‘Heimsendingarthjonusta’ means ‘Home Delivery
Service’, or more precisely ‘Home Sending Service.’ The word ‘Home’ (Heim)
happens to translates into ‘World’ (Heimur), so
that the ‘World Sending Service’ has the possibility of becoming the ‘World’s
Ending Service.’ (All depending on where the S goes). But the world’s ending
isn’t so much about an apocalypse, as it is about the limits of space. It
is the idea of the point in space that represents the paradox of being a place
and a position at the same time. Like the brilliance of the grammatical simplicity
in how the word for ‘stupidity’ (heimska) derives
from ‘home’ (heim), it is a way of describing existence
as a geometrical fact. It is a mathematical equation that implies that when
a point in space coincides too closely with a point of view – it becomes a
point devoid of perspective.
Roman
History, the Rhine and the End of Civilization
Finally, as if resolved to make war in earnest, he drew up a line of battle
on the shore of the ocean, placed his ballistas
and other artillery, and, no one knowing or able to imagine what he was going
to do, he all of a sudden commanded they gather sea shells and fill their
helmets and pockets with them [...]. As a monument of this victory, he erected
a lofty tower, from which lights were to shine at night to guide the course
of ships, as from the lighthouse of Alexandria.
[Suetonius, Life of Caligula 46; tr. J. Gavorse]
The Rhine was the natural boundary that marks the outer limits of
civilization during the Roman Empire. To the North and East of the Rhine were
only barbarians. At strategic points all along the river ran a series of fortresses
that protected the Empire. Because both rivers and horizons are made by connecting
two points in space, then their substance is a direction rather than a material.
It makes them perfect reflections on how to view things when looking at each
horizon or river.
‘Home Delivery Service’ has something to do with how Caligula, the
Roman Emperor, stood to the south of the Rhine’s mouth with the intention
of conquering England. Instead of ordering an attack, he commanded his soldiers
to collect seashells off the beach of what is now modern-day Holland. What
remained was a lighthouse to commemorate the event and a fortress later to
be known as The Brittenburg Ruins, which appeared
and disappeared in sporadic intervals in the sea close to Caligula’s seashell-collecting
escapade – in 1520, 1552 and 1562, and then for the last time in 1954.
The Tower of Kala stands
near the Brittenburg Ruins, and is the place where
fisherman caught their nets in an underwater structure; it is supposedly the
tower Caligula ordered constructed in honour of his seashell victory. The
continuity of the name in the place where a Caesar was supposed to be, is a kind of proof of the event having taken place at this
location, but it may also have been a way for fishermen to commemorate the
man who decided to build a lighthouse instead of going to war. In any case,
it has been scientifically proven that ‘Caligula was here!’ Apparently he
left a barrel of wine behind.
CLAYBIRD:
The Death of the Last Garefowl (Great Auk)
‘Home Delivery Service’
is specifically about how a point in space may become confused with a point
of view. The best example of this is the case for the Garefowl
(Great Auk), for whom an apocalypse had already happened in the 19th
century. The death of the very last Garefowl took
place at an island off the west coast of the Reykjanes
Peninsula – Eldey. The concept of the apocalypse
however, doesn’t refer to the disappearance of the species so much as it refers
to the disappearance of the world from the bird’s point of view. (Similar
to the Dodo, the Garefowl was a bird not gifted
with a great amount of scepticism about human nature.)
CLAYBIRD: The Case of Geirfinnur
The Peninsula of Reykjanes is also the location of the ‘Case of Geirfinnur’ (or the ‘Case of Geirfinnur
and Gudmundur’), which was equally baffling in its
failure to reconcile to any reasonable hypothesis the events that lead to
the disappearances of the two men in 1974. The early stages of the investigation
had optimistically resulted in CLAYFINNUR – a clay sculpture of what the lead
suspect looked like. It was made from the draft of the description by witnesses
who had seen a man make an appointment with Geirfinnur
from which he never returned. At some point in the investigation, the authorities
grew a genuine disinterest in finding CLAYFINNUR, preferring instead the more
traditional tactics of arrest, confinement, interrogation and psychic consultants.
CLAYFINNUR was never found, but his portrait casts a subdued light on the
principle of the point of view. Sometimes it is coerced to form an unconvincing
and unified whole. But the nature of the conspiracy is to protect us from
realizing that a vision can be subject to bad craftsmanship.
CLAYBIRD: The Base
‘Home Sending Service’
also covers the of strategic occupation of the region
by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – otherwise known as ‘The
Base’. It was an occupation that was followed by a withdrawal which was as
sudden as it was enigmatic. What it had in common with the Tower of Kala is
a confused etymology of what it denoted. ‘The Base’ had become synonymous
with Keflavik, which was itself an airport, a military fort, and a town (now
known as Reykjanesbaer). It had been these different
things, all sharing the same name.
CLAYBIRD is the point
of these stories. It is also a point in space. What a point does is to embody
the essential finitude of territory and produces a way to understand the whole
world as a finite phenomenon. The point is also the bases for a point of view,
but the point of view, like the point itself, is the start of a line which
creates perspective in the technical as well (as the metaphorical) sense of
the word.
CLAYBIRD is also accompanied
by THE BRITTENBURG RUINS, THE TOWER OF KALA and THE RHINE. They are photographs
as well as being a superimposed viewpoint, i.e. Caligula’s viewpoint – the
man who failed to conquer England and decided to collect seashells instead.
The apocalypse of the ‘World’s Ending’ holds is the paradox of a disappearing
point on a plane, because the plane that the point stands on can only disappear
from the point’s point of view. Similar to rivers, each horizon is a disappearing
plane from the position of the point, and each picture of a horizon is the
(quantum) superposition of a viewpoint that no longer exists.