Performance, Missing Song
by Alex Mirutiu © (artist’s original concept/script)
performed 6 pm on May 15, 2003 Bolyai Street, Cluj-Napoca, Romania Architects Days Festival (ACT).
performed 6 pm on May 15, 2003 Bolyai Street, Cluj-Napoca, Romania Architects Days Festival (ACT).
“The true self is the alienated self; the self that knows that it is alone and has no final and fixed identity.”1
Missing Song is part of Sympathetic Digest project. It was composed during the winter spring semester 2003, in a seminar called “Systems Theory and Art Communication” conducted by professor Frederick D. Bunsen.
Date / Time day / “Mon”/”Tue”/ “Wed” / ”Thu” / ”Fri” / ”Sat” / ” Sun” / month / “Jan” / “Feb” / ”Mar” / ”Apr” / ”May” / ”Jun” / ”Jul” / ”Aug” / “Sept” / ”Oct” / ”Nov” / ”Dec” / hour / 6.pm zone / Eastern Europe – Romania – Cluj – Napoca, Bolyai Street
This project was written as a remembrance of missing persons / the emptiness of their existence. My intention is to rethink as much as possible the despair and the nothingness and somehow to encode it so to excess power over it. Missing Song has a formal identity in non identity. I could be dealing with my memory and with the body wastes of every day life. Reminds us of the biggest waste.
People all over the world go missing each year. In the third world countries, citizens are disappeared, thousands are abducted from their home and offices. Are you next?
Holes are part of the common street, and are open structures free of security codes remotes and other security devices. They are not as it might appear, part of the cityscape impurities, they are part of the town scenery indicating weakness and exostion at people and society at large. The topic word is Waste with all it’s city forms” energy waste, human impurities, toxic substances and even ourselves. Holes make’s a shut down operation of protesting self. The project wants to present the ecstasies and indignities of human beings; the routine craziness of our dream lives.
Missing individuals may find their anxieties in other scenarios free of real History
Insults. In Holes. Dramatically disappearance of this young adults memory finds
It’s place in the memory of the urban mechanism.
A personal sensitive abstraction is used, which is expressed in terms of audio tactility.
Internet study / Seminar discussions / Observation / specific cases /urban life orthodoxy
Missing song performance is composed in theatre abstraction consisting in specific theatre protocols like, repetitions, brakes and the form actors.
The mirror shoos / the most exact, sharp and acid of you. Behaves as a constant
reminder, you are constantly aware of your loneliness, self inflicted temptation, waste – Every time you enjoy yourself.
Mirror / You are constantly aware of your changes / this is one way to acknowledge
your physical and psychological process. They function as a second memory, the additional memory of oneself , you see yourself as placid.
trumpet / grandma’s dress / dead grandma / white painted dress
“Last night blue is waiting, reaching for you to memorise it.”2
Now you breath along with you the toxic air of the city and the dust of the streets.
Loosing in all of this.
“I couldn’t find you anywhere among these signs.”3
Udoubtely and without warning you fell down into this world.” Only rumours of your existence will be spilled to the press ///to late ///to late.”4
“I am trying desperately to replace the missing, to fill the void but every attempt proves to be in vain. Why did you leave me? Did you leaving leave. A hole in yourself that I fit?”5
The stranger / The lover / The politician / The killer / The wife / The politician / The bisexual / The Blith Helen Dog / The suicidal boy /
1. John Buell & Tom DeLuca, Sustainable Democracy, (London: The Sage Publications, 1996), p.92
2. Mathew Francis, Dragons, ( London: Faber & Faber, 2001)
3. Dan, A Brief Synopsis of Tomorrows Events, ( internet release)
4. Mozilla, Internet release ( trace.ntu.ac), date:03:03:’00 / hour: 20:11:585. item
On the evening of 15 May, a walk on a side street of Cluj proved to be more than the usual routine: There, in the middle of a small crowded back street, to the surprise of the people passing by, a young student stood making a statement of particular kind. Wearing an angel-like dress covered over in some stiff white substance, he played trumpet to a pile of bright red oozing fluid moving precociously on the warm black tarmac. The light refl ection of the wet pigment intensifi ed the contrast of the rough surrounding plain, and drew my eye like a magnet. It was something worth taking a closer look at. Then I noticed how the trumpet maintained a slow and constant rhythm - like a march, matching step to the capriciously spreading form of the red paint. A group of four stood by in passive participation, an event, which threatened to quickly fade into oblivion should no one witnessed the action.After about 15 minutes the music of Missing Song began to fade. Pedestrians passing by in happenstance took little notice, somewhat perplexed and then proceeded on quickly to avoid any interaction with this strange, unusual ritual. Still others appeared more absorbed by their everyday problems as they absentmindedly traipsed through the paint.
