ROEST [Rust] is a piece in which I would like to show two bodies confronted to a machine. By using this machine I want to explore the possible physical borders of the human body, and push them further. The machine will manipulate the body that it contains, will try to push it in all sort of shapes, but is conducted itself by a second body.

The focus lies on the relation between the two bodies, one manipulating the other. The questions that arise are the following: can we possess someone else's body; what are the consequences of a complete dependence on the decisions someone else makes; when does a body lose its function of body and what happens if we consider it as an object, how do we react if things go terribly wrong?

In lijfstof (collaboration with Charlotte Vanden Eynde, 2000) I investigated the relation body-object, and the possibilities of the body as an object. In ROEST [Rust] I would like to go one step further: to create body images by investigating the relation between two bodies. ROEST [Rust] will be a story of two bodies connected and abused by a stone cold machine. Two bodies trapped in a spiral of continuous decay, trying to liberate themselves of their rusted minds. The inspiration for ROEST [Rust] can be found in the freak show, where people thread human bodies in a very object-oriented way, where people often are exhibited and manipulated against their own will. Important for me is this dark atmosphere of the freak show, not the spectacular-painful.

For the creation of the machine I found inspiration in the ''machine célibataire''. This is a term, originally used by Marcel Duchamp for his "le grand verre", for a collection of often unreal or imaginary machines, in which certain contrasts have an important role: the male vs. the female, sexual vs. mechanical, life vs. death.