Daniël van der Giessen ~ Lectio Divina: A Divine Reading in Four Acts

Daniël van der Giessen's "Lectio Divina: A Divine Reading in Four Acts" was presented before live audience at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy on August 3, 2024 as one of 38 AEROPONIC ACTS of CHAMELEON ORBIT curated by Elisa Giuliani Giulia Crispiani.

Here you will find the documentation of Daniël van der Giessen's presentation as filmed by Baha Görkem Yalım. The written report is by  Bethany Crawford and it includes a summary of the comments by esteemed guest respondents.

Lectio Divina: A Divine Reading in Four Acts

Daniël van der Giessen's question: Lection Divina: How to interpret "the format"?

Daniël's introduction: In two years and four manifestations I will have undergone the four steps of Lectio Divina, a traditional monastic practice of scriptural reading, meditation and prayer, in collaboration with my peers at the Dutch Art Institute.

Lectio: reading of the text

Meditatio: reflection of the text

Oratio: prayer

Contemplatio: closer contemplation

However, this performative sacred reading is not one of the Bible, but of the audience, Contemporary Art, the supermarket, and “the format”.

In four theatrical acts I will conclude this chapter, and see if we can bring forth any insights following two years of toil.

Bethany's report: The performance begins with the audience seated on stage around a pristine white square, creating an intimate and reflective atmosphere. A presenter, dressed formally in a suit, reads from a paper, immediately setting a tone of structured ritual. Referencing the format of a kitchen—a place of preparation and transformation—the presenter outlines the components required for a process he refers to as "DAI" and introduces four key steps inspired by monastic Christian practices: reading, reflection, prayer, and contemplation.

Using these steps, the presenter highlights the interplay of narrative, allegory, reflection, and invitation, inviting the audience into a space of introspection. The act concludes with an invitation for the audience to rise, symbolically stepping into participation.

Now standing, the audience becomes active participants as the presenter asks a series of probing and seemingly arbitrary questions: Have you ever prayed? Can you feel the difference between heat and cold in your body? The questions shift into everyday actions—Did you wash your hands after peeing? The presenter then instructs the audience to sit back down, introducing a sense of oscillation between action and passivity. These arbitrary actions and questions provoke reflections on the structures of participation: what does it mean to be part of a ritual? To follow a pattern? To engage meaningfully?

Shifting gears, the presenter begins to offer "answers," but these come in the form of lists—names (including George Harrison and the Beatles), words, and categories. The audience is left to make their own associations, searching for the hidden questions that might have inspired these lists.  The presenter moves through the audience while delivering this segment, using humor and absurdity to highlight the arbitrariness of these constructs. With a mix of brevity and precision, he distills each list into concise answers, underscoring the performative nature of organization and grouping.

The act ends with an invitation to move outside, accompanied by a soundtrack of whimsical sound effects, from comical squeaks to adventurous boings. Once outside, the audience is instructed to stand shoulder to shoulder, forming a circle with the presenter at its center. In this final act, the atmosphere becomes ceremonial as the microphone is passed around the circle, with each participant choosing to say either "rite" or "passage." This repetitive ritual highlights the communal yet arbitrary nature of participation, as the group collectively defines and redefines the current moment. The presenter moves to the corner of the courtyard, playing ceremonial music and gazing meaningfully at his peers. His demeanor suggests he is overcome with emotion, embodying a final moment of reflection that oscillates between sincerity and theatricality.

Inti Guerrero: Inti reflected on the format of the performance, noting the persona the presenter adopted at the beginning and throughout the first part of the presentation. He remarked that this approach evoked thoughts of a storytelling tradition, particularly the use of theatricality in small spaces. He observed that the performance, along with the related project on the art school, engaged with tautological institutional critique, a vast and established field. Inti likened the presenter’s embodied character to Marcel Broodthaers, a canonical figure known for personifying critiques of ideological structures and power through his bodily behavior and performative works. He noted that toward the end of the performance, the presenter seemed to engage in a form of evangelization—not in a religious sense, but as an act of placing faith in the audience to understand, engage with, and extend the ideas presented.

Inti contrasted this act of creative fiction-making with the corporate world's often appropriated rhetoric of "thinking outside the box." He emphasized that the performance, operating within a field of poetics, offered a distinct way of creating meaning, separate from corporate creativity. He reiterated how this distinction aligns with the legacy of Broodthaers, whose work similarly critiques and redefines institutional frameworks.

