LandEscape Contemporary
A r t
R e v i e w
Anniversary Edition
ANDREA MONOPOLIS STEPHEN COHEN EVA DABARA MENGXI RAO ANNA NATT WAYNE MADSEN MICHIEL ALBERTS MOHAMED BENHADJ ESS BECK
ART Dame Gothel...it hurts to be beautiful by Piotr Rybkowski
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Land
SUMMARY
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
C o n t e m p o r a r y
A r t
R e v i e w
Ess Beck
Andreas Monopolis
Natsuko Hattori
Carla Forte
Anna Natt
Eva Dabara
Denmark
Greece
Canada
USA
Germany
Israel
Stine "Ess" Beck is a MSc Audio Design graduate from Aarhus University's Faculty of Arts and Communication (2016). As an autodidact musician and music producer, she has been active on the Danish and European Experimental underground music scene for the past 5 years with bands including ZRN, Tales of Murder and Dust, and as a live VJ, before entering the world of mixed media arts. Combining her work as an experimental musician with multimedia and performance, she explores the cross-field between analogue and digital technology, examining how tools and technology shape creative processes and the subjective production of meaning in a theoretically "closed" semantic system.
Andrea Monopolis was born in Corfu in 1976. He collaborates with the Department of Music of the Ionian University he is also a member of the Electroacoustic Music Association of Greek Composers. For many years he was event manager with his own productions house, being at the same time the coordinator on many festivals, video maker, sound engineer, and the Founder of O.S.C.S. NCO. From 2010 hi is producing prototypes and custom-made sound devices branded as MoCM and lately, he is building motorcycles to as MoCM gear. He is the owner of Jimmy's restaurant, and partner on Locandiera Hotel.. His artistic impulse is expressed not only through music but also through images and materials images.
Fabric is my medium of choice because people everywhere can relate more easily to this material, which conveys warmth, natural softness and the intimate human touch.
My primary intent as a Filmmaker is to communicate my personal and social concerns, transforming them into a magical realm where anything becomes possible. Images, dialogues, silences, colors and movement join to create a visual equilibrium, speaking for themselves. Within my cinematographic work, movement is a key element for narrative and visual development; achieving a frame in motion from the image. Beyond an unorthodox narrative and aesthetic, my work focuses on experimenting new visual sensations through conflict: reflecting a world of emotions that can be both very near reality and on the side of the nonexistent, creating a parallel universe in which the palpable and the desired become possible at the same time. being, but that also present a new realm of sensations that we can be a
My multimedia work explores the intersection of dance, performance and visual arts and has been shown internationally in theaters as well as galleries and alternative spaces. I was trained in traditional flamenco dance in Seville, Spain from 2000-2005 before relocating to Berlin. My work draws inspiration from various somatic and contemporary practices, seeking to define and explore the aspects that characterize the flamenco body and the qualities of this movement in order to abstract them, simultaneously abstracting my own body. Through this practice, I attempt to cultivate a deeper understanding of the body and its nuances. A connection to trance and dream states is also a central theme in my work. I was raised a charismatic Christian, a branch of evangelical Christianity that uses techniques such as speaking in tongues and receiving visions. Early contact to such mystical practices led me to experiment with techniques that work with trance-like states, through secular channels such as Vipassana and Osho Dynamic Meditation, Holotropic breathing and experimental body work.
As a multidisciplinary artist engaged in visual arts, poetry, performance and dance, I am interested in the interaction between images, text and the body. My work is basically minimalist, and my artistic endeavor is to create a critical view of the individual and social circumstances, sexuality, stereotypes and human relations.Using photographs, text, video, performance, objects and ready-mades I create a syntax which reveals a conceptual yet personal drive, merging the universal with my biography and the local reality I live within.Zigzagging between the different elements and mediums I strive to create a multi-layered experience of the senses while exploring an eclectic world of diverse existence which is at times dramatic, absurd, humorous, hallucinated, poetic or mundane.
Special Issue
The act of wrapping is central to my sculptures. My sculptures are created from balls that are individually wrapped with fabric and bounded together to make up an entire whole. Each ball represents the inner state of mankind. The gesture of wrapping each round ball, is an act of transformation that converts pain, sadness and despair into positive energy, such as love or a prayer for comfort. My work conveys a sense of happiness and celebrates the human spirit.
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SUMMARY
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CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
Anna Natt
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lives and works in Berlin, Germany
Andreas Monopolis
26
lives and works in Corfu, Greece
Mengxi Rao
50
lives and works in Philadelphia, USA
Ess Beck
70
lives and works between Paris and Berlin
Mohamed Benhadj
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Lives and works in Algiers and Barcelona
Estefania Valls Urquijo 110 Mengxi Rao
Wayne Madsen
Mohamed Benhadj
China / USA
USA
Algeria / Spain
Mengxi “Althea” Rao was born and raised in Beijing, and has lived and worked in Shanghai, Tokyo and Philadelphia. A journalist before self-identifying as an artist, she explores storytelling through different mediums: embodied interactive design; fiction or conceptual essayistic video; immersive narrative experiences. Her works decontextualize themes from popular political discourse, and engage viewers’ personal experience. Althea is a 2016 Flaherty Film Seminar Fellow. Her experimental documentary White Mushrooms, Black Earth has screened at festivals and theaters both in Europe and US. Her interactive multi-media performance Touch: the Dance debuted in Fleisher Art Memorial and was presented at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and was accepted into art and tech conventions in Prague and Brighton, UK.
Randomness is my way of bridging the gap between my personal authorship and a collaborative process with the computer — or more accurately with the individuals who designed the algorithms for creating random number generation. I’m much more interested in doing work that involves ‘non-artists’ in the process. In some ways I am using randomness as a decisionmaking process, similar to Jean Arp and the chance experiments from the Dadaists. I am searching for a way to access creativity outside of my own self. I am quick to acknowledge that I’m limited in my creative endeavors. I am restricted by my cultural background and experiential biases. Utilizing randomness is almost akin to using artificial intelligence — or at least artificial decisionmaking — to guide the process of generation.
Mohamed has followed a long course of study in graphic art and design in Algiers, intergrated Metàfora international workshop and art therapy in Barcelona for a high graduation in contemporary art discipline. He began his artistic career by a solo exhibition in May 2011 and in a Dutch art gallery in Leiden. Afterward he makes collective exhibitions in Barcelona and Amsterdam long of 2011 and 2012. From begin 2012, he performed live at first in Algeria and created, together; "Collectif Asswad" with his collective artist Mazia Djad many artistic projects treating the society as subject. Actually curating Al-Tiba9 project for its 6th edition in Algiers and Barcelona, an International Contemporary art event, inviting artists and galleries from Algeria and worldwide hosted by well known museums in Algiers from them Bardo National Museum.
lives and works in Münster, Germany
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Eva Dabara lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel
Wayne Madsen
154
lives and works in Indiana, USA
Michiel Alberts
182
lives and works in Paris, France Special thanks to Haylee Lenkey, Martin Gantman , Krzysztof Kaczmar, Joshua White, Nicolas Vionnet, Genevieve Favre Petroff, Sandra Hunter, MyLoan Dinh, John Moran, Marya Vyrra, Gemma Pepper, Michael Nelson, Hannah Hiaseen and Scarlett Bowman, Yelena York Tonoyan, Miya Ando, Martin Gantman , Krzysztof Kaczmar and Robyn Ellenbogen.
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Dame Gothel...it hurts to be beautiful, photo by Piotr Rybkowski
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Anna Natt
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LandEscape meets
Anna Natt My multimedia work explores the intersection of dance, performance and visual arts and has been shown internationally in theaters as well as galleries and alternative spaces. I was trained in traditional flamenco dance in Seville, Spain from 2000-2005 before relocating to Berlin. My work draws inspiration from various somatic and contemporary practices, seeking to define and explore the aspects that characterize the flamenco body and the qualities of this movement in order to abstract them, simultaneously abstracting my own body. Through this practice, I attempt to cultivate a deeper understanding of the body and its nuances. A connection to trance and dream states is also a central theme in my work. I was raised a charismatic Christian, a branch of evangelical Christianity that uses techniques such as speaking in tongues and receiving visions. Early contact to such mystical practices led me to experiment with techniques that work with trance-like states, through secular channels such as Vipassana and Osho Dynamic Meditation, Holotropic breathing and experimental body work. This part of my practice inspires a deep interest in metamorphosis and transformation, communication with an audience on a visceral level and the dialectics of intimacy, and how this hidden undercurrent manifests itself in everyday life.
An interview by Katherine Williams, curator
to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic
and Josh Ryder, curator
production.
landescape@europe.com
Unconventional and captivating in its multifaceted nature, Berlin based artist Anna Natt's work triggers the spectators perceptual and cultural parameters to draw them to such captivating and multilayered experience. In her works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, she provides the viewers with of the opportunity to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. One of the most impressive aspects of Natt's practice is the way it inquiries into the intersection of flamenco, performance art and video dance, revealing unexpected points of convergences: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers
Hello Anna and welcome to LandEscape: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you completed your flamenco studies at the Fundaciรณn Christina Herren de Arte Flamenco in Sevilla and you later furthered your studies with different teachers: how did these experiences, along with the time you spent studying with Israel Galvan influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum due to your North American roots inform the way you relate yourself with your artistic inquiry into an art form rooted in another culture?
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Uro, photo by Roger Rossell
Dame Gothel...it hurts to be beautiful, photo by Piotr Rybkowski
Anna Natt
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Studying at the Fundación Cristina Heeren de Arte Flamenco gave me the opportunity to acquire a good foundation not only in flamenco dance, but also it’s history and development. Beyond the dance itself we studied the structure of the singing, as well as taking part in accompaniment classes, observing guitarists learning how to accompany a flamenco singer. Investigating all the facets of flamenco as an art form was vital for me to understand its complexity and cultural context, before moving on to study with different teachers and experimenting with flamenco myself. After a few years at the Fundación Cristina Heeren, I saw Israel Galvan dance for the first time and immediately began studying with him. I was struck by the way he abstracted flamenco movements and structure, incorporating contemporary practices while at the same time maintaining flamenco’s essence. In Galvan I found a teacher whose movements felt more natural in my body than the traditional postures I’d learned, and his teaching style resonated with me. Flamenco has opened up to outside influences immensely since I relocated to Berlin in 2005 and I think he was instrumental in paving a way for others to be able to experiment as much as they do today. I was first attracted to flamenco for its fieriness and strength. Living in Sevilla, I came to understand the nuances of flamenco and how deeply it is embedded in Sevillan/Andalucian culture. I was fascinated by the vivid cultural identity and deep connection to place I recognized in Sevillan people. I’m originally from Minnesota, a place to which I’ve never felt particularly connected, and I found this contrast at once very interesting, charming, and sometimes difficult to understand. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we would invite to our readers to
visit http://annanatt.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: while walking us through your process, would you like to tell to our readers something about the evolution of your style? In particular, how much importance does play improvisation in your process? My style evolved quite a bit after moving to Berlin. When I first moved here, I performed and taught flamenco in more traditional forms but quickly realized that this was not the direction I wanted my artistic work to take. I started taking various dance and bodywork classes and saw a lot of performance works at local theaters. In 2008 I started dancing with the Swiss contemporary flamenco company el contrabando and this influenced me greatly. Anet Fröhlicher’s pieces combine flamenco, contemporary dance and art installation in a way that sparked a transformation in my understanding of flamenco, and inspired me to search for new modes of interpreting the dance for myself. Around this time I also began collaborating within the performance collective Crystal Tits. Our first project was doing back up dancing for a queer hiphop group, and later evolved into an interactive karaoke event incorporating performance art actions. We collaborated on a number of works together, including a common chorion which examined the experience of sharing a body. As part of this piece we spent 8 hours per day over three weeks, with our legs bound to one another. In 2013 I began making solo work, focusing on the intersection of these influences and exploring how they might inform my flamenco practice. Improvisation plays a more of a role in my process than in the finished work. I tend to work more with the idea of a timeline or loose structure than with choreographies. I like to set parameters and structured time periods, during which I can play with my impulses within a set time framework.
Dame Gothel...it hurts to be beautiful, photo by Piotr Rybkowski
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Dame Gothel...it hurts to be beautiful, photo by Piotr Rybkowski
For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected , an extremely interesting project that our readers have already staterd to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your insightful inquiry into the intersection of flamenco and performance art is the way you have provided the results of your artistic
exploration with such autonomous aesthetics. While walking our readers through the genesis of , would you tell us if you how did you developed your initial idea? I was interested in working with my memories and formative experiences in order to explore the polarities of repression and desire, tropes
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from fairy tales and different depictions of femininity as a way to communicate my socialization as a woman to an audience. As a child, my Grandma Kay often read me the tale of Rapunzel. I recall a certain passion in her voice as she impersonated the pregnant woman’s plea for rampion (a species of wildflower
cultivated as a vegetable in fairytale-times). This stands out to me because although it was through a fictional character, it was one of the only times I heard her express desire. This repressed passion in her voice revealed a latent unruliness that seemed quite out of character for an extremely proper and decorous woman who spent most of her time meticulously doing
Dame Gothel...it hurts to be beautiful, photo by Piotr Rybkowski
Dame Gothel...it hurts to be beautiful, photo by Piotr Rybkowski
Anna Natt
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housework. Hearing my grandmother read the tale of Rapunzel played an important role in my formative years, as did other lessons she taught my sister and I. She arranged several excursions in order to teach us dinner table etiquette and taught us how the ideal shape of a woman ́s legs could be determined by holding a penny between the curves of the ankles, knees and inner thighs. She taught me how to correctly file my nails and frequently told me “it hurts to be beautiful”. This sentence epitomizes my understanding as a child of the expectations accompanying womanhood. We like the way contrasts recurrent themes of fairy tales and myth to the mundane movements of how one embodies a "lady": as you have remarked once, wigs, digitigrade stilts and latex are used as a vehicle to transform yourself into characters that evoke different depictions of femininity. Do you think that your being a woman provides your artistic research with some special value? I explore the notion of transformation in this work. Latex and wigs were chosen as a way to transform myself and my body into other personae, and also for their doll-like aesthetic. The digitigrade stilts transform the body into a more grotesque and animalistic figure. Wearing and moving in latex and walking on stilts generated interesting sounds that in the quieter moments of the piece became an important part of the musical score. My socialization as a woman naturally informed my artistic research on this theme; my own experiences and observations being the source material that formed the starting point for this piece. I began the choreographic development by isolating particular ideas I associate with perceptions or expectations of femininity, for instance the act of carefully reducing the amount
of physical space one occupies, or the imitation of certain iconic female postures from film and the visual arts. I drew inspiration from Trisha Brown’s work ‘Accumulation’, in order to draw a parallel between the accumulation of movements and the behaviors one acquires and utilizes as part of socialized gender expression. The practice of accumulating and repeating rhythms through body movements was also a way to incorporate flamenco body percussion into the piece. Could you tell us about the musical collaboration in the development of the performance and how it fits into the piece as a whole? I worked with composer and harpist Sissi Rada to create an original score for three harps and female voices that is not so much a musical accompaniment but rather an integral part of the piece. Our goal was to merge music and voice to create a soundscape evoking the dreamlike atmosphere of the fairy tale forest: a place that contains both beauty and darkness. Typical harp sounds were used, such as glissandi which are often associated with dream states, and the score explored the myriad possibilities of working with various harps and voices. As a starting point for my own movement, I contrasted the undulating movements of the harpists with the rigid and controlled movements associated with propriety – the movements taught to me by my grandma. I sought to place myself, the harpists and harps on stage in such a way that we could be perceived as objects – artefacts of femininity– while framing the dancelike movements of the harpists as part of the choreography and the harps as the set design. The collaboration with Sissi Rada was very exciting. She is an accomplished classical harpist who also works experimentally, an unusual combination. I admire her artistry as a musician and was impressed with her openness as a composer when it came to trying out ways of
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incorporating flamenco elements into her compositions. Working closely with Sissi and the harpists was instrumental in the creation of the piece – the performance was developed over two residencies during which the music was composed parallel to the choreography. In our process, we left a lot of time for musical improvisation and the players explored alternative ways in which the harp could be used as an instrument – incorporating the breath into their vocal score by breathing into the soundbox and using various objects to create unusual sounds on the harp. When first thinking about Dame Gothel, I had been attracted to the image of three harps on stage. Working with Sissi, I came to realize what a rare and challenging feat I’d invited her to embark upon – a composition for a harp trio is very unusual. We appreciate the way your work addresses the viewers to the point of convergence between the mundane and the fairy tales imaginary: how do you see the relationship between the real and the imagined playing within your artistic practice? In the context of this piece, I saw my memories playing out on a stage within the imagination. Over time, these recollections have developed and transformed, taking on a life of their own. I was interested in translating these impressions into a tangible, visual work that pays homage to my grandmother while reaching my audience visually, musically and viscerally. Uro examines the blurring lines between human and animal: many artists express the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and by using their own bodies in their creative process. German visual artist Gerhard Richter once remarked that "it is always only a matter of seeing: the physical act is unavoidable": as an artist
Goats, photo my Xavier Tavera involved with dance, how would you consider the relation between the abstract nature of the ideas you explore and the physical act of producing your artworks? In Uro I use my own body to abstract the figures of both bull and bullfighter by
Anna Natt
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screening video close-ups of isolated body parts involved in different actions. The actions on screen are drawn out in such a way that the eye begins to perceive the isolated “part� as an independent whole and to attribute to it certain individual characteristics.
