Nothing Silly About Being Silly

Sigtryggur Bergmann Sigmarsson is an artist, musician and filmmaker. His band, Stilluppsteypa, has been confusing people for 15 years, and so are his recent exhibitions and his short film, Killing Time, which is being shown at film festivals around Europe. He has lived in Hannover ("a bad trip that lasted seven years") and is currently living in Vienna.

Are you looking forward to the Airwaves Festival?

I've never been to Airwaves; luckily I've always been abroad when it happened, so it will be my first one. what I mean with LUCKILY is because I don't like these sort of festivals, I just don't like any kind of gathering with a lot of people, honestly it frightens me, it just gives me an unsafe feeling, the world is full of stupid people and there will always be stupid people attending those kinds of festivals and I just don't want to be a part of that. And that's hard for a football fanatic to say; I've been to big football matches abroad and I just hated it. I prefer staying at home watching it on the telly, nice & quiet, drinking my beer cold from my fridge. It has NEVER crossed my mind to go to Roskilde, Reading or any of those festivals; I hate the idea of having to sleep outdoors and having to be around a lot of people. A friend of mine in Berlin tried to get me to go to this big opening of the new Berlin train station and I was like "NO FUCKING WAY!" And the next day I read in the papers that some guy was randomly stabbing people at the opening night, stabbing 28 people, six dying and the FIRST victim was HIV positive so most likely all of the victims that survived are HIV positive today. When I read it I just told my friend, "YOU SEE! BAD CHOICE!". On very few occasions I've enjoyed big concerts; I remember two from last summer, both happening in Vienna, one was Black Sabbath, which I just had to go see, and the other was Slayer, and what made those two gigs enjoyable was that both were metal gigs, and lovers of metal are all into it together, no hassle, no violence, most metal kids are outsiders and your typical "bullied-at-school" types, and metal is their way to freedom from all that shit, it's a lifestyle, so there is a good understanding among headbangers and that is a fucking fact! A metal kid can have a totally shitty job working at a gas station but after work it's metal all the way and that is what makes them happy, that's what it's all about! But yeah enough about all that, I got a little carried away; I must say that with Airwaves I'm looking forward to be playing on a night with good people like Ghostigital and maybe U.S. hardcore hip-hop band Dalek!!!

Your first short film, Kill Time, is a classic if I ever saw one. So I imagine you will be making more films. Have you conceived the next one?

There are actually three films that I have in mind at the moment. A friend of mine from L.A. who saw Kill Time and went nuts over it wanted me to do series of like four Kill Time shorts and he wanted to help finance them and have them shown on an local TV station as well as in art spaces in L.A.; he works for the Barbie factory and he knows everything about the Barbie dolls, etc.... and as you know Barbie is really huge, which means he has money! HA! HA! So I thought about taking him up on the offer. Since I'm now living in Iceland I wanted to do the rest of the remaining three shorts here, using my good friend Claus from Germany in the main role. That would be perfect, making it more international. I don't wanna spoil the fun (oh yes, it's all about FUN and being FUNNY) for the reader with giving away too much information... as I plan to show all four (for it is a human number) in Iceland as soon as they're ready!

Unfortunately I missed your exhibition in Berlin. How did it go? And you had one in Hannover too? And Iceland?! Did anybody ask you if it was a joke?



It's always a strange feeling; it really surprises me how many people relate to, for example, the Kill Time film, to that character in the movie. Some find the film hilarious and others disturbing; it's always been either way. But I backed it up with two other video works without any dialogue that were based more on improvised acting, one with me playing out an emotionally disturbed teenager in Kringlan shopping mall just about to freak out in there, and the other with me having a some sort of an nervous breakdown, and tons of photos of myself from my youth and from my family and also with texts that I had written. So it was a very WHOLE experience and I tried to make it in a way that left it up to the audience to decide who was truly me or what was wrong with me; it's a play with schizophrenia, with multiple personalities, something I've been very interested in for a long time. I don't think people thought of it as a joke but I play around with it, trying to get the people thinking "hmm... is he now being serious, is this serious art, is there a deeper meaning to all this or is this all a hoax?"

Why do people think Stilluppsteypa is a joke? Do they find the music funny?

Fuck it, there is nothing silly about being silly. Some might think of it as a joke because they know us personally and don't take us seriously as human beings, and/or maybe because the music (if you can call it music) might make them think that we don't take it seriously... but my theory is this: if you have spent most of your time the last 15 years in a group and releasing over 20 records and playing gigs all over the globe and NOT taking it seriously, then YOU are a joke. And yes, my life is a joke and nobody can help me!

Do you drink every weekend?

I live for eight years in Germany and there I drank nearly every day. Here in Iceland I try not to drink every weekend (but for some reason it always tends to end that way), as I feel that drinking in the middle of the week is way more fun, not as many people are out and not as much pressure to try to have the night of your life. I hate New Year's Eve as everybody is trying so hard to party and have fun but to me it's just another night out.

Who would you rather have sex with - Paris Hilton or Britney Spears?

I'd rather have sex with Paris Hilton and even go as far as marrying her. I never fucking liked Britney Spears! I can't see why she's some sex goddess, she's too much this innocent little girl-next-door for me and I'm not a pedophile. What makes me wanna marry Paris Hilton is that I feel that there is something very wrong and even EVIL about her; she is spooky, she doesn't have any talents whatsoever but is still all over the place, has that sex video all over the net, parties a whole lot but with the wrong people, she doesn't give a shit about anything (at least that is what I feel about her), and

I admire that! Clone that bitch right now and I am buying a copy!

How many friends do you have on MySpace?

Shit I don't know... let me check... wait... yeah 319 friends... but I'm in touch with maybe ten of them. I've been deleted once by a friend for offending him by sending a comment that he lies about being "single." Oh and yes, one Polish girl with whom I had been in touch deleted me as well when I mentioned to her that I was in love with Traci Lords.

How was your bank holiday? What did you do?

Hey it was GREAT! It was a four-day TRIP. And I was ALL over!

What is our purpose on this Earth?

Our purpose is a four-day TRIP, and I mean ALL over the space... no honestly speaking, it's myspace.com.

How do you like Hannover?

Pass! It was a bad trip that lasted for seven years!

Tell me, what are you up to these next few months?

I'm going on a four-day trip all over the space. Besides that I have an exhibition opening in Vienna on the 15th of September; the piece is called "the Important Little Man Vienna Show", which will be an installation with photos, text, sound and video works (including Kill Time). And then I've been offered another exhibition in Flensburg, Germany for November. Plans are being made about a possible gig and exhibition in San Francisco in October... a few other things are in the works but those things are gonna happen for sure.

- interview by Henrik Björnsson