Matthew David Rana Performing on the mound, right with Amy Balkin.

On Saturday, September 13th, artist Matthew David Rana performed a speech series on top of a grass mound. He presented five speeches ranging from; two speeches from Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander; a discourse concerning an ideal schedule, by Eric Steen; a transcript from a supreme court case dealing with free speech, public space and private space, a collaboration with the artist Amy Balkin; and a polemic on Utopia by Justin Fiset. This was the first of six events that I produced as part of A Grass Mound (With Kind Regards to Utopia). Downloads from each of these speeches are linked below followed by an interview between myself and Matthew.

In a way many of the ideas for this project began with Matthew when he and I were both working on our exhibition How to Talk About Utopia Without Saying Utopia which was presented at The Playspace Gallery in April, 2008. Matthew had been interested in investigating the role that free speech may have played within the Utopian communes we were researching (Alturia, Icaria-Speranza and Kaweah) and the contradictions that speaking out might have within a communal society. We tried to incorporate this subject matter into the show by soliciting speeches from several artists and writers, and even going so far as to build a small and rather animated grass mound (you can see the parallel to the current project). But in the end we deciding not to include the speeches, nor the mound, in the exhibition. We felt that not only were we trying to do to much in an already very complicated installation but, the subject matter and the mound both seemed compromised. I seemed that this subject deserved its own forum. Matthew did however present a speech by Justin Fiset at the opening of How to Talk About Utopia Without Saying Utopia. It was such a good reading that I asked him to present it again and in a sense launching this project.

Prior to each event I presented a kind of preamble, ranging from reflections, to performances, even to poetry. They were usually written quickly earlier that morning. The preamble was a way of introducing each performer while also linking my own personal experiences to the subject matter that was presented. I am presenting these preambles here as text rather than audio because much of the preamble was spent discussing more logistical and formal aspects of the project, such as thanking the San Francisco Arts Commission, announcing the upcoming performances and reminding people to pick up an interview pamphlets.

Today Matthew David Rana, will be performing a series of speeches that explore art’s relationship to theater and everyday use. We have titled this event THE LITTLE WORLD AND EVERYDAY SPEECH to consider a construct, ‘The Little World’ put forth in Ingmar Bergman’s film “Fanny and Alexander” (which indicates the world of the theater or the performed) to see how this little world is enacted within everyday life. I included Matthew in this project because he had introduced me to this movie and particularly to the speeches contained within it. The Little World was of particular resonance for me because I think of art, the gallery space and even the artworld as a similar site to the little world of the theater and of drama, that Bergman discusses. Both of these sites can be seen as refuges allowing for experimentation and invention, freedoms often not permitted within the constraints of the outside would of the everyday.

This morning I watched the end of ‘Fanny and Alexander’ as a bit of a reminder as to the themes in this event. I was struck by the final words in the film, quoted from a play by August Strindberg called ‘A Dream Play’, which relate to many of the themes of this project, potential, experimentation and creativity. By way of reiterating I will read these lines to you now.

Everything can happen,
Everything is possible and probable.
Time and space do not exist.
On a flimsy framework of reality,
the imagination spins, weaving new patterns.

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On October 13th, Matthew read five speeches in total those speeches are listed here with links to the downloadable audio files. The sound quality is a little rough but the speeches can still be clearly understood.

1. Introduction and “The Little World: Part One MP3“, by Oscar Ekdahl” transcribed from the film “Fanny and Alexander” by Ingmar Bergman.
2. “An Ideal Schedule MP3“, by Eric Steen”
3. “Pruneyard Shopping Center vrs. Robins MP3“, a transcription from a U.S. Supreme Court case.
4. “Hithloday: A Polemic MP3“, by Justin Fiset
5. “The Little World Part Two MP3” by Gustav Ekdahl also transcribed from the film “Fanny and Alexander” by Ingmar Bergman.

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Interview With Matthew Rana,
Friday, August 30, 2008
Recorded in the backyard of 5 Elizabeth Street.

Anthony Marcellini: Some of the ideas for A Grass Mound (with Kind Regards to Utopia) were influenced by a show we did together called “How to Talk About Utopia Without Saying Utopia” (HTAUWSU) which focused on 19th Century Social Utopian colonies. At some point when we were working on HTAUWSU, I think you introduced the idea of presenting speeches within the gallery space as another way to talk about the commons. So we asked a number of people to write speeches for us that we would perform, but in the end we only presented one speech at the opening, a speech by Justin Fiset that you are presenting again on the 13th. Much of the motivation to create A Grass Mound, for me, was to enable this speech project to be completed. So I am curious to hear from you now how your feelings have changed towards how you thought about the speech project then and how you think of it now.

Matthew David Rana: I think when we first started talking about the speeches it was because in the course of our research we realized that there was an exclusivity to Utopia– it’s a utopia in some sense because it excludes a diversity of narratives–and I think one of the ideas for the speeches was to expand the conversation into other ideas of what Utopia might be. Looking back on it I think it might have been to introduce some antagonism into this notion (of utopia), bursting the bubble, trying to consider other perspectives.

AM: I think it might have been also that the speeches were a live event, and we were concerned that within an exhibition, which was mostly works on the wall, that there was not anything live or public, nor anything that directly engaged with the audience.

