On Frottage (Part II), 2015

Performance and installation: fabric frottage panels, back projection, spoken text, movement.

On Frottage is an ongoing body of work exploring the medium of frottage —  as a means of artistic production, a sexual act and the conceptual links that this process might have to other practices, objects and times.

A spoken text weaves together notions of overlay, translation and contacting surfaces using theoretical frameworks borrowed from a number of female writers, including Julia Kristeva, Christine Brooke-Rose, Lucy Lippard  and Gertrude Stein.

A female figure paces the space — weaving between large fabric frottage panels. The body and fabric are considered moving layers, different juxtapositions and relationships occur between the surface of the body, text and frottage panels. Small choreographic gestures - a pelvic rotation or hip shift  interrupt the rhythmic walking and the body is pressed or rubbed against the fabric. Concrete poems are are back-projected onto one of the panels, the letters obscured or momentarily interrupted by the body moving behind the fabric, the shadow of fingers tracing the edges of words.

Photographs by Kaste Šeškevičiuūtė