ILLUSIONS
Installation, Performance: July Weber / Light, Sound, Performance: Emilio Checa Cordero
ILLUSIONS is an immersive installation consisting of sculptures, instruments, and stage lighting. It is powered by wind and smoke machines, as well as a watering system that together create a self-sustaining environment and a continuously shifting sculptural concert.
The work is ongoing and evolves depending on its context, especially in response to the architecture in which it is installed. The first version was presented during Berlin Art Week 2023 at NEW FEARS Gallery, followed by a scaled-up iteration at Uferstudios Berlin in 2025. The installation is fully autonomous and operates independently, with its technical equipment, sound, and lighting programmed in a continuous loop. Despite this repetition, the loop generates a complex system of constant transformation, producing ever-changing constellations. Metal sculptures clink against each other, wind activates rotating electric guitars, and water droplets strike amplified drums, resulting in a layered cacophony of sound and light.
The installation fundamentally explores concepts of beauty, theatricality, and spectacle—appearing both inviting and eerily unsettling. Audiences can observe this dynamic, sounding system from the outside or step inside, walking through and interacting with the objects to influence their movement and the resulting soundscape.
Artists July Weber and Emilio Checa Cordero further activate and expand the installation through performative interventions involving dance and singing. A central focus of these performances is the deconstruction of clichés, gestures, movements, gender roles, and expectations associated with the music industry and the mythical figure of the rock star. Familiar elements of the rock band—drums, guitars, microphones—are approached from a somatic and new materialist perspective. Instruments are seen not merely as tools, but as counterparts and dance partners, with whom the performers engage in a dialogue on equal footing—between human and non-human actors.
Through this, the boundaries between terms and concepts such as object, subject, prop, instrument, sculpture—and the stereotypical hierarchies they imply—are renegotiated and interwoven. The performers play with iconic rituals of destruction on stage, smashing guitars and other equipment. Here, collision is not viewed solely as a destructive act, but as a powerful encounter that can lead to intersections and even fusions between different bodies. This collision is embraced as a potentially generative moment, one that opens up new perspectives and unpredictable compositions.
