Residencies

• 21.10 > 01.11.2024
• 25.03 > 29.03.2024
• 11.03 > 16.03.2024
• 19.02 > 24.02.2024
• 13.11 > 25.11.2023

Artist and cho­re­o­grap­her Lydia McGlinchey con­ti­nues her sce­no­grap­hi­cally stri­king per­for­man­ces with a new eve­ning-length work: MadDoG. The work sta­ges cho­re­o­grap­hy, sym­bo­lic objects, spo­ken dia­lo­gues, and com­po­sed music in a set design of lar­ge-sca­le lace works.

The per­for­man­ce embo­dies the extre­me dis­pa­ri­ties of con­tem­po­ra­ry expe­rien­ce whe­re ima­ges of mass mur­der are fol­lo­wed by elec­tro­nic sto­re adver­ti­se­ments fol­lo­wed by pho­tos of pho­to­shop­ped women in biki­nis on yachts fol­lo­wed by sci­en­ti­fic reports of the ongo­ing destruc­ti­on of the envi­ron­ment. MadDoG takes on the figu­re of a rabid dog to give form to this unsett­ling med­ley of sen­ti­ments. The work per­sis­tent­ly dis­har­mo­ni­zes beau­ty with what’s grim and chal­len­ges the bina­ry logic of ​‘Utopia’ vs ​‘No Future’.

McGlinchey is inspi­red by the ​‘knot’ a sym­bol coming from medi­ae­val bar­ba­ri­an (non-Greco-Roman) ico­no­grap­hy in Western art his­to­ry which sym­bo­li­ses the inter­con­nec­ted­ness of life. The knot is mate­ri­al­ly applied in the artist’s lace-making prac­ti­ce and con­cep­tu­al­ly gui­des the com­po­si­ti­on of the work. Rather than inter­pre­ting ​‘inter­con­nec­ted­ness’ from an ​‘eve­ry­thing-will-be-alright’ per­spec­ti­ve, the artist rethinks inter­con­nec­ted­ness from the bru­ta­li­ty of con­tem­po­ra­ry rea­li­ty: puri­ty is impos­si­ble. The gla­mo­rous is entren­ched in the bru­tal, the wars fought ​‘els­e­whe­re’ are sustai­ned by our lives lived ​‘here’. Dramaturgically, the per­for­man­ce evol­ves through beco­ming more and more inten­se­ly ​‘knot­ted’.

MadDoG takes from the Gothic gen­re. The Gothic gen­re has always been fas­ci­na­ted with the pro­spect of under­mi­ning the ​‘true/​authentic’ self. The human is a site of per­ver­si­on and dete­ri­o­ra­ti­on; desi­re is ​‘astray­ed’. The per­for­mers stri­ve to beco­me gene­ric surfa­ces strip­ped of con­text and seek trans­cen­den­ce through the arti­fi­ci­a­li­za­ti­on of the body. MadDoG works through the Gothic by sta­ging cru­de, frag­men­ta­ry, and war­ped forms. The work see­ks to lea­ve audien­ces with what the artist calls ​‘subli­me hor­ror’, an affect root­ed in the his­to­ry of Gothicism’s disen­chant­ment of the Romantic subli­me, indu­cing both won­der and fear at the same time.

Lace is a tech­ni­que deri­ved from ancient knot­ting/­net-making. The artist, together with tex­ti­le desig­ner Elena Vloeberghen and Texture Museum (Kortrijk, BE), devel­o­ped seve­r­al lar­ge-sca­le lace works. Knotting is thus brought onto the sta­ge in an expand­ed sense.

Evoking exis­ten­ti­al ques­ti­ons around mor­ta­li­ty and iden­ti­ty, and the per­for­man­ce of the self, MadDoG assu­mes the fic­ti­tious­ness of the con­tem­po­ra­ry sub­ject. The fake has real con­se­quen­ces, influ­en­cers have con­cre­te influ­en­ce. Today, the sta­tus of the ima­ge might well be betrayal tout court. Inspired by mass media’s repre­sen­ta­ti­on of ​‘hyper-real’ women, the­a­tri­cally sta­ged fema­le figu­res enga­ge in apho­ris­tic dia­lo­gues preg­nant with apo­ria. Communication leads now­he­re and yet MadDoG lea­ves us with the eerie fee­ling of having wit­nes­sed ​‘events’. Without clear begin­ning, midd­le, and end, inter­rup­ti­on is key.

MadDoG knots high and low: the bim­bo is mate­ri­al­ly made up of the prop­he­tess, the dog is your the­ra­pist, thriving is con­co­mi­tant with decli­ne, ele­va­ti­on is achie­ved only through degra­da­ti­on. The work incor­po­ra­tes hand­craf­ted, found, and mass-pro­du­ced objects. Here too: the artist looks for aes­the­tic clas­hes: labour-inten­si­ve wea­vings appear next to Ikea-bought raclet­te grills. McGlinchey unfolds the the­a­tre appa­ra­tus as a site for the expe­rien­ce of gaps in rea­der­ship. At the same time, MadDoG gives form to a subli­me expe­rien­ce of an unsett­ling present.