also underscores the importance of the relation between our most raw emotions and their connection to tradition: how do you consider the relationship between cultural heritage from a past age and contemporary sensitiveness? I chose to steer away from any cultural or
Uro, photo by Roger Rossell
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Uro, photo by Roger Rossell
ethical conversations surrounding bullfighting, focusing instead on the topic of masculinity, in order to convey an artistic interpretation of the physical sensations I experienced watching a
bullfight. I was quite moved watching my first bullfight, particularly because I had gone assuming that I wouldn’t enjoy it and would likely leave early. Instead, I had a distinctly
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either for or against traditions of this nature, but I had never seen a performance that dealt with the physical sensations that the performance of such traditions awaken in the body. I wanted to know if the exploration of our physical responses to traditional practices might provide some insight into why some of these customs are still in practice today, even though they seem out of context with the world in which we live. Another interesting work that has particularly impressed us and that we would like to introduce to our readers is entitled Goats and that has at once impacted us for your effective inquiry into the notion of stillness of meditation: as a trained Flamenco dancer how would you consider the relationship between movement and stillness? Flamenco is a dance form punctuated by dynamic stillness in which a dancer first contemplates, and then reacts to the singing. I find this aspect of flamenco quite unique and have not found another dance form in which these points of stillness play such an important role. Stillness has been an influence in my life in general. I worked as a living statue while studying flamenco in Sevilla and I’m an active Vipassana meditator. A lot happens in stillness while observing the body and the breath. I also like to incorporate stillness into my stage work, allowing time for the audience to contemplate. As a spectator, I know I am often in a rush arriving at the theater and I need some time in order to enter this liminal space. I love seeing pieces that allow for comtemplation, time and a bit of silence. visceral reaction to the relationship between bull and bullfighter, the energy in the stadium and the display of masculinity in the ring. There are a lot of performances making statements
Your works have been presented at a number of occasions, including your recent participation to the 5th IDOCDE Symposium at ImPulsTanz in Vienna: one of the hallmarks of
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your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are provided with of the the opportunity to become active participants and are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience: in particular, we are wondering if the aim to create an event for a spectator is the reason why you performor is if it's a channel through which you transmit your ideas: do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? I aim to do both. Performance and workshops are two modes of expressing my ideas, and the form they take is my attempt to communicate those ideas in language the spectator or participant will understand. I find different types of language effective in different contexts. If I am performing at a flamenco festival I use different vocabulary than I would at a contemporary dance event, to communicate my ideas in a way that connects with that particular audience. Movement is the foundation of my work, because I think the body has the capacity to communicate more universally than words. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Anna. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I am currently working on a project in which I translate my mother’s devotional songs into the constructed feminist science fiction language Láadan from Suzette Hadin Elgin’s science ficiton trilogy Native Tongue. I would like to
Uro, photo by Roger Rossell explore the notion of transversal timelines by translating my religious past into a feminist future. I’m also engaged in research on the body composition and cognition of cephalopods, with the plan to develop this into a solo choreography for 4
Anna Natt
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women who are connected by a skinlike covering and share one body. I see my work evolving to include more movers onstage and I would like to further collaborate with composers and musicians, as these collaborations
have been very fruitful. It’s a fascinating process to discover how two disciplines can converge. An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
Lives and works in Corfu, Greece
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Ess Beck
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LandEscape meets
Andreas Monopolis Lives and works in Corfu, Greece
A. Monopolis was born in Corfu in 1976. He collaborates with the Department of Music of the Ionian University he is also a member of the Electroacoustic Music Association of Greek Composers. For many years he was event manager with his own productions house, being at the same time the coordinator on many festivals, video maker, sound engineer, and the Founder of O.S.C.S. NCO. From 2010 hi is producing prototypes and custom-made sound devices branded as MoCM and lately, he is building motorcycles to as MoCM gear. He is the owner of Jimmy's restaurant, and partner on Locandiera Hotel.. His artistic impulse is expressed not only through music but also through images and materials images An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com
Hello Andreas and welcome to LandEscape: you are particularly active on the scene and you collaborate with the Department of Music of the Ionian University and you are also a member of the Electroacoustic Music Association of Greek Composers, so we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. Are there any experiences that did particularly influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does your multifaceted cultural substratum dued to your Greek roots inform the way you relate yourself to art making? Hello and thank you for having me at Landscape publications. The personal evolution of every individual is a subject of complexity with multiple
components and their ingredients. That and the influences of the respective environment in each moment that we choose to affect us -or they inevitably do- is what constitutes the biggest part of our personalities. That’s what happened in my case, too. I grew up in a multicultural environment out of any city's pulse, which made the influences rarer and opportunities harder to find. However, this rareness made me thirstier to learn and create. I had to take my life in my own hands, to travel to different cultural places, in order to be the self-taught I am today. Depending on how deep you follow them, Greek roots mainly consist of multinational cultural particularities. This forms a solid basis for brilliant artists to grow in the contemporary art scene in Greece, even though they have to sacrifice their passion on the altar of survival.
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Andreas Monopolis
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Regarding this part, I stood lucky, as the Ionian university offered me its nectar, proving me that I chose the right path and imparted to me the light of confidence in finding my way. Speaking as a new member of the Hellenic Electroacoustic Music Composers Association, I have to mention that the electronic music scene - academic or not- in Greece is quite big and involves a variety of greatly estimable composers and performers, a number of events, while its representation around the world is fairly good. Your are a versatile artist and your approach is marked out with such a captivating cross-disciplinary feature and your artistic impulse is expressed not only through music but also through images: before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.monopolis.gr in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production. While walking our readers through your usual process, we would like to ask you if you think that there is a central idea that connects all of your work as an artist. In particular, how do you select a medium in order to express a particular idea? Wavering between several ways of expression may bring confusion. In between this confusion, brainstorming and the need of expression, I think got me to a point where the smell of the illusion of disembodiment made me happy, made me want more; a new bet with myself that
made dealing with vanity even harder.... So I would say this is something like the center of gravity that pulls and swirls all of my work. When it comes to the medium, well, I chose it spontaneously, as long as it serves my objective. So let’s say there is always this sweet suspense! So little time and so many things to do… For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected FERAL, a stimulating project that involves contemporary dance and electroacoustic music, that our readers have already started to got to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your artistic inquiry into the interaction between body and music is the way you have provided it with such autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of FERAL, would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea? First of all, I would like to state the obvious, but important nonetheless: Seeing the performance live totally differs than hearing a narration of it. I could say with modesty that it's almost an unforgettable experience! It was some years before the Feral, when I wanted to amalgamate my music with dance. I had this need to do so, but there is always this fine balance... I love to make videos and a lot of people asked me why I didn’t make a video with my music, too. There is this balance between the two sensations, the Sound and the Vision, two components that do not receive an equal share in the process as the vision takes most of the human's attention and the sound/music loses a big part of its
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narrative. However, maintaining balance is not something that should scare us off; it just takes the right moment of inspiration to achieve it. I had been wanting to compose a piece of music for contemporary dance, collaborate with a dancer that would have the ability and the zest do the choreography on that piece and see what happens for a long time‌ But things come the most unexpected moment! One day a dancer came to me asking me to do the music for her future choreography! This is when I met Natalie’s artistic skills. Natalie Mandila (excellent as a dancer and as a person) was in progress of something great. So I went for it! She had made a basic form of her choreography and narrative story that chimed perfectly with me. I was feeling very happy and free to express myself through the project, to play with balances and explore new forms of artistic expression, such as dance. Together and with the support of the Garage Performing art centre in Corfu we began building it up. It took 4 months of methodical work to make the Feral. It was a success. It's important to mention that from 2010 you are producing prototypes and custommade sound devices branded as MoCM and you recently had a seminar as MoCM at the Music department of Monian University on D.I.Y. Elecronics and Junk Instrumentarium: what did address you to create your own instruments? What do you find so fascinating in D.I.Y. production?
Andreas Monopolis
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Andreas Monopolis
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I have made plenty of workshops both in Greece and around Europe and, believe me, it is amazing to see the participants discovering that they can actually do their own sound devices. Most amazing is when some of them develop it even further. DIY has always been something like an obsession for me. It was when my obsession encountered my passion -the music- that I became more focused on that. In my first steps as a teenager, a pirate radio station in my hometown brought the revolution. That is when the DIY came about. The experimentation with transmitters, tape recorders, microphones, record players, mixes, cables etc. coincided with the time my passion for music started to grow. Later on, with the computer music I was mesmerized; unlimited opportunities, studios, musicians, and the internet! But at some point I turned backwards to the rediscovery of the wheel. I wanted to create in combination with the practical skills, not by being a virtuoso at any already existing classical musical instrument, but by making my very own unique instruments, being as close as I can to the origin of sound, to the conception, to the creation of the source... As you have remarked once the aim of MoCM is to continue challenging boundaries in unexpected areas and directions: when did you recognize that expressive potential of traditional and standard instruments exhausted their expressive potential?
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I think at some time we all feel that we want to revolt -justifiably or not- and this has its own charm. That doesn't mean that I don’t actually recognize the expressive potential of "traditional"
instruments, as whether their maximum expressive capabilities are reached or not always depends on the performer and their need for expression. I respect the music and so I do the sound in general. As
Andreas Monopolis
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I also respect the sound, I respect the musical instruments as its source and viceversa. They are one thing. In a few words, if we agree that the music is one thing, the sound, the musical styles, skills, societies
etc., then we need to expand. There is a need and there are times that the ways of expression cannot be restricted by the standard potential of expression.
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Your works conveys both spontaneity and analytical approach: you like spontaneity or do you prefer to meticulously schedule every details of your works? How much importance does improvisation play in your process? There is something that if you don't realize in the beginning, you will find out on the way: What is captured to be reproduced (or played-back in our case) follows the artist forever. A "self-aware" artist of any kind need to know that this is of a great importance and one cannot just ignore it. At the same time one cannot let the impression discourage the creativity. This is where analytical approach is working and a type of schedule will compensate the upcoming chaotic parts of each project. Talking about the live performance, we have to approach it a little bit different; spontaneity is one of its basic ingredients. Improvisation, as another fundamental ingredient of my performances, is a whole subject by itself. Improvisation gives me the freedom and the will to express what I have in me! But improvising on stage needs stronger skills and a variety of expression fields. We appreciate the way your work addresses the viewers to the point of convergence between the concrete and the imaginary: how do you see the relationship between reality and imagination playing within your artistic practice? There is this moment, when the body lays on the bed in total relaxation and, just before it falls asleep, there is this short in-between
Andreas Monopolis
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phase, when the consciousness loses the domination of the brain but the awareness is still present and the thoughts are there, too; this phase can depict the relationship between reality and imagination. In some of my pieces, apart from the electroacoustic, the characteristics soundscapes have can well identify the music genre, something like an abstract painting on a canvas, or something like a mythical narration that leads the listener in making an “image� of the scenery and get lost in its connotations. Your work walks the viewers to such a wide number of narratives: rather than attempting to establish any univocal sense, you seem to urge the viewers to elaborate personal associations would you tell us how much important is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings? How open would you like your works to be understood? I think that we suffer so much from the too graspable meanings that meaning ended up to be pre-chewed food and we just have to swallow it losing gradually both our taste and our ability to chew. On the other hand, there is this big question over the generations: What is Art? Do you have to be conversant with it to understand it at different levels? Does it have to be articulate? Are we ready for something outside our standards? What are the standards? Are there any? Does the obvious lead to alienation? there so many damn question marks that have been diseased questioning many intellectual people over the years. Actually answering this question goes more into a philosophical conversation that will for sure need pages and pages to elaborate... I would like to share a small
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trick that I do sometimes. I call it "Cotton swab" and it is when the audience is given a break from the barrage of sonic information with something like a "univocal sense" to clear their ears. This keeps them focused and prepares them to take the next stage better in. The meaning is always there along with feelings that are not necessarily super strong or harsh. More often than not, I have an indescribable concept, which I am not sure if the audience can understand from this way of musical idiomatic expression. I intend to up to a certain level, but that is not exactly my goal. Over the years you have participated to lots of venues, including your recent participation to the Electroacoustic Music Days. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience: do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? Electroacoustic or electronic music-music concrete- with a lot of subdivisions like soundscapes, noiz and sound design (especially on the video) are somehow a fashion these days; they are something we encounter very frequent lately. We are getting to a point where this language is being heard and it begins to become “understood" more easily. It cannot be recognized from the nonexperienced audiences, as for now it is mostly combined with other forms of art. At the same time, the music scene (academic or not) maintains a vibrant pulse all over the world,
Andreas Monopolis
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with many branches under development. So a crucial component of my decision-making process is when it will become saturated (based on my criteria). Usually at this point things reach a point of vanity and an unjustified need for being in the forefront. This is something that corrodes the purity of an artist. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Andreas. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? The pleasure was mine. I would like to thank you for inviting me to share my thoughts and our readers for their time. As I mentioned before I had a great time working with other types of art. Throughout this whole process, one can learn lots of nice and useful things, which also contribute to a level of progress that is always apparent. Some dance projects are in the making, as are some crafts. To be honest, I am a multi-tasking person and I am involved in various different types of production that make me happier, but they leave me with very limited time. Anyway, some handcrafts are always on the plans, as well as some live gigs. For an extensive view of Monopolis activities you can follow: www.monopolis.gr www.facebook.com/andreasmonopolis https://www.mixcloud.com/andreas-monopolis/ An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com
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LandEscape meets
Mengxi Rao Mengxi “Althea” Rao was born and raised in Beijing, and has lived and worked in Shanghai, Tokyo and Philadelphia. A journalist before self-identifying as an artist, she explores storytelling through different mediums: embodied interactive design; fiction or conceptual essayistic video; immersive narrative experiences. Her works decontextualize themes from popular political discourse, and engage viewers’ personal experience. Althea is a 2016 Flaherty Film Seminar Fellow. Her experimental documentary White Mushrooms, Black Earth has screened at festivals and theaters both in Europe and US. Her interactive multi-media performance Touch: the Dance debuted in Fleisher Art Memorial and was presented at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and was accepted into art and tech conventions in Prague and Brighton, UK. She recently finished her MFA thesis film Three Seasons, and was accepted into 2018 Cannes Court Metrage. She is currently working on two narrative film scripts and a large scale interactive video sculpture.
An interview by Katherine Williams, curator
landescape@europe.com
there any particular experiences that did influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how do your background as a journalist and your cultural substratum due to your Chinese roots inform the way you relate yourself with your artistic inquiry?
Unconventional and captivating in its multifaceted nature, Mengxi Rao's artistic practice triggers the spectatorship perceptual to draw them to such multilayered experience. In her body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, she overemphasizes the unbreakable bond between Art and Technology, and inquires into the notion of the physical contact happening between two dancers, providing the viewers with the the opportunity to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.
My works and practice is about designing an experience for a group of audience. With different mediums, the experience of engaging is different, so as the relationships between the audience and the artworks, between the audience and the artist, and with the artist and the artworks. I found myself very playful when I look at my works in future tense, from a different perspective; it almost feels like attempting to trick people into a field of discourse, in which certain formula or arrangement can guarantee a weird, unfamiliar feeling. From there I want my audience to look inward and reflect on themselves.
Hello Mengxi and welcome to LandEscape: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. Are
The audience is part of the production of my art. My thought process is very much bound by how my work will be used, experienced, and what can people
and Josh Ryder, curator
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take with them when they leave the gallery / theater. This strong obsession of making sure my voice is heard, the desire of making impact, very much came from my journalistic background. In China, media are state-owned, and instead of “freedom of speech”, we were taught “media is the party’s organ”. Not every one can speak in the public, not every one can access a channel to reach
an audience, and as someone who had the scarce resource to speak loudly and express my opinions publicly, I always feel that I am representing a collective mind, and I don’t speak for only myself. I want my works to be empowering; by actively motivating the audience to be part of the work, I encourage everyone to take on the role of being his or her own creator of meanings.
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Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we would invite to our readers to visit http://altheamrao.weebly.com https://altheamrao.myportfolio.com/ in order to get a synoptic view of your work: while walking us through your process, would you like to tell to our readers something about the evolution of your style? In particular, when you conceive a work, is
there some conscious shift that addresses you? My works address human relationship and interactions. I want to use my work to activate the viewers, and the activated viewers will then bring new input to the artwork and create immediate and measurable outcome. While the outcome is part of the collective experience, this process of generating
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it is personal to the viewers, and I hope this process can be repeated by the viewers on their own in the future.
genesis of Touch: the Dance, would you tell us how much importance does improvisation play in your process?
