Tom Isaacs

I was invited to exhibit documentation of my work Ruach (2011) as part of the exhibition, ‘per.doc’ at Articulate Project Space:

“The 4th in Articulate’s Decade Show series features some of the performances and associated projects undertaken at APS over the past 10 years. It focuses on performance as the primary component of works which present the live body in relationship to this space and its architecture, both in new performance and in documentation of (artist-selected) performance previously shown at Articulate. How artists realise their documentation has been left open.”

I wrote the following updated artist statement for the exhibition catalogue:

“In 2011, I was invited to spend two weeks working in the Articulate project space with the aim of producing work that responded to the site. During this time I devised a new performance piece called Ruach which I performed in the back room. For this performance I spent three days and nights in the space practicing breath meditation, capturing my exhalations in white balloons which slowly accumulated, filling up the space. My goal with this performance was to objectify the act of contemplation, to take something invisible—breath, spirit, energy—and make it visible. Ruach is a Hebrew word which means breath, life, or soul. In the book of Genesis it is the Ruach of God which is breathed into the first man, giving him life. Much later, the prophet Ezekiel witnessed the Ruach of God animating the bones of the dead, restoring them to new life. This Ruach is literally the breath of life. At the time that I performed this piece I still believed in God and I believed that I was filled with his spirit. As I put it then, “I was created by God in His image and His Ruach lives within me. And for a time it was in the Articulate Project Space, 497 Parramatta Rd, Leichhardt.” I am currently agnostic about the existence of gods and souls.

“In addition to making something visible, the original performance of Ruach took something ephemeral—breath, duration, performance—and made it physical and enduring (although not permanent). The balloons were, in effect, a form of documentation, albeit a temporary one (as I suppose all human attempts at documentation are likely to be on the grandest time scale). If I had kept the popped and deflated balloons from the performance I could have exhibited them as an indexical document. In their place I have chosen to exhibit the leftover unused balloons which remained at the end of the three day period. Alongside these artefacts I have selected one photograph of the performance by my good friend Alex Wisser.”