WORK is a performance and video installation developed as part of YOU ARE GROUP’s residency at Center for Literature, Münster. The performers in WORK collectively and repeatedly generate a portrait of an occupation. Instructions are developed through a series of questions, while the performers are (com)posing with their bodies in space. They walk together but are simultaneously fragmented into six individual frames. Movements are organized according to a code which assigns temporary roles to the performers. Sometimes these roles may involve active choices on positioning, clothing and gestures, but other times the performers are simply stopped in their tracks, waiting for the next sign of release. Addressed by an outside voice, they translate those words into still images of familiar group situations. However, while all poses hinge on visualizing (real and imaginary) group dynamics, the resulting pictures remain ambiguous: Are they leaning or falling on each other? Is she holding her or pushing her? Is his look one of empathy or of judgment? Are they colleagues or strangers? Soon after the image dissolves again and people are dispersing into space once more with only increasing layers of clothing remaining as evidence of their brief encounter.
Filmlesungen, Gesprächsrunden, Workshops, Performances
