Children’s Game #35: Kluddermor

Directed by Francis Alÿs

Children getting into a frightful mess that only parents could sort out: this familiar scenario plays out subversively, for the rescuing ‘Mother’ is just a child. A circle turns into a knot as the kids entangle themselves, still clutching, ever more twistedly, the same hands.* Once paralyzed, the group cries chorally for ‘Mother’ and she appears. With remarkable engineering flair, ‘Mother’ figures out how to unknot the knot without breaking the links of hands, shoving arms over heads and directing legs under and over. Suddenly, like a disentangled string of Christmas lights, the chain becomes circular again.