That's not what fear is about is it?
From an interview by Jakob Kolding on May the 25th. 1994.
JK: Nature, or parts of nature plays an important role in your works. How come?
TB: The kind of nature that I use is special. It doesn't belong in nature anymore.
It is totally cultivated. For instance the plants that I use, they are like the thousendth generation of cultivation of the original plant. It is as artifact as possible and doesn't differ from any other fabrica, used as readymade.
I don't even consider the elements I use, as nature. They have been mutated into a form where they have been cultivated, like houseplants.... or pets.
JK: The theme of cultivated nature seems most obvious in your exhibition of the jungle in Peter Lands flat.
TB: The jungle differs a lot from my other projects in the way that it is mostly about formel stuff, about displacement in different levels. About displacement of nature that stopped being nature, about the displaced jungle that wasn't on the ground anymore but in an apartment on the fourth floor and also displacement of the work of art. I mean it wasn't in a gallery or a museum. It was a long line of displacements.
JK: But there is also somthing almost nostalgic or utopic about nature in a way, that it is kind of original.
TB: That wasn't the primary theme of it, but of course - there is something about buying your own piece of jungle to save the planet and such - which is a very romantic thought.
JK: As I see it, psychology plays an importent role in your works. I mean, the jungle is a rather obvious picture of the mind and the potential danger. The potential danger of somthing hidden or unknown like a jungle... isn't that important?
TB: Sure, I was aware that it was a metaphor with an almost Freudian quality and there was something alegorial about the jungle, but that wasn't the main theme of the installation. It was more the formal problems I found interesting. And it wasn't until after the jungle I became interested in the psychological questions. When doing that show I, kind of, became aware of the anxiety that it arose in some people. There was a guy at the opening who didn't dare to step in because somebody told him there was a tarrantula in there, which wasn't even true, and that was no isolate incidence, it was a general phenomena. As you couldn't see what the jungle containd, you felt insecure, and ofcourse, that was interesting.
Actually it becomes less and less obvious to me what the jungle was all about and this was what i tried to clarify in the related works that followed.
JK: Was it as a part of this clarification you showed the tarrantula in a vivarum ? The work "Fobic With Reason" ?
TB:Sure.
JK: So you went directly for the anxiety theme?
TB: Yes, fear as pathology, as something whitout reason. I find fear without a reason quite interesting because it seems contacious even if you try to be rational about the subject of your fear.
I think this fear of insects has to do with fear of the instincts, the primal, or the "animal within yourself" - instincts. I mean, thats why they are scary, thay have no intelligense but still they are alive, like you. Even a dumm bird has intelligense, it can learn. A spider can only eat, fuck and die.
JK: When you handle a spider or a scorpion as you have had to, do you feel scared?
TB: In the beginning I thought it wouldn't touch me but then I went to pick up a tarrantula that I hat rented outside Copenhagen. When I was driving back, I had it in a vivarium on my lap and It was kind of freaking out, climbing around in its glasscage. Until then I hadn't been scared the least, but then I started to think of what would happen if we had an accident and i started to think about where the spider would be (in my face or on my chest or what ever) instead of thinking of the more dangerous glascage which would probably breake and cut my head of. It was a totally irrational way of thinking. I mean, it would be more natural to think of the glasssplinters that would change my face totally but i didn't. All i could think of was how it would feel to have the tarrantula, sitting on my face while I was fixed by the car turnd over, unable to remove it.
JK: But that wasn't how you were thinking from the start?
TB:I never had any problems with spiders. The fear has been generatet by the project, i mean, i don't have the same relation to spiders anymore, or rather, now i have a relation.
JK:What do you want to gain by confronting people with spiders and skorpions, insects wich are almost symbols of fear and fobia?
TB: It is somewhat more privat. Its like testing myself. I'm not sure if i have any wish to confront people with there anxiety. Its more like finding my own limits.
JK: Then what about the birdcage at the newyear show at Galleri Nicolai Wallner?
TB: That was a return to some of the stuff from the jungle. You know, the kultivation of nature and such. Those birds lives wild in Australia or New Zealand, but they look different there. They also act differntly, they sing less in Australia then in Denmark. It is a totaly degenarated that probably couldent survive in its natural invironmemnt. It is interresting that wee domestfy nature in that way. That it is posible to cultivate nature whitout killing it.
JK: Then you did a show at the french institute in Copenhagen where you had these jars with different insects in. Cokkroches, grasshoppers some worms and such. Insects with the significant difference fom spiders and scorpions that they are harmless to man.
