The Las Vegas Project
by Stephan Doesinger

Images

"When two mirrors look at each other, Satan plays his favorite game and opens perspective to infinity". - Walter Benjamin

Tarkovski meets Schönberg it is late afternoon in Las Vegas. The diner is sprinkled with tourists and the mood is as relaxed as if Barry Manilow
had just left the building. It is that time of day that creates a balance between the fading light of the sun and the awakening lights of the strip.
Harsh daylight is supported at first by the gently glimmering electric light, only to be eclipsed by it a few minutes later. The two forces merge like a straight hit in the face by Mike Tyson filmed in slow-motion - one ends up seeing stars in either event. The whole process
takes only a few minutes in the early evening, but creates an intense spectacle that turns Las Vegas into a spiritual place. Yes, spiritual!
Sim-Vegas, as moaners sometimes call it, becomes a cathedral of light - that merges with heaven. At this point it becomes a favorite hang-out-place for descending angels...

T: "It`s remarkable! - Did you ever notice that the “stage design” of New York in Las Vegas never had any Twin Towers?"
S: "No! But I also did some stage designs..."
T: "Hold on! - In Las Vegas the twin towers were never there! They were forgotten about! ...as if they knew".
(He gazes out of the window)
"What would they have done, if they had ever built it? In my films I have tried to to put
together moments of absence in order to make memories become present. Some of my critics called that spiritual - as if they knew!"
(Kippenberger enters the place and walks straight to the toilet)
S: "Ah,... spiritual...!"
(looks around)
(A strange crowd of amongst other things artists, musicians, philosophers and pop-stars, as well as the usual tourists are silently entering and leaving
the place...)
T: "Just remember, when we saw those compositions in your friend Wassily Kandinsky's hotel lobby. He thinks that they are more interesting than his
impressions or his improvisations. I don`t agree with that. How can we ever
resist the life, the passion and the possibilities that a rough scetch contains? Don`t get me wrong, though, I love his compositions, but sometimes
they appear to me as if they were dead - finished! The process is over - it`s like a castration... by the way will he join us today?"
S: "No, I don`t think so - he got stuck in what he calls `the blue` - but go ahead!"
T: "Well, let`s face it - spirituality is a ruin itself..."
(A Barbie-look-a-like waitress appears and takes the men's order, comprising
coffee and water for
Schönberg and a tuna sandwich and a beer for Tarkowski.)
T: (continues) "...but you know, I do love ruins! To make a film is to construct ruins, to fill gaps, to create contradictions, to create new questions... just look out of the window...!
(The light outside is getting more and more dramatic, but a competing image is a mirage in the window - the interior of the diner reflected in the glass.)
You know, my friend I love these ruins of light. I really do. Each successive frame of a film strip contains one ruin after another.
(He speaks slowly now.)
You`ll always remember the light of a film."
S: "True, but how can one construct a ruin? And by that I mean neither the romantic ideas of the English gardens from the 18th century, nor the
political circumstances that lead to the destruction of buildings...!"
(In the background, Kippenberger appears again, takes his place at the next
table and, without even looking at the waitress, orders a drink called `white russian`. His eyes are fixed on the guy next to him, who is continuously twisting and turning two knobs on the top of his table. Some of the tables in the diner are equipped with those "Etch-A-Sketch" drawing
boards in order to keep amused those cutomers who are either bored or have
run out of coins for the gaming machines...)
T: "Well, a ruin is a building that is about to be built, at least in one's memory or imagination! A ruin is a physical manifestation of either the past decay or the new life of a building. The crucial question is whether one had been there in the building's early days. If not, the reconstruction of the building in one's mind might lead one to a quite different building from the
original. The relation beween architecture and film can be described in terms of film being a series of spaces in time, through the movement, and so
on (he makes wave-like gestures with his hands as if to emphasise the point) and architecture being time set in spaces, as illustrated by the
memory of the person who engraved the stones."
S: "Ha, that would mean that a ruin was a building that couldn`t bear the weight of those engravings and was destined finally to collapse..."
T: "Maybe..."
(Kippenberger now talks to the guy next to him and offers him a drink.)
... "Let's just compare it with a paper bag. You can blow it up either inside out or outside in, one way or the other. (He takes a burger bag and demonstrates).
You could call that process decay, collapse or even sometimes construction."