For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected Touch: the Dance, an interactive dance performance that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. While walking our readers through the
Touch: the Dance centered around a dance form called “Contact Improvisation�. The form involves the exploration from one's body to the next by using the fundamentals of sharing weight, touch, being kinetically aware and
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explained as an improvised reaction). Because of this quality, contact improvisation can be very easy to participate for people who have zero experience, which is the premise of Touch: the Dance -- because it’s improvised, it gives people access to a rather sophisticated form of contemporary art. As you have remarked once, Touch aims to explore the physical contact happening between two dancers: many artists express the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and by using their own bodies in their creative process. German visual artist Gerhard Richter once remarked that "it is always only a matter of seeing: the physical act is unavoidable": as a multidisciplinary artist how would you consider the relation between the abstract nature of the ideas you explore and the physical act of producing your artworks?
finding a point of contact between the dancers. All the movements are improvised from that contact point, and there are not fixed rules or set of body movements. It cannot be rehearsed, it cannot be repeated, and there is no right or wrong in this dance since things are always being generated (even a pause or the lack of movement can be
I wanted to address the politics of TOUCH when forming the idea. I wanted to explore the nature of physical contact and the pleasure of sharing touch, weight and pressure, despite the different layers of social, political and cultural meanings we tend to associate with it. Touch and sexual tension, high and low contact cultures, touch gestures and implications of power dynamic, sharing touch between different colors of skin… I am hoping to temporary remove these connotations from the gesture of touching, between stranger, and allow people to freely explore this game of bodily interaction and acknowledging how a same moment is being witnessed, experienced and remembered by you and your partner (could be a total stranger). In order to get this idea across, the best way is to ask people to come and experience “touch” under a controlled environment, a neutral and safe space where taboos, norms and regulations are tactifully removed. When I can remove the
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heavy burdens associated with the physical act of “touch” -- and these burdens are usually taught, learned and reinforced -- I can invite people to look at the physical act in its pure form and start associating their own meaning to it. I believe in acquiring meaning through real physical and emotional engagement. New technologies play such a crucial role in your approach and as a media artist, your practice focuses also on physical computing technology based installation/performance: multidisciplinary artist Angela Bulloch once remarked "that works of arts often continue to evolve after they have been realised, simply by the fact that they are conceived with an element of change, or an inherent potential for some kind of shift to occur". Technology can be used to create innovative works, but innovation means not only to create works that haven't been before, but especially to recontextualize what already exists: do you think that the role of the artist has changed these days with the new global communications and the new sensibility created by new media? I firmly believe in McLuhan’s “Media is the extension of man.” The recontextualization you mentioned can be looked at this way: technologies give us new ability to access information, and the new information can be re-linked to the existing forms, and these new links, leaps and connections from one form of representation (enabled by newer technology) to another (that already exists) are what many artists these days are working with. Art is about expression, and technologies are changing how people perceive things as well as how we can express and represent things. In my case, I created a link between physical contact and changing projection mapping and music. This link is enabled by sensors and algorithms -- I represent the amount of touch with sensed numbers, then input the numbers into algorithms, and the computer generated chains of more numbers create audible and visible movements, with the help of wi-fi (so everything can communicate with
each other). This series of connection cannot be made possible 200 years ago without the technologies. When these new technologies are available, the artist can work with a lot more possibilities of expressions and create new forms. In this way, the
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recontextualization you mentioned in the question is the creation of art.
woman provides your artistic research with some special value?
We like the way Blindfold explores the notion of femininity and how it is perceived by both man and woman: do you think that your being a
To a certain degree I believe that good art cannot purely come from research or learned knowledge. One has to mentally or physically
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experience the theme one wants to explore in order to understand what is exactly the right amount of awareness or empathy, and create intuitive and enabling works that has the power to touch upon people’s heart and stand up for
those who are in need. Blindfold addresses femininity and how it is understood by people of different genders in social interactions. This is very much based off my true experience --
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at the same time eye opening and became part of the initial research when I was creating Blindfold. I do not usually term myself as a feminist. A lot of my works aim at desexualization of day-to-day events or interactions. I believe in human, and our human quality should not be determined by what gender we physically and mentally identify with. I do think a feminist approach in the current social, economical and political environment is far more than necessary, because right now women are far from being treated equally with men. I’d like to see this being corrected, and the attitude of “fighting against” is unavoidable. I am happy to join the force, to restore, not to over compensate. Your work also highlights how the impetuous way modern technology has came out on the top has dramatically revolutionized our lives as well as the idea of Art itself: we are urged to rethink about the notion of materiality of a piece of art, since just few years ago it could be considered a tactile materialization of an idea. We daresay that new media will soon fill the apparent dichotomy between art and technology, to assimilate one to each other: what's your opinion about the relationship between Art production and Technology?
as a woman, the way I looked at people were judged and misinterpreted and I had to file a sexual harassment complaint against a tenure faculty member at my school. It was a very painful experience and mentally exhausting, but
My understanding of art has always been more humancentered. It is not only about the materiality or tactile materialization of an idea, but more about how that process of materialization can engage, inspire and empower a body of viewer. It is about the experience the artwork provide. It is emotional. Technology when employed as part of the art process can relieve the the problem of accessibility -- now we have a lot more affordable options to choose from if we want to describe the generative image of an artwork from multiple dimensions with accurate data. This enhanced ability makes designing art experience a lot more fun, and gives the audience a lot more physical points to interact with and feeling involved. I do not know if art and technology is necessarily separate or together. We are seeing a lot of collaborations between the two, as well as more and more individuals trying to become “full stack”. But the intersection between the two is definitely where I see a huge potential, democracy and playfulness.
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We would like to introduce our readers to Three Seasons, an interesting film that will be officially released in the next weeks: in particular, we have appreciated the way it pushes the elusive boundaries between reality and imagination: how do you view the concepts of the real and the imagined playing
out within your work? In particular, how much important is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings? Layering (juxtaposition) and Recontextualization are two most practiced method when it comes to
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to give my audience a feeling of familiar unfamiliarity, or unfamiliar familiarity. It is important that the audience recognize that the imagined being imagined, that it is “portal” leading into a different world. However, I do not demand the audience to enter my personal world. Instead, I wish they enter their own personal world and reflect inward. Three Seasons is inspired by the story of Confucius and the “Three Season Man.” How do you consider the relationship between contemporariness and historical heritage? Art -- the many different forms of it -- after all have been addressing similar topics: love, and humanity. Many people have tried to elaborate on these topics, and there is never a perfect answer, and we never cease the discussion, it spirals upwards. Confucius in the “three season man” discussed his opinion on the impossibility of communication between human beings and elaborated his choice. Thousands of years ago, my work continue to address the topic, while bouncing off what he said in the ancient time as a reaction. I feel in conversation with him, and I am more than happy for my audience to understand the evolution of our dialogue.
generating art from daily experience. Art comes from daily life while projecting back onto the surface, allowing spectators to observe what they are familiar with under different light. When I use fantastic world to construct a parallel universe while clearly referencing the real world, I hope
Over the years your works have been showcased in several occasions: your films have been screened at festivals in the US, Germany and Spain as well as local Philadelphia theaters and last year you were invited to participate in Prague Dance Hackathon. One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are invited to leave traces and marks, and are also welcome to take things with them as souvenirs or gifts to their friends: so before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. In particular, we are wondering if the aim to create an event for a spectator is the reason why you perform or is if it's a channel through which you transmit your ideas: do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making
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process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? Yes. Audience reception is absolutely crucial to my decision-making process. I am obsessed with the idea of making my work accessible, although it is hard to define a universal art language. I see my work being completed only when it is enacted by my audience and becomes part of his/her personal journey. My work is a program. One needs to input his or her own data in order to receive an outcome. A big part of my work is to design a context or series of instructions to motivate my audience to participate. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Mengxi. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I am working on a proposal of a series of large scale interactive installation that expands on my past research on feminism and gender. GENDER is not only biological or physical. The unison and separation of our body and mind, as well as the perception of those images, is social and cultural, both collective and individual. We define our expectations of genders through political conversations and discourses. We address the ABNORMALCY of gender related experiences when our set standards are not met. But what is the human nature of genders? How do we position our gendered selves in the dynamic contexts? I want to create a meditative space for people to confront with gender related ideas, concepts, and social norms in their purest and most naked forms. I want to use non-human technologies to simulate gendered interactive models, to provoke inward investigations. An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator
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LandEscape meets
Ess Beck An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
Marked out with such a captivating cross-disciplinary approach, artist Ess Beck's work deviates from traditional trajectory to operate in the field between music concrète and conventional compositions, which she combines with a love for lo-fi, unintentional noise, mechanical systems, and excessive use of effects: in her improvisational sitespecific audiovisual performance 3-Hour-Woman that we'll be discussing in the following pages, she triggers both the perceptual and cultural parameters of the spectatorship, to provide them with such multilayered experience. One of the most impressive aspects of Beck's work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of challenging the normative conventions of the performer-audience situation: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Ess and welcome to LandEscape: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. Over the years you have combined both formal training, earning a MSc Audio Design graduate from Aarhus University's Faculty of Arts and Communication and self-taught practice as an autodidact musician and music producer, active on the Danish experimental underground music scene: how did these opposite experiences influenced your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does your multifaceted cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making? My primary objective with studying Audio Design was based on my bachelor in Dramaturgy at Aarhus University’s Faculty or Arts. During my studies at Dramaturgy, sound and music were often quite significant components in the creative production and work we did, but on an academic level there was sparse critical focus in curriculum and applied theory, regarding the role of sound and music in performance. Some of the primary theorists like Patrice Pavis and Manfred Pfister deal do deal sound and music in performance and misÊ-en-scene, but on a simple explanatory level. They the acknowledge sound and music as effective components, but without proposing a comprehensive frame work for examining and discussing semantic potential - especially when it comes to audio sources and applied technology. I decided to explore this via the field of Audio Design which was a radical step since the approach to understanding the matter of sound and music in context was much more concerned with designing, anticipating and observing end-user response to measure and discus effect and affect from a technical point of view. In this field I began to feel that the view on human listening and
perception in context was limited too, because the poly-semantic variables present in constructed, controlled environments lacked the attention to detail that the dramaturgical approach offers. Over the course of the last 10 years, the debate regarding this problem has picked up, but when I started Audio Design it was difficult to get beyond discussing from a post-modern perspective; here the dominant belief was that because one responds emotionally to what one hears in the audiovisual context, it must be proof of effective communication and that the sound "works". This result would then be explained as a socio-psychological phenomenon, where we draw upon individual and collective experience to understand the meaning of sound - and further assert proper emotive response to our understanding. I don't consider this approach and theory wrong, but I find it too singular. It puts a lid on all the why's and what if's way to easily. Being an active experimental musician and working so much with sound and music in front of an audience as well releasing music, it felt that neither approaches fully afforded the possibility to explore what creates the shared space of understanding, in sound performance situations. Looking at the type of performances I would do, the visual references were often only the instruments and the performer performing, yet coming off stage, the audience would propose various feelings and narratives attached to the abstract music and explain in details vivid imagery that they went through. To me, this shows the enormous potential - and power- of listening, and drives me to question what constructs such conditions and how this perceptual process works depending on context. When looking at the actual spatio-temporal features of a performance one might ask; what enables this process of listening, what obstructs and shifts it, and what does that mean in terms of the performers' role as a form of mediator opposed to being a just a musician? I found that my approach to developing concepts I consciously, and unconsciously, draw on dramaturgical theory to examine how sound becomes meaningful depending on context. The dramaturgical approach affords the thinking that the same action has multiple semantic outcomes depending on context and that there is no certain truth to rely on. Studying IT and interaction (Audio design is a part of Digital Design) I had a welcome reunion with cybernetics which I was introduced at Dramaturgy. Applying Cybernetics in it's original field afforded me a to-the-bone understanding of information theory, that opened up new perspectives to what creative production is, in terms of communication. I got quite interested in how humans seem to be perfectly capable of viewing and engaging in a time-space-action with seemingly dead objects. Through a sonic response to input, or simply an output, the subject is afforded a minimum sign -of -life, which
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seems to be enough for us to react and steer our attention towards action or the expectation of action. In short, a simple "beep" in a certain sequence, rhythm or tonality is able to convey meaning in a specific context. This is especially clear in interactive artifacts or machines that we come into contact with on a daily basis. Our ability to respond to very little information got me thinking about my own working process as an experimental musician and improviser; I started to think about the creative process as self-dialogical, and wanted to explore how my own imagination gets activated to produce meaning and new inputs with very little cues from the previous output. In this investigation I rely quite a lot on the concept of autopoiesis to understand myself as being in both a sender and receiver position, in process. On a practical level I rely heavily on my effect pedals to create delay, echoes, reverb, distortion and most importantly loops. With these I am able to revisit my output in the creative situation, and examine and change it through a recycling process. So the sound that has already happened will be replayed but slightly altered or enhanced. After a long time of doing this, it really messes with your perception of passed time. One aspect of creative production is inspiration, another is communication, but a third aspect is continuance - or flow. I found, through my experimental work with music and sound, that by examining this last aspect, we may understand some of the core conditions of how we keep attention and focus when faced with abstract aesthetic input. This is where music and sound is so unique in the performance situation, because it offers clean, simple parameters to play with. So, the way I have developed artistically is to apply my existing skills and theory with an intuitive approach, and eventually turned myself in to a guinea pig! Your practice is marked out with such captivating cross-disciplinary feature, revealing that you are a versatile artist capable of crossing from a medium to another: before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit https://www.essbeck.dk in order to get a synoptic view of your work: in the meanwhile, would you tell us what does draw you to such approach? And in particular, when do you recognize that one of the techniques has exhausted it expressive potential to self, in order to express the themes you explore? For a few years, I was merely focused on experimental music and sound, and experimenting with the cross-field between music vs. sound and how that is established and broken down, as a shared experience between to myself and the listener. I have found that moving across different disciplines, media and platforms creates a fluidity that is fruitful when working with such a process-oriented approach. I work mostly on a conceptual level because it keeps me able to have an open discourse. By presenting concepts online rather than just performing IRL, I wish to propose that my work is linked it to a question of purpose; it raises the question to which level one has to experience something in person or whether cyberspace and imagination may just be sufficient in the future of performance. But this is just one level of my approach. I use the Internet as a nebulous fourth wall that I can either enforce or break down - or leave suspended in its own equivocality. Stepping in to the real world, then, becomes an action of enforcing reality and actuality. Being a performer in person versus performer in cyberspace impregnates the act - and function - of my presence with a new level of meaning and purpose, which references back to the original conceptual level. I like thinking of my works as never "finished", and never reaching a sublime state. I want my concepts to take on a different meaning and purpose depending on context. Shifting in and out of forms of expressions and of media helps me develop a certain technique or way of thinking about the poetic potential of a theme, idea or material. I never really feel that something is fully exhausted because it can always be opened up again in a new process, and be remediated in to something else. The short video works, for instance, are
Ess Beck
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loops that I at one point apply in context with sound works or the other way around. And then I split them up and sometimes re-apply to get another view on either product. On a methodological level, what I am presenting (or exposing) is really my process and my raw material, which is being recycled and turned into something else. I want to avoid pretending that everything is original and exclusive, because it is not. After having worked with music for 4-5 years I got really inundated with having to make "tracks" and confinement to linearity of time and bandwidth restrictions. Figuratively speaking it could be compared to wanting to paint outside the frame; I want techniques to exhaust themselves when there is no more space outside the frame. Even then, the next step may be to move to another room and continue there, until you get disrupted by natural causes. Recently, I have moved on to the "real world" working with difficult fabrics like nylon, using tactile response and listening to the fabric's microsounds. I listen and touch for a long time and what happens, eventually, is that when the sound or sensation starts to become familiar, my imagination - driven by the desire to engage with the object - starts to work on its own merits. Suddenly the quality of the sounds may start shifting or simply feel different. This technique of "taming" a new material is quite similar to the way I work with various mediums and tools. The thing that exhausts a technique is really just the person handling it; Either I am not able to work any longer because of attention, life, biology - or I have simply no more ideas or space, or I keep getting the same result from the same action. It's perhaps a form of poetic and artistic actualism that permeates every aspect of my work. My approach is quite entangled with the desire to expose process - with all that comes with it. I really love when things break or for some reason it glitches, because once you are aware of that feeling it exposes a form of behavioral economics attached to artistic practice; one may suggest that it shows how the Western rationalization of time and productivity hits us in the head - event in the field of arts. Here, one would think you would be sheltered by the fact that a creative process doesn't demand concrete results, but as soon as you start to think that you've spent a lot of time in process without any results, then you are prone to feel unresolved and unproductive. It can be quite exhausting to commit yourself to always being in process and not allowing things to be wrapped. I have chosen this approach because, eventually it will - and does - result in some kind of natural exhaustion of a technique, but understanding when that exhaustion actually happens, in this way of working, is something that is understood post-liminal, if at all. It's like trying to pin down a point-of-no return in Beckett's Waiting for Godot, where one may suggest that the point-of-noreturn may actually be the second the play starts, or the moment you step into the theatre, or when the idea of the play was born. For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected 3-Hour-Woman, a stimulating improvisational site-specific audiovisual performance that our readers have already started to got to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your inquiry into the nature of sound as a spatial and sensuous phenomenon is the way you have provided it with such autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of 3-Hour-Woman, would you tell us what did address you to focus on the notion of human psycho-acoustics? 3-hour woman is a concept-performance derived from my statement performance called 24-hour woman where I (among other things) wanted to examine the conditions of my own creativity and performance. I wanted to explore which degree the creative, producing self needs the ideal recipient or an idea of someone in the other end, potentially listening/viewing, to be able to motivated oneself, as well as, to transcend
