COLLABORATION WITH LUCAS MURGIDA
Live action, 3:30:00, 2011

In the space, there is a 20-foot un-cemented cinder block pillar and a scissor lift. There is a small video camera mounted above the far corner of the room and another on the rail of the scissor lift. Both cameras are fed to live projections on the side-wall of the gallery.

Murgida (unclothed), our assistant, and I enter the space. I remove my clothes and Murgida puts them on. The assistant then begins to mummify me with duct tape, while Murgida carefully operates a scissor lift, dismantling the cinder block pillar we had constructed earlier. Murgida uses the cinder blocks removed from the pillar structure to construct a second structure, two walls in the corner of the room where I am being wrapped.

After I am completely mummified (with the exception of my right hand), our assistant lowers me to the floor and puts his hands through the gap in a cinder block that Murgida had placed on its side in the wall. Murgida then duct tapes the assistant’s hands together, trapping him inside. When Murgida is about 10 minutes away from completely dismantling the pillar, he reaches through a second sideways cinder block and places a pair of scissors in my hand. As he finishes working, I cut myself out of the duct tape.

After finishing the two-wall corner structure, Murgida takes off his clothes, tosses them over the wall to me, and puts his hands through a third sideways cinder block. I put the clothes on and duct tape Murgida’s hands together. I begin to dismantle the wall from the inside. I then climb over and cut our assistant’s hands free. The assistant and I then deconstruct parts of the walls Murgida had built and reassemble them into a third four-wall configuration of cinder blocks to enclose him.

After we place the last cinder block, Murgida remains enclosed until the show ends.