A piece centred around statements and words spoken by my father. My father is a Danish-born Jew with German roots, turning 85 this year. Despite being Jewish he managed to stay in Germany during WWII from ’40-’44, doing two things: smuggling german jews and other germans via Denmark to Sweden. And studying architecture in Wiemar. This piece is not about his experiences during that periode, but about how these experiences shaped his understanding of, and very clear view on the phenomena of war. The language spoken in the piece is danish, but the piece is not centred around the understanding of the words as much as my interpretation of the meaning of these words.

The piece tries to support my fathers notion, that although the average person living in the Western Hemisphere has a very abstract and nonreal relationship with war, mainly because we learn (from childhood) that war is adventure, and also nowadays, a clinical manouvre where only the enemy get killed, the fact is still that war comes in many disguisses and still is pain, suffering, despair and the ultimate way of showing contempt towards other living beings, no matter what your leader or priest might try to tell on you. Hence the title (meaning: “The idea of having an army is to educate people to kill!”) My father has always been and is still a strongminded but non-fearing pacifist.

The instruments (Drumkit, guitars and violin) and the field-recordings were all executed by myself.

[source: Réseaux des arts médiatiques]

Commande du DIEM.

Premiere

• September 11, 2002, Rien à voir (12): The Terror of War, Espace Go, Montréal (Québec)