18-4-2009

Accompanying Het Geheugenhuis festival in April, there will be a special installation at the Theatrum Anatomicum of the Waag in Amsterdam by Marloeke van der Vlugt.

‘Series Patchmaker’, no 1. Marloeke, 1971 is the first part of a series of interactive, performative installations in which the human body itself is the actual interface. A meeting of two bodies, both continuously shifting between performer and spectator, between intimate flesh-and-blood and mechanical object. Seven sensors are attached to the different body parts of the performer. Touching, rubbing or moving the performer’s body triggers (video-) images, soundscapes and physical (re-) actions. Together they give insight in events of her past and her possible alternative futures, always culminating in 'the accident'.

The technology gives access to information our senses would normally not perceive. It invites the visitor to communicate with the performer in a special, personal and very intimate manner. The video and audio material and the lights respond to the visitor in real time, and influence each other and the performer’s actions. The memory of the body seems to be manifested in fragmented audiovisual displays and physical reactions of the performer.