ABOUT ROPE REPORT
I created this work during my residency at the Litho-Werkstätte Eichstätt in july 2009.
Rope Report is an ‘Aktion’ I executed in a public space. The outcome is on the one hand a work on paper in several versions, lithographically printed in limited edition. On the other hand a video on DVD and a stop-motion film on DVD.
Rope Report is part of an ongoing series of works I call “recordings”. After earlier recordings of animalic behaviour, this recording should be seen as a registration of certain planned actions that deal with human behaviour. It’s a movement in a literally sense, recorded/materialised in a specific way.
The second level of interpretation is the ‘human condition’ for acting, ‘drives’ and/or motives. It is obvious that the action of Rope Report –ropeskipping- is not driven by necessity/survival/nature. The intention for moving is on the level of training/preparing or playing/acting. A typical act for the Homo Ludens.
A third explication can be found in my research into the motif of this movement. This is closely attached to the place and time of creation, in this case the residency in Eichstätt in 2009. Eichstätt is a small city in Bavaria, South-Germany. The area is historically related with lithography due to its hosting quarries of superb quality lithographic stones. The presence of these stones attracted the inventor of lithography, Alois Senefelder. Senefelder was a writer of theatre plays at the turn of the 19th century who was looking for a more efficient way to reproduce his writings. This led me to choose a ‘ludique’ approach of the drawing aspect of lithography. This content is explicitly present /reflected only in the video Rope Report.