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various obstacles like one’s own biology. On another level, the performance itself ended up weaving together various themes such as gender, cyber space, distance versus proximity, loneliness, and the plight of the artist in a digital age. Questions like: If the value of craftsmanship is equalized in a reality where everyone can produce by virtue of digital aid, is endurance the next frontier in performance poetics? If so, what does that mean to aspects like gender, stamina, wealth, creativity and originality? Will there be some sort of bio-socioeconomical natural selection played out, and in which arena(s) would that be? And further: will acoustics matter in the future? Do we need to be in the performance space to understand the purpose of performance? If so, how long will we have to be there for it to be meaningful - both as sender and receiver? In terms of the spatial aspect, the concept points back to my belief that “all conditions matter”. The more I practice this performance ethos, the more I lean towards the position that performance, as an art form, does not unequivocally allow us to transcend variables like gender, social standing, culture, body, time and space. Essentially this position has carved out my way in to the discussion about the potential of sound in performance, and what that even is, means and matters! On a practical, producing level, I keep finding myself coming back to the unanswered questions: Why can I keep doing this? How long can I keep doing this? How long can people be in a room with me doing this? What makes them stay? What makes them leave? Does it matter that they know how long I intend to stay here? Does that reflect on their experience - and their mode of listening? When do they shift between listening to the sound in the room and listening to sound that I send out, and why? Does it even matter to my work that they are here or that I am here? Could I just pre-record the sonic output and pretend to perform, and what happens then if I leave the room? Using a concert-like setting in my performance, affords me a way to signify to the audience how to listen and experience. I lean on craftsmanship and a shared, pre-existing understanding of what the musician-performer does. This relieves me, as a performer, of the “actor” role. In turn, this relieves the audience of the role of the “active” perceiver, because it allows them a more concert-like mode of being and receiving. I think this is really where the question of Psycho-Acoustics matter, because the simple communication that “I will be doing the work” in this particular setting, reliefs the audience of pressure to understand or to make meaning of what they are hearing. It offers the listening space to the ears of the listener. They are also perfectly able to leave whenever they want to - just like a concert. It grants total autonomy and no autonomy at the same time, for everyone involved. The work continues without them and they can continue without the work. And that is where the manifestation of sound, as a physical phenomena, becomes relevant because acoustics - as sound happening in space and time - is a unique situational experience, opposed to experiencing a recorded performance, or experiencing it streamed online. However, asserting this fact does not say anything about the quality of experience and reception, it rather suggests that each context is potentially different, and the outcome could vary. So as a performer and sender I cannot determine anything concrete, I can just provoke, observe and accept the differences. The only thing that I can say for sure is how the nature of sound works and how the ears should work in relation to this phenomenon. Sound plays a crucial role in your work and as you have remarked in your introductive statement, only in the human perception does sound transform into music, and vice versa. According to media theorist Marshall McLuhan there is a 'sense bias' that affects Western societies
favoring visual logic, a shift that occurred with the advent of the alphabet as the eye became more essential than ear. How do you see the relationship between sound and images? I have always been a bit opposed to this sense-bias assumption, because it is a retrospective view of audiovisual culture that is founded in academic circumstances. It wasn't before the invention of recording that it was actually possible to replay sound 1:1, so naturally it took much longer before we had something solid to study. Meanwhile the representation of sound has always been present in everything from literary works to - of course - written musical works and theatre. Those studying history of Aesthetics have naturally had a text-based body of work concerning visual works as solid references, and consequently, it could just as well be that this dominant production of research concerning visual artifacts, has led to scientists, to suppose, later on, that this must be proof that Western society historically must have had this 'sense bias'. I believe it is much more circumstantial. I would much rather like to propose that both the audio and the visual aspects of the aesthetics have been present and understood as important, but for natural causes we are a bit behind concerning sound studies behind, because correct research methodology - or conversations about sound and music needs static artifacts as research matter. Ever since the invention of recording technology, the academic world has picked the subject up rapidly, and created various methodologies to study sound and music. With that in mind one could argue that we are just a curious and pre-occupied with the audio as with the visual, but we have lacked the right technology to do research. Technology plays a crucial role in your approach and a part of your artistic inquiry is focused on the exploration of the cross-field between analogue and digital technology: Multidisciplinary artist Angela Bulloch onced remarked "that works of arts often continue to evolve after they have been realised, simply by the fact that they are conceived with an element of change, or an inherent potential for some kind of shift to occur". Technology can be used to create innovative works, but innovation means not only to create works that haven't been before, but especially to recontextualize what already exists: do you think that the role of the artist has changed these days with the new global communications and the new sensibility created by new media? In relation to previous question, and to the question of psychoacoustics, I find it really interesting that researchers and practitioners seem to be very little concerned with the implications of something as simple as amplification and what to what that means to our visual experience of the world. What does synchronization of the audible and the visible mean in different contexts? I do believe that the role of the artist has changed a lot, because there is not much we can offer in terms of audiovisual stimulation, that the audience isn't already constantly exposed to in one form of the other. I think it also paves the way for many desperate measures to have theatre and performance "keep up" with technology without questioning the purpose. Meanwhile, we are still far behind when it comes to just dealing with the poetic consequences of integration of sound technology in performance, to begin with! In 3-hour woman amplification-technology is a key part of the sitespecific performance because without it, I would not be able to convey some of the effects that I do. When we think about performance in a more general way, we often think that a certain
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treatment of sound is quite benign because it is used to convey something else (dialogue/atmosphere/ concrete sound), but how often do we stop and think about how it may distort or saturate the overall semantics, the same way live video projection of details happening in a performance, would be subject to deeper interpretation? Even though you as the creator may think that because a sound occurrence is dramatically anchored to a visual referent, or a musical soundtrack is anchored to a specific situation, it doesn't keep the spectator from isolating this sound in memory and attach a specific meaning to it, postperformance. Audience today have a high literacy in terms of technology, and how we show or disguise techology in misè-en-scene, or, are seen using it on stage should matter. Currently, the hot thing in performance and sound art is Surround Sound and multiple channels, and however fascinating the technology seem, dialing up the stakes when it comes to psychoacoustics alone, should not be done in favor of considering the core context. You may get a fascinating techno-sonic experience, but just because something has a certain effect that doesn't mean it's effective in relation to context and intention. I try to work a lot with this in mind too. Quite often I found myself thinking "wow, this device is ingenious!", but the audience was never able to distinguish or understand what it was, and although they heard the sound, it was not necessarily perceived as important in terms of their subjective experience. What I have gained from this is to keep focus on context and respect the power of the presence of technology, and how that alters perception with the receiver. Trying to emulate a realistic sonic environment doesn't guarantee that the subject matter becomes more real and true to the receiver. On the contrary the more realistic something becomes, clearly without being it, the more of a distance to the subject matter one may create. This may also serve as an argument to use performance to actually understand the audience. What is the audience today? What are they capable of understanding? Is the audience actually, by virtue of living in a hyper complex reality, more flexible in terms of shifting in and out of concrete and abstract experiences? When I perform, my experience is that a "shift" happens in the intersection between the hidden magic of using technology and the actual, audible result of using technology. For instance: when performing I will create sounds where it is obvious to the audience what the source is, as well as sounds that derives arbitrarily from the devices. Some are looped and distorted whilst others remain true to their original source. I believe this audiovisual dualism anchors the experience of listening and understanding to a simple real object, whilst allowing for another layer that is subjective production of meaning to happen, without demanding that the listener needs to attach the production of meaning to that said object. It's a nice way of splitting attention and immersing the audience in sound, without overwhelming or saturating the levels of experience that may happen in the performance space. This is why, at the same time, it is very important that the audience understands that I am improvising, because this mere piece of information may suggest that: "If I can make this make sense to me in this time and space, perhaps you can make sense of it too". I like to think this attempt to suggest an equal relationship in the aesthetic experience, could be seen as the role of the artist, because it is about wanting to make a connection despite of all the "noise" that we are faced with. It is a suggestion that behind the layers and demands that are made for our attention, we still have a say, because our individual experiences matter, because we experience. And this individual experience doesn't stop having value once the performance is over.
We have highly appreciated the way 3-Hour-Woman challenges the normative conventions of the performer-audience situation: Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under". Not to mention that almost everything, ranging from Joseph Beuys' Jeder Mensch ein Künstler — Auf dem Weg zur Freiheitsgestalt des sozialen Organismus to Marina Abramović's The Artist is Present, could be considered political, do you think that your works is political, in a certain sense? Moreover what could be in your opinion the role of Art in order to sensitize the viewers in our everchanging contemporary scene? My works are very political! I have a great desire for politics to contain more humanism and that longing - or wishful thinking- saturates everything I do. The concepts I create are formed around various parameters and one is the contrast between the systems that we have in the privileged parts of Western society like Denmark and how they operate for the better and the worse. On one hand, the Arts are tremendously free and thriving here, and on the other hand they have never been under as much pressure and threat of structural collapse as they are now. Without any such precedence, Danish Arts is seeing powerful right wing politicians in government trying to meddle with the way that arts funds are distributed, based on their beliefs of what is "good" and "bad" art. This is quite a concern because they are actually suggesting a form censorship by wanting to have the power to decide what can be granted funding on a case-to-case basis. The fact that they are even stepping beyond their function as legislative, and now suggest to become executive, is not less serious because the subject matter is art. But, the general public seems quite indifferent, and the vast majority buys in to the rationale that art must be able to pay for itself, or be "sell-able" to be justified as good and relevant. If this way of thinking gets normalized, it would not only turn the practice of art to become fully commoditized but also destroy the pillar in our democratic society, that the arts is. The fact that the outcry over this was absent, could signify that this reality may not be so far away. In Denmark we have some of the best funding options in the world. The problem is that if you accept funding at any time, you may disqualify yourself from other systems like unemployment benefits or maternity pay and sick leave, because the unemployment system then views you as having entered a "professional" level and thus must be capable of always making money for the rest of your life. It is quite an archaic way of understanding the arts and how life as an artist works. This view defeats the purpose of even giving money to the arts. This is a huge problem for equality, because especially female artists then have to choose between arts or children, and unlike Abramovich I do not believe that a woman should be expected to obliterate their specific biological qualities for the sake of arts. Although I identify myself as non-binary, I don't believe that pretending not to be a given biological gender - or just human - will establish equality. I stand by my biological gender! The problem with negating the "problem" of your female gender, is always going to require a shift towards male reality. How is that liberating? How is that changing anything for the better? It creates stagnation and normalizes the rationale that we should not try to fight for a better system, and that women should instead morph into men to fix the issue. We should have a system that recognizes the biological difference in a positive way, and give everyone the best possibilities to succeed. I am not impressed by Marina's suggestion, that she has made the ultimate sacrifice by having several abortions(.The independent, July 2017). To me it is just that kind of thinking I want to challenge: I want to challenge the idea that artists and especially women become more "artistic" and free, proportionally
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to either the extreme measures they take to transgress upon their bodies and minds, or by what they sacrifice - because the costs are often much bigger for women. Men are not sacrificing their biology or having to abandon their gender. They can much easier build a family around themselves without having to step out of their profession to do so. Equality is to insist that no systems - whether it being the arts system itself or the systems in the state should require of human beings to make transgressions upon their body and mind for their work to gain value or to have relevance. Choosing to do so is another story, but not having a choice is discrimination. As a young artist I am sad that in 2018, I am entering a field of work, where I have to be concerned about what happens if I get pregnant. The art world is the last place where we can both be free from our gender in praxis, and where you also become acutely aware of your biological gender. That is why I also want to challenge the notion that artistic practice can set you free; it can also make archaic structures very visible, and expose how we view the role of the artist in society - especially in relation to gender. This becomes very evident in the performer-audience situation, I believe. With a less critical view of Marina's ethos, she does expose that ambivalence masterfully. She exposes the audience's lust for blood, so to speak. My work is less antagonistic and radical, but I also want to challenge the spectator to a form of staring contest. The difference is that I make it very clear that I am the one likely to fail to keep up with my own concepts, and I want to share that part of the experience of being human, through my work. Through your artworks you examine how tools and technology shape creative processes and the subjective production of meaning: we like the way your approach addresses the viewers to such a wide number of narratives: rather than attempting to establish any univocal sense, you seem to urge the viewers to elaborate personal associations: when discussing about the role of randomness in your process, would you tell us how much important is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings? How open would you like your works to be to be understood? I want to create a clear division between my perspective as the producing entity and the receiver role. Here, tools and technology help create that division by creating an ambiguous relationship between the spectator and myself; through technology and action I can establish a simple, common understanding of what I am doing. At the same time, I can also obscure this understanding. Through the recognition of a musical instrument, for instance, I am affording the spectator a visual reference to understand what may or may not take place in a performance. And the more complex my set up of instruments and gear gets, the more there is to "work out" for the audience. By playing or not playing, and swaying in and out of music and sound, tone, tempo and rhythm an acute sense of nowness forms. The audience will learn over time that there is no logical pattern in my performance, so "thinking ahead" by drawing on inherent musical understanding is not going to work. They have to let go a bit. In Turbulens (15 minutes performance) I use two oscillating fans to do the work for me when it comes to creating the key input, what I call "first noise" or "acting noise", and then I treat the sound and organize it into a different rhythm of range of frequencies. Eventually it accumulates and turns chaotic, but when speaking to the audience afterwards, what I found was that this build-up of complexity over time, created more space for reflection and wandering thoughts. So, the shift from repetition and pattern to destruction of pattern, almost seemed cathartic, and it seemed that I was creating this sense of relief with the audience, a moment of controlled chaos and freedom from repetition. Again I introduced the work by stating that I had no idea
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what was going to happen because I was improvising, and I think that created some fear-based tension, which was further conditioned by the first 5 minutes where not much happened. One audience member said he was very relieved when something did happen and then his mind started to wander. I believe this contrast - or shift - is necessary minimum for the experience. Mind you the entire performance output was primarily white noise and roaring sweeps of frequencies! Although, I had totally different intentions on a poetic level, what I experienced from the feedback with "Turbulens" was how that little shift from one state to another was really what the audience was concerned with. They were listening for the changes, rather than trying to understand what the changes meant. To me this shows that when it comes to sound performance, of this sort, compared to any other form
of performance, the sound could actually be considered as the performing entity. It can be seen as capable of occupying the entire mode of perception and understanding. Everyone seemed to have created different narratives that they had attached to the experience of what they had just heard, more than what they saw. The fact that a work, that I assumed to be quite closed, would open itself up based on the sensuous quality of the performance, and not the quality of intention, is just kind of result I hope to get with my work. These type of experiences are important, as they undoubtedly loop back to me as a performer, and naturally alter the work in a new direction; my way of thinking about the performance has been destroyed indefinitely and I will never be able to produce the same
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I am aware that this distinction seems to draw a line between approach, subject matter, craft and technology, theme, message, philosophy, but to explain in simpler terms: I use the method and approach as a solid core to anchor the fluidity of the more abstract matters such as theme, message and poetic intention. So this is the process-orientation I mention earlier. Process is to me a vessel of consciousness for everything that I do, and my framework of examining and understanding what I do in various situations as an artist and human being. It is there to pose questions, rather than finding answers. Another central theme of your artistic inquiry is gender-identity and it's important to remark that apart from your project based work, you are currently researching and developing open teaching programs to encourage young women to play/work with sound technology and experimental forms of sonic expression: how much does this teaching experience inform your vision about Art? In particular, would you tell us if you think that your being woman provided your artisic research with some special value? With 24-hour woman and 3-hour woman, the titles' reduction of me to a "female" definitely creates a certain setting; I give just enough information to create the understanding that in order for me to be able to improvise for 3 hours, I will have to draw on some kind of ability to perform - to deliver something aesthetic, artistic and beautiful during this timeframe. With the title I point towards my body and my gender and draw that in to the work - because it matters. That is where things get suspended and where one of the messages I want to convey is made apparent; The concept becomes a frame work where society's celebration of human stamina crosses paths with artistic integrity and gender. Creative and biological failure becomes a potential reality. In other terms, I may just fail as a performer and turn out to be an ordinary person, who has to go to the bathroom, take a break. It should be remarked that in the given situation with these time-constrained performances I absolutely allow myself to do anything I want to. I try not to, but I also try to make it clear that I am myself and I am not acting, and I am not creating an illusion. I want the audience to understand that I am a human being in a specific situation, but it's the same human being that also exists in various other situations. It's really a refusal to be reduced as a human being by virtue of the performance situation. So, there is the question of power over expectation; who gets to decide what constitutes a performance? Is it the sender or receiver? Do we somehow negotiate it under way, and how does that negotiation take place?
thing again! On the other hand, if the audience mirrored my perception and understood what I was trying to do 1:1 it would have entirely different consequences. The important thing is that one outcome should not be viewed as "better" or "more useful" that the other. Outcome is just a part of process and so is interpretation. Randomness is a ubiquitous thing that I allow to happen at all levels; it can be present in the creation of sound, just as well as in the construction of meaning. By thinking this way, ideally no part of process becomes more important that others - not even reception or interpretation, they just happen, the same way that the phenomenon of sound happens.
