A reason to operate on toy pandas
Looking under the skin of things with Tove Kjellmark
Artist Tove Kjellmark (born 1977) is fascinated by human behaviour, psychological theories and dynamic movement. An ambition to uncover human aspects in inanimate objects is a common thread through all her work. Naked, a filmed experiment where a professional surgeon strips the fur off a mechanical toy panda was shot in an operation room at Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm in 2009. The movie awakened a lot of reactions. David Permén caught up with Kjellmark to pick her brains about identity, and found out a lot more than he imagined he ever would.
DP: Stepping into your apartment a few moments ago, the first thing that caught my eye was a bunch of photos, apparently of you and your family, orderly spread out on your dining table. Can I ask about this?
TK: Yes, my therapist asked me to gather some photos from my childhood and later in life, in order to draw some kind of lifeline. The purpose was to kind of put a finger on the situations in my life that have adversely and actually quite heavily affected me as a person. So I brought the pictures out to remember things…
DP: And what kind of feelings come to mind when you see all these old photos?
TK: Very strong feelings, a mixture of both warmth and sadness at the same time. The thing that strikes me the most is that beautiful pictures of beautiful people can be so seductive and misrepresentational of reality. Looking at them makes me curious about what’s hiding behind the skin and behind the smiles. I’m looking deep into the eyes, hoping they will reflect the truth.
DP: If you pick up a picture of you as a child and try to look yourself in the eyes, do you feel that you are the same Tove deep inside now as back then?
TK: Yes, partly…the existential questions are still present in my mind and I’m still carrying a small Tove inside of me. I watch that part with loving care because that gives me a kind of curiosity, playfulness and sometimes also, in a good way, a naive way of approaching life. But of course I’ve matured and changed a whole lot too.
DP: Let us look back at your life a bit. How would you describe your childhood?
TK: I grew up in Östermalm, Stockholm, alone with my father. My mother left me, or us, very early on. She has been pretty much a background figure my whole life. My younger sister was born when my parents got divorced, so she stayed with my mother. I had a pretty tough childhood and there was a lot of tension around my family. Basically I was pretty much left behind, alone with my father. All that affected me a lot.
DP: In what way did it affect you?
TK: My father is a very talented and charming man. Not only is he an educated architect with a degree from the Royal Institute of Art, he later studied to become a doctor. But he worked a lot and had long periods of depressions during my childhood. Consequently I became a lonely child without any specific guidance in life. He always told me that he knew I was the best and that he trusted me, but I never got any well-defined ground rules for life. I had to create my own set and be very responsible early on in life. Maybe that’s where I got my rich imagination from…But as an adult, I realized that there were some gaps in my self-image that made me waver in certain situations. I’ve been trying to fill these gaps in a lot of ways.
DP: I’m thinking one way of dealing with painful episodes could be to canalize them in some kind of creative work. Have you ever thought that your creative driving force comes from a need to process something?
TK: Not exactly, I don’t think that my art functions as some kind of therapy, if that’s what you mean. I would say that the driving force comes more from a need to explore and to handle reality. For me, it’s more about breaking boundaries, to stretch them and then go back. It’s about testing new ways, ways that for me are unknown. If there is something that is really hard for me to handle and something that I personally have to process, I get professional help.
DP: So how would you describe the art that you create?
TK: My experiments try to explore the relations between man and machine, psychology and cognitive science. I’m fascinated by behaviour, dynamics and movement. For some years, I’ve used the latest in advanced technology, robotics and digital media as tools for artistic interpretation. The final results of my works are mainly canalized through drawing, video and interactive sculptures. Ido Anima, the current project I’m working on, is about creating two moving sculptures, one very big and one tiny. The audience is going to be able to test and touch the tiny one. I want to explore scale and form, but above all I want to question resulting effects on our behaviour, our interaction, our control and power. I’m trying to pose indirect questions to the audience through my works. It might sound like I’m trying to trick the audience, but I think it’s very important to carefully disarm and to get rid of the defence mechanisms that we, as human beings, nurture. The key to what I’m exploring is deep inside, under these layers. Sometimes I think of it as a quick shot of cognitive behaviour therapy to generate new understanding. One of the best compliments I’ve ever had was when someone said, “looking at your art creates new nerves in the brain”.
