DEATH ON TOUR (2008)

‘Photographs state the innocence, the vulnerability of lives heading toward their own destruction, and this link between photography and death haunts all photographs of people.’
Susan Sontag

INSTALLATION SPECS

11 – 30 Polaroids & short stories (each framed in a single A4 sized frame),
single-channel looping 3-min video work on DVD,
T-Shirts, letters of indulgence, wallpaper, old furniture – to mimic a hotel room.

CONCEPT

This project about ‘the end of our lives’ utilises ‘dead’ mediums, (Polaroid and super8 film) and is a socially critical comment on our obsession with eternal youth through materialism.  This is pop culture vs. the Middle Ages.

Installation view: 3 x framed ‘Death on Tour’ polaroids and stories. ‘The Beekeeper’ – ‘The Birthday Boy’ – ‘The Handyman’, each 30 x 21 cm, Fusion 5 Festival, Cannes, 2008

Each framed work is a one-off, written and photographed by the artists. The short story is a fictional portrait (or is it true?) that depicts the last hours in the life of the person portrayed in the Polaroid. From poetic to grim these works tell of the place, its inhabitants and their vanities. They are set in locations as diverse as Cannes, Paris, Munich and Melbourne.

Download ‘Death On Tour / Melbourne’

Accompanying each of these is a DVD of a looping 3-minute black & white Super8 film created by BORIS + NATASCHA.  Death is played by Boris and recorded by Natascha in her notorious Super 8 style. An Ingmar Bergman-like character, Death in a black hood, holds a Polaroid camera. Every minute or so he takes a picture, seemlingly of a visitor to the room and the TV flashes.

(Death and his Polaroid, Super8 transferred to DVD, 3:00 min loop with sound, 2008)

Perhaps Death has captured your final moment? Are you next?

No Fear! BORIS+NATASCHA have negotiated deals with death and offer three packages with the option to payoff Death. For a small fee one can buy, for example, a BORIS+NATASCHA letter of indulgence, akin to those distributed en masse to the wealthy in the middle ages, absolving them of their sins.

Or perhaps you’re the risky type? Then the ‘Russian Roulette’ Package which includes a limited edition DEATH ON TOUR T-shirt is for you. This protects you from Death when wearing the T-shirt but only 90% of the time.

REVIEWS

This weekend saw a hotel in Cannes taken over by a hard-partying cabal of artists from all over the world. Dazed went along to soak up some of the extreme weirdness. Highlights included BORIS+NATASCHA’s Death on Tour.
JOHN PAUL PRYOR, Dazed & Confused Magazine London, 3/08

One of our favourite exhibitions was created by BORIS+NATASCHA, who satirized our obsessions with eternal youth through consumerism. BORIS+NATASCHA, a Berlin/Australian duo, created an installation about achieving immortality through shopping, and during their exhibition, viewers could purchase T-shirts to make themselves death-proof.
TAMSEN GREENE, ZINK magazine, New York, Sep 2008

BORIS + NATASCHA in their Death on Tour Installation, Fusion 5 Festival, Cannes, Photograph by Gilles Petipas, 2008