TOUR DE FORCE. El cos utòpic

[TOUR DE FORCE: The Utopian Body] 2017

13.12.18 – 7 pm

A dramatic extract from the fifth act of TOUR DE FORCE (2017), which has only previously been witnessed by an audience of six people in the setting of a white limousine driving on a route through Barcelona. The project as a whole puts together a conceptual history of the HIV/AIDS pandemic—from the fear and stigma surrounding diagnosis and infection in the 1980s and 1990s to the possibility today of its management and control via pharmaceutical compliance. 

This performance corresponds to the latter historical context, addressing the complexities of understanding the disease in an epidemiological sense and as a symbolic phenomenon enmeshed with global governance, human rights and civil liberties. A performer dressed in black leather garments makes a ritualistic reading from a mobile device, listing the dates on which new antiretroviral drugs have been approved for use in the US, beginning from 1987. The brand names of each of the medications join the litany of dates, and the pill trademarks are repeated as though they were figures worthy of veneration: Saint Genvoya, Saint Stribild, Saint Odefsey, etc.

The subtitle refers to a 1966 radio broadcast by the philosopher Michel Foucault, known for his histories of healthcare and sexuality, who in 1983 became the first public figure in France to die from an AIDS-related illness.

Performer: Eduard Escoffet

Unrestricted access.