 Hi, Lasse. Thank you so much for the movie. It was really wonderful. To me, this short film is very dense and filled with all these layers of both autobiographical stuff and historical and surrealistic symbols and also this kind of ominous atmosphere connecting the present that we are in today with the past through a virus. I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about what was the necessity for you to make this film right now? Well, it was a little bit of a coincidence because I was contacted because of my queer geographies book if I wanted to do some performance lecture. And at this time, I think it was early spring and I was just fully paralyzed myself and a little bit of a news junkie as well. And I was kind of wondering why. First of all, I escaped New York. I was in the woods. I didn't have a compromised immune system. I wasn't older of age. So I wasn't really the risk group, so to speak. So I was kind of wondering why did it hit me so hard. And I came to the conclusion that it came from earlier traumas that I have experienced. And that earlier trauma is when I came to find my own place in my own body and my own sexuality, that was still in the heights of the AIDS crisis. And so it brought me back to that moment that when I was 16 years old in the present. And as we all know, when we are young and we're still forming who we are supposed to be or become, it's a very vulnerable time. And certain things hasn't really been developed or described. So it really made me start to not making this to the answer too long, but it made me start trying to write myself out of this. Okay, so trying to write yourself out of the situation you were in. The paralyzation. I mean that I was just, you know, why was I scared? Why was I reading the news constantly? You know, why was I afraid of going outside the door? What sort of experience did that refer to? And so I was sort of trying to connect the dots and trying to write that text at the time when I was contacted. And so by performing borders. So I was really trying to sort of understand better my own reaction, so to speak. So somehow taking also more like a control of the situation instead of just ending in this paralyzed state. I think that we all kind of kind of ended in. Yeah, and that is hard, you know, it's like I'm using this reference about the knee, right? It's like, I don't know if you ever heard your knee, but or your head a head concussion or something similar is that when you first heard your knee badly, you will keep on hurting the same knee, not the other knee, but that particular knee you will keep on hitting into all different kind of items and objects. And so it's, you know, it's, it's, it's hard to sort of jumpstart or getting out of that mode, so to speak. I was also wondering, like, because to me it's you in the movie in this short film, you have the feeling of this of all of this historical luggage, your personal luggage. And then in one, one minute inside of the film in the film, there is this moment where I feel it's very ominous. I hope it's the right word where the sound is kind of like a siren and then you see the binoculars and it's black and white and a man or a person in the forest. And you don't know if he's elevating or he's falling down the tree because of the use of the reverse. And then this green, the green text on the screen saying, it's like my body warning me. And I got very, I don't know, very influenced actually by especially this sentence. And I was just wondering if you could tell a little bit more about this kind of warning or, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting with the body, right? Because the body do have memories of earlier traumas that we then might forget or not. And so it's sort of stored in our bodies. And that's what bodies do. And then something happens that then bring that up to the surface again. And that's for me what this is about. And then I was sort of using, you know, also you were sort of looking at the water fall were going backwards in the beginning. Me falling down the tree, I'm actually falling down the tree. It kind of hurts a lot that you couldn't walk. It was not intentional, but it happened. And so I was using this as sort of a metaphor for, you know, we have always this idea that things are going forward that we're developing, you know, and sometimes it goes reverse. And I wanted to sort of show that in a level of imagery as well. So somehow there is understanding of time as a linear moving forward, forward kind of thing in our common understanding of the world. But then in the, you know, the individual, there is also the moving backwards through the trauma and so on. And also regarding, actually regarding the traumas you were also talking about at some point in the movie like this individual trauma. And now we are living in this COVID-19 situation, as we say in Danish, where fear or kind of cautiousness for this virus controls a lot of our behavior, especially the social behavior now in Denmark. There has been a new press meeting and the Prime Minister, she has put some new restrictions or advices to our lives. And I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about this with the individual traumas and then in relation to the collective traumas, because in this kind of, I guess also in the other virus situation you were talking about, the AIDS crisis, you can call it. It's also something like something is happening on the individual level and of course something is happening in the collective as well. I mean, I don't think you can separate necessarily the collective individual, I mean it intermix, you know, it's a fluid thing. But I do think that