A series of 11 experimental urban walks and 11 collaborative performances over 11 days in Toronto’s public spaces. The performances were based on instructions uploaded to the website by people from around the world.
Part of the 11-day-long 7a*11d Performance Art Festival, this project invited people from around the world to upload instructions for actions in public spaces. Each day, a small group of collaborators (iKatun members and members of the public) would set out from the InterAccess Electronic Arts space to complete one performance. We created an algorithm to walk through the city so that we would end up performing in a different place each day. The algorithm would tell us to go 5 blocks straight, 3 blocks right and so on. If there was a building, fence, private residence or other obstruction in the way, we had to scale it or walk through it.
The performances included strange actions (slithering on the ground) and interactions with strangers (hugging them, carrying them, polling them about performance art). Some performances were quiet and others were more spectacular.
At the end of each day, the video documentation from the performance was screened at InterAccess Electronic Arts Center.
Project website where visitors uploaded instructions to perform in Toronto’s public spaces.
Video documentation from “The Grotesque”
An instruction from Robert Bekant. Performed at the opening party of the festival. The instruction was:
A person [or a few persons] enters – a stage or something – and stops. Then slowly starts taking off the shirt, slowly turning it inside out and then putting it back on again. This goes on until all garments are turned inside out. When finished the performer exits. If performed by more than one the performance can be organized so that the performers are taking off and turning different clothes inside out at the same time (somone takes of shirt as someone takes of trousers as someone etc).