Z i i i

(2015)
Brandthaus Kassel

By Mareike Steffens & Deva Schubert

Z i i i is a research project of a collaboration between Mareike Steffens and Deva Schubert. It draws inspiration from the space we worked in: the 5th floor of a big old textile factory.

Through my personal experience of having back pain, which for me had a strong connection to the jaw movement, we manipulated objects and food we felt fascination for, like lemons.

By connecting the audience with the lemons in the room, sharing a similar sensation like the one we had, the lemons became objects of sensation, of playfulness, and of communication.

The result of this process was shown as a one hour performance,  based on simple stations, relating to the architecture of the room. It was composed of complex forms, games, and images that invited us to move and to encounter each other.

We discovered the situation together with the audience, into an unknown territory that gave us an understanding of shared labor, of togetherness, and of the process of physical and mental collaboration, which became alive and productive The spectators didn’t participate directly, but they nevertheless played an active role in the encounter, which orbited around the concepts of artificiality and nature, catastrophic constructions, and the autonomy of objects. These concepts were  processed through speech, gestures, and movement. Speech and physical actions were given equal value, while being used to materialize a virtual performance within the mind of the spectator.