Kaja Clara Joo



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RUFFIAN DANCERS
Video Movie: ︎

2023: Steelpipes, Natural Rubber, Silicone Oil, 4-Channel Video-Loop

Roughneck, which also translates to “Ruff Skull”, is a term for a person whose occupation is hard manual work, often associated with drilling rigs. Through found film footage that depicts people changing oil pipes, the work blurs the borders between labour, dance, and the eroticism of matter. Bodies drenched in sweat follow technical processes. Their movements occur in such peculiar smoothness that it might remind one of a performative, collaborative act to keep track of standardized protocol. The videos are installed amidst two disintegrated pieces of dark glistening rubber that seem to foresight disaster as the viewer is confronted with an alternative cycle of transition: as bodies dance to drench out further fuel from unknown depths, the sculpture manifests as an ominous entity, like oil spillage, washed up on a shore.