TRIPOD SWEEP
2015-2019
Tripod Sweep is an interactive, durational performance that grapples with defining power, cooperation, conflict, and intimacy within a set of given terms. Knoop, who stays on the ground for the duration of the performance and communicates with people by using body language only, approaches individuals who enter the space with a movement borrowed from Brazilian Jiu-jitsu called The Tripod Sweep, in which one attaches one’s own legs to the hip of another person, thereby destabilizing the other’s two-legged base. For those that agree to participate, a game of playfu non-verbal negotiation ensues-- often creating dynamic, improvisational sets of call and response. Knoop’s Tripod Sweep cycles through action, reaction, and rest. It frames dynamics around free choice and consent, connectivity, and the legibility and invisibility of assumptions in a public sphere. In fusing with a participating audience member, Knoop mimics the other sculptural objects in the room.
The installation of objects for ARCH at Leslie Lohman is pulled from Knoop’s ongoing series of work, Heads and Tails; an installation of interactive sculptures referencing physical therapy devices, fashion accoutrements, prosthetics, and furniture that queer the power dynamic between human and object, and between maker and participant.
Flyer: Courtesy of the artist
Photos: (c) Kristine Eudey, Michael Wilson, 2019, Arch: Savannah Knoop, Tripod Sweep, Leslie-Lohman Museum
