Holoscenes

A water tank slowly fills with water, while inside a performer attempts to go on with a simple task – reading a newspaper, playing guitar, or cleaning the tank. It becomes impossible, things fill with water, everything starts to float, garments waft and swirl, and eventually the person is completely immersed, apparently unperturbed. The spectators work to control their worry, “it’s a performance, she’s alright”, until eventually the artist swims to the surface to take a breath, or the water level lowers again. It is hard to convey the poetry of watching a person calmly trying to complete a task as water transforms their world, changes the nature of everything in it, and poses an existential threat. Are these scenes of drowning or scenes of living?

The strangeness of the aquatic apparatus contrasts with the familiar scenes of daily life being obliviously pursued within the tank. As the rising water operates the shift from a warmly familiar to a fatal environment, human agency is eclipsed in an uncannily ambiguous way by the water’s beautifully paradoxical presence. The incongruity of such calm, peaceful oblivion with the loss of a breathable environment cleverly reflects our own inconsistent attitudes towards impending catastrophe.

Since its conception in 2014, when it premiered with a 12-hour performance during Toronto’s Nuit Blanche Festival, Holoscenes has been performed in various locations around the world, including New York, Montreal and Abu Dhabi.