Untitled (Syncope), 2007 takes place in the SHUNT vaults underneath London Bridge Station. The location, a dark, labyrinth of tunnels seems important to creating an atmosphere of unease and uncertainty in the audience. The crowd are huddled together, waiting for the performance to begin when they see the artist approaching. She is naked except for red high heels, lipstick and a burlesque headress. She carries a mirror and walks backwards towards them, catching their gaze in the mirror. There is the steady sound of a metronome ticking during the performance. Moving through the crowd, O'Reilly brushes against the audience member, reaches out and takes one by the hand. They are lead through the space, a series of arches and tunnels.
O'Reilly holds a scalpel. She bends her body downwards and cuts the flesh of her calf muscles causing blood to ooze and puddle at her ankle and the edge of her red shoes. "The metronome's pace quickens and grows louder as she tries to keep her taut, automaton style movements up with the pace set by the mechanical ticking, all the while teetering in her high heels. She never speaks."
Although my experience of this performance is via anecdote and photographs, I feel that it is a very powerful, atmospheric artwork. The way it is described by Patrick Duggan makes me feel that to be in the audience and experience O'Reilly's body within that particular space would be emotional and affecting.
"The touch and the cut, both acts which press upon the bodies of the audience in different ways, gave the performance a strange sense of familiarity and extremity, and it is this dichotomous mix which, much as Amelia Jones suggests, causes it to feel slightly voyeuristic, a scene stumbled upon which we should look away from but it is impossible to do so."
I found the use of space in this performance particularly interesting, the stark underground space made entirely of cold stone. In the second section of the article, O'Reilly discusses the space a little:
"The arches frame the body beautifully.... There is something about these spaces being so harsh and to present the body unclothed, vulnerable, without any staging or floor laid down, there's something really nice about being able to do that, where you have a mixture of materials with skin and stone."
This is something I've being thinking about in terms of my own performances; the way the body can correlate, contrast or be positioned within spaces. The way that architecture and surfaces can intersect with the body.
VALIE EXPORT
