Spectactor: Seriously. There's a 22-meter-long wall. On the wall someone has written in big capital letters…

Spectactor: DANMARK

Spectactor: It creeps me out. It really does.

Spectactor: Why?

Spectactor: This feels like a deja vu. Why do I feel like I have been in this exact moment before?

Spectactor: Is this an endless conversation?

Spectactor: I used to come here a lot. In this room. I used to spend hours, just staring at that cow. (Points to the Johan Thomas Lundbye painting of the cow).

Spectactor: I don’t remember the letters on the wall from last time I was here. I think it must have been eight years ago.

Spectactor: Someone wrote on the wall.

Spectactor: Which wall?

Spectactor: The big wall outside.

Spectactor: Didn’t you see the huge letters on the big white wall?

Spectactor: DANMARK. Someone wrote DANMARK in big capital letters on the wall.

Spectactor: Vandals.

Spectactor: It makes me sick.

Spectactor: What makes you sick?

Spectactor: (Points at a human sized plaster statue) I don’t remember that statue from last time I was here.

Spectactor: It’s a soldier. But he has the face of the painter, Johan Thomas Lundbye. The person who painted that cow over there (Points to the Johan Thomas Lundbye painting of the cow).

Spectactor: Why does the soldier have the face of a painter?

Spectactor: The painter died in the war.

Spectactor: Always the artists. How sad.

Spectactor: He looks haunted.

Spectactor: Does it have anything to do with the hollowness, that you sense through his open mouth?

Spectactor: Or the whiteness of the plaster?

Spectactor: He volunteered to defend Denmark against Germany.

Spectactor: He lived as a painter but died as a soldier.

Spectactor: Oh, what a brave patriot he was.

Spectactor: I just love these paintings in here so much. They have such a tenderness to them.

Spectactor: I feel so home in them.

Spectactor: I don’t.

Spectactor: What gaze am I adopting in here?

Spectactor: When humans die, our jaw tend to drop. It's because the body is trying to conserve energy.

Spectactor: That's not true. It's most likely because of lack of brain activity. It means vital functions have shut down.

Spectactor: I’m sorry, but this conversation makes me a little bit anxious.

Spectactor: Do you suffer from anxiety?

Spectactor: (Points at the soldier) Why is he holding a branch over his head?

Spectactor: Olives? Does he hold peace above his bodily existence?

Spectactor: Those are beech leaves. A symbol of his love for the Danish landscapes.

Spectactor: Why do I feel like we are just repeating the same conversation over and over?

Spectactor: A circular dramaturgy.

Spectactor: No catharsis.

Spectactor: What is catharsis?

Spectactor: The theatrical relief of a conflict.

Spectactor: I suffer from patriotism.

Spectactor: I benefit from patriotism.

Spectactor: In what ways?

Spectactor: Why do I feel like a character in a story we have all heard before?

Spectactor: Who wrote this story?

Spectactor: Who wrote that thing on the wall outside? Who wrote DANMARK? (Looks around at the others.) Was it any of you?

Spectactor: Sick of patriotism.

Spectactor: Sick of nationalism.

Spectactor: (Looks at the soldier with the face of Johan Thomas Lundbye). Why did he choose weapons over painting?

Spectactor: I guess he felt he had to do something.

Spectactor: Something real.

Spectactor: Denmark was very dear to him. You can see that clearly in his paintings. Look with what tenderness he painted his dear landscape. (Points to the Johan Thomas Lundbye painting of the cow).

Spectactor: It's not "his" landscape. The landscape doesn't belong to anyone.

Spectactor: The cow looks kind of depressed if you ask me.

Spectactor: The cow looks tokenized.

Spectactor: Don’t you think you’re projecting a bit?

Spectactor: I'm sure the cow wouldn't have agreed to become the front person of a nationalistic agenda if it had been able to speak for itself.

Spectactor: I'm sure the cow loved Denmark as much as Johan Thomas Lundbye did.

Spectactor: But the cow wasn't able to speak for itself.

Spectactor: The painter did a great job speaking on its behalf.

Spectactor: The cow was lucky to live its life in Denmark.