When I did 24-hour woman people were asking me how I could continue to do produce something good for 24 hours, and how I could avoid bathroom breaks and falling asleep. My answers was that I never claimed to be able to do so, and that no matter how much I would like to have super human powers in art, this was and is never going to happen. It's the act of doing and not the judgement of the action that drives the purpose of my work. That said, I expected and wanted these questions to come up because they expose our common views of what we expect from a performance situation and from artistic practice. Playing with the parameters of timeframe and setting with this concept, allows for an exposure of new questions: for instance how would 6-hour woman differ from 3-hour woman? and what would happen if it was called 3-hour human? I think the fact that I do consider myself non-binary, or rather as "not having a gender", I have through my 20s become so much more aware of exactly what the differences are, in terms of how we carve out space for each other in an arts scene or a profession. There are so many misconceptions or misinformed beliefs that just seem to foster solutions, especially in teaching, that don't seem to actually solve
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the problem. Being met with these misconceptions, and being on the female side of the argument, I get frustrated to a point that I feel an obligation to try to change conditions for the young women that are, hopefully, sitting at home experimenting with technology and sound. I am totally committed to my biological gender but not being able to "see" it myself, is a huge benefit because I have had no problem - or hesitations - stepping into the music scene or to my studies at Audio Design where I was the only woman. However, speaking to other women my age, I realize that to do this, to be able to even ask if they can join in (whether it being a band or a situation where technology is being played with), can be quite a threshold to cross. Drawing upon my own praxis, I want to examine gender division in teaching, which is happening quite a lot with various initiatives at the moment. Doing a teaching program to encourage women to take part, doesn't necessarily mean taking men out of the equation. If we take a gender out of the teaching situation, we may miss the opportunity for everyone to experience girls as equally interested and capable. At the same time it enforces a narrative that boys and girls have different social and cognitive learning capabilities, and that may not be unequivocally constructive. At the same time, if the schooling system is not ready to invent new ways of teaching the arts, and especially music, where they take on a pedagogical responsibility to ensure that we develop both teaching methods and the right conditions for inclusion, then it makes good sense to just divide to make sure we don't loose any more great female talents along the way, because we fail to encourage and see potential for inclusion. In my opinion we should be looking at the matrix of pedagogy, didactics, tools, technology and setting, and also start questioning what musical understanding is! Why not do sound art in music class? Why adhere to notation and conventional instruments? In my opinion the conventional way of teaching music creates reproduction of what already exists, it's like asking kids to paint by numbers and think that this somehow will develop creativity and skill. It teaches kids to only draw inside the frame to be "right". I try to examine this discourse in my own in the praxis; to understand how to create conditions for understanding, reflection and development - individually and collectively. So far, my experience is, evidently, that some of the factors that either enable or hinders creative learning, understanding and development could be down to quite simple elements and conditions. It's about finding that fine line between chaos and order, and understanding how various modes can produce concrete and absurd artifacts and experiences, that may not need to be understood to be purposeful. Learning to exist and to think in both very dynamic and very static sensuous conditions is tremendously important. That is where working with sound has a unique potential in a disruptive methodology; its a very flexible material and once the basic understanding of how it works is asserted, the potential for experimentation - as well as learning how to be experimental - is huge. In theory, the more unconventional and abstract we can make teaching situation (and still keep it substantial), the less likely the participants are to be concerned with using their socio-cultural learning to navigate in the experience. E.g.: If nobody has any preconceptions of who is more eligible or who has specific skills from the get go, then that normalizes the creative, collaborative situation. Experimenting with this approach, however, really make high demands of the teacher and the setting. From my own experience it takes time and patience to build up literacy when it comes to working with improvisation and to be able to experiment. Particularly when you have to unlearn playing an instrument. Asking adults not to play music when they see a guitar or a set of keys, and instead to examine the sounds coming out, can prove quite challenging! So I am currently experimenting with different
approaches to equalize, so to speak, a group of students with varying levels of musical skills and technological literacy, to get them to focus on staying in process and collaboration, rather than the quality of their end products. 3-Hour-Woman fosters conversations on the interplay between the sonic experience and the space it inhabits, urging the viewers to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? I would much rather just consider it "a component" among other components. I would like to resist placing audience reception in any hierarchy of creative production. The question of the role - or importance - of the audience reception is still an open one for me. But I consider it a crucial issue in my decision making process. Although, I would much rather insist that it's because medium and context matters. Works like 3-hour woman and 24-hour woman, are, in relation to the matter of the spectatorship, attempts to ask if: Perhaps in the future, the audience could become redundant? Then one could ask if we even need to actually perform? If we could just talk about performance on a conceptual level, might we be able to just relive or imagine a performance? Or at least appreciate it through the context of chosen medium, without having to experience it in real life? Doing 24-hour woman, already when I announced it, it created attention, and lots of questions and discussion in relation to the artistic and political point I wanted to make, but nobody would actually watch the whole thing for 24 hours straight. I am the only witness to what happened! 3-hour woman is basically the same, but the question of time and place creates a different conversation. The crucial difference is the audience and whether or not we share the same space. Will a streaming of 3-hour woman opposed to a site-specific performance change anything for me as a performer? Is the idea of the audience and receiver just as valid in real life as it is as an imagined entity? What is comes down to is a wondering if the act of performance may turn out to not belong to any specific spatio-temporal sphere. It gives grounds to discuss what performance versus performing means, and if just the act of performing to one self, may just as well constitute a form of praxis and art-form, the same way that the potential existence of an audience does. Maybe the just the intention of art will suffice, in the future? I feel that Krþþt Juurak & Alex Bailey's "Performance for Pets" could also be considered as posing similar questions; suggesting that we may be moving towards a post-human performance poetic. This line of thought and ethos leaves a somewhat dystopian view, but hopefully also consolidates how we need each other and our sensuous mode of being to make some acts meaningful, in certain ways that differ from virtual and conceptual reality. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Ess. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I am working a lot with different kinds textiles at the moment, examining movement and micro-sounds. I am building up quite an elaborate concept that is going to be an installation piece. Thematically, it is an extension of my existing political and feminist work. The biological body is still an important factor, and I still existing in the work as me, as my actual performer-self, but as a ghost in the entire machinery. I guess it is the next chapter in the matter of the future redundancy of the performer, where she only exists on a conceptual level!
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LandEscape meets
Mohamed Benhadj Unconventional and captivating in its multifaceted nature, Algerian artist Mohamed Benhadj' work triggers the spectatorship perceptual and cultural parameters to draw them to such multilayered experience. In his works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, he provides the viewers with of the the opportunity to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. One of the most impressive aspects of Benhadj's practice is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of reconstructing a new structure, with the basics of old traditions: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
Hello Mohamed and welcome to LandEscape: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. Are there any experiences that did influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum dued to your Algerian roots and your current life in Europe inform the way you relate yourself with your artistic inquiry? First of all, thank you very much for this interview that gives me a path to a free expression. I would not say influence but more an inner sens, I was studying at the college then computing and technology at first, my decisions on that time appears as performances, I had to make things where
the body is involved to feel the domination of the space in a specific time to make things happens, I quite that collegue for a graphic design school and an Art atelier, that’s in Algiers. I visited later many opening exhibitions that was not much with my expectations or I would better say were not much with the idea of what art is. It Was hard to say where I could much my expression. By time, I decided to go to an important opening show as an Anonyme Artists and I performed in an exhibition where I was not invited and I left the gallery as Anonyme artist. It was an inner self expression that was deep inside me and it appears in that time to take a part of me. In the begining, I didn’t had any algerian cultural substratum dued to my Algerian roots, because the black hood that I use very often in my performances is “dentelle” very frigile and feminine material on a dominating body in a specific space, this make my image of artist kind of
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disturbing but transparent in the same time, as Algerian society is a very macho society but secretly romantic. It was just like a secret to reveal. The Souds background where inspiring old christian and jewish religious sounds or even older than this to an unknown mystisysm in the same time old but very modern. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we would invite to our readers to visit http://www.mohamedbenhadj.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: while walking us through your process, would you like to tell to our readers something about the evolution of your style? In particular, when you conceive a work, is there some conscious shift that addresses you? Performance for me, at early works, it was and still imposed to me, it is just like a vision of a dream, we can’t control this, we can only see it, remember it and sometimes beleive it. Performance appear with intuition and imposed images that connect my soul just like a prayer. I beleive it, I work on it to make it clear, to make it REAL. Understanding a previous work is a part of the conveition of the new work. I started performance, as you see in the photo, with black hood, black pants and dark top, to end up with a black hood, black underwear and black skin all as a process of revealing parts of me to integrate them properly to take eternaly a part of me. Of course there is a conscious part in my work, that’s the intellectual research that conclude as a performance, this research generate energy for the performance where the body is just a tool for its manifistation in here and now. For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected Reverence, an extremely interesting
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project that our readers have already staterd to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your insightful inquiry into the complexity of human condition is the way you have provided the results of your artistic exploration with such autonomous aesthetics. While walking our readers through the genesis of Reverence, would you tell us if you how did you developed your initial idea? Oh ! thank you for the interest that you have for Reverence. As mentioned before, The inderstanding of the previous works if half way to the next one. Reverence is actually my latest project performed in Al-Tiba9 Barcelona 2018 an exhibition of contemporary art and performance that I am the founder and curator since 2013. My process in reverence was deeper, definitly more intelectual than intuitional, reverence is a spiritual performance, a public pray and call for LOVE. I was born in many dapadox where religion takes and still a huge part of my family daily life in Algeria. These religous muslim roofs combined with a modern and contemporary thaughts, helped me to in-code new images, news representations, new possibilites where even the impossible became possible. How to achieve the union between freedom and constraint of the world? How to anchor me in the center of myself? This chimera inside me will have "Reason" of the "Me", or my soul like a bird, may reach another reality? I developed this performance as a reverence to god in a religion of Love where aesthetic has the power to make the public that sparks and fire can burn human. To mage a body
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transformation just as a prayer to reach the center of my soul so to be able to fly life a bird of like a mystic spiritual creature to reach other levels of reality.
This work is the research: This spiritual equation, leave the split space: Achieving the Ultimate "Reverence" in the face of life reaching
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all. We like the way God Will Know His Own triggers the viewers cultural and
perceptual parametershow much does personal experience fuel your creative process? In particular, do you think that a creative process could be disconnected
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from direct experience in order to communicate particular kind of ideas that goes beyond the realm of perceptual reality? God Will Know His Own is a performance that is very close to my heart, this performance imposed itself since the day I got my visa to be finally able to move from Algiers to Barcelona. It is very typical that young people scream, cry and call everyone to announce the news, some of them they organize the big party to celebrate. As artists, i didn’t have the chance to live that part of joy, but a real and sad deep feeling of an artists leaving his country, his land, his roots, I was overwalmed in an instat, by many questions from them, why artists are leaving Algeria, when great artists never come back to algeria, why most of them to not say all of them even does work in Algeria, what about our responsebility of artists ? what about society facing unknom and incertain destiny with less and less of art everyday? Then two things I’ve made immediatly after maybe 10 miters walk from the Ambassy, I turned off my cell phone, then I cried. I decided then to give shapre to this feeling and I performed on the side in betweem the high way that takes you to the Aeroport and Medirerranean sea when the port is. These are the only two ways to leave the country, young generation call it “........” (way to the happiness). I performed in between both ways to make the third possibility appears, to make it possible, to make it double way from where you can leae but also return. From there also was born my project AlTiba9 where artists from around the world have been invited to exhibit and perform
live in Algiers and also in Barcelona in 2017. You can disconnect the creative process from direct experience in order to communicated ideas, but to connecte it with an intellectual research that make together the artwork a perception of reality. I would say an axception that the work should be or HAVE to be disconnected from direct experiences if this end favorite a selfish ego that kills both the work and the artist. As you have remarked in your artist's statemente, you work is a savage performance because it is not prepared or written: how much importance does play improvisation in your process? Improvisation is very important in a live performance, it make the work real for the public, so the public become part of it, the public as this time is not protected and can interact in the performance. My performances are savage because some of them are in public space and the interaction with the public is diffirente than in a museum or a gallery, Not written because it comes from the soul. It is nothing about acting. It is the HERE AND NOW. Your work aims to break down the norms that is established: Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under". Not to mention that almost everything, ranging from Joseph Beuys' Jeder Mensch ein Künstler — Auf dem Weg zur Freiheitsgestalt des sozialen Organismus to Marina Abramović's The Artist is Present, could be considered political, do you think that your works is political, in a certain sense?
ÂŤ I see the best and I do the worst Âť Ovide. The human condition is complex. The being is alone with his multiple nature, overwhelmed by desires, emotions and passions, has an eagerness to know the possible dimensions of his being, shared between Sacred and Profane Original Contradiction -. How to achieve the union between freedom and constraint of the world? How to anchor me in the center of myself? This chimera inside me will have "Reason" of the "Me", or my soul like a bird, may reach another reality? This work is the research: This spiritual equation, leave the split space: Achieving the Ultimate "Reverence" in the face of life reaching all.
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Moreover what could be in your opinion the role of Art in order to sensitize the viewers in our everchanging contemporary scene? My art is all about the present and prevision of the possible future, of corse based on the past that is already part of the actual present. My work then is definitly political and religious, not only these thaught, but also it mesure the size of how to acheive the future throught a very tiny path to reality. This type of performance “political” allows for the public to engage in contributing to change through nontraditional means and for artists to reach a potentially wider demographic.. As Banksy said, “There’s nothing more dangerous than someone who wants to make the world a better place.” We like the way you work, and in particular Here and Now, rather than rejecting historical heritage, aims to reconstruct a new structure, with the basics of old traditions: how do you consider the relationship between cultural heritage from a past age and contemporary sensitiveness? the relationship between cultural heritage from a past age and contemporary sensitiveness is very fragil, and it can be broken easily if we represent it in a wrong way, as art for me is all about the present and projection in the future, working on the old basic tradition as identity is mendatoly to reach freedom without loosing the cultural heritage, without melting in another culture and then loosing identity...
so no freedom of the mind. Being in Europe as Algerian performer for me, is just as being a messenger in Art and my cultural heritage in a modern way and freely reconstracting a ne structure for Algerian Art in both Algiera in the western. Sure politic, religion, memory and identily take part of my art but in modern way tht defind first, Algerian artist and then generaly arab Muslim artist in a western scene just like a reversal equation that can influence reactives and products. Your work also allows an open reading, a multiplicity of meanings behind the main idea that you aim to communicate: how much important is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings? The publac has been always part of parfmance art, it is a tool in a specific space and time that makes the performance appear and to take shape from an intellectual side to a 3-Dimentional in a specific space and definite time. Of corse, the public for me, is a second part of my improvisation. It is going also to imporovise because be being in the space where I’m performing, the public is not protected. Two years ago, for the project Al-Tiba9 Contemporary Art and performance i performance a total improvisation by appearing from an unusual place in bardo National museum of Algiers, it was about axploring new spaces and dimensions knowing that my performance there was
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the first performance art performed live there because it is actualy a prehistory and traditions museum. I decided to start my performance that unsusal corver of the museum to make itdifferent for the public and create a destabilisation to the spectatorship, to make them ready to improvise their reactions. I was performing around the interior yard of the museum but also touching people, having a direct phisical contact. As you can see on the pictures some people were welcoming this touch, others curious about and others in total destabilisation, so this created the second interaction with the public so their reactions were imporovised and in the meantime taking park of the performance. It was an essential part where public because itself a PERFORMER by imporvising in the live performance and interecting between people that have been touched and the ones none. Sure, behind this work, there is a personal intelectual research that’s my part of work and by interacting the public during my performance it made the final size of the work. I usually broke all kind of protections in my work but also public protection, it is all about taking risks so the impossible become possible. Your works have been presented at a number of occasions, including CICA Museum of contemporary Art in South Korea, The New Museum of Networked art in Kolen Germany, Morphos festival Plazzo Alberizzi in Venice Italy, New Visionary Art show in Lesso Italy, Mira Digital Arts Festival in Barcelona Spain: one of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are provided with of the the opportunity to
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become active participants and are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience: in particular, we are wondering if the aim to create an event for a spectator is the reason why you performor is if it's a channel through which you transmit your ideas: do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? When I performed first time ever, it was in Algeria where performance are was not at all used in the art scene there or it was not pushed to its limits. Space was a complex part of my work as it needs to be able to receive new energies, I performed as anonyme artist in other artists opening exhibition without being invited or announced. Later, I have curated Al-Tiba9 project where performance art is an important part on the show, then I had the opportunity to perfom and push the limits during my event. Yes, definitly it aims to create an event for a spectator and also to make it an essential part of my work by improvising decision-making Here and Now. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Mohamed. Finally, would you like to tell our readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Thank you to LandEscape Art for this interview and I would like to introduce all performance artists to Al-Tiba9 Contemporary Art and Performance, now in its 6th Edition and I am also preparing new collective works with photographers and artists from deffirent fields. Again, thank you very much for this interview.
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LandEscape meets
Estefania Valls Urquijo IDEAS = SYMBOLS = CULTURAL IDENTITY How ideas become symbols and symbols - ideas. My interest: the symbolism in the the world cultures, their ideas and elements that represent their identity. My technique: I always use ceramic because I need to work with my hands, in an exercise of feeling without thinking. Ceramic has its own life, clay and glaze react at will and speak in my work, almost deciding... Ceramic’s fragility and complications challenges me continuously. In history, ceramic has been the most accurate tool in the study of civilizations, it is eternal and universal, a dictionary of symbols. I work in ceramic together with other materials - metal, wood, glass. I tie everything; tying as joining pieces respecting their own individuality, tying to unite, and staying one when released. I have always been fascinated with the old way of signing by the means of sealing, using symbols instead of signatures, so I sign my works with a stamp, a symbol that becomes part of the peace itself.
An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator
landescape@europe.com
Hello Estefania and welcome to LandEscape: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. You have a solid formal training and you hold a MFA Art Direction, that you received from the ESDESIGN in Barcelona. How did this experience along with the number of workshops in Interior design and Drawing that you have attended over the years influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum
inform the way you relate yourself with your artistic inquiry?
I strongly beleive in ACADEMIC TRAINING. Not just because of receiving knoledge, but to map, to recognize, to discover what and where are you going with what ever you do. My Interior design studies gave me space dimentions, Drawing the capacity to pre-view an idea, the MFA Art Direction how to focus a Project‌ all you learn will serve you some day. As it has been said: Nobody invents anything, all has being done, we just re discover and re invent. There is where I go- discovering,
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admiring and redoing IDEAS, SIMBOLISMS and CULTURAL IDENTITIES. I feel that with time we are loosing property and map location, because of globalization, not bad nor good, we are mixing and loosing, joining and gainig at the same time. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we would invite to our readers to visit http://www.evuart.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: while walking us through your process, would you like to tell to our readers something about the evolution of your style? In particular, when you conceive a work, is there some conscious shift that addresses you?
AN OBSESIVE IDEA. All my work starts with profound questionairs, with IDEAS that get stock in my memory. And as ideas are abstract and symbols concrete, I travel trough words to conect miself with them. I start writing words, frases, poems in an exersize of clarifying, adopting and making them part of myself or at least part of my brain. How do I select the ideas I will work on?- WA! Beleive me they all mix, I´m allways working in various of themes, as in various techniques, as reading various books, and working on my various social projects at the same time. Its amazing how the brain works, how it conects and organizes, stores information and finds its way to the exact archive when you need it. I´m very constant and organized, my rutin is diferent everyday, but as the order of the elements doesnt afect the result, the order of my ruting doesn’t eather. For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected OUR FOOT PRINTS IN THE WORLD, an
extremely interesting project that our readers have already staterd to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your successful attempt to close the gap between the narratives about human gestures and the materic essence of objects is the way you have accomplished your inquiry into such unbreakable bond with
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effectiveness and autonomous aesthetics. While walking our readers through the genesis of OUR FOOT PRINTS IN THE WORLD, would you tell us if you how did you developed your initial idea?
Living in a third developed country you are every day confronted with realliyties so diferent from your own. As I realted in a
Creative Morning conference I was invited to talk about CHANGE ( Creative mornings Guatemala ), “ Maslow piramid� talks about the levels of consiuosness innerent to the level of opportunity, covered necesities and education you have. Only 5 percent ( or less ) of the worlds population have their basic necesities, education, health, roof, rights and
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opportunities covered by birth right – What did I do to deserve them, if I dont even remember? So if I didnt do anything to deserve them, I most owe them to life at least. Then, what am I doing to give it back?
