Performance
Duration: 14min
For: RE:sponse, NP3 Gallery, Groningen 2019
As part of PAS #67 "Course of Action"
Camera credit: Arnoud Rigter
On combining absurdism with seemingly unrelated objects and images to create a logical narrative world in which anything is possible.
Description:
The audience is gathered in the gallery around the ladder and the hatch. I am situated above and no-one can see me. First I lower a hand down the hatch, feel the ladder and take it back up. Then I lower 1 leg and alternate it with my head upside down. I then let my backpack fall down the hatch, before descending the ladder. The backpack is being pushed over the railing, I go back against the wall and take a plunge forward to dive under the railing. Pushing myself and the backpack forward, I go to the couch. There I sit down and take the blue towel out of the bag. I repeatedly shake out the towel on the ground and pick it back up again, until I leave it there neatly spread out in front of me. Taking up a diving position on the edge of the couch before taking breath and dive onto the towel to do crawl swim motions on my belly. Go back up and sit on the couch, take the swimming aid out of the bag and take a seat on the armrest of the couch. I place the aid between my feet and do leg exercises before quickly plunging back on the towel, looking back a couple of times to the man sitting on the couch. Then, sitting back on the couch, I take a yellow cutting board and start peddling in increasing motions with the board stuck out in front of me. I then quickly dive back on the towel and peddle with the board in front for some time. Sitting back, I put the board on my knees and take off my goggles. Out of the bag I take a yellow banana, put it on the board and push it forward on the towel. Then, from the bag, I take a round pizza cutter and start rolling over the floor past the audience before coming back to the cutting board and start slicing the banana in pieces. I then take up the last diving position on the couch and plunge with my head in the banana, taking up chest crawl motions while gasping for air. I get up, before taking the board and the bag with me.