Performance documentation, Galerie Het Venster, Rotterdam, NL (September 5, 1975)
This performance registration starts with an oral description of the upcoming performance, while Ulay, dressed up in a white uniform and with a white mask covering his face, is setting up the stage in the "dark room". The Polaroid, as one of the favourite mediums of his artistic practices, in his early works, constitutes one of the basic elements of this performance. His action takes place on the back wall of the dark space, which is covered with light sensitive paper. As he takes a photo of a woman with the polaroid camera, the flash lights project the negative of this photo on the wall. After the appearance of the negative, Ulay projects the polaroid on himself and therefore…he turns to be the person that he took the picture of. Ulay, nearly compulsively, repeats the same performative process three times.
At the end of the documentation, Ulay, still in his costume, is smoking in the Art Space, negating in a way the limits between photography and performance, between the artist and the audience.

FOTOTOT (Exchange of Identity), 1975
Performance documentation, Galerie Het Venster, Rotterdam, NL (September 5, 1975)
Video documentation of a performance, digitalised, black & white, mono-sound, 9 min Read more...