The Chin-beater
By Frank Vanhaecke, historian
The AMVB preserves, inventories, and makes accessible the movable and intangible heritage of Dutch-speaking Brussels organizations, individuals, and families. Taken seriously, one thinks of documents and valuable memorabilia. But nothing actually implies that this heritage must have a 'literal' historical meaning. It may also be figurative, surreal, or absurd, or even nonsense tout court.
Browsing through the AMVB archive, the proportion of 'fiction' is actually quite large. Due to their seemingly non-documentary nature, you would expect such pieces in a museum rather than an archive. But the AMVB is, of course, both an archive and a museum.
We are all too familiar with the deliberate confusion between fact and fiction, between the literal and the figurative, from our grand master of Surrealism, René Magritte. Unfortunately, we also know it from the contemporary societal misuse of it. Surrealism expands the mind. Fake news narrows the mind.
And yes, quite a few of those mind-altering objects are kept in the AMVB. There are even some that are radically hallucinatory. Take, for example, The Chin-beater, that boxing glove with a handle. If you question its usefulness, ignorantly and from a distance, you end up with a kind of punishment machine, plucked from In the penal colony by Franz Kafka. A macabre instrument, which moreover is clearly designed to be operated by oneself and thus betrays sado-masochistic intentions.
The surreal universe of Marc Cram
Chin-knockers are the unfortunate people who are forced, whether they like it or not, to go hungry because they are excluded from some form of charity. They usually do so quietly and unappreciated in a corner, far away from all the gluttons. The object The Chin-beater is, on the other hand, clearly intended for public use.
Is this real? Or is it an art installation, a sculpture depicting a metaphor? Professor Nimbus? On to the heritage donor. In this case, the author as well. Or should we say, the artist?
Marc Cram. A man with a palindrome as a name must be someone who at the very least enjoys linguistic quirks, of meanings in two directions. Once inside his unremarkable terraced house in Anderlecht, you no longer really know what is serious and what is humor. The elderly man who greets you, with his mischievous eyes and unceasing irony, does not dispel that doubt; on the contrary.
The Chin-beater dates back to 1991. Marc Cram, alias Marc Delarue, has worked at the OCMW his entire life. He knows how disappointed benefit recipients leave the social services buildings. He designs this intriguing object for them. He places it at the exit of the government building so that disgruntled individuals can publicly and immediately express their displeasure. Surrealist art, conceived by a civil servant—that is something we are quite familiar with in Belgium.
But at the same time, the object is also truly a social protest. It is playful and confrontational. And just like Marc Cram, who constantly hops between Dutch and French, the untranslatable is Chin-beater Quintessentially Brussels.
More than an artist
Cram presents his Chin-beater at the Eureka inventors' fair in 1991. This earned him the title of Professor Nimbus. After the Chin-beater the TéléDecerveaulavage, a 'de-brainwashing machine', so to speak. It negates the 'Machiavellian processes of subliminal images and the hypnotic effects of 8–9 Hz waves'. The device was presented at a conference on 'Television and Violence' in Jette.
And finally, there is also the Welcome BoxThat is a kind of giant made of 'cool boxes'. It is presented as a 'monument to the forgotten class of day-trippers'. That happened in Brussels and La Louvière in the 1990s. It is all very witty, very mischievous, an absurd humor with esprit, very Brussels too.
But suddenly his tone changes. Marc Cram sits down and says: "So much for the humor. The serious work is much bigger." This is clearly a somewhat awkward seriousness. It marks a turning point in our meeting. Marc Delarue is also an occultist and tarot reader, and has been his entire life. He shows a Chakana from under his shirt. That is an Inca cross that captures positive cosmic radiation. Beautiful tarot paintings hang on the wall. Moreover, he is a defender of the holistic worldview. In this view, the entire universe has a layered coherence. Everything is connected to everything else. This coherence, or "solidarity" between things, people, movements, and temperaments, manifests itself in various signs or symbols. These range from tarot and talismans to numerology.
His work consists of research into the ancient Universal Synthesis. He wrote dozens of texts on the supernatural—somewhat textured but nonetheless clear. In addition, he also wrote, for example, a short World Charter of the 21st Century – 3rd Millennium. The ideals of man and of society. His methodology in this regard is what one might call a 'translation of symbols'. He translates the (secret) laws of nature into a societal structure. I had not expected this.
Behind the roguish object from the AMVB lies a world of mysteries. A retired civil servant travels through the universe like a seasoned occultist. Meanwhile, he produces some Brussels surrealisms. To be honest, I am a bit knocked out of his place.
---
The AMVB ensures the acquisition, management, research, and valorization of archives and collections of the Dutch-speaking Brussels heritage communities.