we do carry different bodies and we do carry different experiences and that's sort of also where some of the displacement also happens. You know, it's, I mean, as an example, I don't know how it is to walk through as a woman and Copenhagen at night. Let's take this night coming night, you know, how does that feel? I don't know what it means to care if I was in a black body, what would that mean and what discrimination would I experience? But I do know how it is to be in a queer body and I do know what it meant to be in a gay boys body when I was 16. So, I mean, I, and these things, you know, overlap and sometimes don't and sometimes people don't have understanding for a certain experience. I mean, this is very current with the Black Lives Matter movement right now. A lot of people don't understand the level of discrimination that actually do happen. And I think that also happens to the queer body and I think what often connects the queer body is an experience of trauma and it's an experience of at some point in your life being discriminated. And that is what you carry along, which is also in the Queer Geography's book, there was this great article by Camilla Tudl eight places of violence in Copenhagen. And so she remember how she experienced as a gay woman, how she experienced violence, different places in the city and how that would then make her navigate the city differently. So somehow these traumas can connect a certain, like a certain reference of experiences, like if you have for maybe me as a woman, I would connect maybe you well to the traumas that she is describing in this article. And that kind of also makes it maybe not, yeah, what you're talking about, both the individual trauma and then also you recognize it in the collective of this group that you are sharing the kind of trauma with somehow. And I mean, what they all these traumas have together is of course, in the sense that it's often powerless places, right? It's like that's what often traumas are, or out of control or you know, but definitely if it's in the realm of the social is often a powerless space that you experienced that you were powerless. And I guess some other had that power. But now kind of the, if we should talk about the COVID-19 situation as a kind of a traumatic feeling, that is the social as being a trauma, like stepping into the social sphere somehow can be an anxious feeling, right? Because you don't, it's so invisible this virus. Yeah, and so was HIV and AIDS, you know, it was it. And so, so what they have in common is that they really changed the way we are social. You know, it changed how it's particular gay men how they were social in the 80s and 90s. And even today, I mean, I think it really changed the LGBTQ culture tremendously, actually. It just, and I think also it was not just a change in the LGBT community, it also changed culture in general, and how I believe that society at that time and point went from a place where being less social, so to speak. And so what I'm curious about is how is COVID going to mark people and how, what is the long term social and cultural effects and effects on people, you know, how is it going to change, how is it going to change the political? I mean, are we stopping, are we going to stop being social? I mean, it definitely changed the gay men's behavior from being more promiscuous to be more close circles or a couple oriented. So I, it does change culture and I guess maybe it's too early to see what the ramification is when some time, hopefully COVID does lift from our minds. Yeah, because I also, through the conversations we had, I was, I got very, also a little bit before, but I got very conscious about, of course, your story with this, you're in the formation age, not there with your sexuality and AIDS is a factor that you have to relate to. And now also with all the young people that I, as you also say, like, I don't know how it is, how it experienced to be a young person now. I only know how I appreciate being young and what I did and so on. And now with all these, with the social being so, yeah, so troublesome somehow because of the COVID-19 situation, what kind of, it will leave in the bodies when they grow up like you, right, get hit by the blast somehow. Yeah, and it does really leave us marks. I mean, and it can be, you know, let me give you another example, one of my friends grew up in Lebanon and, and as a child, and then in, was it 2006, there was an air raid on Lebanon. And suddenly she just, her body remembered how to navigate in a city during a war time situation. She would go very close to the buildings, not out on the street and so forth. And she didn't remember that. That was just something that her body remembered. And so I think, you know, that's, that's also something that's what I also sort of try to say in the film that it's, it still plays a role in, in my, you know, social life and intimate choices. You know, like I'm saying, I'm still using condoms, which is sometimes ridiculous, actually, but we still do that. And it's just, we're the same generation and we have that fear built into us. Plus, we were, my first sexual sexual experiences was in the park and in the gay bathhouses. And I wouldn't say not to judge these places, but I wouldn't say that was a necessarily healthy community for me, because it was a very anonymous. It was a very, you know, non communicative. It was a very, you know, people wouldn't always take care of each other. And to some degree, it was also a dangerous space, you know, going into a park in the dark. I mean, there are gay bashing there is violence. And, you know, it was that, that sort of initial experience and also