Performance 15′ / Digital beta 3′ 13”
During this performance, the audience was kept waiting for the performer in a darkened auditorium. A deaf and blind woman was guided to the spot lit platform. Once she was in position at the lectern, she put on surgical gloves and performed in sign language the text that she had been taught. At a certain point, she indicated she would repeat the text: at this precise moment, two consecutive light flashes were fired behind her, temporarily blinding the audience. The woman then repeated her speech. When it was concluded, she took off the gloves, left them on the platform and departed from the hall aided by the attendant. In the lobby, a copy of the text that has just been performed lay there. It was available to the audience, but it is unlikely that many of those present would have understood it, since it was in Braille.
This speech will surely not change anything. It is only certain that it will remind us of what we already know. The manner in which this is conveyed releases both you and me from momentarily needless responsibility. We do not have to think now, in this moment, about what I am talking about. The responsibility is due later. That is why everything looks like a deception and any possibility of rational communication is cancelled. Thereby our egos are also cancelled as well as the possibility to judge it immediately. The willful disturbance of any communication is what I do because I expect you to feel with your body, eyes, skin, feet, palms of your hands. I want you to feel. To ask yourselves: what has really happened? What has really been said? You will find the answer by yourselves when you come to somebody whom you have always thought in need of help and find out that he or she is the only one that can help you.”
“This ridiculously theatrical and pathetic situation is only a necessity in which you are involved. It is my privilege to convey to you in the least adequate manner what is constantly devastating and permanently burdening me. This speech will surely not change anything. It is only certain that it will remind us of what we already know. The manner in which this is conveyed releases both you and me from momentarily needless responsibility. We do not have to think now, in this moment, about what I am talking about. The responsibility is due later. That is why everything looks like a deception and any possibility of rational communication is cancelled. Thereby our egos are also cancelled as well as the possibility to judge it immediately. The willful disturbance of any communication is what I do because I expect you to feel with your body, eyes, skin, feet, palms of your hands. I want you to feel. To ask yourselves: what has really happened? What has really been said? You will find the answer by yourselves when you come to somebody whom you have always thought in need of help and find out that he or she is the only one that can help you.”