Aura Rendón Benger

Vis-à-Vis

​ Installation with performance, 2013

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 How close can I come?

 

In this installation the audience is invited to place their head up to a hole, the only opening through which it is possible to look inside a long narrow space. Opposite the opening at same height a performer stands, facing the person looking inside, and starts to slowly approach the observer with smooth movements. The audience’s fixed and limited field of view is increasingly filled by the performer as he/she comes closer and eventually the observer’s and performer’s faces come so close that they can only see each other, out of focus. In this very moment of extreme closeness the performer stays for a short while before quickly returning to their initial point – and everything can start again. This scenario can of course only happen when the observer allows it to by keeping their face in the opening until the very end.