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video recording (stills) and portrait photography from the 1st act performance "HEADSHAVINGBATTLE", which took place at void+, Tokyo, June 2018. (video link coming soon...meanwhile https://mailchi.mp/randian-online/head-shaving-battle-tokyo-ariel-hassan-1266533?e=9970712933)

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SUMMARY > Direct contact battles between two contestants occur in triangular spaces. The physical triangulations embed each opponent’s respective states of desire, reality and expectation within the binary law of domination and subjugation that maintains them, reflecting a ecosystem of desire and fate continuously moving and consuming each-other. A primal tension structure, a triangulation also indicates our existence as products of desire (mother-father-child), as natural bodies integrated in a social space of compromise (political fate), to consume and satisfy production (economic fate), to deal with a contentious presence in a confined, occupied space. The battles strive for difference where difference is not allowed to occur. Competitors wear neutral white outfits and abstract landscape-masks. Referencing classical Greek tragedy, the masks eliminate identity and transform the contenders into anonymous territories, each intending unsuccessfully to conquer the opponent. The structure conforms to a territorial battleground where the actions, through infinite repetition, direct towards a sterilization of the external image, where cultural judgment is deprived of its absolute force. 1st Match: TOKYO-BATTLE [ June 2018 - Tokyo] FRAMEWORK > What is desired is manifest: a struggle for difference or a violent acceptance of equality. Armed with electric hair clippers, two contenders battled against each-other. To neutralize individual status, contenders wore white overalls and a white abstract mask. Competitors battled to overpower each other, attacking and shaving the head of the other, able only to shave a small amount of hair before their roles were overturned, dominance and subjugation. Eventually, neither contender had any hair left to cut. Bald, they returned to their resting positions. OUTCOME > Hair eliminated and not allowed to grow back. The body is controlled by force, restricting its capacity for pride and difference. Denied its production, hair is hindered from protection or image production (individuality). Through cycles of domination and submission, the action is inconclusive: no one wins, and individual signs are neutralized. Bodies are rendered non-productive, left in a perennial symbiotic tension.  

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Produced by Michiko Ogura for ArtEngineers in cooperation with void+ / with the assistance of Minato Support Program for Arts and Cultural Activities, Aoyama, Minato-Ku, Tokyo. / Presented at void+, Tokyo, June 2018. Performers: Todoroki Masashi , Kubota Itsuki Videographer: Mikami Ryo, AH