„ Kopf Stück“
Cologne 2016
by Felix M. Ott
Cast:
Valentin Tszin
Saori Hara
Enrico Wey
Sound: Alex Kassian
Text: Maru Mushtrieva
Technical Support: Benjamin Brix
In this video Felix Matthias Ott uses the impulse of the sculptures of F.X.Messerschmidt and translates it into the medium of the video-choreography. Shot in Cologne, 2016, the Head Piece builds an intimate relation with the observer and tries to penetrate the surface of the screen.
Three bodiless busts are protruding from the darkness: two males frame the central female character to go together through an ecstasy of a permutated synchronicity – each head being simultaneously a transmitter, a medium, and a receiver. When everything is a mask, nothing is a mask. The magnified micro noise of breathing structures the choreography of this triptych serving as a metronome for the slow hyper-controlled motion.
As the civilised surface of the face is gradually ruptured by its cavities, the still masks of Messeschmidt are set in motion in oscillation between extremities and exploring them, through decompressions and distension towards the maximum compression and the following release.
To wear the mask means to be it. By submitting to its form a participant of the choreography becomes a part of the bigger narrative: she becomes a container of this shape, embodying the narrative. In this piece the head is pushed to the limits of its facial integrity, until it becomes hard to trace the emotions it depicts; in their extremity surprise and fear converge.