UNFOLDED PERCEPTIONS
Unfolded Perceptions
Berlin, 2020
When lightning strikes, closely associated particles - (any very small subatomic particle) - separate. The particles break away from their former proximity, and a large charge is released during the separation. The rearrangement and distribution of the particles. Unfolded Perceptions foregrounds a dialogue between the role of particles and space, consciousness, and wind, pointing to particles as the basis of a belief system in which the question is raised whether the distribution of this infinite number of very small matter can be the basis of existence and the reason for everything that happens to us and outside of us. Therein lies a reflective quality of weather, as the fissuring of particles reflects all communication that flows and disperses. For every action causes a reaction.
With the work Unfolded Perceptions, Butkereit reinforces and confirms this law by showing how particles fracture in the eye of the storm, then separate and come to us. Like a tornado, chaos often ensues after a disaster. The work disperses particles that then move with the wind.
Space is the absence of the other; but what if, in reality, in what seems to be nothing, there is hidden a presence so strong that one's actions are dictated by the "nothingness" of the vacuum? Between every person, every interaction, and every event, there are an astronomical number of small parts that move. Particles that we cannot see, feel, touch, smell, or find, yet are there. Drawing on the physics of particle representation, Buterkeit derives the installation Unfolded Perceptions from a tornado and here opens up the realm of space. With the restraint and finesse of particles, the installation stands as a call to release and explore wind, force, and particles.
At the center of the transport medium, the production of wind, moving, flowing and exiting through a corridor into the chamber, whips particles into a particular formation. The air changes. New fields are stimulated to emerge. Here the development of energy is the key, because the field mixes with the movement and creates a completely new kind of presence, existence and state. From the parts of the audience to the dust caught in the air, the installation resembles the possibilities of a tornado to disrupt and reshape an environment. The facilitator is the installation itself, with a program centered on the audience as new creators of infinite forms of potential. As people move, so do the particles disperse.
Text: Rose Pacult