swans
The parrots in the ruins after the apocalypse
The canary in the mine
And the birds are getting louder
“These are the birds you are to regard as unclean and not eat because they are unclean: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, the red kite, any kind of black kite, any kind of raven, the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl, the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey, the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.” (Leviticus 11)
And the birds are getting louder
In the Iliad, the plague strikes as birds of prey, deadly arrows and aerial assailants. A godly sneeze.
Achoo (bless you)
In ancient literature and philosophy, the eagle was the most majestic of signs, since it was Zeus’ favorite bird. Today the most reliable omens have come from the poultry factories. The so-called Fowl plague of 1878 is considered the beginning of the recorded history of avian influenza. The signs were clear already then.
And the birds are getting louder
The PREDICT project was launched in 2009 in response to the 2005 H5N1 “bird flu” scare. Its funding ran out in September 2019. In that period they gathered specimens from more than 10,000 bats and 2,000 other mammals. They detected about 1,200 viruses that could spread from wild animals to humans. More than 160 of them were novel coronaviruses.
Reuters writes in 2020, “Piglets aborted, chickens gassed as pandemic slams meat sector”.
Don’t kill the messenger.
And the birds are getting louder
“Great Understatements in History:
Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow — ‘just a little stroll gone bad’
Pompeii— ‘a bit of a dust storm’
Hiroshima — ‘a bad summer heatwave’
AND
Wuhan — ‘just a bad flu season’”
Bolsonaro — “So what?”
And the birds are getting louder
Ritual for a community of absence:
And the birds are getting louder
Don’t join hands across America.
We are not the world.
We are not the winds of change.
And the birds are getting louder
Birds are primordial erotic beings. The offspring of Eros. The plague invites erotism. Wet markets – wet dreams.
“And how are we to explain that upsurge of erotic fever among the recovered victims who, instead of escaping, stay behind, seeking out and snatching sinful pleasure from the dying or even the dead, half-crushed under the pile of corpses where chance had lodged them?” Artuad asks.
The plague invites in death and therefore erotism. The bird is but the messenger. The poultry factory a Sadean wet dream.
“It is the story of the magnificent banquet: six hundred different plates offer themselves to your appetite; are you going to eat them all? […] choose and let lie the rest without disclaiming against that rest simply because it does not have the power to please you. Consider that it will enchant someone else, and be a philosopher.”
And the birds are getting louder
The highest creation on earth is a bird
The most powerful symbol, a two-headed bird
And the birds are getting louder
Ritual of cleanly absence:
And the birds are getting louder
WHO (Trump pulls out)
And the birds are getting louder
The American president suggests that we inject light into the body. Perhaps it should be the other way around. We should inject the body into light.
And the birds are getting louder
From the billion node thousand gender
perspective of the mycelial ontology –
realtime inverted – the drone strike on
Bolsonaro – from the lungs of Nature into
the lungs of the antagonist – unknown
collateral damage – realtime inverted.
And the birds are getting louder
Religious fanatics in Iran are licking doorknobs to demonstrate their purity and trust in god.
Religious fanatics in the USA are protected because they are covered in Jesus’ Blood.
Amazon wishlist:
Doorknobs and blood.
Out of stock.
And the birds are getting louder
This is the Parable of the Yeast
The yeast from which thy kingdom shall expand
Holy yeast
Stay on guard
It may be the Evil one, disguised as yeast
Therefore, be careful where you lay your yeast
It starts small and insignificant
But suddenly it grows
It bursts
Out of control
For a long time
There has been no shortage of unleavened bread
And the birds are getting louder
… we cannot gain insight into the birds’ continuous collective flight across the sky, by comparing the flight paths of every single bird. Their dance over the sky on the whims of the wind forms a body in which the individual is subject to the movements of the totality. Therefore, we cannot grasp the totality of the deed without tearing it to pieces and distancing us from it, and from a distance the totality has already escaped us. (mycelium #7)
In theatre, as in the plague, there is a kind of strange sun, an unusually bright light by which the difficult, even the impossible, suddenly appears to be our natural medium. (Artaud)
The mycelic sun is the communicative dance of the birds of the autumn sky, it is the activity and intensity of mycelium, the sums of the suns within within. (mycelium #7)
And the birds are getting louder
Ritual for injecting the body into light (for one):
And the birds are getting louder
Ritual for injecting the body into light (for more than one):
And the birds are getting louder
Doorknobs and blood
Blooddoors and knobs
Bloodknobs and doors
And the birds are getting louder
Pythia, púthein “to rot”,
the name of the high priestess of Apollo and oracle at Delphi.
