*(Jan Medlen's Arena)* Text by Jonáš Gruska in occasion of [[Man Has Emerged Triumphant]] exhibition Translated by Paul McCullough Special thanks to Ľubica Bezáková, Slavomír Brutovský, Miroslav Čársky, Mestská a naftárska expozícia Gbely ## Fermentation The transformation began about 22 million years ago. On the seabed between the Eastern Alps and the Western Carpathians, organic remains of plankton and algae underwent anaerobic processes. It was a form of fermentation - the "waste" was utilized by bacteria, breaking down the complex polysaccharides and proteins into simple sugars and amino acids (a very similar process can be observed in the production of soy sauce). This mass became layered and fell lower, closer to the hot Earth’s core. The increasing pressure and temperature wrested the transformation process from the imaginary hands of the bacteria, which continued chemically. Waxy kerogen was formed and, over time (with heat and pressure), natural gas and oil, which are crucial resources for our time. Sandwiched between impermeable clays, they awaited extraction by a hungry civilization. Ján Medlen and his match stood close to the very end of this process. ![[jan medlen.jpg]] He was born in 1870 into one of the oldest families in the village of Gbely. Although we do not have much information about his youth, we do know that he served in the military as an artillery man before WWI. As a non-commissioned officer, he enjoyed the respect of his hometown. Upon his return, he married 16-year-old Katarína Rúsková, living in his parents’ house and farming on their land. After the birth of his second child, the first signs of his historically described "oddity" could be seen. His first strange act was to sell his own small, fertile fields and purchase an entire swamp in Dúbrava, about 2.5 kilometers from Gbely. He undertook to drain the swamp using a network of canals, which he himself dug "from dawn to dusk." ## The Gates of Hell According to surviving stories, while taking a break from digging one such canal, he pulled out his pipe and lit it. But after throwing away the burning match, it ignited the seemingly empty bottom of the canal, and began to burn with a blue flame. Fortunately, Medlen's clothes were soaked, and he climbed out of the canal without injury. This was his first contact with the consequences of millions of years of material transformation processes. A contact that forever changed his life, as well as the life of the entire region. _“Uncle, I’ve found the gates of hell. Come with me and see for yourself. I won’t go to hell alone.”_ When it became clear that it was not the devil but rare natural gas that was coming out of the canals, Medlen gradually began to use it for his own needs. He dug a hole in his hut and made a kind of proto-connection using bricks, boards and clay. At that time, it must have been something miraculous, incredible, a source of perpetual fire. Supposedly, they would never need wood for cooking again. Rumors began to spread in the village that he had sold his soul to the devil and received fire for free. And from then on the devil never let him go. For a while, this natural gas served him well, he even rolled iron on it. As a chronicler of those days noted: “Medlen had a sense of humor and put on an unusual show for people. He would sit on a boiler under which the accumulated gas would explode and throw the boiler and Medlen into the air.” However, this system was dangerous and primitive; once an explosion even blew away the roof of his hut, and somehow Medlen survived. It was probably a combination of information about the aforementioned explosion and strange gases that began to arouse the interest of authorities beyond the borders of Gbely. The government sent a commission with a geologist, who subsequently assessed that it was indeed natural gas and potential oil deposits.  These two raw materials are often found together, as they are created within the same process. The geologist determined the location of the first well 180 meters from Medlen’s hut. Probes began to increase in its vicinity, which sucked up the gas deposits, and he lost his eternal flame. At a depth of approximately 164 meters, they finally found the first “Slovak” petroleum. By the beginning of World War I, the demand for fuel had grown exponentially. Miroslav Čársky, a historian and researcher from Gbely who deals with the fate of Ján Medlen, wrote: “the military machinery needed oil in the same way that the body needs blood.” In the interests of the war, land was expropriated, new wells were drilled, and mining towers were built. Medlen’s land was also expropriated and he received 106 crowns (at that time the equivalent of approximately 240 kilograms of flour) as compensation. However, he refused to enlist, and when he was forced to do so, he escaped and hid in the forests of the Záhorie region. After the war, the management of the oil mines offered to build him a villa, which he refused. He only wanted to be their employee, but he did not last long in that position due to his inability to work with others. In the end, he built his own house in Majerky on the outskirts of Gbely. ## Perpetuum Mobile Behind the house he built his next oddity – a round barn. At that time, the local chronicle wrote that Medlen suffered from visions and was haunted by devils. He struggled to defeat them because they hid in the corners of his house. A building without corners was therefore a rational solution - an arena where the devils had nowhere to hide and he could have the upper hand. He even slept there. He displayed