METAMEAT

Bodies slide into view from the upper corners of the black surface while accompanied by the metallic creaking of a spring. The pigmented skin resembles a geological map; its segments merely allege to be a body: we need to imagine the rest. There is barely audible whispering, as if the edited body parts are quietly conversing and then withdrawing from the viewer’s gaze.

Sabine Marte’s voice emerges from the darkness with a song that comes to occupy the space and, through repetition of its words, changes their meaning. “Dear, dear, body, stay,” echoes in the mind. The artist reiterates individual motifs and short phrases to form musical structures. The voice from offscreen is not given a body – or so it appears. However, every voice has a body, even if it remains invisible. A tension arises between presence and absence, between visibility and acoustic embodiment.

A tracking shot shows an abandoned area, modular functional buildings, with a group of young women at the center, sculpturally positioned on a pedestal. Cutback.
Masks and stencils fragment and are superimposed over body parts. Scars emphasize the feeling of oppression. Perforated forms open the view – to what lies behind, what is in between. Architecture shapes the body, frames it, transforms it into an architectural element – until it leaves this frame and bursts through it. In between, in the middle, above, we hear the words of Sabine Marte and a quote by Friederike Mayröcker, both of whom play with language, draw from it, and perform it.

METAMEAT works with a complex mélange of sound, video, voice, and body. Fragments and montage become aesthetic strategies: they destabilize the whole and open up new forms of reality. (Dagmar Schink) 

Translation: John Wojtowicz