WONDERLAND JUNGLE I
dreams, matches, grass seed, polder taxes, Delft, parking lot

‘Would you be able to cope with a six-course meal?’
‘That depends on the quality of the food and the quantity of each course.’
‘The wine list looks terrific.’
‘If you’re really convinced that what you think is right and someone else is able to demonstrate that you’re wrong, you’re tempted to believe in that person’s theory.’
‘Theory or Person?’
‘If a person is able to demonstrate that your theory is incorrect, it doesn’t necessarily mean that his theory is right. That is what you hinted at last time.’
‘I’m afraid I do not quite remember…’
‘You were bewildered, because he pushed everything you said aside. That doesn’t mean that what he said is true.’
‘He?’
‘As long as you don’t think the other is right.’
‘Memory doesn’t work in a linear way; it’s not only based on actually lived experiences, it can also be open to hypothetical experiences.’
‘A glass of Chardonnay?’
‘Yes, that’s allowed.’
‘Let me put it differently. You do something which results in A.
To explain that A is the result of your action, you adopt a certain theory.’
‘What did I have last time?’
‘A mixed marriage between a wood pigeon and a quail?’
‘I do understand when you say that past experiences essentially determine the way you experience things, the way you hear or read things.’
‘Blurting out abstract texts leads to nothing.’
‘This is going to be science.’
‘I have a talent for both science and the humanities’
‘That is brilliant.’
‘Please top it up.’
‘Okay, I observe that the notion of the image loses its meaning. We can no longer use photographs as the ultimate proof, since every image can easily be manipulated.’
‘A collection of photos of towers, for instance, could easily be assembled with the image manipulation programme on a computer.’
‘That’s very likely.’
‘One of the basic ideas is that we live in an over-visual society and that we will eventually reject the image. That would be a bit odd, since the world will still exist in images.’
‘There seems to be a contradiction between the idea that the image loses its meaning and the fact that images will continue to exist, albeit with a different value attached to them. ’
‘Suppose you accept that condition, would you consider it to be negative or positive?’
‘I’m inclined to say a nice chaos.’
‘I love it. It cheers me up immensely.’
‘But you could also say that it leads to the world falling apart.’
‘That isn’t true either.’
‘You think too one-dimensionally. You disregard the potential of us humans.’
‘The visual is a hundred times easier to grasp than the textual for many people.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Yes. One image says more than 3 pages of text. That won’t change. The only thing that will change is that, because of manipulation, people will question the authenticity of an image. People are very unlikely to abandon their traditional attitude because of a possible manipulation. If you see a manipulated image, you will probably be able to recognise it as such.’
‘The people portrayed in the first photographs had to stay immobile for 10 minutes. You can call that manipulation as well.’
‘It wasn’t unusual in the USSR – when necessary – to remove a persona non grata from a picture completely.’
‘When people accept the fact that images can be manipulated, it doesn’t mean that they will distrust every image.’
‘Nowadays everyone has a camera, a video camera and a computer.’
‘I don’t.’
‘But you’re a little retarded, aren’t you?’
‘All right, I’m retarded. I don’t have a video camera, and I don’t want one. I only make snapshots.’
‘Usually I prefer coffee after dinner.’
‘I’d like a cappuccino.’
‘Another example, ask a hundred people to go and see a movie and ask them afterwards what they have seen. Will you get a hundred different answers?’
‘You mean a Gauss curve.’
‘A what?’
‘A Gauss curve. You don’t know the principle of the Gauss curve? Give me a pen.’
‘This here is the y axis, this here the x axis, this is the Gauss curve. It looks like a traditional bowler hat. In whatever you measure, strength, intelligence, movement, the results will always be a Gauss curve. There’s a small group of people on the one hand that stands aside, a large average group, and a small group that stands aside on the other.’
‘Send a hundred people to the cinema. The largest section will have seen the same thing, but a small group will say “Oh no, it was about Hitler”, while another small group will say “Oh no, it was all about Shirley Temple.” Whatever kind of research you conduct in physics, the result will always be a Gauss curve.’
‘You seem bewildered. Never heard of the Gauss curve?’
‘The law of mediocrity.’
‘We’re not talking about quality here.’
‘No, only about the Gauss curve’s principle.’
‘A bowler hat, nothing underneath it, nothing around it.’

