skinning

2024, tablecloth with two holes for eyes, black mesh bodysuit, body shape wear, microphone, speakers, mixer
approx. 22 minutes

Link to the documentation: https://vimeo.com/1017067800/aa9351c0fc?share=copy

skinning is a performance that stages the sensation of being trapped within a body. It moves between instruction, quotation, song, and lecture. References to meditation practices, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, operatic lament, pop music, and body horror coexist without hierarchy. A ghostly striptease set to Barbara Strozzi’s Lagrime mie interrupts an analytical monologue; song and speech overlap and displace one another. Body horror is used as a semantic tool. The splitting, shedding, and rearticulation of language mirror the fantasy of exiting one’s own skin. Words are stretched, over-identified with, then lost and abandoned. 
skinning operates like a contemporary fairytale, suspended between the familiar and the disturbing. Voice, text, and sound circle the desire to escape the body, without any possibility of release.

Exhibition views Simultan Projekte, 2024, Simultanhalle, Köln (GER)
Photos: Marie Stadelmann and Marie Gentges