The Moving Forest – Act 1
2012 | Durational performance of remorse for extended bodies and voices (Xth Sense technology)
Moving Forest (various artists aka The Castle, 2012) expands the last 12 minute of Kurosawa’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, ‘Throne of Blood’ (1957), into a sonic performance saga with a prelude of 12 days, a durational performance of 6 acts in 12 hours and a closing Coda for the sake of argument. First presented at Transmediale.08. Berlin 2008, Moving Forest London maps an imaginary castle and a camouflaged forest revolt onto the hyper-playground of the London metropolis on the eve of Olympics 2012.
ACT 1: REMORSE
A 2 hours, durational performance of remorse for extended bodies and voices.
Francesca de Rimini – text and reading
Linda Dement – text and blood machines
Laura Oldfield Ford – video
Marco Donnarumma – Xth Sense body suit, burned amplifiers, human flesh sonic feedback
Below an audio-visual document reporting excerpts of the 12 hours opera. Act [1] can be viewed at minute 2.00.
Moving Forest, London 2012 from MAT_OPEN on Vimeo.
Text
I have none
Contrition
Nope
I am a cold fuck. I am teflon, graphite, stainless steel. I always caught the nearest way. And so would you.
Unsexed from birth and with the wet cement ooze in my veins that stops all gaps. No more gaps. Cockroach regret has no entry. Cold draft guilt has no crack. The virtues of the dead can’t plague me. I am sealed like a nun’s cunt.
I stole from my best friend. I sold my grandmother’s ring. I fucked your true love. I left the other one blue on the floor and simply watched. And one I kicked as he went and I have no remorse.
The way to a man’s heart is between the third and forth rib with the knife angled upwards at about 30 degrees.
Then I can take what’s mine. His cash. His watch. His fucking iPhone.
And there were those two. I stuck the knife in.
The worst thing about killing is the dead body clean up. They are heavy as all fuck. They leak and hiss. Piss. Blood. Gasses. Dead weight clammy with an unnatural give. You have to deal with it. They are large and obvious and will smell if you wait too long.
They have to go somewhere else.
It takes more than one person to lift and carry. The boot of my car is small and public transport out of the question. There’s a shovel and the backyard. There’s disguising the scene as something else.
These two dead they obviously fought each other. A knife in each gut. A stain on each right hand. But were they right handed? Was I wearing latex? And why did they fight? And can I call the cops and hope to remain undiscovered.
I have no remorse. It was their time. I’m nothing and fate worked through me. I don’t intend to pay. Some of us see the way things are and act and some of us don’ t and you can’t make an omlette without breaking eggs.
He slid down the wall when I stuck it in. The impetus helped my upwards slice. Both hands around it, all effort, in to the hilt and cut. His eyes opened. He seemed surprised. His hands closed on mine. Softly. So very softly. Gentle as my grandma. A smooth slide down, his back along the wall until the shoulders piled on the floor. The head leaned, bent neck, blood pooled and I swear he smiled.
The serenity, the evenness and warmth of it after all his aggro. It took that distress right out of him. Nothing in his life became him like leaving it.
And the other, he was passed out already when I opened his throat. They bleed to death in roughly 4 minutes when you get a major artery. His was a beautiful death. Unconscious drugged bliss then nothing. Evermore.
A mad hair street lady came to me this morning. She was shaking the hands of all who would touch her. She stood before me and I clasped her hand and smiled.
She said “I can’t see your eyes.”
I looked right at her. I held my lids open but she said “I can’t see your eyes. I can’t see your eyes” and pulled away.
Dogs don’t like me either.
I sleep easily. My appetites are strong. I feel nothing. I stood and watched the last one. The chest was moving. The feet were twitching. After a while there wasn’t.
- Linda Dement
Credits
Further performances included:
With Valentina Vuksic, Olsen Wolf, Kaffe Matthews, xname, Ewa Justka, Bioni Samp, Vasco Alves, Atau Tanaka, Graham Harwood, AUDiNT (Toby Heys, Steve Goodman).
Concept and Scenario: Shu Lea Cheang and Martin Howse, 2007
Organized by: TAKE2030 (Ilze Black and Shu Lea Cheang)
Matthew Fuller (Center for Cultural studies, Goldsmiths College)
Graham Harwood (MA Interactive Media, Goldsmiths College)
Rachel Baker {irational.org}
Photographer: Kim