BeateGeissler, Oliver Sann with Their Two DaughtersBeateGeissler, Oliver Sann和他們的兩個女兒
How many family members currently living in this house? Can you give us a little bit introductions of what you do and who you are?
目前住在家裡的成員有幾位呢?可以請你稍微介紹一下自己與你的職業嗎?
We live with our two daughters, Charlotte (14 years old) and Gwendolyn (9 years old). We are both artists and we are collaborating on a wide range of different projects and have been over the years, originating from inquiries around images, technology and our existence in general. We both also work as college teachers.
How long have you been living in this city? Why did you choose to live here?
請問你們在這個城市裡居住多久了呢?為什麼選擇住在這裡?
We live in Chicago for 5 years now and came here for Beate's job. 我們搬來芝加哥到目前為以有五年了,當初搬來是因為Beate的工作。
Where are you from? A big city or a rural area? How did you learn to adapt to a city from your previous experiences?
你們來自哪裡呢?都市還是郊區?依照過去的經驗,你們是如何去適應一個都市呢?
We're both originally from Germany, Beate from a rather small village, Heilsbronn, in the south and Oliver from Düsseldorf, a city in the west part of North-Rhine Westfalia. Before we came to Chicago we both lived in Cologne, Germany, but we both had lived in bigger cities before, like London and LA. Through our line of work we're naturally gravitating towards metropolitan areas.
Describe a normal weekday for me? Do you follow any routine to complete a day?
可以告訴我你們的平常工作日是什麼樣子的嗎?有沒有必須得做才算是完成一天的例行事項呢?
During the semester we get up between 5 and 6 am, get dressed, get the kids on track for school and everyone leaves the house by 8am, except the dog, who gets visited by a neighbor around noon. We all work us through the day in different schools and by late afternoon, either Beate or Oliver pick up Gwendolyn, the younger one, and we all meet at some point back at home, walk the dog again and fix dinner, the kids are doing homework, we both most of the time work some more from home and go to bed, mostly by 12 am. Next day same thing again...In summer we travel a lot to see friends and family, mostly in Europe.
We both love our bed. Sleep is the other place of our existence, the one where our consciousness rests... ;-)
我們都很喜歡我們的床。夢境是我們存在的另一個世界,也是我們的意識休息的地方。(笑)
How do you arrange your place, any daily life habits apply? Do you agree the issue of house arrangement comes to some kind of politics when there is more than one person living in the same place?
We both perceive our lives most of the time as a consistent rush in an accelerating flow of time. Therefore, and out of practicality we developed a certain attitude towards our domestic surrounding, which can be best described with what is printed on the label attached to cactuses in a flower store, “Handle with benign neglect”. There is certainly a huge entanglement of relational intentions and habits present in any form of dwelling. We're very much informed by a notion of what the paleolithic campsite might have been as described by many anthropologists, or other scientists, like for example E.O.Wilson. Cro-Magnon needed to collaborate in order to survive and only with modernity and increasing options for individuality the ur-cell of what now is considered a hetero-normative family unit became the prevalent model. We both think both forms of living as much as all other constructions in between that have emerged in the last 10.000 years are still valid and in constant flux.
其實可以感覺到大部份的時候,我們都一直企圖趕上不斷加速的時間步伐。於是我們從現實面向出發去著手佈置我們的家居環境,可以用一句常常你會在花店裡陳列的仙人掌植栽上的標語看到「Handle with benign neglect」。其實各個居住的形式的確皆包含了各種關係上的意圖與習慣。許多人類學家與科學家像是愛德華•威爾森(E.O.Wilson) 都曾經描述過現代人事如何被舊石器時代的聚落所影響。克羅馬儂人(Cro-Magnon) 為了求生而互相合作,而是一直到了現代才逐漸有了「個人」又或者是「個體」的觀念,以及增加中,為個體所存在的各種選擇,由「異性」而組成的核心家庭觀念也是直到近代才成為普遍的模式。我們都認為這兩種已經存在超過一萬年的生活方式與運行于其中的其他建構因素,於今日都還依然適用並處於不停歇地變遷中。
Do you collect anything?
你們有收集任何物品嗎?
No, we don't collect material things of any kind. If anything we look after the archive of our work. As a family we consume and use huge amounts of everything, because the society we live in not only allows, but requires it.
Oliver runs as much as time and the winter in Chicago at the moment allows together with the dog on the lake front. Charlotte is on her high school's track team, Gwendolyn participates in a great program called “Girls on the Run” here in Chicago and Beate runs in the gym.
Have you ever thought of the way you lead in life now might be influenced by your parents? Do you have a picture for an ideal home?
有沒有想過你們的父母如何影響你指揮生活的方式?是否有一個理想家庭的想像呢?
Your parents make without a doubt a critical and all encompassing imprint. Everyone's life initially is entirely depending on their parents and therefore naturally the one source of your understanding of the world. As we gradually become more distant from our parents and gaining independency we again are confronted with their world and through inevitable decisions different from or equal to those our parents made we form our existence as what they call “adults”.
We enjoy eating together a lot. We're fortunate enough to be able to identify shared meals as the time of family gathering. It's hard to pick out a particular episode that would impart what's going on at dinner time in our house, also because it's never the same, but I want to say it can be everything from the very site of relaxation to laughing our heads off – or picking a fight... We are lucky to have a lot of friends coming to our house too and everyone in our family enjoys big tables.