Machteld Rullens

'What' assignment.

1) Constructed Reality (Performance)

An audience is invited to a café. The windows of the café overlook an intersection. Right in front of the biggest window two men are sitting around a little table on the terrace. Three others accompany them. The audience doesn’t realize a sound recording in the café has started playing, when suddenly a male voice describes very specific situations happening on the street. While the audio file is playing over the speakers of the café, the five people in front of the window get up and start to follow the descriptions that are playing over the speakers (they were all assigned a specific action). For example; go into the building opposite the cafe and wave from behind the window of the 4th floor. Someone else was following and imitating people crossing the street. The coffee-customers / viewers, whom were clueless of this performance happening, became quiet. While looking outside, a game of trying to figure out who was acting and who was not, had started inside. When the actors were again all seated around the table on the terrace the 15-minute performance came to an end and so did the audio recording. On the tables inside handmade postcards with the spoken texts were distributed.

2) Follow / Lines (Description of a video still)

On an almost empty square two people, whom we see from the back, are walking. One is a passerby, the other is performing. One of the figures, who is walking in the middle of this video still, chooses to cross the square in a diagonal. The second person seems to follow her. The ‘follower’ is holding a wooden stick, which functions as an extension to her legs. The stick touches the ground and leaves behind a white stripe; there is chalk on the bottom. Three other white lines that we can see on this image were drawn upon the square. This implies the same action is and has been repeated. During the video criss-cross lines start to appear on the square, this happens during the interaction with the public that walks or cycles across it.

3) Soldier (Photograph)

A photograph. Leaves and ivy surround a person wearing a military suit. The arms of the person are stiffly hanging beside the body. The model is looking to the upper left of the picture into the light source. This causes a big contrast with the dark background and the deep blue army suit. In ‘Napoleon Crossing the Alps’ by Jacques-Louise David, in which Napoleon is seated on his prancing horse while pointing his right hand towards something ahead of him, Napoleon is wearing a hat in the shape of a semi circular form. His hat looks similar to the one used for this photograph. Fine soldiers are usually male, at least in most stories and myths, but when you have a closer look at this photograph the soldier turns out to be a woman.

Write a synopsis of a text of your choice. No more than 200 words

([1])

Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography. Guy Debord Les Lèvres Nues #6 (September 1955) Translated by Ken Knabb

In the first edition of Internationale Situationniste from a group of revolutionaries, called the Situationist International, the goal was to unify art and life. As a rule, the bulletin was edited collectively. The various articles written and signed individually had to be of interest to all of the comrades, and be seen as particular points of their common research. The magazine pursues: 1. Experimentation in the détournement of photo-romances. 2. The promotion of guerrilla tactics in the mass media. 3. The development of situationist comics. 4. The production of situationist films. The Situationist International experimented a lot with the ‘construction of situations’, using a method known as dérive (drift). In which an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, on which the subtle aesthetic contours of the surrounding architecture and geography subconsciously direct the travellers, with the ultimate goal of encountering a new experience. According to situationist theorist Guy Debord, in performing a dérive, the individual in question must first set aside all work and other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. I am very much inspired by this way of working and publishing.