As you might have noticed in my blog,
I've spend these last weeks in Iceland with Wolfgang Müller.
Wolfgang Müller, Berlin artist and author, visited Iceland for the
first time in 1989 on invitation of the Icelandic artist Magnus
Pálsson. Since then he has been back to Iceland on a regular basis,
writing many books about Iceland such as Blue Tit, Neues
von der Elfenfront – Die Wahrheit über Island, Die Elfe im
Schlafsack, and released the CDs Island Hörspiele and
Ich habe sie geseh'n ... Elfen, Zwerge und Feen.
Now our journey in Reykjavik is coming
to an end and I did this short video interview with him in German.
Here is the English translation:
AP: In your Blue Tit book about
Iceland there is an image of the German artist and performer Gunter
Trube, showing four sign language gestures for “Angst”.
WM: Those are four gestures in DGS
(German Sign Language) for the word “Angst”. It shows that all
languages have plenty of possibilities and not just one word to
express something. Many hearing people believe that DGS has only one
word way to express “Angst”, but just as in other languages there
is a wide spectrum of “fear”, “dread”, etc. ... various
differentiations.
AP: How is that in the Icelandic
language?
WM: Also in the Icelandic language
there are multiple meanings and many of those are untranslatable. I
found that interesting when I made the audio play Thrymskviđa
(Thrym Song). It is a travesty story with the god Thor and Loki.
Many of these ambiguities emerge and are essentially not translatable
into German.
AP: These old Icelandic Edda are also
popular in Germany.
WM: The Edda were
of course used by the Nazis in such a way that their humor totally
vanished. This medieval poetry was read and transmitted in such a
constrained, one-sided manner: all the fun was gone. I thought that
was a shame. It is beautiful to show people the multiple meanings.
AP: How did you work with this
multiplicity?
WM: When the god Thor decides to travel
together with Loki to Jötunheima both disguised as women – it is
the first drag queen story in medival germanic literature! – Loki
says: “Both of us ride then to Jötunheima.”1
The Icelandic “both of us” can express three different sexes:
“tvö” is male/female, “tveir” male and “tvær”
female. The joke is when Loki says “both of us” and transfers it
to a mixed group. That is not without ambiguity! At this point
Icelanders can laugh. But in German it is simplified as “we” -
neuter.
AP: Do such language games also happen
in Icelandic contemporary literature?
WM: There are similar things. Lately
somebody told me about crime stories by the writer Arnaldur Indridason. There is a reappearing figure named
Marion, a name that can be male or female. The whole of Iceland
discussed if Marion is a man or a woman.2
In her translation into German the translator Coletta Bürling just
changed it into a man. Especially in Germany there is a tendency
toward simplification.
AP: You yourself doubled an institute
as an art concept: the Goethe Institute.
WM: Yes, Coletta Bürling used also to
be the director of the Goethe Institute in Iceland. I doubled the
Goethe Institute only after it was closed down. I made an art concept
out of it - I need to emphasize that, a “private Goethe Institute.”
That went well for a long time, but after three years I was
charged,and then I had to watch out. I received a cease and desist
declaration. The art concept got so mixed up with the perception of
reality that people believed that I really was the leader of the
Goethe Institute and not a performance artist. I had to rename it as
the Walther von Goethe Institute, the gay grandson of Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe.
AP: Did you notice anything particular
during this stay in Iceland?
WM: So many things happened, I could
write books about it. I have to control myself a bit. It is of course
extremely inspiring and one has to watch out that one doesn't examine
everything on the surface. I need some time, to let it set in, to see
how I'm going to proceed.
AP: Thank you.
WM: You are welcome!
1“Við
skulum aka tvö / í Jötunheima.”
2See
for more information about this figure Marion:
http://internationalnoir.blogspot.com/2008/09/arnaldur-indridason-arctic-chill-from.html