Action: The audience enters a space with a large circular ‘carousel’ placed at its middle, divided into triangular compartments, each hosting a different performance artwork. Audience members can either ride one of three bicycle stations in order to initiate the carousel’s spinning movement, enter onto the triangular compartments and interact with the artist, or observe the spinning carousel form a distance as a moving frame. In the performance artwork “Concave”, the audience encounters the artist in between a large circular concave mirror - bending inwards, placed vertically at the back of the compartment and a circular lake of the same dimensions - filled with water, placed horizontally onto the floor. The artist does not engage in direct eye contact with the audience, as he is conditioned to only look at himself, through the water - producing an upright reflection, or through the mirror - producing an upside-down reflection if situated beyond its focal point, whilst both reflections are produced with diverse degrees of distortion. Audience members are given a spoon by the museum’s staff, being instructed to assist the artist in consuming his own ‘image’. They either attempt to feed the artist water from the surface at which his reflection is produced, or guide the artist through the space and onto the mirror using the spoon reflection - produced in upright and upside-down format depending on the side of the spoon, as a ‘miniature’ version of the performance’s process. Interactivity between the artist and audience members varies according to his state of ‘presence’ over time duration and the audience’s pattern of behavior, attempting to build a rich set of relations and modes of communication, based on this seemingly ‘limited’ vocabulary of exchange.

Concave

Long-durational performance / Part of exhibition "Performance Carousel" curated by Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich + Margarita Osepyan / SESC Consolação / São Paulo - BR / November - 2017 / Duration: 3780' (63 hrs)

Material: artist’s body, concave mirror, circular lake (black lining), water, spoons, audience members

Photo: Marcelo Elídio