"Can U Read Me?"
multi-media performance, Barcelona, Spain, 2002, and London Ontario 2003


The audience is confronted with a figure covered from head to toe in newspapers and bound in rope. There are 9 radios suspended from the ceiling at eye level around the performer that address the audience in French, English, Czech and Spanish. The texts are timed to move simultaneously through their delivery. There are moments of silence when the transmissions are programmed to cut out. The only sound in those moments comes from the performer slowly scratching her way out of her textual confinement. One radio is tuned to a local station playing pop music. A large video is projected behind the performer, who is positioned in the middle of the room. Behind the performer on the screen is an image of a torso, removing layer after endless layer of shirts and blouses. The two spaces (live-room and mediated-video) collapse into each other in moments when the bound character appears to be doing the same action simultaneously in both spaces. Neither speak.