Visual Statements
‘Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.’
— Walter Benjamin
In an open landscape, we see a grandstand for 200 people: the spectators. In front of them eight young men.
In the next hour they start to build a grandstand that is exactly similar to the one we are sitting on. Like a group of ants they move effective but gracefully. When the work is done, we see a new crowd approaching in the distance. Hungry for entertainment. The two groups now encounter each other. Or themselves? When the first group has left the scenery, the second group gets to see the deconstruction of the other grandstand and the rise of the landscape.
Spectaculair performance is a practice in mindfulness for the audience, crowds, watchers and other members of the Society of the Spectacle. This unplugged part of the series Visual Statements raises questions about a world in which our search for meaning has become a constant motion from one place to another; a world of spectacular experiences.
Spectaculair performance is part of The Visual Statements-series (2011-2014). Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot question the dominant image culture of today’s spectacle society. They expose mediatized representation and its claim to reality. In doing so, they play with the double bind of alienation.
REVIEWS
‘Provocerende werkelijkheid.’
— De Gelderlander
‘Spectaculaire voorstelling vraagt veel begrip.‘
— Theaterkrant
‘Radicaal antitheater.’
— De Volkskrant
‘Spektakel Oostpool maakt tongen los.’
— De Leeuwarder Courant
‘Dit soort theater toont niet, maar ontlokt.’
— Cutting Edge
CREDITS
DIRECTION Suzan Boogaerdt & Bianca van der Schoot
WITH Marijn Brussaard, Koen Kreulen, Toon Kuijpers, Daan Simons, Dwayne Toemere, Roel Voorbij, Erik Whien & David Calderon Zarate
SCENOGRAPHIC ADVICE Marc Warning