Like a interplanar entity slowly emerging from the dismal bogs of Västra Götaland, Procrustean Bed is an imminent role-playing zone and workshop series developed by artists Adam James and Brody Condon. In this four-day saga, players are invited to dissolve their self-narratives and merge into two enigmatic streams of collective consciousness.
Experience One: Secluded within the dim light of 18th century agricultural worker’s dwelling, dig into the claustrophobic embrace and domestic anxieties of an intimate cross-generational family preparing for the looming spectre of change. Tightly woven with an embodied study of period craft production, their existence is punctuated by ritualistic, technological intrusions introduced by shadows from another plane.
Experience Two: Awaken in the boglands, submerged in a narrative that demands physicality and ritualistic repetition. Here, via improvisational movement, you’re invited to activate a thousand layered years of decaying moss in preperation for a transition to a early 1900’s sawmill. Amidst its ghostly but functional machinery, participants engage in creating large sculptural entities, weaving their new corporeal forms.
Procrustean Bed is a primarily non-verbal experience that focuses on material and somatic interactions to co-create a sphinx-like allegory that takes inspiration from intertwined regional narratives: the class struggle of Statare agricultural laborers, the mechanization of textile production, historical artifacts and biomes, and folk magic summoning interplanar travelers.
Anticipation is the fire in which we burn,
Adam and Brody
Supported by Kulturbryggan, Lindholmen Experimental Media Grant, the Borås Textilmuseet, and the hallowed halls of The Museum of Borås.