the COVID19 estate

Abstract

The present series of 6 flyers (1HEX) springs from some elementary musings on Samuel Beckett’s QUAD, in this version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPJBIvv13Bc

The question asked is: how does the QUAD—considered as an invented contraption—relate to the appropriation of the broader spectrum of issues reflected in Samuel Beckett’s legacy, as an estate? What is taking place in QUAD? What are its workings?

And to the topic: can we foresee a broader application of QUAD in a collective and individual appropriation of a marginal and critical time as the pandemic, and in this way learn from it: could we, in this fashion, envisage a COVID19 estate?

What are the constellations of messages, forces and motion—lateral drift—that communicates from this critical period, at a verge of something unknown, but that we anticipate as a ‘new normal’?

Imagine that colours of the hooded garbs in QUOD are roles. One proceeds solitaire, has nothing else to rely on than herself… then comes one who joins the tracery of the first knowingly, then a third adds critique to the blend, and the fourth adds knowhow.

These are not the prerogatives of four individuals but entirely dependent on when they come in: and during the performance they will shift, because the order of appearance is permuted, and so also the lineup (Aufstellung). Consider the black spot on the floor.

In the beginning it is remote. Then it becomes tangled into the workings of the movements (the choreography), then it bears witness to when the absence of the 4 hooded shapes, when they are cloaked in darkness. When the QUAD has done its work, the black dot wires these three modes. Remote, personal, intimate (darkness).

Can we imagine the lockdown—and the pandemic—as an evolving constellation of these proxemic terms. Can we imagine the old normal as a different constellation, with the same terms? What will the future be like? Can we expect them to learn from each other? These are the questions raised in the COVID19 estate.