picture made in collaboration with Catherine Oldenhove
Can I become a fictional character, in what is commonly perceived as the real world, and create a space to release my desires on the one hand and be concerned with my duties towards the rest of humanity on the other?
Inspired by the work of performance artists such as Tehching Hsieh and NG, I am submitting myself to a strict weekly planning for 1 year and documenting my everyday life as Sven G, a fictional persona alternating between 12 sub-characters, all revolving around my default, perhaps even non-existent, ‘self’ by the name of Sven Goyvaerts.
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Classmate maudlefever had sent me an email she received from a
friend of hers who is working on a project called Time and Memory.
Catherine Oldenhove (that’s her name) is asking people to provide
her with some personal insight on this subject and urges everyone to come up with a unique alternative to our predominant idea of keeping standard time. The testimonies she gathers will serve as the basis for a theatre play revolving around the image of a kind of clock which has empty picture frames on the side instead of numbers. These frames are meant to be filled in by the participants. I accepted her challenge and applied my Sven G characters to her model.
First I put the character icons on the clock in a somewhat random fashion, but then I started opposing those who were in conflict; it’s not customary to eat while playing music, or to go to the toilet while walking (this icon used to be the sleeping one in a prior version). Superman always has to choose between the world and Lois Lane, my education gets in the way of my job and most of the time you can’t really joke when doing business. Finally, my emotions and desires, in the form of the G-icon, are opposed to the I-character, which is the one character questioning the fact whether I am an individual at all.
The minute hand could signify the character I happen to be in at present, while the hour hand would refer to the second most important character which complements the state I am in. The second hand, which is always switching from one character to the next, symbolizes the constant alternation between my core desires, duties, wants and needs.
To keep track of the state of mind I am in, it would be very handy to have the clock as a wristwatch so I could immediately adjust my time, not only for myself, but also for people around me – to show them which character I happen to be in at that time.
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As I append 2.0 to this One Year Life Performance project I attempt
to link the personalities mentioned above to various social networks.
The ‘eating’ self is represented by a constantly updated FLICKR feed,
the ‘musical’ self is hosted on MYSPACE MUSIC, the ‘imaginative’ G-character tweets all of his actions on TWITTER. The distance traveled by the ‘walking’ self is being GPS-tracked and posted on EVERYTRAIL. The ‘Superman’ self posts his good deeds on RAKAWA, as the ‘loving’ self gets to know his girlfriend better through SKYPE. ‘Researching’ self updates his findings on BLOGGER and a showreel
of assignments done as a cameraman under other people’s command will soon be put online on VIMEO. The ‘gaming’ self plays a role in WORLD OF WARCRAFT and money is made and spent by the ‘business’ self on SECOND LIFE. The ‘physical’ self cannot easily be replaced or upgraded by media, but our senses might soon become advanced by AUGMENTED REALITY technologies. The ‘invisible’ I-character questions his very existence by uploading content anonymously to the video vortex that is YOUTUBE. My ‘default’ self, Sven Goyvaerts, is known to his friends via FACEBOOK.
A MacBook Pro allows me to keep track of all these applications. Thanks to an iPhone 3G with mobile internet capabilities I am able
to update many of these apps almost in real-time while on the go.
Gradually more apps and networks are being added to this selection
of social media. The clock model, which has turned into some sort of
vortex by now, is continuously being adjusted on the Research page.