OPUS II, 2026

Live performance, Duration 50’

The performance OPUS II (17.01.2026), on Art’s Birthday, opens the exhibition COSMIC BODY – First Incision and forms the first chapter of the work. Rather than encountering a completed installation, visitors witness a space taking shape in real time through a ritualised procession in which performers carry and activate objects. This process forms the spatial and symbolic framework of the exhibition and determines the logic that guides its later configuration.

OPUS is a modular series of performances that unfolds as part of a larger, ongoing composition titled Erotic Device Orchestra. The title refers to the work’s understanding of connection, activation, and collective composition. Erotic derives from Eros, the ancient Greek concept of love, desire, and the force that draws bodies, materials, and energies into relation. Here, the erotic is not limited to sexuality, but is understood as a generative principle: a movement towards encounter, transformation, and the creation of new relations.

The term device points to the multiple layers through which the work operates. A device can be understood as an instrument, a mechanism, or a structure that enables certain actions to take place. Within Erotic Device Orchestra, objects, bodies, gestures, sounds, and spatial arrangements function as interconnected devices; each carrying its own potential while also becoming part of a larger system. The device is simultaneously material and conceptual: something that is activated, reconfigured, and continuously producing new meanings.

Orchestra expands this idea into a collective composition. Rather than referring only to musical performance, the orchestra becomes a model for the coordination of different voices, movements, materials, and energies, allowing distinct elements to come together without losing their individuality. The work functions as an ensemble of bodies and objects, each contributing to an evolving score.

Within this composition, Stef Van Looveren functions as both co-creator and performer, occupying a position within the apparatus they have constructed. Through their voice, Van Looveren generates mantra-like sound frequencies that become one of the resonant elements of the work, while sculptural instruments are simultaneously activated and played. These objects are not passive sculptures but performative extensions of the body-devices that produce sound, movement, and interaction. The voice and the sculptural instruments enter into dialogue, creating an environment in which human and non-human bodies participate together in the unfolding composition.

The performers within OPUS are referred to as surgeons of a larger operation. This terminology frames the performance as an act of careful intervention, assembly, and transformation. Rather than simply executing choreography, the surgeons enter the space as agents who activate, manipulate, and bring the different components of the work into relation. Their gestures resemble a collective procedure: an operation in which bodies, objects, sounds, and spatial structures are opened, rearranged, and brought into a new state of connection. The metaphor of surgery also echoes the notion of incision within COSMIC BODY – First Incision, suggesting both a physical and symbolic opening; a way of accessing hidden structures and revealing new forms of relation.

The performers constitute the surgical ensemble of OPUS, carrying out the operations through which the work continuously transforms itself. There is no external patient. Instead, the surgeons themselves, together with the audience and the exhibition, are implicated in the operation. All become participants in the unfolding process of transformation.

Each iteration of OPUS functions as a distinct chapter within this broader composition of embodied actions, objects, sounds, and spatial transformations. Rather than presenting a fixed performance, OPUS operates as an evolving score; one that can be reconfigured, expanded, and activated differently each time it is performed.

The performance OPUS II (17.01.2026) opened Stef Van Looveren’s exhibition COSMIC BODY – First Incision (2026) and formed the exhibition’s first chapter. Instead of encountering a completed installation, visitors witnessed a space constructed in real time through a procession in which performers carried, arranged, and activated objects. This unfolding process established the spatial and symbolic framework of the exhibition, setting the logic that guided its subsequent configuration.

Within the larger structure of Erotic Device Orchestra, OPUS functions as both a performance (operation) and a method of composition: a way of bringing bodies, materials, and environments into relation. The performers (surgeons) do not simply present objects but participate in their transformation, allowing the exhibition space to emerge through gestures, movement, and collective activation. The work proposes the body as an instrument and the exhibition as a living, continuously produced arrangement.

Concept, performance, sculptures, installation: Stef Van Looveren

By and with

Performers:  Adelita Baks, Adrien Souchet, Anca Paninopol, Arya K/Nell, Inci Gül Civelekoğlu, Lavinia Tabar, Manuel Joaquin Gutierrez Ruiz, Michiko Lii, Mira Biermans, Roel Lambert, Sam Hawkes, Sam Van Goethem, Stef Van Looveren, Stephen De Smet, Tamara Sam Garcia, Tuchila Jamees

Assistants: Aukje De Coen, Bruno Heselmans, Carmela Michailidis, Céline Yetter, Inci Gül Civelekoğlu, Quinten Ornelis, Tamara Sam Garcia, Keesha Agyei

Dramaturgy Assistant: Yanni Loenders
Light Design: Anne Meeussen

M HKA team
Curator: Joanna Zielińska
Production Coordinator: Argyri Platsa
Production Performance: Lode Geens
Mediation: Sofie Gregoor

IMAGES:
Bruno Heselmans 
Silvia Cappellari

VIDEO FOOTAGE:
Giovanni Westerlinck / KEEN