(Performance and installation of drawings / maps)

The Twitching Project
Diane Borsato
Quebec City, 2003

Description:
I created The Twitching Project as a site specific installation and performance in the row of former prison cells at the National Museum in Quebec. Six performers, including myself, were seated in the cells and attached to small sensing devices. The performers moved their legs in a restless, twitching manner, and the devices clicked and counted with each movement. Counters on the outside of the cells were rapidly calculating the leg movements like a stride - in a distance in kilometers.

In this way, the seated performers were at once present in the cells, and using their nervous movements to escape. Three large maps/drawings showed the distances from Quebec to various world cities, from Chicoutimi to Rio De Janiero, and even to the moon.  Viewers could estimate how far each nervous performer had escaped the confines of his or her small cell.

We performed on 6 occasions for 4 hours each, and video documentation was available in our places for the duration of the exhibit.

Exhibition History:
The piece was performed at the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, Curated by Anne Marie Ninacs, Part of the Manifestation d’art International du Quebec: Quebec City.