SYSTEMS OF CONSTRAINTS

‘Systems of Constraint’ is a series of installations and performances that explores the sensory experience of being bound. Spanning performance, analogue video synthesis and immersive installation, the project investigates what emerges when bodies are connected to one another.

Chendo and King’s joint performance explores the idea that the human experience of life – and any conception of the ‘self’ that it conveys – is shaped in relation to an ‘other’. They experiment with the possibility of representing constraint by binding themselves together; what might happen if they repeatedly touch upon this connection between the self and the other and hold onto its tension?

Can ‘bound’ movement through the world create space for new concepts of the self that are more open to otherness – to being moved by the Other? Using a rope, Chendo and King stage a model of consent that exists beyond neoliberal notions of the individual who knows themselves completely – who only consents to being touched, influenced and moved when they themselves wish to be.

They stage a form in flux, a way of being bound. They are not self-contained units; they find themselves tethered.

At the heart of the project lies ‘Tethered’, a three-month series of long-distance walks through Berlin’s post-industrial sites. Connected by a rope into which ‘bend sensors’ are woven to record tension data, Chendo and King reinterpret the force of attraction between them anew with every performance; every physical movement towards or away from one another generates a digital code.

In the installation, specially developed Max/MSP patches translate this tension data using audiovisual synthesis, thereby generating a digital-sensory map of the paths their connection leads them along. Rather than relying on purely representational media, the installation preserves the live character of each individual performance; their improvised movements generate audiovisual tension in real time.

The project builds on previous collaborations between Chendo and King, including ‘Plastic’ (2024–25) and ‘Hands on Foucault’ (2025–26), which explore the relationship between physical experience, spectatorship and technological mediation. During their residency at SomoS, the artists developed ‘Tethered’ through performances at venues such as Tempelhof Airport, Viktoriapark and the Schwerbelastungskörper.

The exhibition brings this ongoing experimentation into the gallery and presents the material and audiovisual dimensions of their shared experience.

Free admission