Chris Ziegler: »corpus pygmalion«

Chris Ziegler. Corpus Pygmalion | Performance


The myth of the artist, who falls in love with the creature of
his own creation, goes back to Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In the 55
short verses (X 243-297) there emerges the mini-drama of
Pygmalion and Galathea (here, untitled), which, as a poem, epic,
novel, drama, musical or film has meanwhile undergone countless
adaptations and variations.


Obsession, male fantasies, crazed demiurges?


Pygmalion’s transgression of hybrid borders have fascinated the
human imagination since time immemorial, courting body and soul
in an erotic interplay. The contemporary ideal of the body
oscillates somewhere between the obsession with fitness and
virtual future, between the cult of the body and complete
disembodiment, or questions of mental and physical hindrances.
And yet, the body is always expression and medium of a self, far
more than just a surface of pure externality. Power relations are
defined through the body. Hence, the question is how today
artists perceive the body.


In "corpus pygmalion" we also seek the specifically female
standpoint in this interplay.


"corpus pygmalion" takes place in a multi-dimensional image space
in which the perspective on the observed subject undergoes
perpetual transformation. The body is the venue of confrontation;
cultural conditions change the artistic process of
transformation. The artist finds himself, all of a sudden, in a
relationship of antagonism with his work: what is cause, what is
effect, what is creation, what is creature?


direction, stage: Chris Ziegler
dance: Moya Michael, Unita Gaye Galiluyo
music: Hugo Paquete
text: Michael Hewel
costumes: Ismenai Keck
translation: Corinne Prochaska
software: André Bernhardt, Niko Völzow, Martin Bellardi, Chris
Ziegler


Supported by:
Landesverband Freier Theater Baden-Württemberg (LAFT)
Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie ZKM Karlsruhe