Martin Bladh interviewed by Peter Sotos

This interview with Martin Bladh was conducted by Peter Sotos during the autumn of 2007.

PS: I’m intrigued by the idea that the many references you use in the text may conjoin only through your work. The references aren’t so disparate, seeing as an example that the confluence between Artaud, Nitsch, Bataille and Freud has been heavily and routinely discussed, but I’m wondering if the ideas you mine may make more sense for you as a writer rather than a performer, musician or a filmmaker. That maybe you personalize the effect these references have? That they chart a history? That you’ve eroticized… the possibilities?

MB: All these fragments are raw-material, a starting point; the actual artwork starts with a vague idea, a picture or a text, and then suddenly a scenario grows from that. In many cases they make more sense to me personally than to the observer or casual reader, but in works such as Matt 5:29-30 the text reference is very obvious and gives the work a new dimension which I think is possible to grasp. As you’ve mentioned these “raw-material” often follows a context and are not as disparate as, let say…Bacon’s visual raw-material which can link together a car crash victim with an umbrella, a Velasquez painting and an Eliot poem. Take a performance work such as The Death of Narcissus where I started out by making a connection between Dennis Nilsen’s notorious autoerotic obsession in front of a mirror and John Nathan’s speculations about Yukio Mishima’s narcissistic and deeply erotic suicide. There is definitely a kind of semi-storytelling here, and I’m very precise when it comes to putting these references together.

I wouldn’t go that far, and it would be ridiculous to state that I “live” these texts references, but I try to find connections between them, my own words and body. The idea of taking them upon me; using myself as a sort of canvas or a crash test dummy for other people which I feel related to or a topic that fascinates me. There’s a strong bound here that makes perfect sense to me. Then, take a guy like David Nebreda, which is the most amazing thing I’ve seen; this guy is obviously very sick and it would be ridiculous to even try to come near or replicate his extremely insightful personal work, but his pain, compulsive aesthetics and the obvious danger he puts himself in excites me enormously… So what is left in the end…my own narcissistic urge, personal

fetish?

PS: Fetishism is a reductive idea, I would think especially here. Certainly, your aim is to expand these ideas? I’d never ask if experience is central to the work. You can look at what Sade created versus Bataille. Or Artaud versus Nitsch. And easily understand that what’s missing in both Bataille and Nitsch has to do with an extremely personal monologue that has nothing to do with immediate flesh or grandiose provocation. A friend of mine was recently selling some used books on porn theory to a bookstore and the guy behind the counter didn’t want them. He said they’d buy porn but not porn theory because it was too much like buying a book on beer. The guy’s an idiot, obviously, but what does make sense to me is that very few artists actually make something that is better, or more actual, than the theory. Sade and Artaud being two examples who do.

The point I was trying to make is related to Bacon, actually. In Bacon’s work, I think, you’ll find that these various, seemingly unrelated, instances come together to make a very personal reality. Bacon’s work is then something that exists far above the simple references, removes, practicalities. It doesn’t make sense to pull apart his work into analogies or backwards gossip. The work exists as a convergence, perhaps, but not an assembly. It’s not defined by its surreality or improvisation. You couldn’t say it’s a statement on sex, or umbrellas, or even a proxy, but you could view it as a sexual experience that couldn’t be captured in any way other than creating that specific painting. What I was trying to get at was if you thought all the information you collect and then itemize come together through the work you release in a form that is greater than the parts. I think it is. And since you ask if it might be a narcissistic urge or fetish, I have to ask first: What do these trawls suggest back to you?

Nebreda, to use your example, is more than a document of madness or physical suffering. Just like Artaud. Though it’s very common to see his work treated as such – by academics who’re looking for word-play extremes or lazy voyeurs who think the material is part of a sadistic giggle. How does narcissism play back? Or do you just indulge it…?

