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D O C U M E N T

Retard Six Hours

4–12 april mmXii transatlantic crossing by mv commander •issUe 2•

par
Honza Zamojski
———

———
The cue to turn
the clocks back was
post-art sitUation
announced after dinner on
logical sYntaX
the radio by the 1st engineer:
“To all crew members and pas-
sengers of Commander. Good
soirée. Tonight time is
retard one hour.”
———

HRATCH ARMENAKYAN

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137

“Transatlantic,” an interdisciplinary project by Radek Szlaga and Honza Zamojski,
was presented at Frieze Art Fair New York from 4–7 May 2012.

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the breakfast

138

Radek Szlaga: What do you miss
most on board the ship?
Honza Zamojski: Bread. Potatoes.
Access to information. It pisses
me off that I don’t know what’s
going on.
R.: Do you think that if you checked
your email account, you’d have
a hundred and something emails?
H: Most of which would be unim-
portant. But I’m just as afraid that
I’d get some news that would be of
serious importance.
R.: Donc, you’re afraid of getting bad
news?
H: Oui, afraid that I’d find out that
something had happened that
I have no control over.
R.: And what if the U.S. ceased to
exister?

H: You mean what if something got
screwed up? That there was noth-
ing there for us now, so what’s the
sense in going?
R.: Let’s say that it makes sense in
a different way. Or that it makes no
sense at all.
H: Like with Witold Gombrowicz?
Like when he arrives in Argentina,
and the war breaks out, so now
he can’t go back to Poland, and he
doesn’t even want to? Bien, in that
case, we stay in the U.S. and start
a family.
R.: What if Poland – the old country
– was gone?
H: The same thing: we stay in our
new one, start a family, and set
up a company called “5 for 2” or
“Good Price.” I could sell t-shirts,

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the bridge

and you could become a taxi driver.
Does sailing on board this ship
scare you?
R.: Scare me? I’m pissed off that I’m
ici. I’m tired of the steward who
serves us food and who’s always
smiling. Hell, I could give a rats ass
about all his “how many slices,
sir?»
H: You’re not afraid that some-
thing might happen to the ship
lui-même?
R.: I already have that one all thought
dehors. I know that we won’t sink in
less than 15 minutes. In that time,
I can make it to the starboard side,
get into a rescue boat and sail away.
What scares me more is how the
time is slipping away; the fact that
this journey is taking so long, que

I would rather be doing other things
instead.
H: And what would you take with
you if there was an emergency?
R.: My wallet.
H: And your drawing pencils and
crayons?
R.: I wouldn’t have time to get them.
H: How could you take just one
chose?
R.: I would take my wallet hoping
that I’d reach land.
H: Can you swim?
R.: I can, but I’ve almost drowned
a few times. We’re currently some
100 nautical miles from the near-
est land, but we’ve been as far
comme 800 miles. It doesn’t matter
how fucking awesome a swimmer
Je suis, or whether I have a life jacket,

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139

I wouldn’t be able to swim that
distance. Besides, I’m afraid of
deep water.

first engineer

140

H: Death is the same at any depth.
What I can’t stand is that we’re in
a desert, that nothing happens,
that such little stimulus reaches us
ici, that we’re not learning any
nouvelles compétences.
R.: But we’re not alone enough for

it to make us feel something deep
down inside.
H: Have you ever had such an
experience before?
R.: I was in the desert once. J'étais
also in the hospital once, but I had
cigarettes. You know, I expected
that during this trip it would be
easier for me to reach the inner
recesses of my being.
H: I had the impression as we
sailed the first two days that there
was some kind of metaphysics
in all this, something sublime.
But now everything seems so
mundane.
R.: We keep thinking and talking
about the shitty grub we have to
eat in order to not die of hunger.
H: Everything is reduced to
bodily needs. You’re not able to do
anything because you ran out of
paper glue, and we’ve already read
everything we brought to read.
Does this mean that we’re addicted
to information?
R.: And to stationery stores.
H: And to potatoes.
R.: Droite, potatoes, that’s true.
Poles are potatoes. Do you know
yet what you’re going to buy when
you go ashore?
H: A subway ticket. Or maybe
a newspaper and something with
a lot of vitamins. Like an orange or
a mango.
R.: Bread rolls.
H: A track suit.
R.: I want a track suit, aussi.
H: A light gray track suit.
R.: I want a gray one, aussi. The exact
same kind.
H: A Yankees baseball cap.

