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Alexander Giesche
by
Tarun Kade
People

Alex and I share both our office and our birthday. This combination has led to one of my favourite birthday parties so far. The party gives a good impression of Alex’s character. First of all it is hard to imagine Alex not celebrating his birthday. When some of us like to withdraw ourselves from the world when we have to face the bitter fact of “another year gone by”, Alex likes to share these moments and make it an occasion for people to come together. And people really like to come together when Alex invites them to, he has the ability to create moments of absolute presence, which normally ends in euphoric bodily reactions. For our birthday party, he forced me to remove all the furniture from our office (very hard work). After that he installed colour changing LED-Lights, prepared big bowls of secret recipe punch and made me organize a slightly over dimensional audio system. Shortly before the party started he presented a performance on the roof of the building that included thousands of bees, an electronic drone (these military spying tools that have caused a lot of outcry recently and caused Alex’s eyes to glow––they do whenever he is unwrapping one of his regular packages filled with electronic toys) and himself. The actual party developed in such a way that the next day all alcoholic beverages in the theatre building had mysteriously disappeared and a whole day of cleaning had to be spent on theatre premises. But months later people still talk about it. Alex is not especially employed for parties at the theatre, he is artist-in-residence, something that had not existed before he arrived. There is no actual job description. But provide Alex with a room and some electronic equipment and he will create moments of pure presence. Art – right now!

People
Alexander Giesche