XXX-PERFORMANCES GROUP

Established in 2007, continuing... Together with Pekka Ruuska, Eero Yli-Vakkuri, Pia Sirén

XXX group produces durational site specific performances that take their form from the context of their location. In this way the work reacts to the performance space and the presence of an audience. The group’s practice is communal and interactive.

xxx group will continue to perform in different contexts and have ambitions for a 24-hour work comprising of 100 individual performances. xxx group are a collective of young Finnish artists interested in process-based practices.

The group has previously presented an adaptation of the project in the "Theatre Gallery - Project" in Gallery Titanic, Turku in the summer of ´07. At this time the group had four members and the the work was entitled "50 Small Performances". In a 12 hour performance consisting of 50 performances, the group investigated the relation-ship between behavior and performance. An innocent by-standers became a part of the show. At this event the group used their own clothing as inspiration for the performances. The event was filmed by the group and presented in an installation at the site of the event, three hours after the performances ended. The clean gallery space affected the performances, many of them becoming formal videoart pieces.

At the ANTI!-festival in Kuopio 2008, during 12h14min the group created and performed 51 separate performances. The area where the group worked was a private home, open for the public for the entire time of the project. The performances were created collectively by the group and the audience affected the progress of the work. The home worked as an inspiration and a framework of investigation behaviour: many of the performances aimed in dismantling the power structures within the members of family and revealing the roles. This was achieved by getting into bed and baking with strangers, vacuum cleaning the ceiling and recreating events found in the family photoalbum.

The work studies behavior and the act of performing in three territories: between group members, between audience and the group and between the video installation and the audience/performers. Although all of the performances are improvised, the work is fixed around themes of body and site, which the placing and form of the project suggests. Working improvisationally the group hopes to discover the edges of excepted behavior and as the work is based on audience interaction it aims to give the audience means to view their behavior and presumptions as compositions which can be altered. The work has a fixed structure but humour and spontaneity are crucial to its execution. What happens after the performance begins is a surprise for all participants.

A selection of the 50-small perfrormances is available on DVD for only 15€. See contacts to order.