a collaborative work with Ray Harris and Cynthia Schwertsik, as part of Adhocracy 2020 by Vitalstatistix

Das Wasser im Bade is an experimental exploration of commodified use of water in our daily lives, through sound, video and performance works made from the mundane to the sublime in suburban waterways. Jesse Budel is a composer, performer and sound artist with a research focus on arts-science explorations of environmental soundscapes, including aquatic environments. Ray Harris is an artist working in performance, video, sculpture and installation exploring the self and everyday fantasy states. Austrian-born artist Cynthia Schwertsik has an art practice that includes visual art and contemporary performance with a focus on participatory inclusion.

Through observations of visible and invisible urban water ways, this project centres on the use and dependence of water within a deep concern for the environment and our place within it. We extend into a consciousness of the relationship of human impact on the environment as a consequence of our actions, Das Wasser im Bade dives into water on the fringes of our comfort zones and explores entropy in absurd attempts to hold on to water.

In the search for the perfect bath, Jesse’s soundscape captures the tactile nature of being submerged in various bodies of water from the domestic to man-made and natural reservoirs. While Ray and Cynthia move with and  against the flow of water in relation to the body. After all, throwing the baby out with the bathwater alludes to the commodified relationship contemporary culture has to water – as we expect clean aqua through pipes and taps and to odourlessly and swiftly escape through drains. Domesticated water is insisted, when and where we want it for our comfort zone and recreational needs. We take it for granted that we have ample supply without much contemplation, even while living in a drought beaten country.

This project has developed from the collaborating South Australian artists’ responses to each other’s work and their mutual interest in water; psychologically, scientifically and politically. This is the first time the artists have all worked together.