​​MATTHEW PREST

Bounce was selected for the Rapid Pulse Performance Art Festival, Chicago, 2014. This involved a repeated action of running into a wall of sticky tape repeatedly for 1 hour at a main intersection in Chicago's Wicker Park. The piece was a violent and absurd meditation on notions of achievement and progress.

'Bounce' was first developed and presented at the Watermill International Summer Program 2013 and Robert Wilson included it in his top 5 performances for that year, alongside work by Romeo Castelluci and Heiner Goebbels.

At the 2013 Watermill Summer Program, I presented a 2 hour solo performance of a piece of material from Whelping Box. This was a repeated action of running and launching at full speed in the direction of the viewer restrained by a harness. The piece was an experiment in taking a task from Whelping Box and placing it in an installation context.

'Rave On' (performed at Alaska Projects as part of Restaging Restaging 2014) was a 20 minute exercise in energy transference from a performer to the audience. Given the setting of a carpark, with a seated audience and with the help of by partner and son, the task was to create a heightened 'energy' using repetitive dancing, rave music, everyday household objects (a heater, groceries, our family car), and audience participation.

Running Up A Skyscraper (performed for Site Is Set Festival, Melbourne 2015) saw me running up 89 floors while the audience waited in a bar at the top of Eureka Tower, enjoying the view, champagne and canapes. On arrival at the top, my task was to present a 30 minute Powerpoint presentation on 'Skyscrapers'. The work explored ideas of individualism and capitalism.

Running Up A Skyscraper (performed for Site Is Set Festival, Melbourne 2015). See image 5 for more details.