Celestial Bodies in a Viscous Sky: Liquid Sky’s Reshaping of Aerial Space Using Lasers

Abstract

What happens when the space aerialists inhabit is made more tangible using lasers? Aerial performers are ‘air’-ialists performing in the atmosphere from suspended equipment. The space aerialists work within is delineated by the limits their limbs inscribe in the space around equipment; space formed by practice (de Certeau 1984: 117). In Liquid Sky the air rope artist Aedín Walsh interacted with was given texture and form by the combined practice of lasers and aerial action; lasers acting as choreographic bodies co-creating practiced space. This short article considers how introducing lasers to the aerial space reshaped and remade it, expanding spatial frontiers. It considers how laser practice made demands on aerial practice, influencing movement possibilities and contributing to a wider ritualistic performance aesthetic.