“The Line” – a participatory performance by Luka Jovanov

Tuesday, 29 September, 6 PM

Luka Jovanov will perform The Line, a participatory performance in which a spatial, and consequently social, system is gradually established in front of the audience. Starting from the simple need for a line from a text to be spoken, passed on and shared, the performance develops as an inevitable sequence of rules, roles, proposals, rights and procedures, with each new rule emerging in response to a problem produced by the previous one. In an attempt to protect the participants, distribute responsibility and enable their freedom, the system becomes increasingly complex and increasingly (in)capable of organising that freedom. The stage action is shaped by existing texts, pre-assigned proposals, and participation in decisions whose scope has already been determined by existing rules. In this way, participation gradually turns into representation, and representation into administration, leading to the central question: how does a procedure intended to enable collective action begin to completely replace that very collective action?

The line in the performance is not a predetermined boundary to be crossed. It emerges as a consequence of collective action: as a line of speech, a line of division (both spatial and conceptual), a line that defines belonging, and/or a line through which responsibility is inherited. The performance explores how systems produce consensus, how they appropriate resistance, and how, under the guise of protection and democratic participation, they pre-emptively divide and separate people, spaces, and attempts at free action.

Dramaturg: Bojan Jablanovec
Producer: Špela Trošt
Production: Via Negativa