How to relate to a world of things that will pass? Are we a part of it? Or are we just looking at it? And what about the body – is it something that we are or that we have? There is an ambivalence here that prompts the question: could this be the origin of all melancholy?
In Songs for a Passerby you walk through a musical dreamscape shown in a VR headset. Following your own 3D mirror image, along the way you will pass by various scenes: a dying horse, a choir of murmuring people, two dogs playing. This meditative quest allows you to step outside reality for a moment and look at yourself. As a puppeteer of your own body you enter a poetic space where the question arises: is this me passing by moments, or are the moments passing by me?
Director Celine Daemen: “By placing spectators outside themselves and showing them the contours of their own ‘self’ through capture with live 3D cameras, I aim to create an experience that touches on melancholy, where we are no longer at one with the world, but in some ways are opposite to it.
The work investigates the connection between the physical and the metaphysical world. You are both a body that is moving through space and a mind that is looking at it. While the unavoidable passing of time makes itself manifest to you, all past moments will remain present, entering into a simultaneous existence. You are both in the world and simultaneously outside it.”
Please note: each visitor will be allotted an individual time slot of ca. 30 minutes. A new time slot commences every 15 minutes. If you are planning to attend as a group, you can make a reservation for multiple time slots.
Note
Because this performance is only for one person at a time and there are thus very limited spaces, passe-partout holders pay a €2,50 supplement
Award
- 2023: ‘Venice Immersive Grand Prize’ at La Biennale di Venezia
Reading Group
Feel free to join Celine Daemen’s Reading Group on May 30 from 19:30 to 22:00 in Savannah Bay.