MB: To me the final product is the most important thing; a work isn’t good if it doesn’t amount to anything. I’m not really that interested in theory. In art, theory is useless if it can’t give any form of delivery. These kinds of quasi scientific theories often tell more about the artist’s own pathological state then he would like to acknowledge. It’s like – “why do I have this urges, I can’t be alone, so it most have an explanation that comes to everybody’s (mankind’s) benefit, and I was meant to be a ring leader for this new insightful philosophy.” This kind of thinking approaches a universal almost utopian vision; a claim for greater human values which doesn’t speak for the artist alone but the whole world. And it’s here I think Nitsch goes wrong; his great visions are still after all these years only partly realised, and lately he’s even reduced them further by not having animals slaughtered during the actual actions due to fear of death threats and reprisals from animal-right groups. He is bigger then ever and still he is farther from his bombastic theoretical texts then ever before. Artaud literary lived his own words, which probably annihilated him in the end, but he had no other choice and stayed very true to his work. My anthology collections are much more suggestive than theoretically explaining, and when put together as a whole (with the actual performance and the later reproductions) I think they expand and give the work a new dimension, which I find very inspiring and even seductive.

I feel very close to Bacon and I totally agree with what you said about him; that his work couldn’t come out in any other way. Just as with Bacon, sensation is the central key to what I’m doing, but compared to him I’m far too eclectic and there’s a long way to go before I reach such a genuine and personal way of expression. As you know, one of my action pieces is called Sensation is Everything. Everything comes down to sensation: sadism-masochism-exhibitionism-narcissism-fetishism-egocentrism… To depict myself in a particular violent fantasy, gives me a rush which comes very close to sensation and of course gratification. I’m always looking for an adequate picture of myself, or of myself as the staged wound. To have this distorted, damaged reflection of my own body thrown back at me is a very sensual experience. I can relate to Mishima’s rigorously staged and perfectly aesthetic photographs of his own death. This might be looked upon as a futile process, both romantic and pathetic, but to me it’s of great importance. And satisfaction is what hopefully comes back, as private sensual experience. After all I’m only concerned with my own private universe and the people I choose to impersonate and thereby drag into it.

PS: Is there a requirement for an audience in what you do? I’m trying to understand the difference between a ritual and a personal exploration, perhaps, but also your reasons for writing scripts as something that is in essence a fantasy. Or is it essentially something else entirely?

MB: A present audience isn’t always that necessary, but communication is. It’s a limitation to always relay on an audience. The most important thing is to make something which exalts and inspires me. I see artistic creation as an urge, and sometimes the urge is an exhibitionistic one and an audience is needed. But there’re also pieces that require more perfection which I rather perform alone in my apartment. I always use some kind of reproduction media such as photography, especially polaroid, video and accompanying texts. Some of my favourite works that involve the artist’s own body were performed alone with the camera as the single witness. When it comes to drama I often prefer the text before the actual realised work. I’ve actually written some drama pieces that are meant never to be performed neither for an audience nor a camera (not only because of the delicate subject matter), they couldn’t possibly be realised in the flesh…the suggestive power of words becomes everything.

I like monotony very much which has been reflected in my work again and again. I guess this fascination gets very close to what is referred to as ritual, but to me repeating a pattern is more about form than some kind of spiritual experience or magic reality.

I’m careful about using terms such as catharsis and therapy through art (although I find Schwarzkogler’s and Artaud’s concepts very inspiring). I prefer terms like fantasy, fetish or sensation. I’m no modern day shaman or priest.

PS: Why is the writing so cold and detached? Is the process of carefully itemizing the things that inspire you vastly different than the life that might erupt through the performance pieces? How does a personal fantasy find locus in the “suggestive power of words”? I’m thinking, especially with your films, that you want to see… more?

