‘Becoming Monika’ refers to our three-year-long process of becoming a collective: Anna Chrtková (curator, set designer, and author of this exposition), Matyáš Grimmich (artist and group facilitator), and Karolína Schön (artist and photographer) decided to cover their individual selves with an entity called Monika. As a collective character, Monika was born through processes of joint studying, collective writing, delegated storytelling, and situation training, framed by the topic of ‘we’.
In 2020, we opened a residency application with the mantra of being we:
Each of us is a spring merging with other flows. We deepen the existing drains, we replicate, we adapt. We flow within the banks; yet once they are worn down, they become us. We permeate the ground, we soak into the matter. We take over each other’s habits without feeling guilty for our lack of personal inventions, or imagination. We do not believe in individuality. We believe in permeable bodies. We believe in the exchange of thoughts, ideas, and images. We are sick, we have eczema, we are the transmitters of infections. We imprint into the others’ bodies, as other bodies invade us. We are the particles of the world, we are waves, we are molecules.
Our plans were inspired and directly affected by our experiences of previous collective projects, examples of which include: working with the therapeutic method of Systemic Constellations; the viral community practice of Hologram; and Matyáš’s practice within The Group of Fulfilled Wishes and Transfer Collective. We wanted to reimagine forms of community, radically reject individualism, and perform a collective consciousness. We were asking ourselves, how is the ‘self’ established? Where does it begin, and where does it end? How can we create and practise sustainable prototypes or models of a shared, joint, common ‘we’? Can we reconstitute the world by performing such collective selves?
In six weeks of the residency, we created a collection of texts from which the next phases of our research could emerge. Our vision of radically interconnected ‘we’ has, since then, been grounded in environmental philosophy (Latour 2007; 2010; 2003) and [posthuman] phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty 2002; Neimanis 2017), and our current understanding of self has been mostly informed by works of experimental psychology (Fuchs 2017; Tanaka 2015). We have aimed to meet these theories here and now and perform them in shared time and space as if they were methodologies — and, then, to observe what happens. We imagined this experience as a substitute for disembodied knowledge — we wanted to feel, instead of speak. Feeling the lack of Oceanic Feelings (Wang 2020) in our practice — we understood the necessity of creating a scale of affects that lure the possible participants into the world of ‘we’ (even though we cannot offer the stable image of how it should look like) and enable them to imagine the radically different understanding of their own relation towards the world. All these wishes helped the project become a full-scale artistic research project, as it has been reflected as practice together with the process and performed rather than executed when the performance is done (Hug 2017: 61).
After the initial research residency, we found our space in cultural institutions. We presented the research in exhibition, installation, and workshop formats. Initially, I worked only with Matyáš Grimmich; Karolína Schön joined us one year later. Each of the outcomes was prototyped as a space of encounter, where we could test and develop further the use of objects, situations and stories in performing ‘we’. The declaration of Monika (the collective) symbolically closed this first chapter framed by the context of art institutions and art production.
Writings, videos, images, and reports from our public outcomes are assembled under three categories: object and its use; situation and its record; story and its act of telling. These are strategies or triggers by which we, during the process of Becoming Monika, operated, and they can also be considered vital organs holding her together now when we are no longer operating under our personal names. This is the underlying logic of arranging all research material into the lower layer, which is accessible through the auto-fictional narrative of Monika’s birth (titled ‘I am Monika’) and also, through the timeline of the research.
Now
I invite you again
and — eventually — to get lost in the research that holds her together.
Anna works in the design industry. She has a powerful, determined, yet distracted attitude to life. She is able to notice the most important parallels between fields, discourses, and paradigms — this is her driving force. Sliding between institutions, academies, industries, and workshops advances her broad effort to connect with the world around her. Strengthening her bonds with all participating actors feels more than satisfying. One just needs to know the appropriate language, aesthetics, and forms. And Anna is very good at learning.
This causes a distinctive fatigue in her limbs. And her skin — covered more and more with a perpetual eczema — is transforming her into a porous, fragile, and tired organism.
