28.   SILVER TORUS  (For Todd Bludeau)

The action’s participants met T.Bludeau by the entrance to Botanical garden and brought him to a small clearing in the garden’s distant corner. There he was prompted to lie down on his back, his nape on the end of a silver foil strip. He was to start rolling over by command, in order to reach the other side of the clearing. In the course of such movement foil wound around his face, so each time he happened to be lying on his back, one of the participants pierced a hole in the foil with his finger (before starting, Todd was told to open his mouth every time he turned over).

When the whole strip of foil was wound on Todd’s head and all its layers were pierced so that he could breathe and speak through the hole, two action’s organizers sat beside him and began improvising (N.Panitkov on khomuz (Jewish harp), A.Monastyrski on flute). Immediately after they began, Todd was given a can with dried corn (as means of percussion), which was a (pre-arranged) signal for him to join in the improvisation. When improvisation was over, organizers took the foil ball with a hole off Todd’s head and used it to make a silver torus.

Moscow, Botanical garden

2nd of August, 1983

A.Monastyrski, N.Panitkov, I.Makarevich, G.Kizewalter