Calling your mother

What if, like a computer, you could switch your body off completely from time to time? No thoughts, no sensations, no movement, no feeling. What would such a state bring? This question became the starting point for Karel van Laere’s project The Non-Present Performer in 2017.

The state that came closest to what he was looking for was anesthesia or a spinal injection. So he approached an anesthesiologist. His idea to do a live performance while under anesthesia turned out to be impossible. But the anesthesiologist convinced him of the power of hypnosis in this context.

The work that followed placed Karel under hypnosis by a hypnotherapist. He then handed his body over to a choreographer and three dancers, surrounded by a live audience. He asked the dancers to push physical boundaries, to experiment, and to make him—the Non-Present Performer—the subject of their exploration.

A question

Almost ten years later, The Non-Present Performer still shows the central question in his practice: what does it mean to have a body? He is curious about the limits of his own body and drawn to the tension between that body and technological systems.

Every work begins with a single question about the body, a question that sounds absurd at first but, once asked, is also fundamental. Everyone has wished they could switch themselves off at some point. That meeting of absurdity and the fundamental runs through all of his work—both in the questions themselves and in the form the artwork takes.

Have you ever seen someone under anesthesia on stage?

The questions that drive his projects are often so specific that he collaborates with professionals outside the art world—surgeons, firefighters, a masseur, actors, and, as in this case, an anesthesiologist and hypnotherapist. This makes his work connect with everyday reality, in the street and in public space.

Physical contact

In the past two years, the question of contact has become central for Karel. How does a body make contact with the world outside itself? During his time at the Rijksakademie in 2024, he developed Contact. He became acutely aware of the different norms and habits around physical touch—his own and those of others.

He started recording every form of touch. Handshakes, accidental bumps of an elbow, the smallest physical interactions. At the end of each day, for a full year, he wrote them all down.

This diary of encounters gradually transformed into a performance where the hands of the audience played the leading role.

Walking on liquid concrete

In Villa’s exhibition, his latest work Calling from Work (2025) is shown. He spent three months in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and called his parents once a week.

In the film we see Karel walking on a concrete mixer truck. Taiwan builds at enormous speed, and the cities are full of these trucks. They symbolize the country’s growth and its collective gaze toward the future.

A concrete truck keeps turning so the cement remains liquid during transport. The machine must not stand still. This clumsy giant makes sure a heavy substance stays smooth and fluid.

Every week, during his stay, he phoned his parents. Ordinary conversations about the weather, about food. “Mom, did you sleep well?” During those calls, Karel always knew exactly where his parents were—on the couch in the living room, next to the Wi-Fi router. Meanwhile, they had no idea where he was. They couldn’t picture his new surroundings on the other side of the world.

For the conversations themselves it made no difference, yet the contrast between their voices and the places he walked through created an absurd reality for him. How important is it, really, to know exactly where the other person is?

On the rotating concrete truck, Karel calls his parents. They don’t know he is making an artwork at that moment. We only hear Karel’s voice—the sounds on the other end of the line are not recorded. And yet, everyone will recognize a conversation like this.

“Yes, I’m doing fine.”

It’s a funny image: that massive, spinning concrete truck filled with tons of wet cement, while the artist casually chats with his parents about the weather. At the same time, that everyday conversation exposes the whole world—the contact between mother and child.

The video shows a form of love. She speaks more than he does. She likes to share details about groceries, about friends she has met, or how his father is doing.

A weekly chat, repeated like a groove in a record. Not for what is being said, but simply to hear each other’s voices.

In the end, asking about sleep or the warmth of the day is just another way of checking if the other is safe. It’s also a way to see if you can still make contact with that body so far from home.