We invite you to dinner. On a well-laid table a mass of wildly mixed meals is piled up… Only at the second view you will realize the absurd potential lying within this food. It’s a carefully built still-life, made out of aesteticaly cooked and composed dishes, citing stereotypes of typical food images from comics, paintings, films or childhood memories. Formal principles are color, textile structure and the desire to materialize subliminal personal culinary wishes.
We want to seduce people to take part and break their own rules in a relish way. Where are the borders where a classy dinner converts into ”La Grande Bouffe”? How far will the invited participants go and where will we have to mark new borders? What happens when the slow loose of control gets stronger?
I suppose my feed are burning I suppose I could work as lap dancer I suppose I eat fish I suppose I miss you I suppose I became famous last night I suppose I drove over your dog I suppose I slept under you I suppose I’m leaving now.
I suppose… it’s about your life and we know each other. We haven’t met, but we know each other and that’s enough. Between surrealistic moments and ordinary day to day minds. All in all tempting, absurd and strongly connected with a dog. I’m circling, will discolor your eyes and I know, everything is lighter than a swan.
I’m already in the space, sitting on a chair closed to a table with 18 wine glasses and a still standing metronome. Softly I start to slight down from the chair on the floor. I stand up and move to chair to another spot in the space and repeat this action. After a second time I take out a piece of fabric with the writing “hold”. I put this over my face and slight slowly down a third time. After I take out a yellow rubber ball and bounce it playful on the floor. I switch on a kettle filled with water standing underneath the table. After a while I start to throw the ball against the wall and over the head of the audience. I continue with this action in unpredictable manner and different levels of playfulness, aggression, rhythms and power.
I stop this action in the moment the water is boiling. I take the kettle and pour out the hot water over the wine glasses and the table. I step in front of the table and take a toy musical box which was laying under the table and pull the string on it, so its starts to play a gentle children song. During the music I try to collect all the glasses between my arms. I take them and step away from the table. With the glasses between my arms I slowly walk to the center of the space and start to gently push the glass against each other. I’m looking at the audience and increase the pressure of the glasses till they start to crack and the hot water runs out. I continue with this action for a little while longer to the moment I lay them down on the floor. I search for eye contact with single audience members and take out the piece of fabric again. I unfold it completely and “hold breath” is readable now. Slowly I put it over my face and move it into my mouth till it disappears. Now I step on the table and relief the metronome standing on the table, which starts to tick. I leave the space.
I start the performance by entering the space with a frosted glass bowl filled with 9 liter of milk. I pass this bowl to an audience member and speak out the sentence “In the beginning was a word, an empty word.” As next I take out of the glass bowl a rubber ball and let it bounce through the space. After I passed the glass bowl two times more to an audience member I leave the bowl with the second person and take a black gaffer strip to cover my left hand and partly my left under arm. I stretch my left arm and cover with the right hand my mouth. Immediately I start to breathe loud and rhythmical till I nearly hyperventilate.
As next I take out a scalpel and start to cut the black tape on my left hand. While cutting the tape, small pearls are dripping slowly out of my mouth. As next I take two prepared roses, present them and speak out the word memory, take of the leaves and let them slowly fall down. I take the next two roses and speak out the word opinion; I brush with the roses slowly over my face and neck. I take the next 2 roses; speak out the words direct response and scream immediately at the roses. I take the last two roses and say the word intimacy as next I bring both roses completely in my mouth and leave them finally fall out the mouth again. I stay in front of a pile of destroyed roses and light a hidden firework in the roses. It burns for few seconds in different colors and produces quite a bit of smog. After this action I say the words “At the end was a word, a radical word” and go directly to a chair in the back of the space. I step on the chair and jump directly in the direction of the audience. As the last action I take out rose oil and walk along the audience and let them smell. At one person I stop and let her smell a bit longer, I look directly in her eyes and slap myself one time in the face. I leave the space.
I’m already in the space, facing the audience. The objects on stage are two chairs 8 pairs of shoes which I asked to get from the audience, a ball and a hanging cymbal on the exit door. I start to walk in a circle around the objects and speed up till I’m running. While running, my look is permanently on the objects. I stop at the first chair, sit down and take off my boots. I go towards the lined up shoes, which are all from teenager. I loosely put on the first shoe, only the right one, and start to march in front of the other shoes. Now I have one shoot with the ball aiming the cymbal. While the shot the shoe is flying away. I take the next right shoe and repeat the action with marching, shooting and aiming the cymbal. Also this shoe is flying away. From now on I repeat this action with all the other shoes. While doing it I intensify the marching with the one shoe on. After the last shot I go towards the second chair on the end of the shoe line. I sit down and slide slowly down. Before I completely reach the floor with my body, the chair breaks over me and covers my face.
