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ARCHIVE 1

JE M'OBJECTE    2011

Universite de Quebec en Outaouais (UQO), Gatineau, Quebec, Canada

Videography PASCALE THEORET-GROULX

Text by KAREN SPENCER

from the perfomance and exhibit catalog

Used with permission

 DRESSED IN A LONG-SLEEVED white shirt, Roy enters the spot light. With his back to the wall he faces us and, putting his hand into his satchel, he pulls out a pair of sunglasses. He puts the sunglasses on. Again his hand plunges into the satchel, this time he takes out a yellow bandana which he ties around his head.

   Next, a pencil appears and he begins to trace the contours of his body onto the wall, the pencil lead breaks, the pencil is dropped to the floor, and he takes out another pencil and continues to trace his silhoutte. This pencil is put back into the bag, and raising his art, Roy makes a fist. The fist transforms into a peace sign.

   Again Roy reaches into the satchel and goggles emerge which Roy places over the sunglasses, and now a can of spray paint is procured that Roy, with one hand, sprays back and forth over his other upraised arm and hand. His arm and hand making the peace sign act like a stencil leaving the outline of their presence as an absence on the wall.

   Red paint drips like blood. Suddenly Roy turns away from us and facing the wall he sprays the words, JE M'OBJECTE! The can of paint is dropped to the floor. Roy runs out of the gallery, the graffiti drips red.

   Pencils are used to make marks, sunglasses to protect the eyes, spray paint to do graffiti. Nothing in RoyLu's performance renders our relation to these objects suspect, and yet, there is something suspect in the turbulent, awkward roughness of the movement of his one hand tracing his body as silhoutte, tracing his upraised fist. Here the unwieldiness of the body is on display, in the spotlight, against the wall, the solitary man facing the multitude. Lu, fist raised, is the solitary protester facing the enemy. But what is Lu protesting?

   I object – je m'objecte, I make myself into an object, I object to being made into an object sprawled in red grafitti against the white of the gallery wall. A written declaration that takes a position of opposition to some other position.

   Lu's satchel is an object that contains other objects. A place he can enter his hand into to pull out whatever he might deem essential. A kind of secret space that hide its contents, carried on the body. As an item found in many on-line role-playing games, the satchel assumes a magical quality, it becomes a place that can contain all kinds of objects: in many games none of the objects in the satchel have any weight: One can carry an armory's worth of swords, several dozen suits of armor, scores of healing items, a small fortune in the local currency, and, even a vehicle without any strain whatsoever.

   The satchel is the object the hero carries as he goes on his quest. The satchel frees the hero from being encumbered by his possessions. Lu's objects serve his needs, his need for expression and his need to leave a trace of his body in the world.

   The satchel frees Lu so he can be quick on his feet, run away if need be. In contrast to the position of consumerism and capitalism that requires one to continuously acquire more, want more, spend more in order to become indebted to those things – the declaration of freedom from objects is one of opposition.

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