The Bag Factory
14.03 - 14.03.2024
‘I live in peace in the innermost chamber of my house, and meanwhile, the enemy may be burrowing his way slowly and stealthily towards me.’ – Franz Kafka, The Burrow.
Night has fallen and two security guards wait on a hillside, partially hidden by long grass, automatic rifles at the ready. They are symbols of a booming private security industry which capitalises on the fear of the unidentified Other within South African middle-class society. Each day, before venturing into the city, the guards stand solemnly as one member prays. The reliance on prayer for protection seems ironic, placing the whole project into a mysterious shrouded activity.
Staged for one night only at the Bag Factory, Fear Fokol included a film screening and a sculpture in response to the film. The work offers stark commentary on the commercialisation of fear and how protection is traded to the upper middle class. Artists Tuva Björk, Sally Jacobson, and Rasmus Richter contend with what it means to be imprisoned by fear and the fragility of our perceived structures of safety. Directed by Björk and Jacobson, Fear Fokol follows the daily routines of security guards working for a private security company. A speaker narrates parts of the film, reading from Franz Kafka’s ‘The Burrow’; ‘even now, at the zenith of my life, I can scarcely pass an hour in complete tranquillity.’
In the opening sequence, a woman leaves her house, unlocking and re-locking through four stages of protection; front door, security gate, second security gate, and main gate, forcing the viewer to acknowledge the strangeness of the choreography that comes with ownership — the only way to protect something is to imprison it. This becomes a lens through which the film can be read, highlighting entanglements between owning, safety and fear of loss. Kafka writes: ‘There I sleep the sweet sleep of tranquillity, of satisfied desire, of achieved ambition; for I possess a house.’
In another scene, women clad in black clothing are filmed scaling the walls of a large house in an affluent neighbourhood. They begin dancing through the house in a style that might be seen in the late-night bustle of a Braamfontein club, except their soundtrack is far from the Gqom beats that would ordinarily accompany the moves. Instead, fragmented sounds spliced together, create an eerie backdrop for the writhing bodies, drawing the viewer into a nightmare. It is not clear whether one is witnessing a burglary or something else. This interplay of documentary-style footage, conceptual experimentation and fiction is interesting. The viewer is left wondering what is real and what is fictionalised – strange shifts in tonality create a piece of work that ceases to be a true record.
Because the work is presented in its raw form, mostly uncut and only sparingly edited, the viewer engages it in progress, with the possibility of its final form being very different to what has been exhibited. This incompleteness which leads to instability is something Richter interrogates further. His accompanying sculpture features a cake fridge with a fluorescent light illuminating the shelves inside, slowly spinning on an axis. On the middle shelf lies an ice sculpture of a sleeping swan slowly melting as the fridge continuously hums. On the top shelf is a glass with an egg whose shell is slowly dissolving in vinegar. Richter says the swan ‘symbolises withdrawal and peace’, and that the melting ice speaks to fragility and precariousness of perceived safety, reflected on in ‘The Burrow’ as quickly dissipating. Kafka writes, ‘… the most beautiful thing about my burrow is the stillness. Of course, that is deceptive. At any moment it may be shattered and then all will be over.’ The sculpture teases at the idea of withdrawal which can be read as a kind of closing-in, describing the behaviour of certain groups in society. In the shelter of the fridge, the swan is resting, safe, and at peace. Of course, this state is unsustainable – the swan’s environment is its undoing as it melts, the fridge not quite cold enough to ensure the swan’s survival. Eventually, the swan will cease to exist. Similarly, the eggshell, the part that is supposed to protect the fragile insides, slowly dissolves in vinegar. The artist thus demonstrates how tenuous our sense of safety is and how quickly the illusion tends to fade.
After the screening, Björk interacted with the audience through a Q&A session —a point was raised about thrifting culture, exemplary of the inconsistencies of feeling safe in parts of the city when buying second-hand clothing while perceiving those spaces as unsafe otherwise. Björk offered that perhaps a kind of social security is created through interaction. The act of knowing dispels fear. If something is recognisable and tangible, then it becomes less threatening. In the context of Björk’s film, this is at least partially true. The guards whom she has followed throughout her research are occupied by thoughts of an unidentified threat, one which seems to grow more dangerous as the film progresses. Perhaps by knowing the origin of this mysterious danger, its impact would be less severe.
Throughout the film, the threatening Other is spoken about as if it were a phantom, without acknowledgement of its humanity. And although the viewer can make speculations about what kind of archetype the private security guards are hunting, this information is never revealed. There is something to be said about the socio-economic conditions which engender certain constructs of power, wealth, and class. In a hostile world, survival looks very different depending on where you cast your gaze. Perhaps this is something the final film can seek to interrogate more closely.