PETER DOBILL

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 4 hrs.

Body submerged in milk, my mouth overflowing, my nostrils receive milk from above, challenging my only breath.

(Live Action @ English Kills Art Gallery, Brooklyn, NY)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 1 hr.

I open my body raw, cayenne pepper burning clean.

(Live Action @ JAJO Art Gallery, Newark, NJ)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 3.5 hrs.

One cut every minute, on the minute.

(Live Action @ English Kills Art Gallery, Brooklyn, NY)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 1 hr.

My breathing is held through tubes, blood filling and replacing breath.

(Video Action)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 8 min.

I cut my chest in half, salt filling the wounds.

(Live Action @ Contaminate 3, Boston, MA)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 1 hr.

Enclosed in plastic, I sweat my body dry, distilling my essence beneath.

(Live Action @ Nurture Art, Brooklyn, NY)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 4 hrs.

In helmet blind, I play the drum.

(Live Action @ Ox-Bow, Saugatuck, MI)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 20 min.

I am breaking sticks across my back.

(Live Action @ Ox-Bow, Saugatuck, MI)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 30 min.

I am circling round, stone dragging me down.

(Live Action @ Ox-Bow, Saugatuck, MI)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 3 Days, Approx. 1.5 - 6.5 hrs per day (13 hrs total)

Pinned by spears, dragged down by hearts that hook my body, I exist between breath and flesh.

(Live Action @ English Kills Art Gallery, Brooklyn, NY)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 30 min.

Covered in wax, incense burns through seven points of my body.

(Live Action @ Grace Exhibition Space, Brooklyn, NY)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 45 min.

In helmet blind, arms forced by sword, I walk in lines, ropes to hold and cut my sides.

(Video Action)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 45 min.

Wrapped in salt, my body circled round in a pit of stone, I bake in the infrared heat.

(Live Action @ CAVE, Brooklyn, NY)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 30 min.

Breathing in sodium, buried into ground, I exist to exhale.

(Live Action @ Gilded Pony Performance Festival, Troy, NY.)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 30 min.

Breathing from the ground as my body lies above.

(Performed live @ Black Mountain Preserve, NY )

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 25 min.

Creating a self-contained vacuum in the tube with my mouth, I attempt to raise my heart from my body.

(Live Action @ Black Box Gallery Space, Seattle, WA)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 2 min.

I am stretched in division, the sword as my guide.

(Video Action)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 2 min.

My chest attempts to indefinitely hold a sword, pressed against my heart, up to the wall.

(Video Action)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 1 hr.

Encased in sand, in a self-made apparatus, I am struggling against melting ice falling through the tubes to my throat.

(Live Action @ Tojo Gallery, Chicago, IL)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 2 min.

My mouth is hooked open to inhale sand.

(Video Action)

Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 20 min.

I am buried into the shore as my mouth is hooked out to sea.

(Live Action @ Lake Michigan, Chicago, IL)

5 Day Action Documented on 16:9 Widescreen Digital Video

Duration: 5 Days: Approx. 28-42 min. per day

My studio is covered in a layer of plastic and duct tape. My body is covered in a layer of plastic and duct tape. With bat in my hand, I make blind circles as my body suffocates.

(Live Action @ Artist's Studio, Champaigne, IL)

Action Documented on Digital Video

Duration: 14.5 min.

I am covered in a layer of plastic and then duct tape, immobile and trying to breath.

(Video Action)

Action Documented on Digital Video

Duration: 21 min.

Inviting a volunteer to join me, I handed him a lightbulb with an extended cord.  I then attempted to indefinitely plug in the cord while holding the metal socket prongs. The light is only on in the piece when I am concurrently being shocked by electricity.

(Live Action @ Exhibition Space, Champaign, IL)

Action Documented on Digital Video

Duration: 10 min.

Walking into the room, I placed a noose around my neck, and grabbed hold of two ceiling hooks. Kicking the stool out to the audience, I held on as long as I could before hanging. An audience member placed a stool beneath me shortly after.

(Live Action @ Exhibition Space, Champaigne, IL)

Action Documented on 35mm B&W Photography

Duration: 2 hrs.

I attempted to make as many different body actions with a chair as possible until I was exhausted mentally. This yielded 176 different recorded actions.

(Live Action @ Artists Studio, Champaigne, IL)

Action Documented on 35mm B&W Photography


Duration: 15 Min.

After being placed on platforms, sand weights were attached on my hands and feet.  I attempted to lift the weights indefinitely while staring at my reflection in the mirror above, not being able to see the weights in the reflection.

(Live Action @ Exhibition Space, Champaigne, IL)

Action Documented on Digital Photograhpy

Duration: 3 Days; 30 Min. (burning)

Rows of matchsticks were taped tightly to my right arm for 3 days.  On the morning of the forth day, the tape was removed and the volume of matchsticks used on the right arm was attempted with burning holes on the left arm (approx. 30 min.)  The arms were then presented.

(Live Action @ Exhibition Space, Champaigne, IL)