An indefinable scent fills the room. It joins the sound of a heartbeat in the monotonous electronic soundtrack, creating an expectant atmosphere. On this warm spring evening in May, the Art Hub in Copenhagen’s Meatpacking District is packed with a relatively young crowd of people who have taken up position along the walls and windows, encircling the arena where Jules Fischer’s new performance ICHOR will shortly take place. For the next thirty minutes, the air is thick with concentration. Everyone’s eyes are on the three performers, who use lip-sync, choreographic precision, an extreme presence, and, not least, their eyes to pull the audience into a performative study of the complex theme of hormones.
Fischer, 34, graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2017 and works at the intersection of visual art and performance. Engaging in interdisciplinary collaboration with fellow creatives such as professional dancers, performers, musicians, and costume designers, they often create site-specific hybrid works that examine fundamental emotions such as love, grief, and loneliness, always from an ambivalent queer perspective.
Examples include Zombie hand at Tranen in 2018 and Vanitas (the musical) at Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art in 2022, the latter inspired by Baroque vanitas symbols signifying vanity, transience, and transformation. Recurring themes include examinations of the individual versus the community, as in the opera performance Dryppende stof which premiered at Glyptoteket in 2021 as part of the Copenhagen Opera Festival and World Pride. For that performance, Fischer and composer Matilde Böcher took their point of departure in poet Mette Moestrup’s retelling of the erotic depictions of love between women created by the ancient woman poet and present-day queer icon Sappho.
A few weeks after the performance of ICHOR, I meet Fischer in their home. I immediately notice that they are heavily pregnant, and we talk about how pregnancy and parental leave have historically marginalised certain artists because the art world’s demands for topicality are not always a good match for care work. “Although we have come a long way in many ways, it has not necessarily become easier to free ourselves from restrictive categories,” says Fischer, who – in their private life as well as in their art – strives to find alternatives to the conservative structures and hierarchical relationships in which we often automatically situate ourselves and each other.
How did your interest in art arise?
I have always been interested in art, but I come from a very academic family that did not really share my interest in art and culture. In my childhood and youth, I had a feeling of being different and not really fitting in, probably because I grew up in a fairly normative environment. Art classes were an outlet, a place where I could be myself. I read poetry and often visited the National Gallery of Denmark after school. For me, it was the best thing in the world: sitting there alone in their collection of Minimalist art, forgetting about all the drama going at school. I have this very strong feeling in me, telling me that art is something that can save you when everything else is fucked. This sentiment is echoed in my practice. I have always seen art as a lifesaver, as something that has driven me when I had difficulty finding my way home. Either through other artists’ works or in my own work.
The day after I graduated high school, I began an internship with a fashion and advertising photographer, but soon found out I wanted to pursue a different path. So I applied and got into The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts at the age of 20. I thought entering that scene was ever so cool, but I struggled to find a definite artistic voice and direction for myself. So, after the first two years, I took a leave of absence and moved to Berlin, where I had the opportunity to attend Olafur Eliasson’s Institut für Raumexperimente. That’s where I was introduced to the American dancer and choreographer Yvonne Rainer. I grew wildly fascinated by her and quickly realised that this was the type of performance I was supposed to do, influenced by 60s and 70s dance and American Minimalism.
In my third year at the academy, I did a one-year exchange, entering the dance and choreography programme at the Danish National School of Performing Arts. Here, I developed an approach to performance which departed from the tradition that is centred around one’s own body – the tradition primarily practiced and cultivated at the academy.
For me, that time was more about finding a community and examining the dynamics that arise in collaboration. At the performing arts school, I learned the fundamentals of how to create a choreography and work with dancers, who are, of course, not just dancers – they can come from very different traditions and cultures. It gradually became clear to me what I had actually gained at the academy because the study of aesthetics and critical discourse was not nearly as prominently featured at the performing arts school. At the academy, I read feminist thinkers such as Judith Butler, Sara Ahmed, and Donna Haraway, among others, and I wanted more of that kind of education. I primarily see myself as a visual artist. I think in images first and movement second. Dramaturgy is not my starting point. I think more in terms of constructing images, and in that regard I differ from most choreographers.
I graduated from the academy in 2017, the year when Anne Imhof won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. This definitely marked a shift in things, one which was favourable for me. Suddenly, a lot of curators and institutions stood up and paid attention to performance on a large scale.
You often work with many contributors, cutting across different disciplines. What is your process like from the initial idea to the finished performance?
It always begins with a feeling, something that I wonder about or can’t define – one that I imagine many others have too. I work in a very collage-like manner, looking for things, images, or sounds that speak into that feeling. For example, my most recent performance, ICHOR, which was shown at Art Hub Copenhagen, revolved around hormones and how they are everywhere. I wanted to explore the complexity of hormones, both in terms of our ideas of gender and the production of masculinity and femininity, but also in relation to medication and birth control pills. Apart from those themes, all I knew at the outset was that I wanted to try to work with the monologue format and with lip-sync.
