Ana Janevski: The winter cover of Flash Art depicts you seated in leather pants, sleeveless shirt, high heels, with a mask, and with your head in your hands. You are seated on your performance structure and the audience is visible as well. How has performance changed for you over the last year? What was your experience performing with the mask? In retrospect, maybe foolishly, I put on a mask, kept the gallery as empty as possible, and created dozens of performance slots.
I wanted to do the right thing and I wanted it too much. That was naive of me. Performing in a mask in a cold, empty museum gallery with a dramatic echo is like stabbing yourself in the foot while trying to run a marathon. Doing that over and over was a bit self-destructive.
I loved this idea even more. Could you elaborate? Nora: Have you noticed all the companies these days trying to position themselves as tech companies? Outside the world of published criticism and press releases, in the context of a friendly drink, walk, or dinner, I almost always hear something else, a new and surprising reflection on my work. People see what they wanna see, they project so god damn much and I find that interesting.
What do you see in this thing I made? What do you project onto it and what can I learn from your projections? Just for the fun of it, lemme share a little conspiracy theory of mine with you. I feel that these Internet takes can be employed to diminish my work in the most elegant way. Ana: And what about the virtual world? Have you been asked to perform online? Nora: I have successfully avoided performing online so far so why mess it up now by doing a third-rate, Zoom-talking-head type of thing?
The moment you stop seeking and trading in attention, you can more easily distinguish what really makes sense for you and your work. I have this strange but super strong itch to get serious and do stuff well. Nobody has given me sufficient budget, time, and trust to cook up something good online. I had this idea of doing a cameo performance in some famous cartoon, like The Simpsons.
