Passages, 1997
(3 hour performance, installation)
Collaboration with Hugh Watt
Circular basement space, Glasgow, UK
The projected text, hand-written by Hugh from the writings of art theorists on the mutable relationship between artists and society, covers the performer and the audience who view the piece by circling around the edge of the space against the curved wall. The light beams that make up the text move over bodies in the space and are fluid like light under water.
The performer carries out a series of 10 gestures over and over in the center of the space that demonstrate how to fly. A narration of these 10 steps is available at a listening station via headphones in an adjacent space, so the viewer can see the movement with or without its conceptual context. The movement has the clarity and ritualized quality of one demonstrating something important, but degenerates through many repetitions over the 3 hours to take on a futile and labored quality.
The overall effect of the two combined elements is a tangible sense of the vivid intensity of the attempt at communication, clarity, and transcendence.
Images: Harald Turek and Helge Mruk