CUT
the greatest artwork since the end of the world, 2008

The room was locked. The artists were a little late and the audience was waiting. The artists arrived carrying some bags of carrots and the door was opened.

In the room on a bench stood a few hundred carrots, standing on their chopped bases pointing upwards towards the ceiling. On a chair sat the small, bumpy bases of these carrots. One of the artists casually brushed the carrots from her chair, like dust spilling them across the floor, and she sat down. The other artist, standing by the bench, picked up a knife, a large knife, and began to cut the carrots into pieces.

Slowly, because of a shortage of chairs, the audience had to unpack the chairs in the corner of the room and they began to sit.

The artist chopping the carrots continued, and the artist on the chair began to read a book. The book was a choose-your-own-adventure-novel titled City of Thieves.

The artist chopping had to decide what to do, whether to turn left or right, whether to fight the evil swordsman or to run, whether to steal from the kind shopkeeper, whether to eat the apples or the plums, and again whether to turn left or right.

Not too far into the adventure the artist chopping the carrots swaps her knife for a vegetable peeler. Against the physical urgency of the peeling and the immateriality of the adventure novel the artist’s choices appear meaningless and almost obsolete.

For around an hour the artist continued peeling, the sound of the peeling and the sound of the story asking questions again and again.

Finally every one of the 50 kilograms of carrots had been chopped or peeled and the adventure novel came to a sudden end as the mission to save the once peaceful town from evildoers, ultimately, failed.

The artists left the room, dispersed with the peeled away skin of carrots, slices, freshly peeled bodies, a booked called City of Thieves and a sitting audience. An orange stain coloured the surface of the artist’s hands.

CUT the greatest artwork since the end of the world was a slightly absurd performance that grew from the artist’s interests in choice and its simulation, labour and the ways we live out our daily lives.

This performance took place at Serial Space in Sydney on the 18th July 2008.

All images courtesy Anna Williams.