Cluster Praxis

Video-projection installation. Dimensions variable. Video 8’40”, colour, stereo sound. Suspension rods, aluminum track system, commando cloth, DVD player, video projector and stereo audio system. 2000
The video, Cluster Praxis is structured by the sound —a narrative mix of voice and ambient soundscapes— dominated by a 5 minute long poetic monologue, which deals with assimilation and desire dissipating into the city.

“Moving quickly from an excavation site through selected Psychasthenia facades to a [….] dance party, Cluster Praxis traces an ever-deepening subjectivity. The “objective” camera angle of the exterior shots gives way to the “subjective” first-person vantage, as the camera melts inconspicuously into a sea of undulating dancers.”*

Cluster Praxis deals with dancing as a form of social practice, and with the desire for collectivity and bodily social liberation. The assimilatory aspect of dancing in a club or party makes the dancer part of the baroque mass erotification of social space.

The installation: Externally, the room hangs like a large object hung from the ceiling. It is made from black sound dampening curtains hung from a heavy duty track system. Inside the “curtain space” the floor is carpeted in dark gray, creating a warm sense of enclosure.

* From a review by Jordan Kantor in Artforum Jan, 2002
Links