Cleaning up for a performance (2015)
Live performance, projection, paint, tracing paper, found object
The performance begins with white light being projected onto a white wall. The performer realises, after exploring the wall, that there is something over top of it. He starts to remove the sheets of translucent tracing paper, which reveals a projected hole in the wall. The performer then attempts to repair the wall by painting over it with white paint. The orchestrated dance between the performer and the screen becomes more and more strenuous, as the performer has a difficult time keeping up with the (virtual) paint covering the wall. As the paint begins to dry, the projected hole begins to appear again. The performance is over when the performer turns on the light, effectively destroying the projection and restoring the space into a white cube.
(photo cred: Nathan Hoo)
By parodying the studio/white cube space, I am investigating the space and time ‘in between’ physical exhibition spaces. Obviously, deinstalling a projected image is just a matter of turning off the device, but by treating the image as something more than photons, I am able to question what happens to the material of the object I project on. During this performance the wall has its structural meaning usurped repeatedly by the durational narrative of the projections: the imagery changes from white projected light on tracing paper, which is adhered to a white wall, to a hole obscuring the wall. It is then reclaimed by white paint mapped onto virtual white paint, which then fails to obscure the hole. And then the wall ultimately changes back into its natural environment. Each act of repairing or tearing down is dependent on the projected image. And with each projected image the space the screen intercepts is destabilised and uncertain. The simple gesture of turning on the light and returning the space back to its original context was a poetic break in readying the studio for another experimentation or exploration. The work explores the space these walls create and how that space changes whenever photons land on the material.