Flashing Bodies: an undisciplined

Bodies are places of discipline, as we all learned from Foucault. Known to be provocative, unruly, undisciplined, the Completely Naked collective puts the body at the core of their visual and performative research. Their Flashing Bodies series allow us to explore issues such as gender politics, intimacy, censorship and (extreme) sexual behaviour, identity, community, presenting a series of live events, based on workshops and participatory strategies, and a series of photo-performance books.

Commissioned by Festival Escrita na Paisagem, Flashing Bodies - Action Eight took place in Évora, Portugal, providing a working map to an international group of performers who embodyed emotional censorship and myths. The project driven by Pau Ros, Pablo Goikoetxea and Pablo Robertson, explores found locations, both industrial and natural spaces in Évora, giving rise to a set of images, creating a challenging live presentation and the book you are now reading.

On making Flashing Bodies, Completely Naked confronts participants and audience with body politics, performing gender troubles, negotiating both intimacy and the public realm, embodying myths and surfacing censored senses and deeper emotional forbidden gestures. But also by giving time to the experience, slowing down in space, and to merge, so to speak, in body and location, by contrasting everyday experience with natural locations and found places, Flashing Bodies - action eight drives its provocative, unruly and undisciplined core to a new unprecedented level. Try it, take your time!

José Alberto Ferreira; Escrita na Paisagem Arts Curator