CHARISMA
Performance: Rialto Sant Ambrogio, Rome, Italy. March, 2002.
Duration: 30 minutes
I wear a white Armani suit for the ‘passeggiatta’ around Rome for a week. At the end of that time I make a performance with the suit. My accoutrements to the suit are white Wellington boots with the soles removed and a single, silver deely-bopper. My imaginary fashion-spread: ‘Farmer’s lad wears Armani’. I enter the performance space cat-walk style, attempting to attain transcendence through style, but my boots refute me by leaking blood.
I then proceed
to chew and bite my suit off: sometimes on the floor, sometimes standing
up. Hands-free, the movement and action is driven by my mouth’s
strenuous biting, tugging and chewing. It is tough, contortionist work;
grunting and pausing to listen as my gums bleed to stain the disintegrating
suit. As the focal point of a performance event I am simultaneously generating,
destroying and interrogating my charisma.
