David Helbich: Scores for the body, the building & the soul

In Flann O’Brien’s novel The Third Policeman, scientist-philosopher de Selby introduces the reader to ‘Atomic Theory’, according to which all things that are in contact with one another exchange atoms and as such also slowly exchange characteristics, like bicycles and their riders, trees and tree huggers, or visitors and buildings. David Helbich proposes a booklet full of performance scores specially for the showroom of KANAL. With these instructions, the visitor to the exhibition is invited to self-perform the actions. Each performance engages both the architecture of the building and the history of performance art. The visitor enacts a multilayered composition through his or her body. David Helbich has been living and working in Brussels since 2002. He studied composition in Amsterdam and Freiburg. A sound, installation and performance artist, he is also a photographer and teacher who creates a diverse range of experimental and conceptual works for the stage, for paper and online media, and in the public space. KANAL has invited him as associate artist for the duration of the exhibition It Never Ends. He will be present throughout the seven months of the exhibition with several performances and interventions. His trajectory moves between representative and interactive works, pieces and interventions, between conceptual work and actions. His concepts are often presented in print, such as photo and illustrated score books as well as in live performances, sound interventions, audio guides and on social media. Many of his works address concrete physical and social experiences. A recurrent interest is the direct work with a self-performing audience. Over the last 15 years, his work has been shown all over Europe, and has recently been presented at, among others, the Martin-Gropius-Bau (Berlin), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Oude Kerk (Amsterdam), Queens Museum and UnionDocs (New York), and Café OTO (London). Helbich received the First Prize for the composition award 'ad libitum' (Stuttgart) for his piano book Für aufrichtiges Klavier (2011). In 2013 he released the album Outcuts on the label Surfacenoise. His music has been played by, among others, Ensemble Modern, Maulwerker and Scenatet. He is the author of the bestselling photo books Belgian Solutions (volumes 1 and 2), published by the Antwerp-based Luster. Instructions and scored concepts to be self-performed in and around architectural objects.