Reflecting further, Inti mentioned an American visual artist whose practice draws on evangelical aesthetics and rituals—specifically, the trancelike ecstasy experienced in church settings—to explore issues of art and society. While he couldn’t recall the name, he suggested this artist as a relevant reference for pushing the performance further into the aesthetic and thematic territory it had begun to explore. Inti encouraged leaning fully into these tropes to deepen the work’s impact and engagement.

Antonia Majaca: Antonia began by reflecting on the concept of lectio divina and its connection to the performance. She noted that what struck her most about the practice was how knowledge of Christ is not achieved through analytical dissection of scripture, but by entering the "space" of Christ—a form of embodied understanding. She described this as a penetrative epistemological and hermeneutical experience, where knowledge is gained by sharing in the essence or "body" of the divine character.

This led Antonia to consider other rites of passage, which she saw as central to the performance’s themes. Drawing from her cultural familiarity with Judaism and Christianity, she pointed out how bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies symbolize a child’s symbolic death. These moments force individuals to leave behind their previous roles, marking a metaphorical rebirth into adulthood. She pondered how this framework might translate to the "ecumenical church of art" that the performers—and the broader art world—inhabit.

Antonia suggested that the true rite of passage for an artist might occur not at the moment of a solo exhibition or participation in a major group show, but during a deeply human and relational experience. For her, this might be the first time an artist has a genuine, grounded conversation with someone they once perceived as inaccessible—perhaps at a dinner party, a conference, or over a long-anticipated coffee. She emphasized that this moment of connection and recognition signifies a breaking of hierarchies and a leveling of perceived authority.

She praised how initiatives like DAI achieve a "radical horizontalization" of these experiences, fostering opportunities for meaningful exchanges that disrupt traditional hierarchies. Antonia connected this to the orchestration of movements within the performance space, observing how practical considerations—such as limiting the movement of a large group—intersected with the thematic undercurrent of challenging rules and hierarchies. She noted that such disruptions were intrinsic to the performance’s ethos, even if they occurred in informal or unplanned ways.

Concluding her reflection, Antonia speculated on how this dynamic might have influenced the performers' decision to participate in the program. She wondered how the program’s values of self-reflection, breaking rules, and challenging hierarchies shaped their experiences and artistic development, and how these ideas, in turn, might continue to influence their work and practice.

Ramon Amaro: Ramon began by expressing his interest in the performance’s exploration of rites of passage, noting how it broke with traditional structures. He found the piece particularly compelling for its ability to redefine the concept of the rite of passage within a specific spatial and temporal context. He observed how the performance allowed for the deliberate reintroduction of the rite into the space, framed with a sense of irony. For him, this act mirrored the dynamic of entering a new relationship while still discussing a past one—a negotiation of positionality and reflection.

Expanding his thoughts, Ramon drew on his research into the concept of the monad, tracing its origins to Leibniz’s philosophical work. He explained that the monad, conceived as the simplest perfect substance, underpins the logic of differential equations, which in turn power modern algorithms and their negotiation of social space. Ramon noted that Leibniz’s monad builds on Descartes’ cogitoI think, therefore I am—but challenges the notion of individual autonomy. Instead, Leibniz proposed that all beings are interconnected through a divine essence, an "incompossibility" that circulates between individuals and influences their actions. He playfully suggested that even the audience’s participation in the performance—forming a circle, moving through the space—might have been orchestrated by this essence, blurring the line between individual agency and divine order.

Ramon turned to the performance’s use of irony, a medium he described as both effective and challenging. He cautioned that irony carries a responsibility: it must engage deeply with the subject matter rather than simply parody it. Otherwise, it risks relinquishing its potential for critique, leaving audiences with superficial interpretations. For him, the performance succeeded in navigating this tension, using humor and irony not as ends but as tools to reveal deeper complexities.

Drawing on broader philosophical frameworks, Ramon suggested that the performance highlighted the negotiation between sociality, camaraderie, and divine providence. He framed the irony of the piece as residing not in its humor but in its ability to expose the incompatibility between the prescribed structures of rites of passage and the individual soul’s desires. This tension, he argued, is where art achieves its greatest impact: forcing audiences to wrestle with these gaps and contradictions.

Ramon concluded with a reference to Nietzsche’s enduring debate on will, reflecting on the performance’s ability to keep such discussions alive. He celebrated the work’s choreography and its capacity to provoke meaningful dialogue. Finally, he mentioned Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping as a relevant reference, highlighting their use of evangelical aesthetics to critique consumerism and societal structures. For Ramon, the performance captured a similar spirit, navigating irony, critique, and sociality with skill and depth.

AEROPONIC ACTS 2024 ~ Chameleon Orbit

About: Daniël van der Giessen