CYCLOPS

Description

The eye of the Cyclops is round – like a camera lens. Whoever controls the eye rules! Zé de Paiva brings together his experiences as an actor, dancer, photographer, and video artist in his directorial debut at Ballhaus Naunynstraße: In an intermedial performance, he – together with dancer Nasheeka Nedsreal – seeks to distort the postcolonial image order. Images lay on bodies. They glide over walls, people, and objects. The images weigh down, overlay, transform bodies. What we call reality is a collage of image and matter. Who produces the images? For whom? For what purpose? With Cyclops, performer Zé de Paiva places the camera as an omnipresent, all-powerful image producer at the center – as a counterpoint, as an instrument of domination and empowerment. Who operates the camera, determines the frame, who presses the shutter? Cameras make visible, give shape. Whoever controls the device decides the way of seeing and being seen. The photographic practice creates the hierarchy of viewers and viewed. It is part of late colonialism: an instrument of surveillance, categorization, administration, objectification of bodies and people. Although one speaks of the “protagonist” when referring to the person in front of the camera, isn’t the real protagonist the person with the camera, this artificial Cyclops? Is role reversal possible? What do you see? Who are you, my counterpart with this view of the world? How do you see me? Is the world set to your perspective? And when I see you on my screen, who are you then? Who leads the gaze, who seduces? Cyclops is a dance with cables and eyes; a struggle for movement possibilities. In the performance, Zé de Paiva and Nasheeka Nedsreal seek appropriation, light refraction in the service of their perspectives as Black protagonists. Photo: Zé de Paiva

Highlights

• Intermedial performance by Zé de Paiva
• Collaboration with dancer Nasheeka Nedsreal
• Addressing postcolonial image order

General Information

CYCLOPS is an intermedial performance taking place at Ballhaus Naunynstraße in Berlin Kreuzberg. Zé de Paiva combines his experiences from various art fields to question the role of the camera and its influence on perception and power.

Location

Naunynstraße 27, 10997 Berlin Kreuzberg, Germany

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