First Flush (2002)

First Flush (2002)

First Flush (2002)

First Flush was performed at the Ottersberger Performancetage Festival in Germany. A 45-minute, pseudo-scientific lecture was presented, accompanied by the preparation of five different teas by an assistant. The purpose of the talk was to prepare the audience for a peculiar tea ceremony to take place after the lecture. To consume any of the teas meant the possibility of absorbing material that was once contained in the bodies of famous thinkers and musicians, including Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison and Heinrich Böll. The teas were made of dried leaves which had been collected from trees growing near the graves of these people. The tasting that followed the talk was not annunciated; the talk itself covered an apparently random choice of themes, including organic decomposition, the assimilation of nutrients in plants, religious notions of transmigration, and sociological notes on star cults.
Slides shown at the lecture (selection):