KOK, KurOrt Königslutter, means at first Sanitarium Königslutter, but there is also the K.O., i.e. knock-out and the OK in. That is how it was.
In summer 1994, at the end of my first year at the Academy of Art in Braunschweig, I was interned by judical dicesion to the Nds. Landeskrankenhaus Königslutter, a psychiatric hospital. I was picked up by the police at the main station of Braunschweig
("The mysteries happen at the main station" Joseph Beuys 11/07/1979). Strange things happend there, befor and after. But as the police took me, a kind of smal ordeal started. First on the main station, then in the hospital, where they gave me an injection of high dosed valium, which made me sleep for about three days. Mostly asleep and in the few moments where I was awake, I was sporadically suffering as hell, because of the side effects from the psychopharmaceuticals I got with the valium. In these first three days, Annelie and my brother where the first to arrive to see me there and I told them: "... Michael Pfänder (my christian name) has died... and I am very tierd, so I have to go back to my room...". Four days later my parents came from Southern Germany and Annelie again from Berlin. By this occasion the photos showed here where taken. They tell another story, but right in the context of KOK. Instead of six weeks, because of good behaviour, I could leave after five. Thanks a lot to Annelie, my brother and parents.
Thirteen years later, I was suprisingly invited from Yingmei Duan to an exhibition and performance in Königslutter. Good chance, to go back there under new conditions. Afterwards I came back a several times for artistic work. What is, clearly regarded, not the same as the hard work I did during my first stay.
