COUVRE-FEU ( personal overview )
May 13, 2013
COUVRE-FEU ( Curfew ) is one of the most difficult performances I have ever dared to perform due to it´s high level of unpredictability and ephemerality. It depends on so many factors , such as the amount of the public , the venue´s nature , the current socio-political situation , how do you feel that very day and the most incredibly of all , the weather conditions. That night was the full Moon and clear sky , so it gave me an incredible power to deal with the entire public using them as a social sample. I must admit that I am extremely picky concerning the time and space in which I am setting my work. I usually think very far in advance ( if appropriate ) , so there is everything under the control , from my side. In COUVRE-FEU I was using my ‘’Military Body’’. In my artistic practice I usually have three sort of bodies : Political Body , Military Body and Social Body as well as several other branches. Usually I combine them in the majority of characters I am building up , but apart of all , those characters and bodies are actually the bodies I already posses. I am not acting any of those materialized characterizations, but rather more intending to get a certain body out of my physical body, regarding my personal history and ongoing situation I am dealing with. I have been working on COUVRE-FEU for more then six months in which there was no possibilities to combine different bodies. It´s an incredible strict military character which is following his main duty to establish certain rules during the specific time using current sample of the society ( the audience ). But I knew in advance , since I was performing similar piece at Kampnagel in Hamburg , that there are certain parts in this aggressive performance / social experiment, which would make the public laughing or protesting frenetically. The moment with security control and later The Divisions for instance, those are moments that , naturally , unprepared public find themselves in a very unpredictable situation , they don´t know what is my plan , so laughing is simply natural defensive system. For me frankly, those moments are some of the most precious moments an artist can ever get while performing. One of the curators said there was a bit of mental violence making her feeling periodically a bit uncomfortable . Well , you know, I depend on the entire energy of the public. It´s simply my fuel I have borrowed from the public in order to make myself ´´super charged body ´´. As much as they are angry, frustrated , frenetically excited , I am getting 3 x more. So, when I was watching the entire video afterwards, I said to myself : It´s just ridiculously brutal from my side , but after all I don´t have such a feeling that the audience didn’t enjoy being there. As a contrary, I got several remarks the day after , saying that it was just incredible experience for them, and even they were fully conscious what they are doing, they simply couldn’t resist not to do it. I call it ´´mesmerization ´´. However, some of them left the performance in the very beginning , because they couldn’t cope being invited over and over again to go on stage. And I completely understand them. Some of them resisted to go on stage and remained on their seats collectively banging and shouting. Those are already predicted dissidents exploiting their rights for being socially disobedient. My action also provoked one guy to leave the space and then to return twenty minutes later to give me such a strong French kiss in front of everyone. I met him later and he complained I made him extremely angry and anxious, so he had to do it. One of curators even said I made him and the entire public looking pretty stupid , while being shaped and reshaped on stage. I believe everyone should conduct his/her social body in whichever circumstances it may occur.
As i already pointed out, COUVRE-FEU was one of the most demanding works of mine ,and when I got back to Hamburg I dropped in some sort of depression and anxiety which is still quite intensive. It´s just an enormous energy I got there , so I have to cope with that when I am alone and not socializing. However , I will continue working in this manner , as it is my nature. I must make the audience really get out of their everyday routine. Whatever it may cause and provoke It´s simply the concept I shall follow and there is no excuse.
Branko Miliskovic
video still by Christopher Hewitt
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p.s / For native english speakers. If you find any mistakenly written phrases, words or grammar , please don’t hesitate to let me know. Thank You.
COUVRE-FEU
May 5, 2013
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COUVRE-FEU
TROUBLE #9
Duration : 1 hour
Curated by Antoine Pickels
Camera by Christopher Hewitt
Edited by Branko Miliskovic
performed on the 25th of April 2013
Grande Halle / Halles de Schaerbeek
Brussels / Belgium
Thanks to Franziska Schnoor ( KAMPNAGEL ) , Antoine Pickels , Axel Satge , Emmanuelle Nizou ( Les Halles )
Thanks to Bruno Gilbert , Julien Bier , Anais Devillers , Fernand van Bever and the rest of the technical team.
Special thanks to the entire audience without whom this performance would not be possible.
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In times of curfew, certain rules come into force. The audience plays the main role here. Methods of crowd control and mass influence will be in store, as well as the chance for some civil disobedience!
Couvre-feu (eng. Curfew), in the political sense of that word, is a military order specifying a time after which certain regulations apply. This piece would be a fusion of live performance and political theatre in which the artist will intend to engage the entire public to play the main role in this experimentally constructed social platform. The artist is ready to setup the methods for controlling and conditioning the masses, as well as to remain aware of possible civil disobedience at any time.