always sort of always knowing that it was kind of gambling with my life. I really didn't think I would grow old. And that kind of, no, no, because you also, this is also like, I remember a theme in the movie like this with the desire connected to this kind of death drive. And of course, you can ascribe it to being young and the youth and, you know, like not thinking, of course, you will grow old, or maybe that you won't die. That's the other part of it. But I was also thinking, like, do you see this kind of death drive now in the current situation if you, if we kind of connect the two, you know, times where some kind of illness is taking over our behavior or, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I sort of just went the other way. I mean, for a while, I didn't feel like having sex, you know. I mean, and so I was just trying to be over precocious to my body, you know, and because that's what my memory told me to do, you know. And, and that wasn't necessarily a healthy thing to do. I mean, it's not, we shouldn't stop having sex, you know, but we should of course think about, and a little bit like HIV and AIDS. It's not about your own health. You also think you have to think about the other person's health. And that was really also how the AIDS crisis played out. Yeah. And I was played out is a really bad word. Yeah. Yeah, but it's now it's that. But I was also thinking about this with the, the body that remembers and also this with the trauma you're talking, or as I, I understand it in the science. People are talking about this epigenetics, where they're talking a little bit about how things that you experience can change the way the DNA or something like this. And can be then inherited to the next generation. So how these traumas is not just an individual thing, but actually can be kind of a physiological and also generational thing. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's very I mean, these memories can become very archaic. I mean, it can go from generation to generation. If you look at African Americans here in this country in the US, you know, there is inheritance that comes with those traumas that still plays out in today's society, even though it's several generations ago, where, where the initial trustee happened. So I do think that, you know, it is something that potentially can stay in our bodies and, and, and, and, you know, big, you know, go to the next. And how do you then like, because did you, when you experienced it, were you aware that it was a very traumatic experience? And how, how, how do you deal with it now, kind of to get out from it? I mean, it's, it was my reality. You know, you were just dealing with the reality of the time you were in, you were just trying to navigate, you know, having those two intersections for me to intersection of coming out finding out my own sexuality, crossing the pandemic that that went around at the time. And so it was like this kind of intersection. And it definitely made it harder, I would say it made it much harder to to claim my identity. And it was, I think there was probably also a lot of shame that went with that experience. And I think some of that shame, I probably took into my own sexuality. And, and now, like, because everybody, we don't know the future, we, it's kind of unknown what the consequences of this situation with the coronavirus will be. But, but how do you, how do we, because now we have the feeling that it's, it can be traumatizing somehow. I think the awareness of it being a little bit traumatizing experience is among amongst us. And then on the other side, how to do, how to deal with this trauma to get because that would initially be the goal, maybe to get, get, get the somehow not to have it, maybe, I don't know, maybe not so deeply, you know, like as an auto reaction that can, can kind of break out if it gets like you're talking about the AIDS crisis and, and, and it comes up to the surface again because of this crisis, like how can, how can we not make sure but try to deal with it. Sorry, the auto reaction is not necessarily bad. It's, it's, it's trying to save your body, try to protect yourself, you know. So, so, I mean, that's also why, you know, people from the AIDS crisis say that the people with experiences are so much better prepared for, for COVID-19 than people that didn't experience it. So, but, you know, it's also it just interesting, right, because it's like always is about self care and it's about you know, it's also finding the right the white, the right level, you know, should, you know, it's not healthy to isolate you totally, right, it's not you have to sort of figure out how are you being social with how many, you know, what, what kind of risk are you willing to take, you know, how, you know, how many sexual partners or whatever, and and you sort of have to sort of find a way to do that and that's exactly what people have to do during the AIDS crisis as well, you know, people would have I mean, maybe they would stay together in monogamy relationship or they would have a close circle of bodies that could be together with or, you know, there's different ways of it would also change sort of the sexual desires and fantasies and what you would do, you know, and so you know, maybe they would come like that would at that time they would new thing like jerk jerk off clubs appeared at the time, you know, because that was safe where bathhouses wasn't that safe, you know, so it it's that's also where it really do change culture and it changed cultures in a much broader thing. I think that we do think about, I think it really going to change our cities, it is changing New York right now. I