‘Address‘ is filmed in Mulokas’ studio. In this video the artist recalls a prophecy he once experienced in the presence of a Madagascar shaman, who revealed that the self that belongs to him will become itself, only in the state of possession by movement. The artist questions this state of mind in relationship to performance: “performance is a serious business, sometimes it can take hours and hours in the studio” he says before embodying a new nature. This work is about the state of possession by movement, about relationships with objects, materials that become performers, about the labour of performance art and the expressive forms it takes.
“I am the living matter on stage that is searching for a physical match in revitalised matter. Through exercising live actions I look for ways to reveal the full physical consequence of the material. I found that interactions with the same material in a repetitive manner can cause varying associations that constantly redefine the nature of an object. On stage, I intuitively shift from one investigation to another, accumulating in my body the different qualities that are revealed by each encounter with an object. By using my imagination, I let the body carry the adopted qualities of all the materials. Thus a living subject (a performer) on stage becomes a self-produced matter that runs on its own established (more or less) sustainable physical structures.
Being in a position of an artist requires a certain attitude towards playing. Inside culture this attitude persists. Once I arrive to a level of identity I move to the second part of my process: I create a video. The video demands the role to present itself.“
– Andrius Mulokas.
After studying visual arts and architecture, Andrius Mulokas’s artistic interest shifted to space in relation to the moving body. He studied dance in Finland (North Karelia College), later he moved to Amsterdam where he studied on the BA Choreography programme (SNDO) at the Amsterdam School of the Arts (AHK). Born in 1983 in Kaunas, Lithuania, he is currently based in Amsterdam and Tel Aviv and works in the artistic scene there and abroad.