At Gunpoint

performance, photo-collage, 2017./2018.

variable dimensions

The author is standing still, holding the old photo-sniper in her hands, patiently waiting for the viewer to come to a bright spot right opposite her. Their meeting en face resembles a duel, but the viewer is unarmed. At a certain point, the author raises it and aims directly at the participant, creating the photo-documentation of their encounter.

Playing with the positions of power between the performer and the viewer is the main driving force for this performance. It is designed as a direct interaction with the audience, where their encounter resembles a duel (reference to the author’s previous work “The Duel”). Being at the gunpoint suggests the substitution of the roles, because the viewer not only becomes a participant, but he is actually, in a symbolic way, compromised by the author. The emphasis is put on the observer’s reaction when he is confronted with the work or the artist herself, which varies from fear to excitement and irony. The feeling of discomfort resulting from being directly exposed to the author raises the question of whether there is anything dangerous in the aesthetic pleasure of the attack on the spectator.

There are the photographs of the people who participated in the previous performances on the gallery wall. The original experiment of shooting at the observer, with its repetitive form, will increasingly resemble a mass shooting in which the viewer is reduced to a mere number/image in the crowd. This Soviet device originally created for the intelligence services in a symbolic way compromises the viewer, moving the view from the author to the viewer himself, namely to his experience of participating in the performance.