KILIAN KRETSCHMER

& 4 &

Videoperformance, 2008

Premiered in 2008, & 4 & underscores the contrast between our perceptions of time and space when we observe these separately, despite them being synchronized. Sixteen white stripes mark a circle on the ground four meters in diameter, one half of which is hidden by a screen. In front of the screen, a cymbal is positioned, behind it a drum. As the performer steadily circles the space, a video is projected onto the screen that shows him hitting the drum as he disappears behind the screen and is paused in the moment he reappears, just in time to sound the cymbal. Only when the performer has completed another circle and passes the same position again does the film resume play, in which the cymbal is suddenly heard, giving the impression that the cymbal in front of the screen has been struck from out of the film. The video performance & 4 & is performed in loop. The audience is encouraged to freely move about the work. The performance plays on the metastable perception of the viewers who, during the "& 4 &" beat in which the film resumes to the sudden crash of the cymbal, can no longer differentiate between spatial references and must instead find their way in time.