On Thursday 3 September at 6 pm and 7.30 pm, the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) presents Whereabouts, a performance by Copenhagen-based Swedish artist Aske Thiberg.
Whereabouts is a 25-minute solo performance. Surrounded by the audience, the performer executes precise, high-tension movements with an almost expressionless face, set to minimalist, looping digital melodies interspersed with sounds from online public audio libraries. The rhythmic sounds of the performer’s body – claps, footsteps, and occasional whistling – merge with the sparse synthesiser score, creating a melancholic, almost pop-like loop that fills the space.
The choreography draws on ‘locking’, a street dance style that emerged in the 1970s alongside funk music and is built on sharp pauses and freeze-like gestures known as ‘locks’. Thiberg draws on its mechanical vocabulary of claps, held poses, and abrupt transitions to create movements that hover between human expression and automated motion.
Triggered by looping sonic cues, each gesture raises an ambiguous question: is the performer responding to the music, or is the music controlling the body? As the performer moves, short texts are read aloud in a monotone voice – absurd stories of everyday relationships that gradually shift into something increasingly strange and dislocated. Drawing on Thiberg’s work with digital animation, both the movement and the narrative seem to unfold within a detached digital space, with its suspended gravity, distorted logic, and playful violence.
There will be two performances:
First performance: 6 pm
Second performance: 7.30 pm
Each performance will last approximately 25 minutes.
Due to the limited number of seats at the event venue, we kindly ask you to secure your spot in advance by purchasing a ticket: click here. When purchasing your ticket, please select the performance time that suits you best.
A performance ticket also includes same-day admission to ‘Superglue, or Inventing the Friend’. If space is available, visitors with a general admission ticket will also be able to attend the performance.
ASKE THIBERG’S (b. 1994 SE/DK) works across performance, video, text, and music, drawing on a background in 3D animation and dance. Driven by an interest in the social disconnection that shapes everyday life, Thiberg creates works and exhibitions that simultaneously echo the physical and digital worlds. His work explores loneliness and alienation, anxiety and melancholy, rhythm and weight, in ways that are by turns playful and serious.
Thiberg has exhibited at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Germany; Den Frie Centre for Contemporary Art, Denmark; Malmö Art Museum, Sweden, among other venues