“Pay No Attention to the Woman Behind the Curtain”
Özge Topçu, 2022
Art Performance, 40 min
“Pay No Attention to the Woman Behind the Curtain” is an art performance led by the conceptual artist Özge Topçu. The performance’s burlesque version is particularly iterated for the Halloween Night at Hypercube Space presented by EarlyStation DAO. The performance combines cymatics science and sound frequencies generated by the Tibetan Singing Bowl instrument. It is a participatory art performance shaped by audience interaction and inspired by the shamanic background of stereotypical supernatural witch ceremonies.
The name of the performance is inspired by a well-known quote from the retro cult movie “The Wizard of Oz”. In the performance, the artist uses irony and pastiche. She manipulates positive science to distort the daily facts like magicians do and reveal the manipulations which shape societies’ perception. The theme of the artwork manifests through the artist as she says, “I wanted to reveal the artificial fiction of the contemporary world system and how the absolute credibility of this fiction was influential on people.”
During the performance, the audience will be encouraged to interact with the water display bowls situated on top of the frequency transmitters. As the artist emits sound from the physical instrument (Tibetan Bowls) behind the curtain, the water in the display bowls will move, simultaneously with that of the sound. Additional representation Tibetan Bowls carry in this performance stems from “cauldrons,” originally used by witches, displaying the magical effects of the cymatics patterns created on water as a result of sound frequencies.
Contributors: Moongatha
Santeodoro