M HKA, The End is a New Beginning, Automatic Audio Tour (2025)

Ethan Cannaert

17:43• 5 views•8 days ago

A participatory experience, designed to invite audience engagement, turned into an autonomous work. The Automatic Audio Tour guided visitors through ‘Hugo Roelandt-The End is a New Beginning’, to follow a sequence of instructions, prompting them to consciously step away from the familiar role of the passive onlooker. In doing so, they became performers, dissolving the conventional boundaries between the artwork, the performer, and observer. In this way, emphasizing the core concepts of post-performance. This approach is reflective of Hugo Roelandt’s pioneering artistic practice and his exploration of the viewer’s role. The traditional perspective often regards "art" as a passive presence, awaiting the onlooker, whether a dedicated spectator or a more casual observer passing by, to explore its complexities, and invest it with various layers of meaning. According to this view, the observer completes the interaction, enabling the artwork to achieve its full potential. This, however, explores the reversal of this dynamic and demonstrates that the capacity to act is not exclusive to the viewer. The artwork itself can possess an active power. Rather than the viewer only assigning meaning, the artwork can initiate contact, involve the individual, and even guide their experience. This a line of questions: if we, the former audience, are now the ones performing, who then assumes the role of the watcher? Indeed, who or what is observing us in our new role? (2025) Genre: Experimental/Documentation Tags: Exhibition, Post-performance Release: 28-may-25 Screeningformat: 4K (3840 x 2304) Ratio: 1,66:1 (5/3) FPS: 25 Running time: 17minutes 43 seconds Color/B&W: Color Audio: Stereo Subtitles: English This film is a live-action production. Generative tools were used solely for a 2-second animation at timestamp 17:04–17:06.