The Empty Space

«I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.»

Peter Brook: «The Empty Space», Touchstone NY, 1968

The «empty» — that is, non-predetermined — space is not like a theater with a red curtain, spotlights, or even a «fourth wall»; not a sound studio with acoustic panels and high-fidelity speakers; not a dance studio with sprung floor and ballet barres; not an artist’s studio with easels, rags soaked in turpentine, and jars of pigment… not even a white space or a black box. None of these defines the essence of the deliberately «empty», intentionally non-predetermined Performance Space 369 at the PROGR Center for Cultural Production.
Here — most likely once the drawing studio of the former Progymnasium (today the PROGR Center for Cultural Production) — tall north-east-facing windows allow soft, even light to fill the space throughout the day; no shadows fall on the paper and certainly no sudden changes of light should «uncontrollably» alter a drawing or painting. For many years, the space also housed the performance class of the HKB MA CAP and Sound Arts programs. Perhaps something of that, and of the guest artists who worked here, still resonates. [1]
With «Boules Foules» [2], however, the space is truly mapped: experimentally, unpredictably, and with Cagean «indeterminacy» [3] at its core. [4]
«Experiment» derives from the Latin experīmentum («trial», «test», «experience», «proof») and is related to «periculum» — signaling that risk, and the possibility of failure, are inherent: experīrī — to «attempt», «test», or «learn through experience».
Here is where performance artists and musicians come together to work and create — interdisciplinary and intergenerational: Barbara Balba Weber’s «Lotterorchester» shares the space with performance artists Valerian Maly and Klara Schilliger and the «GingerEnsemble» they founded. Delicately wrought, Schubert-like cadences can be heard alongside the loud, bone-rattling, deliberately «ugly» sawtooth tones of electronic music. Always in play — moving dynamically, swinging between the playful and the grounded. [5]

«…And what of the emptiness of space? Often enough it appears merely as a lack. Emptiness is then taken to be the absence of filling the cavities and gaps. Yet emptiness is closely linked to the character of a place, and thus not an absence but a form of bringing forth. Language, again, can give us a hint. In the verb ‘to empty’ [leeren], the original sense of ‘to gather’ [lesen] can be heard, as in collecting that which belongs to a place. To empty a glass means to gather it into its freed space. To empty fruit into a basket means to prepare this place for them. Emptiness is not nothing. Nor is it a lack. In its physical manifestation, emptiness functions by creating and shaping places through exploration and projection.»

Martin Heidegger: «Die Kunst und der Raum» («Art and Space»). Erker Verlag St. Gallen, 1969

[1] Together with professors Valerian Maly, Dorothea Schürch, Mélanie Gobet and in modules with guest artists including Chumpon Apisuk, Marilyn Arsem, Jelili Atiku, Bean, Maya Bösch, Barbara Büscher, Vlasta Delimar, Esther Ferrer, Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi (crazinisT artisT), Florian Feigl, Jules Pelta Feldman, Nicolas Y Galeazzi, Mike Henz, Marie-Caroline Hominal, Tom Johnson, Sybille Krämer, Gerhard Johann Lischka, Alastair MacLennan, Boris Nieslony, Porte Rouge (Joa Iselin & Christoph Ranzenhofer), Seraina Renz, Richard Schechner, Elvira Santamaria-TorresElvira

[2] Valerian Maly first discovered the invisible irregularities of the space in an astonishingly unfolding play of hundreds of glass marbles during the initial try-out of the 2022 performance «about time» by Mercedes Borgunska.

[3] «Indeterminacy» is a compositional approach in which some aspects of a musical work are left open to chance or to the interpreter's free choice. John Cage, a pioneer of indeterminacy, defined it as «the ability of a piece to be performed in substantially different ways». wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(music)

[4] «Chance, as a significant driving force for development, evolution, and innovation, calls for a renewed appreciation. Space and time are needed to perceive the accidental within an open framework and to allow it to enter into dialogue with rational, goal-oriented, action-driven thinking.» From: «Spiel Zufall Experiment» («Play Chance Experiment»), Willms Neuhaus Foundation, «Zufall und Gestaltung» («Chance and Form»), Berlin 2024, willms-neuhaus-stiftung.de

[5] Sybille Krämer: «Die Welt – ein Spiel? Über die Spielbewegung als Umkehrbarkeit» («The World – A Game? On the Reversibility of Play»), 2005: Die Welt – ein Spiel.pdf