Prádelna (Wash house)

Prádelna (Wash house)

2014, Czech Republic, DVCAM & Super 8mm, b/w, sound, 5 min.

Photologic reflection on theater and history of health and hygiene. The material shot during the rehearsals of the Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade by Althea Thauberger (Prague, 2012) is now used as a pretext to examine the mechanism of theater and its power of purification. The play was set in an ancient wash house that makes part of the large complex of the Prague mental hospital Bohnice. There are not only actors playing but also some of the patients.

I make use of the metaphorical appearance of the images and of the alternation of the light and darkness. The dualism of light and darkness refers to the traditional conception of the opposites as good/evil, healthy/ill, clean/dirty. I oppose this imagery to Artaud’s complaint about humans and human condition. The audio comes from the radio-piece Pour en finir avec le jugement de Dieu, it was manipulated into fragments and reedited.