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The Altered
The Altered is a project that evolved over several years. It started as a personal experiment born from my thoughts about the human body, senses and architecture, After, it became more interactive and performative with an audience. How I relate to it now is more of a combined Narrative.
Thoughts about the human body and architecture :
Lovely beautiful senses. Lovely beautiful body. Stupid limiting senses, Stupid limiting body.
Our entire experience, and thus our whole world is constructed from our body. We are dependent on this perception. we are dependant on the way of maneuvering through our environment that our senses and our body provides.
I feel thankful for my body and my perception, but at the same time, I wonder about all the versions of perceiving the world or moving through the world that could be possible outside of human sense. In architecture too, the human scale sometimes becomes exhausting. We completely curate our spaces to self-reference back to our scale and perception. So much so that I wonder if subconsciously while living in the human scale we might start believing our perspective is the only existence.
As an experiment for myself to help me (un)relate to the human scale, and try to formulate other ways of relating to space. I started making anti-prostheses, -Additions to my body, not meant to enhance my senses but meant to confuse them and force me to reunderstand how to relate to space - I used masks with mirrors to place my vision in another spot or another way. And I created artificial arms and legs that would create illogical positioning for the human hinges and joints. I tried them out at first alone. My body hated wearing them. I would fall, scramble, and feel helpless for hours at a time. Unable to have any meaningful reaction to my surroundings. After a lot of pain and practice, I very slowly learned some rudimentary forms of movements that wouldn't try to emulate human motion but something specific to the prostheses. Doing this helped me a lot with training my creativity and relating to many perspectives outside my own. other humans, animals, - abstract things.
I made 3 videos showcasing 3 completed anti-bodies.
Spatial research evolved to performance.
While experimenting with The Altered, I already noticed colleagues in my studio much enjoyed watching me try out the anti-bodies. then, the act of trying out the body in public space created very interesting scenarios and conflict.
I initially created the project just for myself. but I became interested in using it as unscripted performances. So the next two years I played around with them in various settings. Either testing myself a new interaction or letting new people try out the anti-body without having practiced before. and let that be the performance.
I/We ''performed'' at many locations and festivals throughout the Netherlands. usually, these were organizations that embraced performance art in public locations. It was great fun, but tough. since every performance would hurt a lot and had a risk of injury.
The reactions were very diverse, from perceiving me as a public menace to a joy. I was particularly touched by how caring many onlookers proved to be. Many times people would spontaneously attempt to lift up the performer trying to help them stand or walk. I would even feel guilty sometimes knowing once they lifted me up, likely the moment they let go I would collapse back to the ground.
I started leaning into the performative aspect of the project more and started creating new characters with a different tone. One symbolizing an observer, and one an abstraction of the assistants. I also started drawing more elaborate/cinematic scenarios to use the characters in.
Bosch Parade
I was selected to create a parade float in Den Bosch inspired by the painter Jeroen(Hieronymus Bosch)
This seemed like the perfect opportunity to test out one more The Altered anti-body.
This time one structure containing multiple people, each with a specific role and specific senses disabled.
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There were a few inspirations to the design that go beyond the body/space context of the Altered.
Reflection of Society Functioning :
All of us with imperfect bodies and different relationships to space, attempt together to create this humongous being/body we may call a city, or a society. We attempt together to sail this society straight towards an ordered and just state where we may find happiness. Not one of us in total control of the boat. We struggle with our individual identities, perceptions, and ways of collaborating. So, together trying to operate this societal boat it will inevitably sail curved paths, bump into the shore, and break at times.
Chaotic ode to Hieronymus :
The Bosch Parade is quite a pleasant affair. a lot of beautifully created floats sailing neatly behind each other. with a smiling and waving audience relaxing on the shore... It's like heaven. I've been a fan of Jeroen Bosch since I was a child. And I knew he was deadly serious about his paintings. Hell was Hell, no pleasant representation of it. I spoke with a Jeroen Bosch ''expert'' about the Bosch parade who speculated if Jeroen Bosch would be able to observe this modern representation of his work. He would lament and curse it...
(much love to the people of bosch parade )
My style of performance, painful, unscripted, chaotic, and a little torturous. I think Hieronymus might have liked it. So i would make my float in a way that nothing is played, the limitations are real. The performers would not be allowed to practice. and them struggling to operate the float and perhaps colliding with other ones would be the performance.
There were 3 characters :
One could see but not hear, It could only give instructions without seeing what happened behind it.
One could see and hear but not speak. It could steer the boat instructed by raised flags.
One could hear but not see nor speak. It could propel the boat forward based on drum sound.
The Altered Film.
The Parade commenced perfectly chaotical.
My boat anti-body was beautifully barely operational, each of the four parade days it proved a sincere struggle to get it through the 4km route. The, at this point probably likely frustrated, Parade directors had given my boat a 15 minute head start over the rest of the parade, and still, the whole parade to passed us, careful not to collide with our meandering object. Mine would usually arrive at the endpoint just next to the finale piece.
On the last day, When I also played a part on the float, there was a moment just 1km from the endpoint. We were cheerfully rocking the float back and forth celebrating almost being done with the struggle.
But suddenly -I still am not sure if we did it on purpose or not- while the float was leaning to the right... it was not swinging back. Instead.. I fell into the water and watched the boat rise high above me, towering over me, I saw it as if in slow motion starting to fall on top of me. I dove under, and the boat flipped upside down.
After a while of disorientation, We started to swim around it frantically trying to move it or unflip it (while staying in role) , But the center pole had lodged itself into to the bottom of the river. Behind us, other parade floats started piling up, my float had gotten stuck in the center of the river, and nothing could pass. In front of us, rescue boats from the organization arrived, they circled around us trying to tow our boat to the side. But there was no moving it, not even with two boats roaring their engine as loud as possible. It must have looked like a swarming anthill. Many people shouted things from the shore, some audience members laughed or cheered, The pileup behind us was escalating by the stream of the river. And my performers and I crawled over the wreck unsure of what to do... Disaster ... :)
I hope Jeroen Bosch would have smiled if he had witnessed this scene.
Eventually, we lifted one of the ropes over the boat, and by all standing on the opposite side, there was just the right angle, so that the rescue boats with their rope could unflip the float and release it from the riverbed. My float was wrecked, The rescue workers gave us aluminum heat blankets. and started towing us away just in front of the now-released floodgate of other floats. We celebrated and cheered waving our golden capes while The audience applauded perhaps thinking it was scripted.
One years later. I proposed another work for the next Bosch Parade.
Two scorpion boats, first and last in the parade. trapping all other floats and forcing them together..
It did not get selected ):
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While creating and performing with the Altered. A visual story of allegories and symbolisms. emerged in my head, where each antibody is a character with motivation and interaction. I can daydream it now from start to finish. The next step for the Altered would be filming this story. I am interested in finding the right opportunity/collaboration for this.