Installation view, Impossible Homeostasis, 2013, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, FR
Installation view, Impossible Homeostasis, 2013, Hordaland Art Centre, Bergen, NO
Performative sculpture, block of Ice
IMPOSSIBLE HOMEOSTASIS
2013
Film | 10 mins
Performative sculpture, block of ice.
Impossible Homeostasis is a performance which was originally a commission from FRAC Champagne-Ardenne and was first performed at the Theater La Comédie in Reims on the first of December 2013 in the context of Reims Scènes d´Europe.
The commission was based on Bruno Latours ideas and philosophy on Gaïa and our relationship to environmental and climatic problematics. Bruno Latour was present and showed his new play ”Gaïa Global Circus” the same night at the same theater, La Comédie. (The other artists performing in Reims were: Toril Johannessen, Fernando Garcia Dory, Angelo Plessas, Pamina de Coulon, Clerk & Joy and David Evrard.)
Impossible Homeostasis is a performance in two parts/acts.
First part is a performative sculpture, a bloc of ice positioned in the theatres foajé or any space/building with a heating system. The ice, melt/reacts to the human-built structure/corpus of the building. One person is regularly sweeping the floor and podium it is positioned on to prevent the water from the melted ice to damage and infiltrate the building. The spectators were invited to touch the ice before entering the second part of the performance.
At Hordaland Art Center, only the second part was performed. The performance took place within the framework of B-Open: A matter of Life and Conduct alongside lectures by Territorial Agency, Nathan Brown and Aaron Schuster.
The second part: A performance and film. Approximately 20 performers (participated in Reims in 2013 and about 15 at Hordaland Art Center in 2014) enough to make a crowd in the given space while in balance or equal, to the number of people in the audience.
Impossible Homeostasis, 2013, Video, 10 mins
Performers in Reims
In the performance in Reims which took place in a theatre space, the spectators enter the stage while the performers are seated in the bleachers, roles are inverted. At Hordaland Art Center, the performers were seated centrally facing the incoming audience. A screen is suspended at a certain height, above the heads, between the performers and the spectators allowing the video to unfold between the performers and the spectators without obscuring the sight of each other.
During the screening of the film, the spectators were observed by the performers. The film consists of sequences where no humans are present in the image nor behind the camera (surveillance cameras, storm cams, etc.). The performers were equipped with microphones catching their small muscular movements, breathing and clothes rubbing, producing the only sound in the room.
The film screened featured a montage of clips from online platforms showing various climate-related disasters, such as floods, tsunamis, tornados and forest fires. None of the clips featured any presence of humans but mostly empty sights and spaces. The importance being that these clips were only taken from CCTVs (and similar optical recording devices) hence with no direct human agency behind the camera. The images seen are, therefore, just registered without any aesthetic or speculative intentions.
Considering the Anthropocene and context of GAIA what interested me was to make a performance questioning our collective consciousness and relationship to the, sometimes spectacular, images/representation of climatic catastrophes and today´s deregulated nature.Within a collective setting, where seen and heard, do we articulate a heightened experience of responsibility or sense of implication and awareness towards climate change—a sense which can be evaded when in our individualised oriented everyday life.
To note is that the performers were not asked to observe with a judgemental attitude, on the contrary, the directives were that the people in the audience were to be empathically observed as when someone is holding a lecture or sharing thoughts with a friend, as a confidant.
The relationship between, the human-constructed, sublime landscape and speculatively spectacular images of catastrophes are also put into consideration within this context where only a collective/global effort can have an impact to reverse the doomed fate of nature.
Participants in the performance in Reims —
Kléa Charitou, Pascale Charollais, Claire Colders, Laure Doucede, Chloé Gallimard, Karine Hubert, Brigitte Huvier, Alain Laudeloux, Lisa Le Boulaire, Emmanuel Moutte, Alis Mussle, Charles Pallaro, Christine Raillard, Céline Rosette, Valentin Tableau, Marine Victor and Jean-Pierre Wernimont.
Exhibited at —
Impossible Homestasis, 2013, Hordaland Art Centre, Bergen, Norway
Impossible Homestasis, 2013, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France