Invisible Philosophy – Performance
Baltensperger + Siepert, 2016
Performance, 25 minutes, 11th Shanghai Biennale, Powerstation of Art, December 2016
On the basis of text fragments from their Invisible Philosophy Project, Baltensperger + Siepert have composed a fictional conversation for three actors. A discussion between three fictitious positions unfolds around the text’s main themes, only making use of vocabulary taken from the philosophical work, which was written by day laborers.
Text fragments weave themselves together, make reference to one another, and nevertheless suddenly stand alone again. In the dialogue, English and Mandarin are mixed, and there are overlaps in terms of both content and acoustics. Strong voices try to assert themselves but retreat again and again as a result of the linguistic barriers separating them from the viewers.
