Tanzquartier Wien

remains of the wall

on which hang traces of the

inside separating a space

in which the rear sides

of houses face each other

back-to-back.

Projected text by

Bettina Vismann

Sunday, 18th of June, ca. 21hrs

In the gap between buildings, the derelict remains of a demolished building, “the rear sides of two houses face each other back-toback” vertically, while horizontally two identical ground plans neighbour each other laterally reversed. They mirror one another; the residents – performer and choreographer Claudia Bosse and architect Bettina Vismann – themselves and the bystanders; themselves and the neighbours living on similar ground plans; themselves and all residents living in similar outlines and similar conditions. Twice a day, for three hours, they describe the conditions. The conditions of their everyday life, the place, their encounters within these conditions. Are the conditions condition to the daily routine or are (these) conditions negotiable and thus subject to change, and where does, can “action” take place besides or precisely because of the restricted and, simultaneously, possibilities extending conditions, as a potentiality?

The model-like experimental arrangement between activist squat, theatrical staging, reality- show, lab, field research or architectural survey, allows space for individual and collective associations and projections. Will the self-imposed protocol – “the conditions” – be followed and is it important? Or might the applied theatricality primarily assist as a trajectory to tip the image into a constant movement, oscillating between newly found perceptions and assumed realities, to allow for a new order of things? Nothing is as it seems and perhaps it may be important to understand that for our thoughts and bodies to come into motion. Jacques Rancière claims that the site of politicality is no longer to be found simply by entering Plato’s cave and performing the illusion of reality, but that the political is to be found while we sit in the cave – when we start to realize that we can move, act.

Active life, the human condition within everyday life. Everyday life as site for politics. For Hanna Arendt, action serves as basis for the political existence of the human. In close relation to the public realm, it is at the core of any interaction, of communication. “Inter action” (projection by Claudia Bosse) the in-between of people. I am another you, you are another me. We are not equal and yet both of us are partly reflected in each other. We exchange glances. Perhaps we are more equal than different. During his visit to the vacant lot P.S. remarks: “The life of the two Veronikas”. And P.G adds both knowingly and questioningly: “Like twins and yet different”. Is it our conditions that make us alike without knowing or is it our decisions? Do we accept it? Do we stand back-to-back, turned to each other, whether we can see each other or not, in large or small multitudes? In his 1937 book “The Road to Wigan Pier”, George Orwell describes the culture and taste of the working class from the industrial regions near Liverpool and how different these are to how contemporary left-wing political activists and bohemians perceive them; how the latter try to imitate the workers’ taste in order to mark a movement or simply out of identification. According to Orwell, “cheap luxury” and structural difference had already drawn a vertical line between them. The social contract defines solidarity as being liable for one another, also back-to-back. Having the same conditions, even transversely? Is nothing what it seems? Can things still be the same even if they appear in a different form? Adorno: “There is no right life in the wrong one.” Coffee with cream. Time. La dolce vita. What does it look like? Can wrong life be lived rightly? Who cannot consider this right now? Who can think about it and what is more important? What would allow for a more precise statement regarding the state of things of the world we live in? Who has time, and can that time be considered a luxury for the unemployed or what are the conditions of being able to enjoy time? “This looks happy somehow”, H.P. says as he attends the third “object application” during which the performers do not need to see. While they are wrapped in checked fabrics and – through this material connection – blindfolded/ sightless, they test their relation, their relationality to one another and maybe even their trust towards and at each other as much as their position to their surrounding environment. Then, glances. Indeed, it looks somewhat blissful and I notice the shyness of this happiness while it reveals itself. And even if it cannot be stopped from piercing through, a sense of the forbidden and obscene tries to close in on it and get a hold of it. But it still radiates. It is made of a different fabric. Would we agree on claiming happiness as a universal human right, against all odds? To have time should be part of such a human right and of all everyday life.

On the second night, Bettina Vismann’s text projection reads: “The borders between properties are marked in the vertical lines where pedestals cut steps.” The horizontal lines connect. On Monday at 5 pm, during the second “object application” of the artists, Franz Erhard Walther lays himself across the separating lines in the form of a soft, long, blue piece of cloth, connecting the territories. The two residents leave their separated daily routines and meet each other via the referenced artist. Carefully testing the social in relation to its fabric and in response to the other, approaching step by step, tension, resilience, strain, compatibility, tolerability, accessibility, release, required and necessary distance, temporality, the personal ground, the common ground, slowly proving joint action, walking towards, standing up for, standing by one another, side by side. Exchange of glances. A touch. Coming apart.

What remains? In-between the layers, inside the gap, among the sediment, stories age. Action, a restructuring of the conditions of everyday life, making history. I was here and I tried to do something. Today, they read the news. In this reduction, every modification of the conditions carries weight and causes a change in every newly found balance, thereby affecting the resulting action. One single grave condition can become become as important as that all future actions are in response to it, orienting themselves towards it. Then all act the same and simultaneously; both are doing the same. Looking closer. The reduction of the conditions lets them investigate the material of the conditions, the fabric of things, the différance in the difference, black and white dissolving into 10 000 shades of grey, encountering their own immanence continuously in the act, in action. And while a two-parted pink-red spectre haunts the neighbouring houses’ gardens, a body lies itself on the floor of the living room of the other. And the body sinks into the ground while we all go quiet. On the ground of the fundamental conditions, things slowly start to emerge and we are only ever at the beginning.

Dialogic text processed during 168 hours.

June 16-23 2018,

Gabrielle Cram

Gabrielle Cram born in Falkirk/Scotland, is a cultural worker based in Vienna, Austria. The engagement in transdisciplinary fields and practices of translation – between genres, spaces, times, locations, languages – takes an important role in her work. Her practice is marked by diverse forms of mediation such as the creation of spaces for negotiation and contact zones for still open processes. She works as a dramaturge, curator and cultural mediator.

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