In continuation of Walter Benjamins notion of the dialectic images and Giorgio Agamben’s attempt to restore the Pauline texts from the history of the Church, thus revealing them to be "the fundamental messianic texts of the West, this project asks: What would such a revelatory experience look like today? 

Thus, the topic of the installation is the phenomenon of conversion and awakening. 

Walter Benjamin claims nihilism to be a “method” for the coming politics as he thinks the messianic as a paradigm for the political. The great death, as this encounter is called within the Zen tradition, is the narrow gateway through which an awakening must pass, so the individual can enter into ‘historical time’ - an experience of time which does not entail a discourse addressing the future but instead ‘the time of the now’ - the messianic actuality. 

It should be noted, that the messianic is always profane, never religious. It is the destitution of any metaphysical concepts and thus also the concept of the sovereign (whether this is called 'God' or 'The People') that underlies and legitimizes power structures allowing people to be governed. The messianic is the ultimate crisis of both religion and metaphysics. 

Thus, desubjectivation does not only have a dark side. Desubjectivation is not simply the destruction of subjectivity (as seen in 20th-century totalitarianism). There is also another poetic pole, where the subject is only the subject of its own desubjectivation as she becomes a what-ever-singularity, that leaps beyond herself and bridges the separation between theory and action, mind and body. In other words, where the subject undergoes a messianic displacement and restoration that profanes the holy and makes it available for common use.  Such a subject is the only revolutionary subjectivity possible in the time of nihilism, where all universals have been deconstructed.

The artwork/installation:
This immersive installation "Yes sir, of course, I will wash my hands"  is a 20 minutes long mix-media installation of sound-art, poetry and images. The installation consists of two parts. The first part aims to prepare the immersion of the spectator through the use of psychology (i.e hypnotherapy). The second part tries to provoke a messianic experience. through the thematization of nihilism, sovereignty  and the current lack of ability to transmit history and its tradition. However, it should be noted, that the installation is not a work of art. It has no other reality than its effects. The destitution coincides without remainder with the constitution.

Music: 
The music focuses on noise as a medium to speak the unspokenness. The silent midst between sound and sense, being neither meaningless sound nor meaningful communication. Thus, noise can be related to the zone of indistinction that constitutes both the messianic subject as well as the permanent state of exception in which we are currently living. The audiotrack has been recorded live in a studio. Afterward, the audio-file has been reversed, made slower and some dubs have been added on top of the reversed track. Echo-effects, real-soundbites as well as the google translate voice has been used to thematize the dichotomy between humans and technology i.e. the current zone of indistinction between man and machine. 

Images: 
The first part aims to make the spectator relax and prepare her for an expansion of consciousness. The second part of the video uploaded includes a repetitive reference to William Kentridge | Day for Night. Two other videos will also be included in the installation. One will include material from Pasolini's 'Salo' as well as footage from the ongoing refugee and health crisis (In other words, a positive and negative expression of sovereign power and biopolitics). The third video is a "remix" of cultural, philosophical, and artistic quotes that create what Benjamin defines as a dialectic image wherein what has been come together in a flash with the now to form a constellation. Thus, the videos-installation attempts to destitute any concept of ‘the artist’ and ‘intellectual property’ instead seeking another use of the cultural tradition of the West. 

Text: 
Part one consists of a body scan trying to induce the spectator into a hypnotic state of mind. The spectator watches the video, follows the instructions, and will hopefully experience a quasi-hypnotic state of immersion. The installation experiment with a new use of hypnotherapy and psychology (one not following a neoliberal logic) to “hack” the current attention economy, where (Social) Media has destroyed the ability to maintain focus. The second part of the installation adapts or a more poetic tone in order to thematize the question of the crisis in communication, the separation between form-of-life and bare biological life, and the fundamental ontological concept of sovereignty. 

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JOH