Martina Mächler (CH)
is an artist that works with mostly processual performative projects, where she is focussing on modern working conditions, looking at technical and psychological means of control and disciplining of the self.
“The frozen poses I perform might be a reminder of the exhaustion the pretense of inhabiting stability triggers; just like when you pretend to sit on a comfortable chair while actually squatting on plain air for about five minutes.”
Martina Mächler - Brauche ich wirklich einen Stuhl oder braucht der Stuhl mein Verlangen nach ihm mehr? (Is It really a chair that I need or does the chair need me more to need it?), performative reading, 2020, Plateaux Festival (@plateauxfestival), Samstagern (08/2019) photo: Doris Radamonti
Martina Mächler - from a lexicon of gestures (to shrug), drawing on DIN A4, 2019
Martina Mächler - from a lexicon of gestures, exhibition view, Kantonsschule Zürich Nord, 2019
IS IT REALLY A CHAIR THAT I NEED OR DOES THE CHAIR NEED ME MORE TO NEED IT? by Martina Mächler
1. What work are you presenting?
MM: I‘m going to present a performative reading titled "Is It really a chair that I need or does the chair need me more to need it?", that I‘ve been working on since 2019. The reading deals with (support) structures, that sometimes aren‘t that supportive and emotional attachments to exactly these structures that nevertheless remain. The narrated movements are interrupted by stumbles and falls - the unexpected, that just happens, affecting emotionally - targeting the body, interrupting a rhythm, creating breaks and potentially making living otherwise possible. At the same time the frozen poses I perform might be a reminder of the exhaustion the pretense of inhabiting stability triggers; just like when you pretend to sit on a comfortable chair while actually squatting on plain air for about five minutes.
2. What is your personal approach to your art works?
MM: I work autobiographically using anecdotes from daily life, as well as quantified data closely or losely linked to my self and body, as a way to exemplatorily investigate one‘s relation to the (fragmented) self. Tied together with research and lots of conversations, to me this forms a productive learning process.
3. What is alien to you?
MM: Many things. A lot of institutional, bureaucratic work, as well as the overidentification with work as such. Sometimes I‘m alien towards myself, watch myself from afar and hope the next fall will unite my fragments again, even though I know it‘s society that has created these pieces and needs to be changed, in order to be less violent.
4. How do you change perspective?
MM: By means of talking with friends, acquaintances, strangers and myself. The latter mostly through writing, making situations more material, therefore allowing to take on other perspectives.
Martina Mächler - from a lexicon of gestures, 2019
https://vimeo.com/379289138/8116f65d04
MM: I‘m going to present a performative reading titled "Is It really a chair that I need or does the chair need me more to need it?", that I‘ve been working on since 2019. The reading deals with (support) structures, that sometimes aren‘t that supportive and emotional attachments to exactly these structures that nevertheless remain. The narrated movements are interrupted by stumbles and falls - the unexpected, that just happens, affecting emotionally - targeting the body, interrupting a rhythm, creating breaks and potentially making living otherwise possible. At the same time the frozen poses I perform might be a reminder of the exhaustion the pretense of inhabiting stability triggers; just like when you pretend to sit on a comfortable chair while actually squatting on plain air for about five minutes.
2. What is your personal approach to your art works?
MM: I work autobiographically using anecdotes from daily life, as well as quantified data closely or losely linked to my self and body, as a way to exemplatorily investigate one‘s relation to the (fragmented) self. Tied together with research and lots of conversations, to me this forms a productive learning process.
3. What is alien to you?
MM: Many things. A lot of institutional, bureaucratic work, as well as the overidentification with work as such. Sometimes I‘m alien towards myself, watch myself from afar and hope the next fall will unite my fragments again, even though I know it‘s society that has created these pieces and needs to be changed, in order to be less violent.
4. How do you change perspective?
MM: By means of talking with friends, acquaintances, strangers and myself. The latter mostly through writing, making situations more material, therefore allowing to take on other perspectives.
Martina Mächler - from a lexicon of gestures, 2019
https://vimeo.com/379289138/8116f65d04