ARTIST RESEARCH: Marie Cool & Fabio Balducci_ performance with matter

I am very interested in performance of Marie Cool and Fabio Balducci. Their performance is very powerful to transform ordinary and mundane objects, which is made for clear daily use, into a being, which is open for becoming. In the performance, there are human body and objects to find new relationship between them. In the performance, daily objects are no longer used for main purpose, like paper for printing, tapes for putting together, and thread for sewing. Daily objects are displaced by removal from their usual place or position into an isolated space with unassigned purpose. Marie Cool's delicate, careful and physical contact with the objects makes them as beings. I think that her performance can be meaningful, meditative, and endless play. Constantly her body is in action, and the form or position of the objects are changing. I can feel freedom, that human body is free from purpose or goal something meaningful and useful, and daily objects are free from daily uses. 

It's about play. 
It doesn't have to do. 

something
nothing


Existence precedes Essence

In Jean-Paul Sartre's "Existentialism and Human Emotions," the author discusses the philosophical concept that existence precedes essence, a theory which involves elements of responsibility and freedom in regards to human choice. The idea that existence precedes essence means that a human being, as well as human reality, exists prior to any concepts of values or morals. A person is born a blank slate; humanity has no universal, predetermined principles or ethics common to all of mankind. Since no preformed essence or definition exists of what is means to "be human," a person must form his/her own conception of existence by asserting control of and responsibility for his/her actions and choices. Consequently, a human being gains his/her essence through individual choices and actions. It is solely through the process of living that one defines one's self.

Through day-to-day living, one is continuously involved in the process of shaping one's identity. With the absence of any a priori moral code to abide by, humans possess the fundamental freedom to create their own system of beliefs. Such an individual freedom of consciousness carries with it the burden of responsibility for the choices one makes. Every human is responsible for his/her choices and actions. If one denies the responsibility if his/her own choices, then one is acting in bad faith, a form of self-deception which leads to feelings of anxiety, despair, anguish, and forlornness. Even when acting in bad faith, however, one is making the choice of avoiding responsibility. It becomes evident, then, that one cannot avoid choice, which brings us back to the existential fact that "man's destiny is within himself ... 

Marie Cool + Fabio Balducci , MOMA performance , 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy_o-WCq2Cc&feature=relmfu


UNTITLED 2007 VIDEO DURATION 2’ / UNTITLED 2008 VIDEO DURATION 1’
NATIONAL REVIEW OF LIVE ART 10

‘Above all what distinguishes the work of Marie Cool & Fabio Balducci from a previous generation, and thus what links them to their contemporaries, is the way in which they undo the illusion of a delimited and accessible body as a totality: the way in which they underscore a dependency that is both mental and physical and, again, the way in which they reveal the reciprocity between the human body and matter. The sheet of paper, the table, the thread, the doorframe, the borders of a room and, at times, the edges of a window delimit Marie Cool’s body in action.’