beyond identity i

On 17 January, 2011 the Danish-based art corpo-ration Das Beckwerk was closed down. This was the end of one of the most influential Scandinavian art groups of the first decade in the new millennium.

Through countless works – exhibitions, books, videos, performances, documentaries, concerts, a court case and interventions in Iraq, Iran, the US, Egypt and Afghanistan – Das Beckwerk attracted great attention and has been an inspiration for a new generation of artists and authors all over Scandinavia.

It all began in 2001 when author, artist, performer, musician and human being etc. Claus Beck-Nielsen was declared dead. In 2002 Das Beckwerk was estab-lished in his name. The nameless body left behind by Claus Beck-Nielsen was appointed director of, and subject for experimentation in, the corporation. Between 2002 and 2010 Das Beckwerk conducted a lengthy series of experiments with this nameless body, attempts to take human life beyond identi-ties and open up new ways of being a human being.

At the end of the decade Das Beckwerk decided to conclude the work and open out into the future through the final event Funus Imaginarium - the Death of Identity and the State Citizen, which took place in Copenhagen in the autumn of 2010 with satellites worldwide in Cairo, Beijing and Herning.

Beyond Identity is an attempt to bring together the entire story – from the declaration of death to the very end – in one epic sequence of pictures, docu-ments, essays, drafts, diary entries and reports from

the struggle with the state powers.

9 7 8 8 7 9 2 5 9 6 8 5 7

ISBN 978-87-92596-85-7isbn 978-87-92596-85-7

Das Beckwerk &

Funus Imaginarium

rygg: 18 mm

das beckwerk museum

Das Beckwerk & Funus Imaginarium

OMSLAG-Beyond Identity Bind I 23 mm rygg.indd 1-3 17.11.11 15:28

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Los AngeLes

wAshington, dcnew york

beyond-identity-BIND-I 128 sider 3.indd 2 30.11.11 17:02

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routes And LocAtions of Das Beckwerk 2002–2011

London

copenhAgenherning

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berLinhAmburg

viennA

stockhoLmheLsinki

beijing

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tehrAnqombAgdAd

AmmAn

cAirobAsrA

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AmArAhisfAhAnyAzd

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hong kong

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das beckwerk & the Death of Identity


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I n the era of gLobaLisation when the movement of people across borders is greater than ever before in history, the concept of identity – personal, national, cultural, religious, ethnic etc. – has

become more and more problematic. For this reason the corporation Das Beckwerk in the year 2002 mounted a utopian project with the aim of seeking out new forms for human existence beyond identity and citizenship. In 2001 the author, artist, performer, musician and human being etc. Claus Beck-Nielsen was declared dead. In 2002 the enterprise Das Beckwerk was established in his name. The nameless body left behind by the death of Claus Beck-Nielsen was engaged as the director of, and subject for experiments in, the company. In the years 2002–2010 Das Beckwerk conducted a long series of experiments with this nameless body, attempts to bring human life beyond identities and open to a whole new way of being a human being.


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only six days after the burial representatives of the Centre for Cemeteries dug up from consecrated ground the coffin with the dead body of Claus Beck-Nielsen. In Beijing the Chinese authorities withheld the case with the plaster effigy in customs for several months after the deathbed was to have taken place; and in Cairo the Egyptian national security service intervened, and the story developed into a new Mohammed Crisis.

*

The book Beyond Identity is an attempt to bring together once and for all the entire story – from the declaration of death in 2001 through the ten-year-long series of experiments with identity leading up to Funus Imaginarium – in one epic sequence in which pictures, documents, es-says, drafts and diary entries will be of equal importance. The book will offer a hitherto unseen overview of the work of the company and will give access to a great deal of material which has not previously been presented to the public, from private records to the most recent pic-tures and reports from the struggle with the state powers.

The book is divided into three parts:

i. beyond identity – attemPts 2001–2010: Examples of Das Beckwerk’s many attempts to create new forms of human existence be-yond identity and citizenship.

ii . the ProbLem and the soLution: What is required – what common ritual is necessary – to transform the death of the individual into an experience which is shared by the entire society and, in prin-ciple, all of humanity? And the solution which history offers us: funus imaginarium, the figurative burial.

iii. funus imaginarium of cLaus beck-nieLsen, identity and the state citizen: The transformation of a Roman ritual into a global event anno 2010 with its centre in Copenhagen and satellites worldwide in Cairo, Beijing and Herning. The story about a radical event and the intervention of the state powers in Denmark, China and Egypt.


