Live Video Performance
Austrian Cultural Forum, New York, 25 min, April 2009
For the ACF exhibition space Maria Petschnig constructed a separate room where she imagined a specific environment, one that would exude privacy and loneliness. In addition, Petschnig wanted to break with the sleek interior of the existing ACF gallery spaces, so she chose a small suburban and familiar TV room laid with cheap industrial carpet. (please click on Video Installation MINNIE)
On two nights during the run of the show Open Space Uncurated, Maria Petschnig acted out and filmed her private performance inside this room with the door shut, and had it broadcast simultaneously onto the ACF theatre wall 3 floors up, for a live audience. The live performance consisted of various sculptural pieces of clothing/ garment modelled on her naked body. While listening to an I-pod to which Petschnig moved and sang along, her face and her pubic hair were covered up. During the breaks, when she got changed into the next sculptural performance piece, two elements took turns: the camera was either turned onto a TV that screened groups of elderly people, meditating, or it was turned to the opposite wall, giving away a mirror with its reflection of Petschnig getting (un)dressed.
