Earlier that autumn I was on my way to some friends. I cycled up the street oblivious of the impending danger. Suddenly, there was an explosion next to me and I felt a wet surge up my shin. I got a proper fright! I then got really angry, and then I started to laugh. The water-bomb had narrowly missed hitting me, much to the disappointment of the rascals three stories up. I heard their laughter, but couldn’t place which window it was emanating from.
The water-bomb had me remembering how old I was when I had tossed water-bombs, with apprehensive glee, from my secret hiding place. I’d often throw them at moving cars, though I’d not tell a soul, then run as fast as I could so as not to get caught.
Sometimes some of our soaked victims would run faster…
The water-bomb’s joy and apprehension belongs to junior high. It is an innocuous weapon that children use to test the boundaries, where the power lies with the one holding the water filled balloon.
It is certainly not funny for the one who gets it in the back of the head, but that’s not too serious. The ideal target is of course us grownups! That is top marks- that we have to acknowledge.
Someone has thrown a water bomb at the school!
By means of representations, we can visualise what we can’t see, visualise thoughts, multiple simultaneous movements, dreams and those things that are impossibly absurd….
Splæsj/Splash is a notional movement, a notional energy; a notional, but recognisable, prank that uses the school as its arena. It is beyond our usual scale and understanding of time.
The designated areas on the plan are places that come into contact with the energy and marks that occurred when the water-bomb hit the facade and splattered on the roof and on the walls in the vestibule and out the other side.
On all the places that are touched, where the energy of the drops of water hits or whizzes past, a mark appears. It is a still of a happening, visualised through signs that become three dimensional and materialised.
