Anna XI — this video has been removed

* view onto the performance audience in the Neu-Oerliker-Park, photos © Mirzlekid *

report by Bernadett Settele (translated by Dorothea)

ANNA XI
Bernadett Settele writes after the performance «Anna XI - this video has been removed» by Dorothea Rust on Saturday 20.9.2014 on the occasion of the Performance Series Neu-Oerlikon curated by Maricruz Peñaloza in Neu-Oerlikon. Published in www.apresperf.ch 

Dorothea Rust, leading us in long steps across the meadow, to the edge of the tarred area, hands out things: a feather pillow, a knife, blue grease make-up, gives instructions, makes accomplices out of us. If possible, stab into the pillow with the knife. Where possible, spread the make-up on me. Follow me. We carry signs with owls, animals, with slogans from YouTube: "This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube's Terms of Service. :∖" Then she goes off, with her pillow, running, throwing herself under the trees. A couple interacting, a group of spectators and people marked as spectators pulling behind them (and her). Solemnly, strangely, I feel like we are standing around the event as silent owls.

The boys from Neu-Oerlikon who joined us feel out of bounds. There's one in a nightdress with a pillow, rolling around in broad daylight. A knife, like violence. The permission to touch. They make sayings. Dorothea Rust speeds up, walks, runs, throws herself down. When we are all standing on the street and the bus comes, it's one of the boys who warns her.

Cut slower, she says to the person with the knife. The procession continues walking, running, staggering, falling. After the feather pillow. We run after her across the unreal gravel field to the long, straight concrete fountain, where the water sluggishly gushes along as if in a long open channel, first shallow, then deeper, and falls into a gully at its end. Dorothea is already lying in it, across, getting wet, rolling, rolling along and declaiming something again - volare? - cantare! -, she sings it out, broken and then barking, resounding: Nel blu dipinto di blu; felice di stare lassù. ... sings itself forward, gurgles, rolls itself - and gets all wet - while the feathers are distributed throughout the slow-flowing well pipe, swim forward and are washed onto it from behind. The boys are quiet. We have turned off our signs. Well, nobody expected that, some crazy bird in our quarters. Dorothea Rust lifts herself out of the water. We keep watching the feathers. And at some point we start organising sand sieves, brooms and shovels from the children to collect these feathers again.

Recorded by Bernadett Settele with the help of two media researches: The sentence «This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube's Terms of Service. :∖» comes from youtube.com, and the lyrics of Volare Cantare are by Fred Buscaglione from the site songtexte.com. «Penso che un sogno così non ritorni mai più. Mi dipingevo le mani e la faccia di blu. Poi d'improvviso venivo dal vento rapito, e incominciavo a volare nel cielo infinito ... Volare, oh oh. Cantare, uh-oh uh-oh. Nel blu dipinto di blu; felice di stare lassù.»

report by MIRZLEKID (translated by Dorothea Rust)

My observations to your art action at the fifth edition of the performance series Neu-Oerlikon at Oerlikerpark Zurich
on Saturday, 20th September 2014

Your art action had an explosive range (aspect), which has to do with rituals or could become a ritual. One (you?) imagined oneself (yourself) in an offering ritual. I had the impression, you (let go self-control) had let go control strongly and you were in trance.

The art action became a unreckonable and dangerous situation through (by) the dominant participation respectively the physical presence of the young kids.

Your admonition at the beginning of the art action, that the performance will have parts occurences not suitable for children and that the children should be attended, had an effective on the process of the art action.

I believe experiencing your art action had an educational value for the young kids. They experienced, that adults (grown-ups) doing something in a special framing in public space which is forbidden or warned against it, that it can be art. Or it is considered art (called art).

Why I name your work art action:


Considering the specific terminology from the point of view of art, this is rather an art action or a happening than a performance, because you have involved people present as co-performers.

Zurich, 19.10.2014 MIRZLEKID