Creative chaos, lover of precise language, confusing and confused.
The world changed fundamentally in 1998. Not on a global scale (at least not YET) – but for my parents. That year, they made their lives a lot more chaotic, louder, more confusing and, hopefully, more interesting, when they brought me home from the hospital. For years, I have been asking my father two or three times a year (usually on his and my birthday, sometimes on Father’s Day) whether he regrets not using contraception. I am still waiting for a definitive answer.
I’m still waiting for my beard to grow – because I would look really good with a moustache. But at least I was able to help things along on my student ID card. I’m also still waiting for my letter from Hogwarts, but the owls must have messed up. I guess I’ll just have to keep doing magic in the kitchen.
My life is a series of bizarre coincidences; of tragically stupid circumstances; of blind chickens finding grains. My abstruse biography has shaped a character who truly deserves the label ‘completely screwed up’. But at least my creativity accompanied me every day. I would be reluctant to describe myself as half god and half amoeba, but I’ll do it anyway. To knock myself off my high horse a little: the divine part belongs to the Greek Bacchus, the amoeba part to the genus Chaos. My narcissism is therefore kept within limits… while I myself still like to observe boundaries from a distance and then eventually cross them – with a running start and head first.
Apart from the abstract Pollock duplicates in my nappies, my artistic activity began at the turn of the millennium and has not slowed down since. Whether drawing, painting, writing, shaping and transforming, researching and despairing, intertwining and confusing. I don’t really care too much about the medium, it’s the act of creation that drives me. Without creativity, I wither away like a water lily in the middle of the Gobi Desert. Sounds hostile to life? It would be.
I grew up in a picturesque little village in the idyllic Wynental valley in the Swiss canton of Aargau. Everyone loves each other dearly, except when there’s another controversial election campaign coming up. I love village life with the stimulating smell of manure in the morning and SVP information events in the afternoon, not to mention the drinking binges in the evenings with herbal schnapps and Krummen. Forgive them, for they know not what they do. And at least there’s good raclette.
I have always been able to escape this narrow-minded and narrow-brained pot with art. The School of Design in Aarau had to put up with me for a whole year in the preliminary course, where, amusingly, the headmaster was the son of my nursery school teacher. This poor family is not entitled to financial compensation, I’m sorry. After that, my bespectacled face ended up in Lucerne to learn the trade of goldsmithing. If that had worked out, I probably wouldn’t be writing this text. After this drama involving copper wires, inadequate learning situations and a minor mental breakdown, there was another twist, the kind you usually only find in Greek comedies: my unfocused arse had to start a commercial apprenticeship at an office to learn ‘something with a future’. It was like throwing a vegan into a butcher’s apprenticeship. A bit shitty, if you ask me. But luckily (in that case), nobody does ask me. Fortunately, I was able to gain two years of experience in the civil service and learned how to navigate the road traffic office in Lucerne. I thank all the gods who may listen that I am not forced to drive a car. Another threat to humanity averted.
I moved from one office to the next until I somehow ended up in Zurich doing a journalism internship. There, my brain farts were appreciated a little more, especially when I stuck silly, funny Post-Its on the monitors of the entire editorial team. Writing suited me, and I was already planning to train in the field when suddenly someone had to lick a bat and the whole world stood still for about two years.
Thankfully, I was able to infiltrate my parents‘ company and keep their website up to date for the next three years. But that meant being back in the village, and rural stagnation got the better of me. Until one fateful day, when I was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, also known as ADHD. Boom, everything made more sense. And suddenly, I realised that I could rescue my academic career from the grave and bring it back to life – almost like Doctor Frankenstein – only with a bachelor’s degree. And without the thunderstorm.
Well, here we are. In my now third and final year of a degree I thought I would never be able to start. My condolences to everyone involved. But thank you for reading.