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Jeden Monat nähern sich unsere Kolumnisten, die Berliner Filmemacher Dominik und Benjamin Reding, dem jeweiligen Heftthema
auf ihre ganz eigene Art und Weise. Geboren wurden die Zwillinge am 3. Ja nuar 1969 in Dortmund. Während Dominik Architektur
in Aachen und Film in Hamburg studierte, absolvierte Benjamin ein Schauspielstudium in Stuttgart. 1997 begann die Arbeit an
ihrem ersten gemeinsamen Kinofilm „Oi! Warning“. Seitdem arbeiten sie für Fernseh- und Kinofilmprojekte zusammen.

Each month our columnists, Berlin-based filmmakers Dominik and Benjamin Reding, approach the respective issue-specific
theme in their very personal way. The twins were born on January 3, 1969 in Dortmund. Whilst Dominik studied architecture
in Aachen and film in Hamburg, Benjamin graduated in acting studies in Stuttgart. They started working on their first joint
motion picture “Oi! Warning“ in 1997. Since then they have tightly collaborated for TV and cinema film projects.

An Essay by Benjamin Reding
A IT's editor-in-chief Petra Stephan was out and about: at the Cersaie in Bologna. water, on a lambskin or on the sofa at home. Said the head physician. With utter
conviction! The most colourful tiles: glued to the walls of subway stations. Or in the
The trade fair for ceramics in Italy! I read it in the current AIT newsletter. The
November issue of the magazine will focus on wellness, health and ceramics. This hallway of my neighbour's house. Because he was the head of the subway depart-
is consistent. No, it's more than that, it's an equation: wellness + health = ceramics. ment. Giant, wall-sized tiles. Orange, with bluish foamy edges. It looked like mould,
The material and the building projects related to wellness and health have closely like long forgotten Gouda cheese in the fridge. He proudly showed them to me, gen-
grown together. And no other product is more successful than ceramics’ simplest, tly stroking the porous surface. "That's real art, isn't it?" I was staring at the bubbles,
most robust and according to DIN standard 51130 non-slip child: the tile. There is no nodding. The most frightening tiles: were “art in architecture” in the local indoor
doctor's surgery without completely tiled wash basins, sinks and spittoons, no hotel swimming pool. Opposite the 3-meter board! A colourful mess of tiles! With a lot of
spa without tiled floors, no whirlpool without mosaic tiles, no swimming pool with- imagination, it was supposed to be a sun, an island and the sea. It could have also
out blue, no public toilet without yellow and no hospital without white tiles. been a melted tomato pizza. I stood on the board, looked at the tile pizza and had
However, it wasn't always like that. The Romans loved wellness and marble and to jump down. Some kind of swimming test for 10-year-olds. It must have been very
combined both in their thermal baths, in the Middle Ages, hands were washed in important. I trembled and hesitated and was cold, and my classmates giggled and
the village’s stone fountain and people in the baroque period bathed in wooden looked at me, I jumped, landed on my tummy and almost broke my ribs. After all,
tubs. At that time, tiles were only used in I had escaped the sight of the artwork. The
churches. As flooring! Then came the most beautiful tiles: perhaps to be found on
Biedermeier period, the bourgeoisie and bacte- the roof of Casa Batlló in Barcelona or in the
ria. Every look through the newly invented old metro entrances by Hector Guimard in
microscope revealed it: we are not alone. The Paris or under the dome of the Al-Aqsa Mosque
beautiful, pure, clear water is not beautiful, in Jerusalem. For me, however, they shimmer
pure and clear. There's an enemy lurking in it. at an outdoor swimming pool in Dortmund-
Infinitely small and abysmally evil! The germ! Hörde. The blue tiled basin is framed by a steel
Kill it! From now on and until today, everything plant on the left and a railway line on the right
that has to do with body, health and bathing side, and traversed by a house-high gas pipe.
pleasure has to be rinseable. The common tile, The swimming pool is not guarded at night.
this simple piece of clay, quartz and oxide, And if you can climb well, you can get in. I was
returned. And the return came to be a tri- there with buddies, a little drunk, they helped
umphant march. The tile actually only exists in me climb the fence. And I got onto the 3-meter
the plural. You don't buy a single tile, and if you board. This time voluntarily! And I jumped. It
do, then because it's art. Or claiming to be. was easy, it didn't hurt. I came up and
With either rural, Dutch or floral motifs. Then it laughed. Be embraced, you lovely tiles! The
hangs on the kitchen wall, gathering dust. The most secret tiles: are green. Every pupil at a
other tiles, however, the ones in the plural, are 1970s concrete school knew this: the interiors
diligent and accompany us all our lives. Silent, Foto: Benjamin Reding were colourful. Red doors, yellow window
patient servants which allow every human frames, blue knobbed floors, violet radiators.
expression of life to be washed away. They And green tiles! Like a toilet block in my con-
coexist so inconspicuously next to and as a floor underneath us, that we overlook crete school. The architecture was so ambitious that you couldn't find the toilets. I
and forget them. Who would remember one's first date and mumble, he/she had discovered them by accident. Behind a concrete wall in the schoolyard! Everything
such beautiful tiles? Who would say that the holiday was fantastic, especially was there: light, water, heating, even toilet paper. But they were never used. The
because of the hotel tiles! And who, apart from interior designers, would cry out block became my secret retreat, I called it the "Green Hell". The toilet block is said
after a visit to a restaurant: "The food was good, but the tiles in the toilet, for this to still exist, nobody has found it to this day. The last tiles: No one sees them. Me
reason I'll go there again! Do you remember tiles? Do I remember them? I'm brood- neither. Maybe it's better this way. I visited a closed down crematorium. The city had
ing, thinking. Yeah, yeah! They emerge, swell from remote brain cells, from the deep- offered it for rent. Mighty columns at the front, sandstone urn niches, a lot of marble
est layers of the unconscious, from the super-ego: tiles, tiles, tiles ... and many mosaics at the back: tiles. You could have thought it was an art installa-
The first tiles: no one can see them. I didn't either, although I lay on top of them, tion. Tiles on the floor, tiles on the walls, tiles on the ceiling, tiles on the tables. This
freezing and screaming. Pretty loud, as the head physician later claimed. is where they will be lying. I didn't rent the place. A bar moved in. They had little to
Appendectomy and childbirth were almost the same thing in hospitals around 1970, change. Tiles are trendy. Hipster coolness and new simplicity! Now, it is a place
and it was a man's job. That's why the surgeries in the maternity wards looked like where people laugh, smoke, drink and booze, banter and kiss. Red wine stains the
car repair shops. Neon light, tiled walls. Plastic tubes, metal tables, chrome-plated tiles, coffee, beer and latte macchiato, perfume and aftershave, sugar and lipstick.
technical equipment. It was inconceivable that births could also be possible under It's nice what can still happen to an old tile.

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