Reach (2022)
Karel van Laere

When Karel van Laere attended a six-hour surgery at a hospital he saw surgeons using laparoscopic instruments - robotic tools to work with very precisely. In the heat of the moment, vital decisions were made by the doctors hovering over the body, talking to each other, determining how much flesh to cut away. This crucial improvisation continued to haunt the artist until he found a way to integrate it in the multimedia sound installation and performance Reach.
For this he interviewed all kinds of professionals about improvisation; next to surgeons he also talked to a deep-sea diver, a police officer and a jazzpianist, to find out what role improvisation plays in their work. This resulted in Reach in which a team of artist/surgeons working live with laparoscopic instruments make snippets of these recorded voices audible. The performers must also constantly improvise with their tools in order to transmit sound. In Reach, as in the rest of his work, Van Laere offers a leading role to the human body, always at the mercy of the situation it finds itself in at any given moment.

To learn when Van Laere and his team perform keep an eye on the MU website or follow our socials.