Two choices I have- Choose where and how, or wait until life takes it back. Experimenting on giving and connecting opportunities for others, got me consiousness of how every step, every
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ceremony, where others could feel in their own skin, stamp with their own energy this marks they leave, and not only the marks they leave, but be aware of the marks they follow. Because we all follow others marks, nobody acts alone, even in the most solitude of spaces, there is allways a reference, an example -allways a path. In OUR FOOT PRINTS IN THE WORLD your performative gestures seem to be very analytical, yet strives to be full of emotion: how much importance does play improvisation in your process? Moreover, do you think that your being a woman provides your artistic research with some special value?
I had ballet clases seens I was 5 years old until 42. Only for the love of movement, for the necesity of music felt, seens I do not have the priviledge of playing music. I´m sure this conection between music and body expresión manifests in me, at least in a very small way. YES! Thank you for asking- A WOMEN, Do we really need to make a remark on gender? How actual all this is… art has no gender, but artista do. Yes, I think it is important; in this life I´m a woman, and I have lived this side of gender profoundly.
desition, every word, every intention we give, or do leaves a mark in someone elses life. How to represent this? How to show wothout words but in a form of
MUÑECAS( one year reserch on the roll of women through human history and arround the world) appeard in my world after starting PODEROSAS movement. MUÑECAS poems are all based on realities, sadly actual realities steel. If we want change we have to work beetween uswomen for women, I have no dout about it.
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As you have remarked once, you always use ceramic because you need to work with your hands, in an exercise of feeling without thinking. American art critic and art historian Michael Fried once stated that 'materials do not represent, signify, or allude to anything; they are what they are and nothing more.' What are the properties of ceramics that fascinates you the most?
OH how remarcable this topic is! “Materials are what they are” and how perfect they are! Its our energy through their “materia” what develops to a meaningfull object, and even then they manifest. Ceramic speacks, decides, manifest allways. Every time you take out a peace from the oven- you find life manifested on it; a surprice, a unique piece on its own; magic or tragedy, many times a tragedy with a lesson on it. Ceramic is the most ancient code of symbols, first cuneiform writing was invented to mark the work of an specific artisan over a set of bowls used to messure payment for workers. In origin a factory code that developed in writingamazing! Many artists express the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and by using their own bodies in their creative process. German visual artist Gerhard Richter once remarked that "it is always only a matter of seeing: the physical act is unavoidable": as a multidisciplinary artist involved both in Photographer and Dance how would you consider the relation between the abstract nature of the ideas you
explore and the physical act of producing your artworks? They leave together in me- “it is only a matter of seeing, or maybe a matter of feeling”. It takes a master to have the ability to separate the body from the soul.
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Thats what makes death so impresive, death does it, but how do you do it without dying? Meditation. I´m only a student in meditation, I use it to find silence, to find peace in myself, and as an instrument for peace in the jails I work in Guatemala- I have been working in 2 guatemalan jails for 5 years now- giving yoga
and meditation clases to inmates, showing them how noice or silence can only come through teir own minds. God is so inteligent! He made us come alone, and takes us alone. Your travel trough life is yours. Nobody can see for you, nobody can hear for you, no body can feell for you- your sences are yours, your
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instruments for living life. I use my fisical instruments to manifest my soul inquieries. Your artistic practice focusses on the symbolism in the the world cultures, their
ideas and elements that represent their identity: we like the way The Marionettes triggers the viewers cultural and perceptual parameters by the use of objects with a strong connotative reference: German
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about it? Morever, would you tell us something about the importance of metaphors in your pratice and their relationship to memory? Its interesting to talk about narative with the mĂŠdium, because the strongest visual element on the marionnettes is that they are all naked and their only cultural elements are on their heads and feet- this elements are so strong that even though you see them all equaly naked, with their bodies exposed, this closing elements of belonging diferentiate them instantly and separate them from each other. They are only elements, disgaises that talk about their stories without words. This disgaises are symbols of identity, symbols of belonging, but at the same time, symbols of control, limitation and lost individuality. Visual imposure is the strongest of controls, and they afect our emotions and our intelect so strongly that before questioning, we realte, instantly, our brains conect those images with the stories learned. And changing it, opening to other posibilities is so dificult, takes so much energy and intention, that only the smallest group of people do it. Far from being an abstract work, Kefalonia Mural is deeply connected to life's experience: how much does personal experience fuel your creative process? In particular, do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience in order to communicate particular kind of ideas that goes beyond the realm of perceptual reality? multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion
YES for sure, that is the magic of creation- its an instrument of manipulation. You can creat a direct dialoge, or creat complete disorientation. Even though life experience will allway talk and memory is there,
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in the creation process you use it or leave it on the side. The Kefalonia Murals are in contrast with each other, one shows clearly a story known, The God Helios, the mithological dolphins, the fruits of the earth, the fruts of the sea, the island and the Trireme; The other side shows two simbols realted to their cultural tradition, the Greek eye who protects, and the code of arms of the city in the pupil- both abstract, both symbols of identity. You are a founding member and director of Poderosas: Leave Your Mark movement poderosas.org and Peace Agent for Peace Revolution: not to mention that almost everything, ranging from Caravaggio's Inspiration of Saint Matthew to Joep van Lieshout's works, could be considered political, do you think that your works could be considered political, in a certain sense? Moreover, what could be in your opinion the role of Art in the contemporary age? Political no, but a call for human rights yes. This is my most higest intention- HUMANITY. Moral and Ethics are universal, rights and wrongs are universal. We all come and go the same way. The known and recorded history of the wrold is arround 5,000 years old, of this 5,000 years we are here only 90 – and only the lucky ones who arrive to that age!. How is it posible that we all live this life as if we were eternal? What am I doing so when I get to where ever it is, and who will be there for me asks me- What did you do with what I gave you? I can answer with a clear and proud mind- THIS. Over the years your artworks have been presented at a number of festivals, including Art Expo Toronto, Institut International de la Marionnette and The Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park Artist Studio: one of the
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hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are provided with of the the opportunity to become active participants and are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience: in particular, we are wondering if the aim to create an event for a spectator is the reason why you performor is if it's a channel through which you transmit your ideas: do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? I manifest, I créate, but rarely think of what the public will experience, or of their expectations. Even, maybe as a realist or a masochist, I love it when they don’t undestand, when they don’t aprove, when they don’t relate… giving or talking about what they allready know and aprove feels like lost time and effort- Questioning, confronting them with this blind spots infront of us, asumed just because they where all ready there, or they dont touch me… that is worth doing, worth working for. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Estefania. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I would love to have the opportunity of getting to peolple who are moved by my thoughts and questions, who are tolerant or shocked, but who will use my art manifestations for THINKING, QUESTIONING, TALKING through it. My art being not only an instrument, but a vessel for dialoge. An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator
landescape@europe.com
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LandEscape meets
Eva Dabara Lives and works in Tel-Aviv, ISRAEL
As a multidisciplinary artist engaged in visual arts, poetry, performance and dance, I am interested in the interaction between images, text and the body. My work is basically minimalist, and my artistic endeavor is to create a critical view of the individual and social circumstances, sexuality, stereotypes and human relations. Using photographs, text, video, performance, objects and ready-mades I create a syntax which reveals a conceptual yet personal drive, merging the universal with my biography and the local reality I live within. Zigzagging between the different elements and mediums I strive to create a multi-layered experience of the senses while exploring an eclectic world of diverse existence which is at times dramatic, absurd, humorous, hallucinated, poetic or mundane. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator land.escape@europe.com
Tel-Aviv based multi-disciplinary artist, poet, performer and dancer Eva Dabara's work deviates from traditional trajectory to explore the interaction between images, text and the body: in her captivating audiovisual performance BLACK & WHITE that we'll be discussing in the following pages, she triggers both the perceptual and cultural parameters of the spectatorship, to walk them through multilayered experience. One of the most impressive aspects of Dabara's work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of challenging the normative conventions of the performer-audience situation to create a critical view of the individual and social circumstances, sexuality, stereotypes and human relations : we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.
Hello Eva and welcome to LandEscape: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you studied Philosophy and English literature at Tel-Aviv University, art, photography and video at Camera Obscura and performance art at The Performance Platform in Tel-Aviv: how did these experiences influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does your multifaceted cultural substratum dued to your Israelian roots inform the way you relate yourself to art making? To begin with, apart from the university studies of English Literature and Philosophy which gave me a very broad perspective and outlook - I didn't really have a solid formal training in the Arts in terms of the traditional 4 years academic study graduating with a diploma, but rather annual courses I chose (although for 5 years altogether), and I'm happy about it as it helped me maintain a kind of freedom which is essential for me. Instead of detailing my background cultural roots which apparently
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Paradise Episodes at Jaffa theatre. Photo: Gadi Dagon
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Cut A Piece. Photo: Alex Coman
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influenced me as an artist – I'd rather cite a poem which better answers your question: "As much as I thought about the thing/the thing sealed itself from me and laughed./A given concept is written in the sand/only a high tide will wash away its opacity into foam". (from the book "Not In Vain"). In more prosaic words, in my art making I extricate myself from my melting pot, shifting from the familiar to the non-familiar and vice-versa so that one of the end results is to make the murmur of the waves be heard again. Your approach is marked out with such a captivating multidisciplinary feature, revealing that you are a versatile artist capable of crossing from a medium to another, poetry, performance and dance: before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.fb.me/eva.dabara.artist in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your usual process, we would like to ask you if you think that there is a central idea that connects all of your work as an artist. In particular, how do you select a medium in order to express a particular idea? My work has always been multidimensional and multidisciplinary, following what Richard Wagner established as Gesamkunstwerke which means an all-embracing artwork that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so. By nature I can not be restricted to a single idea no matter how important it is. I feel my art should reflect the world as I perceive it which is eclectic, heterogeneous and multifaceted.The means I employ are ordinary materials: a bowl, fan, mask, paper stripes, pieces of fabric or paper cups. Ephemeral substances. And my body, of course. I don't use any advanced technology. "Regular things were yawning themselves to sleep/others were yawning to release/tension in compressed tunnels" (fragment from the book "Casino").
Sometimes the idea is the core of my work, sometimes the idea is obscure and the aesthetics take over in terms of images, accessories, sound, dress, movements, all of which eventually create a message. In the latter case the idea comes from unknown sources which present themselves as accomplished works of art although completely immaterial. I keep myself open. I start the process in different ways. Sometimes an idea strikes all of a sudden. I welcome it. And I carefully watch it evolve when an outfit is added, demanding certain movements, a sound added, an accessory which further develops the movement and hence the meaning. Sometimes a piece of music is the one that starts the ball rolling, in other cases a single image or a certain object. The perspective of how to situate the images on stage serves as a door into the world of emotions. A series of images then accrues allowing me to act my vision, my feelings, playing in a cinematic way with the visual elements, like performative collages. "Outside, a wild wind is carrying/tropical summer yearnings away from me/One day, I know, fright will take over pride in me" (fragment from "Casino"). Various artistic components are merged in order to set the desired atmosphere. If it comes out successfully – it creates that "magic" moment between the performer and the audience. The titles I choose are often metaphors for the idea "Twice Fuji, Please", "Honey", "Crush:, "Add A Piece", "Mind The Gap", "Feed", "Iron Dome", "Runway", which for me they serve as a standpoint or perspective to a wider meaning and potential. I prefer not to define the concept of the narrative in my works, rather the structure itself is what is ultimately important to me. And the MEDIUM itself IS the MESSAGE. For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected BLACK & WHITE a stimulating performance that our readers have already started to got to know in the introductory
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pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your artistic inquiry into the interaction between images, text and the body is the way you have provided it with such autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of BLACK & WHITE, would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea? Based on the universal human need for narratives and stories to elaborate our concepts, the performance Black & White aspires to examine the complex relationship between image, text and the body. It is an interdisciplinary and multilayered performance, consisting of a recorded soundtrack, live sound, images and movement on stage. In the background soundtrack I recorded myself reading short poems overlapping a repetitive recorded sound of my breathing. On the empty dark stage, except for a bowl with white sugar in it, I am covered with black veil having wireless headset microphone which I use to react live to the recorded poems, echoing and breaking the words at the same time. Each verse doubts the self-sufficiency of images and the whole performance moves between the narrative sequence of the recorded poems and the sequence of the body gestures. Text is time related whereas art is space related. However I am blurring these boundaries by shuffling the traditional roles of both. The words are not just the background against which the performance happens, they are part of the narrative material, the thinking material, the subtext of the production as a whole. On the other hand, the images on stage are not spatial objects as they create a sequence of narrative on the timeline. This dual information is dribbled on stage, causing the audience to reflect on the ways we interact with, behave or consider ourselves – whether it be diverse, inclusive or otherwise. "Condemned to silence in the green lobby./Sea winds do not approach/No sailing. No diving /A
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Black & White at Jaffa Theatre. Photo: Gadi Dagon
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Black & White at Jaffa Theatre. Photo: Gadi Dagon
Eva Dabara
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waitress is serving him coffee without sugar./Cold not bold." (from the book Not In Vain). For me, the inspiration came entirely from the words. The poems were written many years ago, published in my first book "Not In Vain" which won a literary prize. They sound like generic poems, skeleton-thin. Nevertheless I immediately connected with them while producing genuine movement language. The choice of the minimal movements on stage is a statement. There is a clear reason for everything happening on stage, a sense of personal journey through words, images and movement. There is also an element of psychological search in this piece exploring deeper aspects which permeate slowly into the spectators. I am playing between extrovert presentation and introvert impact of emotional contents. These two parallel narratives, the one of the text and the other of the visual action, both with equal importance, creating a relationship which is not hierarchical but simultaneous. They are confronting each other and being unraveled in an original interplay while subverting the complex relationship between image and language through the centrality of the body. "I don't mind you were silent/most of the time and just looking/ how I'm singing alone/love songs./Damn, someone has to be looking". (from "Not In Vain"). As you have remarked once, you aim to create a critical view of the individual and social circumstances, sexuality, stereotypes and human relations: Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under". Not to mention that almost everything, ranging from Joseph Beuys' Jeder Mensch ein Künstler — Auf dem Weg zur Freiheitsgestalt des sozialen Organismus to Marina Abramović's The Artist is Present, could be considered political, do you think that your works is political, in a certain sense? Moreover what could be in your opinion the role of Art in order to sensitize the viewers in our ever-changing contemporary scene? In the age of global communication and artists exhibiting everywhere around the world it doesn't
Crush at ZAZ Performance Festival.
