16 Jan 2015

Theatre of Operations - Phase 1: Reconnaissance. Geneva, Théâtre de l'Usine, 22-24.01.15

Theatre of Operations
Phase 1: Reconnaissance

William Anastasi
Jesse Ash
Pierre Bal-Blanc
Nina Beier & Marie Lund
Julien Bismuth
Jens Haaning
Florence Jung
David Lamelas
Quentin Lannes
Émilie Parendeau
Aurélie Pétrel & Vincent Roumagnac
Sébastien Rémy
Remco Torenbosch
Goran Trbuljak
Franz Erhard Walther

A proposal by:
Bénédicte le Pimpec and Émile Ouroumov, in collaboration with Céline Bertin


In science and engineering, a black box is a device, system or object which can be viewed in terms of its input and output without any knowledge of its internal workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). Almost anything might be referred to as a black box: a transistor, an algorithm, or the human brain.
The opposite of a black box is a system where the inner components or logic are available for inspection, which is most commonly referred to as a white box.
Source: Wikipedia

A “theatre of operations” is a delimited geographical zone in which an armed conflict involving at least two adversaries is taking place. The related term “operating theatre” also describes the historical practice of surgery performed as a public spectacle.

This project incorporates “operations”—artistic gestures of addition, subtraction, multiplication and differentiation—in the present, and not in an immutable conception of time. Over a three-day period, these operations are being deployed in the form of an exhibition punctuated by activations, inside and outside the “black box”, in an ongoing flow, and with parallel temporalities. The objects, films, readings, interventions and exhibitions arrange their own mediation tools within the theatrical model. Coming from the vocabulary of art, by way of a productive tension they negotiate the hierarchy of the elements of the theatrical edifice, over-exposing to better deconstruct the conflict between actor and spectator, and bringing forth common areas of sensibility between live spectacle and visual art.

The interactions of the theatre with the other arts and the social space roundabout can be traced back to Antiquity. But prior to recent attempts at deconstruction, the idea whereby the theatre was the loftiest expression of any society encouraged the application of the notion of “total artwork”, a construct envisaging the arts participating in a pyramidal and compartmentalized way. This development is akin to capitalist accumulation: in the depths of the Middle Ages, perhaps earlier, with the decline of Rome and Judaeo-Christianity, Western society chose to accumulate rather than live. At the outset, the political nature of the stage space was more an emanation of the state apparatus—undoubtedly, there is a politics of space because space is political—rather than a liberating implementation of the idea that it is by means of the body that space is perceived, lived—and produced (Henri Lefebvre).

In a chronology that is subjective and incomplete, the imagination of the “Theatre of Operations” retains some dates. 1924, the ballet Relâche by Francis Picabia, Eric Satie and René Clair, at once transversal and undisciplined. 1970, Yvonne Rainer’s WAR, a dance against the Vietnam war in which the movements are led by the vocabulary of military strategy. 1982, Fitzcarraldo, “conquistador of the useless” from Werner Herzog’s film of the same title, de-territorializes opera machinery in a boat in Amazonia. 2006, the pioneering exhibition The Living Currency by Pierre Bal-Blanc positions the issue of the body back at the centre of the curatorial economy. 2007, Il Tempo del Postino (Hans Ulrich Obrist and Philippe Parreno) attempts a spectacular transposition of artistic codes in the opera. 2012, with her Artificial Hells, Claire Bishop proposes a critical reading of “participatory art and the politics of spectatorship”.

Informed by these endeavours, the “Theatre of Operations” pursues an investigation of the place of the spectacle. Guy Debord’s Nouveau Théâtre des opérations dans la culture puts forward the notion that the dissolution of old ideas goes hand in hand with the dissolution of old conditions of existence. Rather than seeing the theatre as the place of a spatial, temporal and corporal capitalization, the exhibition’s intent is to compose a theatre that is inhabited, active, plastic and empirical, at opposite ends of the psychological notion of “learned helplessness”, a behaviour in which the subject perceives absence of control over the events in his environment, and subsequently adopts a resigned or passive attitude.

Translation : Simon Pleasance

The project is funded by :
Danish Arts Foundation
Loterie Romande
République et canton de Genève – Fonds cantonal d’art contemporain
The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia
Ville de Genève

Partners :
Hôtel des Tourelles (Geneva)
Hôtel Carmen (Geneva)
Wyccon Europe GmbH – www.wyccon.com