Kai Bauer FOREIGN in Neuhausen A project by Christian Hasucha Neuhausen Art Association, Action Phase, March 16–30, 2003 Documentation Exhibition, April 13–May 18, 2003 In the Neuhausen auf den Fildern town council, the city marketing expert sits right next to him. While she waits to present her concept to the council members, she starts a friendly chat with her neighbor: whether it isn't rather warm "under that thing." After a short pause, she flinches and immediately resumes reading her notes, as if she had accidentally addressed a coat rack. He remains silent and only turns to her with a full twist of its upper body, because he cannot see her from the side through the tiny holes that pockmark its white head. This movement, however, appears grotesque, even arrogant and threatening. Especially when he then fixes his gaze on her, trying to identify the face behind the voice he just heard, he resembles a butterfly researcher examining a pinned specimen from his collection. The "FOREIGN in Neuhausen" project, however, is not part of the city's marketing efforts, but was carried out by the Neuhausen Art Association in the first half of March. FOREIGN is an artistic persona developed by the Berlin-based intervention artist Christian Hasucha. All that is known about the individuals embodying FOREIGN is that they are male and of similar build. "He could neither speak nor communicate with hand gestures. His plastic coverings hindered direct communication with him," writes Christian Hasucha in his concept paper. The town council meeting is just one of over twenty-five events to which FOREIGN was invited in Neuhausen. He accompanied women shopping and on walks. He was invited to private homes, to the general meeting of the Citizens' Guard, and to the TSV women's gymnastics session. He received investment advice from the manager of Volksbank Fildern and experienced a near-arrest by the Neuhausen police station. Always silent, in a matter-of-fact gray suit, his head in a tightly fitted capsule, his hands also in white hard shells. The diversity of everyday social life shown to FOREIGN in Neuhausen is impressive. In advance, the Neuhausen Art Association arranged for him to attend a ballet performance by the Cultural Association, a guided tour of contemporary architecture, and two company visits. Mayor Ingo Hacker insisted on personally accompanying the silent guest on a tour of the town. FOREIGN was invited by two kindergartens, the community center, various departments of the town hall, and the accordion club. The two-week schedule was packed with invitations and meetings in the town of thirteen thousand inhabitants "on the Filder plateau" south of Stuttgart. The stay, which began with his arrival at the nearby airport, as well as FOREIGN's encounters with Neuhausen residents, were photographically documented. A selection of over 2,000 photos of FOREIGN's participation in everyday life in Neuhausen has been printed as a postcard series and has been available for purchase at the town hall and in the art association's exhibition since April 11. The exhibition, featuring photos, objects, and performance props, runs until May 18 and will be documented in a project catalog. The children's drawings, press reports, police notices, two animated photo sequences, and a video interview present a colorful, multifaceted, and decidedly hospitable picture that FOREIGN took away from his two-week stay in Neuhausen. Much of what he saw and experienced is reflected back to the residents of Neuhausen as a mirror image or multifaceted portrait. The presentation begins with a display case showcasing the performance props: two headpieces and two pairs of handpieces with several sets of the corresponding clothing. It unfolds through various groupings of photographs, some printed on canvas, others on different paper formats. The exhibition extends through the stairwell to various floors and rooms of the town hall. In offices and anterooms, some murals were removed and replaced with photographs depicting FOREIGN in those very locations. This leads to visual tautologies in which different aesthetic languages are subversively brought closer together and blended. Viewing the photographs in their original locations evokes irritation and ambivalence: On the one hand, FOREIGN appears strangely familiar, fitting into everyday scenes with a modest naturalness. At the same time, its appearance is so reduced and alien that it seems virtually inserted. Moreover, it appears to acquire a new semantic charge from its surroundings.These complex interactions between the realistically appearing character and his environment also distinguish FOREIGN from de Chirico's surreal figures or Oskar Schlemmer's toy figures, which were always composed within an aesthetically designed, and therefore fictional and model-like, setting. Particularly striking are the photographic sequences showing FOREIGN visiting a family in their apartment, which illustrate how behaviors such as the duration of attention, head turning, body orientation, and other gestures that are part of basic human behavior trigger an action-reaction pattern and thus communication. These very photographs were animated into virtual film sequences by a computer program, making it possible, in a particularly sensitive, lighthearted, and sometimes touching way, to understand how understanding arises not only through verbal exchange but also through the affirmative imitation of gestures. FOREIGN as a communication partner, is not only "different," but his passivity also creates a disconcerting atmosphere. Unlike strangers who come to us from a different linguistic and cultural background, the white head capsule not only prevents verbal exchange but also the reading of emotions and moods that are normally reflected in the face and are a central component of non-verbal communication. Reducing the speaking human face to a white, perforated plastic surface pushes the other person to the limits of communication. Or, as FOREIGN also experienced, it fuels the projection of ideas, desires, and fears onto the person with the white head capsule. In the situations to which he is invited, everyone plays along. In an unexpected encounter with FOREIGN, the rules of the game are unknown. There, the figure becomes disruptive and very quickly reaches the limits of tolerance and public order. A situation arises in which the stranger appears, in the words of psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva, as that which "disturbs identity, system, order, which respects no boundaries, positions, or rules." Those familiar with Christian Hasucha's projects and documentation, which are usually characterized by a stark, everyday aesthetic, will notice the almost virtuosic, often accidental or playful, creative joy of this great classic of public intervention art, which he indulged in during this action in Neuhausen. His temporary personal involvement as FOREIGN also distinguishes this project from earlier interventions, even though Christian Hasucha emphasizes that the romanticism of the big city and its associated poetic references have always played a role in his work. Unforgettable is the almost Rembrandtian scene on a large photographic canvas, showing the FOREIGN at night in the beam of light from the ticket machine: as the protagonist of a science fiction novel, who draws energy from the machine to sustain his earthly existence. Cf. Project documentation No. 43: FOREIGN in Neuhausen