416-788-9663, 2012

Geoffrey Pugen - Toronto, Canada

Performance Installation

416-788-9663 is a choreographed performance and installation piece, which explores the phenomenology of underground dance culture, escapism and consumption. The work transforms a secret location by re-enacting a subversive Toronto dance party scene from 1994. The project asks the spectator to consider their position by trying to locate it, and then viewing it by walking around the theatrical event. The scene captures a deeply bizarre and uncanny era when hundreds of suburban kids crammed together to share ecstatic adventures.

With theatrical absurdity, the artist explores relationships between real and staged performance, the natural and artificial, actual and virtual identities through manipulating images. Pugen renders situations that examine our perceptions of how history, documentation, and simulation intersect. Pugen's videos and art have been exhibited internationally and published in Artforum and Adbusters. The artist is the co-creator of The Tie-Break, a re-enactment of the legendary Wimbledon Finals between John McEnroe and Björn Borg.

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Toronto City Hall, 100 Queen Street West (Ramp at Chestnut Street and Armoury Street)

This project is outdoors.