Not by Lorenzo Tebano

As I type, Lorenzo is cleaning one of the many windows in my studio - an old office block in Lincoln Square Manchester due for demolition. An idea he brought to the studio, he cleans for approx 45 mins
Cleaning thinking doing write
The act of cleaning is a meditative one. A reductive type of productivity, the aim of which is to eliminate previous signs of activity in order to continue with ones work..
A preparatory distraction and necessary performance to create a clear space for your thoughts.
Watching him clean is like sitting down just to listen to an album, putting on some background music only to do nothing to it.
An isolated ritual – the acting out of organising ones workspace before work can begin.
Lorenzo plays the window like a violin, stroking the pane with a wet cloth to create a chorus of moans and groans, squeals of different pitches and tones.
Each sound is accompanied by corresponding physical movement/gesture – it takes your whole body to play the office block like an instrument.
The piece has a clear beginning and end, it’s one whole, one act made up of a series of smaller movements, different sections of the same overture (over-chore?)
The actions and movement of the window cleaner can be easily compared to that of a painter. Both work against a flat surface, caressing it, slapping and rubbing it with wet implements creating different compositions, temporary wet spaces made up of thick soapy lines, curves and loops.
Whereas the painter aims to create a painting out of these motions, it is the cleaner’s aim to leave no trace, a transparent and unblemished surface that we can see through whilst simultaneously observing our own reflection.
In his role as composer, Lorenzo adopts the position of both painter and workman, existing somewhere between the two. Half automatic and half improvised, it’s the performance of a useful gesture, which looks just like the gesture itself, an anti-spectacle...
...which is of course a type of spectacle - there’s a chance that the people sat by the windows in the surrounding buildings have noticed him. The purpose of his act is ultimately to clean the window, but how clean the window is after 45 mins is irrelevant.