I started making some films recently. And the idea I wanted to deal with was based in taking the words away from the people who would agree to sit in front of a camera for me. I only asked people that release different forms of pornography. Because, to start with, I was interested in dissemination rather than the hackneyed impulses behind their sexual tastes. I wouldn’t mention this otherwise as I hate work that begins with an experiment so that the final work is seen as “experimental” –essentially a subjective marketing or craft strategy. The genesis of the work doesn’t complete the idea. But I found the interviews to be truly excruciating. I had to try and find what I was interested in locating in another way. This isn’t to say that I was only interested in what I thought I wanted to hear. Every person I listened to would yap about their exhibitionism and then slide that thin confession into an even thinner understanding of what they might expect back from an audience. Personally, I don’t believe art requires an audience and I don’t believe that you are trying to do anything like a shaman or priest. Obviously, you couldn’t perform many of the texts you’ve written. And I don’t think you’d have to. But there’s a calculation to them as scripts in that they resemble instructions and practical requirements rather than disgust driven or sexually desperate screeds or even a pornography that might have a more recognizable or inhabitable style…?

Of course, Dennis Nilsen thought he needed bodies to experience what he thought he wanted. But he also – like Dodd, Dahmer and so many others- wrote elaborate plans in diaries. Whether he found the experience as frustrating as the fantasy is interesting but hardly relevant when art is concerned. I don’t think you do what you do for an audience. So can you explain what you mean when you say communication is necessary?

MB: Yes I would want to see and to show more…but there are things that couldn’t be done in front of the camera because it involves other people. It feels a bit awkward to talk about these text- or drama pieces because they haven’t been translated into English. Matt. 5:29-30 and Off Stage: Slide Show are both masochistic fantasies which involves extreme violence. Matt 5:29-30 is a video installation piece which also involves damaged polaroids and drawings. Off-Stage is a photo piece that consists of 16 polaroids. I’m the only protagonist in these pieces and the violence depicted on the video and the pictures are obviously faked, which I think works in these two cases. But the other texts that I referred to, that isn’t represented in this book, deals with grandiose scenarios that involve other people, corpses and animals. And I would never allow this material to be performed and thereby be reduced and simulated into nothing. It would totally destroy it. Still they are written as drama pieces which would be possible to perform on a stage or in front of the camera, and that’s the way I like it; that it is possible to follow the instructions and realize the text…but still you know it would be absolutely impossible…in the end only words could do them justice. Do you remember that we had a brief discussion some years ago about artistic implosion versus explosion? When in an implosion you wear your own work and it becomes a most personal thing and with an explosion you involve outsiders into the creative process which might be a problem to your artistic integrity. I would like to see these texts as implosions involving other people.

My texts are cold and instructional, and again this has to do with my fascination with form. Many of my ideas tend to materialise as rigorously structured scenarios, simple, clinical in an almost theatrical setting. And I can understand if it looks like I’m trying to erase myself from the text, but really I’m not, it’s just the way it comes to me, naturally.

With communication I don’t mean that I’ve an urge to explain or share myself, but what I do need is a kind of feedback, directly or indirectly from a spectator, reader or listener. I know and understand that what I read into and feel through the work is more than an audience can possible grasp, but there is still a need of some kind of feedback or dialog. I don’t really know if this is a simple kind of ego-trip, child disease or a basic human need, and frankly I don’t care. What about you? Your work is extremely personal. Do you still feel a strong urge to get your work published and read? I think I would have to carry on my artistic creation even if no one would see it or care about it. It’s a necessity; I do this because I have to and can’t stop doing it. What about you Peter?

PS: To me, the subjects I’m dealing with are too complex to write an essay or opinion piece. And there’s a problem that comes from an audience wanting the writing to be separate from life and so-called life experience. It isn’t. I’ve written books about why I write and why I publish -not just descriptions of sucking off men through glory holes or children being raped by explicit phrasing. To me, there’s not a question of why the work is personal. There’s no other way in. Also, to pretend that the books haven’t created me or that I could’ve remained somehow pure to an idea or stance or settled in comfortable public opinions seems completely opposed to why I would want to write and publish in the first place. So much of my work is about recognizing myself in certain others and the sickening, exciting elasticity of empathy –It’s never a question of brutal honesty or lies or trying to fingerpoint a universal truth and teaching an audience something about themselves. I’m not trying to prove anything, I don’t stick to a script and I’m not writing a confessional –the ones that read this material, looking for that, usually stop at gossip. That has nothing to do with why I write.

