Proximity Exercises

The following are a series of exercises I employed to research the distances with others.

Video compilation:

Proximity Exercise 1

Proximity Exercise 2

Proximity Exercise 3

Proximity Exercise 4

In this exercise, participants are put into pairs, and given a cardboard wrapped in fabric to hold onto, throughout. They are given the following instructions over 15 minutes:

1. Walk around, and explore what movements you can do
2. Be as far as possible from each other, while holding on to the cardboard
3. Hide your partner's face from yourself
4. Be as close as possible without seeing each other or touching each other directly
5. While continuing the previous instruction, listen to eachother's footsteps
6. Slow down your movements gradually
7. Stay still

In this exercise, I sit under the table and invite passersby to join me. Under the confinements and privacy of the tablecloth, we try to have a conversation. Sometimes more than one joins me under the table.

In this exercise, I asked a friend to join me in a performance in front of an audience. We sit underneath the transparent fabric and make sounds with metal pieces as a form of interaction. During our interactions, we make use of a contact microphone to amplify the quiet sounds we make.

With this exercise, I asked the audience to gather in a corner of a small room, against a window. I then approach them - not speaking to them but reciting a piece of text (see below). I sit close to the audience. Slowly I engage in actions such as touching and staring, towards the audience.

What enables the individual body?
The muffled messages, the incapability of the body to share with another body, reveal its contours.

To have a body, to be confronted by its limits - and what they allow for. The cold of emptiness is so much sharper, once giving up merging with the cold. It is only then, the possibility of wading in appears.

Having been ‘brought’ here - what to think now? - but perhaps now I can touch that shapeless land better,

(Because to touch the bodiless, a body is necessary)

At the same time,
the lack
Of object attachments,
Of object attachments
So stretching,
Stretching to touch them,

The words of the dead from what is forgotten
“To stare into the emptiness of the other”