The thirst is real is a durational interactive performance which creates a controlled poetic environment for viewers to witness the “performance” of a water droplet dropping through space and into the artist’s mouth. Installed on the ceiling is sculptural vessel that releases drops in specific intervals. The artist, though present, is otherwise engaged by his consuming whatever he so pleases through his phone throughout the endeavour of the performance. The audience, if so persuaded, can speak to him directly by texting him (the artist’s phone number was applied to a battery pack with vinyl) acting as a direct conduit into the performance itself (perhaps even giving closer access than in other performances). Through engagement, the audience pulls themselves into the performance by occupying this heterotopic space of texting with the artist and in some ways performing themselves.

This performance was also a cheeky commentary on the dramatic/poetic work often found in performance festivals. Here the artist performs “liveness” by just existing in the space whereby audiences’ only real interaction with movement within the work is through a virtual lens. The artist quite literally turns himself into an hourglass.

Performed at Zero Gravity International Performance Art Festival, 2019