Performance Artist Ramsauer In Conversation
She acts as a presenter and visual translator of the everyday. Using tape and turning the “unconscious” participants into a beautiful piece of installation art.
Birgit Ramsauer * 1962 Nürnberg I was born in Germany in 1962. Since 1992 I have been based in Berlin while travelling extensively to show my work, lecture and teach at various art schools and universities both in Europe and the USA.
I work with various media (installation, video, photography) but I see myself primarily as a performance artist, who not only aligns her own body and personality with different social environments, but also deliberately leaves behind visible traces. In the tradition of American and German Performance Art, I interfere with external contexts and mark the random remnants that other people unknowingly leave behind.
During my performances I act as a presenter and visual translator of the everyday, rather unimpressive human actions that can take place all over the world, and I often look for the active participation of the audience. As a detective would do in a crime scene, I collect evidences that allow me to initiate an analysis of the sociological and cultural context in which my actions are taking place.
I view the act of someone dropping carelessly a piece of paper onto the street as an “unconscious” performance piece (see: ART : HOME – LESS Project New York, Marseille, Moscow, Berlin). I mark this “uneventful” event and record it as a past gesture, like an archaeologist would do. Through my performances I want to bring awareness to certain characteristics that define the inner texture of a specific social environment. By highlighting behaviours and attitudes that people may not pay attention to and take for granted, such as standing in line, entering an elevator, or sleeping, my goal is to make people conscious of their actions, and of the consequences that these may have on other people or on the environment that surrounds them, without ever criticizing them.
In the performance Walk the Wall, I temporarily marked the location where the Berlin Wall used to stand with heavy white stones. I kept moving the stones ahead so that the contour of the wall would keep shifting forward. Soon people started to help me moving the stones, participating actively in the work. It felt like bringing the ghost of the Wall back amongst us and reliving history: the Wall went from being a symbol of the Cold War, with the political load that came with it, to an icon of freedom of a new-era, to an invisible ghost that is still searched for by foreign tourists and Germans alike. I feel that somehow, with this performance, I helped to materialize that ghost again, if only for the duration of the performance.
In Moving Standpoint I the three elevators of the Allianz building, in which I intervened with fluorescent tape, became the temporary venues for my performance. For the visitors, entering these elevators meant crossing a border, unwillingly interacting with the transformed environment and with others inhabiting it. It was interesting to analyze the response of people to this forced interaction: some loved it or were simply amused by it, some looked at the three elevators choosing the one that they liked the most before riding in it, some people seemed distressed by the new look and others probably hated it. Some ignored it while others chose to be involved in the creative process by adding their own design with coloured tape I provided, therefore becoming part of my action and of the artwork that came out as a result.
Paris, Baskirzev Grave is a slightly different work in which the performative aspect is combined with painting a photography. Following the story narrated by the author, I visited the various locations around Paris described in her stories where she spent time and took Polaroids of all of them.
Where do You live now? Berlin, New York
When did You start with tape art? I started to work with tape art in my ART : HOME – LESS Projekt in New York in 1998. 1. During my social work within a city program for reintegration of homeless people I learned more about the creative power of homeless people to define their privacy within public arena. Teiur way to work with found objects. They enlarge, length, they newly combine those into wonderful installations of a non permanent separation and protetion of their privacy. They as well work with tape!! 2. The tape borderline of movie people to create a outcut oft he public arena ist he second inspiration for my artistic work. Those tape marks create a world within the city. The tape line is a very thin mark between reality and imagination…. You step over You are in a different world….. Those two completely participants in daily life of of the city of New York inspired me to since 1998 find my artistic language with tape. Firstly in public space of metropoles, later in museums, private spaces etc. 3. My first large project, which became famouse in USA, Europe and Russia very soon (as well as in Japan) is my project ART : HOME – LESS (NYC, Moskau, Marseille, Berlin). With the help of several scholarschips (DAAD, Kolodzei Foundation USA, Triangle France, ifa, Treptowers, Kunstfabrik Berlin) I realised each metropole in ist specific „loudness“ in terms of light and color: which created the color oft he gafferstape
• NYC : red fluorescent gafferstape, the city is very vivid and loud, so it needed the color red to defend the artistic work
• Moscow: yellow fluorescent gafferstape, the city was in 1998 still without neon advertisement. The lights were in yellowish.
• Marseille (the so called „New York of France“): pink fluorescent gafferstape, the city is fancy and strange in colors. The light is bright in this southern hemisphere.
• Berlin: green fluorescent gafferstape, the city is the most green metropole. In 1999, when I realized my project there was a plan to keep the area of the former wall as a green park. So one bike all around the city within a green area. More Projects: Videos Interview Rezensionen
Why tape art? 1. With tape one creates a fast and exact line. Acurate handling and acting is accepted within chaos and diversity of public space. It than stands out as something made, defined, fabricated and ment ot be there. That for it defends itself agains immediate destruction. And tape is not permanent, when needed. 2. Tape with special qualities withint he guerrilla actions in public space: - it is not permanent - it does not destroy surfaces - is allows fast constructions - accurate work - it follows surface structures and contures. Thatfore it highlights and makes them visible. - gafferstape sticks to the ground Who and what inspires you? Who: John Cage, Lawrence Weiner, Caroleen Schneemann, Allan Kaprow, Enrico Baj, Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman, Valie Export, Philipp Glass, Alison Knowles, Merce Cunningham, Michel Foucault, J.S. Bach, Schostakowitsch, Marina Abramovic, Picasso, Christoph Wodiczko, Sten Nadolny, Günther Eich, Was: Kirchenbauten als Gesamtkunstwerk, die Oper als Gesamtkunstwerk, die Arbeit an Bühnenbildern, die Surrealisten, Dada, das Radio A synonym for art: „Art is life, and life is art„ „Art is mirroring society, - art is a sensor for the future of society the artist is the one to tell truth, because he is outside of normal structure of society.” Inspiring Quotes: „How can aesthetic practice make existing symbolic structures respond to contemporary events?“ Christoph Wodiczko, NYC More Projects: „DroP“: installation nexus art center Atlanta 2001: Klebeband mit anderen Materialien in einer Installation und als Performance „Yellow Square“: Moskau, öffentlicher Raum, Gallery Spider und Mouse, Guelmann Gallery, Maly Manege 2004