Tirer des fils à New Delhi

Fred Forest's performance took place at the 1986 World Congress of Sociology in New Delhi, to which he had been invited by Leonard Heni, a professor at Utrecht University who had pioneered the use of video as a sociological tool.

• By sticking a suction cup with a hook on one side of a pane of glass that has been placed between the camera that is filming, and on the other a similar suction cup on the surface of the screen of the live television that will broadcast the document, we create the illusion that the two suction cups are connected to exactly the same screen. During the preparatory work and a film shot in a different location a fortnight earlier, Forest attached a wire to the suction cup and will do the same on the day of the performance. He will invite his alter ego to pull on the thread, so that the spectators of the performance can see the two Forests in different spaces and times, giving the illusion of a continuous connection of the two strings. Forest then invites his counterpart to place the apple of his hand on hers through the glass between them...

The performance will be repeated the next day on the initiative of Professor Leonard Heny between Groningen (Neerlande) and New Delhi.

The BRICK: using a similar recording device through a pane of glass, when it is broadcast on a TV monitor the illusion is created that the pane of glass on the monitor screen is shattered...

By gradually hitting the glass with a brick... when the brick shatters, you get the impression that it's the TV screen itself that is shattered and falls to pieces...