The Internet was really inspired by Jason Dodge. I like stuff that’s messy but without conflict or loud voices.
Aha, it’s totally a dance but not so much a performance. For me that’s way too personal, and I’m not really into choreography because it’s all so neatly ordered, it’s like vivisection. Kind of fascinating but in the wrong way. I don’t like dance to be fascinating, or enthusiastic, it should be more just there like some random illustration, indifferent to context. Or like monumental sculpture, I dig this. It’s not about size, for something to be monumental it has to exceed context, be indifferent or simply material. Sounds like modernism, sure, but like through the backdoor. I mean like in, or that’s a long story, so.
I’ve made a few things too, like stuff that’s great to have around when you make a dance. I don’t know, maybe I’ll have time to make a couple of oversized charm bracelets. I really hope so and there’s also some Lion chocolate bars, the king size version. It’s a kind of homage to Smithson. Once I visited a piece by him somewhere in Holland. That was really cool, but mostly I like internet because it doesn’t start anywhere. It’s like a landscape that sort of doesn’t guide. The best stuff is like stuff that doesn’t need support, back up, that just shows up.
I think it’s really difficult to just show up. I’ve worked a lot on that. It’s easier if you don’t need to, like if it’s all a matter of reproduction, you know that’s why I really don’t like, like engaged art, or political stuff, that kind of stuff that can’t just show up. Feels totally forced, like as if art isn’t pushed in the first place. That’s what it is, or should be, stuff that just shows up.
The Internet, I dunno, it’s just a lot of thoughts. Some about, whatever, omnipresence of internet, and yes dance – I mean critique or so is just a bit too simple and anyway just shows off. It’s nothing good or bad really, it’s more like something between an enigma and a problem, I mean the internet, and if the piece is too, that’s great. Oh, that sounded a bit pretentious. I’m obsessing about things that can’t be divided, and you know stuff that nobody can be responsible for. Like the universe or the ocean, the nature – the internet is like that a bit. You know something that can not be divided, can not be evaluated, it is or not, and I think, if you can’t divide something it can’t really be interpreted. Instead it makes me, or us make something. This is the real thing maybe, that in front of that kind of stuff, we are equal, unconditionally equal. That’s pretty awesome.
Mårten Spångbergs last performance La Substance but in English premiered at MoMa PS1 in New York and visited Black Box Teater in autumn 2014. The critically acclaimed show was nominated for the Natt & Dag Oslo Award for best performing arts. Now he is back with his new production The Internet.
