The Perfect Number (2024, 60 mins) is Richard Layzell’s new performance/film and the sequel to his highly praised Psychosomatic (2023, 90 mins), a unique combination of film and performance that crosses five continents.  

More than a century after the anarchic DADA art movement emerged in Zurich as a response to global chaos, we again find ourselves struggling to make sense of the many conflicts and ecological crises we are living through.  

In the spirit of DADA, this new performance/film travels in free-flow and touches on: dreams and visions, other living beings who eat grass, brutality and survival, trees fighting back, the history of photography, concrete underfoot, how to pose, the sound of plastic, rust in movement, wearing the wrong clothes, undisciplined golfers, the Bay of Fundy, the Centre of the World and how to spell ‘Cayuga.’ 

Along the way we meet Canadian First Nations political activist Milton Born With A Tooth, the first woman to be Chief of the Cherokee Nation, Wilma Mankiller, Cayuga Chief William Fishcarrier, the DADA poets and founders of the Cabaret Voltaire, Emmy Hennings and Hugo Ball, maverick environmentalist Kino Paxton, Zeus, two eagles and the ‘omphalos’ (in Delphi, Greece).   

“Each thing has its word, but the word has become a thing in itself.” Hugo Ball 

Thanks to Colchester Arts Centre, Norwich Arts Centre, Katharyn Machan, Eric Howd. Richard Layzell appears courtesy of Kino Paxton. 

About the Artist 

Richard Layzell has been showing performances, films and installations internationally since 1980. He is considered a live art innovator, and was one of the first artists to take experimental performance into education, publishing ‘Live Art in Schools’, with the Arts Council.  

His multi-sensory installation ‘Tap Ruffle and Shave’ was experienced by 100,000 people across the UK. He’s worked collaboratively with communities in Bristol, Shanghai, Perth (Australia), London, Canvey Island, Glasgow and Dundee, amongst many others. He teaches at University of the Arts London and is a course director at the Atsitsa Centre in Skyros, Greece.  

His highly praised recent work, ‘Psychosomatic’ (2023-4, 90 mins), is a unique combination of film and performance that crosses five continents. He’s the author of ‘Enhanced Performance,’ ‘The Artists Directory’ and ‘Cream Pages.’ He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, where he was taught by Derek Jarman and Stuart Brisley, and first encountered the I Ching.