Silent Trip @ Melati Suryodarmo. 2008

- SURYODARMO Melati, Silent Trip, 2008

Performed at Fyris River at Ulva Kvarn Estate during the Friktioner, Uppsala, Sweden, 2008. Photo: A. Berntson.

Nothingness that in between breath and the silence. Nothingness that reveals the absence of story.

Silent Trip is a long durational performance, where the artist puts her body in a certain location in the landscape that presents the absence.

Duration: 2 hours

Look at the archaic landscape at the old mill by the Fyris river and its running water. There are old buildings, ruins of abandoned structures, and the shady forest surrounding it all. In the midst of this scenery we can discern, like a fairy, a female being. She stands still in the middle of the water course, her veins cut open and suspended between the trunks of old trees on each side of the river like the wings of an enormous dragon-fly. This is a poetic vision caused by the long red pieces of fabric that are tied around the tree trunks, as they projects from the enwrapped artist where she stands on a stone in the stream. In front of her a pair of shoes is placed on a stone, the golden shoes she once received as a gift from her teacher.

I deliberately try to frame this act in an Eighteen Century Diderotesque way. I find the work picturesque, romantic and lyrical of essence. Diderot in his criticism used emphatic story telling to set the background for analysis, as well as to enhance sensitivity towards different themmes of the work. This is a way of creating an intimacy by conversational means, starting out from a well known ground, and chatting away towards more equivocal interpretations. As in conversation you don’t have to agree, oly accept the cues as entries in an ongoing discourse. In dialogue with the text you may create your own opinion and even write a comment on the web. It is in fact possible that Eighteen Century conversation around art may have a renaissance in the new media. written by Kurt Wolnar Nyberg.