Nicoline van Harskamp is bekend van haar performatieve tekstwerken, die inspelen op alle mogelijke hedendaagse communicatievormen, van politieke speeches tot groepsdiscussies. In de volgende dialoog met een acteur probeert invulling te geven aan het fictieve leven van Chris.
In haar doorlopende project Yours in Solidarity poogt Nicoline van Harskamp de levens te reconstrueren van de personen wier brieven voorkomen in het archief van de Nederlandse anarchist Karl Max Kreuger. Sinds zijn onverwachte overlijden in 1999 wordt Kreugers enorme brievencollectie bewaard in het Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis in Amsterdam. Van Harskamp las en analyseerde het archief, en is bezig er een film over te maken. Aan acteurs van over de hele wereld legt ze briefpassages, handschriftanalyses en politieke informatie van een van de vierhonderd personen uit het archief voor, om zo een verhaal te construeren over zijn of haar leven sinds de laatste vermelding in het archief. Onderstaand zijn fragmenten afgedrukt van een werkbijeenkomst in Brussel, in december 2010. Van Harskamp en de acteur Eric Godon werken aan ‘persoon 112 – pseudoniem Chris’, een anarchistisch communist uit Antwerpen.
03’10”
Eric Godon:
So it’s been like a real journey in a few days in the history of anarchism. And actually now that I have read all this stuff you gave me and seen all the documentary films, I sense that the idea of anarchism has spread inside the society slowly over decades, but it has no longer the strength and the meaning that it used to have. It is not even considered as dangerous today. Not like what Emma Goldman would represent in the past. She was a real danger. She was arrested, banned, exiled...
Nicoline van Harskamp:
True. But Emma Goldman today...
Eric Godon:
But a lot of things have changed since 1989.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
You still get figures seen as dangerous, like Julian Assagne. But they don’t organise that much as in those times. And I think that’s the difference between anarchism now and...
Eric Godon:
But is it possible today to organise? Ideologies are dead since the wall fell.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
But anarchism is not always just leftist.
Eric Godon:
No, I know. I am aware of that. But what I am concerned about, since Chris is a libertarian communist: can such a thing exist today?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
Leftist anarchism? It has a different name perhaps. Perhaps you’d now call it the anti-vivisection or the anti-globalist movement.
Eric Godon:
Right.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
It’s just a different term. And in that sense, when you mention ‘libertarian communism’...
Eric Godon:
Well, most people will never know it exists. Period.
22’ 32”
Eric Godon:
As far as his personality is concerned, you need to tell me what you want to see. And I’ll try to translate it into things I can work with. You gave me all this talk about his handwriting and so on, but it doesn’t help much.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
It’s very general, I agree.
Eric Godon:
Like, the camera is going to be there and what do you want to see? I can’t show all these things in one interview.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
No.
Eric Godon:
But, like the way he talks... Is it fast? Is it slow? Does he pose? Is he a bit nervous? Is he sedate? How does he feel inside?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
I would imagine him to be a stubborn, slightly arrogant person.
Eric Godon:
Arrogant you can imagine? It means that probably the pace is going to be....
Nicoline van Harskamp:
Slower. Yes.
Eric Godon:
To me I recon maybe faster. But then, you tell me faster or slower.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
I would say slower.
26’ 30”
Eric Godon:
You haven’t the faintest idea what happened to him, actually?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
I have no idea. No. I can only imagine what might have happened. And that’s why we’re doing things this way. I can’t think up four hundred stories.
Eric Godon:
But what have you been thinking up for Chris?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
For Chris, I think he’s pretty much kept going as he was going. Just reading more.
Eric Godon:
Yeah, but that means that when there’s no progress, he’s receded. Generally speaking - and let’s not take into account his libertarian communism and his commitment to community activism - if he keeps doing and thinking the same stuff for twenty years, he’s not going forward. And if he’s not going forward, he’s going backwards. That’s how I see it.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
Perhaps.
Eric Godon:
Does he have kids? Do we know that?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
No, we don’t know.
Eric Godon:
He was only thirty in 1991, so maybe he has kids now, and his life has changed, and he is a totally different figure. But if we stick to the fact that nothing has changed, then something is dead inside of him. He is, like, in a pyramid. Surrounded and protected by his books and his thoughts and his idea of a better society.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
Well...
Eric Godon:
Yeah, I’m not kidding!
Nicoline van Harskamp:
No, no. Of course you’re not. But I think... I mean, there’s two ways to go. Looking at his handwriting profile...
