kagablog

In my work, I attempt to develop a dialogue between the human body and the material world, being spaces and their objects.

Since I find the relationship between those two entities very powerful, I would like to define it as a ‘confrontation’. To stage this confrontation I use my own body that I put in a certain setting and then I observe how it reacts to it by means of recording myself on video.

The reaction of the body can be movements or no movement, sounds or no sound. In any case, the making of sounds is intimately related to movements. One cannot go without the other.

I try to use my body as a pure instrument. To do so, I place myself into a certain place, so it means that I have decided on certain rules that will form the frame in which I can then let go of all rational control, escape my own consciousness. Freed from rational control and patterns, i enter into a space which does not follow the societal choreography any longer. The body then goes back to the primitive, to the uncensored, to the real.

‘Being’ fully present in a spacial and time related context demands most of your senses : touching or not, looking, listening, feeling on your body and in your body. I try to translate all these perceptions through the sound performance. Through sounds, I let myself get absorbed in the moment and in the space in which I am.

John Cage already established a link between the making of sounds and the visual. I follow his approach but I attempt to associate it also with the physical experience of the body towards what surrounds it.

Sometimes it seems, it is more confronting to remain silent. There is no such a thing as total silence. If I remain silent in a piece, then the surrounding sounds overwhelm the video and act as animators.

It is fascinating to see the constant dynamic between the living body and its surroundings. The space or objects can have an effect on you but through sounds it seems that you can have an effect on your surroundings, you can almost animate your material environment, like the aboriginals who sing the landscape to keep it alive. Body and space become an indissociable couple in constant dialogue.

I view my recorded performances as sculptures since it is a translation of the experience of space, of the physical world.

Chance is also an important element in my performances. Since I make those performances in a real-life setting, I am subjected to be influenced by unexpected occurrences. So each piece is really unique. It depends on the capacity of perception of the body and of the space itself which has its own life. I believe in the purity of improvisation.

I am influenced by a large range of artists who use their voices or their bodies in their work : Marina Abramovic, Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker, Pina Bausch, Meredith Monk, Maja Ratkje, Mike Patton, Tagaq, Bjork, Guido Van der Werve, John Wood and Paul Harrison, and many more.