live performance and installation

You can flick a light switch, lick it, ignore it, think about it, melt it, fire its protons around a particle accelerator, write a poem about it, meditate upon it (…) None of these will exhaust the reality of the switch.

In the exhibition of A Factory with the theme “machine and body,” I use the problem of access mode as described by Timothy Morton in their book “Dark Ecology.”

They describe how we cannot possibly comprehend an object, thing or phenomenon in its entirety, there are infinite ways to relate to the things which surround us. We can think about a light switch, jab at the switch with scissors, write a poem about it, eat it, kick it, crawl past it. All these modes of behavior provide only a small fragment of data about the object. No single mode of access will exhaust all the qualities and characteristics of a thing, and therefore things are inherently open, eluding full access.

With your thought you can’t encapsulate everything that an apple is, because you forgot to taste it. But biting into an apple won’t capture everything an apple is either, because you forgot to tunnel into it like a worm. And so with tunnelling too. (...) What you have, in each case, is not the apple in itself, but apple data.

Trying to un-fold things with the framework of thought is often seen as the highest way to gain access to the inherent mystery of an object. Elevating rational frameworks put the human experience at the center of the universe. Dark Ecology attempts to invalidate this anthropocentric validation. Is thinking about an object, thing or phenomenon more relevant than a bat flying past that light switch and thus, in its own temporary way, gaining access to that object.

the relational

For this work at the Industrial Museum, I use the problem of access mode as a research tool to find ways a person can encounter a machine with no specific desire to control it. The work is a continuation of an intimate encounter with a wind tunnel in a wind sensor company.

The inspiration for this work are two machines in the museum: the bearing listener (stethoscope) and the knitting machines. The bearing listener has fallen out of function due to new electronic ways of listening to vibrations. The object, stripped of its usefulness, lies in the museum and illustrates a particularly intimate way of accessing bearings. It consists of a thin tube with a conical end that you can hold up to your ear and the bearing to listen to the quality of the washers.

In a performance, I use the bearing listener as an inspiration to explore new ways in which bodies can relate to historical artifacts. To this end, three performers enter into a relationship with the machines in the museum. Fantasy, imitation and eroticization are hereby preferred to pragmatism and efficiency.

curated by Berbel Lippe, Dani Ploeger, Eva Langerak

performers Trees Heil, Marieke van Ekeren and Lizzy Langedijk

Machines en Lichamen, Een Fabriek

Sas van Gent, NL (2024)