way closer than horizon ~ by Eszter Dobos
Eszter Dobos's "way closer than horizon" was presented before live audience at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy on August 8, 2025 as one of 24 acts, (curated by Elisa Giuliani) at the occasion of the AEROPONIC ACTS 2025: CHOREIA (convened by Gabriëlle Schleijpen).
Here you will find an introduction by the presenter, video-documentation filmed by Baha Görkem Yalım and a written report by Grant Watson.The report includes a summary of the spoken, improvised comments by esteemed guest respondents Sandi Hilal, and Zairong Xiang.
way closer than horizon
Eszter's question: Can you meet me halfway?
Eszter's intro:
Two friends meet each other in the morning. It’s a conversation that could only happen while waiting for the cab. Words that sound better before 8AM. Trains of thought set loose. Told by slipping accents and dehydrated lips.
It’s a conversation of miscalculated movements, a hopscotch rhyme. Between me and us. Between her, him and the space that divides them from you. As if their gaze could ask and the outline of your bodies was able to answer.
It’s a conversation between Michael Warner and me. He says that “this constitutive and normative environment of strangerhood is more, too, than an objectively describable gesellschaft; it requires our constant imagining.” I agree and try to spell gesellschaft with my fingers in the air.
Grant's report:
This work is seen by the audience from a window looking down onto the courtyard. In the middle of the courtyard there is a wooden platform like a stage. We hear techno music, and see two figures on the platform, one in a white T-shirt and black pleated skirt, the other wearing green shorts. They chat while one rolls a cigarette, their conversation is broadcast from a speaker so the audience hears: I’m sorry I lost my phone; my flight is tomorrow not today; not sure, I have to seem my parents; maybe I can do a weekend in November; I had a dream that I bumped into you in a new city, you were so different; you told me that your brother had died; I said something about not checking my social media lately; I was woken with a start. The two of them are now crouched, busy taking things out of their bags and placing them on the ground, rooting around as if looking for something. The dialogue continues: maybe that's the only place that doesn't feel strange; I feel sorry for people; being ugly, dumb and mean, doesn't excite me in the same way; maybe the most interesting thing we can do is have sex. One figure stands up and shakes out their bag, emptying it completely onto the floor. We hear the sound of children, a crowd, laughter. The two figures on the platform now stare up at the audience and one of them says: do you think they can also see us- it must be nice to be that many. Their conversation then turns to what they call nice things: barbeques in the dark, being part of a revolution where no one complains about the smell, to be dogs meeting on the street. One of them draws a line of heads onto the wooden boards of the platform in chalk. It looks as if it is the audience she is drawing, she adds eyes to the faces, sunglasses. To the sound of drums the two of them run up the stairs and enter the room where the audience is watching. There is loud music and dry ice, they dance aggressively and the audience joins in.
Zairong Xiang thanks the artist for a delightful piece. He notes that it is difficult to portray the dynamic between friends. Not once did he mistake them for lovers. He notes that looking down it was not always possible to see if the narration was spoken directly or if it was a voice over. He enjoyed the moment when the audience realised they were being observed, and the dance when the two of them came up, which felt like combat.
Sandi Hilal congratulates the artist on the work. It reminds her of something all of us do that was put on the stage. She says that if you look at certain people or a group you might ask - who are they? Why are these people sitting together? Cairo for example was designed so that people could look down to the street. She liked that at a certain point the performers looked up and realised they were being observed, which made it reciprocal that was brilliant. What she enjoyed most was to put that practice of looking onto the stage in a way that was original.