DP: You have mentioned before that you are, “interested in things that other people don’t want to see”. Could that be related to what we were talking about earlier? I’m thinking of the photos of your family, which are, if you only chose to look at them superficially, very beautiful photos…
TK: Exactly. I don’t think it’s healthy to shut your eyes to things that seem repulsive at first glance. It’s more interesting to stop and question what is really causing the uneasiness and try to see more than just the surface. If you want to develop and grow as a human being, I think it’s very important to dare to see the inner you, your own nakedness. And in order to do that without any censorship or defence takes a lot of courage. If you listen really closely to a couple that are arguing, what is really being said between the lines? What is hiding behind the façades, behind their neat outfits? These kinds of thoughts permeate a lot of my thinking. In the same way I’m interested in the beauty of the abnormal, the kind of things that are tidied away, hushed and placed behind closed doors.
DP: But why do you think that people don’t “want to see”?
TK: There could be many reasons. Perhaps it’s because people are lazy. Or because society has set certain rules and decided that certain things are wrong to do. It could also be because they are scared of feeling uneasy. Or maybe they are just content with the way things are and don’t want to lose control. But I think it’s very educational, in a healthy amount, to expose yourself to mental strain. For me it’s a part of my identity and I’m at ease with doing so. I think it’s fun to challenge myself and to move on further. I want to live life to the full and I’m not scared of things that are difficult to handle.
DP: Do you think that has something to do with you being exposed to difficulties as a child?
TK: In some part, yes. There is a clear pattern in my life after childhood that shows I have not always chosen the easy way and at repeated times evoked hard situations when things have been too calm around me. You know, it’s very secure to be in a state of mind that you are used to…but it takes a lot of energy too. Right now, I’m trying to create a calm lifestyle and to reduce conflict around me. I’m trying to deal with stuff that is scary for me, but even if I, compared to other people, might be courageous in one way, there are a lot of other things that I find very difficult in life, things that might seem easy and natural to others. Things such as handling relationships, or keeping all the stuff in order on my computer…
DP: A moment ago, you described a pretty isolated childhood with your father. What were your relationships like with your friends back then?
TK: Getting friends was very easy for me, but I didn’t have a lot of close friends. I never allowed people to get really close, I kept a distance. But I had a wide set of friends and early on I was moving between different groups of people. The differences were things like social class, interests, background, way of living and age.
DP: And what are your friendships like today?
TK: It’s kind of the same. I’m still having difficulties with close relationships. I have a wide circle of contacts but few really close friends. I have no problems in making contact with people, but then I’m very choosy when it comes to whom I really rely on. It’s all about a lack of reliance.
DP: I’ve understood that relationships are something that inspire you a lot in your work.
TK: Yes, the way that people interact with each other differs a lot. It tells us something of their personality and what they have experienced in life. I’ve always been interested and inspired by listening to other people’s stories and life experiences. Especially when there is a turning point in their lives.
DP: Listening to other people’s stories…could you give us an example?
TK: A while ago I was reading my diaries back from when I was about ten years old. One day I had written about meeting a dwarf on the bus. He was sitting at the back of the bus, weeping. As we started talking he told me that he was sad because his mother had recently sold him to a circus. I wrote that I was feeling sad for this poor dwarf and when I now many years later read it, I can really see how fascinated I was about this person. I remember many stories like this from my past. Some were just short and much less dramatic meetings, but I took something from all of them. Things that are less defined and lie outside the normal standards of society are always interesting to me. Speaking of this reminds me how as a teenager I was possessed by my mother’s stories about her patients at the mental care institution where she worked. I started to ponder a lot about why some people lose their grip on reality and some don’t. During that time I started to think of life as a spinning merry-go-round and when you lose your grip, it’s impossible to get it back again.
DP: To see life as a spinning merry-go-round seems both realistic and beautiful, but also scary. Have you ever felt that it has been difficult to hang on to that grip and that you are on the verge of losing it?
TK: Absolutely. That’s why I’ve been thinking so much about it. My conclusion is that people are differently equipped to cope with that kind of mental strain. It could even be genetic – that some people let go of their grip easier than others. As a grown up, I’ve driven myself very far and have been exposed to a series of traumatic episodes during a short period of time that have affected me deeply. But I never had the will to let go of that grip. After that traumatic period, I was very careful and constantly on my guard against dangers that could be lurking behind every corner. But I think the cure is to face the enemy – do one thing every day that scares you!
