FALSE KRAFTWERK, 2010

Mark Laliberte - Toronto, Canada

Performance Art

"We are the robots!"

False Kraftwerk is a multi-layered experiment in a kind of 'performative fakeness' that is not modeled after a karaoke experience or lip-synch stances. This work will examine common opinions about the legitimacy of electronic music performance as a live art, while simultaneously exploring the oversimplified 'pop' body in relation to technology, sound and vision.

Four uniformed figures, visually unified in red shirt and black tie, will enact a human puppet show using the sounds and imagery of eccentric electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk as a base. While Kraftwerk music plays throughout the evening and videos of the seminal group performing are used as a seductive projected backdrop, the actual performers occupying the stage will be left with little to do. The live men are the 'empty track' in this techno-pop megamix; they have no cues to hit since the machines are ultimately running the show. Emphasizing bored stances, they will be reduced to showroom dummies trapped in front of their audience, passing the time by reading a book, checking their email or chatting with one another.

By mixing overt fakeness with calculated automaton gestures, False Kraftwerk offers an existential encounter between performer and audience. See men do nothing, in style!

Mark Laliberte is an artist/curator/designer/experimental poet/soundmaker who has exhibited throughout Canada and the U.S.A. He is the editor of the eclectic hybrid-lit journal Carousel, and is a founding member of Thinkbox, a new media collective who explore technology in relation to both gallery and commercial distribution networks.

Suitable for all ages