Coco Fusco, FF Alumn, and Ricardo Dominguez, perform in Finland, 11/22/01

(Spanish version follows below - en Espanol debajo)

Announcing a forthcoming performance by Coco Fusco and Ricardo Dominguez:

Dolores from 10h to 22h

Presented by KIASMA, Helsinki, Nov. 22, 2001

Dolores from 10h to 22h is a twelve hour durational performance that will be broadcast live via the internet. It is based on the true story of a Mexican maquiladora worker who was accused on attempting to form a union and was locked in an office alone for twelve hours in order to coerce her to resign, and who subsequently sued her employer for violation of her civil rights.. The performance will be presented by Kiasma, Helsinki's Museum of Contemporary Art, on November 22, 2001 as part of their ARS festival. Several other venues in Australia, Great Britain, and the United States will be projecting this net.performance live as a marathon movie.

The performance itself will take the form of a docu-drama, and will be transmitted via security cameras directly onto the internet. The stylistic result will be a cross between surveillance video and soap opera, two televisual genres that engender viewing pleasure by positioning the spectator in the role of all powerful voyeur with access to t he private or secret realm of other people's lives.

The durational performance will combine the tests of physical endurance that defined body art of the 1970s with a social commentary on the disciplining of the female bodies of today's global assembly line workers via application of Taylorist principles in the workplace (i.e. sociological experiments in how to make workers more efficient). We hope to tease out a latent connection between the scopophilic pleasure generated by proliferating video surveillance systems and the instrumentalist reason that informs the view of workers as an extension of machines that can be retooled for increased productivity. In other words, while we grow accustomed to the rhetoric celebrating digital disembodiment that evolves within cybertheory and the burgeoning scientific discourses about the Human Genome Project, we are being trained through the pop cultural naturalization of surveillance to view imaging processes that dehumanize the body as "normal" and to uncouple labor from will. The current fascination with surveillance that runs through such television shows as "Survivor" and the popularity of web sites such as Jennycam and Anacam demonstrate how surveillance is being glamorized in new media culture. At the same time the underside of this phenomenon -- i.e. the disciplining of subjugated bodies in the global economic order -- is made to seem normal.

For this performance, Fusco will be under surveillance while she is locked in an office under guard. Dominguez will play the maquiladora manager who enters periodically to elicit her cooperation via intimidation. She will be in that office with machines that she assembled but does not know how to operate. None of her bodily needs will be attended to -- in other words, she will not be able to leave to use a bathroom, to clean herself, or to eat or drink. None of her emotional or social needs will be met either - her calls to the guard will not be answered, and she will not be able to use a telephone to notify anyone of her situation. At periodic intervals, the guard will enter the room to attempt to coerce her to do things against her will, such as confessing to actions she did not do, or signing papers that frame her as guilty of having violated rules she did not violate. Though at first she is respectful of the integrity of the machines in the room, she will eventually attempt not to destroy them but to dismantle them. What is not meant to be clear from this gesture is whether she seeks to undo her work as a form of resistance, to pass time without going crazy due to her isolation, or to learn finally about the technology that she has spent years putting together.

If you would like more information about this project, or if you would like to arrange to project it at your venue please contact Sanna Rekola at Kiasma: srekola@fng.fi.

DOLORES FROM 10h to 22H

Once upon a time in a not so faraway free trade zone at the northern edge of Mexico, a woman who cobbled machines together for a living was accused of trouble making at her job. Her boss locked her up in an office without food or water or a phone. He tried over and over to cajole her into signing a letter of resignation. He watched her to see if she would break down. She held out for twelve hours, and later she sued the company. Her boss told the judge that she was crazy and that it never happened. No one would claim to have seen her.

Dolores from 10h to 22h is based on a story that no one saw. November 22nd, you can see what happened.

Dolores from 10h to 22h is a net.performance by Coco Fusco and Ricardo Dominguez that will be broadcast live via internet on November 22nd, 2001 from Kiasma, Helsinki's Museum of Contemporary Art.

To view the performance live and add your comments to the chat, log on to between 10am and 10pm (Central European Time). URL: www.kiasma.fi/ars/dolores

DOLORES DE 10H A 22H

Una vez en una zona de libre comercio no muy lejana del borde norteño mexicano, acusaron a una mujer ensambladora de maquinas de hacer problema en su trabajo. Su jefe la encerró en una oficina sin alimento, agua o teléfono. El hombre la presionaba para ver si la mujer finalmente se arrepentía de lo que había hecho. Aguantó durante doce horas, después de aceptarlo demandó a la compañía. El jefe se refirió al juez asegurando que la mujer estaba loca y que eso jamás había sucedido. Nadie podría afirmar haberla visto.

DOLORES de 10h hasta 22h esta basada en una historia que nadie nunca vió.

El 22 de Noviembre podrás ver lo que sucedió.

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