Hajnal Németh

Contrawork (version 2)

Performance, version 2, 12 hour long, (Entre) Ouverture - Reopening of Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2012

Delivered by István Dankó, Tamara Mózes, Natalia Orlova (singers) and Luidji Caloc (car mechanic), performing the song “DARK GREEN CITROEN”.

"Contrawork" is a contra-concert in the scope of which two different work processes - with contrary motivation and goal - are completed in the course of 12-18 hours. A car's meticulous disassembly into its parts - like a systematic and slow destruction - happening simultaneously with the piece by piece chanting of the destructed vehicle's parts - like a linear construction. To define briefly the gist of the piece: dismantling contra composing. The end-product of one action is the raw material for the other, so the score of the musical piece is composed by the system of the removed car parts.

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"With that Citroën logo shining bright on all four wheels

With that logo shining bright

My hydropneumatic self-leveling suspension

Invented by Citröen

The envy of my bothers and sisters

Giving you a soft-cushioned ride

In normal conditions

And a tight body control

If you like it hard!

Accelerate like a bat out of hell

And fly around corners

Like they do in action movies

The nitrogen spheres

A pretty green

The anti sink sphere

My front and rear hydraulic spheres

The accumulator sphere

Working together

For your comfort

And superior road handling"

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"A life of a car you cannot call a life

From suspended animation by one soul after another

I am animated to serve from time to time

I am a slave of transformation

Slave to compress the space and extend one’s free time

But I am losing many of my attributes and features

As I know, yes I know

I go shuffling out of life

Just to hide in death awhile

By slow destruction I enter the bright – or I don’t know what

But I’m not afraid to die

No, I’m not afraid to die

Do I still have some weight?

My body is losing many of its parts

Here comes the silence"

(details from the lyrics “DARK GREEN CITROEN” written by István Dankó and Hajnal Németh)

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Ehibition view: Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2012

Photo: Cheik/CNDprod, Hajnal Németh