Look at blog writing or the new genre-version of memoir. People send me their work or direct me to their op-ed pieces and weekly blogs and I’m sure these dolts think they’re contributing something to the world as well as thinking that this is something they must do for themselves, first and foremost. I don’t see it. The experience of my tastes and interests have very little to do with the simplicity of numbers or flesh or art theory, in fact. What’s in my head would never make any sort of sense other than by writing. Another example could be found in the countless internet clubs where men masturbate onto photos and then post the cum covered shots. If all I did was photograph the spill and state my favourite character, the weight and personal significance of the experience wouldn’t exist. All the facts and choices and options that make something like that important to me would never mean a fucking thing otherwise. I’m not looking to stop, you know? And ignoring the act -and the interest in what the act is, or should be- would be an essay. This is far too important to me. But I can’t control the context that the audience reads in. Shame, embarrassment, bragging, performing: all the same lazy rigors of what creates a quiet pervert, marketing artist or a silly political voice. I think I know where the experience becomes real and it isn’t in fumbling or shouting or recalling anecdotes.

I’m trying to understand what makes you pick your medium. A photograph as opposed to a painting. Or a film rather than just a single stopped image. I suppose I’m wondering –as well- if there is a centrality to all your work? An aesthetic predisposition or rabid impulse...? I’d have to say that I think there is a single, wide personality and I’m trying my best to drag everything backwards. It may sound reductive but I don’t see it that way at all. Am I way-off?

MB: What I’m doing is trying to create a personal “legal” outlet for fantasies and obsessions; a private cell where you’re your own master and executioner, who’s got control and the freedom to lose control. It’s not a matter of what is safe or risky as long as it is urgent and needs to be done and feels real to you. During the last ten years I’ve tried almost every artistic medium as an outlet for my ideas and obsessions; painting, drawing, photography, writing, music, film, installation, performance…you name it. In comparison to your writing, one chosen medium couldn’t do it for me…and trust me; this is a source of envy. I had a period in the beginning of the millennium when I was painting constantly, but the medium didn’t work out the way I wanted; the immediate marriage between content and form to come together in a satisfying way. Music and live shows couldn’t quite do it either. With IRM we tried to incorporate performance pieces into the shows, but mixing a musical concert with theatrical elements often tends to get a bit awkward, and in the end I was uneasy about doing these shows. It cost us not only a lot of money but a hell of problem with stage managers and producers who literally wanted to beat us up. Also the ideas that I wanted to manifest with these shows couldn’t really speak for both me and Erik in a satisfying way, it became too personal but also disappointing… I found film and performance to be a great relief; the images that I have been living with and wanted to show now materialised properly for the first time. Lately, I’ve found the single snapshot/Polaroid to be an even more satisfying way of expression, although I wouldn’t say that I’ve “exhausted” the film medium, I know that I’ll come back to it, the same thing will probably happen with painting too…

To answer your question, and it’s very obvious, yes, there’s definitely a centrality to my work. Almost everything I’ve done in music, painting, photography, film, performance and texts show the same thing. If you look at one of my (earlier) paintings and compare it to a (later) film or photography work you see that there are great similarities, they’re actually very much the same picture/scenario.

PS: Can you tell me what your work has told you about what you wanted to see…? Thinking, specifically, of creating carefully itemized tableaus that may have then moved you to want to change things about yourself? Seeing proof of what you –perhaps only- thought? Or see more, of course…?

Is one piece defined by the next piece?