The Sickly sweet smell of the body’s decomposition,
Mediating the sky with chthonic earthliness,
Python, after she was slain by the falcon-headed god,
Nature in all its splendour, the sign of our time
And the birds are getting louder
After the bombings of Hamburg in 1943, nature regenerated herself within the rubble, filling the open spaces with chestnuts and lilacs. Right now, wild boars and other wildlife roam the towns of northern Italy. Gangs of starving monkeys brawl in the streets of Lopburi, Thailand, no longer fed by the tourists. Sheep, horses, and deer in the streets in Japan. Whales gliding in the waters of Marseilles.
And the birds are getting louder
Amazon faces legal scrutiny over workers’ safety
disease and desist
Calls to evacuate Greek refugee camp
disease and desist
New York City nurses on Front Line call it a Suicide Mission
disease and desist
Amazon Indigenous tribes facing genocide
disease and desist
As the wealthy quaff wine in comfort; India’s poor are thrown to the wolves
disease and desist
If the coronavirus doesn’t kill me, hunger will
disease and desist
Wuhan fish market and Cargill meatpacking plant
disease and desist
And the birds are getting louder
The nightingale sings for the poor and the emperor alike
The nightingale escapes the cage
The nightingale is forgotten for want of finer things (foese nightingales clad in diamonds, mechanic songs that can play endlessly – until the mechanics break down)
The nightingale returns to ward off death with its song
The nightingale reports on the sufferance of the poor to the emperor in his castle
The nightingale asks but one thing: to remain a secret
And the birds are getting louder
Black blood, dark webs
Black marks, wet spots
Antibody
Antibody
This is my blood
This is my flesh
Antibody
Antibody
The spider is the fly
And the birds are getting louder
05.05.2020
And the birds are getting louder
Music is the pleasure the mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.
And the birds are getting louder.
Counting as they sing.
Counting the dead?
Counting down?
To what?
Mycelium + KRÆ syndikatet + Laboratoriet for Æstetik og Økologi inviterer til solhvervs ritual
Mycelium laver kannibalistisk solhvervsritual, Laboratoriet for Æstetik og Økologi præsenterer antifascistiske heksebesværgelser, sorgritual og bålsang, Ål med Autisme støjer og andre ting sker…
Program:
Mycelium
Solhvervs ritual “Life”
angela rawlings + SHE’S A SHOW
ÅL MED AUTISME
Forlaget Uro + Teater clapclap
————
MYCELIUM
“Øjet, En kannibalsk delikatesse … Og da et fremtræder et enormt øje på den sorte himmel, forfølger den kriminelle gennem rummet og ned i havets dyb, hvor det fortærer ham efter at have antaget fiskens skikkelse. Utallige øjne formerer sig ikke desto mindre under bølgerne” – Bataille
“Et kys er begyndelsen på kannibalisme” – Bataille
“Vi spiser dit ben for at vokse en arm på vores ryg. Din kæbe danner næring for vores hænder. Din hånd, vores fødder. Din læbe, vores kønsorganer. Din lever, vores tandkød. Dine fingre, vores hår. Dit øje, vores røv. Din tunge, vores fodballer. Dit skulderblad, vores kindben. Dit hoved, vores blindtarm. I den forstand er myceliets festmåltid generøst; dets hunger, elskov; dets mæthed, kærlighed.”
As the dancers are cannibals
As the generous are cannibals
As the lovers are cannibals
We are cannibals
—————
ÅL MED AUTISME
(Claus Poulsen, Henrik Lind-jensen og marie Eline hansen)
Spiller Moderne Musik
I et drømmeløst drønmix af C-bow,
Ipad, Laptop, Synths, Pedaler og
Chapman Stick.
Fra 0-100
på 20 minutter.
—————
CALLING ALL VAMPIRE FEMMES TO FEAST ON FASCIST BLOOD (Yerbamala)
Event at Arkbooks Friday the 26th of April.
Michael Marder is a pioneer of modern philosophy in a field that could not be more important for the continued survival of our species, plants and ecology. His work into reappraising the subjectivity of plants and the complex systems of which both we and they are a part is vital to gaining a better understanding of what is at stake in the environmental problems we presently face. And also what potential there are for not just overcoming these problems but also thriving.
ark books is thrilled to bring his work in into dialogue the Danish art and philosophy collective Mycelium for an evening on organizing like plants.
og man vender sit øje til
om natten er pupillen et sort hul
der vender vrangen ud af sig selv
omslutter sig med sit camera obscuras indre vægge
krænger sit glaslegeme ud gennem et nålehul i strålelegemet
en gelatinøs atmosfære om nethinden
hvorpå Macula lutea stiger op
som en gul betændt sol
Gennem periskopet kigger kampvognsfører ud med night vision og ser en håndfuld flygtninge komme gående ad en af de mange menneskeveksler, som over en tiårig periode er blevet trådt op gennem Jylland. Ingen grund til at vække nogen længere oppe i hierarkiet, så der bliver givet besked til at åbne ild øjeblikkeligt. Få sekunder senere larmer det ikke længere, og der går heller ikke længere nogen flygtninge. Nu er der slet ikke nogen flygtninge. Her. Længere. Længere er den ikke. Ikke? Natten blev omdannet til lys i et kort sekund, lys som en ondartet synaptisk slutning: Hvis man har sagt a, må man også sige dehumanisering! Fra toppen af Himmelbjerget lignede det en glitch i skoven som resultat af en forældet algoritme, som om vesten endnu inderst inde kørte på koder fra forgangne epoker og sunkne sekler.
