JUMBLE, 2024
Installation and performance with multichannel sound

"The strategy of equivocation (...) renders ambiguously where a single truth is claimed, it subverts where a clear line is drawn and an entity is stabilized." [1]

The term ‚jumble‘ stands for confusion or disarray. At first glance, however, R. Mihatsch´s expansive installation is anything but jumbled: new stage platforms, which can be used as a stage, catwalk or seating, are placed diagonally. They allow bodies and movements to be imagined in space and are activated as part of a performance. Water bottles, towels and testosterone gel refer to things that have already happened or are yet to come. The sound objects made of glass, steel and sound exciters transform the body into a somatic medium. Bat boxes offer protection to nocturnal creatures during the day. They emphasise that daylight and the associated visibility does not mean safety for all individuals. Nocturnal life can provide a place of refuge. A spotted hyena on shiny stainless steel encounters the public as they enter and leave the room, framing the installation.
In most cultures, hyenas have predominantly negative connotations and are full of myths. The ancient poet Ovid claimed that the hyena constantly changed its sex back and forth. In Europe, the hyena was long associated with so-called sexual depravity, homosexuality, impurity, witchcraft and the disruption of community. The famous 1876 reference work Thierleben by Alfred Brehms describes the spotted hyena as unruly and voluptuous, among other things. The female dominance, which is rare among mammals, is particularly striking – spotted hyenas live in a kind of strict matriarchy. For a long time, an above-average testosterone level in females was assumed to be the supposed reason for this, but this theory has since been refuted. [2] Relationships with strong sexual elements are regularly observed between female animals. Their anatomical peculiarity is an elongated clitoris, which protrudes from their abdomen like a kind of penis, so that it is often difficult to determine their sex with the naked eye. All of this makes it clear that the hyena is an eminently political animal and a queer creature that causes discomfort. A feeling in which JUMBLE harbours a productive power.
Queer thinking is characterised by the fact that it rejects supposed unambiguity and immutability. Instead, it accepts ambiguities and variabilities of bodies and desires – and thus a supposed confusion. JUMBLE intervenes in rigid identity constraints and the normalisation of bodies and subjectivities and in a linear understanding of time. The installation recognises the fluidity and fragility of identities and biographies. Who we are can be understood as a fluid continuum and not as a rigid construct. Our gender is not a fixed category, but a state that can change and transform like our entire being. In a society that repeatedly feels the compulsion to categorise bodies not only in terms of gender, but in general, R. Mihatsch focuses on the fluid body with JUMBLE. This body is present in space, even if it remains largely invisible. It is somatically perceptible. It is a body in motion and in flux. Consciously or unconsciously, it changes, reinvents itself again and again, stages itself and is recognised by a social outside. With JUMBLE, Mihatsch does not create an aesthetic confusion, but rather a conceptual ambiguity. In German, the word ‚jumble‘ may also be reminiscent of the word ‚Jubel‘, meaning jubilation: ambiguities are celebrated as moments of liberation. The emancipatory power from rigid binarity lies in continuous movement.

Text by Sylvia Sadzinski
[1] Antke Engel (2007): Challenging the Heteronormativity of Tolerance Pluralism. Articulations of Non-Normative Sexualities. Redescriptions: Political Thought, Conceptual History and Feminist Theory, 11/1, 95.
[2] See Heitlinger E, Ferreira SC, Thierer D, Hofer H, East ML (2017): The intestinal eukaryote and bacterial biome of spotted hyenas: the impact of social status and age on diversity and composition. FRONT CELL INFECT MICROBIOL 7, 262.

Curatorial Advice: Sylvia Sadzinski
Sound Composition: Katrin Euller & Roman Jungblut
Performance: Emil Maria Ertl, Benze. C. Werner & Cain Insa Wittenhaus
Outside Eye: Mir Raggam-Alji
Photos: Ren Mihatsch – Fuhrwerkswaage, Cologne, 2024
An exhibition initiated by Ren Mihatsch, developed with curatorial advice from Sylvia Sadzinski, supported by the BMKÖS, the Austrian Cultural Forum Berlin, the IFM e.V. funded by the City of Cologne – Cultural Office, the Rodenkirchen District Council and the Fuhrwerkswaage