Viktor! part i.: Ambrosian Tar, Athenian Piss, 2024
Performance, spoken word, pentelic marble, honey.
With Cara Manuela Yepez Mayer
Suffused beneath the narcotic smell of orange blossoms hanging heavy in the evening air, Mu Koch and Cara Mayer spent a handful of surreal days flitting in and out of sleep in Athens in the Spring of 2024. As part of an excursion with Studio for Immediate Spaces, they jostled between studio visits, lectures, walks, and museums. A desperate need for coffee one Wednesday afternoon led them to stumble out into the streets of Exarcheia, where they were stopped in their tracks by a most peculiar strange and haunting cry. Gripping each other by the arm, they walked towards the sound like sleepwalkers – a long cry reverberating through the concrete-marble concoction of Athenian streets, ricocheting between pillars and stumbling across rips in the sidewalk. The cry of an opera singer, full of unspoken things – melancholia, love, loss, desire, forgiveness, anger, fear, all of that which language can never quite approximate…
Eyes bulging, they came across a most mysterious creature. A beautiful dog, speckled brown with sorrowful eyes, chained outside of an apothecary, crying, beckoning, calling to them. Mu and Cara could not believe their ears. The door of the apothecary flew open.
An older man, salt-and-pepper whiskers, sharp and thick like those of a jungle-cat called out towards them grumbling “Don’t mind him, that’s just Victor!” The door swung shut again, the jingling apothecary bell cut off mid-flight. Mu and Cara looked at each other.
Victor.
The name of an angel. Triumph. Conqueror. Helen. Troy.
They knew then that they would go to war for Victor.
That evening, invited to a designer’s house to recreate Plato’s Symposium – another day at art-school – their course was asked to divide themselves up into teams: cooking, setting, entertainment. Naturally, Mu and Cara, gifted by the pantheon with a glimpse of Essential Truth that afternoon, knew they must bear responsibility for the evening’s entertainment. They must channel Victor, open their hearts and let their tongues be used as a vessel for his knowledge. Taste, smell, emotion –– all that is left unspoken, all that is marred and muddled by language, so crude, so devilish –– it would return, tonight, at Laure Jaffuel’s dinner. They would lay two puddles of golden liquid –– ambrosia, tar, Athenian piss – spread them across marble slabs like butter. They would call upon the spirit of Victor. Ask their guests to kneel down, get on their knees. Smell, sniff, lick the ambrosiac piss off the floor. Like dogs. Like angels. Like Victor.
This is a tribute to Victor
We kneel down before him
His line of vision our line of vision
Licking the marble floor
Like Honey on a block of yoghurt
Victor howling in the street
Our Maria Callas
Exarcheia transformed into Teatro alla Scala
His meal, two honeys of birch and bitterness
His song, good morning, good night
Performance, spoken word, pentelic marble, honey.
With Cara Manuela Yepez Mayer
Suffused beneath the narcotic smell of orange blossoms hanging heavy in the evening air, Mu Koch and Cara Mayer spent a handful of surreal days flitting in and out of sleep in Athens in the Spring of 2024. As part of an excursion with Studio for Immediate Spaces, they jostled between studio visits, lectures, walks, and museums. A desperate need for coffee one Wednesday afternoon led them to stumble out into the streets of Exarcheia, where they were stopped in their tracks by a most peculiar strange and haunting cry. Gripping each other by the arm, they walked towards the sound like sleepwalkers – a long cry reverberating through the concrete-marble concoction of Athenian streets, ricocheting between pillars and stumbling across rips in the sidewalk. The cry of an opera singer, full of unspoken things – melancholia, love, loss, desire, forgiveness, anger, fear, all of that which language can never quite approximate…
Eyes bulging, they came across a most mysterious creature. A beautiful dog, speckled brown with sorrowful eyes, chained outside of an apothecary, crying, beckoning, calling to them. Mu and Cara could not believe their ears. The door of the apothecary flew open.
An older man, salt-and-pepper whiskers, sharp and thick like those of a jungle-cat called out towards them grumbling “Don’t mind him, that’s just Victor!” The door swung shut again, the jingling apothecary bell cut off mid-flight. Mu and Cara looked at each other.
Victor.
The name of an angel. Triumph. Conqueror. Helen. Troy.
They knew then that they would go to war for Victor.
That evening, invited to a designer’s house to recreate Plato’s Symposium – another day at art-school – their course was asked to divide themselves up into teams: cooking, setting, entertainment. Naturally, Mu and Cara, gifted by the pantheon with a glimpse of Essential Truth that afternoon, knew they must bear responsibility for the evening’s entertainment. They must channel Victor, open their hearts and let their tongues be used as a vessel for his knowledge. Taste, smell, emotion –– all that is left unspoken, all that is marred and muddled by language, so crude, so devilish –– it would return, tonight, at Laure Jaffuel’s dinner. They would lay two puddles of golden liquid –– ambrosia, tar, Athenian piss – spread them across marble slabs like butter. They would call upon the spirit of Victor. Ask their guests to kneel down, get on their knees. Smell, sniff, lick the ambrosiac piss off the floor. Like dogs. Like angels. Like Victor.
This is a tribute to Victor
We kneel down before him
His line of vision our line of vision
Licking the marble floor
Like Honey on a block of yoghurt
Victor howling in the street
Our Maria Callas
Exarcheia transformed into Teatro alla Scala
His meal, two honeys of birch and bitterness
His song, good morning, good night