Faux Jumeaux 7 presented by Raya Lindberg

François chose two identical exhibition rooms and named his project Faux Jumeaux (false twins). He asked 15 people to each select two works of art which, although very similar with regard to form or material, were created independently. Which similarities or differences between the two works come to light when ‘mirrored’ in the two identical galleries?

Raya Lindberg presented the seventh "Faux Jumeaux". On the one hand she mirrored a monologue by Samuel Beckett, performed by Billie Whitelaw in 1972, and on the other hand Vito Acconci. Samuel Beckett/Vito Acconci - Making images speak With the Open Book video on the one side and the filmed staging of Beckett’s Pas Moi on the other, there is a ‘false twin’ effect – the innocent coincidence of a similar form. But innocence does not mean naïve; behind the scenes of a mouth that innocently answers another mouth, the plays of Samuel Beckett and Vito Acconci can probably also be read via secret stairways or doors – via hidden openings, in the surgical sense – and in this way a perspectivistic correspondence can probably be brought to light. Through the focus of the camera, or the focus of a play that is filmed with a handheld camera, Vito Acconci and Samuel Beckett both respond to a space where it is possible for a person, a subject, to take shape and at the same to waste away, to disappear. But who is actually speaking in Open Book and in Pas Moi? We don’t know and yet someone – with no head, and with no outline other than a mouth – is speaking, someone exists through speech. In Beckett’s play it is Elle – She, a mouth that never says I.

Beckett did not write a monologue in which ‘Here I am’ or ‘I am here’ would be said – I who am speaking, a monologue in which a character, a subject, gives evidence of itself. Here, in this play, it involves a Not I – a Pas moi: it can be said that there is an Elle – She, or, rather, a MOUTH; it is about an impersonal mode, an open mouth in space. And who speaks in Acconci’s piece? Acconci’s mouth. What does this mouth say? I. But, more than appears at first sight, the person, the subject that speaks, is channelled away by this mouth, and a theme in art and an idea are thereby illustrated. Through Beckett’s impersonal Elle – She and Acconci’s impersonal Je – I, the identity of the person, the subject, shatters, empties out, the sauce of ‘what there already was’ and of ‘what we already knew’ runs out, the sauce of what was always and constantly the same, the being-full of being. These mouths, which make tangible what we see and hear, become linguistic pictures and at the same time vocalising, speaking images. On the rebound, every one of us, together with the depiction of a gesture from language to image, finds in this mouth the image of language, an image of all languages. Raya Lindberg MOUTH: . . . . out . . . into this world . . . this world . . . tiny little thing . . . before its time . . . in a godfor– . . . what? . . girl? . . yes . . . tiny little girl . . . into this . . . out into this . . . before her time . . . godforsaken hole called . . . called . . . no matter . . . parents unknown . . . unheard of . . . he having vanished . . . thin air . . . no sooner buttoned up his breeches . . . she similarly . . . eight months later . . . almost to the tick . . . so no love . . . spared that . . . no love such as normally vented on the . . . speechless infant . . . in the home . . . no . . . nor indeed for that matter any of any kind . . . no love of any kind . . . at any subsequent stage . . . so typical affair . . . nothing of any note till coming up to sixty when– . . . what? . . seventy?. . good God! . . coming up to seventy . . . wandering in a field . . . looking aimlessly for cowslips . . . to make a ball . . . a few steps then stop . . . stare into space . . . then on . . . a few more . . . stop and stare again . . . so on . . . drifting around . . . when suddenly . . . gradually . . . all went out . . . all that early April morning light . . . and she found herself in the--– . . . what? . . who? . . no! . . she! . . [Pause and movement] . . . found herself in the dark . . . and if not exactly . . . insentient . . . insentient . . . for she could still hear the buzzing . . . so-called . . . in the ears . . . and a ray of light came and went . . . came and went . . . such as the moon might cast . . . drifting . . . in and out of cloud . . . but so dulled . . . feeling . . . feeling so dulled . . . she did not know . . . what position she was in . . . imagine! . . what position she was in! . . whether standing . . . or sitting . . . but the brain– Extract from Samuel Beckett’s Not I, editions de Minuit, Paris, 1972

Proposition 1 - Michel François Proposition 2 - Loïc Vanderstichelen Proposition 3 - Daniel McClean Proposition 4 - Yves Brochard Proposition 5 - Guillaume Désanges Proposition 6 - Laurent Jacob Proposition 8 - Hans Theys Proposition 9 - Frank Maes Proposition 10 - Philippe Van Cauteren Proposition 11 - Rainier Lericolais Proposition 12 - Christine Macel Proposition 13 - François Curlet Proposition 14 - Joël Benzakin Proposition 15 - Lea Gauthier Proposition 16 - Jean-Paul Jacquet