mean, people leaving the city people don't want to live in an apartment building with an elevator they want to go to Brooklyn living in a smaller house you know they the it's definitely changing the whole landscape that we are living in. Definitely. And and somehow it's just like now you look back then you can kind of see the changes and the changing and also the age crisis making the maybe the sexualities and the way of being together and having a gay sexuality and so on. But also, yeah, what is the consequences of of the corona crisis or what what we do bring of structural structural things. Yesterday you were talking a little bit about this with the social also like the social the bigger broader social movements, especially in the US with the, yeah, and you were concerned about that it would also change the the enthusiasm towards that. Yeah, I mean that's my fear right my fear is that when when I came to the US the first time I've been forth and back and other places in between but when I came to first to the US first time in 2002 to live. It was, it was not a very social place and and something happened culturally with Occupied Wall Street with different kind of social movements as Bernie Sanders so you could talk about socialism you could talk about collectivism. And and that sort of political shift has been so liberating in many ways and something that I was sort of seeking because I came from a Europe where, at least in the art field it was it was a lot of collectivism there was a lot of art groups. And and we could talk about aesthetics as social and so forth and and and so that shifted while I was in the US and now I'm sort of. I'm sort of like is this going to shift back we're going to have backlash, you know where it's going to be all about individualism. And I mean it's it's it will be really hard to take for me. I mean as a personal as a leftist, you know, yeah, it would be a really bad agenda and I'm I'm a little scared of that actually. Yeah. And I'm very aware of it. But yeah, because it would be like because you had the feeling from looking at American politics from the outside that you that it was going more towards a social like the socialistic consciousness. The social was getting bigger and that it would be kind of a big backlash if it if it turned back or almost not understandable but. Yeah, and I think it's it's global you know it's it's I mean you were mentioning you know how we're going to have performances theater productions you know I'm making films you know how I mean also it's weird right it's like. I'm in the I'm in the woods now I'm outside New York I mean I've been here since March more or less and and I was back in the city and it didn't feel comfortable you know it was like. I don't want to be I don't feel like being that social and I was in the city because I want to be social. So it's even even also a geographical thing to some some extent. Yeah, it is kind of that is maybe what what's coming. We don't know how the social will be after when the when the pandemic is over somehow. Yeah, I mean maybe I mean use a Danish expression we can stand like like periphery Denmark not be periphery Denmark anymore you know what I mean. I mean maybe people start moving moving out of the city and it was that's been the opposite trend for for quite quite a while. But actually a lot of people has become younger people starts to move out from the city also to get more space and so on. But I was actually wondering about because I found it very another expression that you use in the film just to go back to to that this mind as gentrified. You say it some point in the film and normally you think think about the city as the gentrification like the some kind of areas in the city becoming so look like that you cannot separate them from each other. And then I was just wondering if you could talk more about this, the like a mind that is gentrified. Yeah, I mean I kind of coil expression from Sarah Schumann that wrote a book called gentrification of the mind and which is about how the eighth epidemic and crisis changed the city of New York. And it literally also gentrified neighborhoods, you know, people were dying and other people were just waiting to sort of enter the apartments. You know there was no there was no collectivism in that you know it was very cynical and and and that's kind of the political climate you have now here is also very very cynical. I mean it just feels like people are just waiting to get it get those nice pocket floors of the neighbors you know it's it's. It changed the city tremendously. Also, who is living in the city, and I think that's changing now to and also people are dying you know it's it's very literal I mean it was the same in its Christ it was a plague people were dying. And he just New York I mean more than 30,000 people died. It's it's not just small numbers this is a real thing. And in the end of the film there is this kind of there is some kind of anger actually I think it's a little bit different than the rest from my reading or when I saw it. The rest of the atmosphere in the film and then there's this 32 million fucking birds later some kind of aggression or anger. And I was also wondering about if you could talk a little bit about that. I think that anger really comes to the current political situation here, which is everything but fucked up, you know, it's, it's who are the people in the task force for dealing with cove it you know it's, it's Mike Pence, which has a really problematic and dubious history of dealing with HIV crisis in his own state when he was governor and the Anna and needle exchange. Is it. It is the CDC, which is a state and