(In the meanwhile Jeff Koons poodle is discussing the decoration in the bar with the bartender. He has brought a silver blow-up-bone with him in a large bag).
S: "Improvisation is merely an accelerated form of
composition...and composition means construction...!"
T: "What do you mean by that?"
S: "Well, that`s not so important. Let's get back to this
ongoing discussion on the inside and the outside, though."
(While he is speaking, Barbie returns with the order.)
T: (continues) "Do you remember the remains of the ruin of the cathedral in
Nostalghia?"
(S: agrees with a silent gesture) "We are all living on the
outer of a cold sphere, which in turn is surrounded by a cold, empty and silent space. If we agree on the fact that we live in an outside world that in turn contains inside worlds then I would propose to introduce a new definition of `inside` and `outside`”.
S: "Hmm, interesting - go on!"
T: "Well, if we accept the fact that everything around us is a process, why shouldn`t that also apply to the terms `inside` and `outside`? Assuming
those terms are also `in the flow`, we would essentially discussing something relative rather than fixed. Thus, the terms I have in mind are
`attached` or `detached`, or in other words a spectrum or continuum from on the one hand the attached space, through the not so attached, the not-anymore or soon-to-be-attached space to on the other hand, the detached space, something forgotten, empty..."
S: "Well that's a bit vague, isn`t it?"
T: "No, it`s not! I guess there is no need to tell you about Moebius` strip...
It is actually a more concise model than the traditional view of `inside/outside`, which just describes things in a black and white manner. Obviously a prisoner is inside a building. But the prison is abuilding which
is a manifesto for the outside, since its function is to keep certain people outside from
society.. Which sense does it make to say that Las Vegas has an `inside` and an `outside` only because you pass a door or a gate? Doesn`t the strip,
which is outside, appear exactly the same as the casino's interior does? When does the exact moment occur in which you enter a new space and leave another one behind?
What does it mean to be `inside` a city? “
`Inside` and `outside` are empty terms that don´t explain nothing! All that there is in reality, is a vague memory of an inside which we have lost
irreversibly.
(At this moment, Michel Houellebequ takes place at the bar and watches the waitress's every move.)
The concept is based on the idea of gravities - you enter a field of gravity that merges with the forces of other gravity fields and as you move you get
closer to or further apart from one field or the other.
(Kippenberger's opposite is still drawing on th Etch-a-Sketch machine.)
The concept I propose, allows us o define spaces in terms of emotion and memory and allows us to create new spaces within the outside world. It also
allows us to expand various
dimensions."
(Koon's bone is now almost completly filled with air and is on the point of
bursting. The people around it feel uncomfortable and move away. The noise of moving chairs fills the room).
S: "Well, that's still too abstract for me now... I am getting tired."
(Josef Beuys now passes by, smiles and says "Hi" - then walks quickly out of the building).
T: "Hi."
(...and turns back to S again)
"What a surprise! I met him in New York in 1974, a couple of years before I did the film
Stalker. It was the first time he had ever visited America. He eventually created an art-action entitled "I like America and America likes me."
S:"I must have missed that!"
T: "When he arrived he was blindfolded. Then, he was taken to an enclosed room where he would spend the next 10 days and nights with a wild coyote."
S:"Hmm..."
T: "Beuys and the coyote had to become closer to one another, to reduce their fears face to face, to accept each other, define their spaces and pick up each others energies - the gravity between them - I guess."
(Kippenberger and his new friend are now fairly drunk. They start singing
and then leave the diner).
S:" Let's continue tomorrow, time is running short."
(He puts down some coins and gets up. The place empties. On their way out, Tarkovski stops at the table where Kippenberger and this other guy had been sitting. Tarkowski looks at the drawing of a womans face that was left on the table).
T:"That`s it! That`s the house I want to live in!"
S: "What do you mean by that?!"
T: "It`s like a path to a place called `home`.
A fading line upon the remains of the same line that can`t be interrupted.
(His finger traces a line along the drawing). Just imagine! We`d stroll along this line.
As facts create time, we'd continue on our way.
A house without a site would emerge... as a transition of spaces."
(He traces a section on the drawing's line).
We`d stop and look around.
We`d will always remember the light of THIS space.
(He traces another section, and another, and another)
- But now, let`s go, the sun is dangerously low...!"

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