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141

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i love this game

i love this game too

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fight the power

R.: Are you afraid of blacks?
H: Non, but I’m afraid of people.
R.: Do you wish Poland was a multi-
ethnic society?
H: Oui, mainly because of the food.
The art of cooking is the founda-
tion of every community, and when
you have a culinary monoculture,
the people become aggressive.
R.: Do you think that mixing cul-
tures this way has any pluses?
H: A more colorful culture does
not mean a more interesting one.
Metaphorically speaking, if you
have lots of colored pencils, toi
use each of them a little. But if you
have a pencil, you get lost if you
use it in lots of different ways. Donc
maybe it’s the same with com-
munities. From within, they’re

nuanced, but “you” – coming from
the outside – you only get to eat
good food.
R.: Do you like food deep fried in
oil?
H: I like it, but I can’t eat “deep-
fried” all the time, like we do here
on the ship. Deep-fried cauliflower,
chips, fried chicken and beans.
Everything drowning in oil.
R.: And will you ever board a ship
again?
H: Not one that was going to sail
for more than two hours. Le
second day on the MV Com-
mander was the most enjoyable,
but nine days is definitely too
much for me. Imagine what you
would go through if you had to
sail for a month?

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143

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the warning

144

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new York / new JerseY

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R.: You’d forget you were sailing.
H: You’d forget you were alive.
R.: The crew of the Kon-Tiki sailed
for three months and crossed half
the Pacific, but they had a parrot.
Besides, Norwegians are accus-
tomed to sailing. And what’s the
most interesting thing to take with
you overseas?
H: Girls…
R.: …an oil lamp, pallets…
H: …paper clips, a lecturer… It’s
a question of what we represent,
what we can give to others. Sur-
prisingly little, it turns out. A dif-
ferent kind of stupidity, a different
kind of humor, a less funny kind of
humor, unamusing jokes.
R.: What about Polish Messianism,
Prometheism, the romantic tradi-
tion. Poles have never developed
any philosophical thought that was
a consistent system of ideas. Are
you not enchanted by the vision
of our crossing the ocean with

a substantial mission, that we have
a richer background than most
people OVER THERE, in that civili-
zation? That suddenly we’re taking
part in a model that we’ve always
wanted to take part in?
H: For me, this transatlantic voyage
is the realization of a fantasy. It’s
completely unnecessary, ce n'est pas le cas
bring anything new to what’s
already there. It’s merely a retro-
gesture, a catalyst for the work
we’re to do. Is there any grand idea
behind it? Even if there is, no one
will say it aloud.
R.: We’re afraid of grandiose lan-
guage. We’ve been burned by big
ideas.
H: This is a feature common to
our entire generation, not just the
two of us. We do alright in a group,
but in reality, everyone is out for
himself.

• • •

146

H: Do you miss anything or any-
un?
R.: I miss the girls. And I like to paint
big pictures, but I can’t do that
ici.
H: How many times have you
puked?
R.: Half. I put my finger down my
throat, but not much came up, juste
tomatoes.
H: I’ve puked three times. Did
you know that everyone here is
Filipino?
R.: They’re the Poles of Asia.

MV Commander
Avril 10, 2012

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147

———
It took us 9 days to cross the Atlantic
Ocean on the “MV Commander” container ship
(“MV” as in “motor vessel”). The “MV Commander”
uses 80 000 litres of oil each day. We travelled 5500 kilo-
metres = 3000 nautical miles = 3500 miles.
———
At sea I saw 4 dolphins, 1 whale, 1 orca and 1 moth, a few dozen of
different species of birds: seagulls, pigeons and frigatas. I didn’t notice any
fish or cephalopods. At one point the most distant land mass was the Azores
Islands—more than 800 nautical miles. We traveled through that isolated
stretch of water at the speed of 20 knots (40 km/hour).
———
The crew of our vessel consisted of 20 guys from the Philippines and 2 cadets
from a Marine School in Germany. Below and above the deck we carried more
que 2000 cargo containers (each weighing up to 30 tons). Nobody from the
crew, besides the captain, knew what was inside the containers, but helium
was among the items on the list of dangerous materials. If the vessel
had crashed, the rescue mission would have been ridiculously massive.
We switched time zones 6 times, setting our clocks back 1 hour
each time. We boarded in the Nordzee Terminal in Antwerp,
docking in the New York Container Terminal in the
borough of Staten Island.
———