Carnation I

2008  E-Werk Freiburg  
30 min.
with Julie Jaffrennou

venues Kopas International Performance Festival, Theater Zero Seoul, Korea (2009 ) / Kaskadenkondensator Basel, Schweiz (2008)

The performances Carnation l, ll and Red Carnation deal with the discrepancy between the transience of the human body and its representations in Western society. Nature and artificiality are the central themes of this performative triptych.

In a semi-dark room, a glass box made of mirror glass stands on a metal base.
The audience can look at itself in its mirror image. The lighting mood changes.
The light becomes weaker in the room and stronger in the glass box. The audience can now look through the mirror and see the interior. A performer is sitting in the box. She wears a tight skin-coloured fabric costume. She cuts open some parts of the fabric in which the eyes, the mouth, the chest, the sex are, and takes out elements of silicone. The correct skin and body parts can be seen through the openings. The picture shows a constructed and humanly injured body.
Then the performer sews up all open parts with very tight seams. At the end, by changing the lighting mood, the audience stands in front of its own mirror image again.

The performance poses the question of human power and responsibility as creator and creature.