Performans

Andrzej Matuszewski, The Procedure, 1969 (1-50/54)

„On 6 May 1969 forty nine – according to the author’s program – carefully selected persons came in front of the gallery „odNOWA” several minutes before 08:00 p.m., feeling that something exceptional will happen. No one could come in afterwards.
It started exactly as announced – punctually at 08:00 p.m.

Sending personalized invitations and thorough observance of punctuality demonstrated that we are dealing with an event directed from the start, on the contrary to a common opinion on happening as a spontaneous action, full of unknowns. In this case, the mechanism of elimination according to a certain program was felt already at the starting point, which applied both to the invited persons and the procedure of the event itself, apparently with an under-laid construction. And so it happened.

It is 08:00 p.m. It started. We go down the stairs of the Gallery. The traffic direction was determined from the start. It was impossible to refuse it. On the right side of artificially created corridor there are small box-rooms constructed of felt panels, thoroughly isolated both from viewers and from each other with walls. To see what happens inside, one should look inside every box separately through a small rectangular eyehole cut in the wall. So every scene happening there could be seen only by one person at the same time. This suggested and guaranteed intimacy of communication with everything which took place in these nine rooms.

The scenes, completely isolated from each other, were happening simultaneously. Action went on in them. It was not possible to see all of them at the same time, only in turns, in accordance with a certain order implied on the comers. These scenes seemed usual, representing very simple everyday activities. In one of the room, in theory, a girl was monotonously and methodically ironing white cloth. In the nearby box a boy and a girl were carefully wrapping some sizeable package with a rope; the rope was thick, gestures were serious, concentrated, candle was burning. In the next box a naked woman was sitting on a bed in the middle of the room, combing her hair, and a man was lying under the blanket, half-covered and also naked. He was lying totally indifferently, showing his back to the woman. In the next box a man, sitting on a chair, was methodically, steadily planing a thick stick off with a knife, overwhelmed with the function. In another room a naked couple, a boy and a girl, was sitting at the table put in front; they were both eating baked chicken without appetite, holding it by hands, as there were no plates or cutlery. In the next box a girl was steadily and impassively cutting too long loaf of bread; it was almost two meters long and baked specially. Then, a photographer was making photos without breaks of a girl constantly changing positions, and then threw the negatives, collected later, out through a special opening in the wall to the comers. Then, a boy in a dark suit, dressed very thoroughly, was solemnly washing the back of a naked girl sitting on a chair, sinking the sponge in a bowl of water, put on the floor. In the last room, a man and a woman were sitting at the table cutting – as if something private – images out of newspapers and putting them on upstanding spikes.

So, ironing, packing, combing, sleeping, planing off, eating, preparing a meal, photographing, washing, cutting out – the most banal and simple activities. At the same time, a slightly noticed deviation from everyday reality, as a small interrogation mark, could be felt in each scene. The lack of eroticism in erotic situations or lack of appetite in eating. All activities were performed mechanically and impersonally. All persons taking part in the box scenes were perfectly deprived of personality; they were a sort of a stud in a blind aggregate of reality. Basing on the principle of perversity, eroticism was present in ascetic situations, while strictly erotic cases were passionless.

Each of the participants looked through all openings, some did this a couple of times in turns, here and there. Others disorderly walked through the corridor, surrounded by what was happening in the boxes or near them. Traffic was impeded by ping-pong balls spread on the floor. Traffic became strangely abnormal. It was impossible to put the feet normally; it was necessary either to avoid the balls, which was difficult, or walk on them. People started to throw them. After some time, all present were covered by the impulse. Actions in the boxes went on. At some moment, people started to throw the balls through the gaps under the boxes’ ceiling, hoping to hit someone. There was some aggression in it, some action, unprecise perhaps, however, readable in intentions. Some willingness to touch those indifferent, automated persons, touch them with a ball, break their calmness, methodic way of performing activities, their indifference, which happened to be irritating. Thus, an instinctive protest against alienation, distinctiveness, otherness, indifference started to show up. This protest has caused a spontaneous, collective action of the participants, an action, which still had an impact on the scenes in the boxes.

