During Saâdane Afif's exposition at La Panacée (Montpellier), Peter Lökös was involved in two performances related to the works shown. The exposition Merdre! can be visited from 13 October 2017 until 15 January 2018. At the Sharjah Biennale, Afif recorded and transcribed his discussion with a craftsperson, who was ordered to design Enzo Mari's "Proposta per un autoproggettazione", more precisely, four chairs made of palm spines. They did not speak the same language, therefore two interpreters were involved in the communication. This dialogue (which hence became a tetralogue) is now part of his piece Heritages, presented in the form of a live performance. The misunderstandings rising from the double translation and cultural differences often allow for intriguing situations. In his other public performance, Donner la Réplique ou Ubu Roi disséminé, Afif cut up the text of Alfred Jarry's drama and printed it on 701 average size flyers, containing only one sentence each. Performers are handing out the flyers as if they did so for advertisement or political activism. Passers-by are given a fragment of the piece which, having lost its context, become completely incomprehensible.
Though less evidently related to QVE's quest of sensory art, both performances play around with general expectations of the public. The reformulated questions and answers of Heritages sound repetitive and thus become meaningless, though the utterances convey an informative dialogue which normally makes sense. Likewise, the loss of validity of Ubu Roi (no pun intended) examines a phenomenon often addressed by QVE. How can we communicate anything, when all we can work with are fragments, remainders, hiatus?
