HUG OF DEATH

Melanie Ebenhoch, Sophie Gogl, Julija Zaharijevic, Malte Zander
JUN 6 - JUL 20, 2019

Our talk left me breathless: How is it, that a choke once was a hug? We did not manage to get to the root of the problem, we rather raised even more issues.

They first met in an one room apartment, it was not spontaneous, they planned it a long time. It was hazy and looked surreal, almost like a real estate ad which never was to be realized. He had a cold and she suggested, she could make him bone broth - but does she realize it is quite the opposite of health? It is rather greens and vegetables that grow collagen. Bone broth is quite the opposite of health because it’s death, PeTA says. 
Bone broth kills!!! They were nervous. Both of them lack human interaction, when they are not working, they spend most of their time on the Internet. He took her hand, just to put it back on her lap again, his eyes tried to escape through the window, he touched her hair, just to untouch it again, winding his boney butt left to right on his chair. What’s the point of this meeting, she said, we could have just stayed online? What’s the point of this room? With all these objects, that could have been only codes? Our bones work as representatives of traces of the human kind, like fossils in marble, they have no use rather than being decorative. 

A card turns into a razor blade through its meaning. A friend can turn into a stranger / murderer / enemy through their zodiac. A melody you once loved could function as a form of torture, as the beat hammers the notes into your brain. And then there is the elevator music, repeating itself every 30 minutes. The couple spent most of their time in elevators, with strangers, colleagues, just standing there, waiting for their physical forms to arrive on different floors. The buildings have risen up to the gods, science proved, did not exist. At work she was a mutely perfection. Always punctual, reliable and efficient. After the meeting her perfect facade began to crumble. For the very first time the will to function was overshadowed by cravings. There is no such thing as the freedom of will she thought, whilst diving mentally in a pool of desires. 

It‘s merely a matter of time whether you fall (with someone) severely, or hate them dearly. 
She thought as she started to hammer the keys of the keyboards like she‘d play the piano. The harsh typing of the  business plan resembles the rhythm of Schubert‘s “The Trout”.
So zuckte seine Ruthe;
Das Fischlein zappelt dran;
Und ich, mit regem Blute,
Sah die Betrogne an.
“Please! Take me in the woods to die, please, don‘t let me die here, on the Internet”, she said. Her work was done, she shut down her computer, turned off the lights, and took the elevator to leave the building. “Don‘t worry, I will wait” her computer replied.

Joesephine Strau, 2019