PERFORMING SPACE

A first draught of this video was designed specifically for a performance festival at the gallery Galerij Jan Colle (Ghent). The video was projected onto a full surface, acting as an imaginary reflection or extension of the environment, as if its structure was constantly manipulated. Walls slide by; they shift along and tilt over, as if the architectural elements are subject to some peculiar mechanical locomotion. Erki De Vries explores the degree of performance of the environment; he choreographs the totality of his construction by means of virtual extensions and animated variations. It’s as if the actual space is decelerated in a confrontation of fiction and reality, of past and future. The spectator is incited to resituate himself, to withdraw from the conditioned situation and new physical relations and seek out experiences. What if space itself is an extension of our mental constructs? What if, at each step, each twist and change in perspective, we redesign the space all over again? Where does the actual architecture end, when do we start to become one with our surroundings ourselves? For the autonomous video the images were reedited and completed with a sound composition, in collaboration with Kris Delacourt (Building Transmissions).