DP: Back to your art. When I look at your drawings, I often see figures which are a mixture of animals and humans. Have you ever thought that?
TK: Not really, it’s just that I sometimes see those kinds of characters around me and then I have to pin them down on paper. The pictures and the figures, mostly come out unconsciously. It often starts when I get caught by a glimpse in someone’s eye, that’s about enough for the pencil to get moving. The characters usually evolve to be very funny, and what is most exiting is when the images that arise on the paper make me laugh or move me, when they generate a strong feeling. I don’t really think much about my drawings consisting of human-animal hybrids, but since you’re asking I could say that there’s a tension in our attitude towards the way we see animals. In some way we idealize them, regarding them as more pure than humans, but on the other hand we dismiss them as primitive and driven by instinct. Our similarities to animals have occupied a lot of people’s thoughts, Franz Kafka for an example. Kafka intimated that we are nothing but animals. My point of view is that we are animals driven towards the mechanical.
DP: A moment ago, you said that you could be inspired by the glimpse in someone’s eye. What is it that gets you going?
TK: It’s an urge and I feel this urge when I see certain things, colourful electrical cables and power cords for example. That’s the kind of stuff that turns me on. Cords, the sharp intelligence in someone’s eye, electronics. That’s when my fingers start to itch.
DP: In Naked, the filmed experiment from 2009, we see a mechanical toy panda getting wheeled into an operating theatre at Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm. Then you film a surgeon, who upon your request strips the fur off the panda with a scalpel. How did you come up with that idea?
TK: Before, I used to be the one that tore the fur off the toy animals, but then I became interested in seeing what would happen when someone else did it, someone who, in a way is a true professional. I wanted to see how a surgeon would handle the task. Another concept of the piece was the taking away of defences; I saw it as some kind of symbolic action, a peeling away of the layers that society has draped us in. It becomes a sort of transformation, a relief and at the same time, an investigation to discover what’s underneath the panda’s skin.
DP: During the almost ten minute long movie, the surgeon looks pretty unaffected. He’s wearing his flesh-coloured rubber gloves and trains the scalpel steadily on the panda. You can even hear him speak to the panda every now and then. Before the surgical operation starts, he puts an injection needle into the panda’s arm along with the words “Now it might sting a little”, and later on, when the panda gives one of its mechanical cries, he tries to calm him down. How do you think the surgeon managed with the assignment you gave him?
TK: First off, he wasn’t informed at all about what was going to happen and what I wanted him to do. When I came to the hospital and told him my plans, he immediately said “No, I can’t do that, I can’t cut into something that moves.” But I was adamantly trying to convince him that this was just an object and not a living thing. Finally he agreed but afterwards he told me that the situation had made him feel very unpleasant. Being a surgeon in an intensive care unit and used to cutting the brains of living humans while their lives are in danger, made him feel that he was overstepping the limits of what was permissible with this task. He didn’t know how to handle cutting into something that was moving. He also told me that it felt like the toy panda interacted with him in a very vivid way that scared him.
DP: At the end of the movie you can see the fur piled into a big stack, what did you find beneath the skin?
TK: Underneath the skin you will find the invisible and that’s what I’m trying to reach through my experiments. I’m looking at them as acts which symbolize the hard work it takes to get to know someone really well. But of course, it’s also about a search for identity. Where is the core, or the soul of a human being? I use toy animals because they have an aesthetic that’s familiar and accessible, something that people can relate to. Observing our “human” behaviour in something that is inhuman might give us perspective and maybe by doing so we can recognize ourselves in things that we so easily think we are superior to, for example, animals and robots. On a superficial level, my work could be seen as giving life to a machine, but my intention is to go deeper, to really explore the nitty gritty of what it is to be human and humane.
DP: When I watched the movie, I reacted to how naked, how vulnerable and how sort of crushed down the panda was with no fur. What kind of reactions have you got from audiences?
