Vive la République sound performance - 2009 / ice & electrical process / 27 to 36 minutes by gerber & gerber

On the street, we seat on a chair with a blanket in the back, in front of us, on the floor, 2 flanel shorts (grey & blue), one pair of gloves covering something, a red milk grease pot, a fan, 2 cables ending with 2 unlitten bulbs in their boxes, 2 cables ending with microphones, 2 speakers and an amp. Behind us above the street, a small triangle table with 48 plastic glasses of Champagne and 8 bottles of unopened Champagne, a glass container and a stock of family prints.

We seat and wait till the audience approaches, then we undress and get the shorts, 2 bottles of Wodka were hidden, we screw the bulbs and the light comes, then we get to a car and fetch 10 bags of ice (migro), we open the bags and poor the ice in the buckets and also in the champagne buckets across the street so that it cools a bit, the wodka goes also in the ice bucket but for another reason, we put grease on our feet take the litten bulb and the microphone and put our feet in the ice bucket… We stand there, bulb against the head, mic against the mouth and feet against the ice

One says it's « John Cage on ice », anyway we stand still in silence for over 20 minutes or more, time dissapears, actually the interesting part is that we don't feel our feet anymore so we could say that we're actually levitating over the ice…? No teeth noises but real burn the head and the feet, a balance, ewige Schaukeln… eternal swing, balancoire éternelle… the fan swings from left to right with cold air… No noises coming out or just very micro breath, tension…

Just before catastrophe, we go out and there, like Colombus or any other explorer we really feel the heat of the earth coming from deep below, the unexpected Republic has flourish… We try to walk like half-monsters, we hug like brothers but real republicans and we cry out " VIVE LA RÉPUBLIQUE !" to mention that it is the Republic of Geneva in 1818, the year of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - and not any other republic…

We cross the street towards Champagne, we cannot open the bottles because of the lasting grease all over our hands, we ask for help, we poor Champagne in the glasses and serve the audience, out of 8 bottles, 4 are gone, the other 4 are drunk sometime later in the evening, in the Gallery with curators, Frankenstein and left over republicans…

I forgot to say that when we go out of the bucket we dive the bulbs in the melting ice and the funny thing is that nothing happens…

 
 

©2010-2011 Nicolas Gerber | website : objet direct

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