The Art Of Swimming Learned In Less Than An Our

Performance by The Hercules and Leo Case

The human being is descended from the frog – this case Jean Pierre Brisset, delirious linguist of the forelast century, was sure about. His writings on the relationship between human and frog influenced the Surrealists and Dadas, who named him “Prince of the Thinkers”. The Hercules and Leo Case take Brisset at his word. His studies on the frogish and french languages, as well as his swimming lessons, form the starting point for their “Brisset remix”.

34 Days Lamento

Multimedia Installation, video, 2-channel audio, 10 `

I sleep all the time so much, I think I already practice to die.
( Anna Maria Hartwig )

A radioplay, a video, a dress. Sounds, singing and words in memory of a person who has gone. A woman, motionless under a weeping willow moved by the wind. A long fade, a transition, from everything to nothing, from colored to white. And a moving light scanning the shadow that rests.

Remate

Videoinstallation, 2-channel audio, 22´56´´, 2012

Into complete darkness, a life-sized woman is being projected. Fixing the camera with her eyes, she – tentatively at first – starts taking little steps on the spot. Continously, she increases her pace, intensity and sound of her steps until, finally, her whole body seems to be vibrating. Having reached this moment of maximum effort, all movement suddenly comes to a halt and begins anew after a short pause. (7 repetitions)
Remate(span.):conclusion/end/climax

Annotation: The video is projected on a black board (2,00 x 1, 50 m) standing in a complete dark room, a subwoofer makes the sound physically tangible, the steps resonate on the floor. The person seems to be truly present.

Traradibummstrara

Public Performance, City Hall, Munich, 2006
in collaboration with Julia Fehenberger

It is the tragic-strange story of a beer tent fundamentalist. As part of the German offence of friendliness she seems to be a nice waitress in countrystyle. But it is her who becomes a suicide attacker, a nightmare for the „Laptop – and Leather trouser – Country”, a disaster for the “ World City with
heart “.
Filmed with hidden camera from two perspectives.

Don`t Worry, I´m Working

Video-Performance, 16´32´´, 2011

The video shows an oversized, hairless, adult baby in a romper suit working hard on its first big creation – the golden shit! In grotesque exaggeration the human being in then video is stylized as a monstrous baby, which tries to overcome its own nature at first playful then increasingly stubborn, finally desperate. The polarity of the supposed “free will” of the human and his determinations is questioned in humorous and sometimes weird – scary way.

Aba heit is koit*

(bavarian dialect: But today it`s cold)
regular guerilla dance performance in public space during 3 months, Munich, 2016
in collaboration with Asisa Hafez

The weekly dance performance was a reaction on the so-called demonstrations of fascistic organisation PEGIDA München which took placeevery day at this time on the Marienplatz in the heart of Munich. During this “demonstrations” PEGIDA misused the call to prayer of the muezzin for heir anti islamic propaganda. It was earsplitting loudly blown over the square during three ours a day. This gesture of hate and violence produced speechlessness with shame and rage within many people in the city. The “public dance against social coldness” could be understood as a reaction on uprising right wings movements in Germany (and worldwide) and an encouragement to resist and find a positive way out of this speechlessness. It is a “resistdance” in the manner of the Schäffler-Dancers who became role models for the performance. Their dance is originated in Munich and remembers the years of the Pest, the so-called “black death” in 1515-1517, in which people feared to go out on the street because they
worried that the disease still hadn’t been defeated. To cheer the people up and to make them come out on the streets again a cooper (Schäffler) had the idea of organizing a joyful spectacle. The famous chime of bells in the tower of Munich`s city hall at Marienplatz reminds us every day of their encouraging dance and the its sweet sounds formed the starting point of the performance at 17 p.m.
Everyone was invited to join the dance to get warm again, to dispel the “new epidemic” called social coldness!
* part of the Schäffler`s – song

The Hercules and Leo Case

Multivoice-performances, since 2015
in collaboration with Karo Knote and Katrin Petroschkat

The performance collective The Hercules and Leo Case creates sound arrangements on the basis of voice and language. The human voice is an instrument for an artistic research that explores the relationship between animal-like sounds and differentiated speech, or from simple noises to music producted in a variety of ways – broken, deconstructed, rhythmically and medially extended. Inquiring, experimenting and improvising, The Hercules and Leo Case explores the gray zone between nature and culture, using literature, film, music and science, or for example a New York court case which attempted to give two captive chimps, Hercules and Leo, human rights. The case gives the collective its name, and is symbolic of the concept: giving a voice to the unheard, unheard-of treatment, invisible concealment, so that the incomprehensible can be heard.

www.herculesandleocase.de

Performances:

The Hercules and Leo Case

The Art Of Swimming Learned In Less Than An Our, 2018

The human being is descended from the frog – this case Jean Pierre Brisset, delirious linguist of the forelast century, was sure about. His writings on the relationship between human and frog influenced the Surrealists and Dadas, who named him “Prince of the Thinkers”. The Hercules and Leo Case take Brisset at his word. His studies on the frogish and french languages, as well as his swimming lessons, form the starting point for their “Brisset remix”.

Und dann meldete sich eine Frau die hysterisch irgendetwas gesagt hat, 2019

Yes I can`t – Serial Public Failure

Three – weeks – Performance, 2013

„Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.“ ( Samuel Beckett )

During three weeks Maria Berauer tried hard to fail in her daily performances at the Klohäuschen in Munich. A timetable in the window of the exhibition space (a former public urinal) informed about the performances, which took place at different times (for example 4 am or 11 pm). Seventeen diverse performances and site-specific installations happened, most of them spontaneously in interaction with and reacting on the mostly coincidentally passing-by people and the local situation. Every action left traces on the building and its surrounding. At the closing event an installation of video documentation, photos, letters, notes and objects were shown on the spot.

Odem

Video Installation, 2-channel audio, 2015

In the beginning it is hardly understandable what the video is showing. A swarm of animal-like creatures seem to float or fly in complete darkness, constantly blowing or sucking round shiny things in front of them. Nothing changes. The undefinable drove making the sound of blowing or breathing rarely moves. Every creature blows the little golden ball at different times, in shifted rhythms until they finally blow all together. After watching the video for a while it becomes more and more clear what it really is.
It shows 31 times the same image of a human head filmed from below. A golden sphere is blown from the mouth up in the air. Gravity pulls the sphere back to the mouth and when it arrives it stays for a while until it gets blown up again. This happens continually. The heads are turned 90° to the right. In this way the law of gravity is not obvious anymore and it gets confusing and mysterious at the same time. It makes you think of timeless space, endless universe and the permanent presence of a repetitive ubiquitous breath.

(odem: traditional poetic german expression for breath)

Annotation: The video is shown in a black box, projected on a black wall so that the only light is given by the shining heads.

Triade

Video Triptych, 2-channel audio, 05` 49 ` `, 2017

In this video the artist presents her own body similar to a ceremonial unveiling of an artwork by pulling a throw of blue fabric successively up in the air using a string. Since it is herself who noisily pulls the string, she holds her showing or hiding literally in her own hands. The blue fabric is lifted in rhythmic repetitions, revealing the almost naked body who constantly strives to cut a great figure before the „curtain“ falls again. Presented as a tryprich and time shifted every unveiling becomes an event and gives at the same time a critical – but winking – comment on the omnipresent compulsion of self-representation and self-dramatisation.