TK: Well, I saw people coming out crying at the opening of the exhibition. It’s interesting how people get so emotional when someone cuts a knife into something. That probably has to do with associations. I think a lot of people associate the film with childhood memories, while others think of experiments on real animals. One elderly woman came up to me and said “I’m so fed up with this hair hysteria in our society that says everyone should shave their armpits. Thank god, I’m so glad that you’ve raised this subject.” To me it’s fun to hear so many interpretations and I think it’s very good that people react in different ways. It’s no problem at all if they want to laugh, but I really want my work to be taken seriously. I guess you could say that there’s a certain amount of black humour in the things I create. As we spoke about earlier, it’s all about daring to see things that at first glance are repulsive, to overcome that feeling and to learn to handle it in different ways. If you wear blinkers all your life, you miss out on so many things.
DP: The fur of the panda is slowly and methodical cut away with a scalpel and as minutes go by it gets more and more naked. Finally, all you can see is the white plastic skeleton shining on the sterile operation table. When the last piece of fur is removed, the panda gives us a groaning sound, to me it almost sounds like laughter. Have you ever thought of that?
TK: Yes, to me it’s also sounds like he’s laughing! Maybe he feels relieved in some kind of way. This might be a chance for him to start over again and maybe by losing his skin he can form a new identity.
DP: The panda getting a second chance seems positive to me and it’s made me think about therapy again. Do you think that therapy can be one way for humans to get rid of their “fur”?
TK: I think so. Naked could also be seen as some kind of quick-therapy where the panda doesn’t have to work, there is someone else doing the job for him. He kind of gets relieved from everything that is bothering him. But to change yourself takes a lot of effort and it can be painful to dig deep inside yourself, to transform and to process things that have happened.
DP: I agree with that. It can be really difficult to change and to expose yourself. I just recently quit three years in psychotherapy. All through those years I felt knotted anguish every time I went into that room. What are your thoughts on therapy?
TK: It can be hard. I’ve been through psychoanalysis four times a week for four years. I’ve also tried other forms of therapy such as CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and I’m currently in DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy). I do this to get rid of things that limit me in my life, because I want to grow as a person and because I’m interested in psychology. Looking back, it’s been filled with quite a lot of anguish, but at the same time it has given me a lot of energy. During my DBT-sessions, I work a lot with my mood swings. On top of that, I’m hoping to get a deeper self-knowledge and to get better tools to handle difficulties in life.
DP: If we for a second, return to the fur of the toy panda and try to draw a comparison between the fur and the “fur” that humans wear: the external appearance, for example clothes, how would you say that you look at yourself externally?
TK: Sometimes I feel like a chameleon, and have no given way of looking or dressing. I’ve never wanted to get stuck in one style, or one way of dressing, instead I want to feel free to dress according to my mood. Sometimes I think growing up with my father has never really given me a way of recognizing my female side. As a teenager, I remember spending the night at a friend’s house. She always wore a lot of makeup, and when she washed it all off the next morning, a whole new person appeared. I felt as if a stranger was standing before me. I remember how shocking this was for me and how I felt sorry for the boy that one day would experience the same disclosure as I did. I rarely wear makeup or dress up, but when I do, it gives me a real boost!
DP: How much do you think clothes play a part in creating a person’s identity?
TK: I think they mean a lot. In some cultures clothes are a very strong marker. They create unity and they are how you show who you are to the rest of the world. Undeniably, you make assumptions about someone when looking at them for the first time. But what I think is even more interesting is what happens after that first sight. For instance, imagine that you are out at a bar and spot a nice looking guy. A moment later the guy opens his mouth to speak to you, but his voice comes out really weirdly and frogs start to jump out of his mouth! What’s interesting here is that the picture you had created is instantly wiped out. I’ve experienced that many times. I prefer it when things happen the other way around…
DP: Apart from clothes and other external attributes, what else do you think makes up someone’s identity?
TK: It’s a combination of many variants, all the little things that make you individual and human. Identity is continually formed throughout your entire life and is made up of many different characteristics. It consists both of things that we can choose and of things that we can’t have an influence on. It’s body language, values, how you interact with your environment, the people you hang out with, your work etc. Someone could be very nitpicking, and you might see that in the way that he or she dresses. But you could also be pretty sloppy in many ways, yet have a tidy appearance. I once talked to an electrician who came to our house to do some work. He was telling me about the huge differences he found in people’s homes. Sometimes he visited houses that were filthy, one was extremely dirty with food scraps all over the living room floor and piles of unopened mail at the door. Yet the man living there was nicely dressed in a suit, smelling of fresh cologne. That’s interesting, because it touches on disguise and of what kind of impression you want to make. When you get a chance to speak to someone for a decent length of time and learn stories from his or her life, you get a clearer and more truthful picture of the person’s identity. You scratch the surface. On the other hand, clothes and accessories can bring out parts of one’s identity.