When it seemed to some that this is the end of the happening, suddenly a long corridor wall opened aside. In a spacious room there were tables shaped in a horse shoe, covered with white tablecloths. A dozen of beautiful ladies were sitting at the tables. These were mannequins dressed up in casual, everyday clothes. There were empty seats of the same quantity as the number of the participants of the event, which was forty nine. The seats were gradually taken. A moment of expectation came. Then a long board was taken in, with the previously cut long bread on it. This was somewhat a continuation of the scene from the box, but in another dimension, in another situation. After some time baked chicken was brought in. And again, as in the scene from the box, everyone had to take his part by the hand, as there were no plates of cutlery. Forced to tearing the chicken by the hands, the feast participants slowly started to eat. The bread was regular, so was the chicken. It was eaten greedily, surprisingly. Aggression was manifesting itself in tearing the chicken and eating, which was also aggressive. People treated the mannequins and each other with the chicken. Some sexual accent was felt in eating; it was likely also a reaction on the scene in the box.

Gradual change of the mood was appearing in the hall. It was hard to resist reflection, that the balls, scenes in the boxes, chicken eaten in the box by the naked couple and now by the participants, undressed mannequins were a sort of gradual test examining human reflexes, showing themselves through a mechanism of provocation, performed in a perfidiously simple way. There were sudden and aggressive behavior belonging to the activities directed by human biological nature. The eating was totally different from the eating in the box scene; people were naked in the box, while dressed up here; indifferent there, while passionately reacting here. Elements appeared, which were lacking in the scenes from the boxes. All this euphoric feast was accompanied by some sounds from invisible speakers. It appeared that in the first part of the happening, the one with the scenes in the rooms, there were hidden microphones recording everything that happened there. This was taped. Talks, buzzing, words of surprise, reactions, sounds of thrown balls – all this was now played, and the feast took place against the background of these reactions, that behavior, which was noticed by everyone after some time. A collision of times happened, the past was present again, times mixed up. And everything was recorded again.

When eating was finally over, another motive from the box was introduced. This was somewhat the next phase of the scene, in which a boy and a girl were wrapping a packed with a rope. Now this package was brought in and put on the table. It was lying for a minute, and it was not really known what it was supposed to mean. After a moment someone started to open the package. Others joined. Finally they managed to open it. At the moment of opening a white mass, designed to grow and bloat in contact with air, was growing, going out of the package on the table and then on the floor, its volume was growing. This was a kind of explosion of this white mass, something unidentified; there was something dangerous, unknown, unyoking about it. Chicken bones, unfinished pieces of bread were laying on the tables. And everything was covered with this growing mass, there was more and more of it. The mood was changing – easygoing and euphoric before, it was now suddenly turning down; this unknown thing puzzled and could arouse reflections.

Suddenly the lights were out. But the lights on the stairs leading upstairs, to the upper floor, turned on. The end. Sounds from the speakers turned off. In the darkness, almost everyone started to go out. Sticking, avoiding of the white mass on the floor, bones crunching under the feet. The accompaniment of cracking of the bones crushed on the floor was heard during walking out.

The feast was interrupted suddenly, at a certain minute, in accordance with the author’s plan. Everyone went out, went upstairs, and all this was happening against the background of the sounds of coming into the Gallery at the start of the happening, played through the speakers on the stairs.

People were walking out. The sounds of steps of the walkers were mixing with the played sounds of the comers to the Gallery. The final brace. This was the end of „The Procedure” happening. Everyone went upstairs, sat in armchairs. They looked at each other, perplexed. There was strange silence, no one was talking.

None of the present persons has seen the author of „The Procedure”, though it could be suspected that this time he observed the participants’ behaviour through some eyehole. It appeared afterwards, that the author stayed all the time in the next room, was in contact by radio with his assistant in the gallery, who has reported to the author everything that was happening, informing him about the process of the event, and the author, Andrzej Matuszewski, was only giving dispositions and controlled the event from a hidden place.
 
[Jerzy Ludwiński, „The Procedure” by Andrzej Matuszewski, in: Open Art. Pre-Theatre. Part I. Plastic Creations. Theatrized Ritual, Wrocław 1980]

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