seums Institute in Danish, the director which also have a problematic history with HIV and AIDS, and he was the head doctor at the time for the military and he made people take medicines that he kind of knew didn't work. And later on he was the one that was advocating for faith based prevention in Africa. So, and this are the people that are in charge now. I mean, can you imagine. I mean, it's just, it's just doomed, basically. How can you trust people with such a problematic history. I think it sounds quite, to me, unimaginable almost that these people are in the task force to cure cure this virus, the current virus, if the experience with them has been so devastating. Yeah, let me just remind you know it this started with in the very early 80s with free cases of pneumonia in hospitals in Los Angeles, you know, if the government then would have been interested in solving this but they didn't really care because it was segments of the population that they didn't really care about. We could have been in a situation where we wouldn't have had more than 32 million people dead. I mean, this is the same with COVID now if we would have had a president and a task force that would have taken a series. The scientists talk about that instead of 200,000 dead, we would have had 100,000 dead. So, so you know, it's mad politics matters and the level of cynicism is mind blowing. Maybe especially because I come from Denmark with a social welfare system that that at least when I grew up took care of each other. I mean that is also changing and the whole problematic conversation in itself. Yeah, it's true. But I was also wondering like because it's like the cynicism also you're talking about this with the AIDS crisis people dying people being kind of grabbing waiting in line grabbing apartments like the gentrification and so on. And also the social on the other side. And now how is the experience like is both both the race of the social now in the COVID crisis of course it cannot be like maybe the physical social but somehow another kind of solidarity and then on the other side also rise in cynicism or is it like only a rise in cynicism or you know like Well, I mean it's very polarized, especially here I mean it's like people, you know get into fights because they are wearing mask or they're not wearing mask you know it's all depending on geography where you are. You know what, I always sort of hope politically that there is a pendulum you know when it really turns into right it's going to turn much more to the left. I hope that's the case in November, but you know, I would have hoped for more left wing politicians but you know, we're, I guess we're doing our best. Yeah, because it's also special situation standing in this both the pandemic crisis and then also going to this election where there are so much difference between the between the the two candidates kind of the world view on humans and how yeah and then then in reality just like the apartments I mean what this is about is the rich getting richer and the poor getting poor I mean the wealth transfer that have had happened with the governments where they they put their money is incredible. I mean, people don't understand what the stock market is doing well. Well, that's because the government have been bailing out stock markets, while they don't pay unemployment benefit anymore you know that's that's the reality we live in. So crazy. But actually, thank you now for talking now we came very wide from the personal level to the political but but I it's lovely for me. There is some nice questions also from the people that has been watching and I will just hit them up and then we can see. So, I wonder if the speakers could talk a little bit more about the metaphor of the bird like if you can talk a little bit more about the metaphor of the bird and everything we associate with it in terms of beauty. What is about the beauty in fooling in the forest, which felt like the right metaphor of the performance lecture. Does it make. Mm hmm. I mean, of course it's different levels here I mean one level is that the birds feeder were the boredom of COVID-19 I got a bird feeder and I put it up and I just saw all these amazing. You know we have so many birds here I mean like, I don't know 25 different species coming and eating constantly I mean there was like a party there. But of course for me the bird feeder also represents sort of the hegemony of a system you know that we all taking part of that is like a capitalist system where we all are at the bird feeder, paying our dues you know. And then for me it's it's I'm using the bird. Because it's the other and and for me that represents that the gaze that we have that always plays into to how we are with each other. And, and we talked about different bodies and we talked about power powerless bases, and also for for an whole other sort of metaphor for me bird has this sort of very beautiful other, and with this very but also very fragile body. And so for me that sort of became a metaphor for how I feel sometimes it is to be queer. That's, and actually this with the fragility because the next question is, maybe the answer is obvious. But I would love to hear more about beauty in the age of virus and vulnerability. That's, that's, that's a difficult questions. I mean, sometimes, you know, I mean, it's always a problem to add a status size pain. And we know it from photos of the third world and people suffering and things are statusized and you can go to a luxury hotel in Stockholm or anywhere and it's filled with these photographs and it's just sort of contemplating other people's pain in a weird sort of awkward way you know. So, that's