I am an interdisciplinary performance artist, living and working in Berlin.
Since October 2016, I've held a weekly residency at Kit Kat Club. Throughout the nights of each Saturday since, I've come to develop a new practice of work; expanded from my research upon sexuality, intimacy, bdsm, bodywork, mindfulness and aerial acrobatics.
My stage work is usually framed within long durational performative installations, mainly made with bodies and ropes. I frequently work with models who, up to that moment, are total strangers to me. The physical language of negotiation I have developed, is my greatest treasure in this journey of researching sexuality and bdsm through performance. And, although often somewhat hidden within the war-zone environment of the club, this language is always present and on display for the careful audience to observe; And it is what dictates each piece, its content, its duration and its extreme.
Before I got to be known as the bondage artist of Kitkat, I spent 14 years in London. I studied History of Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, (2002-2007) with a dissertation on Performance Studies and Performativity. I then worked for artists and companies that focused on site responsive performance; from immersive experimental theatre, to late night performance events, to museum & gallery based performance art.
Notably, I've worked for the Shunt collective (Shunt Lounge 2008-2010), Tino Seghal (Tate Modern 2012 and Athens Roman Agora 2014) and Oreet Ashery (Artangel's Party for Freedom 2013).
In addition to my employment in large scale artistic happenings, in 2009 I began developing my own performance practice, often involving aerial acrobatics and ropes. In 2011, I initiated the Guerrilla Rigging series; an ongoing site-specific circus project in the form of public interventions, which is gradually archived and scheduled to be published on a hard copy.
In 2015, I moved to Berlin with a plan to research the discipline of sexuality broadly, and incorporate it into my performance practice. I met Felix Ruckert and it was he who introduced me to rope bondage.
I'm originally from Greece. I was born and grew up in Athens. My birth name is Alexandros Dermatis.
