Reconstruction of an afternoon: inside the state of emergency

It's almost eight years later – it's already history:

A timeline stretches through a traveling work, built as an installation of wood, camera, instruments, stringed instruments, tape players and small and large speakers. Second by second, minute by minute, a team of cartoonists, musicians and film artists reconstructs the time it took a young man to blow up a Norwegian government building and then execute young social democratic politicians at a summer camp. Unlike films about Breivik's action, or plays that read from the manifesto, the work here is not retro- but in a way prospective; the events are attempted to be reconstructed "from the beginning", from the chain of moments when nothing was yet clear, and no one knew quite what was at stake, what was important and what was not, who would be behind it, and what the outcome of this Friday would be.

But the summer rain falls heavily.

A feature about circus elephants is broadcast over the FM network.

There are reports of a bather who fell asleep on the floor and blocked a drain at a hotel in Grimstad.

In a warm office, in a rainy city in western Norway, a relatively young man sits preparing a theater production.

A former Norwegian prime minister is ending his stay on Utøya - ahead of schedule.

The dramaturgy of the state of emergency?

Then, at 15:25.22 it explodes. But the drama itself will take time. Messages and error messages start ticking in. They are meant to describe, but are picked up, passed on, and with that become interventionist actions that in turn create new situations, new realities:

At 15:54.07: "There has been another explosion!"

Different newsrooms, funded in different ways, respond differently. Some have a crisis plan, others just have themselves and their ready-made playlists:

3:34 PM: "It's a final countdown" by Europe.

3:53 p.m.: "Earth song" by Michael Jackson.

At 3:51 PM, the speculation begins. Gradually, the need for answers arises, and the experts dress up in their roles and are called on stage. Because someone has to know! First in Norwegian, then in English, German, French and Spanish – speculation is being done. In this web of reactions, national and supranational, the contours of a state of emergency dramaturgy can be discerned. It can – I believe – tell us something about how we react, not afterwards, but in the midst of such a state, where no one can yet know for sure about the scope, cause and motivation; where speculation goes in all directions, because the world needs answers; where Facebook pictures are replaced with Norwegian flags; national symbols that are then – later – just as collectively taken down again and replaced with the old ones; where the repressed political is allowed to play out on the street level and on sofas; where choices, large and small, must be made and justified – there and then; where pauses and silence become glaring. Perhaps the artistic search for such a state of emergency dramaturgy can track down what everyday political life, the normal state, erases. And perhaps "03:08.38" could become a kind of emergency response – I mean, preparations for the states of exception that are certainly ahead of us?