WONDERLAND JUNGLE II
traffic jam, fog, may flowers, hot chocolate, a missed junction, having a rest

‘Do you always get so wound up about those lousy newspaper articles?’
‘That sounds a bit general and vague.’
‘You certainly are tiring.’
‘What do you mean exactly?’
‘Commentaries, reviews and the like.’
‘Shall we decide not to talk about quality in this conversation?’
‘Huh?’
‘Aren’t we allowed to snap at all those second rate journalists for once?’
‘I do have another appointment later on.’
‘Okay, granted.’
‘In my opinion there’s a discrepancy between the time you spend on something and the level of your appreciation.’
‘That seems a little obvious.’
‘I recently spoke with an author about the difference between the word and the image.’
‘Tut, tut.’
‘He stated that the Internet reveals a common practice with images. You download them one after the other, copy them and then you can do whatever you like with them. It is that easy. Language however doesn’t allow you that freedom. You cannot copy endlessly in language. It takes at least three pages to establish your own signature.’
‘One picture says more that 30 pages of text.’
‘The word is considered to be more threatening than the image.’
‘What you’re saying is that the image as such has never been taken as seriously or has never been considered as interesting as language. You seem to be able to do with it whatever you want.’
‘Especially since it has always been possible to manipulate the image.’
‘Really…’
‘From the devils of Hieronymus Bosch to lousy computer manipulations.’
‘Salman Rushdie was convicted because of his book… Convicted because of his words.’
‘Could images lead to a conviction?’
‘This is quite contradictory. We all know that one image says more than a thousand pages. If you were to describe the Mona Lisa, an entire book wouldn’t suffice. But what you have is only one image. And yet…’
‘Any idea what lies behind it?’
“Maybe because images have been prohibited by religion since the beginning of time.’
‘What religion?’
‘It was prohibited to depict anything, be it human or god. Maybe because this has always been a common rule, trespassing these rules seems to be taken less seriously nowadays. Books were always burnt. Painters….’
‘Iconoclasm?’
‘Icons. Yes, but the icons burnt. Writers are prosecuted. I cannot recollect any painter that was prosecuted. For one reason or another dictators always fear the written word more than the image.’
‘But at the same time, an image is considered to be more powerful. That is the contradiction.’
‘What a lack of power for the artist.’
‘Yes, you’re right.’
‘Do you experience that when you visit a museum?’
‘No, that’s the strange thing.’
‘I keep on walking on until I come across an artwork, that for one reason or another, urges me to stop.’
‘And what happens next?’
‘I look at it.’
‘How long do you look at it?’
‘5 or 10 minutes, it could be half an hour.’
‘I never last that long. I have tried to time myself and I have never lasted longer than 30 seconds on average.’
‘There are art works you can watch for quite a while.’
‘Rembrandt’s self-portrait in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.’
‘Beautiful.’
‘I could look at that forever.’
‘I can’t. I could look at it often, there’s the difference.’
‘Therefore I like benches in museums.’
‘Every time I see such a work, I discover something different.’
‘Half an hour…’
‘No, I often find an artwork too harsh. Art is a crude method of expression. There’s no time in art.’
‘Literature is first and foremost linked to time.’
‘That’s the absurdity. It takes a painter two years to finish a painting. It takes me a minute at the most to look at that painting. When a writer needs two years to finish a book, it could take me six hours to read it.’
‘And then what?”
‘And subsequently I think it’s a wonderful book.’
‘But it is very unlikely that you will soon re-read it.’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘That same painting, you could go and watch another 20 times.’
‘Is that the shopkeeper in you talking?’
‘20 times 1 minute adds up to nothing more than 20 minutes. Six hours dedicated to a book, is 6 x 60 minutes making 360.’
‘It seems a prerequisite that the artist deals with time in such a way that he engages your attention as long as possible.’
‘Can’t we just gossip about that tedious article on the latest trends in art that was in last week’s newspaper?’
‘I’m afraid I’m rather strict today.’
‘You’re always quite strict.’
‘A writer produces a book that is published. To discover whether I can appreciate the book, I spend, let’s say, two hours.’
‘How much time do you spend watching the artwork that hangs on your living room wall?’
‘Visual art is harsher than literature.’
‘I think it is harsher. It’s just like holidays. Only so many weeks off a year, so much money and especially so much time. Three weeks in Tunisia. Even if it were the worst holiday ever, I would still say it was wonderful. Because I don’t want to admit I’ve spent so much of my valuable time and money on something that wasn’t worth it.’
‘Status?’
‘When I read a book to its last page, it’s unlikely for me to say I was bored stiff. That doesn’t go for the art work, because relatively speaking I haven’t spent time and energy on it.’
‘It seems as if you mistake the amount of time spent on something for the quality of it.’
‘I’m only discussing the discrepancy that seems to exist between the time spent on something and the level of appreciation.’
‘More time does not necessarily mean better appreciation.’
‘Too difficult.’
‘Forced by time.’
‘We’re not discussing quality.’
‘Oh no, only the Gauss curve principle.’
‘A bowler hat, nothing underneath it, nothing around it.’