- Performed at Museum of Contemporary Art of Queretaro, February 9, 2024

Per Huttner has been carrying research in Mexico City, Oaxaca and Chiapas in December 2023 and January 2024. After that he has been in residency at El Dia D in Santiago de Queretaro, January 21 – February 12, 2024. During this time he has been be working with artists and choreographers from Mexico and Canada and has developed new work. The residency also includes public workshops at El Dia D and public performances at Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago de Queretaro.

During the stay he has developed the performance entitled Trickster Ceremony. In it, the artist and another performer investigate the relationship between the inner and outer worlds of humans together. They reflect on on basic metaphysical questions such as: How do the processes inside the human body affect how we perceive and understand the outside world? How does the outside world impact what happens inside us?

The performance: As the performance commences, the audience is offered a specially developed drink by the artist which includes plants that have been know to support health . Huttner then invites the audience to make a short guided meditation exercise with them. (Performed in Spanish by choreographer Ricardo Rubio.) After the exercise the audience watch a film which is accompanied by digital live music by Huttner. For the performance the second performer is wearing repurposed neuroscientific technology developed by the EEGsynth team to externalise the activity of the human brain. The EEG (electroencephalogram) cap that she wears on her head enables her brain activity to be seen and heard by the audience. The signals from the cap is sent to a computer which analyses the data and sends it on to a digital musical instruments and software that influence the sound film’s images in real time.In other words, the sounds and moving images in the performance are influenced in real time by signals from a second performer’s brain. This is the second performance in a short time where Huttner uses EEG to shape sound and images in tandem.
Tricksters are often boundary crossers of world-views: They can travel into parallel worlds. They cross and often break both physical and societal rules and violate principles of social and natural order. Tricksters often disrupt normal life and then recreates it in new shapes and forms. The film depicts a modern day trickster going through such a transformation.

Huttner’s travel to Mexico was supported by The Swedish Arts Grants Committee