Katja Davar (Paperback)

With "Electric Spinning Gaze," Katja Davar examines the theme of metamorphosis on stage as well as in nature through the processes of folding and unfolding, the opening and closing of wings, thus embracing the inseparability of culture and nature. Katja Davar's starting point is an examination of the serpentine dance by American dancer, choreographer, and inventor Loïe Fuller (1862–1928), who, shortly before the advent of film, developed abstract choreographies with sweeping silk costumes, colorful lighting, and projections with the Laterna Magica. In Katja Davar’s project, the silk fabric becomes a dynamic projection surface, captured by a high-speed camera that seems to evoke artistic studies of light and color, along with the poetic literature of that period. Whether the patterns of movement on the theme derive from the flight of butterflies or the spreading movement of wings, they invariably oscillate between natural motion and digital illusion. A series of large-format abstract pencil drawings complements the film material–inspired by Matthias Grünewald’s garment studies from around 1511–and suggestive of figures on a stage in which the contorted plissés seem to have replaced the human figure.