PELLET
Agenda
Brussels
Krems
Rotterdam
Brussels
Breda
Brussels
Ghent
Rotterdam
Essen
-
“There is a creature called Odradek. At first glance it looks like a flat star-shaped spool for thread, and indeed it does seem to have thread wound upon it; to be sure, they are only old, broken-off bits of thread, knotted and tangled together, of the most varied sorts and colors. [...] One is tempted to believe that the creature one had some sort of intelligible shape and is now only a broken-down remnant. [...] He lurks by turns in the garret, the stairway, the lobbies, the entrance hall. Often for months on end he is not to bee seen; then he has presumably moved into other houses; but he always comes faithfully back to our house again. [...] I ask myself, to no purpose, what is likely to happen to him? Can he possibly die? Anything that dies has had some kind of aim in life, some kind of activity, which has worn out; but that does not apply to Odradek. [...] He does no harm to anyone that one can see; but the idea that he is likely to survive me I fin dalmost painful.”
From: 'The Cares of a Family Man' by Franz Kafka
PELLET
An enormous sphere is lying in semi-darkness. It’s not immediately clear what material it’s made of or how much it weighs. Or is it a projection? This ambiguity makes it something mysterious and alienating. As a spectator, you are standing next to an object with a life of its own that’s not easy to fathom. The basis of this installation, PELLET, is Franz Kafka’s short story ‘The Cares of a Family Man’ (1919). In this story, the family man mentioned in the title talks about Odradek, a mysterious creature that regularly lives with him at the bottom of the stairs. Odradek consists of a star-shaped spool with tangled yarn around it, to which a stick with a kind of leg is attached. Odradek can talk and move but is otherwise a ‘useless’ object. As with Odradek, it is pleasant to be in the company of PELLET. But at the same time, it’s a disturbing figure that makes you think about the hidden life of objects. Both PELLET and Odradek are examples of how crossing the boundaries that separate subject and object can lead to an eerie experience. ‘Living things’ with human characteristics are literally impossible to identify and acquire something oppressive and uneasy. The alienation caused by objects was a way for Kafka to talk about how modern man becomes alienated in a world of new technologies, violence and bureaucracy. This is also a feeling that PELLET evokes in the viewer: if objects and systems continue without needing humans, what is our place?
PELLET was part of K, a society (2010), a series of ten installations for which Kafka’s work was the starting point. As a ‘performative object’, it is characteristic of the way in which objects and machines are as performative as human dancers and actors in Kris Verdonck’s work.
Credits
Concept & direction: Kris Verdonck
Dramaturgy: Marianne Van Kerkhoven (Kaaitheater)
Construction: Sylvain Spinoit
Production: A Two Dogs Company
Production manager: Hendrik De Smedt
Production assistant: Karolien De Bleser
Administrator: Han De Meulemeester
Co-production: Theater der Welt 2010 (DE), Transdigital (Interreg), Kunstencentrum Vooruit (BE), Productiehuis Rotterdam / Rotterdamse Schouwburg (NL), Kaaitheater (BE)
In partnership with: Schauspiel Essen (DE), Le manège.mons (BE) and Technocité (BE) in the frame of Transdigital
With the support of: the Flemish Authorities, the Flemish Community Commission (VGC)