Spectactor: In the Danish countryside.

Spectactor: At a Danish farm.

Spectactor: The cow looks so sad.

Spectactor: Maybe the farmer just took its newborn calve away.

Spectactor: And it’s already pregnant again.

Spectactor: By insemination.

Spectactor: Against its will.

Spectactor: Sick of pesticides. Sick of monoculture.

Spectactor: This is perverted. Leave the cow alone. Stop talking about its will.

Spectactor: The cow is enjoying a day in the sun.

Spectactor: The Danish sun.

Spectactor: There’s a fence around the cow.

Spectactor: The fence is covered in plated gold. But it’s still a fence.

Spectactor: A happy Danish cow.

Spectactor: Are we watching the cow through the fence?

Spectactor: Stuck in the gaze of a patriot.

Spectactor: Release it.

Spectactor: From where did they get the gold?

Spectactor: Sick of colonialism.

Spectactor: What a lucky cow. I think it looks very content.

Spectactor: It looks depressed to me.

Spectactor: If the cow is depressed, it probably has good reasons.

Spectactor: Everyone in here who is not depressed, raise your hand.

Everyone in the room who is not depressed raises their hand. It's okay, we're all depressed. With good reason <3

Spectactor: All I know is that it creeps me out that just outside of this room, someone decided to write DANMARK in big capital letters on an 22-meter-long wall.

Spectactor: Who loves Denmark so much that they would do that?

Spectactor: Someone who would benefit from doing so.

Spectactor: I’m sorry, but you sound a bit paranoid. Are you sure it said DANMARK? And not for instance MAN-ART?

Spectactor: Sick of patriarchy.

Spectactor: I think it would have been very weird for anyone to write DANMARK like that. I mean, of course we’re in The National Gallery of Arts in Denmark, but I don’t think the gallery itself would write DANMARK in big letters like that. I mean, they can’t be that proud to be Danish that they would write it like that.

Spectactor: Wow. Did any of you think it was someone from the gallery that wrote it?

Spectactor: It is obviously not someone from the gallery who wrote it!

Spectactor: But how could anyone get away with writing such a statement on a public wall in here? Don't they have security cameras like everywhere?

Spectactor: You would think so.

Spectactor: And with the rise of nationalism in so many parts of the world...

Spectactor: Sick of double standards.

Spectactor: This is exactly the type of vandalism they should be keeping an eye out for.

Spectactor: I haven’t noticed any big letters on any wall. I have no idea what wall you keep referring to. Honestly, I think you're being paranoid.

Spectactor: I’m pretty sure it said DANMARK on the wall. In HUGE letters.

Spectactor: So maybe some hooligans broke in and sprayed the wall. I'm sure the gallery will take care of it as soon as they can.

Spectactor: They are most probably low on staff. All humanistic institutions suffer from cut downs these days.

Spectactor: The letters were not sprayed on. They were very neatly and precisely placed on the wall. And they are huge! I tell you. Huge!

Spectactor: Bigger than me?

Spectactor: Bigger than all of us together?

Spectactor: Sick of nationalistic, white, male propaganda.

Spectactor: Where did you see this assumed vandalism? Exactly?

Spectactor: Nowhere, it's simply in my head.

Spectactor: DANMARK is in your head?

Spectactor: It's in my head and it makes me sick.

Spectactor: (Points to the Johan Thomas Lundbye painting) That cow is not real.

Spectactor: Now I'm confused. What are we talking about?

Spectactor: (Points at the soldier.) I don't recall seeing that soldier before?

Spectactor: What soldier?

Spectactor: The soldier in my head.

Spectactor: The soldier is real.

Spectactor: So are the letters on the wall.

Spectactor: What wall?

Spectactor: Sick of borders.

Spectactor: The borders are not real.

Spectactor: The passports are not real.

Spectactor: Johan Thomas Lundbye was very proud to be Danish, of course we should honor him at The National Gallery of Arts in Denmark with a beautiful white plaster statue. I mean, he was both a painter of national landscape and a warrior of national territory and some might say that these two sides of the same man melted perfectly together in his death.

