Auster, Fredrik (SE)
Carlsberg Tap E
Fredrik Auster
Born 1978 in Gothenburg, Sweden
Lives in Copenhagen
Whereas a conventional play chronicles a sequence of events, a story or a
progression, Fredrik Auster's performances tend to concentrate on capturing a
species of presence or a way of occupying space. When You Are Standing in the
Daylight, You Cannot See the Stars (2008) is premised on specific narratives from the real and fictional worlds.
Following a number of revelations in the Swedish media about major companies
employing desperately underpaid illegal immigrants, it struck the artist that the
enjoyment of the rule of law, rights and equality in our democratic welfare societies is significantly correlated with visibility. Equal rights and equal citizenship is apparently a privilege conferred on those whose presence is visible, and withheld from the substantial contingent who work clandestinely. Auster found a parallel to this mechanism in Franz Kafka's 1925 novel The Trial, which is about a clerical worker who is brought to trial for unknown reasons. No charges are specified and he is denied the right to defend himself.
For this performance piece, Auster constructs a scenario which illustrates the
workings of the mechanisms of invisibility, exclusion and oppression, depicting them precisely as mechanisms rather than presenting individual narratives. The actors in the performance mime the monotony of work, capturing its humdrum, almost ritual character, but without reproducing the work as such. This choreographic sequence continues for several minutes before being repeated from the beginning seamlessly. The piece is performed by one or more performers in a purpose-built structure made up of semi-transparent partitions on which a collage of images is displayed. Performances take place intermittently over the duration of the exhibition, and when no performance is in progress, the structure stands empty. The effect is to transpose
the issue of visibility and presence to the situation of the viewer vis-ŕ-vis the work. -NH
Lives in Copenhagen
Whereas a conventional play chronicles a sequence of events, a story or a
progression, Fredrik Auster's performances tend to concentrate on capturing a
species of presence or a way of occupying space. When You Are Standing in the
Daylight, You Cannot See the Stars (2008) is premised on specific narratives from the real and fictional worlds.
Following a number of revelations in the Swedish media about major companies
employing desperately underpaid illegal immigrants, it struck the artist that the
enjoyment of the rule of law, rights and equality in our democratic welfare societies is significantly correlated with visibility. Equal rights and equal citizenship is apparently a privilege conferred on those whose presence is visible, and withheld from the substantial contingent who work clandestinely. Auster found a parallel to this mechanism in Franz Kafka's 1925 novel The Trial, which is about a clerical worker who is brought to trial for unknown reasons. No charges are specified and he is denied the right to defend himself.
For this performance piece, Auster constructs a scenario which illustrates the
workings of the mechanisms of invisibility, exclusion and oppression, depicting them precisely as mechanisms rather than presenting individual narratives. The actors in the performance mime the monotony of work, capturing its humdrum, almost ritual character, but without reproducing the work as such. This choreographic sequence continues for several minutes before being repeated from the beginning seamlessly. The piece is performed by one or more performers in a purpose-built structure made up of semi-transparent partitions on which a collage of images is displayed. Performances take place intermittently over the duration of the exhibition, and when no performance is in progress, the structure stands empty. The effect is to transpose
the issue of visibility and presence to the situation of the viewer vis-ŕ-vis the work. -NH