Artwork

This brief report on the experiments with finding our way forward to certain reasonable procedures for constructing the essential coulisse known as a ship is also an illustration of the tracks along which we have been thinking, on the whole, when it comes to the construction of environments. It is clear that thorough and complete reconstructions are not economically feasible and moreover, that they are impossible, especially for “mental” reasons. What we mean with the latter involves everything that is connected with the questions of whether historical reconstructions are possible at all and of when a reconstruction begins to look like an artefact from the National Museum in a culture film rather than a coulisse in a dramatic film. It’s a question of creating pictures. And the only way you can really “prove” something is through the pictures’ capacity to work. But that’s enough of that. As has already been mentioned, economic considerations set a limit on all genuine reconstruction possibilities, anyway.

Accordingly, it’s a matter of finding some economic negotiable channels. And turning this into a quality while consequently avoiding that it becomes a papier-mâché illusionism. Preserving the sense of historical material, as the more or less scientific items of information still play a crucial role, and then working cleanly and constructively with present day materials. How would a Viking build a boat out of fibreglass and polyester – that’s the task.