Guilty Landscapes / episode IV

Dries Verhoeven

(Netherlands)
2016 – Video installation, duration ca. 8 minutes

Dries Verhoeven’s work explores the edge between theatre and visual arts. His projects challenge the relationships between spectators, performers, art and everyday reality. In the video installation Guilty Landscapes/episode IV, Verhoeven examines the relationship between an Asian online sex worker and the spectator.

With the Internet becoming increasingly fast and reliable, sex workers from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand capitalise on the Western need for intimacy. Men and women from these tourist areas are finding a new mode of living in the webcam sex. Following other industries, also this satisfaction of needs is now outsourced to the global south. At the other side of the screen, potentially dubious practices are pouring into Western laptops. Can we relate to these men and women on an equal footing, or does our presumed power position prevent us from doing so?

The video installation is on display at Centraal Museum from 3 – 7 November and is intended for one visitor at a time.

Photo: Ohm Phanpiroj

Dries Verhoeven

― Artist

Dries Verhoeven (1976 Oosterhout, the Netherlands) is a theatre maker and visual artist. Dries Verhoeven creates installations, performances and happenings in museums, on location and in the public spaces of cities. On the boundary between performance and installation art, he critically evaluates the relationships between the spectators, performers, everyday reality and art. The spectator is directly involved in the work or given the opportunity to steer his or her own experiences. The work by Dries Verhoeven was shown in international festivals, such as Wiener Festwochen, LIFT (London) and Festival Transamérique (Montreal). He has received various prizes including the Mont Blanc Young Directors Award at the Salzburger Festspiele. He has worked with HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berljn, Battersea Arts Centre London, and the Münchner Kammerspiele, among others. Many works were seen at SPRING, and the former Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht. The Municipality of Utrecht and the Dutch Performing Arts Fund provide continuous support for Verhoeven’s studio. Dries Verhoeven resides in Berlin and Amsterdam.

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