Kunstraum, Düsseldorf
19/07/2012
First activation of the JUNGLE FEVER user’s guide 8 hour excursion (page 22-30)
A series of experiments in reclaiming Leisure and Tourism using the strategies of their consumption
With Antoine Beuger, Sylvia Schimag, Marcus Kaiser, André o Muller, Christoph Nicolaus , Pablo Estrada, Daniel Brandes, Joep Dorren , Ria Blumenthal and a few other visitors through out the day
The jungle fever I speak of is a very slow, very quiet fever, the excitement all within. (antoine beuger)
The gallery space is turned into a departure lounge, displaying visual traces of past destinations, where the JUNGLE FEVER user guide can be acquired and activated in collective and individual excursions. It is also a base and a meeting point where food and refreshments are provided by the artist turn host.
JUNGLE FEVER user’s guide
A 42 pages pocket size user’s guide in three languages (English, German and French) replacing the artist turned tourist guide that I had been in past experiments.
An invitation to play, in our every day, together or alone, indoors or outdoors, at home or abroad, it proposes short ballades, 8 hours and 24 hours journeys. The instructions can be followed literally, metaphorically, or poetically and the accompanying map refer equally to the body, the mind or the environment (indoor or outdoor) as potential sites of exploration.
8 hour itinerary
As long as a working day, it has been arrived at through a deconstruction of many trips found in conventional travel guides.
We start with a breakfast and an introduction of the day and of the users’s guide.
Some stay at base all day, travelling in their head, some leave in the morning and come back at the end, following the 8 hour itinerary scrupulously, a few drop in and out.
We finish with gathering back at base for a moment of improvised recollection before good food and wine and the sharing of one’s stories as one does after a good trip away.
” mirror what you did, echo what you heard, walk backward, leave no trace”. (JF guide, page 24)
jungle fever, düsseldorf, postcard
JUNGLE FEVER (wish you were here)
was initiated in 2011, originally as an attempt to reclaim Leisure and Tourism, by subverting the strategies of their consumption for collective explorations of personal borders, as if they were exotic or unchartered territory. The project has evolved in response to what fellow junglers contributed along the way. It was thought that perhaps it is not just Tourism that needs to be reclaimed, since hand in hand, the media and the global economy have transformed the world into a glossy attraction, and its inhabitants into tourists and consumers.
It is inspired by Rober Filliou insightful words: “ Leisure will have an important role in society. .. The role of the artist is to promote the creative use of leisure and creativity as a way of life, but also as a weapon against alienation” (Teaching and learning as performing art, 1970.)