Felix Bernstein and Gabe Rubin - The Total Vomitorium

Felix Bernstein and Gabe Rubin
The Total Vomitorium
June 9–September 6, 2020

A tragicomic reenactment of the history of meta-theater from religious ritual to live-streaming, Zoom, and Twitch. The artists transition between multiple genres, genders, ages, tropes, eras, and personae, with Felix Bernstein playing Onkos, the Greek mask of tragedy, and Gabe Rubin playing multiple versions of Eros. They play-through arcane and new modes of performance documentation from Classical diagrams to Victorian photo journals, as well as the parallel domestication of Eros into Cupid.

The vomitorium is traced from its origin as a passageway in amphitheaters to the current socially reflexive architecture built for Instagram selfie-stories—comparing the way audiences watch each other watching each other binging and purging media. The impossible wish for a 360-degree perspective is shown to mark both panoptic social media and counter-surveillance tactics; normative and queer gazes.

Played on four unconnected screens, Vomitorium is inlaid by Baroque frames—juxtaposing maximalist convolution with the fashionable metaphysics of presence and transparency. Virtually real versions of Vomitorium will be simultaneously made available on the new media app Ortvi.

Rubin and Bernstein presented an earlier version of Vomitorium in March 2020, for The Kitchen’s Queensland space in Ridgewood, NY, which was curated by Tim Griffin and Matthew Lyons.

The exhibition The Total Vomitorium at schwarzescafé | Luma Westbau is organised by Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen.