Inside/Outside/In 1981
I remember being in my hotel before the performance in Krakow. Bells were ringing which set the mood in concert with the centre of the city as in many cities across Europe.
I remember thinking about the schism between good and bad as perceived between Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc as known in the West.
In this circumstance positivity into negativity can be seen to be interchangeable in the presentation of a contradiction splitting European culture.
From the western perspective crossing into the east had a certain stigma as though it was somehow a disreputable or dishonourable act from the perspective of the Cold War where to do so even if it was legal, somehow smacked of disloyalty and disaffection. Perhaps it was only in my mind, although I was necessarily aware of the ideological rupture the Cold War presented by both sides, hence the title Inside Outside In. In the title is the question, is the bind. I see this now as the context.
The actions I made were not intended to answer the question but more to reflect upon the condition which at the time seemed to have no resolution. The slow cutting away of clothing from the body I experienced as a removal of whatever obstructions which eventually revealed the body naked. What might have alienated those present was the revelation of the body desocialised. At the same time the process of desocialisation might imply a base human exposure.
Stuart Brisley, 2018