Castle
1999

Performance, Goldsmiths College, 19th - 28th of January 1999

During a ten days performance, I tried to build a castle out of only cardboard and tape on a big lawn at the back of Goldsmiths College. In the beginning everything went fine, the structure seemed solid and the castle was growing. But after a couple of days the castle started to sink and fall apart because of it's own weight and because of the rainy weather.
In the remaining period I continued my attempt to built, repair and extend my impossible project. During the night after the last day of the performance I removed the castle. Next morning there was only the marks of the castle on the lawn left.
Just as the structure of the castle were not solid, the role of the King were not perfect either. Under his cope he was wearing jeans and rubber boots, and the plastic crown, which he was wearing, was glued together with tape, because of an accident at the beginning of the performance. It was almost as if the King had taken on the role of the fool. Though he seemed as a social King, who wouldn't mind speaking to people, the aspect of solitude was important to the work. The king was the only person in his kingdom, and he had to do all the work himself.
As many other of my works this project deals with a return to or rediscovery of childhood as an adult. But it never really succeeds. The castle never becomes the perfect romantic castle, it never becomes real. Instead of growing into the sky the towers of the castle sinks together. This notion of failure is only one aspect of the performance. Another just as important aspect is the playfulness and power of imagination and fantasy. In its attempt to realize a kind of utopia the project operates in the space between these two aspects; between dream and reality, between possibility and impossibility. On one hand, it is a revealing of the illusion of an utopia, and on the other hand, in it's physically appearance and in it's playfulness, the castle is an actually realization of utopia.