Beyond Identity attempts 2001–2010I.


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The Anonymous Man with the Famous FaceHannover / Niedersachsen (1995–2001)

the LethaL cLaus nieLsen was in reality not the first doppelgänger in Claus Beck-Niels-en’s life. Already from 1995 he had led another hitherto relatively unknown dual existence: a quite ordinary life as an author with a wife and later a child in Denmark and at the same time a completely different one in Germany

with a completely different face, now that of a deceased man. As “the man with the famous face” he showed up in the years leading up to, and culminating in, Expo 2000 with all the most important people in the German state of Niedersachsen and had himself photo-graphed with them.


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Borrowing a Foreign Identity c/o Per Aage Brandt (2001–02)

Information (daily newspaper), 1 March 2001

P. Aa. Brandt in his home in Copenhagen, February 2001


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foLLowing cLaus beck-nieLsen’s death the now nameless body took over Profes-sor and Semiotician, Per Aage Brandt’s life. While Brandt himself was visiting profes-sor at Stanford University in California, the

nameless one lived in Per Aage Brandt’s apartment, wore his clothes, opened his post, answered his mails, ate his food, breathed his air, dreamed his dreams and even cast Profes-sor Brandt’s vote in the local council elections.

Information, 12 April 2002

April 2002.


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The Return of the Evil One as Goodness Itself www.binnielsen.com (2002–)

in Late 2002 suddenly appeared a home-page on the Internet with the domain name of binnielsen.com. The homepage was simple, almost primitive. It consisted of a picture and nine videos of varying duration. The vid-eos all showed the same static image: On an

oriental-looking cushion on the floor in what resembles a cave or a cellar underneath a con-crete complex on the outskirts of a metropo-lis, a thin man in a long white tunic and black military boots is sitting. He is unshaven and long-haired and sits in a relaxed pose, staring


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steadily into the camera with an intense gaze while he addresses the world. His name is probably bin Nielsen, and he appears as the other side of bin Laden, his white twin, a kind of saviour figure of Democracy or, “The Re-turn of the Evil One as Goodness Itself,” as it says across the opening page. The speeches he delivers are close to being actual bin Laden speeches, translated from Arabic into Dan-ish. But through small alterations in the text the speaker is transformed from being the “so-called democratic” world’s enemy number one to being its prophet, though, it is worth noting, a radical prophet who speaks uncom-promisingly for the radical, “the total democracy”.

“We does not accept halfway democracy. We wants to go the whole way. And we will not let ourselves be represent by anybod-ies, we wants to go all the way ourselves. We declares the total democracy. We desires the total, real, true democracy, where everybody take responsibilities, where everyone speak their own minds, where every human being think, vote and act uncorrupted and with full responsibilities.”

Thus bin Nielsen speaks on “The bin-Nielsen Tapes No. 9”. And on Tape 8 we hear as follows:

“You believes you has democracy just because you has the right to say what you wants. But democracy are not the right to speak and the right to vote and the right to apply for a job and live where you wants. Democracy are to speak, to vote, to act. Democracy are not a principle, democracy are not a right, de-mocracy are a way of life.”

Bin Nielsen is not speaking on his own behalf, he never says I, but always we. And it is not “we Danes”, or “we Muslims”, or “we democrats”, but simply “we down here”, i.e. the lowest, those who, in utterly concrete terms, find themselves beneath the society of the world, in the cellar or the cave. Bin Nielsen never achieved his breakthrough in the old media, such as newspapers or television, but in the space of a short time he acquired a broad spectrum of young people who followed him, among them the so-called ‘second generation immigrants’ in the Internet cafés in the Nørrebro district of Copenhagen where they were often to be seen lumped together in front of the screens in wonder and jubilation.


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The Future World CitizenNielsen in Iraq, USA, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere …

Cairo, Egypt, 2010


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Funus Imaginarium of Claus Beck-Nielsen, Identity & the State Citizen

III.


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from 30th sePtember, 2010 and 107 days following, Das Beckwerk transformed the Roman ritual into a global event anno 2010 with its cen-tre in Copenhagen: the death of the identity and the state citizen. This piece of world history should, according to plan, be played out in five acts:

1. ThE dEAThBEd In the building erected on Dante’s Square outside the Glyptotek Thursday 30th September-Thursday 7th October, 2010.

