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  • TRAGEDY OF EQUALITY [act2] – UNEDITED

    video recording (stills) and portrait photography from the 2nd act performance "MUDWRESTLING BATTLE", which took place at GAGPROJECTS, Adelaide, January 2019. 2nd Match: ADELAIDE-BATTLE [ January 2019 - Adelaide] FRAMEWORK > "politics has no objects or issues of its own. Its sole principle, equality, is not peculiar to it and is in no way in itself political. All equality does is lend politics reality in the form of specific cases to inscribe, in the form of litigation, confirmation of the equality at the heart of the police order. "  J. Rancier [Disagreement] Engaged in one of the oldest forms of combat, two contenders wrestle against each-other. To neutralize individual status, contenders wore white bodysuits and a white abstract mask, the bodysuit was covered in white mud, which metaphorical transforms the body into territories to be occupied. Using all traditional moves, such as takedowns, joint locks, pins and grappling holds, the competitors battled to overpower each other. As the battle begins, their suits spill mud all around, covering their bodies and making the battle ground slippery, adding danger to the match. The sense of control, of force and space is put out of balance; the role of dominance and subjugation are left not just to the technical knowledge of the fighters, but to chance. Eventually, unable to come clean of the entangle they returned to their resting positions. OUTCOME > The intended forced takeover of the territorial body of the other, leaves no party able to balance and take full control. Both parties end up equally soiled by the force used, restricting any evidence of difference. 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. SUMMARY > Direct contact battles between two contestants occur in triangular spaces. Physical triangulations reflect the opponent’s respective states of ‘desire’, ‘reality’ and ‘expectation’ within the binary law of domination and subjugation that maintains them, reflecting a global system of desire and fate continuously moving and consuming each-other. As a primal tension structure, a triangulation indicates our existence as products of desire (mother-father-child), as natural bodies integrated in social compromise (political fate), to consume and satisfy production (economic fate), to deal with a contentious existence in a confined occupied space. The competition 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 competing 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.