from under - four graffiti scores (wall painting)

1. shout (acrylic paint graffiti, 118 x 121cm)   

Be there, do this: III. from under, 1. shout, 2. sing, 3. talk, 4. cough  

four painted graffiti in the old storage space 
for the basement of the former military barracks in Diest, Belgium 

The space has almost 10 seconds of reverb. 

More info here under.

2. sing (acrylic paint graffiti, 127 x 112cm)

3. talk  (acrylic paint graffiti, 206 x 95cm)

4. cough (acrylic paint graffiti, 196 x 108cm)

• The graffiti are designed in the colors and styles of the left-over graffiti of the soldiers, who occupied the space until recently (yellow and blue). 
• They contain words, musical symbols and fragments of the choreography on the square outside. (I. from within) 
• The text asks people to either (1.) shout, (2.) sing, (3.) talk or (4.) cough. 
• The musical symbols support this with some suggestive notation (however, nothing seems to be clearly determined, no lines of a proper systems, instead notes  floating freely in space). 

1. The shouting could be an echo of former commands (military orders often consist of two shouts: first the information, then the order for action). 
2. The singing could become a chord of several voices, performed by just one person (the reverb makes the tones overlap for a moment).
3. The soft talking results in a drone, a constant noise. 
4. The cough is merely a percussive accentuation of the space. Coughing as just another vocal action, here compared with sounds we consider as beautiful.

Context:
The venue is an old citadel, a military fort from around 1830, finished the moment that peace 'broke out', so useless from the beginning. Till 2010 it was home to parachute military companies. Now it is a lost, beautiful building in a lost small town, huge site with great spaces, old military graffiti, traces of vandalism and a roof entirely full of plants, even trees.

Citadel'arte organized 2014 a first group exhibition, aiming to promote the still empty space as a potential cultural hub for the district of Diest, while opening the space for the very first time to the people of the surrounding towns and general public

Title:
'Be there, do this' paraphrases the cynical expression "been there, done this", an invitation to performative playfulness. Play your life. Do stuff. Where ever you are. Something like this.

Other works under BE THERE, DO THIS:

Citadel, Diest, 2014 (I. and II.)
Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin 2016