A prepared walk was developed as part of the exhibition project „Evil is a Squirrel“. The historically charged building of the Federal Administrative Court and its immediate surroundings served as the location.
In a two-day preparatory workshop the location was explored via a mixture of perception exercises, motion experiments, improvisations, audio and visual recordings: how is the building organised? What is the prevalent atmosphere? Which stories have sedimented? What can you feel that you cannot see? How can all of this be translated into performances, installations, interventions?
The results were combined in a walk, for each of its different stations an artist or a team were responsible. The everyday was used as a „theatrical setting“ and as an opportunity to interleave planned, prepared actions and accidental situations. In surprising ways the audience experienced an alternative perspective on the things around them.
(© Diana Wesser 2006, Photos: Karsten Wendt/Best Picture Point, 12-05-06, 3 a.m.)
Situs Opera investigates the acoustic and visual memory of opera, its theatrical codes, and its gestures and patterns of movement — both those enacted onstage and those of visitors — which are inscribed in the opera house. Chosen as a stage was a refreshments foyer, a place of self presentation where the boundary between staged drama and the theatre of everyday life remains fluid. The large glass doors were closed, forming a classical proscenium stage. The performance took place both within and outside of the foyer. Microphones transmitted the noises within out into the public space. In combination with live improvisation and singing, an audio track — consisting of modified opera music played at 30 times normal speed and extremely slowed down early 19th century arias formed the building’s acoustic memory. In a comparable manner, the performers reflected the theatrical gestures of opera singers and visitors in their repetitions, accelerations, exaggerations, decelerations, and reductions. Developed through these means was a 40 minute performance, one that concluded in the same way it began. A theatrical extract of opera.
Performance: Diana Wesser, Hermann Heisig
Sound, clarinet: Ole Schmidt; Performance, violin: Chris Weinheimer
Conceived for a one-time exhibition in the framework of the project »Eine Frage (nach) der Geste / A Question(ing) of Gesture« in the Opera House
“Dancing about Architecture“ translates the impulses of a dilapidated factory into movements. The atmosphere, the abandoned rooms, the traces, the rhythms and patterns of movements in the architecture inspire the improvisations of the dancer. The videos not only document the performances, but create a new time and space structure through editing. In the installation, the rhythmical movements and sounds of five videos create a permanently changing choreography.
Screening Version This version is a selection of two films of the video installation of the same title with Hermann Heisig and one video with Diana Wesser: „inside the frame” / 3’10, „graffiti factory” / 2’40, „office duet” / 4’07
A woman in a red dress and a man are investigating the invisible rooms of an abandoned house’s long corridor. Scary noises emanate from the rooms that seems to be connected by a labyrinth. This place must be haunted. But at the end of the passageway there’s a light …
The video explores the ambience of an abandoned office building, its scary atmosphere and the echo of the movements of the former inhabitants. The video and sound editing produces an eerie scene and lets the place itself be the director.
(© Diana Wesser 2003)
Prof. Dr. Jean-Christophe Ammann stands behind a lectern and gives a talk. But the only thing to be seen are the long pauses in which he lends expression to his words through inflated gestures and emotive pantomime. I took the kunst breaks from the recording of his opening speech for the exhibit »Seven Times Painting,« which addressed the »New Leipzig School of Painting« at the Museum of Visual Art in 2003. (The release of the video was made possible by the friendly permission of Prof. Dr. Jean-Christophe Ammann)
Diana Wesser realized an installation combining video, objects, photography and a performance collaboration for with Suzana Richie (Zurich/Berlin), Doris Weidmann (Berlin/Berlin) and Rolf Summer (Bern/Leipzig).
Centred was her work with actionist actors performing a “theatre of reality” moving away from reality only a little. As Diana Wesser says about it: VISITATION build upon the performance of ROOM 707 AND ITS INHABITANTS. For this five people developed new identities formed of outer appearance, movement- and other behavioural patterns. Then they spent 5 days within a hotel room of 25 square meters which during this period could for some hours be visited by spectators. The material collected during practising and within the performance was presented within ATTENTION by 2 video monitors. On ground there was to be seen an installation of clothes and objects connected to the 5 characters from room 707.
During opening and 2 other days two of the actors performed within the showroom. They undressed for then dressing up with the clothes used within the installation. During this 1-hour long action the performers changed their identities thus always resembling a new couple. Normal gestures and behavioural patterns mixed up with exaggerated forms finally becoming independent acts.
* 1970 in Stuttgart
lives in Leipzig (DE)
2010 Artistic Director “play! LEIPZIG – Movement in Urban Space“ (with Patrick Primavesi) Conference and Performance Festival, Dance Archive & Centraltheater, Leipzig
2009 CROP MARKS residency (together with English architect Helen Stratford), Orchard Park, Cambridge (UK)
2009 Residency at LOFFT theatre Leipzig (DE), (together with Austrian choreographer Caroline Decker)
2008 & 2009 Artistic Director team “Zwischengruen”, art in public space festival, Kunstverein Leipzig
2007 – 2009 Founder and Artistic Director team “Werkstattmacher“, Program to encourage young performance artists, LOFFT Theatre Leipzig
2007 Grant, Kulturstiftung Sachsen
2006 – 2008 Flexible Response, Performance collective, with the dancer Hermann Heisig and the musicians Chris Weinheimer and Ole Schmidt
2006 / 2007 Teaching position, Academy of visual Arts, Leipzig
Since 2005 urban (col)laboratory, interdisciplinary artist duo with English architect and writer Helen Stratford, (Cambridge/GB)
2005 Postgraduate in the master class of Prof. Alba D’Urbano, Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig (DE)
2001 Master of Fine Arts (Diploma Degree), Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig (DE)
2000 Assistance at “Le Lieu – Centre en art actuel”, performance centre, Québec (CA)
1990 – 1993 Education Graphic Design, Kolping Berufskolleg für Grafik-Design, Fellbach (DE)
2010
Expo 2010, German Pavilion, Shanghai (CN)
WAC: Partnering, Group Exhibition, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge (UK)
FEDAME, International Dance and Electronic Media festival, Guadalajara (MX)
Metropolis Laboratory, Copenhagen (DK)
play! LEIPZIG – Movement in Urban Space, Dance Archive and Centraltheater Leipzig (DE)
2009
New Media Festival, Britto Arts Trust, Dhaka (BD)
DAS ZIMMER Installation – Visual Music, Mozarteum Salzburg (AT)
Work Exhibition Diana Wesser, Schaubühne Lindenfels, Leipzig (DE)
Festival of Ideas, University of Cambridge (UK)
Nightjar Festival, Art in Public Space Festival, Cambridge (UK)
Crop Marks Art Trail, Orchard Park, Cambridge (UK)
Subvurt Surveillance Festival, The Britons Protection, Manchester (UK)
Metropolis Biennale, Copenhagen (DK)
zwischengruen09, Art in Public Space Festival, Kunstverein Leipzig (DE)
Das Böse ist ein Eichhoernchen, Landgericht, Leipzig (DE)