“Wait“is a continuation of my former durational performance „Please, take a potato and wait with me“ (performed in Glasgow, 2009). It refers to the topic of transforming private and public spaces in a shared space based on memory and childhood. The surrounding of this performance becomes suddenly a meeting spot and invites in a playful manner to take part. Potatoes and color toy balls are the central object for this Performance and could hopefully open a controversial intersection between memories, roots and cultural identity.
„I want an empty word to fill“ is a basic model for an imaginary shared space between the performer and the audience. Within this model I want to question the disturbing moment of radicalness without spelling outs. The french philosopher Jacques Rancière uses the term of aesthetic landscapes to map a space for the unutterable, inaudible and the unfeasible, which leads to self-conception.
I start the performance by holding a frosted glass bowl filled with 9 liter of milk. I pass this bowl to an audience member and ask to let this bowl circulate among the other people in the audience. This is an ongoing action for the whole duration of the performance. I walk through the audience with an open bottle which contains rose oil. I stop in front of a men and let him smell,I slap him immediately if he does so. I fill the rest of the oil in the second glass bowl and light it up. The bowl is burning. Now, I’m balancing the bowl between my head and the column in front of me. By doing this, I constantly repeat the sentence: „I imagine to think radical“. I stop after view minutes, take the bowl down and fill it up the feathers from the floor. I hold the burning bowl over the balustrade and let it fall.
I’m already in the space and flap with my arms like a bird with wings. While the audiences enter the room, I continue till my arm muscle too tired to go on with this movement. After a while I stretch my left arm, pull the sleeve of my shirt back and cover with the right hand my mouth. Immediately I start to breathe loud and rhythmical till I nearly hyperventilate. Small feathers start to fall, hidden under my left sleeve. As next I take a tin from the floor and walk towards the audiences. I stay very close to some of them and breathe in and out. The breath I exhale goes closely into the tin where I prepared red powder. With every exhale my face got more and more covered with this powder. After few repetitions I step in front of the audience and take a toy bird out of this tin. I start to move the bird gently till my right arm is shaking as much as possible. Now I take off my clothes except my underwear and step in a pile of feathers. On the backside of my legs I draw a line with a shaver and go over this line with a red lipstick. As next I start an ongoing moving and speaking action. The movements are close to sign language and connecting different body parts with the sentences I speak. The sentences always start with: „I suppose..“ After I stopped these actions, I’m going to a big black wall behind me and write the sentence: “Enough with poems for afterwards” with a brush and water on the wall. I repeat this sentence by words and go to an inclined chair which is covered with earth. I step on the chair and jump directly towards the audience. I fall on the floor, stand up and go back to the black wall. I put my covered face on the wall and rub the left over from the written letters with my coloured face out. Afterwards I take two rubber balls in each hand. Finally I stand with my back to the audience, start to flap again with my arms, but faking this movement for a short time till I let the rubber balls bounce. I leave the space.
I’m already in space and flap with my arms like a bird with wings. The audiences enter the room and I continue till my arm muscle too tired to continue this movement. After a while I stretch my left arm, pull the sleeve of my shirt back and cover with the right hand my mouth. Immediately I start to breathe loud and rhythmical till I nearly hyperventilate. Small feathers start to fall, hide under my left sleeve. As next I take a tin from the floor and walk towards the audiences. I stay very close to some of them and breathe in and out. The breath I exhale goes closely into the tin. After few repetitions I step in front of the audience and take a toy bird out of this tin. I move the bird while shaking my right arm as much as possible. Afterwards I put my bird back in the tin. Now I take off my clothes except my underwear and step in a pile of feathers. On the backside of my legs I draw a line with a marker and go over this line with a burning lighter. As next I start an ongoing moving and speaking action. The movements are connecting different body parts with the sentences I speak. The sentences always start with: „I suppose..“ After I stopped these actions, I walk to a prepared chair. I step on the chair and jump directly towards the audience. I fall on the floor, stand up and take a rubber ball out of the tin. I show the ball at the same position where the bird was before. I let the rubber balls bounce and leave the space.