Eric Godon:
Hmm.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
... which we can also just throw away, like you said...
Eric Godon:
Well, when we read his profile, we can see that he has a lot of qualities.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
There are very contradictive qualities, also.
Eric Godon:
Yes! But that’s often the case. I mean, he seems to be afraid of... Where was it? Ah! Looking bad. Crossing boundaries.
35’31”
Nicoline van Harskamp:
Have a look at his actual handwriting.
Eric Godon:
Ooff. It’s...
Nicoline van Harskamp:
Exactly.
Eric Godon:
Yeah, it’s.. To me, it’s...
Nicoline van Harskamp:
It’s childish, a bit.
Eric Godon:
Yeah, it’s psycho-rigid and then it’s centred. And he writes like I did when I was ten and I was in school. He wants to comply with the rules and to a certain image. He doesn’t have that much personality, but he wants to show that he has a character and a will. The T is very long.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
The crossbar, you mean?
Eric Godon:
He’s not very self-assured to me. And he’s got an erratic behaviour.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
Neurotic?
Eric Godon:
Erratic. And he’s trying to take control all the time. And everything must be right, and he must justify every step he takes. And well, it does look immature.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
Immature.
Eric Godon:
There is something that is not complete. I mean, I write like a doctor because there’s many things I’ve already given up in my life.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
You should have a look at mine, then!
Eric Godon:
No, no, please don’t show me. Let’s not go there.
38’09”
Eric Godon:
Anyway, let’s not trust this report. Psychology doesn’t help much in this case. We just have to decide whether something evolved for him. Not only in his vision of anarchism and the way he can contribute to it. But also in his everyday life. Because these things are connected.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
I think there’s two sides to him.
Eric Godon:
He still believes in things? He doesn’t believe in things?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
It can go two ways. He writes that he ‘wants to have his comrades close to home’. He could be quite a social person.
Eric Godon:
To me, he needs other people. He’s not self-assured.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
To me, the history is either that he succeeded to become part of a community. Maybe somebody who works as a local activist.
Eric Godon:
But then he hasn’t evolved at all.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
He’s become some kind of a family or community person.
Eric Godon:
That’s what I’m saying! He’s not...
Nicoline van Harskamp:
The other side is...
Eric Godon:
He’s not taking any steps at all.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
And the other side is that he’s really lost himself in his books. In his theory. There are people who, the more unhappy they get, the more political they get. You know what I mean? Sometimes, the happier you are, the less bothered you are with the affairs of the world.
Eric Godon:
To me, he’s depressive. And he holds on to what he can. His ideas, his books, his social commitment. And when you take care of other people, you don’t need to think about yourself. But would that mean that he no longer believes in his ideas? Has he given up? Or not?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
I don’t think he has. I think he’s still...
Eric Godon:
Okay, so then how does he continue his fight? And what’s the solution for him? And for the world?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
I think he found a project. A political library or something.
Eric Godon:
For the community?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
And he learns a lot, still. He’s a news junky. Reads everything. Political analyses. Most probably, he writes for some anarchist publication.
42’43”
Nicoline van Harskamp:
I guess he could be a Paper Tiger, as we call it in Holland. Somebody who...
Eric Godon:
So he don’t scare nobody?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
He is a paper activist.
Eric Godon:
Tigre de Papier. What’s the meaning for you? Because in French...
Nicoline van Harskamp:
It means something else?
Eric Godon:
What does it mean to you?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
He is a dangerous animal in paper, so...
Eric Godon:
He is not scaring anybody!
Nicoline van Harskamp:
Maybe not. No.
Eric Godon:
So if he’s a Paper Tiger, then he still believes in the cause. That’s for sure.
Nicoline van Harskamp:
Okay.
45’00”
Eric Godon:
Okay. So what do you think we should talk about? What are the questions for the interview?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
Well, Chris is...
Eric Godon:
In Belgium, was he considered an important activist? What was his position?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
The group that he set up was quite active in the early nineties. A lot of other writers refer to it. I think he was one of the..
Eric Godon:
The main...
Nicoline van Harskamp:
...lead characters in the Flemish scene.
Eric Godon:
And so?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
So I would ask you: can you tell me about that time? What were you doing? What were your politics?
Eric Godon:
How does Chris feel about this?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
And his answer would be, I guess, that they are the same as the ones he has now.
Eric Godon:
How does he feel?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
Right?
Eric Godon:
No, this is a question! How does he feel?
Nicoline van Harskamp:
I think he feels that those were better times than today.
Eric Godon:
You know what? I need a cigarette.
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