Spectactor: In one hand I hold the beech branch, symbolizing my love for the Danish landscape, in the other, I hold the weapon with which I will kill for my right to call it mine.

Spectactor: Now you're creeping me out.

Spectactor: It was in the script.

Spectactor: Just because it's scripted, doesn't make it harmless. You're not a hollow body without will. You can decide what words to take in your mouth and what to skip.

Spectactor: We're all responsible for the wellbeing of each other here.

Spectactor: I'm only responsible for the wellbeing of some of you.

Spectactor: What about those outside of this room? Those that may be listening to the echoes of our voices.

Spectactor: I care about you. Even though I can't see you.

Spectactor: I care about you. Even though I can't hear you.

Spectactor: I care about you. Even though I can't see you.

Spectactor: I care about you. Even though I can't hear you.

Spectactor: Your voice is real.

Spectactor: My voice is real.

Spectactor: Your voice is real.

Spectactor: My voice is real.

Spectactor: Your voice is real.

Spectactor: Is my voice real?

Spectactor: Is your voice real?

Spectactor: Does my voice begin in my body and end in yours?

Spectactor: Does your voice begin in your body and end in mine?

Spectactor: Does my voice begin in my body and end in yours?

Spectactor: Does your voice begin in your body and end in mine?

Spectactor: Or do my voice end in my body and begin in yours?

Spectactor: Do your voice end in your body and begin in mine?

Spectactor: Does my voice begin in your body?

Spectactor: Does your voice begin in my body?

Spectactor: Do I begin in you?

Spectactor: Do you begin in me?

Spectactor: Do I begin in you?

Spectactor: Do you begin in me?

Spectactor: Do I begin in you?

Spectactor: Do you begin in me?

Each of the spectactors takes a deep breath in and begins to hum. They hum for as long or as short as they want, in any tone they want, as high or as low as they want. A delta of voices.

Spectactor: (Points to the white human sized plaster statue.) I think he could have benefitted from some care.

Spectactor: Times were different.

Spectactor: He was sick. He was obviously a sick man.

Spectactor: He was a genius. An artist without comparison.

Spectactor: He was a true patriot! And the gallery does right by honoring his death like this. After all this is the National Gallery of DANMARK.

Spectactor: In one hand I hold the beech branch, symbolizing my love for the Danish landscape, in the other, I hold the weapon with which I will kill for my right to call it mine.

Spectactor: How do you break a circular narrative? I feel like we’re stuck in a loop.

Spectactor: The cow, the painter, and the soldier.

Spectactor: And the ghosts.

Spectactor: Am I the only one who feels like there isn't really so much oxygen in here?

Spectactor: The ghosts are taking up all the oxygen.

Spectactor: Which ghosts?

Spectactor: I feel dizzy.

Spectactor: I feel sick!

Spectactor: There are medical solutions to what you're feeling right now...

Spectactor: Umm... Just outside this room, there’s a 22-meter-long wall on which someone has been able to write DANMARK in huge letters!

Spectactor: Why would anyone do that?

Spectactor: I would like to leave this story now.

Spectactor: How?

Spectactor: We can’t leave it.

Spectactor: But we can rewrite it from within.

Spectactor: I am very comfortable in this story. I think I’m gonna repeat it.

Spectactor: We are all rewriting it every moment.

Spectactor: Stories are being written every moment through our bodies.

Spectactor: We linger in each other.

Spectactor: Let's rewrite it.

Spectactor: What are we waiting for?

Spectactor: Each other?

Spectactor: Let's write a story of reparation and care.

Spectactor: We are the ghosts of the future.

Spectactor: Wait.

Spectactor: What?

Spectactor: I'm not ready.

Spectactor: What do you mean?

Spectactor: I just love the paintings in here so much. They make me feel like I belong. Like I have a special place in here, because of my Danish citizenship. I am entitled to more care, more space, to be seen more than others, to be heard more than others. I don’t think I am ready to give up that narrative.

Spectactor: I just love how nature is being valued in these paintings.

Spectactor: Well, as it is now, this story makes me sick.

Spectactor: What do you mean?