2. ThE FuNERAL CoRTègE Through the streets of Copenhagen

Saturday 9th October, 2010

3. ThE BuRIAL Assistens Cemetery Saturday 9th October, 2010

4. ThE huNdREd dAyS oF mouRNINg 100 days when the world would have time to reflect on the consequences of taking leave of the state citizen and personal identity. 9th October, 2010–17th January, 2011


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5. ThE gLoBAL EvENT Synchronized deathbeds in other parts of the globe September 2010 – ∞

As Claus Beck-Nielsen’s death should not be regarded as something unique, but, on the contrary, as the farewell of humanity and the world community to identity and state citizenship, the seven-day deathbed should not only take place in Copenhagen, but simultane-ously in other cities around the whole world. Three plaster copies of the original effigy were sent as cargo to Cairo, Beijing and Herning. In these cities the effigies should lie on public deathbeds, synchro-nized with the deathbed in Copenhagen. And on computers and mobile telephones around the globe people would be able to follow the events in Copenhagen, via live-streaming: the deathbed, funeral cortège and burial.


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at midday

the Procession arrived at Assistens

Cemetery. The six pall-bearers removed the coffin

from the hearse and carried it the remaining few hundred

metres to the grave. The coffin was lowered into the grave, and Pastor Erik

Bock performed the burial ritual: the bless-ing, the Lord’s Prayer and the casting of earth.

3.The Burial


Das Beckwerk (2002–2011)

www.dasbeckwerk.com

In the year 2001 the Danish state citi-zen, author, artist, performer, musician and human being etc., Claus Beck-Nielsen was declared dead. In 2002 the corporation Das Beckwerk was established in his name. Das Beckwerk (2002–2011) was a trans-national enterprise which had the globalised world-stage as its target and audience. Through the staging of world politics, public spaces and media, Das Beckwerk attempted to create an active connection between the individual world citizen and contemporary world history. Thus Das Beckwerk created stories concerning the hopeless, but neces-sary, attempt to intervene daily in world histo-ry. These stories took the form of walks, serial photography, video sequences, novels, per-formances, operas, installations, revolutions and other historical events. Stories about the common man and his heroic attempt to influ-ence the creation of world history. On 17th January, 2011 – at the end of the 100 days of mourning following the burial of Claus Beck-Nielsen, identity and the state cit-izen – the board of directors announced the closure of Das Beckwerk.


On 17 January, 2011 the Danish-based art corpo-ration Das Beckwerk was closed down. This was the end of one of the most influential Scandinavian art groups of the first decade in the new millennium.

Through countless works – exhibitions, books, videos, performances, documentaries, concerts, a court case and interventions in Iraq, Iran, the US, Egypt and Afghanistan – Das Beckwerk attracted great attention and has been an inspiration for a new generation of artists and authors all over Scandinavia.

It all began in 2001 when author, artist, performer, musician and human being etc. Claus Beck-Nielsen was declared dead. In 2002 Das Beckwerk was estab-lished in his name. The nameless body left behind by Claus Beck-Nielsen was appointed director of, and subject for experimentation in, the corporation. Between 2002 and 2010 Das Beckwerk conducted a lengthy series of experiments with this nameless body, attempts to take human life beyond identi-ties and open up new ways of being a human being.

At the end of the decade Das Beckwerk decided to conclude the work and open out into the future through the final event Funus Imaginarium - the Death of Identity and the State Citizen, which took place in Copenhagen in the autumn of 2010 with satellites worldwide in Cairo, Beijing and Herning.

Beyond Identity is an attempt to bring together the entire story – from the declaration of death to the very end – in one epic sequence of pictures, docu-ments, essays, drafts, diary entries and reports from

the struggle with the state powers.

9 7 8 8 7 9 2 5 9 6 8 5 7

ISBN 978-87-92596-85-7isbn 978-87-92596-85-7

Das Beckwerk &

Funus Imaginarium

rygg: 18 mm

das beckwerk museum

Das Beckwerk & Funus Imaginarium

OMSLAG-Beyond Identity Bind I 23 mm rygg.indd 1-3 17.11.11 15:28

beyond identity i

Documents