Water
WATER
POWER AND POWERLESSNESS
DRINKING AND DROWNING
ETERNAL FLOW
The performance:
I lie stretched out on my back on the floor. Around me are many glass jars filled with water. Karin stands or kneels alternately next to or above me and fill me up with all of the water. The only movement of the one receiving is to open the mouth to let the water in and to lift the head towards it. The one giving defines what is happening through the speed and the amount of water.
Images of tenderly teasing, harmonically playing and merciless pain are created.
The rain comes and the rain leaves. How we feel depends on the circumstances we are in. If we are in a dry place and listening to the sounds it might appease us and develop poetry. If it is wild and incessant, it leads to flooding and harassment. It takes us with it. If we go into deep water and are able to swim, it is a benefit and enjoyment. If we are not able to swim it becomes a fight and we drown.
Water always has two polar aspects: activating and abolishing, passive and active, forming and filling.
It`s the nature of water to develop forces and alteration under certain physical conditions.
Water, which is constantly dropping on a rock for a very long time hollows it out. Flowing water forms its own channel.
Because of its character water adapts itself to the circumstances. It infiltrates all gaps and fills the space in between. Without boundaries one cannot hold it.
At temperatures below 0°C it becomes compact. This change of the form contains forces which can burst hard material.
Water is a continuum. Looking at the facts that we ourselves are composed of 90% water and that the absorption, as well as the elimination, of fluid are indispensable to life, we can see its essential importance.
We use it and we make use of it, in a good way and in a bad way. We make it subservient to us. But still we are at the mercy of it, because we are depending on its existence. Only that determines the sequel.
with Karin Preisser
1998, NO 10 Festival, Berlin, Germany