'' What Is Called Going Out? | A history of performance art on the Riviera from 1951 until now

What Is Called Going Out?

Creator: 
Éric Duyckaerts
Performer: 
Éric Duyckaerts
Producer: 
Éric Duyckaerts
Occurence: 
Starting date: 
01 09 2007
Topology: 
Villa Arson
Adress: 
20 avenue Stephen Liégeard
galerie d'essai des étudiants de la Villa Arson
Nice
France
Témoignage: 
Éric Duyckaerts | Qu'appelle-t-on sortir ?, 2007
Description: 
In the test gallery for students was a platform, a microphone, and an overhead transparency projector. The theme was prepositions of place in the French language. The title was a wink to Heidegger’s work What Is Called Thinking? I was especially interested in on, in, out…To illustrate the history, I had sketched a map of the city of Venice; it resembled two fish, one large and one small, separated by the Great Canal, trying to devour each other. The map of Venice interested me because I was preparing for my installation at the Belgian Pavilion of the biennial that was to take place that year. I must have felt like going out or getting out of it. The other illustrations explained the linguistic theories of space—essentially those of Terry Winograd and Claude Vandeloise—to which everything is opposed. I brought victory to Vandeloise. The sound system was very bad; the gallery wasn’t adapted acoustically, and the back of the room was just a shapeless brouhaha. So I focused on the eyes in the front rows, especially of the students from the Villa who were sitting on the floor. At first, they listened to me like they were following a lecture. It was awkward. After a bit of fooling around and acting out, I think it relaxed a little. A few days later, Ben Vautier, an artist from Nice who had been there, wrote in his newsletter, “It just like the Belgian, probably originally Flemish, having learned French and wanting to show his linguistic ability in French at all costs but with a nagging conscience of having betrayed Flanders.” I took the opportunity to point out that Liège, where I was born, is Walloon rather than Flemish.<
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