No Matter #2

Contexts – International Sokolovsko Festival of Ephemeral Art, 2014

During 2014, I created three performance-works titled No Matter.

No Matter #2 was created in the summer of 2014. A few months earlier, in the spring of 2014, I created No Matter, the first performance with this title, for the Mandel Center in Jaffa. But there was still another work, No Matter #3, created in the fall of that year, for Zacheta National Gallery in Warsaw.

All three No Matter performances, were bound by the same aim and intention, which was to divert attention from the performer to the audience, and to enhance the audience’s visibility and consciousness of themselves during the performance, both as aesthetic components and as social components.

Unlike the months of work which usually characterize my preparations for new performances, No Matter #2 was conceived within a very short timeframe, in which I had processed my thoughts and imagination. In the case of No Matter #2, I had only three days for mind searching and for choosing a location, to be followed by the performance itself, which, by the way, had never since been presented, again, in this or any other format. The reason for this extremely short interim of preparation was my feeling, following the 10 presentations of the first No Matter, that for attuning my senses to the audience, in real time and space, I had no preparations to make in advance other than coming to the performance with my highest aptitude for concentration.

Upon arriving in Sokolovsko, I set my mind on finding a location, which would be the magnificent nature setting so unique of Sokolovsko, and putting into action my intention to divert the gaze of the audience onto themselves.

Immediately beyond the stretch of cultivated lawn aligning the Vila Rosa from untamed nature, is a glorious mountain slope which I had chosen as the location of my work; it was in full summer bloom and as can be expected: “The leaves shapes gleamed in the afternoon play of sun and shadows”*. Having just arrived from where even a summer garden flower is a rarity, “the wavering flowers at the edge of their long stems protruding out of the bushes at the foot of the slope, in pinks, blues, purples and yellow, were a glimpse of paradise”. The tall erect trees, had also alluded to my paradisiacal fantasies: “Erect towards the summit with one at its highest point”.

I was very soon climbing the mountain, with wide sturdy steps, and holding my back as straight as I could, pushing my weight upward, through the hedge, without bending or tripping or sliding. Before all, I had to check if my body could stand the challenge of working on what seemed to be an untrodden mountain slope, and proudly – it did. I returned the next morning, with rubber boots and rubber gloves, determined to meet the slope again. I felt the good scent of nature and the excitement of what I may very soon construe.

For the audience, my mountain slope was only a few-minute walking distance from the busy locations of the festival. It was 5 o’clock on a July afternoon. A young woman directed the audience to the path aligned across the foot of the slope. I had dispersed on the path old back and white photographs of young couples with their young child, or of a single young woman with her son and daughter. I am sure that people looked at the photographs, but the photographs remained there, on the ground, until I collected them at the end of the performance.

The audience gathered gradually. I watched them, inconspicuously, from the top of the mountain. Some had been my students, I had seen others at my previous performances, and still others were friends. Some were on the lookout, waiting for something to happen, and others seated themselves on rocks, set at the side of the path, and were talking amongst themselves.

I was looking at them closely and intently. I was happy to see them all, there, for the occasion, and I wanted to have them sense that they are being watched with affection.

I was interested in the audience seeing me, but not as a complete image yet rather as a mark, in the hedges, or a caption. I was wearing a red scarf on my head so that the red could be deciphered. I used the trees as points of reference so I could measure where I was and how far down the slope or up the slope I had moved. The slant downwards had some holes in it, and fallen branches which made it confusing and not easy to maneuver myself.

The audience could see when I could see them. When standing by the tree, at the summit, I was nearly hidden by the tall growth surrounding me, but they could identify me, though faintly, by the red which was very probably observed, albeit scantily, so that perhaps the suggestion of an image could be construed – if they tried.

When I would walk towards a tree, I made sure the tree will cover my image except for the brief moment when I let my image reveal a suggestion of me. I moved a lot, actually, all the time, although in an asymmetric rhythm, so it was as if I was constantly saying something to them.

When I bended down, once, and turned around, keeping myself low and hidden but permitting the solid form of my back to push against the dry twigs, I turned my head and, wearing the red, so it would somehow show that I was there.

Still, I was speaking to them all the time. Not only with my body but also addressing them with words, as individuals, looking straight at specific persons, each time looking straight at another, and then, again, speaking to all of them. It was speaking more like a plead, genuinely, with spoken words and moving lips. I pleaded using my hands, as well, delicately, so that I could be as expressive and quiet, not audible, so they could not hear me with their ears.

I did not wish for them to hear or to see me, with their senses, though I did want to reassure them with mere glimpses of suggestibility that I was there. I had hoped that the mere suggestion of presence directed at them and to them, whole heartedly, would be sufficiently potent for them to be there and remain, and to make themselves known and present.

After an hour and a half, the sky became grey and the rain began to fall. The rain became a strong thunderstorm, but some of the audience remained until I had felt it was my time to come down.

I received reactions from some persons who had put their attention to this performance, and what was said to me by them is that they felt that I was giving attention to each of them individually, and that this feeling of individual worth and weight, importance, had made them want to stay on and on. Funny but nice was that some had commented that the rain had been brought by the spirited sensation that was allured by their confirmation of their own presence.

In writing the recollections of No Matter #2, I realize myself how much I strive in this art-form to, indeed, rely less on matter that is the physical, formal, material.

*All quotations are by me.