TB: Offcourse, and that emfacise how irrational this fear realy is.
JK: On this exebition you also brought the insects out of the galleri space and into somthing that ressembled an insektfarm gone out of control.
TB:Sure, when i rented the spider i started to wonder what could make people ceep such animals as pets. I mean, is it because they like the thrill of anxiety or is it because they like to scare other people? I couldn't see any other reasons and i still cant. It can only be an interrest in fear but i don't know if it is ones own fear or the next guys.
At the french institute i made a collection that such a person, i mean a person with a deep interest in fear, could have made. All the insects were the kind that makes your skin go itchy. It was kind of a storeroom for a guy that keeps these animals.
JK: You did an instalation with a live kokroch and a squcht one in a toilet room. Is that kind of a extension of the one before? I mean, that was quite grose as well. You didn't feel like taking a crap on the toilet, even if you had to.
TB: I think that it was much more precis in its indexication of the pathalogical in the fear. There was the reaction of meeting the animal, in that way i prefer the toilet instalation from the french.
JK: can we talk about your latest projct? The terapi thing?
TB: Depends.
JK: You invitet about 40 people from the artworld of Copenhagen in gouptherapi in order to talk about your relations too each other and straigten things out, with professional help. Formali there is a large distance too your other projects but it is stil about psycologi, isn't it?
TB: It's a project that comes from the need of such a grouptherapi. My other projects are mostly centered arround finding my one limits. This is more like, you know, finding a need and then fulfilling it because you sudenly becomes aware that it is actualy possible to do so, that is, if anybody will let me fulfill it.
JK: Is it an art project?
TB: I don't know, it looks like art and i don't have any intentions of avoyding that it does so. It has to do with the same kind of Òknowing yourselfÓ as my other projects, but i could see myself doing it even if i wasnÕt an artst. I mean, there is a need for it and therefor a reason.
JK: But wouldn't it becom less honest if it was an artprojekt?
TB: I don't know, it has to do with social recognition of your own position in the world and there for it looks like art, and maybe, no probably it is art but that doesn't matter. What matters is if it changes anything.
I am doing it as a social being in a certain social ,position.
JK: You said that your previous works vere mainly about testing yourself and this is different, but still, i mean, you are participating in this therapi, right?
TB: sure i am. There are things i want to say and things i want other peolple to say, but i do not see any problem facing it....well... maybe... it might be a problem. I guess only time can tell.
JK: You are not afraid that instet of creating good vibrations you will end op with a bunch of people that relly dislikes you for pointing there problems out for them?
TB:Maybe, i don't know how sensitive people are. Thay are sensitive allright, but that's what we have to talk about, right? I mean, people in this line of work are sensitive but thats why we have to talk, so we can function better with eachother.
JK: In your exibition at Galleri Nicolai Wallner you incorporate some kind of solution to the fear. How come?
TB: Yeah, there are two solutions and they are both quite hysterical. You can eather rumble arround all night trying to kill the bugs or you kan create a bugfree zone arround you. The bugfree zone is the bed were you can lay down and die from the gasses that keeps the cocroches away. That is what you normaly do to have a bugfree night. What interrests me is: how fare will you go to escape an anxiety wich is basicly irrational, i mean, you donÕt die from a cokroch under your pillow, but you do get realy seeg from sleeping in clorine fumes.
JK: I think there is a conection between this histerical behavior and yor therapy projekt in the way that it deals with behaviorism. Do you agree?
TB: We are talking about pathologi. The social invironment that we live in, localy i mean, is full of paranoia, depressions and stuff so in that way...
JK: When you are working with this kind of projects, isn't it because you want to express som things thay you wouldnt do it in any other conetion, personal things. I mean, you are sort of a quiet guy, right?
TB: I guess so, and sure, it has got somthing to do with testing how fare one dare cary things out. The social aspekt is important in the therapi projekt but the rest is more privat.
JK: Talking about testing yourself, you are trying to radikalice that pert of yor projekt at the miment. I'm thinking of the fotos you are taking, holding a scorpion, a tarrantulla or a snake.
TB: Did Nicolai say that i would hold a scorpion?
JK: Yeah!
TB: I'm not, but besides that it's true. The scorpion is my limit.
JK:Is it poisenous?
TB: A litle more then a tarrantulla but i don't think it's much more. I mean, were talking about a couple of days with fever not losing your hand or life or somthing, but that is not what fear is about is it?