The Modern Dance (In Light of Today’s Questions) 2017
Performance, video animation and soundtrack.
Dimensions Variable.
The Modern Dance (In Light of Today’s Questions), 2017
9:16, back projection. Shown on stand alone screen
Full running time: 6 min 2 sec loop
Viewing copy on request
Installation view
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Audio Excerpt
Audio Excerpt
Audio Excerpt.
Running Time - 10min loop.
Full version on request.
The title references the song The Modern Dance by American rock band Pere Ubu. Reconstructing and building upon memories of a recently closed sauna in a Bauhaus design “people’s bathhouse” and rehabilitation centre in Berlin, this (now) semi-fictional architecture is transposed into the galleries, alongside the voices and bodies that may have been present.
The corresponding performance, centers on the assembly and disassembly of a wooden bucket and runs over the course of an evening. It is a choreography and dialogue between the artist and his father. Accompanied by a young choir, a soundtrack mixed by the artist and a lighting arrangement, they try to describe what it would be like to raise a child together and along the way attempt to grasp what constitutes the sacred and divine within secular western culture.
Commissioned by IMMA – Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2017.
Dramaturgy and production assistance - Aaron Ratajczyk
With thanks to the Mel Ryan Childrens Choir.
Photography Louis Haugh