Position #1–5

(2008–)

Multi-Channel Video Installation
Dur. 10 min, HD colour, sound

Performer
Sophia New, Berlin (2008)
Helen Maurene Cooper, Chicago (2010)
Lesley Guy, Sheffield (2012)
Romy Rüegger, Zurich (2013)
Vicky Sabourin, Montreal (2015)

Credits

Many thanks to
Katja Anzelewsky, Berlin
Tom Draws, Chicago
Alison J Carr, Sheffield
Riikka Tauriainen, Zurich
Eric Tschaeppeler, Montreal

Postproduction
Emma Cattell

In Kerstin Honeit’s piece Position #1 (work in progress – so far performed in Berlin, Chicago and Sheffield) – we find three women in different but somehow similar places, in a silent “experiential space”. The women, in their early to mid-thirties, stand in front of a closed garage each in their respective cities. Not only do the environments appear strangely similar, but so do the three women themselves. Through the constructed scene, there is also something of a convergence of the women’s identities, transmitted to the viewer through the act of observation. We, the viewers, stand in front of the projection screen and wait, thereby almost replaying the actual scene before us, set in the street, where the video was filmed. What we see reminds me of an anthropological experiment. Honeit uses her three protagonists for observational purposes; she places them in the street and their inactivity is the performance. In this way she subtly examines the similarities and potential differences of the subjects “women in the street” in Berlin-Schöneberg and an industrial area in Chicago and Sheffield.

How do the gestures change over time? What is real and what is contrived? What effect does the context have? Are the systems different and do they then generate other codes?

Text: Susanne Weiß
Translation: Francesca Bondy, Emma Cattell