Koho Mori-Newton
artist

I created this video performance at General Public in Berlin during my solo art show there from May 19 to 26, 2007. From 3 pm to 6 pm every day, I performed alone in the gallery space and recorded my body performance to make a 60-minute video. The gallery had two open rooms next to each other, so I decided to place the video camera in a position at one end to view both rooms. No editing programs were used. Instead, I created different scenes on the same video, one after the other. During the performance, I would intermittently erase any given scene by performing a new scene over it, depending on my personal preference.

Each performance begins and ends with my action of pressing the ‘record’ or ‘stop’ button. In between these recordings, I walk to the second room with its red wool carpet in the center, take off my shoes, walk onto the red carpet, move my body in some way, then put my shoes on again. The camera records me each time from my backside. The distance from the camera to the red carpet is about 9 steps. The act of taking off and putting on my shoes before stepping onto the red carpet is an important element of this performance, typically Japanese. My movements on the red carpet are purposefully simple and repetitive. Each performance is about 1 to 3 minutes.

My intention in this performance is to examine the 'doing of something' and the meaning of that 'doing' by making repetitive body movements. Koho Mori-Newton