MB: I’ve been thinking about that myself lately… and I don’t have a good answer to the question. The actual act of self-dissection is always a stimulating experience, which has an almost heroic feel to it. This exploration has diffidently shaped the way I look upon the world and myself. If you ask me if it has made a difference to me then the answer is absolutely, yes. It diffidently helped me excavate what is important and what is not. But it’s very hard to describe it. A friend asked me the same thing not so long ago. I can’t say that what I’m doing has made me a better person, disgusted me or opened fantastic new ways of seeing etc. People tend to think that everything I do is about catharsis, due to the violent and monotonous nature of the work; my answer is always that even if it is, I’ve not seen it yet, and it’s not likely that it’ll show up in the nearby future either; it’s like a barrier moving further and further away, and I don’t know if that is neither good nor bad, but then I have no thoughts or plans about reaching a special goal and then stopping either. It is not a religious quest. It is not a breaking test in the vein of Burden or Abramovic and I’m not interested in breaking social limits and taboos just for the sake of it. I never ask myself, have I done this before? Will I repeat myself? What I do still excites me and that’s the only thing that matters. When I’ve finished one piece there’s always an embryo for the next one. It’s like I get an idea from one piece and it mutates further into something else which often makes me understand its precursor better. That’s the only natural way of working for me.

PS: I’m very interested in your definition of sensation. Do you think sex has more to do with sight than touch, for example? And does that mean that everything sensual pales behind the triggers that fire when looking for something…?

MB: To me sensation is mostly triggered by violence. I think sensation in essence is a violent act, an overload, an attack on the nervous system. It’s a very physical experience, which has to do with brute force, not intelligence. It might seem as I’m talking about some universal human instinct, and maybe I am, but the actual trigger is a personal fetish. It could be an explicit pornographic picture, an abstract recognition of lacerated flesh or a renaissance depiction of the crucifixion, but when you come across it you recognise it immediately. It doesn’t really matter if this “violence” is projected upon me in the actual flesh or an outside object through a staged scenario. Sight is of great importance to me, and sexually probably more important than touch: the voyeuristic tension between observer and object, between nausea and masturbatory fantasy. For me a piece is successful when it excites me and at the same time gives me an uneasy feeling.

PS: Would you like to discuss your masochism? Is it a desire to see the sadistic act above all? Do you have to take this on; inculcate both sides?

MB: The role of both victim and abuser is a very central theme. It’s definitely some kind of narcissistic urge, which I sometimes mistook for self disgust when I was younger. Nowadays these sides blend together as a symbiosis, and I think I found a balance. I love the idea of being the anonymous flesh in front of the camera while at the same time being the invisible interrogator behind it. When I’m putting myself in a situation that to me is humiliating and repugnant, I’m openly indulging in a masochistic act. Then, by using voices of real life victims and turn them into fictional peep-show characters, would most certainly by proxy be seen as a sadistic act (one example being Injury where I used a collage of different case studies of sexually abused boys who later turned perpetrators, to make up this “fictional” character that I’m impersonating).

Showing the actual act of violence isn’t necessary. In several of my pieces the violent act has been cut out and happens off-stage, and you’re left with its actual outcome. Although, the whole piece still revolves around this particular incident.

The tension between sadism and masochism is present in almost everything I’ve done. I’ve especially tried to manifest these opposites in my short films. In performance work it has much more to do with being passive or active; where a certain contract is agreed upon by the passive- and active actors. Pieces such as Porn Pigs – a Love Story and Dead Ringer has very articulated characters that makes it much easier to point out which one is impersonating the sadist and the masochist. I think the inculcation between the factors is all too present in the performance work Sensation is Everything where I switched the role from sacrificial victim to victimiser, but maybe not in a very satisfying way…

PS: What is lacking? I'd doubt that you think an orgasm is the final say in satisfaction.

MB: I think it was a dire mistake to use symbolical action when trying to stage a personal outlet for sensation the way I did in Sensation is Everything. Looking back at it now, it seems to have more to do with a layman’s interpretation of Freudian thinking, and maybe even allegory instead of direct personal experience. The actual orgasm isn’t really related to sensation; it always leaves you feeling empty. I think there is a need for suspense, and this suspense have been portrayed more successfully in my video works then in the performance pieces.

