The Artificial Nature Project by Mette Ingvartsen

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Created on Wednesday, 04 April 2012 11:33

Written by Theresa Pointner - szene

The Artificial Nature Project is the latest in a series of four works by Mette Ingvartsen staging
perceptions and sensations of nature. The interest in fictionalizing and choreographing natural
phenomena started in 2009 with "Evaporated Landscapes", a performance installation devoid of
human presence where the act of performing itself was given over to materials like bubbles, foam,
fog, sounds and light. In The Artificial Nature Project, a new encounter between human and nonhuman
performers begins with the following questions:
What does it mean to make a choreography for materials where human movement is no longer in
the center of attention?
How can one address the force of things, materials, objects and matters as something that acts
upon humans?
What is the relationship between the animate and the inanimate world?
The outcome is a performance that literally throws things around. Materials fly through the air
giving rise to a landscape that constantly transforms itself. Throughout the performance the view is
persistently changing: a calm contemplative site may turn into an energetic chaos of stuff being
projected into space. Or, a flood wave becomes a storm of confetti whirling through the air, rushing
over the stage. The theater stage gets covered with and traversed by various objects and raw
materials, creating a disastrous mess of small, thick, light, big, heavy, thin, breakable and resistant
things. The materials are set into motion by dancers, composing a body that is no longer made of
human flesh but rather of a floating, flying mass. The emerging choreography is partly performed
by human, partly by non-human performers set in motion. The movement mutates the appearance
and perception of these materials in many forms: from an abstract sculpture, a swarm of animals,
to a sandstorm overwhelming the humans who get stuck inside it. One image is replaced by
another, rapidly altering our perception of a glittering landscape.

Premiere: 2nd of November at PACT Zollverein, Essen (Germany)

(c) UK Department for International Development-Russell Watkins

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