façade performance Epidermis and Innards (Artists in Labs AIL Programm)
(2005)

http://isabelrohner.ch/?projekte:artists_in_labs hier ein Ausschnitt aus dieser Dokumentation: .."Parallel to this work, the idea for the façade performance slowly began to crystallize. Whereas scientists observe the tiniest complex systems through the microscope in order to understand them, I focus on the architectonic body with its entire inner life. Dimensions merge, big becomes small becomes big. The house as an organism, the individual research labs as organs, the researchers as the transmitters, chemical messengers and the building exterior as the skin, the epidermis, the borderline tissues between the outer and inner world. Six building stories each containing 7 fields, a performance for 42 artists. I found it exciting to question the notion of authorship within this working environment, and to act as scientists do and perform as a group rather than as an individual, which is why I invited the Basel performance group Labor to collaborate in this performance. After a three month summer break I developed the fa?ade performance Epidermis and Innards and was able to present the project within the framework of the Basel Art Awards in the Kunstmuseum Baselland. I continued to carry out my series of interviews as well as focus intensely on the topic of skin; I collected skin stories and made images of skin compounds on the scanning electron microscope (SEM). The soles of feet, scalps, skin covering the body - extracted from cadavers and prepared as probes. Skin as a projection surface, skin as a shell, skin as a border which the eye of the beholder cannot see beyond. I decided to make a self-portrait in order to intensify the self-focus and subjectivity - a contrast to the expectation of scientists to remain objective. I had a piece of my skin excised by a dermatologist at the Cantonal Hospital of Basel which enabled me to re-experience the complete preparation process of a probe on my own skin. Fixation in glutaraldehyde, exchange of water through an increasing alcohol concentration of alcohol through CO2, critical point drying, fixing of the specimen on the microscope slide and sputter. In this context I also noticed from various reactions around me that self-attempts made in the name of art, and not science, are evaluated differently by scientists and by society in general, because they apparently do not receive the stamp of scientific legitimacy. In order to clarify my view regarding the roles allocated to science and art, I should mention the scenario for the developing facade performance: 42 artists stand inside the 42 frames of the concrete grid placed in front of the fa?ade. Each artist pulls out a white mouse from their costume, holding it from its tail at arms length over the railing. In response to a secret signal, which the audience is not privy to, all the performers let their mice fall. . . After a first month spent familiarizing myself with the surroundings, a second month of deeper immersion and enthusiasm, the third month involved questions of doubt, as well as a bit of a crisis. In the last two months following a three month summer break the emotional ups and downs gave way to a certain soberness and concentration on my art work. Although an intensive exchange between art and science took place during the AIL project, a collaboration similar to the vague notion I had held for years did not. My experience has shown that two conditions need to be met in order for a real collaboration to take place. First of all, a period of familiarization and, when possible, deep understanding of the subject matter must precede the actual work, not only that of the artists approach to science, but also the scientists to art, since I would like to assume that there are two equal partners involved in a collaboration. Secondly, the project, the line of discourse or goal would need to be formulated in a combined effort and also be wished for by both sides. Nevertheless, during the five months at the Bio and Pharma Center I was able to lay the groundwork for the possibility to approach a future collaboration or a form of fusion of art and science into a third entity, something new."