Birch Man (since 2012)

Birch Man began with a wearable exoskeleton I made from birch branches for a three day performative installation at the Berlin INET conference in April 2012. Since then I have worn it in a range of diverse performances in Berlin, Vienna, Santiago de Chile and Valdivia and I am still in the process of discovering its specific properties. 

While I am very critical of performance art that strives to assume shamanic or magical powers and some artists that engage in such practices, I am interested, even fascinated, in certain inexplicable properties of specific images, words and objects that defy rational explanation. It is in this ethnological spirit of observation, curiosity and experimentation that I wear the wooden suit of bones.

And still: I don't move birch man. He moves me. 

Performed at
Paradigm Lost: INET Conference 2012, Axica and Hotel Adlon, Berlin
MPA open: Kunsthaus ACUD/Month of Performanceart Berlin MPA–B
Otmar Wagner: Kollaps, Kunst, Moralverkehr, WuK Vienna/Austria
IV Bienal Deformes, Faculdad del teatro, Universidad de Santiago and Mueso del arte contemporaneo, Valdivia, Chile
Festival Blauverschiebung: Galerie KuB, Leipzig/GER

For images of Birch Man's first appearance at the INET Conference go here.