A Body in an Observatory (2016)

17 minutes 37 seconds

Eiko performed A Body in Places at Wesleyan University's Van Vleck Observatory on November 6-7 in commemoration of the commemorating its 100th anniversary. This performance finished off a series of performances throughout Fall 2016 in Middletown and on the Wesleyan campus.

Program Notes:
"I imagine how, 100 years ago, people must have been so excited in seeing this great telescope arrive to the Middletown community in 1916. How moved people must have been when they saw the stars in a way they had not seen before. Having spent some time in the observatory with the kind and patient Astronomer Roy Kilgard and local star enthusiasts, I wondered how I could have not been more tempted to see so deeply into the night sky. Beautiful, is the seemingly endless cosmos that continues expanding. Time and distance entwine in seeing stars and far into space. Beautiful, also, is the human curiosity striving for far places. It makes me feel a bit fearful, however, how far humans strive. Our body meanwhile remains our commonality (yet unknown), a vehicle to other places, a home to rest, and a reminder of our very limits of both the length and space that one person's life occupies. My body is my measuring stick."

Special thanks to Roy Kilgard
Camera by Alexis Moh