Restringierter Code (Restricted Code) EROS/ION Homometer I: Action at the Ocean with Bread Homometer II Asemie. Die Unfaehigkeit sich durch Mienenspiel ausdrueken zu koennen (Asemia: The Inability To Express Oneself through Body Language) Restringierter Code (Restricted Code) 1979, 6 color photographs and 16 black and white photographs Wire cage for a human, a table and chair, a baby's crib, a dog cage, a meal for humans, and pet food. Performers: me in evening attire, a baby who can crawl, a dog, a hamster, a bird What is a natural body and what is a cultural body? What is cultural expression and what is animalistic expression? Does natural body behavior even exist? Trance, ecstasy—who and what expresses itself in these states? The expressive movements in Restricted Code are framed by these questions as well as the movement between formal and informal body behavior. Part I: This piece begins with me eating a meal and feeding the animals. The baby is in the crib, each animal is in a separate cage. I am in a large wire cage. After a while, my table manners begin to disintegrate. I start to eat with my fingers, to burp. Part II: I attempt to imitate the baby's movements; I imitate the animals' physical behavior and movements: the bird's hopping and chirping, the quick movements, the hamster's running, the dog's barking and whining, the way the animals crouch in their cages, the baby's crawling and babbling. My imitations switch back and forth from one animal to the other, then to the child. The movements become more exaggerated, to the point of constant repetition of one significant motion. Slowly, I am overcome by a rush induced by my movements. Part III: My physical movements become increasingly ecstatic, until I fall into a trance state. —Text: VALIE EXPORT (Return to top) EROS/ION 1971, 3 photographs body-material-interaction Materials: A large plate of glass, many broken glass shards, paper canvas, person In this action, the body is utilized for a semantic analysis via a physical demonstration, as a bearer and vehicle of signs/clues. The action EROS/ION investigates the relationship between social sign and body, the relationship between culture and body, material and body. I roll, first, in broken glass, body cutting through canvas, and then on a plate of glass. At the end, I roll on a paper canvas. The traces that the glass shards produce on my skin-canvas leave informal pictorial traces on the paper canvas. The glass splinters become signs, inasmuch as they are reduced to mere traces of an aesthetic process on the body. If society has demonstrated its dominion over the body through social signs, then EROS/ION shows the ways and means that mankind can withdraw from this force. The biological order that still rules by force in our society, and determines life-forms in physical characteristics, can only be lifted when the force that the body has over the spirit is overcome, when the body is overcome. Mankind rolls in broken glass without bleeding to death from it. Man shows himself to be stronger than the system surrounding him. The action shows the consciousness that has liberated itself from the meaning of the material. The reconstruction occurs from the standpoint of the overcoming of the ritual. The meaning of the material—meaning and image as material—which society has prescribed for us—is here overcome on the body via the spirit. The classification of the body, whether of a biological, social, or institutional nature, is denied and rejected. What is supposed to injure does not injure. The cuts in the skin are no longer deadly, they are openings into the innermost vascular tissue, into oneself. The state's sphere of intimacy is cut to shreds, the traces on the body are signs of social processes; they are signs from ritual to action, from oppression to freedom from order to chaos. I extended this analysis in 1973, and as one example among many, rolled first, in water, and then on ice. —Text: VALIE EXPORT (Return to top) Homometer I: Action at the Ocean with Bread 1973, 5 photographs By the interpretability of symbols, I mean that different meanings are projected onto the same sign. For example, in our culture the cross, a patriarchal symbol connotes suffering. In Egypt, it represents the tree of life and the tree of knowledge, both of which are extensions of maternal symbols. But, even though the connotation of the symbol may be different, both the symbols themselves (the cross in different cultures) and their contents (motherhood, life, knowledge) endure. The aim of my art lies in discovering both the constants behind this endurance, on the one hand, and the variations of the symbolic projections on the other. Projections, through subconscious meanings, determine our perceptions and thus our behavior. I want to discover these constants, because in them I see the confusions of life. Various interpretations may be formed, even, of bread. Bread is generally seen as a symbol of earth, pregnancy, and motherhood. Yet, in his 1774 text “Du pain et du blé,” Simon N. H. Linguet writes: “Bread is a dangerous and extremely harmful invention! We live off this drug whose main ingredient is decay (corruption), and which we need to weaken through poison in order to make it less harmful to our health. Due to monopolies and abuses, bread is a hundred times more deadly than it is beneficial in its character as food. No other type of food makes people more dependent. Among the lower classes, the habit of eating bread leads to slavery, mental laxness, groveling, and commonality. Among the upper classes, it leads to despotism and an unchecked penchant toward corruptive pleasures. Such are the results of the habit of eating bread, and they sprout from the same fruit from which the grain grows.” (It was P. Weibel who drew my attention to this passage.) The meaning of this photography sequence is derived verbally—that is through the authority of the letter—from the following symbols and their different interpretations: seed of grain   symbol for being buried in the earth and resurrecting to life, symbol after destruction grain expression of new life seed of grain seed of life, renewal, security, earth seed of grain   sexually connotated symbol for semen, pregnancy, motherhood, “give us our daily bread” bread made of grain bread of life bread rises, like a pregnant woman's stomach seed of grain sprout, fermentation, bread bread blown up, belly a woman's middle barge, skiff, ship blown up wind-filled sail, ship ship sea sea   mother of all life, the large pool/the large hips (das große Becken) —Text: VALIE EXPORT —Translation: Erica Duchette and Julia Scheffer (Return to top) Homometer II 1976, video documentation of performance, 2:51 min. In this street action, I hang a loaf of bread in front of my belly so passers-by can cut off pieces. I see this street action as a continuation of my investigation “On the Mythology of Civilizing Processes” (1971), particularly on the interpretation of symbols—bread as a symbol for motherhood and grain as a symbol for seed. The bread gives my form the appearance of a pregnant woman. This is a psychological experiment with symbols and behavior. —Text: VALIE EXPORT (Return to top) Asemie. Die Unfaehigkeit sich durch Mienenspiel ausdrueken zu koennen (Asemia: The Inability To Express Oneself through Body Language) 1973, video documentation of performance, 7:05 min. I draw a circle around the podium with the nails, which are hammered into the floor. . . . A bird is tied to the podium with a thin cord. I kneel before the bird on the podium and pour hot liquid wax onto it; then I pour the wax onto my feet and my left hand. I knock over the container of wax with my head to cover my right hand. I free my body from this immobile state by cutting out the hands with a knife. I use my mouth to take the knife from the podium—holding it in my mouth, using it to cut. —Text: Peter Assmann, “VALIE EXPORT Happening(s) and communication(s),” VALIE EXPORT, Landesgalerie, Linz, 1992, 249. (Return to top) Galleries Directory | Levy Gallery Artists Registry | Publications & Artists | Email | Moore College of Art and Design