4’33” CHORUS LOOP

Performance: Flash Art Event, Milan, Feb 2013
video: on work
Series of photos

installation, 2013

Announcement: 

“Video and performance artist LIUBA requests participation from the general public in a new performance work entitled 4’33” Chorus Loop that will premiere at the Flash Art Fair. One approximately 15 minute performance will take place from Thursday to Sunday.

Interested participants should arrive at the booth a half hour before each performance, preferable dressed in black. No previous performance experience is necessary”

This project involves the direct participation of the public in the performance, through a participation agreement. Performance art becomes a tool to encourage people to reflect within themselves and interact with others.

This participative performance focuses on the ability to be silent for a long period of time. Executing multiple times in a loop the famous piece by John Cage 4’33”, the piece is developed in a performative and collective way.

After the performance, participants were asked to write something about what they  experienced. This collection of writings is part of the work.

In a period of crisis, such as the one in which Italy is experiencing now, a chorus of people performing in silence becomes an icon and symbol. Through this state of implosion and absence  of words, silence provides fertile ground to find motivations and forces for subsequent recovery and rebirth.

Also, staying in silence in front of an audience is a way of reflecting in solitude among others and of listening to other people’s emotions in addition to one’s own.

The mere repetition of the piece in the loop is a key element of the project, since it causes a lengthening of time to spend in silence, and becomes also a challenge of endurance and listening on the part of the participants and the audience.