Victor Artiga Rodriguez
Into Mud: A Research into Unstable Scores
Monitor, HD Video and PerformanceShown in the Venice Summer School - 2024
Binational Artistic Research Programme
Performed with Collective Tremenda Corporea
So much of our life is about keeping balance, the Venetian island network structure is also keeping its balance, sometimes on one location more than other. I intend to stay with this sense of instability as a performance resource, both metaphorically and in practical movements.
The performance connects body movements to the peculiarities of the way several buildings or most of the city of Venice has been constructed. Due to its specific location in the lagoon, architects over the centuries have resulted in a construction technique, where timber piles are inserted into the muddy ground to improve the stability and make it more suitable for sustaining the weight of the buildings. Although this technique proved somehow successful for a long period of time, the city is in a constant slow pace of sinking, coupled with the rise of sea water levels makes it for a very precarious condition. I explore the possibilities of connecting to the slow temporality of moving a few millimeters into the ground, the points of connection between mud-wood-stone-water.
Copyright @Victor Artiga Rodriguez 2025