I also always think about who else will be involved, contributing artistically. In addition to the performers, this can include musicians, a composer, a costume designer, and a scent designer. I generally go for people I share certain aesthetic commonalities with, a certain overlap, but who I don’t necessarily know that well. ICHOR was an attempt at creating a Gesamtkunstwerk with several creators behind it.
You seek out the field of the collective. Is that where you thrive?
Yes. I am interested in investigating the concept of authorship and in challenging the idea of the artist as an island. I do not believe that anything arises out of a vacuum. Being an artist can be quite lonely, so how can we create something together in an interdisciplinary community?
Loneliness is a pervasive theme in my practice. I would like to create works that act as a kind of antidote to loneliness; where you can be your whole self in a room with other people because there is a general recognition of that feeling, a sense of connectedness or of being seen. Of course, this objective informs my method because it is difficult to make an antidote to loneliness on your own.
Is that why the performers make such direct contact with the audience, using eye contact and a physical approach?
Yes. I like working with looks and gazes. One of the first decisions I make is what kind of gaze or what kind of relationship I want to see be between the performers and the audience. My direction is always about orchestrating a real, genuine meeting between the performer and someone from the audience. My focus is on what those of us who are present experience together, not so much on what we show with our performance. It’s all about that meeting. There would be no performance if there wasn’t an audience.
I find it exciting to work with a high degree of randomness where it’s hard to predict what will happen in the room because I don’t know what the audience will give back. That approach is very demanding for the performers; they need to navigate these intimate encounters without being disrespectful of the audience’s boundaries. It’s a balancing act, but I usually ask the performers to maintain contact a little bit longer than you would normally do.
When we had our dress rehearsal for Dryppende stof, which is my biggest performance, the audience just sat there, utterly stone-faced for an hour. Their expressions were completely blank, and I just thought, “Oh, shit. I’ve just thrown my entire career in the dumpster!” But afterwards I noticed that many were in fact crying in their seats. And over the course of the performance run, various performers were contacted by members of the audience who had almost fallen in love with them. It’s quite amazing that you can do that in a space that’s clearly constructed. Although I’m not a fan of the illusion of theatre, I think it’s quite magical that art and performance can give access to such strong emotions in people.
I was actually moved during ICHOR as well, perhaps because of the interplay between the presence exuded by the performers and the remixed soundscape. How aware are you of the tools you use?
Quite aware. In ICHOR, for example, I had incorporated a piece from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde in the mix. After all, music and scent have a purely physiological impact on us. Just like the gaze – the physical presence of eye contact – they can bypass the intellect. In the past, I have aimed for a minimalist mode of expression and said “no to feelings; no to music,” inspired by Yvonne Rainer’s idea of saying “no to spectacle.” But now I am more aware that we live in a world which is in many ways so oversaturated that it can be difficult to feel anything. So I use these tools to gain access to something that already exists in people and to create a common space, one that resonates with people. At the same time, I always strive for a certain ambivalence.
Is it like the ambivalence inherent in taking complete control while allowing scope for chance elements?
Striking a balance between the improvised and the staged is exciting. The more works I’ve done, the more control I’ve taken. At the academy, the overall concept was to keep the work very open. But the more I found that the outcomes of things were not what I hoped for, the more I began to direct. I wanted to make sure we got to where we were supposed to go.
Dryppende stof was fully directed, everything set in place. Everyone knew their marks, knew where they were supposed to be at all times because this was necessary in terms of the acoustics at Glyptoteket when we used live singing. Taking that step towards the fully directed, staged performance was a major challenge.
I am constantly exploring new ways to work, letting go of control in one place and seizing it in another. I also experiment with the ways in which we document the works. Should we do that with or without an audience? Do I simply film it myself with my phone, or do we need a cameraman? Maybe someone who follows the entire process and forms the same kind of close relationship with the performer as I do?
Presumably, such documentation is quite important given the fact that a performance is usually performed only a few times, for a certain period of time, and then is gone?
Yes, it is important, also in terms of applying for funding, building a portfolio, and posting on social media. But I’m still exploring the medium and how professional it needs to be. In terms of all other parameters, I have gradually found a format with standardised contracts, bookkeeping, and so on, and it’s nice to have a firm structure for those things. But in terms of the artistic work, which includes the documentation, the process curve should ideally be as non-linear as possible. There must be room to experiment and explore new possibilities for how all these media can interact.
Apart from the fact that you usually work with carefully staged, professionalised performances on a large scale, which breaks away from the tradition of improvised, intimate performances, where would you place your works within the Danish performance scene?
It is difficult for me to connect my works to anyone on the Danish performance scene, but Polish-English artist and choreographer Alex Baczynski-Jenkins, for example, does some super cool stuff. For him, the queer scene is a point of reference and something he wants to develop. That’s how it is for me too. It’s not just about the works. It’s important to me to let people meet each other. Not just the audience, but also the artists I bring together, who might continue some kind of collaboration afterwards. That’s probably something I picked up from the dance scene: we all have a responsibility for our professional community; we need each other.
