Hopes that restrictions for galleries and theaters surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic may be eased were dashed in early 2021 after patiently waiting for the “Buktapaktop” venue to reopen after lockdown, and so an alternate plan was hatched: we would perform/install separately at a distance, like a slo-mo performance and shifting tableau vivant, which the public could visit individually and view from the outside (a walkway along the space) through the windows.

It would be a project along the lines of a “cadavre exquis” (exquisite corpse) in which each participant would create a situation which the next participant would have to continue. We decided on slots of one week each and would make occasional reports on the ongoing development on our site. Individual participants could schedule specific moments in which a limited number of (masked & distanced) visitors could bear witness live. The masked aspect of it all created the tendency of some participants to remain anonymous/as phantom interventions. The lineup went like this:

February 15–21: Carlos Montalvo. February 22–28: Heinrich Obst. March 1–7: “Deuxelles.” March 8–14: Phantom I. March 15–21 Phantom II. March 22–28: Jérôme Giller. March 29–April 11: Phantom III. April 12–18: Lise Duclaux and Annick Nölle. April 19–25: Questionable feature. April 26–May 02: “les filles de” (Lise Duclaux and Annick Nölle II). May 2–9: Julien Celdran. May 9–16: Martine Doyen. May 17–23: Mystery intervention. May 24–30: Bernard Muillez. May 31–June 6: Mystery Perfume. June 7–13: Toni Geirlandt.

The space turned slowly into an extended explosion-installation, with more things being added than taken away and with quite a few (restrained) “public moments,” so that in all this highly reduced program of the “Buktapaktop,” the flame could keep burning until restrictions were eased in the autumn. It was an interesting individual/group exercise also to investigate further what each of our roles might be in future and what sort of forms we could include in our Buktapaktop palette, tending toward the more intuitive and conceptual perhaps, and a return to flux-like “instructions” left behind for participants and public.