Awakening: Future - Ritual for freedom and safety
2016
Exhibition history:
KAI10|Arthena Foundation - „TAKE UP YOUR SPACE“
BACC - Bangkok Art and Culture Center (Video-Dokumentation als Loop)
PLAY Festival Köln/Düsseldorf 2017(Video-Dokumentation als begehbare Skulptur)
With the Séance-like happening „AWAKENING - FUTURE“, we invited the audience to a ritual for freedom and security. After breathing exercises and the preservation of a mantra - for security or freedom - the visitors entered the exhibition space, which was set up as a dark ritual space. Inside, the viewers were animated to speak the mantras aloud. At the same time, various individual physical interactions between the performers and guests took place, which caused the attention and focus to be concentrated on the details happening within the space and on the performative time. The physical interactions were gestures of activation by certain modes of touch. These were inspired by Bill Morrison‘s film „Re: Awakenings“ about Oliver Sacks‘ „awakened“ patients, survivors of „European Sleep“ (Encephalitis lethargica), a global epidemic from 1916 to 1927.
In a collective process, which illuminated the boundaries between individual, spiritual meaning and the everyday life as an unsecured area, we address the question of how the desire for meaning and spirituality is satisfied. What components of everyday life play together when searching, finding and losing these primary and universal desires for meaning?
During the Awakening ritual for freedom and security, all participants spoke their individual mantras (of security or freedom) so that an acoustic sound carpet was created. At the same time, ritual smoke arose in the space, and the participants had the chance to burn their mantras ceremonially, which then lit up brightly. When the 15 smoke detectors reacted to the spirituality and excitement of the participants with a loud multiplying tone, the audience was faced with the question whether security is the notion of being alarmed, and whether this kind of a notion of security is a threat or a contribution to freedom.
https://www.kaistrasse10.de/rueckblick/2016/take-up-your-space.html
https://www.artsy.net/show/kai-10-arthena-foundation-take-up-your-space-performances
http://www.festival-play.de/?portfolio=bergernissen