Hvad siger de lænkede på bunden af hulelignelsen og strudsen med sit hoved i sandet om den vestlige tradition? At man ikke kan tænke under jorden. Sindet er en blomst, der vrider sig nastisk mod solen, ud af træernes overhæng.
Når du skal udenfor, skærmer du instinktivt dine øjne med højre hånd. Hver eneste gyde har en vagt med morgenstjerne i den venstre. Solen går aldrig ned over lysets imperium. Det er ikke til at bære.
Hvis du en dag finder dig selv boende i et palads, kan du blive nødt til at male loftet over med himmel, som en form for besværgelse eller troskabsed.
Tænkning er lys og lighedstegnet mellem dem er en underjordisk passage, et ormehul der gør forskellene mellem os til skamme, ligesom lyset og dets 299,792,458 meter i sekundet får universet til at rødme.
Vi gør holdt, hviler i passagen.
Vi stirrer ind i det døde træ og hallucinerer. Kan Vesten mon køre DOOM? I den tid det tager at gøre tanken til ende, er jeg dig og omvendt. Bagefter banker vi vandrør og deler erfaring. Det føles som at blande blod. Ved middagstid kravler skyggerne op i træerne igen
og The Washington Post siger
the truth dies in darkness
vi ser og forhøjer vores indsats
under stress kan sandheden
overvintre i den mørke muld
tættere ved jordens kerne
nænsomt hvisker træerne deres kritik
ud i den lysning i skoven, som er deres plenum
en brusende larm som af stemmer i panik
bader det endnu tempererede landskab i sus
Næste gang man finder noget i jorden af virkelig værdi vil det ikke være horn af guld eller mumificerede teens, men derimod Mycelium og, kære finder, på forhånd undskyld. Der gives ingen dusør. Mycelium er ikke danefæ, vil aldrig blive udstillet i glasmontre på selv det mest velmenende museum.
Vi findes ikke, eller rettere: Vi vil ikke findes og når vi gør, er det som kollektivets skjulte liv, skizofren omsætning, kannibalistisk stofskifte, modoplysning, sort magi og heksering.
Mycelium som modoplysning hvilket ikke vil sige lysets negation men et hvidt hul, signalet for en anden tidslighed. Sorte huller er rumtidens tålmodige åbninger mens de hvide udmattes efter at have udspyet universet på et planck sekund
Summer solstice at KRÆ syndikatet
Vi slagtede den sidste gris i anledningen af vintersolhverv.
Danmark er et produktionsland. Vi producerer svin. Byttedyr. Nyttedyr.
Grisene føres langsomt ind i slagtehuset. Den sidste gris bliver mere og mere ængstelig. Som køen tynder ud og grisen i stadigt stigende grad bliver overladt til sig selv bliver den desperat. I ren frustration gør den skade på sig selv, hvilket sætter sig i kødet og i sidste ende er dårligt for produktionen. Og Danmark er et produktionsland. Vi må producere frem for alt.
Ud fra en retslig betragtning er (kz-)lejren rigtignok det biopolitiske paradigme. Den permanente undtagelsestilstand hvor nøgent liv produceres: Det liv der ikke har nogen retslig status. Det liv der må tages eller kan overlades til havet. Den bandlyste. Statsløse. Flygtning.
Ud fra en produktions- og forbrugsbetragtning er indkøbscenteret paradigmet. Det liv der ikke kan forbruge og producere må elimineres. Nøgent liv, foruden købekraft. Den arbejdsløse, der lever på kollektiv klods. Han skylder! Flygtningen der bliver immigrant med fortjeneste for øje. Tiggeren der med sin blotte tilstedeværelse og appel til almissen udstiller vores forbrugslogik:
Giv mig noget.
Jeg giver intet i pant.
En fremstrakt hånd der efterspørger en værdi, den ikke selv kan optjene, en værdi den ikke ejer.
Danmark er et produktionsland. Vi producerer svin. På rad og række.
Svinehunden vogter svinene der efterhånden lydigt træder ind i produktionen.
Men i den sidste gris ulmer oprøret.
