Souffleur (ZAPISNIK X PRACE)

“During the Action Art Festival in Náchod, Jonne Väisänen repeatedly asked for a lighter and mumbled something confusing related to art. He did not seem particularly responsive to his surroundings, yet the brylcreem in his carefully maintained moustache was, according to the police, glistening like the North Star.

The performance reflected on daily existential (c)rises. During the festival he was never formally introduced as a performer, but instead became known through his strange behavior and outlook. Perhaps not as an artist at all, but as “some creepy, random guy.”

The border between performance and “reality” is at stake.  What about the curtain call?

In-between the set of happenings in Náchod, the “general” public was handed an oral script. It seemed to connect both past and future with only the faintest of cues, turning the audience into action artists per se. The new “players” were given no real options of contingency, but only a vague set of answers, which were kept, it seemed, in a yellow sketchbook (ZAPISNIK X PRACE). Most of those who were suddenly pushed/pulled into the center of the play often ignored their role altogether, yet still found themselves caught in a certain kind of uncomfortable existential drama. 

Väisänen operated as a somewhat theatrical holy ghost: souffleur, freak – whispering the “needed” parts of the story out loud, nonstop. This endless whisper became visual in the photo and video documentation of the festival, as he is always there, lurking in the background, yellow playbook in hand. Did he just draw Donald Ducks the whole time on printed excerpts from Samuel Beckett’s Play?

“Are you still working?” 

-Joakim Stampe

Text by Jan Novak (A controller/ un escalator de statut (Ing., MgA, PhD….))

The playbook (ZAPISNIK X PRACE) is reproduced with a fax machine and available upon request. It has approximately 15 pages.