Per Huttner will perform “Surgery and Ontology” within the framework of “An Infinite Love” in Paris on November 27. The performance constitutes a journey backwards in Time. The artist and audience together dwell on questions about life and death and how western conceptions about the difference between subjects and objects influence our understanding of the world.
The artist makes music and projects images. Both reflect on the relationship between subjects and objects. In making the music Huttner is assisted by Joakim Forsgren. The artist measures Forsgren’s brain activity using EEG which is sent to a computer where it influences the sounds are produce, using the EEGsynth. There is also a surgical object, a scalpel, that is connected to a similar EEG devise and that influences the sounds generated a second computer. It is a musical trio: two subjects and one object.
Some of the projected images are modern, but mostly they are historical testimonies related to how surgery has developed over time. Most of them present situations where the subject object distinction is hard to make. The performance ends with a clip from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Medea” from 1969.