as I collapse - Online live installation

May 2020

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as I collapse - Recoil Performance Group

The installation is about the cognition and sensitivity between living beings explored through the element of water. The online format offers a social distancing safe bridge between the physical space you inhabit as receiver and the physical space we inhabit as art makers, embracing the shared virtual space where we meet.

Our tiny co-creator  in as I collapse is the luminous micro algae by the name Pyrocystis Fusiformis. Pyrocystis Fusiformis can produce light with its body when exposed to sudden movement, making this invisibly small algae, visible – even from space. Casting their glowing blue light across the surface of the ocean, and swirling in big streams and numbers, they make enough light to make them visible from outer space.
Embracing these different aspects of scale, and the very special ability of this microscopic being,  the installation elaborate on the encounter between the human body and the microscopic algae by inviting our audiences to join a collective speculation –

A mental game:

What would it be like to be adopted by these microscopic beings?


What would it mean to adapt to their habitat, their organization?


Can we imagine extended families across species?


What would we gain or lose in terms of singularity, sustainability or survival?


When does the “I” collapse and the “we” rise above it?


And what is already shared between us?

Concept and choreography: Tina Tarpgaard

Performer: Nelly Zagora

Text: Ida Marie Hede and Nelly Zagora

Sound and video design: Mikkel Peter Larsen

Researching artist/ Consultant: Pei-Ying Lin

Producer: Carlos Calvo

PR: Ida Fredericia

Graphics, photos and video: Søren Meisner