MDR: That was pretty important to me. I remember how the show developed, we had different ideas about how to engage the audience or whether to make work that was active or participatory. I think some of the things that interested me about the California social utopias were, on the one hand, the relationship that they had towards literature and on the other the real economic models that they utilized. As much as these communes were idealistic about social change they held very material and economic concerns. People were trying to find a better life for themselves. I think I was veering more towards the social change side of things, and the idea of how a community considers itself to get to that point. Take for example the newspapers, they would circulate them within each commune and then also more broadly across the country as well as to other colonies.

AM: So there was a need for communication, dialogue and feedback.

MDR: Yes, and public speech was a part of those systems of communication. I think this is one of the good things about this speech series: it is not just about how a community talks about itself, but to other people, how they broaden that communication. Jacques Ranciere says politics is not made up of power relationships; it is made up of worlds coming into contact with other worlds. To put it more simply, someone’s idea of utopia coming into contact with someone else idea of utopia and the various political relationships that are active in the construction of those ideas; and of course, the negotiations between parties.

AM: So did your ideas change when confronted with this new site and this new project?

MDR: I think that one of the first things that came to mind was the tension between the private space of the gallery vs. the public space near the Civic Center. One of the things we talked about was when I suggested that “utopia doesn’t need public speech.”  I guess I was thinking along the lines that utopia is based on a consensus. In his book Fearless Speech, Foucault talks about the efficacy of public speech, which is that it is like speaking truth to power. There are different and unequal power relations and never a consensus with anything. So when you speak out publicly you are taking a risk, you are introducing an argument that then has to be negotiated. I was interested in this contrast between utopia and its demands on public and social life and what democracy’s demands might be.

AM: There is a similar contrast in what Marcuse says in his writing on the power of negative thinking. He says that the most important thing in any counter dialectic is that it be understood as coming from a position of negativity, because the positive just means an agreement with the existing policies. So public speech is always negative and must be so in order to allow potentialities. This is similar to Foucault’s statements in Fearless Speech, where he suggests that public speech is always oppositional, counter and confrontational.

MDR: There is a large element of risk for the speaker, there is always something at stake, even the possibility of actual bodily harm. The book is called fearless speech, so it’s also how we go about taking that risk without fear. Mainly, I was thinking about those tensions that might occur between an idea of utopia and the enclosed space of the gallery, the artspace, versus democracy and how it might function outside the gallery, the tensions and relationships between these two places.

AM: Do you think you can talk about the specific speeches you chose and why. Because I am really curious what your criteria was. I remember early on how we had talked about Bergman’s Fanny & Alexander, and I began to think about this notion of theater and the artspace, and then after reading Marcuse who talks about the arts as areas where people express other realities, other worlds, and sometimes idealized worlds. In Fanny & Alexander, Oscar the theater director makes a speech where he is talking about the little world of the theater that shields him from the outside world. I read the little world as also the world of the artspace, of art or the art world, a little world of the greater world. It is safe to be in the little world but you are always mimicking and reflecting on the world outside where things are less secure.

MDR: But it’s also the tone of his speech. What was so interesting to me is that it was not joyous, in fact at some-point in his speech Oscar says, “oh, I feel so comically solemn right now.”

AM: I think that is because it has ended, the play is over, he had to leave this little world and go deal with the larger world, his family on Christmas. The production is over.

MDR: But then in the second speech by his brother Gustav, near the end of the film, Gustav talks about the same thing, the little world. But he is not talking about the theater; he is talking about these small everyday moments that he considers to be the little world. This is a big difference, between Oscar’s enclosed world of the theater and Gustav finding that same enclosed world in his everyday experience. I was pretty moved by those speeches. Those were key points in that film for me for those reasons… how you consider your relationship to the world. I was thinking about Oscar’s comic solemnity, that art was only a reflection of the world-at-large; it was not part of it. But for his brother, a jovial restaurateur, art was joyous in that it was embedded within the everyday.

AM: The other thing which we failed to mention, was that while Oscar is giving his speech he takes off his make up and his costume, transforming from the character he has just played in the Christmas play to everyday Oscar. Increasing the solemnity of the situation for him and for us: even visually it is clear the fantasy is over.

MDR: The film is also about endings and beginnings. Gustav speech is presented at a christening where he is constantly making reference to his newborn daughter. So there is a kind of hopefulness and beginning there. But then again, he also says that some day she will prove everything he had just said wrong.

AM: So did these speeches structure the other works that you chose?

MDR: Well I think the other aspect of these speeches is that they also focus on use. Eric Steen’s contribution is about creating a utopian schedule for oneself, how you create your perfect schedule. And Amy Balkin is interested in how the issue of use can legally change the status of a private space to a public space and finding judicial precedents for the work she has been doing. We are going to re-speak a case that was heard at the United States Supreme Court in 1980. Basically, the case is concerned with high-school students who were trying to distribute literature at a shopping center and were prevented from doing so. This took place in California and, after the shopping center’s right to do this was upheld by the state Supreme Court, the case went on to the U.S. Supreme Court where, I believe, it was a unanimous decision to reverse the lower court rulings, finding in favor of the students. By distributing the pamphlets the students set a precedent for the use of the space and also set up a different relation to the space. There is also the fact that there have been a number of re-speakings and historical reenactments lately taking place within an art context, which I find interesting and worth looking in to. And of course, to re-speak something like this is a theatrical endeavor so I think it resonates with the speeches from the Bergman film in that way.

And then Justin Fiset’s speech is a polemic against the word utopia, or more specifically, the branding and selling of utopia. And actually just yesterday I was walking on Piedmont and I passed by this nail salon called “Utopia Nails”. I was going to take a picture of it for you but I was late for Obama’s acceptance speech. (laughs)