SpO2

SpO2 is a performance in which Anne and Jean Rochat immerse themselves in a body of water and breathe using a single shared hose. At the other end of the pipe, eight people operate bicycle pumps to supply them with air, via a modified cistern and a compressor. Their action is minimal, but vital: for two hours, the performers do nothing but breathe, keeping themselves alive. Underwater, two cameras capture the scene, transmitted to a screen on the surface. Microphones record underwater sounds, which are reworked live by two musicians broadcasting it both underwater and to the public. A double system of interactions is thus established between the aquatic depth the surface, through the flows of air and of sound.

Anne Rochat has had a long-standing interest in and confrontation with water: in 3MAT (2015) she swims across the Lac de Joux lengthwise, by day and by night, in Obsidian (2017) she wraps herself, naked, around a melting block of ice, in Hic & Nunc (2018) she crosses the 120 kilometers of the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. In winter 2021, she immersed parts of her body under the ice and photographed herself, in the series Lù Tòrrèn. With SpO2, she goes one step further and initiates the History of O performance and research cycle around the water element, in close collaboration with her twin brother Jean Rochat.

Water is essential for life, but can also be life threatening. The long immersion in this element aims to point out the tension and fragility inherent in these opposing forces. The endangerment of the two individuals serves as a metaphor for the interdependence of beings, of living together, of a disrupted world in which humans reformulate the place they occupy. With SpO2, Anne Rochat deepens her explorations of the physical and psychological resistance of the human body, against a background of reflection on ecological issues.

SpO2 was created in 2021 on two sites, on the shores of Lake Geneva, then in a river in Ticino. For each context, a specific partnership is set up by the artists and by Arta Sperto. At La Tour-de-Peilz, with La Becque – Artist Residencies in collaboration with the Théâtre de Vidy. In Geneva, with the Bains des Pâquis and in Ticino, with the Cima Norma Art Festival. This first trajectory, neither live performance tour nor travelling exhibition, invents a model of artistic aquatic cartography.