Love, notes Suryodarmo, uncovers the most existential conditions of being human. In the first performance lecture, the artist employs the cliches and kitsch qualities of love, in a narration of love in all its joy and radiance, compounded by its inexplicable despair, alienation, self-effacement and denial. She sings the iconic, Love Me Tender (2001), as she slowly pumps black balloons, luring the audience into the surmounting tension and anticipation of the balloon’s eventual explosion. Similarly, her earlier collaborations with Oliver Blomeier are sequences about love, hate and fate. Inspired by the life and love story of Austrian artist Egon Schiele, Suryodarmo and Blomeier move in slow motion against a stark red backdrop and on a shelf created by mentor Marina Abramovic, as they explore the subtle physical gestures based on a relationship between man and woman in The Komodo Files (2005). These contradictions of love are further documented in their collaborative performances, Deformed Ethic of a Relationship 1.0 and Deformed Ethic of a Relationship 2.0 (2005), in a gradual unravelling and progressive disintegration of a relationship. This introspection between self and others is conveyed through Visible Undone Behaviour (2005) as Suryodarmo observes her audience through a pair of binoculars, and writes her personal and immediate impressions. The act of voyeurism hints at a society that is disengaged and superficial; that we revel in being watched and unwatched.
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