It happened in the days when the disease was ravaging the country and everyone was sitting at home on the sofa, each with their own screen. It was then that a war broke out between two irreconcilable fronts. On one side was the so-called Waste Ombudsman, an outraged and, for many, outrageous Facebook personality who was later revealed to be the financier Are Søberg. Søberg was opposed to cultural life being financed by the state, and railed against alternative Norwegian performing artists who had received public support. In Søberg’s comments section, the artists were met with mockery and claims that they needed psychiatric help. The stage artists, for their part, reacted with stories such as incitement and threats they believed came from Søberg’s crowd, and demands that no one should give him speaking time. They mobilized an angry protest when the mortal enemy was invited to make submissions to the new Freedom of Expression Commission. Noise attracts troublemakers. Into the arena burst the concept artist Morten Traavik, who has a distinctive ability to put other people in unfamiliar situations and brings out something surprising in them. This was not least the case for the performing arts project “The Litter Commission”, which premiered at Ole Bull Scene in Bergen in May 2021. The performance was based on the feud between Søberg and the stage artists, drew the Litter Ombudsman himself onto the stage floor, and led to almost as much debate as the original conflict . Now the performance and the viracter around it have become the subject of a new documentary, “Prosjekt Sløseri”, directed by Kaspar Synnevåg and shown on news. When the conflict surrounding the Waste Ombudsman attracted a popcorn-munching audience from far beyond the art field, it means that it affected some of what we argue about the most in 2022: Freedom of expression, artistic freedom, incitement and stage refusal, and public spending. It was a perfect battle between extremes. Are Søberg and his peers believed that good art was the same as salable art. In other words: Artists who need government support to survive have essentially already lost the battle for existence. Some of the most enthusiastic participants in Søberg’s comment section took part in both Traavik’s performance and the new documentary. In what they say, it doesn’t seem like there is room for art they don’t understand to be understood and appreciated by others. They do not allow for the art forms to have experimental spaces, where the art is pressed into new forms. These notions often require a context to make sense. Short clips of what is happening on stage can seem meaningless when taken out of context, and shown to an audience other than the core audience. On the other side of the trenches stood a part of the performing arts community that is alternative and uncompromising, that wants to work outside the big stages. These groups are often characterized by proud outsiders and a strong skepticism towards the institutions. It was almost the perfect provocation when Morten Traavik offered a bounty of one hundred thousand kroner for any documentation of threats the artists had received, which could be traced back to the Swedish Waste Ombudsman. Traavik has since increased the bounty to NOK 250,000, without this having had any significant consequences. This type of performing arts, which lives in the circuits of the free field, is rarely discussed in the major media. Those who make it are not used to being seen from the outside. They usually don’t have to deal with the kind of rudeness, teasing, critical objections and snappy characterizations that the big theaters have to, not to mention those who make films and pop music. This lack of experience of being viewed from the outside may perhaps help to explain the violent reaction. It all became a zero-sum game: Those who gave Søberg an arena were regarded as taking sides, and made themselves enemies of the vulnerable stage artists. For large parts of the environment, Søberg was like a leper, who infected anyone who came into contact with him. It is perhaps underestimated how much it meant that all this happened while the corona was ravaging, and many of the stage artists were parked at home in their apartments and feared for the future. The suspension they experienced was perhaps all the more effective because they wondered what world awaited them on the other side. But the attempts to force a unified ice front against Are Søberg were probably strategically unwise. This meant that many artists and commentators who would otherwise disagree with Søberg’s view of culture almost felt forced to give up on him, and his right to express himself and to be listened to by whoever wanted to. The financier suddenly became a kind of martyr. The performance of this basket ceiling was met with mixed reviews, but nevertheless had a great effect, and presumably achieved much of what Traavik hoped for. Are Søberg himself, who was on stage during the performance, suddenly became part of what he himself had railed against. He had to feel the ferocity and nerves associated with presenting something to an audience. The most mocking of the contestants in the comments section, who were invited to recreate the performances they had mocked, suddenly spoke of respect for the artists they had hung out with – before making themselves the protagonists of videos that looked strikingly like those they had laughed at. And the stage artists were asked to satisfy the demands and criteria of the outside world, not their own. It is part of history that neither the Culture Council nor the performing artists wanted to participate in “Prosjekt Sløseri”, which means that Traavik’s perspective becomes the dominant one. But even before the documentary has been shown, he appears as perhaps the only one who has gotten what he wanted out of the discussion. What happens in and around the “Waste Commission” happens on his terms. But it also exposed interesting aspects of a number of actors in and outside the Norwegian cultural field and must, as such, be said to be a good investment on the part of the state. Perhaps even the Swedish Waste Ombudsman would agree with that. Watch the documentary: Also listen to the news P2 program Arena about “Project waste”
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Trenches and performing arts – Speech
