Bellona, the fictional city of Samuel R. Delany’s science fiction cult classic Dhalgren from 1974 is a place beyond reason, where time and space is out of joint and architectural fixtures seem to be in constant flux and transformation. In Lislegaard’s video animation installation, Bellona is a psychological space, in which norms and standards seem to dissolve into a chaos of anti-hierarchical conditions.
You may ask me what place the image of the city of Bellona holds in the minds of those who have never been here. How can I presume to suggest? There are times when these streets seem to underpin all the capitals of the world. At others, I confess, the whole place seems a pointless and ugly mistake, better obliterated than abandoned. The miracle of order has run out and I am left in an unmiraculous place where anything may happen. There is a deceiving warmth that asks nothing. What use does any of us have for two moons? Objects are lost in double-light, What makes it terrible is that in this timeless city, in this spaceless preserve any slippage can occur. Sometimes it seems as if these walls on pivots are controlled by subterranean machines, so that, after one passes, they might suddenly swing to face another direction. Parting at this corner, joining at that one, like a great maze – forever adjustable, therefore unlearnable.