The book, web, music composition and scenic performance with the title A ME is based on the project ADAM & EWE which was realised during the festival Steirischer Herbst in Graz in 2012. ADAM is an abbreviation for “a dream about myselves”, EWE for “extreme writing experience”.
At first the artist made a series of interviews during the festival asking the accidentally chosen participants to briefly describe themselves in their own way. No point of view was preferred. These personal language representations underwent certain transformations based on language procedures. During this process both normative and creative textual strategies were used. The choice of method was fully reliant on how resistant the original description was to any normative redefinition. The interviews and transformations were dependent on the social and textual competence of the artist. Therefore, during an uninterrupted 12-hour-writing in the gallery room, the EWE procedure aimed to expose the artist’s (= medium of language processes) own language idiom and thus show his dependence on the way he refers to reality and the way language itself refers to him.
In the next step, one fictional “me” was generated through a combinatorial process which was based on all the former personal descriptions. The accidentally chosen visitors of the festival-gallery were asked to briefly describe a real person who they could identify with this person.
COLOPHON
Ondřej Buddeus — A me
Is part of Ondřej Buddeus‘s participation in the Adaptation.
“But the need to adapt, uncoordinatedly, individualistically, without any authority, leader and order, to changes we initiate ourselves. Adaptation signifies now (asynchronously) and here (various places) an affinity with Utopia, which remains a non-place. Adaptation to conditions of reality which the collective dialectic of individuals without leader and order themselves create.“
Babi Badalov, Hafiz, Lia Perjovschi, Loulou Chérinet, Ondřej Buddeus, Ruti Sela, Shady Elnoshokaty, Vít Havránek, Xu Tan, Zbyněk Baladrán.
Curatorial Consultant Visual Arts:
Anne Faucheret
Translation: © Tereza Novická, 2013.
Graphic design: www.mutanta.com
We would like to thank all participants of the festival who took part in the project.
We would also like to thank
the following individuals:
Hana Buddeus, Věra Krejčová,
Antonín Mareš
Published by Steirischer Herbst Festival
GMBH Graz 2012 in collaboration with
tranzit.cz
© Ondřej Buddeus, 2013
ISBN: 978-80-87259-18-4
steirischer herbst festival gmbh
Sackstraße 17 / 8010 Graz / Austria
Supporters:
Land Steiermark Kultur
Stadt Graz Kultur
Bundesministerium für Unterricht,
Kunst und Kultur
Programm Kultur 2007-2013 der
Europäischen Gemeinschaft
Graz Tourismus
Sponsors:
Legero / con-tempus.eu
Steiermärkische Sparkasse
Immovate