‘Hungary! (the part where Cedric as the Marquis De Sade tells Casanova’s story of Damien’s execution: A Snuff Spectacle)’

In ‘Hungary! And Other Economies (the part where Cedric as the Marquis De Sade tells Casanova’s story of Demian’s execution: A Snuff Spectacle.’ A group of hired porn actors are seen on a road trip travelling from Marseille to the Marquis De Sade’s former castle. A relic of the French Revolution, it now stands as a highly manicured ruin owned by fashion mogul Pierre Cardin. In perverse homage the actors are dressed in the retro futuristic designs of Cardin. Using the site guerilla-style, they perform extracts from the Peter Weiss play ‘Marat/Sade’, repeatedly taking turns to stage an encounter between the radical philosophies of Marquis De Sade and Jean Paul Marat.The journey begins in Marseille on a minibus adorned with vinyl lettering reading “Pierre Cardin”. It is whilst on this journey that the actors make crude interpretations of the brutal scenes depicted in the play, incorporating their own experience of porn films. Once on site, the women act out some of the play’s most political lines, offering a startling contrast to the preceding and following scenes, while reflecting on the lateral associations found throughout the film. The actors eventually revert back to playing ‘themselves’ with the men showing off their virility by doing push ups on a hot tarmac road.Marat/Sade is itself a play within a play and draws together historical moments from both pre-and post-French Revolution. In this interwoven layering of historical, social and political elements Pickering initiates remarkable encounters, from the radical philosophies of Marquis de Sade and Jean-Paul Marat, to the erotised play of the porn actors and the chateau’s current function as the site of a Cardin-sponsored theatre festival.