A man lies down naked on a dance mat coated with green-tinted oil. A rope which stretches to a winch 13 metres away is tied around his neck. Yann Marussich’s performance has no specified duration. Anyone can activate the winch, and when they do, the rope coils, pulling the performer by the neck. Thus begins a sadistic (for the audience) and masochistic (for Marussich) crossing.

From the moment the audience enters the venue, they become part of the performance. And yet the spectator is free on all levels. There are no instructions. There is no procedure to follow. All they can do is take responsibility for themselves, for their opinions and actions–or lack thereof. There is no censorship either, only possibilities.

The lack of instructions leaves the audience face to face with their own selves, with their repressed and conscious
desires–an experiment similar to Stanley Milgram’s “exercise in responsibility” in his Obedience to authority project conducted between 1960 and 1963. The audience is intentionally stuck in a group dynamic, full of hopes and threats.

Individuals relate to each other in three possible ways: sympathy, antipathy or indifference. And it appears that aggressiveness increases productivity in a democratic group. Marussich’s high-risk performance experiments with individual liberties at the heart of the audience.

Text: Anne Rochat
English translation: AJS Craker