DP: Would you say that you understand and are clear about your own identity?
TK: No, but I’m on my way. I don’t think that identity is something you just find. Plus wouldn’t it be kind of sad if you one day just “found it” and then you couldn’t change it? I don’t think there’s anything that’s permanent about identity, it keeps changing and developing as time goes by. You get older and hopefully wiser and more experienced on a lot of levels and that is all related to your identity.
DP: I understand… But could you try to describe the characteristics of your identity as it is now?
TK: Hmm, I think that’s very difficult too. My identity is more a kind of feeling that I carry with me everywhere, all the time. Maybe we should try to make a distinction between identity and self-image here. I think that someone’s identity very much lies in other people’s eyes, what other people think and how they look at you. I’m not sure how I would describe my identity today. I try to avoid thinking of how other people look at me. On the other hand, I’ve just recently started a project which touches on this subject. Of course it’s a good thing if other people think that you are nice, but you can’t walk around, always being worried about how people see and think of you.
DP: We’ll get back to the upcoming project you just mentioned in a moment. So a lot of your recent works have dealt with different layers coming off and the undressing of things. A feeling of nakedness and vulnerability grips you. Can I ask you: at what point do you really feel naked yourself?
TK: I feel very naked when I have to settle conflicts and admit my mistakes. When things are emotionally very hard, when you are exposed, that’s when something threatens the inner you. It’s when your inner core becomes vulnerable and someone touches a sore spot. But it could also be very liberating to experience that, if you can handle that situation and are able to turn that exposed feeling into something good. It will make you stronger. But generally, I feel most naked in close relationships, because that’s when you really have to expose yourself.
DP: Speaking of close relationships…I heard that you and a former boyfriend had an argument, and during it he described you in a way that utterly astonished you. In order to see if there was any truth in his arguments and to see if his picture of you corresponded with other people’s, you wrote a letter to your closest friends and asked them to share their opinions about you as a person. Could you tell me about that?
TK: It’s the project that I mentioned a minute ago regarding the question of identity. Some time ago I had a very stormy relationship where my former boyfriend criticized me to the extent that I started to examine myself a lot. I wanted to find out what kind of image people had of me. So I sent an identical letter to friends, colleagues, old teachers, childhood friends, ex-boyfriends asking them to briefly describe me as a person, even the dark sides. I made it clear to them that they were going to remain anonymous and that I wasn’t looking for any flattery. It was very hard to read their answers, because their opinions were strong. Their words gave me some kind of homogenous picture of how they looked at me. But what was maybe even more interesting was the way that the different people expressed themselves. That gave me a clear picture of them and also showed what kind of relationship we had with each other.
DP: That’s a very courageous thing do to. Perhaps this is something that we should all do in order to grow as human beings. What’s the name of this project?
TK: It’s going to be called Mirroring. The psychological idea of mirroring plays a big part in the construction of our self-image. It’s about the process of labelling our feelings, putting words to the feelings we expressed as children, and how we learn to handle those feelings. The case with my former boyfriend circled a lot around me and my own self-image.
DP: To round this conversation off I would like to ask you a question concerning how you look at your identity in relation to the artwork that you create. It’s fairly common to wonder if an artist’s identity is directly represented in what he or she creates. Speaking with you, and thinking about your work, I kind of get the feeling that it’s very hard, almost impossible, to make a distinction between Tove, the artist and Tove, the human being. How much of your own identity can be found in the work that you create?
TK: I think it’s easy for anyone to mix up your identity with your job, regardless of the kind of job you have, but it might be even easier to do so as an artist. It’s obvious that the things you create are more or less a part of yourself, because they originate from you. To answer your question, I would rather see it from another angle and claim that my art reflects my identity, my never-ending urge to explore the age in which we live and myself as a person.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article3663033.ece
