Mardi 27 Mai 2008 5:20:06 pm

IN TRANSIT 08: Singularities/Einmaligkeiten 11th til 21st of June 2008/ Berlin

The process-oriented, fleeting genre known as performance art was born in the 1960s and represented an alternative to the material nature of the visual arts. Today, an increasing number of visual artists are returning to live performance in their work. IN TRANSIT 08 – the Performing Arts Festival at the House of World Cultures – is exploring the political dimensions of performance art, focusing on social circumstances and their effects on the body.

Joan Jonas, the 72-year-old pioneer of video and performance art from New York, will be opening the festival with her own Berlin version of The Shape, The Scent, The Feel of Things. The work recapitulates her decades-long fascination with ritual and performance, drawing on the lecture given by Aby Warburg on the Hopi Indians as a way to prove his sanity and secure his release from a closed psychiatric ward in 1923. The music accompanying the performance was composed by jazz pianist Jason Moran.

Born in Manila and currently based in Copenhagen, media artist Lilibeth Cuenca will be questioning the notion of authenticity by re-enacting thirteen famous performances by iconic figures like Yves Klein, Marina Abramovic, Yoko Ono, and Nam June Paik. In turn, the Beijing-based visual artist He Chengyao will be putting her soul up for auction as part of a biting satire of the booming market for contemporary Chinese art.

The Irish sound artist Shawn Greenlee has developed a computer-based system called Augur, which uses the act of drawing as a performance gesture and transforms graphic patterns into sound. For IN TRANSIT, Greenlee will be creating a new work using Augur as a ‘prepared instrument’, much like John Cage’s ‘prepared piano’.

Two new artistic directors have been appointed to IN TRANSIT 08: curator André Lepecki from Tisch School of the Arts and theatrical and artistic director Silke Bake are presenting 21 new productions by artists throughout Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Asia. The programme is showcasing more than 100 artists and theorists from five continents in a range of inspiring productions, happenings, installations, and lectures.

http://www.hkw.de/en/programm2008/intransit08/_intransit08/intransit08_detail.php

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