There is a lot happening on the Danish performance scene right now, but we still need a qualified conversation among critics and curators alike. How do we see and discuss the interdisciplinary field? How can we see performance art in ways that do not solely assess the works from the perspective of a specific genre or discipline – for example, from the perspective of the theatre critic or based on the objectification typical of the visual arts, where you speak about bodies rather than people? Criticism often becomes a simplification or a subjective description of the experience instead of offering a professional contextualisation and perspective on the work.
How can we nurture greater professionalism in this area and hone the language used, thereby developing the field in general – including within the major institutions? I would like to see more widespread awareness and knowledge of performance art and a greater willingness to view it as more than a live event. I would love to see curators and writers delve more deeply into the material, take a professional position on it, and approach the field in a nuanced way.
Do you think that the shortcomings of such criticism might also have something to do with performance art being a newer, more ephemeral art form compared to an exhibition of paintings that runs over a longer period of time?
I dream of another type of review that not only indicates whether a work is worth spending time on or not, but also helps qualify a professional conversation and discourse about what a given performance can contribute to society. The descriptive part is, of course, important because it constitutes part of the documentation, but it should not stand alone.
I am also surprised at how visual artists so rarely participate actively in discussions of current affairs – and that they are so rarely invited to share their views and position. It seems that there is greater interest in hearing what a writer or a theatre director thinks. I talked to Liv Helm, who is a stage director, about it and she thought it might be because those people are already working with words. But that doesn’t really make any sense. I think the issue may be connected with the overall level of art criticism today. Why are visual artists not seen as figures who could contribute to improving the social debate in general? Only a few get the opportunity to talk about anything outside of what is immediately relevant to an exhibition.
What do you want to say now that you have the floor?
I want to talk about my project, which is a non-binary approach – it’s about not perceiving things as black and white or as either-or… I see this tendency to simplification, reduction, and trivialisation as a violent streak in our society. This can also be observed in identity politics, where identity markers are attracting a tremendous amount of attention. Of course, this can promote access for people who have been structurally oppressed, but at the same time it also contributes to tokenising and reducing people.
I am very inspired by Édouard Glissant, a Martiniquan philosopher and writer who worked with postcolonial theory and wrote books such as Poetics of Relation [1990]. He challenges our idea of empathy and compassion as something that depends on our being able to understand each other. That’s why being in a room together matters. I’m not really interested in telling queer history or in proclaiming that I’m different from others and that it’s important that this marginalised position is understood. Really, it’s more of an opposite project; it’s about how we can all be in the same room and have basic respect and empathy for each other regardless of whether we understand each other. So it’s about anti-understanding, anti-binary thinking that’s about not reducing people into words.
I am interested in how we practice those thoughts in reality. Glissant is critical of how we divide other people into those who are similar to ourselves and those who are not, and how the degree of similarity determines how much empathy we feel. We can, for example, look at the difference in political and popular goodwill towards refugees depending on whether they are fleeing from Syria or Ukraine. Why should people be more or less human depending on whether they look like you? Glissant’s theory is that the division is culturally constructed, partly through language.
We are constantly constructing our own identity, and right now we are in a period of identity politics full of all these ideas about what you are and are not. That’s also a form of thinking inside boxes, and that disappoints me. Can’t we come up with something better than the same kind of hierarchy we’ve felt oppressed by ourselves? Really, we’re just inventing new categories instead of abolishing everything and truly coming up with something new. It’s difficult, of course, but an antidote to capitalism might be the kind of symbiotic relationship you have with, for example, a child. Where we don’t compartmentalise our needs or contributions like the hierarchical ladder does.
That’s what I’m looking for in my work. How can a kind of symbiosis arise, both in terms of my process, in the exchange between performers and audience, and in the experience you are left with after the performance? I am curious to explore that.
What is your next project about?
I am currently developing a musical in collaboration with the composer Matilde Böcher, with whom I also made Dryppende stof. Exploring a new genre like that will be hugely interesting. We are both very interested in the popular appeal associated with the musical genre and, at the same time, disappointed by what you can see in Copenhagen. So we have a great desire to make something that contains a greater sense of poetry or ambivalence. It will be very corny for sure, but let’s see how it ends. After all, we don’t have the same budget they usually do at Det Ny Teater, so our thing will definitely be different.
I also have a lot of re-performances of works lined up in Denmark and internationally, so I try to make things a little more sustainable that way. For example, It doesn´t look like anything to me, which I created in collaboration with composer and cellist Josefine Opsahl in 2022, will be performed again at Platform at Roskilde Festival this year. And with Vanitas, which will be shown around the same time in Vienna, I will have my first performance in Austria. It’s exciting because these are completely different settings in terms of audience. In Denmark, audiences usually have a slightly cautious or solemn approach where people sit quietly and observe the performance, unlike in Germany, for example, where the spectators often engage in a more participatory way, moving around and perhaps shouting “Yeah, definitely!” It’s quite liberating. I think it’s fun to take the works into new spaces, breaking out of the Scandinavian model for a bit.
