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“Psychoanalytic material, incomplete as it is and not susceptible to clear interpretation, nevertheless admits of a conjecture – a fantastic-sounding one – about the origin of this human feat. It is as though primal man had the habit, when he came in contact with fire, of satisfying an infantile desire connected with it, by putting it out with a stream of his urine. The legends that we possess leave no doubt about the originally phallic view taken of tongues of flame as they shoot upwards. Putting out fire by micturating – a theme to which modern giants, Gulliver in Lilliput and Rabelais` Gargantua, still hark back – was therefore a kind of sexual act with a male, an enjoinment of a sexual potency in a homosexual competition. The first person to renounce this desire and spare the fire was able to carry it off with him and subdue it to his own use. By damping down the fire of his own sexual excitation, he had tamed the natural force of fire. This grate cultural conquest was thus the reward for his renunciation of instinct. Further it is as though woman had been appointed guardian of the fire which was held captive on the domestic hearth, because her anatomy made it impossible for her to yield to the temptation of this desire. It is remarkable, too, how regularly analytic experience testifies to the connection between ambition, fire and urethral erotism.”

 

CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS

Sigmund Freud

 

The title of this project is FC [an abbreviation from Freudian Closet or Fire Closet, deviating from WC – Water Closet]. The installation was exhibited in a lavatory of the Skopje MoCA, with two separated pieces, one in the male toilet and the other in the female toilet. 

 

The above quoted footnote from the Freud’s book, upon which I base the whole project, was unscripted on the mirror just outside the toilets. 

 

In the male toilet a video recording of the lighting of the Olympic flames at the latest Olympic Games in Sidney, 2000, was shown on a TV set between the lavatories. Thus, stressing the connection between fire and urination, as well as suggesting some connection with sports as another kind of male contest, questioning in a way the motives of the sport competitions. 

 

On the wall of the female toilet illustrated story “The Little Match Girl” by H. C. Andersen, was exhibited. The image of the little girl with matches is used as ultimate archetype of the female gender and its attitude towards the fire as suggested by Freud.