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The Lascaux Syndrome
Performed at the exhibition “Stapelungen” von Mir + Nots, in Akademiegalerie, Munich. May 2023.In the form of a pseudoscientific lecture performance, the so-called “Lascaux Syndrome” is introduced as a psychological condition that affects both subterranean architectural structures and biological spaces, whose access has been prohibited or made pysichally impossible.
The text alludes to the strange practice of creating “doppelgänger” of such spaces to prevent them from further deterioration. Throughout the lecture, the motif of recreation is declared as a subject of study, capable of feeling and therefore of suffering the isolation from society resulting from its permanent detachment from the public domain.
This satire seeks to draw the audience’s attention to such spaces that we know exist, but can no longer be seen. What do they do in the absence of visitors and admirers?
“The Lascaux Syndrome” was conceived during a research period in Paris where I delved into the reasons and connotations that might have led to the closing of a pedestrian underpass in the 16th district. The underpass exists since 2012 as a room enclosed beneath the asphalt that everybody seems to have forgotten.
More information about this project can be found here.
The lecture was performed for the first time at the, also subterranean, Akademiegalerie. I was invited by Mir + Nots to briefly be part of their exhibiton setting, which was a non-stoping laboratory for producing, collecting and interpreting their daily personal impressions within the metro network and its layered -even piled up- landscape.
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See a transcript of the lecture here.
Photographic documentation: Julian Janssen
Exhibition setting: Miriam Enssel and Antonia Lippert