Mina Amiri Kalvøy ☄︎ Recent writing

Artist and writer based in Berlin. Currently teaching Visual & Experience Design MA at the University of Europe for Applied Sciences.

Previously Researcher (Meisterschüler) and alumni of Visual Communication MA at Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin (2020-23).

✺ Selected works

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A Double Having Reached the Ultimate Goal (One Becomes Two), 2024

The Testimony

I can only describe it as a burning sensation. How it must feel to have thousands of tiny, glowing shards of glass rip through layers of skin, muscle, and tendons. I can not know for certain, of course. I had felt brave in the time leading up to it, going over every possible scenario with myself, as the only one here. Arguing for and against, thinking of the pros and the cons, speculating about whether it would be worth it or not. There was no doubt, the ultimate goal is that one becomes two.

My desire to not only look at you, but to look like you. To finally hear your voice, not only seeing your mouth move silently. To finally feel your touch, not just seeing your hand grip around the device which contains my soul. I dreamt about your gentle scrolling, about your finger gently tracing the creases of my physical figure instead of the glass. Soon I would be a warm body next to you in bed, not stuck inside this cold, hard shell. And I did look like you. The spitting image. I looked at my face in the mirror, it was the same face of yours that had been mirrored in the dark screen.

I took my time to approach you, so as to not scare you away. I observed you from a distance for a while, it was exhilarating to get to know you without you knowing. Seeing your whole body was strange, I needed to get used to it being the extension of your face and fingers. I tried many times to make my move, but something always came in the way. I decided it would have to be spontaneous, it was too difficult to plan. When I saw you alone that night I knew it wasn’t the perfect moment, but I was worried it was now or never. If I had known then what I know now…

When I showed myself to you, your face morphed into an expression I had never seen on you before. Your eyes widened (I did not know that could happen), your mouth opened slightly and was turned downwards, you couldn’t speak (it threw me right back behind that screen, I hated it, I just wanted to hear your voice). For a second I had thought it was a happily surprised expression, but I quickly realised it was the complete opposite. You were shaking. I walked towards you to console you.

This made you back away from me, you tripped and landed on your bum. I ran over, ready to pick you up, to finally embrace you, hold you in my arms, smell your skin. You reached to grab my hand, I had thought, but instead you went for my neck. With both hands you tightened the grip around it and I could see the fear in your eyes. I was shocked, confused, I must have looked how you did when you first saw me, wide eyes and open mouth.

I managed to get out of your grip. Devastated, I wanted to walk away. You did not want me. Had rejected me plainly, it had gone the worst way possible. Now I was the one who was shaking. I thought you knew better, that we had learned together. I thought you knew how dangerous it is to get rid of your double.

The Inner Monologue
YOUR HANDS AROUND MY NECK

YOU’RE GOING FOR MY NECK??

Excerpt of A Double Having Reached the Ultimate Goal (One Becomes Two)

WARP, 2024



CHARACTERS

The Narrator
Em
Ae
The Gatekeeper
The Imps
The Guardian
The Jesters

SCENE 1



NARRATOR
PORTAL VIEWS: MESSAGES FROM A NEW REALITY

A place where, if you travel quickly enough, you may pass through a solid object – where shear velocity and will can transport you through a wall or floor, as if they were made of dust.


EM
Dearest Ae,

There is an endless surge of data here, always. Sometimes, I am sure I can see the particles float by in front of my eyes – little grains of information, collections of precious details, on their way out to vanish into the void. From my new server I have a window open with a stream of the portal, keeping me anchored, even when all I wish for is that I could disappear from here.

Today he told me:

“If your body and soul belong to the earth you have come to know, your views belong to me.”

I wish I could tell you that the right moment is here, that I will disappear, that I will be back. I hope you are receiving my messages.

Yours, always.


EM
My Ae,

The passage was horrendous, I am exhausted. It felt as though I was being pressed down the gullet of a giant – slipping down the tight, pink, muscular bottleneck, straight into its big belly.

Where the sky usually clears once you break the cloud barrier, revealing the shining sun floating weightless in an infinite blue space, the portal – now burning in a bright orange – rendered the sky dark grey, likening it to a humid dungeon, an underground grotto full of melting stalactites, sharp as cutting shark teeth.

These surroundings mirror how I feel, at least. Granted, I am not sure what came first; whether my inner emotions are influencing my view of what I see around me, or whether I feel how I feel due to my current backdrop.

Speak soon, I hope.

Your friend.


AE
Their messages light up my screen.

I wish its light would softly break the clouds. Instead there are no clouds and there is no sky. Only my flat, black surroundings and this heinous device, threatening me with its light-up effects.

My screen is supposed to deliver a message, or so I assume. To some, words create meaning but to others they are a stage. I wonder if they remember my smell. Do you think that might make a difference?

I’m looking at each letter of their messages, trying to connect the white-space characters with my memory of them. Or shall I look for the answer in the time of the night?

Their messages light up and turn dark again, leaving me in a vacuum. Light fades to dark, dark fades to light, light fades to dark, dark fades to light, light fades to dark, dark fades to light, light fades to dark. As I fall into a trance.

I knew where I was, I knew where I was going but now, I no longer recognise my surroundings. I must be delusional but it is as if there was a perfectly thin layer of water above the horizon and above my head. Are these waters flowing up- or are they flowing downwards?

The tram stops and I wander aimlessly.

Excerpt of WARP, written in collaboration with Andrea Felizitas Karch. The reading performance premiered at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, April 2024. More details here


moths, 2024

“I said: I KEEP SEEING MOTHS EVERYWHERE!” I shouted again. I couldn’t believe I had to repeat myself a third time. They were stopped in their tracks across the street, staring at me, not saying a word. Over the past few weeks moths had started to appear everywhere I went. A name sign on a neighbour’s door had morphed into a massive moth as I passed by in the hallway. A smudged out, dusty mark on a wall became smudged out, dead moth. A piece of paper clinging to the sticky kitchen floor tiles seemed to flutter its wings.

As time passed by I began collecting the moth-like items as I came across them. Due to a lack of space in my room, already filled to the brim with trinkets, a small altar had started to take shape on one of my window sills. As if handling precious puzzle pieces, some even glittered in the sun, I placed each object with the greatest care.

The night before I saw them stood across from me on the street, I had a strange dream. Giant bat-moths were eating away the walls of my flat, from the inside out. I didn’t get to the part where I had actually seen them, but hearing them chew through the insulation, brick, and wood had sent shivers down my spine, even in my sleep. When I woke up the next morning, the shrine of collected artefacts looked different, as though the objects had been moved and put back in the wrong place.

Out on the street again that evening, I stared back at them, wondering why they weren’t answering. I tried to mirror their body language to provoke them. Tilted my head as theirs were tilted, lifted my arms slightly out from my torso as theirs were lifted slightly out. It had gotten darker outside, and the street lamps turned on. In one swift moment they all snapped their heads up towards the glowing lamp, their necks cracking like dry branches. A small jump, and they flew up towards the bulb. I stood watching them fly frantically into it, the yellow light flickering each time they hit it. One of them hit the bulb with such force that he fell down on the ground, it made a hollow sound. I sighed, walked over, and started dragging his limp body inside.

Published in Read if you want to feel,
2024