PS: I suppose you need to define success. Forgive me if I’m sounding base. But are you trying to sustain something or trying to craft a sense of suspense in the way that genre writers or movie directors try to engage an audience for shock or surprise –or whatever?

MB: Success is diffidently defined by sensation, a fulfilled and adequate depiction of the body and the staged scenario. At least, that’s what’s worth striving for. I’ve absolutely no interest in the classical “Hitchcock” way of staging suspense, or genre scare and shock tactics. Again, here monotony plays a central part. Warhol occupies this territory in films like Blow Job and Vinyl, Pierre Guyotat does it, and you do in your books. I’m not looking for the usual dramatic or cinematic shock outbursts, but a slow steady process that holds me in sustain.

PS: I'm not sure what you mean by being anonymous -an audience comes to your work looking for you, right? You're not performing so that an audience finds themselves or a unique way of looking at sex or sensation.

MB: What I’m referring to is the (my) headless body in the short films and video works. This work was made by me, alone in front of the camera without any audience present. I use the headless body and the distorted voices to reduce obvious or false references to my own person, it makes the viewer, and even myself more uncertain who is behind and in front of the camera, who’s talking and who’s answering the questions etc. Then of course it enables me to cast these “fictional” characters in a more satisfying way. By excluding my face the observer will not be able to read too much of my own biography into this fictional stories. So, to some degree I’m a projection screen, a canvas of flesh that has to be filled with a fictional meaning. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m cutting myself out of the work, my own pathological interest for the subjects I choose to impersonate is present in every single piece I’ve done.

PS: I’d argue that you may like to think you’re anonymous but that you’re really anything but. Thinking that you’re anonymous may make the work easier for you to do, though. Does it? I think a certain consistency in all of your work –or obsessions, if you like- provokes me to see it as a whole.

MB: I’m not saying that I’m being objective, but thinking in terms of role play and fiction, enables me to exclude different aspects of myself and exaggerate others. As I stated before, all these scenarios and characters that I’ve created revolves around the same topics, obsessions etc. and might very well be seen as lesser components of a greater oeuvre which includes my musical projects and earlier paintings as well.

PS: I suppose, on another level, you can explain if you're looking for some form of personal negation.

MB: I’m quite convinced that a successful work of art lies somewhere between what is deeply personal and traditional, a kind of concentration where your own pathological and aesthetic obsessions blends together in a perfect unity. My own body is always the origin of the work, it is my own private invention, but I’m still able to communicate with an audience due to its recognisable expressive power.

PS: This may be my problem. But I know your audience. Aren’t you disappointed with most of the reactions from the idiots who post on forums and gossip on blogs? Why see your work as some form of communication that includes LCDs? How do you reconcile the private with the public? Why worry about letting morons in?

MB: Sure, most comments I’ve read are made by morons (posted on PE or industrial music forums) and have nothing to do with what I’m actually doing. Still, there are some opinions which I do cherish. Some feedback has been nourishing. Although, this isn’t the kind of feedback I’m looking for in the first place. I do this for myself and if some people tend to like it that’s fine with me. I can’t help to think of some kind of receiver. It all comes down to pure ego, can’t you relate to that? You must have found Jean-Jacques Pauvert comments flattering, even if it doesn’t affect your actual writing?

PS: No, I can’t relate to that. I’m trying hard to figure out what sort-of agency you think is involved in your work. Ego is a word that others, including you, might use in a cavalier manner and I don’t think it has any place in my work. In the gratification way I’m pretty sure you’re using the word. My writing deals –to a disturbing degree- with how I’m perceived in this world and that, of course, is an applicable definition of Ego. But our worlds are a bit different. The answer I was trying to elicit from you dealt –primarily- with how you may or may not see your compulsions ghettoized. It’s you that contends you’re interested in a form of communication. If nothing else, I’m asking you who you think you’re talking to –the ones that recognize the “expressible power” of the body. Who are they?

