Paper Window is the title of an interactive performance made by Jules van Hulst and Jaap Groen.
It deals with this experiment: What happens if two people are standing on either side of a man's height semi-translucent paper and start a dialogue without words while one of them has a charcoal at his disposal? These people are unrecognisable to each other. Who leads, who follows, who gives, who takes; jointly or alone? A concentrated and intimate moment arises that is not a theater but is theatrical. That is about movement but has nothing to do with choreography. Where drawing is done but where it is not about what is drawn. An action about human contact.
Today, many people are very self-focused. A screen that has become an extension of our body is the means by which we like to make ourselves more beautiful than we are. We all want to be seen through the screen of the other. We seek attention but does the screen give us that too? In Paper Window this is done live.
In a series of three performances Jules van Hulst and myself are struggling with a painted piece of canvas to see what remains after working it and purposely creating a by-product.
The short film ‘By-product’ is the residue of a long and recurrent process that took place in the summer of 2014. Jules and Jaap, both visual artists, physically struggled with the primal components one needs in making a painting: canvas, paint, brushes, focus and patience.
By putting their actions on itself on scène instead of what is created by them, a strange way of competition emerges. This way they do not have to deal with the results of their actions, for example the accumulation of layers of paint, but merely the consequences, like opening up previous layers of paint. The canvas starts to behave in its own way, which is the invitation for Jules and Jaap to react upon.
The identity of By-product is on the intersection of a short film and a recorded performance. A piece about actions and invitations that, when played by two persons, can become a game.
Screenings: Erarta Motion Pictures Festival at Erarta Museum. Russia, Saint Petersburg 25-03 / 29-03 2015