Tag: water

stuart brisley

And for today… nothing, 1972

Performance

Gallery House Goethe Institute, London

Performance duration: App 2 hours each day for 2 weeks.

I lay in a bath of black water in the bathroom of Gallery House for approximately 2 hours each day for two weeks.

In the wash basin and on a ledge next to the bath I laid out some offal. During the two weeks the offal decayed, flies laying eggs and maggots hatching out to feed.

There was a low light in the bathroom so it was difficult to see exactly what was in there. The door was left ajar. The only sign of movement was that of a body rising and falling in the water when breathing in and out. The stench of offal was overpowering.

I made a film based on this work entitled Arbeit Macht Frei (16mm 20 mins). The film is in black and white and colour. It reflects the total rejection of what lay behind the title – the words enshrined on every Nazi concentration camp, translates as Work Makes Free. It is a deliberation on death.

In ancient Greek mythology a river separated the living from the dead. The only event which any human can know is the one event he or she can’t perceive, that he or she must die. Last night I dreamt I was swimming through an ocean. Swimming through an ocean is feeling pleasure. If the only event I can know is death, that is dream or myth, dream and myth must be the only knowing I have. What, then, is this ocean?

Kathy Acker, Empire of the Senseless, p. 55. (via bustakay)