Stay Behind the Line
Reynir Hutber (UK)

Stay Behind the Line is an interactive installation that takes place in a specially constructed rectangular cell-like structure. When a visitor enters the space through its narrow doorway, they are confronted by a wall-mounted surveillance monitor directly in front of them. They may now notice a live relay of their feet in the top third of the screen. In the lower portion of the screen there is an anomaly: a superimposed recording of the artist’s twitching, naked body that is no longer physically present in the room. Some people have chosen to cover the figure with their jackets to keep it warm or have tried to feed it. What happens next depends on the visitor…

Reynir’s projects explore and question recurrent concerns in the lineage of performance practice. such as endurance, transcendence and transgression – in an era in which the authenticity of a visual document is increasingly hard to verify and appearances are effectively everything. Reynir seeks, as in the most infamous works of artists such as Chris Burden and Marina Abramović, to pursue risk and to engage his audience in an ethical and aesthetic experiment. He stages open-ended scenarios whose implications are ultimately determined by the audience’s response and interaction.

www.reynirhutber.blogspot.com

Co presented with Grand Union