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Twice Moon at SofiaUnderground Festival
necessarily matter where you actually live. It depends on what kind of role as an artist you take upon yourself in terms of whether the place you live or born in is important as to determine the nature of your artwork. As for me, I'm not interested in politics per se, however in the process of my art making I am well aware of political aspects which manifest themselves whether I
pre-planned it or not. The video Shelter, for instance, addresses both the politics of personal relations and the politics of the state. The video consists of a series of photographs I shot at a neglected domestic bomb-shelter in Tel-Aviv along with fragments of poems taken out of my different poetry books and when put one after the other they create a new narrative of a vague,
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dubious relationship. It is a security shelter versus an emotional shelter, neither of which provides its purpose. The two parallel stories and the tension between them question the human condition in a modern city constantly threatened by war and by emotional alienation. "Here, precisely here, 7 sqm. of the promised land/the entire world is brought under my
nose/and all I have to do is put punctuation marks/between calamities" (fragment of a poem from the book "Casino"). Another example is my performance Iron Dome. I created it in 2012 immediately after operation Pillar Of Defence during Gaza-Israel conflict where the Iron Dome (an air defense system) was used by
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Israel. The performance was presented in ZAZ International Performance Art Festival, and it was site-specific in an abandoned shop at the Central Bus Station where jute sand bags were piled up in two corners of the space. Although I had a feminine concept in my mind for which I constructed a huge wire bras over my breasts – the space evoked inevitable war associations. So starting with merely sexual image and the nature of relationships - I ended up integrating the local political war aspect to produce similar codes of power, struggle, helplessness, fear, threats, victims, temptation and death. Many artists express the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and by using their own bodies in their creative process: how would you consider the relation between the abstract nature of the ideas you explore and the physical act of producing your artworks? By the way, do you like spontaneity or do you prefer to meticulously schedule every details of your works? how much importance does play improvisation in your process? "Indeed, the wind justifies its existence/in cold winter.There is a totality in its/lucidity which isn't there in growth/for instance, or in hair./Not in vain I blew onto the mirror/out of spite" (from "Not In Vain"). In my performances any idea starts naturally with something tangible and concrete such as the body, a certain movement, a dress or a piece of music. Once I have these basic materias I then develop the piece. If I choose a sound track of either recorded words or music then I have to be very precise in choreographing the movements in order to be synchronized with the sound like a piece of dance which also has a specific time limit. By nature I am not a long-distance runner, rather a sprinter. My performances are short, dynamic, evolving and therefore they demand the full attention of the
Eva Dabara
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Come Bride at Zimmer Nanodance Festival
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Feed at Artspace Tel-Aviv. Photo: Tamar Lederberg
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audience from the beginning to the end otherwise one might miss the whole idea. However, I do like, and it's also important to me, to leave room for improvisations, especially in those wild parts where I let my subconscious take over and express itself in unexpected ways. My performance FEED is a very good example for this combination between planning and improvisation: in carefully choreographed movements I use 21 pink memo notes each having a word which I read out loud and then attach it onto my body (words like: fear, power, mystery, war, chains, gamble, desire, fragile, loneliness, etc.). Then, stripping my upper T- shirt it becomes a primeval object for an improvised uncanny ritual while I'm producing wild Gibberish sound around it. The Idea behind this performance is that in the age of Facebook the virtual Feed Wall is the body longing for real connection and touch whereas things become disrupted. "It caught us in the rain season, when the sea/was crushed like a spoilt whipped cream" (fragment of a poem in "Casino"). It's important to mention that you are also a poet and that an adventurous year in the Caribbean Islands was followed by the poetry book "Paradise Episodes" which eventually formed your second solo exhibition "Bermuda Triangle" - a minimalist installation confronting the stereotype images of a tropical island: what does encourage you to create your poems? And when did you recognize that traditional poetics exhausted its expressive potential? Strange as it may sound, words which are abstract in nature each defining an object in the world - while being constructed in a poem they seem to be more mysterious than a normally elusive image. That is to say, I'm triggered to write about something when I wish to give it an open, unraveled dimension, where I find photographic image or my performing body would be too concrete for that purpose. "And it is possible to phrase a thought/according to a cloud and light./I know the difficulty in reading a thought/when the light falls on my lashes/diagonally and strange colours/create verses of malicious possibilities." (from "Not In Vain"). As for traditional poetics exhausted its expressive potential I reject any conventional classification but I do think that in poetry today everything is decentralized, dispersed,
Mind The Gap at Loving Art event. Photo: Liat Elbling
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fragmented. Reality is too aggressive to allow for a lyrical expression of a sensitive, nuanced self. All in all, words are not enough for me. I'm focusing on the way to direct energy by means of form and rhythm. I try to articulate feelings, emotions, moments connected with my research through visual language and offer them to my audience in the shared moment of the public presentation. However, the overlapping point between writing and visual art is consolidated into my biography and my personality which unite all the parts of the puzzle. The year long adventure in the Caribbean Islands was a life-changing experience for me which produced artworks throughout the years in all the mediums I employ: a poetry book "Paradise Episodes", a literary radio program, a solo exhibition "Bermuda Triangle" and a few years later also a performance at Jaffa Theatre where music, words, objects, drama and dance came together to a degree of a total experience in a moving visual spectacle. "But, the wind is not always a storm of waves/ and horizon. Sometimes, crossing roads, we are surprised/by a single, burning wind which tortures/ the delicate mane of the horses./ Someone starts breathing heavily and a huge crowd /of horses and pigeons gather near the sea" (from the book "Paradise Episodes"). We appreciate the way your work addresses the viewers to the point of convergence between the concrete and the imaginary: how do you see the relationship between reality and imagination playing within your artistic practice? Some of my works are an opportunity to depart from a realistic representation of narrative. In two of my solo installations "Bermuda Triangle" and "Mind The Gap" both comprised by photographs, objects, text and sound I used the diverse mediums in a way that one merges into the other, challenging each other and reversing their roles. Sometimes the text is concrete and the images imaginary and vice versa. The same goes to my performances. Following Marina Abramovic who stated: "to be a performer you must hate theatre", I think that in performances there is an expansion of time very different from the naturalism of theatre, which allows interpolations of images and thoughts. In such cases I
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Honey. Photo: Gadi Dagon
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Iron Dome at ZAZ Performance Festival
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reconstruct a new and imaginary reality flirting with the borderline between narrative, form, sound, movement, space, place and time. I doubt the existence of one monolyte and permanent identity. The essence of performance lies in the idea of execution. It's the performance of self where the subject is dismantled and its identity is fabricated, or rather invented. I focus on blurring the boundaries between the self and the persona, between the real self and imaginary self. I play with truth and illusion. All in all, my work exists ephemerally and mostly documented in the viewers' memory. "Suddenly, it is assaulting like a dictator's/secret police, in an unexpected visit and/the innocent heart is seized for a night/arrest, stunned" (from "Paradise Episodes"). Your work walk the viewers to such a wide number of narratives: rather than attempting to establish any univocal sense, you seem to urge the viewers to elaborate personal associations would you tell us how much important is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings? How open would you like your works to be to be understood? It is indeed important to me that the viewers encompass as many layers of my artwork as possible, interpreting them yet enjoying the immediate images on stage. As far as spectatorship is concerned, although I sometimes draw from autobiographical and psychological sources, nevertheless I need to be communicative. First and foremost the visibility of my work should be captivating, sometimes even spectacular to look at. And then I'm glad if at least some of the viewers have either interpretations or associations of their own. I strive for a reflective relationship with the audience allowing each viewer connect to or even identify with some of the emotions raised in the piece. I aim for the emotional connection which should be accessible. "He touches me for a moment and withdraws./Might be scared his right hand will dry/and won't be returned the way it used to be" (from "Not In Vain"). The structure of my performances is clear, stylized and I
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believe also communicative as to facilitate a dialogue with the audience. I have this vain desire that the viewers will be captivated, immersed in my performances. Instead of just seeing the artwork experiencing it whereas all the senses are involved. However, there is always a risk of failure since the production of the performance cannot be completely determined beforehand. The piece is evolving and changing during its presentation on stage. Moreover, it depends on the specific space, the audience, the physical conditions and the atmosphere. Therefore it is never the same each time it is presented and I can never tell from the outset whether there will be "electricity in the air" during my performance as I wish it to be. Over the years your works have been exhibited in solo shows of installation and participated in many group exhibitions, video screenings and performance events, locally and internationally, including your recent performance Time Is Love/Liaison at Art Space in Tel-Aviv. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? That's a very good question which I have been thinking about for quite a long time. My poetry books were written in Hebrew which is my mother-tongue and therefore the poetry performances in Jaffa Theatre were naturally in Hebrew. However, any other artwork integrating text, be it a video, photographs, installation or performance - I make it a point to use English for the sheer purpose of being understood anywhere in the world. Such was the performance FEED mentioned before in this interview and which was presented within the International event Time Is Love/Liason at Art Space in TelAviv, the performance CRUSH, the series of photographs Lollipop etc. As a contrast, in Twice Moon which I presented in SofiaUnderground
Performance Festival, the sign language I employed intensified the muteness of the performance and challenged the viewers understanding in a completely different manner. Furthermore, the dissociation of this performance was expressed in repetitive acts while the body was hiding its own redundancy, its own femininity. "Suddenly it becomes so close/like my dirty panties/and soon there isn't enough room to/hide them away from him" (from "Not In Vain"). Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Eva. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Thank you very much for your thorough and insightful questions. It was a pleasure setting into a journey throughout my artistic life. I have recently participated in SofiaUnderground International Performance Art Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria with my performance FEED at the National Museum of Contemporary Art and the performance 'Twice Moon' at the Electro-Control down The National Palace which was an intriguing location. Later in the year I will be participating in a group exhibition in Chicago, USA with photographs integrating words "Over My Dead Body", with a performance in an international multidisciplinary event "Beyond Words" at Art Space Tel-Aviv. I will again participate this year in ZAZ International Performance Art Festival celebrating 30 years of Shelter 209 with numerous events both in Tel-Aviv and in the Israeli desert, and I'm working on two site-specific projects in which I try to subvert the notion of space juxtaposing the public with the private. It is hard to predict how my work will evolve but I do aspire to an all-encompassing pieces that will merge all of the mediums I am engaged with. And I'm also looking forward to participating in more performance festivals/events throughout the world. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator land.escape@europe.com
Twice Fuji, Please at Haifa Museum
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LandEscape meets
Wayne Madsen Lives in Indiana and work at Indiana University Kokomo
Artist Wayne Madsen is a curator of the art generated by computer algorithms: unconventional and captivating in its multifaceted nature, his work triggers the spectatorship perceptual to draw them to such multilayered experience. In Cells and Ghosts that we'll be discussing in the following pages, he overemphasizes the ubiquitous and unbreakable bond between Art and Technology, providing the viewers with the opportunity to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.
An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com
Hello Wayne and welcome to LandEscape: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. You have a solid formal training and you hold a Masters in Fine Arts from the CADRE new media laboratory: how did these experiences influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself with your artistic inquiry? Thank you for this opportunity. As a little background to my artistic experience, I attended the CADRE New Media Laboratory at San Jose State University
during the first few years of the ZERO1 new media festival. During my few years studying for my MFA I was a part of some wonderful opportunities through the Montalvo Arts Center and worked with a number of major contemporary artists through the FUSE artist lecture series, not to mention my amazing cohorts in the program. I originally attended the program in the hopes of working in the heart of Silicon Valley with cutting edge technology, but the conceptual approach to making art through data became the most influential part of my experience in graduate school. Prior to my graduate studies, I was working on paintings that were a composite of different appropriated images from varying disciplines and internet cultures. I viewed these as data points in a catalog of visual concepts I could put into my paintings. I
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quickly found that the painting form was too limiting for my personal interests and
expanded to an ever increasing platform of mediums.
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My wife received her Masters in Computational Linguistics and when she
would come home from work I would struggle to understand the programming
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concepts she was talking about. It felt like a communication rift developing between us. I had been exposed to some elementary programming concepts through Actionscripting in the Flash/Shockwave environment, but the first time I shifted my conceptual
paradigm to software art was when I asked my wife to teach me how to program. I had done some self-teaching in the Processing environment, but I was more impressed by work by Antoni Muntadas and was surrounded by other artists who were creating
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software/hardware interactions that resonated with me. Unlike many artists who have a design in their mind’s eye for how a work should be executed, most of the time I do not. Instead, I believe in establishing a system
to create through various tactics (rules, instructions, forms, concepts, etc) and then follow the work through to its possible permutations. While Sol LeWitt’s drawings have always resonated with me, it was my residency with Sam Gould of RED76 for the Superlight
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exhibition curated by Steve Dietz in connection with the 2010 ZERO1 new media festival that changed my perspective on how to approach my art making process. Sam has this wonderful way of working on any given artwork as he explores the piece through his dialogic process. Much of his work can be distilled down to the development of the actions, not the actions themselves. I am interested in creating objects of aesthetic beauty, but I am more concerned with the decisions made to create the object — not simply the end result. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we would invite to our readers to visit http://art.waynemadsen.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: while walking us through your process, would you like to tell to our readers something about the evolution of your style? In particular, when you conceive a work, is there some conscious shift that addresses you? One of the artists who has consistently had the most impact on my artistic production has been Brian Eno. Artists like Brian Eno, John Cage and Sol LeWitt have been exploring Charles Darwin’s culture-shifting notion of evolution: by following simple rules, entire ecologies of intelligence can emerge. I have always been fascinated by generating complexity through simplicity. My process for conceiving a work always begins with simple instructions. I test
different rules which may or may not result in an interesting finished project. These rules can be conceptual in basis (an action performed by me in loop) or performed in conjunction with another party (e.g. writing
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computer randomized algorithms). Often the majority of my time is spent revising any algorithm I design until it generates an interesting result. The largest concern I have is how I can use simple and elegant
solutions to devise emergent behavior. A more analog way of understanding this process can be seen in the piece The Pirates Code. For this video piece I was interested in
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work that would find commonality between copyright pirates stealing videos and the corporations that were writing algorithms to protect their intellectual property. What resulted was the original
Pirates of the Caribbean film copied without cracking the copyright protection software. What results is a beautiful glitched film, with amazing color and audio distortions like an expressionist video painting. This
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this as a ‘broken’ copy — unwatchable. In fact, it was very difficult to find a method for copying this DVD without cracking the CSS encryption because the communities who offer tools for disc copying don’t keep archived versions of their software which aren’t capable of automatically cracking the anti-decryption. For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected Cells and Ghosts, a couple of extremely interesting projects that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your successful attempt to close the apparent gap between Art and Technology is the way you have accomplished your inquiry into such unbreakable bond with effectiveness and autonomous aesthetics. While walking our readers through the genesis of Cells and Ghosts, would you tell us how did you develop your initial ideas?
piece is unique because it is the one result which neither cinema pirates nor the film production companies want. Disney wrote this CSS encryption to prevent pirates from watching a copied film. Copyright pirates view
Both Cells and Ghosts stem from an exploration of mathematical concepts visualized. Many of my generative art pieces are developed through a set of simple instructions, similar to a Sol LeWitt wall drawing. I begin with a short set of rules — an algorithm — that over many different versions and alterations of variables and math will evolve into the pieces you see before you. Ghosts is a presentation of Perlin noise values as different seed generations relate to each other. Cells is one part a Voronoi
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tessellation and another part a complex gravitational attraction and repulsion system. In your works viewers are able to create cells by moving their controller around the web canvas space. We like the way your artworks seem to bring the ideas behind Jean Tinguely's work to a new level of significance: far from being an abstract work, your pieces are deeply connected to life's experience and urge your audience to evolve from the condition of mere spectatorship: how important is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings? I design for the interactive, for collaboration. In fact, a few years back much of my work held little meaning without the interaction. Now I try to design work that I co-create with the computer, with input from people as another data point, so that the artwork can evolve with viewer interaction, but can exist independent of human input as well. The computer art you create uses generative algorithms and small, random variations to develop unique views each time the work is visited: how much importance does randomness play in your process? Randomness is my way of bridging the gap between my personal authorship and a
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Wayne Madsen
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collaborative process with the computer — or more accurately with the individuals who designed the algorithms for creating random number generation. I’m much more interested in doing work that involves ‘non-artists’ in the process. In some ways I am using randomness as a decision-making process, similar to Jean Arp and the chance experiments from the Dadaists. I am searching for a way to access creativity outside of my own self. I am quick to acknowledge that I’m limited in my creative endeavors. I am restricted by my cultural background and experiential biases. Utilizing randomness is almost akin to using artificial intelligence — or at least artificial decision-making — to guide the process of generation. Randomness becomes my collaborator, my partner. I am able to author the system, but it is the behaviors programmed into the computer’s random variable assignment which makes the visual realization of the artwork itself. Technology and digital techniques play such a crucial role in your approach and as you have remarked once, you see yourself as curator of the art generated by computer algorithms: multidisciplinary artist Angela Bulloch once remarked "that works of arts often continue to evolve after they have been realised, simply by the fact that they are conceived with an element of change, or an inherent potential for some kind of shift to occur". Technology can be used
to create innovative works, but innovation means not only to create works that haven't been before, but especially to recontextualize what already exists: do you think that the role of the artist has changed these days with the new global communications and the new sensibility created by new media? All technological shifts affect the role of culture and culture producers. The changes of democratization of media have existed before what we — in contemporary society — define as New Media. John Cage, Nam June Paik and the Fluxus artists were actively utilizing ‘shifts and evolution of art after it has been realized’ long before Twitter, networked bodies, or neural networks became part of the picture. What I am looking forward to is the way in which the artist’s role changes with the advent of Ray Kurzweil’s idea of the Singularity. If artificial intelligence can be more creative than us, how would that change the role of the artist? When photography came on the scene, it brought into question the function of an artist as representational producers. I can’t even envision the way in which cultural production would change if digital machines could do it faster and better than us. The end result of all computing devices is to replace us in our work. Why would culture be any different? Your works also explore the notion and
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the consequence of surrogate reality that affects our media driven societies: how do you view the concepts of the real, the authentic and the imagined playing out within your works? A piece I did some years ago was to develop a Natural Language Processing (NLP) statistical model from data removed and deleted by the Wikipedia communities on entries about Truth, Justice, Art, etc. From the NLP statistical model, I set up a group of computer monitors to read aloud (text to speech) and print out (visual text on the screen) revised versions of these entries constructed from information determined by the community to be ‘misinformation’. This project was done long before discussions of ‘fake news’ and social media being a funnel for misinformation, but was a play on computing models resolving our social conflicts through tyrannical force. In this particular project I was most interested in negative spaces and what they tell us about what we actually see, in a way similar to surrogate realities. If we understood better what we thought wasn’t ‘Truth’, then maybe we might better understand what it actually is. A more recent project exploring communal viewpoints is the trio of averaged images I created as a printmaking series last year. For the <flickr avg> prints, I downloaded all creative commons images of three popular public sculptures and then averaged all different
viewpoints together in one master image. I then printed these master images as intaglio prints. Most public art is dictated and controlled in the way it can be viewed by the physical walls and boundaries put up around it. I wanted to explore how these particular sculptures are seen and photographed and shared by many people, but ultimately our experience shares more in common due to these restraints. Cells and Ghosts highlight how the impetuous way modern technology has come out on the top and has dramatically revolutionized our lives as well as the idea of Art itself: we are urged to rethink about the notion of materiality of a piece of art, since just few years ago it could be considered a tactile materialization of an idea. We daresay that new media will soon fill the apparent dichotomy between art and technology, to assimilate one to each other: what's your opinion about the relationship between Art production and Technology? Steve Dietz gave a great presentation a number of years ago titled “New Media has already won.” He talked about when new media was actually new, many people saw a difference between the two platforms — art and technology — as if there was a division. That division has long since been dissolved — if it was ever there in the first place. Our human capacity to adapt has made us quick to embrace our
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own creations. Art and so-called ‘new media’ are fluidly assimilated. One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, so before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience: in particular, we are wondering if the aim to create an event for a spectator is the reason why you perform or if it's a channel through which you transmit your ideas: do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? I used to design expressly with audience as a necessary co-creator; I believed in the idea of the “third hand” that you could elicit direction from audience engagement, but audience engagement is a particularly finicky thing. It was really hard to get audience participation. Now I focus more on creating an aesthetic that can be enhanced by audience participation, but does not require it to function as an artwork or a concept. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Wayne. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Last fall I built a 6’ by 6’ CNC plotter
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machine â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a drawing robot. I have been running several large-scale drawings based on some branching algorithms, 3D IR scans from life, and a few other chance decision algorithms I wrote. Currently the work being produced explores the ecologies of lines produced in collaboration with the computer and the hardware machine. My work will be exploring alternative forms of input to affect how the robot is drawing. I am fascinated by opaque interfaces, or the idea of making a system difficult to navigate. Similar to Bruce Naumanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Oliver Ranch installation, I see machines that refuse to behave in a conditioned heuristic method to be of value in how we see the world. After I solve the serial communication issue to send live gcode to my large scale plotter, I intend to explore resistive forms of input like bioelectric signals. While this is only another way to receive data for the image production, I want this text to be focused on the meditative experience of working with the slowmoving older technology. I plan on focusing primarily on image generation methods which will keep that at the focus.
