Live action with hood, knife, bucket, scrubbing brush, red paint, table, chairs, plates, raw beef kidneys, newspapers. First performed at ABC No Rio, New York, on December 2, 1984, with additional performances at A.K.A. Saskatoon, Western Front, Articule, Forest City Gallery, and the Art Gallery of Windsor, 1984-1985. Variations on Discord and Divisions begins in silence. Wearing coveralls and a black balaclava, a barefoot Mona Hatoum crawls slowly across the floor of the Grand Luxe Hall between seated rows of spectators. The stage is covered in newspaper and plastic, and makes a crinkling sound as she moves over it. When she finally arrives at her destined position below a hanging bucket, she stands. Whether spreading the liquid red contents of a bucket over the stage, or attempting to sit at a table only to repeatedly fall to the floor, Hatoum proposes a sadistic vision of human effort. Each variation confounds the supposed task at hand, yielding only further chaos, mess, and difficulty. Her careful but indelicate flops and swooshes use her full form and coveralls as an anonymous agent. With actions that mount in intensity (climaxing with the appearance of a knife and the serving of raw kidneys), the performance generates a sinister and dangerous space of conflict. Her performative gestures are later joined by a sharp sucking and crackling sound, a morse code-like tapping that grows in volume until the lights finally go out. Channels flip on a projection screen. Sounds of newscasters can be heard, alongside images of protests. A headline reads: 35000 people have been the victims of death squads since 1980. 1500 people have been butchered in cold blood in Nazi-like fashion ¦Twin refugee camps, one vast devastated morgue ¦Vicious immorale ¦Oppressed people ¦Famine, worse than ever.