A contre courant
(2010)

I wear medal-like ice jewelry and walk backwards on a fitness machine
fitness machine, which puts me in the precarious situation of being picked out of the machine forwards
of being picked out of the machine if I can't keep up the speed.
I find myself in a kind of marathon; a race against and with time,
where the duration of the race depends on the complete melting of the ice.
The musician Daniel Buess uses and amplifies the various sounds live
from the pre-prepared treadmill.

I am interested in the slow transformations that only gradually appear.
appear. The synchronized processes of increasing body heat and changes in the
the aggregate state of the egg jewelry, as well as the absorption of the color into the
textile clothing in the manner of chromatography, are interdependent but physically
physically different processes that interact with each other. Where something is created, something disappears
somewhere else; the first law of thermodynamics remains the same. The resulting
body heat only becomes visible through this transfer of energy.
Moving backwards against the current requires more energy, involves
risks and requires other muscles.
By exerting yourself against the direction of the treadmill, you do not mass produce
on the conveyor belt, but generates energy that makes the objects disappear.
disappear. What remains is the color, the quintessence.
As in my other performances, the painterly aspect of the events plays an important role.
important role. In Make-up, I paint myself with black make-up, leaving out the skeleton.
in "Trace de mouvement", the moving body and its silhouette are the origin of the
the origin of the resulting drawings. In "À contre courant", three colors spread in an
uncontrollably, three spots of color spread across my dress; the dress absorbs the colors, as if
sweating suggests painting.
A marathon on the spot that makes a kind of chromatography visible on the white dress.
on the white dress.