LAURA_ AkiÓ-> PaarungsRitual
Between 23 days, Laura Carvalho was in residency in Germany Tübingen, to produce her project LAURA _ AkiÓ-> PaarungsRitual (paarungsritual, is a german word that translated to english means- mating ritual). This project was presented in the last day of the third edition of the Generate Festival, a festival focused in digital performance.
LAURA _ AkiÓ->PaarungsRitual, is a digital performance that reflects a work in progress, that started in São Paulo, Brazil in August 2016, when Laura Carvalho opened a Tinder and an Ok cupid account (dating apps).
Seeing this apps as a plataform for self-merchandising, Carvalho decided not only to publish in her Tinder profile her website, but as well to appear as her figure, LAURA _ AkiÓ ->, characterized by the use of her unique hat.
Carvalho´s profile in these dating apps can been seen as a digital performance by itself. The fact that the artist portraits herself as her figure LAURA _ AkiÓ ->, creates a clop in the media- The images in her profile drastically differs from the selfie-portraits we are used to see in the profiles of the users of dating apps.
Taking advantage of the potential intrinsic in a blind date which allows you to be whoever you want, the artist went further with her project in Tübingen, Germany. Now the date itself has become a live performance.
During 6 days, LAURA _ AkiÓ-> had recorded her 6 Tinder dates, in the city. The waiting of LAURA _ AkiÓ->, to her Tinder date and the date itself, was filmed by the artist., by a filming system attached in her hat, invetend by her, that resembles the records obtained by a Gopro camera. Thanks to this system was possible, not only, to record the “Tinder date”, but the reaction and the relation of the people that were in the place where the date happened.
The apresentation of LAURA _ AkiÓ-> PaarungsRitual, in the Generate Festival on the 11 of november of 2017, tried to create a reference of what was her “tinder dates” in Tubingen. A projector behind the table where LAURA _ AkiÓ-> was sitted, projected the messages received by her in her account in Tinder and Ok cupid.
In the end of night, the artist presented the audio-visual record of her performance.(Watch the video). The sound track is made from the remix of four songs, related with love and loneliness (“Doi, doi, doi”- Ponto de Pomba Gira, brazilian folk song from Umbanda religion, “Dance me until the end of love”-Leonard Cohen, american song from the eighties, “Griechischer Wein” – Udo Jürgens, classical german song from the seventhies)
Subverting the use of these dating apps, the artist points out how this digital tool already changed our relationships. Questioning the boundaries between art and life, private life and public life, LAURA _ AkiÓ-> PaarungsRitual, open to a discussion regarding image rights, privacy and contemporary relationships.
