Corporeality, with a touch of the obscene…
Vis Major (Dragana Sapanjoš) leads us to the historical links between the body and laughter in a way that is no less sophisticated, but far more literal: we hear recordings of excerpts of laughter from various 1950s soap operas. The laughter of the “higher forces” is not embodied in an object, but its acoustic presence gives it a spatial dimension and, owing to the temporal nature of sound, a temporal dimension as well. Here, sound acquires spatial qualities more directly, as it performatively takes hold of the physical space occupied by viewers. They share this spatialised laughter with others, either finding comfort in their participation or feeling unsettled by the sounds. In this situation, the mechanism by which humour makes the familiar appear unfamiliar comes into play, with actual laughter taking the place of humour. Contrary to expectations, through a double inversion rooted in culture’s dual perspective, we seem to be directed towards another boundary: the fact that we are bodies calls into question the inescapable, unchangeable fact that we have bodies.
This impression intensifies, as it frequently does in Sapanjoš’s work, when the “higher forces” make themselves heard in more complex hybrid works. These projects often unfold over extended periods and are structured as sequences of scenes, in which performative strategies are complemented by sensations generated through multimedia and by theatrical elements. These range from choirs and musicians to specially constructed props and instructions for performers or for the audience, which is always essential to these performances. The experience of real time, space and corporeality condenses into “poetic tableaux vivants” with a Dadaist atmosphere, tinged with the absurdity of repetition, situations and combinations. The song Wrong by Depeche Mode, for example, is performed continuously by twenty members of a women’s choir from Novigrad, dressed in specially designed white gowns. With their backs to a conductor dressed in black, they face the wall and sway to a rhythm that gradually becomes uniform. One by one, the singers leave, changing both the visual and sonic constellation of the space.
Awareness of corporeality is further heightened, though in a different form, in the scene titled Bukkake, which is also the name given to the cakes that the performers eat alongside drinks and offer to the audience. At first, the exotic sound of the title does not clarify the erotic allusions conveyed by the cakes’ kitschy, festive appearance. Their shapes recall phalluses and spurting semen, but the connection becomes clear only when we learn that bukkake refers to a Japanese group-sex practice popular in the pornography industry, involving group ejaculation and the swallowing of bodily fluids. This collision of cultural practices, both involving the swallowing of certain substances as part of collective rituals, is less likely to shock our sense of decency than to draw attention to the visual potential hidden in specific “genre conventions widespread in contemporary visual culture” (Jerica Ziherl). These conventions also shape the language of social customs, of which pornography is as much a part as festive ceremonies.
Translated from the Croatian.