sort of a route I didn't really want to take but for me, the images for me was more about creating where my stories are very personal I wanted to have the images to represent a more structural story. So, you know, the water and the fluidity that becomes powered and then certain poles are disconnected and you know, who are part of the network and you know the bird feeder sort of playing into that sort of narrative. I don't really know if that answered the question actually but. They have they must write in the common field if. Oh yeah, please come back again. So this is the next question as an immigrant living in Denmark. I would be really interested to hear if there is a particular Danish cultural reference or a particular Danish queer experience in the work I might have missed. Wow. I'm not sure how to answer that question. Because I don't know what you have missed. I would need some more information. I'm so sorry. But I think it's it's an interesting question because you know we read with our cultural experiences we read with the language we speaks you know we read with all these different kind of experiences and intersections so. So sometimes, you know, I'm sure I mean there are certain experiences that are very particular. I was telling you the other day the story about because I was when I was younger was sort of in the reminiscence of the gay liberation front. And this was just when you could you could came civic gay marriage and we all do our group of guys taking dresses on and then we went down to the most posh gay cafe which then tie that time was called Sebastian and we gave out divorce papers. And man, people were angry at us, you know. So I mean there is of course different experiences that that plays into to how you see the world. Definitely. So the next question is, please may you explain a little more about how and why you portrayed your personal experience through the use of both the bird and the technology that was used. How did this shape your work. I mean, I'm very early on knew that how I wanted to structure the film. And, I mean, of course it's on a technological level I just did more or less myself except for sound I needed help because I don't really good at sound. But I was interested like, like, like a postdoctoralist I am I was interested, like I said earlier to sort of bring in sort of meaning of both hegemony and capitalism and you know, who are inside outside and the gaze and who are seeing and not seeing and like me closing my eyes when I'm seeing because it's what I'm seeing is something that that goes towards the past and not literally something I'm seeing. So, so many different levels I try to incorporate this. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So, during the AIDS epidemic, sex was connected with fear, but people took risks and challenged fear. Does Kuwait, Kuwait 19 re actualize the same dilemmas, but on a much broader societal scale. I think so. I mean, it really also depends who you are. And if you feel that that you are at risk, you are, you know, you're more devastated than if you don't feel you are in a risk group. I mean, you see youth, not really paying, at least in the news, you see a lot of youth not paying attention or, you know, partying and drinking and we know when alcohol and drugs goes in, you know, social distance is not really an option. But I do think it does play in really it plays. I mean, a lot of, I think, even young people, a lot of people, I'm happy I'm not a teenager today, because just that responsibility that you to your actions can possible have on others. And if it's your parents or your friends or your grandparents, I mean, that that responsibility, if it happens to go the wrong way, can devastate you for the rest of your life. And now the last question is coming. Can you expand on the links between migration, birds and viruses transmission on how element of border crossing performing those borders has informed your piece. I, I have to tell you that I actually did another film about plants and migrate my migration because we, we often do think that plants are something that's very rooted and still, and it's not true. I mean, plants are migrating in all different kind of ways. And I think in general, I think we all have to talk about nature, having agency and to some degree decolonize nature as well. And I think that is sort of part of the approach that I take. And I think it just sort of comes automatically into the way I put things together in this film, probably. But I think we are at the end, actually. Yeah, I see from, yeah, from Emma that it, but I think I would just end because I really like this quotation from your this promotional material from your film. This is from the Arondhati Roy, that the pandemic portal Arondhati Roy States is where our presence is erased and where only the past and the future can exist. And somehow I, for me, the film is very much there somehow. And, and, yeah, and just she also says, like, you know, the pandemic. I mean, the is MRI of our society, right, it really exposes the society and where the systems, or the lack of collectivism or whatever is it really gets exposed. And I think potentially that could be a good thing, because then we know it's more obvious. And hopefully the cynicism is not going to win. I think that's a really good place to end the conversation. Thank you very much. Thank you both for the film and also for the talk. And also I just say thank you to everybody who is listening or watching this event that was hosted by the fantastic warehouse nine and also performing borders and maybe one more organization. But thank you for tonight and take care. Thank you.