Nonetheless, Anna is on a mission today. She is walking in the streets of her city. She is probably heading to work. Maybe for a meeting. There is no rush in her walk but, still, an energetic rhythm can be seen in her step. She wants to make others see that her walk has a purpose. Like everyone around her, she waits for the lights when she wants to cross the road. Once the green light hits, she steps into the road and crosses, fast. Step by step, she walks on messy pavements and drivers pass her by in their vehicles. From time to time, sweating cyclists roll in between her and the ongoing flow of cars. She imagines their exhausted athletic bodies coming home after this ride, covered in an invisible layer of urban dust, resting, swallowed by their homes. The realness of the physical being. She does not remember if she has ever felt like that.
Anna is walking and her head is full of thoughts.
As if I deliberately desire an additional freelance activity. Everyone seeks balance, yet I need to have plenty of everything, celebrate abundance, and bless my ability to drift in between all that.
Anna walks the streets. Her gaze scans every corner, every bush, every face she’s walking around. She is probably searching for someone. She is not sure who, though. On her solar plexus, after a while, she notices a light pulsing tension.
Sometimes, it feels like she is not the one responsible for all her choices. It’s everything else, everything around, deciding for her, instead of her. One moment she’s still and slow, squeezed into certain postures, and the next she’s energic — as if someone chased her. Her dynamic self adapts to everyone she speaks with and everything she engages with. Considering this, she sometimes just wants to give up and accept her nonconsistency as a fact. To finally be integral, no longer individual. A dependent being.
What if her body decides to strike
inner unions will take back the right to rest
her legs would just slide across the room
She wishes there were no mechanisms in place to prevent this.
Just stay here
do nothing
A soft smile is playing with Anna’s dry face. Her solar plexus is in pain. She doesn’t mind. She has learned to let go of her unstable body.
She wants to become an obstacle in the middle of the street
finally being pushed down by the weight of the universe depending just on her
her belly, being released
Anna is walking down the street. It’s full of noise and young, sparse trees on the edge of the pavement. Behind the trees, a line of boring office blocks. Wind interferes with the dust. The pain in her solar plexus makes her walk faster. All of a sudden, a huge sign says ‘Public Baths’ in fluorescent red. It should not be that bright, she thinks. A little arrow above a shabby door instructs her to go inside. She is not sure about the world, herself, the one she’s looking for. [Is she looking for someone?!] An orienting arrow is relieving to follow. Perhaps having a swim is, after all, a good idea?
Entering the reception, she pulls her long sleeves down in a rush. Eczema. She needs to hide it. Sick skin is trying to renew itself; old, dead flakes of herself are falling. It never ends. It will never end. This much is certain. She is leaving her traces everywhere she goes. And she does not often fulfil hygiene requirements.
The private changing room seems safe. She takes her clothes off and wraps herself into a big, white sheet. Breathe in, breathe out. Let’s hope people don’t stare at her red body — full of rush, snowing skin. When she enters the main bathing area, she is partially blinded by the steam. There are many humans around. Their gleaming bodies go in and out of the little sauna rooms. Little pearls of sweat transform them into shiny creatures. Everyone is alone here. They move slowly, naked, looming out of the clouds. As if the space was attempting to soak their skin, flesh, and bones.
Usually, her skin condition attracts unwanted attention. Here and now, no one cares.
Anna is no longer walking.
Her body left the first sauna with an exact shiny, sweaty texture. Her pulsating belly is firm, covered with a glistening layer. Humidity sticks to her, making her think she no longer knows where exactly her body begins. A quick stop in the restroom, and then another sauna. Dry heat entombs her body.
She thought she hated those common organised wellness activities, and here she is, soaking into the space, being the same as the others. Her skin is snowing. Her surface is covered by the snow of others.
Sauna for the third time, and then a swim.
Small salty pool
everyone around
her – self
others
joint snows
her – in-between – them
her
all of them inside of her
palpating on the solar plexus
Monika was born here. Inside of this bigger and bigger, pulsating, eczematic, wet, and glistening belly.
And so, Anna decided to accept the others living and growing inside her. Now, she knows her place of return. Monika is always there, under the surface of her skin, to be whoever — because she is an entity of many.
