Between a thought and a performance Marta Bosowska in process – some observations.
When Marta Bosowska works on her future performances, she is calm and focused. When Marta Bosowska plans her future performances, she is ‘as cold as ice’. When we observe Marta Bosowska at the stage of planning her performances, we may say that she shows ‘cold calculation’, ‘zero emotions’, ‘unemotional intellectual operation’. Everything above suggests that at this stage and all stages Bosowska shall have control over smallest detail. It is so easy to come to hasty conclusions: ‘if the beginning is so cold, the end shall also be cold’ – the execution of performance shall be cold, precise, calculated in every detail.
I was about to make this mistake thinking that I know how the situation would unfold. Fortunately, I had a chance to observe Marta Bosowska in the process of her work. It happened not that long ago (May 2016) during Interakcje [Interactions] in Piotrków Trybunalski. It was then that Marta told us that we were going to a shopping centre, where all participating artists would perform in so-called public space. I told Marta that I found it difficult to work in such areas, but I would gladly accompany her. Marta said that she would do a short symbolic action with a bell she had. She thought everything through, and she had everything planned. When we arrived, it turned out that Marta’s bell is hefty. We had to organise a trolley to deliver it to the meeting place. Marta was sitting calmly watching performances of other artists. I thought she gave her plan up and so I went to a different part of the shopping centre. Suddenly, unexpectedly, I heard the sound of the bell. The sound of growing, it was moving, it was overwhelming in the vast space combined with other aggressive sounds. I could not believe that it was happening. Marta was moving as if in trans. All of the sudden I saw her on a higher floor, but the sound of bell did not stop, and Marta appeared even further up. When we all thought she finished, suddenly it turned out that she ran outside the shopping centre. Only to return and to start everything with even greater force. The artist finished her performance when she was completely exhausted – physically and mentally.
Next day when I was looking at bruises on the artist’s body, which appeared after being hit by the bell, I thought that the performance of Marta Bosowska started in a breakthrough moment. It was a critical point x when it seemed that nothing else could happen in that space. It was then that Marta started to ‘catch her rhythm’, levitate over the ground. Soon the rhythm and movement began to loop. The action was overwhelming. The sound and movement were interwoven. They were inseparable. The pace of performance was developing into unstoppable, mad, unpredictable action, but everything was according to the artist’s plan.
29/12/2016, Wroclaw