Description:
21st Open Performance Art Festival. 2025.10.27.
Shanghai, China
Curator: Chen Jin
The performance is an improvisational response to the relative value of time, explored through the perspectives of two artists.
Mazán sits at the table, attempting to untangle a ball of thread and wrap it around her hand. The gesture of winding represents cyclicality, restitution for errors, and simultaneously serves as a rational, measurable element within the performance. Within the context of the hammer, this act takes on an administrative quality and can evoke associations with legal structures. The static posture emphasizes the significance of these subtle gestures, while also bringing in characteristics of the feminine principle—traditional female actions (such as embroidery) and the experience of inner, subjective time.
In contrast, Rokkó’s presence in the space is dynamic. First, he starts a video, which continues playing throughout the performance. The video shows an earlier collaborative work by Rokkó. He then spreads a white canvas on the black floor and places a clock on it, which he starts. The simultaneous start of the clock and Rokkó’s movements in the space creates a shared temporal effect—the action itself defines time.
The next element Rokkó introduces is a measuring tape, pulled from his mouth. With this gesture, he incorporates the surrounding space and the physical space of the body, both its external and internal aspects. His movements and gestures convey that time is not absolute but relative, defined in the context of action and measurement. Historical, social, and technical structures—symbolized by the measuring tools he uses—determine how time and space are perceived and administered.
As a final visible gesture, Rokkó draws a curtain, leaving the clock outside while the sound remains within. Separating visual information (the clock) from audible information (the sound) signals a division between visible and perceptible time. Ultimately, he removes the sound-producing element from the space divided by the curtain.
The black clothing and environment help minimize personal characteristics, thereby highlighting the movements of the bodies and the elements used. These movements and elements make the measurable, relative dimension of time visible.
The hammer strikes used by Mazán—performed after each unit of unwound thread—act as an auditory reinforcement of the material and measurable dimension of time.
https://irodalmiszemle.sk/2025/12/orulet-irodalmi-szemle-2025-12/
The two artists’ ongoing collaborative project is ErrorMII, which can be followed on Instagram: @errormii.
Rokkó Juhász, Anikó Mazán 米
Anikó Mazán Share on FacebookYear: 2025
Size: idő
Technique: performance
Price: n.a.
Photographer: Lyu Desheng