The Icelandic Love Corporation Headphones 2002

White Punk - The Icelandic Love Corporation
"We like that other people have spectacular, sparkling thoughts in their brains, you know, and that they love themselves." The Icelandic Love Corporation came to Copenhagen to do one of their gigs, and Line Rosenvinge met them at The leisure club MOGADISHNI an hour before they performed here.

The leisure club MOGADISHNI
Artillerivej 40, bygn. 9 b,
Copenhagen S 2300-DK
www.mogadishni.com
March 2nd - March 22nd, 2002
Wed thru Fri 12-5PM, Sat 12-3PM 19:00

press release

19:00 - the talk

Talking with the three members of The Icelandic Love Corporation, Sigrún Hrólfsdóttir (1973), Jóní Jónsdóttir (1972), and Eirún Sigurðardóttir (1971). They answer as if with one voice.

"The Icelandic Love Corporation" has a funny ring to it, but you are very sincere about your believes…
- We are very honest, but also very ironic at the same time, and talking about love is not about the love between a man and a woman, or something - but about everything. What we do, life. Love of the whole world. It covers everything. And you can expand the concept of love to include hate and misery.

Your kind of love is very spectacular - and it's also pop, plastic and champagne…
- Yes, everything. We try to make life seem spectacular. We want to create a good feeling in people's hearts. At our performances we always say everybody is a Higher Being within himself or herself, and that people should completely believe in themselves. We like that other people have spectacular, sparkling thoughts in their brains, you know, and that they love themselves.

So, if you want to arrive somewhere - have a goal. Is that it?
- No, we are just going like bulldozers; we do not have a special goal. We are just going. Going everywhere. Do we have other goals? No, just to spread our thoughts, our philosophy and way of life. The goal is just to work with things. And have fun.

And then there's this expression 'White Punk'?
- Yes! We did this exhibition in Iceland in December 2001, and we worked like maniacs for a couple of months, and when we finished it was strange to see how it was all very clean and white. When a friend came to see it he said "even though it looks very white and clean it's still punk". That is where it comes from.

And you take that as a compliment?
- Yes - we liked that thought a lot, and we still do. It was like a sterilized idea of something completely crazy. We have been doing so many performances, and that involves our personality. We would like to try to take our own person out of it. With this exhibition, there are a lot of commemorations of our actions here, it's very much us, even when we aren't there.


The Icelandic Love Corporation Magic 2002

20:00 - the performance

But here, The Icelandic Love Corporation are in focus for their act. Wearing carnevalesque black hats with long white ribbons, attached to the ceiling with a fine string. Black masks covering faces, playing a melody - or trying to. Touching the space between the three of them, as you do when you try to work out something. Like three muses with each their instrument: xylophone, recorder flute and triangle. All handy instruments, which can be played easily, even by a child.


The Icelandic Love Corporation Partylifejacket 2002

21:00 - I wonder

Why did it all seem so evident, why were they not silly? Standing face to face with The Icelandic Love Corporation, with their talk about love of the whole world, working hard and having fun - this seems a natural thing. You don't question their 'sweet nothings' because it comes across so charmingly sincere. Genuine, candid. There isn't much of that around these days. Remember when we were pure at heart?


The Icelandic Love Corporation Where do we go from here co 2002


Sigrún Hrólfsdóttir , Jóní Jónsdóttir and Eirún Sigurðardóttir

More at www.mogadishni.com
(read the key text by Francis McKee)