The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the School for New Dance Development (SNDO) present: Processed flesh selling slippery fantasies to the plain plane sighted, a performance by choreographers and SNDO alumni Raoni Muzho Saleh and Charlie Laban Trier. Trier and Saleh will work with SNDO students in a two-week rehearsal workshop and the resulting performance will be presented at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam’s Teijin Auditorium and in an online environment.
Today, the ability to construct our own image in online and offline realms often produces stress and exhaustion, brought on by the myths of fixed subjectivity and enhanced visibility and recognition. In processed flesh selling slippery fantasies to the plain plane sighted, Trier and Saleh consider the potential of hiding in plain sight in off- and online environments. Drawing inspiration from works by Hito Steyerl (“The Spam of the Earth: Withdrawal from Representation” and “Digital Debris”) and Tavi Meraud (“Iridescence, Intimacies”)—each of whom have engaged with the creative potential of visibility and deflection in their work—this performance speculates on how camouflaging in virtual environments affects our offline presence, and vice versa. Through an exploration of movement and material, the performers test the efficacy of camouflaging as a strategy for hybridizing exposure and evasion.
Over the span of five hours, the performers will immerse themselves in a unique spatial environment installed in the Teijin Auditorium. Although recorded on site, the performance will be available only as a livestream across multiple digital platforms for an entirely virtual audience. The stream’s multiple points of access will add to the amount of “spam” through which the performers navigate. This “spam” will afford viewers increased access to—and distraction from—the performance.
