Karel van Laere

The performance Contact has its origin in moments of touch in the public space. During a two year residency at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam, working alongside artists from an international community, I became very aware of different norms and customs around physical contact, including my own, and started to keep a diary of moments of touch. All hand shakes, accidental elbow bumps and the tiniest of interactions were noted down at the end of the day. The diary became a score for a live performance.

Deep Tissue is a series of aluminum prints. During a two year residency at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam, working alongside artists from an international community, I became very aware of different norms and customs around physical contact, including my own, and started to keep a diary of moments of touch. All hand shakes, accidental elbow bumps and the tiniest of interactions were noted down at the end of the day. The diary became a score for a live performance and these artworks.

In the fall of 2022, Van Laere attended a six-hour surgery at St. Antonius Hospital in Nieuwegein. Before his eyes, he saw the surgeons make incisions into a body and work on it with laparoscopic instruments. In the heat of the moment, vital decisions were made by doctors hovering over the body and talking to each other, determining how much flesh to cut away. This crucial improvisation continued to haunt Van Laere, and the episode is given a prominent place in his multimedia sound performance. He also interviewed various other professionals, from a deep-sea diver to a police officer, in order to find out what role improvisation plays in their work.