The risk is possible, yet the pleasure is certain.

P. Kondylis

I. POST PRODUCTION

In which a tobacco-loving subject observes the social history of a plant (Nicotiana tabacum), which was a definitive element of modernity, for twenty-five consecutive years (1985-2011), a quarter of a century. An image cultivator, he draws up lists of smokers, dead or alive, a purist sculptor, a commentator, a chronicler, and a bricoleur. His theoretical approaches, which are not characterized by abstraction or any special fondness for objectivity, are essentially just theories, duty-bound relationships that have developed gradually, using tobacco as a principal raw material, not only in the agricultural and industrial sense but also in a communicative, site-specific manner.       

ΙΙ. SMOKERS’ ROOM – TOBACCO ARCHIVES

The configuration is as follows: a general area (a general tobacco area) is defined, which consists of two subareas: (1) the Smokehouse as a vacant space, a sort of a no man’s land, no man’s time, and (2) the Archive as a hypomnesic locus. The first aim is to open up a field of possibilities for organizing familiar experience (history-intellectuality), a terminal station with multiple connections and new interpretations. The second aim is to create a public sphere for discourse and action, a sphere where smoking is openly allowed, providing seamless visibility to smokers and casting a positive light on the smoking heads, in spite of their negative social constructions.

ΙΙΙ. VIDEO 1: WALK

The visualization of the historical realm of tobacco cultivation coincides with a walk in a serially planted tobacco field (which thus turns into a Cartesian plane); the ramble, the deviation from the path, the overstepping of geometry, amounts to a philosophical peripatetic stance, a meditation, a prayer, an analogy to Being-in-the-world (M. Heidegger).

IV. VIDEO 2: COMO HUMO SE VA (Detemporalization)

Weaving and interweaving two cinematic times, a shot from the Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang, 1960) and a shot from a video piece from 2011, this video attempts, in a film noir setting, a paradoxical discussion amid clouds of smoke.

V. SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, and May Complicate Pregnancy (The Political Issue of Tobacco Control)

The Tobacco Area project is not a ‘harmonious terrain’. It is a competitive move towards urban planning. It is a field where political science, art, and architecture meet. The binary opposition between smokers and non-smokers is anchored in the distinction between us and them, between friends and enemies (C. Schmitt). It is a form of opposition to the fantasy for a uniform urban space, objecting to both the dictates of urbanization, beautification, and utilitarianism and a false morality that is against pleasures. After the passing of the Tobacco Control Law in 2008, the biggest risk is no longer the usurpation-occupation of space by the smoker’s-opponent’s puffs but the appropriation of the intimacy of public space through ownership-establishing legislation, through a neoliberal policy that hovers between morality and economy.

VI. “Erlaubliche Gedanken eines Tobackrauchers” (Enlightening Thoughts of a Tobacco Smoker) BWV 515a, a song written by Gottfried Heinrich Bach (1723).

So oft ich meine. Tobackpfeife,
Mit gutem Knaster angefüllt, Zur
Lust und Zeitvertreib ergreife, So
gibt sie mir ein Trauerbild Und
füget diese Lehre bei, DaS ich
derselben ahnilich sei.

Wenn nun die Pfeife angezündet, So
sieht man, wie im Augenblick Der
Rauch in freier Luft verschwindet,
Nichts als die Asche bleibt zurück. So
wind des Menschen Ruhm verzend
Und dessen Leib in Staub verkehrt.

Wie oft gerschieh’s nicht bei dem Rauchen,
DaB, wenn der Stopfer nicht zur Hand, Man
pfiegt den Finger zu gebrauchen. Dann
denk ich, wenn ich mich verbrannt: O,
macht die Kohle solche Pein, Wie heifi mag
erst die Holle sein?

Ich kann bei so gestalten Sachen Mir
bei dem Toback jederzeit Erbauliche
Gedanken machen. Drum schmauch
ich voll Zufriedenheit Zu Land, zu
Wasser und zu Haus Mein Pfeifchen
stets in Andacht aus.

Whenever I pick up my tobacco-pipe,
Stuffed with good tobacco
For pleasure and pastime,
It gives me a sad impression –
And leads to the conclusion
That I resemble it I many ways.

When the pipe is lit,
One sees the smoke disappear instantly
In the free air,
Leaving nothing but ashes behind.
The glory of all mankind is consumed
And the body turns to dust.

So often it happens while smoking,
That the stuffer is not handy.
And instead the finger is used.
Then I wonder when I burn myself,
If the ashes make such pain,
How hot will it be in Hades?

Since such is the case,
From my tobacco I can always
Erect enlightening thoughts.
Therefore, in comfort I smoke
On land, at sea and at home
My little pipe, with devotion.

Panos Charalambous

2011   

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“Let us never forget this Greek distinction between mnēmē or anamnēsis on the one hand, and hypomnēma on the other. The archive is hypomnesic”. Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, translated by Eric Prenowitz (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1998), p. 11.

As translated in Willard A. Palmer, ed., J. S. Bach: Selections from Anna Magdalena’s Notebook, 2^nd Edition (Van Nuys, CA: Alfred Publishing Co., 1992), p. 46.