Twerking, vogue, Fortnite, flash mobs, a Sufi or musical chairs. Visual artist Anouk Kruithof is fascinated by dance as a form of self-expression and empowerment, which has led her to research dance styles from all over the world. The dance-conclave and video installation Universal Tongue leads us through the jungle of the internet. It explores how dance has developed throughout history as part of our global media culture, and how it manifests online today.
The immersive installation is based on 32 hours of found video material presenting thousands of different dance styles, selected by a team of 52 researchers from all over the world from YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Collectively, they collected 8800 videos; 250 hours of video material, 1000 dance styles, from all 196 countries of the world. This four-hour rousing dance video installation is spread over eight screens, with no less than 32 hours of found footage bundled into Universal Tongue, arranged by rhythm and the number of dancers.
The ongoing loop of moving image erases typical categories of the world order, such as country, continent or culture. Instead, it looks at our era of fluidity, hybridity and non-stop connectedness with respect for and in celebration of our diverse historical backgrounds, cultural differences and unique individuality.
About Anouk Kruithof
Anouk Kruithof (b. 1981, Dordrecht, The Netherlands) is a visual artist with a transdisciplinary approach, which encompasses photography, sculpture, collage, video, websites and (social) interventions in the public domain. Kruithof depicts the transience and the chaos of this world, which the artist skillfully addresses by mixing urgent societal issues with personal experiences. She graduated from the art academy in 2003 and currently lives and works alternately in Brussels, Belgium and Boto-Pasi, Suriname. Kruithof has had solo exhibitions in Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, Centro de la ImagenMexico City and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Her work has also been included in the collections of MoMA San Francisco, Museum Folkwang in Essen and Museum Voorlinden in Wassenaar. Universal Tongue is still intensively shown all over the world and has been exhibited in Museum Tinguely in Basel, VIERNULVIER (formerly known as Vooruit) in Ghent and at WHOLE | United Queer Festival, Ferropolis, Gräfenhainichen, Germany.