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COUVRE-FEU , TROUBLE #9 , Les Halles , BXL
April 26, 2013
© Hichem Dahes
Soon more…
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COUVRE-FEU
April 19, 2013
COUVRE-FEU
PERFORMANCE
In times of curfew, certain rules come into force. The audience plays the main role here. Methods of crowd control and mass influence will be in store, as well as the chance for some civil disobedience!
Couvre-feu (eng. Curfew), in the political sense of that word, is a military order specifying a time after which certain regulations apply. This piece would be a fusion of live performance and political theatre in which the artist will intend to engage the entire public to play the main role in this experimentally constructed social platform. The artist is ready to setup the methods for controlling and conditioning the masses, as well as to remain aware of possible civil disobedience at any time.
BIO
Branko Miliskovic (1982 ) Belgrade / Serbia / Ex-Yugoslavia
Studied at the Art Academy, Belgrade and graduated from Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague, NL. Miliskovic is dedicated to the Performance, Cabaret, Theater, Film and Photography, mainly represented by Les Halles, BXL and Kampnagel, HH. Miliskovic sees his work as a system of designated and highly self controlled situations in progression through which he is passing , aiming to leave a permanent trace and bring his own standards .
Miliskovic is based in Hamburg, Germany and was performing in Italy, Germany, Belgium, Serbia, Poland, Israel, Russia, Holland, Finland, Norway, USA.
An article on Seecult.org in Serbian
CafeRoyal Kulturstiftung / rejection
March 22, 2013
My upcoming project has been supported by Ministry of Culture in Hamburg , but this private fond refused me quite fast. Well , my duty is to make it public.
Lieber Branko Miliskovic,
CELEBRITY CAFE
March 12, 2013
Thanks to Aile Sarah Cassenti and Jacques Donguy
Delivery failed
March 2, 2013
Personal reaction on yesterday’s experience.
Despite how much I am enjoying certain performance piece ( excluding living installations ) if ending isn’t properly settled and defined , I feel like a dull spectator. I particularly feel very sorry for majority who had to buy the tickets. I mean if you are an artist and you don’t think about the audience’s presence but only about your work , you should perform for yourself and only yourself. I am literary fed up of those who don’t know how to finish their performance and of those who don’t want to give me anything in return for being there. Some of them gotta 6-8 months to work and develop their work , fully subsidized and facilitated , but sometimes it seems not to be enough , so at the end we may witness some partly finished intentions , non fulfilled desires , bitter expectations and after watching certain performance piece , the audience is literary looking forward to go home or take some proper drink in the bar. I mean , it’s not that everyone in the audience may digest everything taken from the performance , but if the entire public feel certain empathy, emptiness and being somehow crossed, it’s more then clear that artistic job has not been properly delivered.
I have been attending several artist talks and presentations and almost every time I felt like a chewed gum. I fervently believe that if I am going to watch, listen, attend, participate into some sort of public event, I want to leave with trembling thoughts, intriguing impulses, desires to meet an artist afterwards and talk to him/her much further, buy his/her catalog/ book , ask for upcoming shows, finally to get intrigued and encouraged to know more… If I am helplessly waiting for him/her to finish in order not to be rude and leave in the middle of a presentation , then again I frankly believe I should better be doing something else that day and not wasting my time. In majority of artistic presentations , an artist doesn’t know how to talk. He/she doesn’t know how to deliver the message , how to keep the attention even for 20 minutes. Most of them turn back to the audience, which is dreadful moment and should never ever happen. If you don’t know how to give a presentation about your work, you should better hire somebody else to talk on your behalf. It’s not something that can be learned. It’s utterly connected with your charisma. Not what to talk but how to deposit your information and your knowledge into my collection of interests. Everything is important. How you talk, which color of your voice, dilatation , amplitudes , pause between phrases and sentences are of crucial importance. How you watch, where you look at, for how long, choreography of body gestures, properly calculated time of a presentation, humor combined with serious facts etc etc. If you are performing and you take the granted energy from the public , and if you don’t send me back at least the same amount of borrowed energy then I am afraid , something has failed.
To finish this bitterly written report , I would like to say once again : Being an artist is nothing to do with looking as an artist, smelling as an artist, walking as an artist… your work is the best and probably the only way to worship outer forces. You as an artist are much less important. Therefore please behave according to that.
Branko Miliskovic
ILLUMINATI
February 17, 2013
