Narkose
Narkose
John Sturgeon -1992
Performance & documentation
Narkose was one of several works Sturgeon executed as part of Symposium Moor 1992, an international festival of performance & site specific work on the Wittemoor. The Wittemoor, Germany is part of a larger complex of moors (bogs) that stretch across northern Germany and The Netherlands. This month long festival gathered European and American artists, to live on, investigate and then respond to environmental issues evoked by the delicate ecology and unusual geographical-archaeological sites on the Wittemoor.
NARKOSE (solo performance, with video in the Wittemoor) referenced the current global environmental predicament, using this ancient site as a metaphor, like an echo for present sociological and ecological conditions, primarily from the point of view of the collective psyche. Sturgeon excavated a body cavity in the side of an exposed cut in the moor (from a former commercial excavation) and buried himself horizontally at a geological depth of about 2,000 years. Buried along with his body, just above the head, was a small color monitor playing images he produced of current commercial destruction of moor sites that were edited together with documentary footage from the recent Gulf War*. The video images were seen through a circular, optical magnifying glass appearing like thought forms or dreams. Sturgeon's text, Narkose (English & German), emanating from the small, embedded speaker, evoked an eerie play of extremes - that which is and that which is not.
references: - The Gulf War – 1991 (television images - public domain).
Photo credit: b&w performance image - Insa Winkler © j.sturgeon 1992
johnsturgeon.net > Portfolio > Installations > Narkose, 1993
NARKOSE
performance by: John Sturgeon, © 1992
This dual language text was created for a the video accompanying the performance created in the Witte Moor, North Germany in 1992. Spoken in English (by Sturgeon) and German (with German translation and German voice over by Edda Akkermann).
that which is seen
and that which is hidden
that which is rising
and that which is sinking
that which is clear
and that which is obscure
that which is awake
and that which is asleep
that which is surfacing
and that which is submerging
that which is coming
and that which is going
that which is being born
and that which is dying
that which is arising
and that which is passing away
that which is becoming
and that which is disappearing
that which is good
and that which is evil
that which advances
and that which retreats
that which creates
and that which destroys
that which can change
and that which can not be undone
that which is blessed
and that which is dammed
that which is conscious
and that which is unconscious
that which adds
and that which subtracts
that which is
and that which is not
das, was wahrgenommen wird
und das, was verborgen bleibt
das, was aufsteigt
und das, was hinabsinkt
das, was klar ist
und das, was verschwommwn ist
das, was wach ist
und das, was schläft
das, was auftaucht
und das, was utertaucht
das, was kommt
und das, was geht
das, was geboren wird
und das, was stirbt
das, was entsteht
und das, was vergeht
das, was erscheint
und das, was verschwindet
das, was gut ist
und das, was böse ist
das, was vorangeht
und das, was zurücktritt
das, was schöpferisch ist
und das, was zerstört
das, was man ändern kann
und das, was sich nicht mehr ändern läßt
das, was gesegnet ist
und das, was verdammt ist
das, was bewußt ist
und das, was unbewußt ist
das, was hinzugefügt wird
und das, was weggenommen wird
das, was ist
und das, was nicht ist
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Narkose – John Sturgeon performance – Symposium Moor 1992 , Wittemoor, Germany
There are no formulas or systems for success, and most significantly, no redemption. In
fact, in this uncanny territory where Sturgeon attempts to excavate and map in a gesture
of - poet as archaeologist, one may find every disturbance imaginable. His video (and
performance /installation ) works are riddled with images of pain, insanity, and delirium.
Sturgeon shows that the subject truly exploring he/r identity must look at more than
he/r roots or victimization, but also at the identities that cannot be spoken— the desires
for violence, for murder, for cannibalism, and for the means to consort with death.
As Bataille has convincingly argued, the under-economy of the nonrational is resistant
to conventional structure and cannot be contained or directly described by it. Not just
language, but the psychology of mind and the physiology of the body must undergo
constant transformation and remain in flux in order to maintain a psycho-sensual
connection to the forces at work beyond the rational relationships of production,
consumption, and the generation of information. Sturgeon’s work is a constant reminder
that political economy is not the only field of intervention for artists in particular and
humans in general, and that all that is stolen to fuel the more tedious machinations of
everyday life must be reclaimed through radicalized (in more than a political sense)
nonrational subjectivity.
Steven Kurtz, “Radical Mysticality: The Work of John Sturgeon” 2000