Cybernetic Baroque was one of the winning proposals for the art residency at the Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau in 2018 that I realised during my 10 week stay at the historic House Schlemmer in Dessau.

The project consists of three sculptural pieces (Body Instruments) and a video essay. It is an exploration of the standards of the body inscribed into the Haus Schlemmer considers the inhabitants as subservient (Servant Bodies).

The sculptural pieces are a record of the moments within the house. They attach themselves to different fragments (like handrails, door handles) in a way that the standardised body would.These body Instruments are part-architecture and part body prosthetics. They are called knee, shoulder and appendix/heart.

In the performance by the dancer Rodolfo Piazza the sculptural pieces of Cybernetic Baroque became activated: the choreography unfolded in response to the qualities and forms of the prosthetics. 

The performance speaks to the resistance or opposition of the servant body to the prescribed  standards of the architecture. The body tries to ‘misbehave’ and work against the imposed constraints. 

The choreography is also a nod to the former inhabitant of the house - Oskar Schlemmer. In his dances the restricting costumes necessitated awkward movements and friction between the body and the costume that it inhabited.

The work was influenced by Oskar Schlemmer’s recurring motif of the spiral which Deleuze compared to the act of Fancis Bacon’s bodies turning in on themselves. These qualities are present in the choreography of a body trapped between subservience to technology and the instinct to liberate itself from it. 

Sculptural pieces: plywood, resin, nylon SLS 3d prints, styrofoam, plaster.

Video: single channel video 6:20

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