Katharina Schmitt – SAM
Director and writer
Katharina Schmitt
Set and costume design
Marsha Ginsberg
Cast
Jesse Lenat
Premiere
October, 21st, 2012 at the Watermill Center
Sam, a performance artist from New York, has himself locked in a cage for one year. A self-experimentation with total reduction and isolation, which also betrays a radical inexorability towards himself. Sam’s performance follows the strictest rules: no talking, no reading, no writing; the same food every day, the same visitor at the same time. Thus, he creates no piece, nothing that will outlast the time spent. After a year in the cage, Sam will find himself unable to overcome these self-given rules – the inner restrictions seem to be more enduring than the outer prison.
Inspired by Tehching Hsieh’s One-year performances, Katarina Schmitt describes how art can become a dungeon – and a parable for the prison of body and time, from which we can’t escape, not even through an act of art.