BMW Tate Live Performance Room Nora Schultz

LONDON -- November 24, 2014: German artist Nora Schultz will present a new performance work for BMW Tate Live that explores the hyper real and detached nature of cyberspace. Her live performance will be broadcast on 11 December 20:00GMT via the Tate’s You Tube channel Tate Live. BMW Tate Live Performance Room is a pioneering programme of live performances commissioned exclusively for online viewing and simultaneously seen by international audiences across world time zones. BMW Tate Live is a longterm partnership between BMW and Tate, which focuses on performance, interdisciplinary art and curating digital space.

For this work Nora Schultz references the Stephen Spielberg film, Terminal, that sees a man trapped in an American airport terminal when refused entry to the US and simultaneously not able to return to his own country after his nationality status is declared invalid. Schultz sees parallels in the exaggerated reality and isolated existence of the airport terminal, emphasised in the film, with the nature of performance and the position of a performer.

In this work the Performance Room space becomes a terminal to cyberspace. In Terminal +, Schultz plays the part of the protagonist stationed within the terminal. During the performance she deconstructs the foam-lined interior, using sections of the foam to print their folded shapes on the floor and walls of the room. As the performance progresses, there is a transformation from the physical to digital as the work is broadcast live via the Internet. A countdown, a recurring element in Schultz's work, will be present through a looping voiceover in a soundtrack that accompanies her performance. The soundtrack also includes the voice of the protagonist in Terminal +, that Schultz acts out in her performance, giving voice to an inner monologue about their experience within Terminal + and their journey into cyberspace.

Nora Schultz currently lives and works in Berlin. Her work spans sculpture, installation and photography. Often working with printing devices and rotary presses to make monumental, sculptural arrangements and prints, Schultz regularly turns this process into live performances. Schultz also works with industrial materials, refuse and discarded objects, repurposing these found materials in a process committed to interrogating the mechanisms of artistic process. Recent solo shows and performances include parrottree—building for bigger than real at the Renaissance Society in Chicago, 2014, Rug Import at Campoli Presti, London, 2013, as well as Portikus Printing Plant and Portikus Sounds at Portikus, Frankfurt, 2012,Countdown Performance, (as part of Words in the World) at MoMA, New York, 2012 and Hebezeug at Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin, 2010.

The innovative format of Performance Room offers international audiences an opportunity to experience entirely new works live and to join a discussion about the work online. The global online audience are encouraged to chat with other viewers via social media channels during the performance and to put questions to the artist or curator for the live Q&A by following @TateLive; using #BMWTateLive; Tate Facebook; or Tate Google+. Each online performance is archived and available to view online after the live event.

BMW Tate Live is curated by Catherine Wood, Curator, Contemporary Art and Performance and Capucine Perrot, Assistant Curator at Tate Modern.

BMW Tate Live

BMW Tate Live is a long-term partnership between the BMW Group and Tate that features innovative live performances and events including live web broadcast, in-gallery performance, seminars and talks. BMW Tate Live aims to reach an international audience through new forms of art, addressing audiences changing needs, tastes and interests in art. The initiative creates a new space for collaboration and a programme that encompasses performance, film, sound, installation and learning – areas where artists can take greater risks and experiment freely. The programme investigates transformation in all its guises and aims to provoke debate on how art can affect intellectual, social and physical change. More information at BMW Tate Live