27 May 2023
15:00 - 17:00
Performance: Electrify Everything
Within the context of the exhibition Charging Myths, artists Pom Bouvier b., Marjolijn Dijkman and Jean Katambayi Mukendi present the premiere of the live performance Electrify Everything: Experiments and Observations on Electricity. On 27 May, 15:00 – 17:00 you are invited to reflect on the structuring power of electricity and its relation to resources and exploitation.
The live performance Electrify Everything: Experiments and Observations on Electricity translates the seductive and captivating magic of demonstrations of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment into a critical exploration of the origins of the units and language used to measure electricity. The field of electricity has been developed, manipulated, and named for three centuries to control and apply it.
Electrify Everything invites the audience to reflect on the structuring power of electricity and its relation to resources and exploitation. Pom Bouvier-b. and Marjolijn Dijkman use an experimental technique that brings the organicity back into a phenomenon that, by nature, through the displacement of elementary particles of matter, is dynamic and living. Together they have developed experimental musical tools to play live with electric currents. They will create a sound composition using the electric charge of specific objects and devices as a medium, playing on the variations of magnetic fields.
Jean Katambayi Mukendi wrote a text for the performance based on the language of electricity. The units of electricity create different chapters that explore the history and the current state of energy production in an associative and poetic interpretation of electric terminology. Trained as an electrician, his works are part of a search for solutions to social problems in Congolese society and the country’s depletion of its enormous energy resources.
This performance offers a unique chance to revisit the exhibition Charging Myths (2023) by the collective On-Trade-Off, and featuring artworks from Jean Katambayi Mukendi and Marjolijn Dijkman.
Sound composition: Pom Bouvier b.
Text, activation Electric instruments, visuals: Marjolijn Dijkman
Text and vocals: Jean Katambayi Mukendi
Performance / Collectieven / Extractivisme / Politiek en technologie /