If only they had written a score, 2023
IDEAL Artspace (DE)
Exhibition & sound performance, 26’00’’
[1] The project If only they had written a score was developed with the support of a working grant by the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony (DE).
[2] The exhibition project If only they had written a score (2023) is dedicated to the attempt to relive a past moment. It installs a “recomposition of remains” (Schneider 2012). In doing so, it draws attention to the reconstruction of relationality in a performance project initiated by artist Lissy Willberg. The basis for the (dis)section of this past moment is the performance What is the horizon more than two curved lines lovingly embracing you, which took place in Madrid, Spain, in July 2023. Visitors are invited to re-perform this bygone situation through their own bodies, narratives and experiences. The piece of printed matter is accompanying material for them to take home. It functions as a tool to engage with the content and meta-level of the (re)performance. The included essay contextualizes the project within Willberg’s research on notational practices in European performative arts.
Relationality is evidential because it is
able to change the way “I” perceive,
relate, and (inter)act (im)materially.
It has the capacity to bring forth
(im)material ways of relation between
places, things, animals, people, and plants.
Both performing and witnessing the
performative can change one’s perception,
which in turn can expand the notion of
what the self is (capable of). And it is
precisely this quality that – in its ephemerality –
makes the performative a lasting experience.
[3] Titled Your edges go astray (2023), the extensive relief sculpture in the second room gathers notations of my internal (mind) map of the site of the performance in Madrid. Thus, through the materialization of this map, I create traces in order to make inscriptions visible. In this way, I move beyond a social and artistic practice that (apparently) vanishes, that is not evident, turning to that which remains. The relief sculpture illustrates the inscription of a site in my memory. In its size, the sculpture is meant to show that bodily inscriptions (e.g. memories) not only exist in reality and are therefore of presence, but that they are also capable of disrupting the dominant understanding of space and time. How else would my body be capable of fitting the map?
[4] The relief sculpture reflects my engagement with the site of the performance, which developed in the rehearsal process. We put ourselves in (a) relationship with another. I let the place tell me who it is and offered my presence in return. To be in (a) relationship is to be in relation, in a proportion with, for example, a place. It is both a cosmical liaison and a physical encounter. To be in (a) relationship is also to be in response. Relationality is evidential because it is able to change the way “I” perceive, relate, and (inter)act (im)materially. It has the capacity to bring forth (im)material ways of relation between places, things, animals, people, and plants. Both performing and witnessing the performative can change one’s perception, which in turn can expand the notion of what the self is (capable of). And it is precisely this quality that – in its ephemerality – makes the performative a lasting experience.