L’animoteur 13 — was bisher geschehen ist (what has happened until now)
an approximation exercise to becoming donkey
* images from the script *
background information on the series «L'animoteur 1 bis 12»
The performance series goes back to an image scene that I realised in 2012 in the ATACAMA desert, the driest desert on earth. It shows a dead animal body (donkey) lying on its side and a human body lying on its stomach with its head turned towards the animal's head. This resulted in the kinetic image objects «L’animoteur 1», «L’animoteur 4», «L’animoteur 12»: the image rotates around its own axis, either driven by hand or by a motor, the contours blurring into a flickering something.
In 2015, in the first performance «L’animoteur 2», in an exhibition space, I talked about the donkey, its physical characteristics, its cultural status (it is generally considered stubborn) and, above all, its hidden qualities. A radio journalist present was inspired to investigate stories and relationships with the donkey around the world. This resulted in the 6-hour radio program «Der älteste Kleintransporter der Welt (The oldest van in the world)», for SFR2 (Swiss Radio 2), which in turn inspired me to do further researches. I developed the performance «L’animoteur 3» for the 'International Performance Art Festival KIPAF' in India.
«L’animoteur 5 + 6» took place in 2018 at an art event in Plovdiv, Bulgaria as an intervention in a historical exhibition space and in a shopping street in Plovdiv, and its further development with «L’animoteur 8 + 9» in 2019, also in Plovdiv.
In 2018, I met semi-wild, live donkeys and people who told me about their relationship with these donkeys in the north of Argentina, in the Andes, between 2,500 and 4,000 metres above sea level. This resulted in the performance «L’animoteur 7» in Buenos Aires, performed in the garden of an art space. In 2018, the performances «L’animoteur 10 + 11» itook place in Bad Dürkheim in an institution for people with disabilities and in Heidelberg in the Prinzhorn Collection (Clinic for General Psychiatry) as part of an interdisciplinary exhibition project on 'Outsider Art'.
In the meantime, I have learnt that 'with the donkey' I can come into contact with people from different scenes. They can tell stories about their encounters with donkeys or about their valuations and ideas about the donkeys. I continue to focus on the donkey and its value significance for societies in our time. I see them as a compass for societies, because donkeys are under a lot of
announcement of the lecture performance in the conference programm of Spot On. Symposium on art practice in teacher training - #Performance
«L’animoteur 13 – was bisher geschehen ist (what has happened until now»
Between lecture and performance, with gestures, image panels and exercises in approaching being a donkey, a journey through past artistic realisations in the performance series «L'animoteur 1 to 12» (2015—...). Performance can be a field of knowledge and experience both for the performer and for all those present in a space. It all depends on the place, the situation and everyone's willingness.
My curiosity about donkeys lies in the many pigeonholes into which they are put and their instrumentalisation by humans: from vital, cheap and exploited beasts of burden to suppliers of raw materials for meat and elixirs in the cosmetics and medical industries.
The trigger for the performance series was an encounter in the ATACAMA desert, the driest desert on earth, with a dead animal carcass (donkey). Since then, I have been exploring the blurred boundaries between humans, animals and other beings in visual works and performances.
The title of this series is inspired by Jacques Derrida's 10-hour speech on the autobiographical animal from 1997, which was subsequently transcribed: "L'animal que donc je suis" or «The animal that I am», a philosophical reflection at the relationship between humans and animals. 'L'âne' is the French word for donkey and 'l'animateur' is the French word for animator, who entertains and stimulates people. The title «L'animoteur ...» also contains the French word 'moteur' (meaning motor). The donkey is a motor and not a metaphor, a laughing creature with big ears, and is not naturalistically there in the flesh, but is a redirecting rethinker of our view of the world and our relationships to things, beings and others: from collected facts about donkeys to encounters with tamed and semi-wild donkeys, and with people who have told me about their experiences with donkeys to this day ...