The Cuss Show

Johannesburg's ambivalences exposed in this participative performance.

How to inhabit public areas, take over unexpected corners of the city or corners of the wide, dematerialized open spaces of the World Wide Web? The multifaceted collective The Cuss Show focuses its look on vernacular cultures, the ones produced by the street and those of the Internet, and explores their ability to reflect the aesthetic entity of Johannesburg. In both its performances and work online, The Cuss Show rehabilitates and re-contextualizes these invisible and stigmatized forms: from free access amateur videos to spontaneous occupations of urban areas, they share the characteristic of appearing / disappearing in an instant, of spreading like a virus and maintaining a personal relationship with the user who absorbs them. In the form of a disruption of space, Disrupted Webisodes is a video and kinetic installation that draws from the seemingly disorganized system of illegal vendors in downtown Johannesburg.