meticulousness with that he prepared for his jump. Those gave the suicide attempt creative elements of an installation that came across even more scaring when they proofed to be life saving eventually. But the meticulousness of his presentation also made it comprehensible why he could say he would have jumped in order to survive. Bevor the jump he bound together his legs and in advance put two slats crosswise one over the other on the floor in front of the window of his flat located on the 3rd floor. These slats functioned as destination cross and at the same time drastic lessened the impact of the shock - like minimalist dampers. What followed was no performance admittedly but results of a depression that he only overcame after having survived the fall. With several fractures and initially paraplegic after a few weeks sensation in his legs was revived . So Steen is one of the few people that cannot only give evidence of such a fall but in addition have the rare luck of experiencing healing from paraplegia - it is 1 in 10,000. The pain of this process is indicated in his movements. Each step of this almost 2 meter tall man seems cognizant and controlled as if well thought-over signals have to be sent through the body for operation of the muscles and joints.

4. New start

What is about a jump that was undertaken to survive? Why was the impact on the slats life-saving for him? To many of the spectators I spoke to after Steen's story-telling  it wasn't clear that Steen untertook this action to go on living. It sounds like blasphemy but his advance is a test, a jump into the unknown , an advance quasi to the dark side.  A clue to the photograph that shows Yves Klein's jump from a  wall onto the street obtrudes. The image was supposed to embody the emptiness and zero-feeling, an impression that became only possible by a photomontage which made invisible the preparations to catch the artist in a jumping sheet. This and other trials support the efforts that often have been undertaken to reach the other side of life with the risk of not coming back is in not measurable terms high. But like Jean-Paul Sartre wrote about Gustave Flaubert this kind of effort exists in art "ã... der Tod ist das Unkennbare. Um ihn zu kennen, mŸsste man Ÿberleben. Genau das aber will er (Flaubert)(5).Ò  " (...death is the unknown. To know it one would have to survive. Just this is what he [Flaubert] wants).

Now as a writer Flaubert could experiment with words on paper but as his biography shows he also grappled with limits and their transgressions in order to implement this afterwards in his work as writer.  It is not just the external material but also the body as material of life that makes a stand against the person to be overcome. This complex connection of physical and non-physical aspects has not been interlocked more than by Yves Klein who gave his famous "Jump into the void" a credible  appearance image with the famous photo montage that was done by Harry Shunk. Not the performance itself but the photograph that up to today is regarded as an authentic image holds the striking force of an icon that was subsequently separated from life not by religion but by art. The possible real threat to life that was reached anecdoticly with Klein is not emblematic but increases the force by the power of legend. With Steen who jumped out of despair it is the tale of which the reality contents are attested by the narrator himself. he is the document of his own actions and his movements attest to his actions. With Rudolf Schwarzkogler it was still that one did not want to see his deadly jump from the window - drawn from the image by Yves Klein - as an accident but put it as a failed art work to discredit the Actionism(6), but 40 years later elements of artistic actions have been reached in the organization and handling of the suicide attempt of Holger Steen which have been further developed to performances by himself.

Steens story lets the image evolve in the head of his listeners until they grasp that his body is witness to his actions.
Already in 2007 he replicated the furniture of the hospital to venture a first public  account in this installation. After that films and further performan- ces contributed in finding an appropriate modus of narration to give this border experience shape. In this way the public narration transformed the act of despair into a  credible story which ultimately by a chain of coinci- dences found a surprising punchline in EINSTELLUNGSRAUM. When Steen namely recited his story and was just talking about that his last memory before the impact was the whistling of the air at his ears two cars bumped into each other on Wandsbeker Chaussee just in front of the EINSTELLUNGSRAUM. In the story Steen lost his consciousness. Inbetween only once did he wake up again and saw paramedics bending over him. In the reality of the performance in this very moment the