MB: This is foremost an exhibitionistic need, and the outcome is personal gratification. Even if the turnout might be futile, there’s still an urge. I don’t claim that my work contains a hidden dialog that speaks to the spectators in some kind of telepathic way. I don’t believe in what several silly body-artist calls spiritual contact with the audience. Neither do I care for simple art-house provocation or people that want tacky gore-feasts. There are no special types of groups or scenes that I’m referring to or trying to get in touch with. My work has started to attract a new, pretentious art audience here in Sweden which I can’t relate to at all. If someone approaches me after a performance or a screening and says that he found it to be erotically charged, that to me is communication. When someone contacts me and explains why my work has inspired him, is also communication. If I would hear that someone had actually masturbated to one of my flicks, that would also be communication and thereby gratification. At some rare occasions people have pointed at things which I myself have overlooked, and which afterwards make perfect sense to me. But what is more important is to know that my body is being looked upon during the performance or the knowledge that someone will be watching it later on a TV-screen.

PS: Do you think a contempt for what you do and want is important to, or evident in, how you conceive your "characters"? Are the different voices and mediums you choose an attempt to write a bigger monologue? In the sense that the method used forces you to talk back, essentially, to yourself?

MB: I’m sure that these creations, at least in some way are different reflections of myself, but I wouldn’t use a word such as contempt. All of these characters have a specific relation to violence which I find seductive and inspiring; being it the religiously deranged self-mutilator of Matt 5:29-30 or the masochistic rent-boy-artist of the Talk Show trilogy. Still, there is no love or compassion, and some aspects of these personalities do disgust and unnerve me. I would like to think that I’m writing a bigger monologue, that I’m talking with or back to myself through these fictional dialogs and monologues. I would like to still be able to use “characters”, but to make them speak for me and not just through me. This is what I’m working on at the moment; to find the inner monologue and the best artistic outlet for it. This is a problem which is hard to get around in a satisfying way… I’ve always had a problem with manifesting my own acute desire and to avoid the risk of sinking to deep into the world of fiction and become a mere storyteller. Your own work derives much of its strength through actual real life experiences, which I’m lacking. I’m bound to a paradoxical fantasy world that revolves around my own body.

PS: I think that is very important, frankly. You do away with this objectivity and see yourself superimposed on these”characters” that most usually come wrapped in sympathy. So, it’s not really just fantasy, is it?

MB: You might be right… It’s a paradoxical way of looking back on reality.

PS: Come to any conclusions then? I’d like to see you explain your exhibitionism, for example.

MB: The performance in front of an audience or a camera is to me very erotically charged. And as I have a strong tendency towards narcissism, my own reflection in the mirror is of great importance. Watching me in the mirror or being watched on the stage, together with the fictional, often violated character upholds as you pointed out a discourse, which I’m leading with myself. It’s an erotic image that foremost speaks back to me. There are a lot of references to theatre and stage props throughout my work: the makeup-mirror, the rows of light, talcum powder etc. And in some pathetic kind of way I’ve managed to turn these props into some kind of fetish objects which boost the experience of the performance. I think the actual idea of performing is very charged; the body on the stage is a turn on. What I do wouldn’t make sense without the reference to the stage, or the theatrical setting. And this might also be the answer to the use of role-play, I don’t think a performance act could be casual, it always involve some heightening of the ego and the senses. It is like entering a new state of mind, and this kind of artistic outlet is quite different (at least to me) from writing, painting or editing, although these components becomes very important as preparations, but also as fetish value when looking back at the reproduction of the piece. The body becomes elevated when being put in this specific context; erotically or even heroically charged; a body that is my own, but at the same time put together by a variety of other people. It’s almost like I’m building my own personal mythology, with a hall of fame which assembles different voices and heroes. To see my own body reflection covered with fake or real wounds could be compared to a masturbatory fantasy. As an example, I found Nilsen’s fantasy that includes his own dead body to be very powerful, I can relate to it, and will dedicate a whole piece to this scenario.