Bloomberg Disco
For COMMA, Suchan Kinoshita has developed a new piece titled Bloomberg Disco. The work is not only commissioned by Bloomberg, but made in Bloomberg with the collaboration of Bloomberg employees. The installation consists of a stage, film projections, curtains, and props. The piece's core element is a rotating stage: materially present within the installation as well as the basis for the films. The stage is round and circles in a one-minute rotation around its axis. In the centre of the stage there is a seat for a performer to sit on. About ten music stands are placed on the floor around the stage carrying small black boards. On these blackboards words are written (and wiped out) by another performer. The performer seated in the centre of the stage is invited to respond, in an improvisational way, as he or she reads the words for the first time whilst delivering a monologue.
Bloomberg Disco belongs to a 'family' of other works that Kinoshita calls 'sets' or 'theatres'. There is, for example, a theatre based on the 'coulissen theatre' (wings theatre), made of white perforated board on which Kinoshita animates all kinds of objects passing as 'individuals' in review. Another stage, based on off-stage or the storage space backstage, consists of a structure of shelves containing different kinds of objects, all with performance potential. The set-works have a kinship with other installations, for example, works that are defined by a confined space known as 'hokken' (sheds) which invite the spectator to become a performer. In one such shed the spectator enters a very small space to confront a table with a collection of different hourglasses which he or she is invited to turn around. Each blown glass hourglass of different form is filled with a variety of contents from sand to honey, oil to green washing up liquid. Another work, defined by two enclosed spaces which are connected to and mirror each other, is made of perforated board. On entering the space, the spectator is faced by a note on the opposite wall saying: "while you are reading this, the door behind you is going to close. The door will open as soon as somebody else has entered the other side".
All these works share Kinoshita's interest in time, movement and language. These interests are expressed in her exploration of choreography, or more generally, with the varying tracks found in language, in mutual relations, in habitual movements and so on. Instructions, exercises and incentives for improvisation allow her to investigate, in a collaborative manner, the way in which an artwork can come into being. In this respect, it's not surprising that Kinoshita's formation encompasses the visual arts (she studied at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, 1988-1990), contemporary music (she studied with Mauricio Kagel in Koln, 1981-85) as well as theatre (she collaborated in the experimental productions of Theater am Marienplatz in Krefeld in Germany, 1983-1990).
In different works by Suchan Kinoshita, the 'protagonist' - the round, turning platform - has obtained quite a history1 since 2004. It is important to stress the trait of the revolving platform as 'instrument'. To approach an artwork as an instrument allows the artist to reflect on the roles of spectator, performer and director. With this instrument she allows the participants to activate and explore alternative meanings of, and relations between, such roles. Kinoshita often mentions exercise, alluding to her sense of manufacture and her interest in process. But foremost it reveals her inclination towards a dialogical way of producing knowledge and creating a participative situation. As such, her way of working incorporates a latent critique on the conventional division of roles, often leading to feelings of alienation, and opens up the prospect of emancipation.
The piece in which Kinoshita plays with the rotating platform is referred to as 'détournement'. The term "détournement" can be interpreted in many different ways and means, amongst others things, deflection, diversion, rerouting, distortion, misuse, misappropriation and
hijacking. So in general one could say that the word implies something that has turned aside from its normal course or purpose. Détournement was a technique used by the Situationists in the 1960s, with real political and critical implications. The technique pioneered by the Situationist Guy Debord implies the reworking or placing of existing cultural works of art or mass culture in a different context. For the Situationists, who were a driving force behind the events of the Paris uprising of May '68, détournement was a method to be executed in traditional media. The Situationists used détournement in films, art, graphics for their journal, as well as in their posters, reusing cultural elements to produce a subversive message. A well-known employment of the technique of détournement was that of writing new words into the speech bubbles of preexisting comic strips. One good explanation of détournement is given by Guy Debord and Gil Wolman in their 1956 publication A User's Guide to Détournement: "In closing, we should briefly mention some aspects of what we call ultradétournement, that is, the tendencies for détournement to operate in everyday social life. Gestures and words can be given other meanings, and have been throughout history for various practical reasons. The secret societies of ancient China made use of quite subtle recognition signals encompassing the greater part of social behaviour (the manner of arranging cups; of drinking; quotations of poems interrupted at agreed-on points). The need for a secret language, for passwords, is inseparable from a tendency toward play. Ultimately, any sign or word is susceptible to being converted into something else, even into its opposite."
For COMMA, Suchan Kinoshita sent out an open call to all employees working within the London headquarters of Bloomberg to come and participate as performers on the platform. Seated in the middle of the rotating podium, those who had responded were invited to speak about their profession, whilst at the same time reacting to the words Kinoshita had written on the blackboards. By engaging the employees in this project and encouraging their contribution, Kinoshita activated a threefold détour. Firstly, a highly specialised language with inner logic and purpose-led syntax was interrupted by means of an invitation to improvise in response to the words 'thrown' at the speaker. This forced participants to deal with 'intruders' interrupting the natural flow of their narrative and language. Secondly, by asking employees to leave their own departments to move to the fourth floor where the set was installed, the film shoot acted as an incentive to interrupt the employees' usual route through the building. As Bloomberg employees seem to be organised level by level according to skills and tasks, this introduced a different layer of flexibility and communality.
Thirdly, participation in the project meant an interruption to the daily schedule and showed the great willingness of the contributors to donate time to a situation that they couldn't oversee. In terms of content, space and time, Kinoshita's stage acted as an instrument. An instrument for the employees, and also for the artist who, in terms of learning by doing, found out that the real potential of détour resided not in the language as such but in the way of speaking – where language finds its own bodily expression.
Frédérique Bergholtz
Frédérique Bergholtz is Director of If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, a production company for performance related visual arts projects based in Amsterdam.
1 The revolving platform has been acting in different works by Suchan Kinoshita and was part of works shown in Marres in Maastricht (2004), Ikon Gallery in Birmingham (2006/2007), STUK in Leuven (2009) and at If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution in the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (2010). After being exhibited as part of Bloomberg's COMMA series, it will be shown in a new constellation in the Ludwig Museum in Cologne (2011).