Performance essay (Via Negativa 2002 -2008)
One of the major characteristics of 20th century is a passion for the real, says Alain Badiou in his collection of lectures entitled 20th Century. That’s why “this art wants to show its own process, to idealize its reality so visually (and) proposes such artistic gestures, which were impossible before – to present as art something that was before considered only as its own drags (…) But passion for the real necessary means doubt too. Nothing can prove, that real is actually real, except the system of fiction where it can play the role of the real.” That’s why the theatre is the medium where we hunt the real with the biggest passion.
Frame for Hunt for the real is an essay entitled Erasing the Audience by Blaž Lukan PhD. In his lecture he takes a stroll through strategies that Via Negativa has developed to establish the relationship with its audience. It consists of the following chapters: Viewing Itinerary (Starting Point: Anger, 2002), Viewer As Accomplice (More, 2003), Performative Economy (Incasso, 2004), Game Of Conditionals (Would Would Not, 2005), Viewer Seduction (Viva Verdi, 2006; Not Like Me, 2007), Death In Viewers’ Lap (Four Deaths, 2007), Viewer As Leftover (Out, 2008). By analyzing these strategies the lecturer launches a series of performers’ demonstrations that put him in the centre of the effects he talks about. The theory cannot avoid “getting its hands dirty with practice”. The audience finds itself in a dual role: the lecturer addresses it as his student, and the performer as his viewer.
Lecture
Essay written by Blaž Lukan (integral essay Erasing the Audience is published in the book THE NO, Via Negativa 2002 – 2008, Transformacije, Maska Ljubljana, 2010), adapted and presented as a lecture by Bojan Jablanovec
Performances
Scenes from Via Negativa performances 2002 -2009 created and performed by Katarina Stegnar, Grega Zorc, Boris Kadin, Kristian Al Droubi, Barbara Kukovec, Uroš Kaurin (the cast may vary)
Concept and direction: Bojan Jablanovec
Production: Via Nova performances produced by Via Negativa and supported by Ministry of Culture of RS and the City of Ljubljana. Hunt for the real as a part of the project Via Nova via FFT Düsseldorf was produced by FFT Düsseldorf and supported by Kunststiftung NRW as a part of “Exposed – Grenzen der Schaulust.”
Producer: Špela Trošt
Technical director: Igor Remeta
Venue and date: FFT Juta Düsseldorf, 17 November 2010 as part of Via FFT Düsseldorf program (pdf)
Duration: 2 hours