Tank Talk

A project for a collective urban action: a performer dressed like the man of Tiananmen Square tries to stop people and things, and to talk to them.

A performer, dressed like the man of Tiananmen Square, tries to stop things and people as they follow their routes. He repeats the steps with which, in 1989, a man stopped a line of tanks: small, almost dance-like steps. That man climbed onto the tank, looked for a crack in its armour, tried to talk to the driver. He was looking for the man behind the machine. The performer tries the same: a human exchange, a dialogue, to say something and be heard, to whisper or scream something into someone's ear.

Words get consumed and counterfeited, like concepts; they lose and change their meaning. What does revolt mean today, for us, and what does it no longer mean? Perhaps today a revolt is an individual act, a personal enquiry: the intimacy of holding a position, an attempt at dialogue, or a quarrel, with the world, with a tank moving forward. And once you have someone's attention, what do you say?

The videos filmed during each urban action are then shown to the audience as a video installation.