THE TOILET BOWL

TABLE OF CONETENTS

Wolfgang Nieblich, Berlin

Geschichte, Installation und Fotos:
Andreas Hahn, Berlin 2023


CHAPTER 1 — The Loo Bowl

Wolfgang Nieblich, Berlin

Fedor Winterkorn is on his way from his apartment to his tobacco shop. He passes a house fronted with scaffolding. As he passes the halfway point of the house, a book falls from the scaffolding landing right at his feet. He picks up the book, reads the title ‘Life and Death’ with a subtitle ‘A Philosophical Warning’, skims through it, puts the book in his pocket and walks on to his shop.

Dr. Fedor Winterkorn Ph.D. is one metre seventy tall, has long grey hair, wears a black loden coat, nickel glasses and looks like Einstein. He has studied all his life long—for fifty-six semesters in total. He has a doctorate in maths and physics and a post doctorate in philosophy. He also studied art history and literature for several semesters. He is quite an odd ball.

During the last two years, he has been working intensively on death and his book ‘On Death’ has just been published. His will is printed in facsimile at the beginning of the book. In the will he decrees that all his books, manuscripts and handwritten texts are to be given to the Academy of Sciences. He does not care what happens to the rest. The most important lines in his will are the arrangements for his funeral. He paid for his burial place for a two hundred year period in advance, because he believes that the earth will have ceased to exist by 2218.

Three weeks later, Fedor Winterkorn passes away. After a further 14 days, the urn is buried. Almost sixty people stand at his grave. The grave measures one metre by one metre. The area is overgrown. In the centre is a hole about 40 centimetres deep and twelve centimetres in diameter. Above the hole is a toilet bowl with the drain pointing downwards, which is located exactly above the hole. What makes the toilet bowl special is its material? The toilet is made of granite, including the seat and the lid. His name and life dates are engraved in the lid.

The Catholic priest opens the lid, including the urn lid, and pours the ashes down the drain. It is left to Winterkorn’s best friend to add a bottle of the most expensive red wine. Afterwards, an employee from the stonemasonry workshop that made the toilet bowl glues the toilet bowl, seat and lid together. Sealed forever. The lid can only be opened by brute force.

After a short prayer, all the visitors leave the cemetery. The very next day, the cemetery administration receives several complaints demanding that the toilet bowl be removed because as it is unworthy of this place. The whole thing escalates. The cemetery administration receives ever more complaints and threats. The police have to be called in.

After the press had published the first articles with pictures of the toilet bowl, the cemetery became a place of pilgrimage. Thousands of visitors flocked to the cemetery every day to see the toilet bowl. Almost every curious person took a photo with their smartphone.

Professional photographers also mingled with the visitors. Just a few days later, thousands of photos with comments could be seen online. Millions of people from all over the world were now aware of Fedor Winterkorn’s final resting place, although resting place is perhaps the wrong term. The cemetery administration is overwhelmed by the large number of complaints, threats and reports. For this reason, the Association of Toilet Bowl Manufacturers offered its legal and other support. There were several lawsuits in various instances until the Federal Court of Justice finally reached the decisive judgement. The key sentence of the judgement was: 

‘It is permissible to erect a stone sculpture, in whatever form, in a cemetery if it does not directly insult or denigrate a private person or the state. A granite toilet bowl does not’

All the hype surrounding Fedor Winterkorn’s toilet bowl had a positive side effect. His last book «Über en Tod» [‘About Death’] became a bestseller and sold millions of copies. The heirs could have made a lot of money. But there were no heirs. 


CHAPTER 2 — The Toilet Bowl

Story, Installation and Photos:
Andreas Hahn, Berlin 2023

The year is 2049—twenty-one years, five months and about eight hours to be precise after Dr Fedor Winterkorn, Ph.D.’s urn was buried. Numerous armed conflicts and, above all, a bacterial pandemic caused by an overbred South American guinea pig have decimated humanity considerably.

The burial sites around Winterkorn’s grave, which remained empty, were bought up by an investment company, whose name we will of course withhold for reasons of discretion. This company in turn leased these square-metre plots to another renowned subcontractor in order to build a large kiosk on them for the sole purpose of successfully selling Fedor Winterkorn’s estate—in particular his bestseller Über den Tod (‘On Death‘). The marketing concept was undoubtedly excellent—but failed due to the fact that all forms of books and electronic devices (such as computers) had successfully been forced from the market and the majority of the remaining human race no longer knew anything about letters or reading.

At this time, all forms of communication took place via a chip implanted in the brain, which in turn transferred all data to another subcontractor, which stored and managed this data. The latter subcontractor then passed the data on to another subcontractor, which processed the customer’s wishes and requests into the desired form and returned them to the sender or client. The location and names of these numerous subcontractors were of course kept secret for data security and protection reasons.

In 2049, the empty tomb next to Winterkorn’s marble tomb was bought up by a supposed tech billionaire for an unknown sum—in the billions—causing an unexpected uproar. Many things were rumoured—including that this personality was a reincarnation of Dr Fedor Winterkorn, Ph.D. (Statistics showed that 26.8 per cent of those questioned, doubted reincarnation, 46.3 per cent did not believe in it at all, and the rest of those questioned did not know what to make of the term).

In the days that followed, it was announced that a public event—something like a ceremony—would take place, to which invitations had been issued. The number of participants was limited based on seating capacity. The ticket price was high, but the 10,370 seats had been sold out within two hours and 42 minutes after ticket opening and people were eagerly awaiting the upcoming show. Naturally, numerous celebrities were expected, whose names were announced repeatedly throughout the day.

The event began with a brilliant laser show. World acrobatic champions also gave their best (at this time, the world champion in the trapeze discipline had managed a nonuple somersault [9 somersaults in one go]. There were also magicians, who could, for example, turn a rabbit into a hyena).

When the show’s exuberant atmosphere had reached its climax, a request was made for silence and the tech billionaire himself appeared and announced that another funeral was to take place. The surprise was great when a pink diamond toilet bowl was brought in and placed next to Winterkorn’s marble toilet bowl. On the lid was written in ordinary script:

Here rests for eternity: Dr Hans Bothaswell and his wife Dr Sabine Tradeoff.

A skeletal figure appeared wearing a Mexican death mask and sank a script with unknown text and content into the opening. The lid was sealed for eternity by the cemetery staff.

The whole thing was hailed as a fabulous success! 

Both the inscription on the toilet lid and the possible content of the old writing were puzzled over in vain—for none of those present were able to read or even understand writing at that time.

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