THANX FOR LEAVING ME

Performance and video piece.

Date: 2004

Place: Open studios NDSM, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Sound: Elke Uitentuis, Leonard Abbink

Camera: Erik Speelman

Video: duration: 2:13 min



‘Thanx for leaving me’ was a performance I did during the open studios at the NDSM in Amsterdam 2004. I covered the inside of my studio (a caravan) completely with silver insulationmaterial and I made a costume out of it. I was not recognized as a human being since I was sitting still. There was the sound of a heartbeat and a whispering voice that motivated the choice to live in isolation. I contributed a couple of sentences to the text directly. This brought a paradoxical layer to the performance because I broke through the isolation and made contact. People came inside my caravan and it felt very intimate. Some people felt very comfortable, others were a little afraid. A lot of people were frightened when I started to speak because they didn’t expect a human inside of the suit. One woman took my mask off as curious as she was. This was an unexpected but beautiful ending of my isolation.