1.4 m²
Performance Art
Duration: 15–40 minutes (depending on the presentation space)
Project Description
How much is a human life worth when the space it occupies is valued more than the person who inhabits it?
1.4 m² is a performance that examines the transformation of space from a fundamental human necessity into an economic commodity. At a time when housing, labour and even human presence are increasingly measured according to market value, the work explores how the economics of space reshape the notions of freedom, ownership and human existence.
At the centre of the performance, a 1.4-square-metre area is defined. Inside it stands only a chair—the performer's sole material possession.
The performance begins with a public dialogue between a human being and a computational system. Using a mobile phone, the performer addresses Artificial Intelligence with questions concerning the cost of housing, the value of 1.4 square metres, the price of a burial plot, the years of labour required to acquire the minimum space necessary to live, and the economic value assigned to both life and death.
Artificial Intelligence functions as a neutral calculating mechanism. It offers neither opinions nor interpretations. It produces only numbers, data and calculations. The calculations precede the action.
Once the dialogue is completed, the performer steps inside the marked area and uses a chain to bind his body to the chair. From that moment on, his only possession becomes both a burden and a physical constraint.
Within 1.4 m², he repeatedly attempts to perform the most ordinary human actions: sitting, resting, sleeping, moving, working. Repetition gradually transforms routine into compulsion and compulsion into physical exhaustion.
At the climax of the performance, dozens of keys appear. The performer tries only a few of them, yet none unlocks the chain.
He then leaves the confined area, dragging behind him the chair and the chain that remain attached to his body.
The remaining keys are handed to the audience, who are invited to continue searching for the key that might unlock the chain.
The work draws its point of departure from extreme forms of minimal living, yet expands towards a broader global condition in which the economic value of space increasingly outweighs human presence. In cities transformed by tourism and speculative investment, permanent residents are gradually displaced while housing shifts from being a place to live into a commodity to be traded. Rather than referring to a specific location, 1.4 m² reflects on a condition that manifests itself across different parts of the world through different forms.
1.4 m² does not attempt to provide answers. It constructs a situation in which numerical precision confronts the vulnerability of the human body, allowing data to become lived experience.
The performance concludes when the search is transferred from the performer to the audience. Whether a key capable of unlocking the chain actually exists remains unknown.
Performer Artist: Alexandros Mylonas
Curator: Sofia Stavrakaki
