The artbook Contagion was published by Populus Tremula in 2008 and at the same time, Jóna Hlíf launched the installation Contagious at Populus Tremula. The book’s introductory text is a poem by Hjálmar Stefán Brynjólfsson.
Contagious
Pass from person to person, between animals and people, from the environment to a person – people lick people, people lick animals, and people lick the earth. The diseases find their way, pus in the skin like philosophy, yellowing, hydrating.
Nowadays, warts and bumps have nothing to do with the body; the flesh has become clean. Whether with small bugs, or as personal or impersonal, the repulsive still finds a way inside.
Tongue, fingers, mind. Scattered: a million bacteria in the saliva, on your hands. Not to mention the ideas! The ideas (which no infection control works on) are transmitted at an unimaginable speed with catchy words. The body has protection against infection, not the mind. There is no mucus of the consciousness.
Mind, fingers, tongue. The infection is exciting, the last remnants of nature in the world of root canals, where molars and canines don’t turn anyone on. Fever! Sterile Icelandic contains poetic technical words – cured Danish loanwords. It's no joke that transmission is both a gearbox and an infection.
And behold... everywhere there is enlightenment, everywhere diseases, everywhere infections, everywhere carriers, everywhere contagion.