Happiness, after childhood is often simply postponed, all the time, like a football player who bend his back to get a ball, but with his own walking feet kicks the ball all the time further away. Due to this dis-encouragement for being just happy from childhood onwards, people choose to be blind, to watch sellectively, to things that are not discomforting them, that allows them to go on, although they don´t know exactly how long it will take and what kind of happiness they are looking for, they get so bussy they even admit they have no time to think about it, or they think sellectively. Maybe vaguely knowing that they are now part of the business game of hapiness, they will soon start choosing for being an anonymous crowd, not to be bothered, not to be responsable for their choices. They feel safe in a crowd. This state of dreaming, of not really being present at the present, of not questioning for not knowing enough to diguest responsablities and uncomfortable answers, is the most dangerous state of mind before brainwashes that are needed to obtain a non-democratic state (of mind). There are also people who really see the beauty in everything, even in the ugly things, and this makes them survive, but it will not say they agree with what they see, but helpless people feel helpless; there is nothing that can help them out. Things can just occure like that. Life can put also allert and creative people in situations of being helpless. Strangely enough, and a point of interest for the Residency project of Brugge, we see how people, who want to feel safe, imitate the foetus position, waiting people take squatting positions, like a small child, people afraid and hiding themselves, make themselves as small as possible, like wanting to sit in a womb again. This is a timeless and an ageless attitude, and is an instinct executed all around the world.

When people are not stimultated to have an opinion, if people are not trained to form an own opinion, if people are not receiving tools for training their individuality, their personality, their own dreams and their own possibilities for creating happiness at this very moment, they will be a burden for their own society, a society that doesn´t understand their collective goal, their collective happiness; a dull agglomoration of people that will feel itself below the people that rule them, as they will agree that the rulers are entertained with the cheating process of a dull block of non-individuals. The helpless and the selfish. That's a foundation for any war. A place Full with people, each one alone, Empty. And a few with Full pockets, Full ego, Full power...but most likely also Empty inside. Is there a Border between the two?
Dull people might wake up, and feel an urge to do something, but they have no idea any more, they have no inner world any more, so they can suddenly do the most dangerous things just in order to awake from their own dullness. All emotions run in circles. There is a circle that starts at one end as Love and ends in the other end as Hate. The meeting point of both is a dangerous place to be, extreme love and extreme hate seems to go hand in hand. Grief with joy, jealousy with generousity, etc. We need sometimes to learn how to handle extreme emotions, and not be afraid. How to distinguish real emotions from fake or dictated emotions. How to express emotions. How to detect oppression. How to watch out but not be passive, negative. How to watch out but not be afraid. How to have freedom of speach, freedom of thoughts, freedom of actions but not hurt others or invade other people spaces. How to use technology but not become it. How to keep connection with the origin, with the nature, with the instinct, but not become old fashioned, against progress and plurality. How to be proud but not arrogant. How to love a country but not become a nationalist.

For doing research in the boundaries of freedom, in the boundaries of emotions, we will have to play with boundaries. Boundaries in space, in time. Time as a pendule, as a rhythm, limitations, oppression made by surrounded spaces, circles, geometry and a contrast in "empty" people and "full" people, a contrast of empty spaces ( Is possitive, asthere is space for imagination?) and full spaces ( Is there no room for anyone else, too much full, no air for thoughts?) Windows, mirrors, film, blocks, structures, holes, look through, prismas, paper, wind, air, limited spaces, rooms that get smaller, walls that reflects. Changes and fixed items. Yes and No. Two different sides that form a whole. Many different things that "work" together. We see the purpose of the Residency in Brugge as a way to make a lot of art pieces about the fullness and emptyness of people, in contrast of full and empty spaces. This will result in art installations, videos, photography, dance shows, actions in public spaces.

The World War I took especially place in the trenches in the earth, scares in the surface of no-ones land. Wounds of mud that made people feel safe, as safety was not insured outside the hidden place. But before a War happens, people "sit" actually already in a kind of shell, as they feel something will happen, but they might not be part o it, they don´t know anymore how to avoid it, it feels too big, and they feel at leasts best in their own shelter. That's why we have thought about molds, molds of people, boxes to hide in, but also mold as a series of clones, of empty people. Molds of people also show the inside of people...from outside they might look the same, from the inside they might be crying. Ever since war ends up in war, sacrifices are made in the circle of power-games, where anybody is nobody, is a whole family left in pain, a genealogical tree uprooted in the air of smothering minution. War gives collective pains, at the two sides; there are no boundaries.

When the "menmade" domination has gone mad, we hide in mothers skirt. When the Heaven above is Hell, we look for Mother Earth...we hide in a carton box. Belgium, at the beginning a neutral land, was maybe just because of that, the playground of alliances. Groups, leaders and followers, barricades and holes, but no boundaries in SOUND, no boundaries in GAS, no boundaries in COLD climate, no boundaries in WATER. No boundaries between the NOW and the FUTURE, because the FEAR for FUTURE changes the NOW into a FUTURE of CONTROLL.
Visibly an EMPTY LAND, but many people hidden into it, from all parts, coming from all directions to DIE for an EMPTY cause, and EMPTY reason. When EMPTINESS is there, we need a grip, we HOLD on something, be it a hand, a weapon, a fixed idea. And people WAIT, to see what happens, WAIT to see who will go, and who will return. Terrifying waiting. Nothing fills the SPACE OF WAITING. War is EMPTY. But we look for it, create it, provoke it, and then the only voice that screams "don´t do it" is not heard. Deaf, blind, speachless, helpless; EMPTY

1) ACTION; Title; "Watch or move".
An open square in the city, urban place; An audience is normally watching but not taking part. Looking in a crowd from a certain distance. A dancer in the middel of a square dances as the only voice not heard. As the only individual FULL in an OPEN SPACE. The audience is lined up in a square, as far as possible. The dancer dances all over. Sounds of water, of "gas", of unvisible forces. It doesn´t effect her. She dances her own story, in her own pace. The audience is invited to come closer, and the dancer goes inside one small space, or in the ground, hidden, small. And is not visible. Maybe she hides in a shelter, which is like a sacrofague, a coffin, a zeppelin, a submarine. The audience is invited to come in the middle, and around, on the walls surounding the space, the dancer appears, dancing, in projections against the wall. She looks at the audience, the audience has become the subject, and the dancer the audience, she is all over, and shines with lamps towards the audience, shows mirrors to the people looking at her. The sound is trembling, like trying to shake up the people, to make them awake. Slowly she disappears and the crowd disolves, under bright lamps looking at them. Like police lamps, or lamps looking for victims from the sky.

brugges