zingend oog > a View on Beauty

A View on Beauty 2000

a Korzo production
music Patrick Clark
video Mendel Hardeman
objects and technique Patrick Clark, Mendel Hardeman,
objects and technique Marc Bering, Gerard van de Ende
original format installation with sound, video and moving objects.
size 6 X 5 meters

A project born in conversation with Patrick Clark, its realization proved to be a nightmare.
This was my first collaborative project ever, and also the first for which I got payed. It was quite a complicated setup, envolving 5 mannequin dolls standing on small carts that were being pulled in a line across the room, as a mechanical fashion show. On the carts were rotating platforms, so the mannequin dolls were in a slow continuous rotation. The first doll was completely dressed, the second a bit less, and so on till the last one, which was naked, broken, and full of blood, its neck smashed and the head hanging down over the shoulder, fixed to the body with a clamp.
It was to be presented as part of the Adventures 2000 festival in Korzo Theater, Den Haag. Everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong: on the day itself there were a lot of technical problems with the video - equipment not working, wrong video formats, etc; one hour before the opening the motor which drove the chain pulling the carts broke down. Soon after that, one of the mannequins fell, broke its leg and wouldn't stand up again.
What the public saw in the end was quite an impressive presentation, born out of emergency. Instead of the motor we got some people to pull the chain, which was very heavy. They were standing behind a partition, but one could hear them counting out loud and sighing and getting exhausted. At the last moment we found someone to replace the broken mannequin - a friend (Antonia Fritche) who stood completely motionless and nobody realized it was not a doll. And the video . . . well . . .