what appeared to be symptoms of schizophrenia without intellectual impairment, at that time a relatively newly established condition. ![[arena.jpg]] However, his construction work did not end with the barn. Medlen began working on a magnificent machine that promised to help with field work, especially when threshing grain and cutting straw. The machine worked with human power, and according to some sources, it even had the ambition of becoming a _perpetuum mobile_ — the age-old mechanical dream of inventors. However, it ended in failure, and was never even set in motion. With a little imagination, we can perceive the machine in the context of the surrounding destruction and smelly, sometimes burning oil rigs as a desire to build a world without the need for mining. A world where machines would transcend the laws of physics and operate without outside energy, a utopian vision of the post-fossil era. ![[perpetuum mobile.jpeg]] ## Black Water We are sucking up the sticky liquid from the millions of years old underground deposits of the planet. It flows in the bloodstream of the oil pipelines of the current extractive system, supplying it with energy. Crude oil is the sugar of the extraction-dependent system, the essential source of energy for all its needs. After all, like sugar, oil is the result of photosynthesis, the energy stored in hydrocarbon bonds. It needs only a little refining. The problem for us arose when we began to break these long-formed bonds too quickly - every combustion of petroleum products is a release of this stored energy. The stored carbon was never supposed to come to the surface at such a dramatic rate, especially not bound to oxygen. Plants, algae, trees need it, but there is more of it than they can process. We even make medicine from oil; villagers are said to have collected crude oil and used it to treat skin diseases. Cultures around the world still use crude oil in folk medicine and spa settings. It is a 100% natural product, the result of fermentation, and geological and chemical processes, as well as a significant part of the greatest ecological disaster of our civilization. ![[jan medlen and the aftermath.jpeg]] Burning gasoline: C₈H₁₈ + O₂ → CO₂ + H₂O (+ energy) Burning sugar: C₆H₁₂O₆ + O₂ → CO₂ + H₂O (+ energy) After the establishment of the wartime Slovak state, the oil of the Záhorie region came under the control of Reich-German businessmen. Another war that needed its black blood. And oil is still part of geopolitical conflicts today. The closest and most current conflict is related to the events surrounding the Druzhba oil pipeline (_Дружба_), translated into English as the Friendship Oil Pipeline. However, in its current form, it is the exact opposite, a poisoned artery of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict – it also brings Russian oil to us through Ukrainian territory while European money flows in the opposite direction. As a direct part of the financing of the military occupation of Ukraine, it has become a strategic target for several assassinations. The artery that nourishes the organism of war places the receiving “organs” in a position in which a clear decision must be made about supporting a specific side in the conflict. Neighboring Czech Republic has already cut itself off from Druzhba, while Slovakia and Hungary are cowardly waiting and continuing to help finance the occupation of our eastern neighbor. In the legends from Kysuce region, oil is mentioned as “black water” that devils used to drink from. Is it possible that we have gradually become them? Why is oil so often mentioned in the context of hell?  ## _Kozlíky_ (Pumpjacks or Nodding Donkeys) In the Záhorie region, you can still find hard-working, deep-well piston pumps – _kozlíky_ (their “heads” really do resemble small goats, which is their name in Slovak). The rotary motion of the electric motor is ingeniously transmitted to the pump piston, which moves from top to bottom. They are usually associated with images of the oil fields of North America, which makes it all the more surprising to see them in the midst of the pine trees of the Záhorie region. The area near the village of Jakubovo seems particularly abandoned – the pumpjacks seem to be approaching the end of their usefulness, which is also evidenced by the rapidly decreasing amount of extracted oil. According to current estimates, we as a civilization will reach peak oil during the first half of this century. However, extraction in our country is gradually ending. The controversial privatization of the NAFTA Gbely company in 1996, which led to the gradual decline of the company and the dismissal of local employees, has also played a significant role. Last year, the Záhorie pumpjacks extracted 1,228 tons, amounting to one tenth of production ten years ago. The volume of Slovak oil in the Bratislava refinery is less than one tenth of a percent. ![[kozlik.jpg]] The nodding donkeys are dilapidated and rusty. Their scenery evokes a post-apocalyptic world, where humanity has vanished and only self-operating robotic mining machines remain. There is a warning on the pumpjacks: “Caution, the pumpjack turns on automatically!” People may not even be needed here. Or, conversely, we are looking at a world where fossil fuel extraction has ceased to make sense. The apocalypse has not come. Medlen has slowly completed his perpetual motion machine and we have stopped making pacts with the devil. The forgotten pumpjacks are on their last legs. Rock oil (petra-oleum) soaked in hydrocarbons remains in the ground. Man has emerged triumphant.