Shock gallery, Art clinic, Novi Sad, Serbia
24 December 2005 at 7:15 p.m
duration: 58′ 45″
Curator: Nikola Dzafo
Nikola Dzafo – curator, director of the Led Art – Art clinic,
Jovana Budoshan – graphic design
Radivoj Doderovic –technical manager
Marcus Richardson – editor
M and P – photo
Vladimir Ilic – technical staff
Orfeus Skutelis – technical assistent [kuda.org]
The title of the performance directly refers to the international TV series in the sphere of reality shows, widely known as BIG BROTHER (watching you), where the household of selected volunteer participants play themselves or somebody else, permanently observed by the TV cameras in all places where the program takes place. Thus, with the attentive TV audience, through the cameras, the selected participants behave as they behave with the knowledge that they are observed by millions of viewers…
The aim of the performance was to simulate a situation similar to the TV show, but the place for the actors to play in was limited to 2 m². All people from the audience who wanted to collaborate in the performance voluntarily, alongside M and P, were observed by the gallery audience. They were also the audience of other participants; all of them were at the same time both actors and observers…
M and P put on the performance in the Shock gallery from which, during the duration of the performance, the sound and image were transmitted to the projection curtain in the Art clinic, where the audience could observe what was going on inside the Shock gallery. The performance finished after 60 minutes when the DV tape finished with the permanent recording of the performance. During the performance, several participants, other than M and P, played different roles of their own …
This performance provides a critical and intellectual discourse on the popular TV show. During the performance, M and P not only exposed themselves to the audience, they also worked on their ‘Big Brother task’: creating material for the new exhibition. They played they own role by writing several words on the Shock gallery walls which related critically to the BIG BROTHER show [such as: IDENTIFICATION, DOMINATION, POMP, EXHIBITIONISM, GLAMOUROUS, EPHEMERAL, CURIOSITY, etc, all in Serbian]. Some other participants, who came into the Shock gallery after M and P, used the situation of the performance to expose themselves or to write some new words or sentences, sometimes drawings, mostly with humorous aspects… M and P also worked on the photo images which will be the basis for their next MP_exp_12 BIG BROTHER exhibition, which will be in Februaty 2006 in the same Shock gallery, where the performance took place.
