Filip Jakš: Sešívání kůží / Stitching Up the Skins
The text of “Sešívání kůží” (Stitching Up the Skins) was written towards the end of 2011. Its main topic is reminiscing about the dead, or their legacy that still lives on in our minds. This topic is usually taken very seriously which may have been the reason I found myself drawn to the idea of interconnecting the imaginary structuralism of the brain with the absurd chaos of its actual functions. Great inspiration for me was the strict philosophical schematization of Helmut Heissenbüttel’s texts, and most of all, the hyperbole permeating his texts.
I was also strongly influenced by Ernst Jandl’s humour in this respect. Therefore, a text was created which does point out the individual phases of remembering though, but at the same time it refers to the persistent endeavor to put this highly individual and chaotic process into a structure of some kind, to find general perspectives for it, i.e. to actually describe it, find suitable terms for it. It is almost as absurd as the folk tradition of hog-killing – people are rejoicing despite the fact that they find themselves face to face with death. The pig’s meat and innards are losing their function in the process, they are turning into a new fabricated aesthetic dish – a sausage. The sausage is used as a metaphor for the artificial remake of someone’s life – the fabrication of one’s own memory which, however, resists to be consistent.
Nevertheless, my text has displayed certain rhythmical elements right from the start, which are suitable for a longer declamatory musical composition as well as for reading aloud in a group of listeners. The crazy metaphor of fabricating one’s memories after the fashion of producing a sausage prompted me to confront it with the people who read the text – in order for them to pronounce the very names of the persons they were reminded of while reading my text. The Polish language sounds very familiar to the Czech ear (just like the Czech language does to the ears of the Polish) but direct attempts to explicate the works are often erroneous, and I have taken advantage of it while composing.
This language and other aesthetic sounds, recordings of journeys and various rhythms accompany the text in its progression. Musical motifs appear and recur throughout the whole composition and accompany the aesthetic process of producing memories / sausages, but nonetheless even these sound somewhat artificial. It is necessary to crack the mood of seriousness of memories. Because of the encompassing seriousness, the deceased become just as rigid as their own tombstones. Let’s forget about all piety. Our ancestors and esteemed personalities do not deserve earnestness. Our memories of them should become the part of our own personal humour so that they may come alive within us. / Filip Jakš