An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com
Lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium
M
ichiel Alberts is a Visual artist working with the media Performance, Film and Photography, Painting and Drawing. The artist relates through
his physical presence to a given space or surface, leaving behind traces, resulting in different types of work. ‘My physical presence functions as a performative tool to question human conditions and its relations to cosmic order, time and landscapes. Through forms of abstraction I bring my content from a specific happening, or a specific social context to a larger existential scenery.’ Michiel Alberts has participated in several group exhibitions: Deel 1 en 2 De Inleiding, at S.M.A.K. and CC Dendermonde, curated by Philippe Van Cauteren and Ben Benaouisse, Dendermonde, Gent, Belgium, (2015, 2013); Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt at Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany, (2012) and at Extra City Antwerp, Belgium, (2012); A Serpentine Gesture and Other Prophecies at FRAC Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain de Lorraine, Metz, France, (2011). The artist also participated in the Group exhibition El Manifesto De Santiago at Matucana, curated by Philippe Van Cauteren, Santiago, Chile, (2007). Solo presentations and projects: Salutations, Gallery Eva Steynen Deviations, Antwerp, Belgium, (2014); Project DeSingel, a one year trajectory at DeSingel, Antwerp, Belgium, (2009-2010). During the project Michiel Alberts performed without audience in the new building, while under construction. At the opening, the artist presented a selection of his photographic material and gave a six hour live performance; Preparation for Leave-taking, in order to complete the project. Michiel Alberts performed three hour live performances at Gemak Art Institute, The Hague, The Netherlands, (2010), Playground Festival at Stuk Leuven, curator Eva Wittocx, Leuven, Belgium, (2008) and Croxhapox in Gent, Belgium (2007), Mystic Properties, Art Brussels, Trust is not a mood barely an emotion, ING office Gent, Trust in the Unexpected, Governors Mansion, Gent, curated by Elena Sorokina, (2018 / 2017)
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LandEscape meets
Michiel Alberts Lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium
Unconventional and captivating in its multifaceted nature, artist Michiel Alberts' work triggers the spectatorship perceptual and cultural parameters to draw them to such multilayered experience. In his body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, he proovides the viewers with of the the opportunity to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. One of the most impressive aspects of Alberts' practice is the way it accomplishes a successful attempt to question human conditions and its relations to cosmic order, time and landscapes: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator Land.escape@europe.com
Hello Michiel and welcome to LandEscape: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. You have a solid formal training and after your studies in Theater in the The Netherlands and in the USA, you earned your MA from the Academy of Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam and you later specialized from the Higher Institute for Fine Arts HISK. How did these experiences influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself with your artistic inquiry? Yes, originally I was trained as a classical actor. So the usage of my body as central instrument and the usage of movement can be traced back from here. However I became more interested in what I call the inner drama, and recognized myself more in the ritual and physical
performative state described by Artaud. I continued investigating in Japanese Butoh movement and aspects of the Japanese Noh theater. This long research became an important influence upon forming my own language and upon my work. While western storytelling takes on a linear live/conflict/death approach, the Noh plays start from the perspective of death: A spirit goes back to the place of conflict (or lost love) in order to become purified and set free. After this, the spirit is able to continue its way. It is not only a different dramaturgy, it is a complete different view upon space. As well as a different experience of it. This connection between space and time or space and movement, are key elements in my work. In Noh plays the manifestation of emptiness is called â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;MAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. It is the moment where presence in emptiness affects you. The beauty in emptiness or, I should say, through emptiness is a are returning element in my work. During this research period I shifted from theater to visual arts. I first worked upon the medium
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Photography and later upon Film. After I graduated from the HISK I continued combining different media usage. This research was displayed for instance at my ‘Project deSingel’ in Antwerp. During one year I worked in the new building of deSingel, while still under construction. I created performances without audience in the raw and empty spaces of the building. These performances were photographed. Not in order to document but in order to create independent works; Photo series. During the opening of the building, a selection of these photos was presented as posters which visitors could take home. Also I carried out a sixhour live performance: ‘Preparation of leavetaking’’. The performance took place outside the building on a long and small pathway. I walked back and forth with an extreme concentrated slow movement back and forward the pavement for six hours, until it was time to leave the campus ground and continue the walk back home. Leaving behind emptiness, marked the end of the project. Your approach is marked out with such a captivating multidisciplinary feature, revealing that you are a versatile artist capable of crossing from a medium to another, including Performance, Film and Photography, Painting and drawing: before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.michielalberts.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your usual process, we would like to ask you if you think that there is a central idea that connects all of your work as an artist. In particular, how do you select a medium in order to express a particular idea? Ok hmm, First of all I have to clarify my position upon ideas. For me an idea is interesting as a starting point for a creative process or for the purpose of
forming boundaries of a formal esthetic language. In other words, in how I work as an artist. I create a frame where I step into with only a direction. As soon as I step into creating, the Process itself is important for me, it is the artwork. I oppose to communicating ideas. I am much more focused on the unknown. In the unknown lies real tension, lies the dramatic. It surpasses the thinking level and connects directly to an emotional and instinctive level. This ‘direct art’ is very essential in my approach. Therefore I place my artwork more in the history of European performance in visual art. In the line of Ben d’Armagnac, Beuys, Bas Jan Ader, …where process is more of importance than concepts. Instead of the American performing arts which tends to be more focused on communicating ideas and concepts. In that sense, it was quiet a question for me when asked by Philippe Van Cauteren en Ben Benaouisse to relate to Wall Drawing Nr.36 / Intersecting Bands of four Colors (Black – Blue – Red – Yellow) from four Directions – 90 cm wide (symmetrically)’ (1970), from Sol LeWitt, for the performing evening ‘Part 2 Introduction’, at S.M.A.K. in Gent. Sol Lewitt represents conceptual art by writing his manifest. (Sol Lewitt, " Paragraphs on Conceptual Art “, Artforum 1967.) I personally tend to be more connected to work that communicates not merely to a rational level, but more to an emotional or even better an intuitive level. I agree with Susan Sontag that we ‘aught to see and feel more in front of an art peace, instead of wanting to squeeze more content out of it’. (S. Sontag Against Interpretation) I do think the outcome of Conceptual Art is lost of common ground. Or if I describe it in other words; the body never lies, the mind does. At the performance evening in S.M.A.K. I placed ATO Nr11. parallel to Sol Lewitt’s Wall drawing Nr36. During a one and a half hour slow and
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concentrated movement I left behind a black ink line, a trace over 35 meters and then disappeared, leaving the drawing trace behind. ATO is a Japanese term, it means trace or wound or ruin, or after, or later, refering to both the topic of the Arab revolutions of the first part of Deel 1: de Inleiding, as well as to Sol Lewitt’s Wall drawing. My ATO Nr11. was the outcome of a process and communicated through my physical presence and it’s absence. The selection of a medium arrives naturally in my working proces. My starting point to create, always relates to an inner urgency. Most of the time the usage of different media is connected and follows up in time That is why I speak in the end more of ‘projects’, although I don’t invent it on forehand, it seems to find it’s way. So, a performance can result in drawings or in photographs, or the performance results into a film. Every medium has it’s specific qualities and a specific working method. Performances relate to each other medium in an other way. It could also work in the opposite direction. For instance, in my recent project ‘Ice Age’ (2017) where I started to draw and paint on cardboard. These own drawings became the input for inner pictures. From these inner pictures I created my movements. These movements served for my film ‘The inner Proclamation of Ice Age’ (2017). So I tend to work in projects which result in time and into different outcomes. With the ‘Catastrophe Project’, I only created endless series of drawings. Drawings in different sizes to be put in different sizes of black wooden boxes. One box with 1000 drawings the others 200 and 100 drawings. The ongoing repetitive drawing movement was here the performance. Most important for me in choosing media usage is inner urge. If I have to draw, I draw. I should not start to think about it. I should only stop when the body tells me so. Sometimes I use this example during my visiting lecture at
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Art schools, when artists are blocked in their working process and ask me what to do. I advise them what I tell myself; do what you feel like doing most right now. And if it is sleeping, it is sleeping, as long as it is in your studio. There will arrive a moment, a movement, an urge, a need to start working. I am often in my studio waiting for this urge. It needs to be physically urgent to work. I have to wait for it. The body never lies, the mind does. Or as F. Kafka wrote; 'Beyond a certain point there is no turning back. This point must be reached.' For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected OH OH, an extremely interesting project that our readers have already staterd to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your exploration of the relationship between human conditions and cosmic order is the way you have accomplished your inquiry into such unbreakable bond with effectiveness and autonomous aesthetics. While walking our readers through the genesis of OH OH, would you tell us if you how did you developed your initial idea? Moreover, how much importance does play improvisation in your process? In The Photo series OH OH, I am looking for iconic images of a current human condition, floating in void. The large photos relate to human attempts and a failing humanity. With long capture time I capture my performative actions with the camera. The different layers of my falling movement become visual into one image.When I press the camera I have a length of time (long exposure) in order to fall and move in different positions. If I change position, it will be layered into the image; if I move fast it will give a grey trace, If I move more slow the trace is more visible, If I make in between stops, the position will become more clear. So In this way I can draw with my falling movement. I focus upon how to move and when to move, in order to create an image, a physical drawing so to say.
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I only work with natural light in my atelier space, bringing more depth in the traces/shadows. The photos were made during wintertime; I waited in my atelier to have the right darkness/light in order to work with long exposure. Between 3 PM and 5 PM was the perfect time with the right amount of light. I do not work with a camera connected to a computer, which means for every shot I have to press the button myself and hurry back from the high ladder to be in the right position in order to move with full concentration, shot by shot. So, it is all in one shot, one movement, and one outcome. In total I made 100 of these photos with this working method called: OH OH SERIES. Later on I started to work on the ‘OH Series’. Here I combined the falling movement with ink drawings. The drawings relate to the ‘OH OH Series’ as well as the 110 ‘OH OH Aleppo’ drawings. The ink drawings I made form a black abstract background, a dark landscape. Here one can see references to calligraphy, drawing as a performative repetitive action. The word improvisation cannot be applied here. In my work I step into a ritualistic process into a frame which is esthetically formed by me. Another interesting work that we have particularly appreciated is entitled HOORAY HOORAY, a live Performance at the official residence of the Governor of the province East Flanders, in Gent. Many artists express the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and by using their own bodies in their creative process. German visual artist Gerhard Richter once remarked that "it is always only a matter of seeing: the physical act is unavoidable": as a multidisciplinary artist how would you consider the relation between the abstract nature of the ideas you explore and the physical act of producing your artworks? In my preparation for a performance I tend to narrow things down, peal things of, search for only the necessary. Mostly I bring it down to one essential action composed out of one repetitive movement. My live performances tend to have
long duration of 1 and a half hour, 3 hours or 6 hours. This duration is important in order to give the audience the opportunity to forget me as a performer and forget themselves (with all the thoughts we have as audience (What is this strange performance about? What does it mean? I still have to buy some milk before tomorrow, where can I buy it,? those kind of
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thoughts). After some time both me as the performer as well as possibly the audience enter a state in where you can experience. A state, where you can start to see and feel in a direct way. So the repetitive movement serves as a parameter bringing forward one essential image. The HOORAY HOORAY performance was a 3 hour turn with a small flag, a whistle for
parties and confetti on the floor. A three hour long Hooray Hooray moment in silence. Due to duration and concentration on full precise slow movement, another new layer arrives. Physical fatigue and the solitude in the image start to form an existential layer. The duration leaves me behind as an individual artist, and refers only to me as a moving body. Here abstraction takes
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place, a shift is made from a performing individual to mankind in general. Although I use my own body as a tool, I search to communicate from a larger existential scenery about mankind throughout time. I am stepping into a ritual setting and come out of it when it is done. Duration is essential. For me, as performer in order to let go and step into the movement, and also for the audience in order to become attached to something in the performance. Duration makes it possible to experience. And because of it the experience does not go through thinking but directly towards the senses. And last but not least my performance HOORAY HOORAY was also celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Gent, Belgium. We like the way Sand Drawings T2 addresses the viewers to such an open reading, there is multiplicity of meanings behind the main idea that you aim to communicate: how much important is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings? Yes, I bring in Sand Drawings T2 multiple meanings and then leave them open. I hope to create a tension strong enough for the viewer to keep on watching. I focus on the image itself for having a strong impact. At the same time, I do not give any more than an image, no answers. Something keeps on hanging in the air, unresolved. I hope it resonates and people keep on wondering. And hopefully everyone gets something different out of it, something that is important to them. I hope it is something to difficult to describe. (ha!) No really, it would mean it is incorporated on a level without words… Take the performance Salutations and Salutations on Paper, for instance. It started some years ago when I looked outside my old house in Antwerp. On the opposite side of the street was a large window with a grey thin curtain.
Every day an old lady appeared in the window and looked in my direction. I waved, she waved back. This waving continued in time and even extended to a morning Salut and an evening Salut. The old lady did not leave her house anymore and this waving moment was her only contact. This waving was crucial. Perhaps this waving was a reinsurance she was still there. I wave, so you exist….I felt. A year later the old woman had passed away and I was asked to do a performance. I did not know the address and found out it was at a new art location right in front my old house, in the house of the former lady. The performance I created for this space was SALUTATIONS. I continued with SALUTATIONS on Paper. With a slow movement I made an imprint with my body on large sheets of paper. An imprint in bolster, a Salute to the other side, to someone on the other Side. A salutation can be interpreted as a form of a signal in which the receiver of the salutation is being acknowledged, respected or thanked. It is difficult now to start talking about the shamanistic and ritual elements in my performance, I hope the work itself carries it all. What is important to me is that my work is not about me. I am not interested in diary art. Even themes like identity, I don’t find interesting… Although I do find my work extremely personal, or I should say personal involved. What I am looking for in my work is a personal involvement so far stretched, it becomes universal. That is one of my working methods. Keep on pealing of layers of yourself. In this sense I do give a clear direction. I do give a personal language and an estheticall frame. It is not something I should be talking about. It can take away something instead of clarifying. Personal meaning is forming layers in my work, however as an Artist I use personal meaning to empower the image itself. I want it to be communicated through the work, not through words. The Ongoing Battle refers both to the text Hände by F. Kafka and to the current ongoing battles and
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present state of the world: as you have remarked in your artist's statement, through forms of abstraction you bring your content from a specific happening, or a specific social context to a larger existential scenery: Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under". Not to mention that almost everything, ranging from Caravaggio's Inspiration of Saint Matthew to Marina Abramović's The Artist is Present, could be considered political, do you think that your works is political, in a certain sense? Moreover, what could be in your opinion the role of Art in the contemporary age? In my work I focus upon a large time span relating to an existential state, more so then on a specific political situation or a specific momentum. However the input always arrives from what is affecting me here and now. When I saw the images of the endless and ongoing bombing of Aleppo on tv I was devastated. An enormous drama and suffering took place. How to relate to it, as an artist? The same question I had when I stood in Hiroshima at the place where the A bomb fell. How to relate to these forms of total destruction in time? I relate by posing these questions, through my work. It enforces me to create work. As I described earlier on I am looking for, or rather, I am waiting for the right connection. I wait for the right urge. With Oh Oh Aleppo it resulted in a continuous, repetitive, drawing performance, creating 110 drawings. My latest film work AMOR FATI for instance refers to a quote from F. Nietzsche. It points to an active approach in dealing with good and especially dark times: Love of Fate. It connects a personal state with the universal. How to embrace the inescapable? How to relate to personal dramatic experiences? How to deal with the daily images of global suffering? AMOR FATI also relates to my working method: Reflecting upon strong impressions and
transforming them into an abstract universal frame, searching for humanity in dark times. The attempts of embracing can be found both within the artistic working process itself and in its outcome: the paintings, drawings, performances, films and photographs. The film AMOR FATI refers to a story of Nietzsche embracing the neck of a horse while sliding towards insanity. The film seems to point to both a desolate state as well as to a form of proclamation. At the moment I do sense we are heading towards this insanity. I hope people will connect and start searching for beauty and question on how to preserve it. Then art can and will be placed central again. Over the years you have participated to several group exhibitions and you have had a number of solos, including your recent participation to the group exhibition Trust is a mood, barely an emotion, at ING Bank, in Gent: one of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are provided with of the the opportunity to become active participants and are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience: in particular, we are wondering if the aim to create an event for a spectator is the reason why you performer is if it's a channel through which you transmit your ideas: do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? TRUST IS NOT A MOOD, BARELY AN EMOTION, at ING Bank, curated by Elena Sorokina, took place in the main ING office building in Gent (2017-2018) Elena Sorokin wrote a beautiful and strong text regarding art and the current banking systems. Questioning the parameters of profit hunting and it’s dehumanizing consequences, proposing slow human gestures, artworks, to counter. ‘Thirty-four
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illustrations for Danteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s infernoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; 1958-1960 by Robert Rauschenberg were placed central in the exhibition. My work OH OH nr.6362 was placed in a large open staircase, where the bank employees and other visitors audience are moving up and down, passing by the image of the falling movement. The empty space around the work enlarged the impact of falling physical movement in the image. The empty walls around gave space in all directions to the fall. The presentation enlarged the impact in a physical way for the audience.
Very rarely I do live performances. The tension and the communication in the here and now between audience and performer remains a strong happening. Although it is important to create the right conditions for a live performance. Duration plays a vital part. My performance could work as a parameter in a central space, so that the audience can re-connect in time with my continues presence. Or my performances work in a sharp setting where the audience is invited to experience the entire performance in one time. Not an easy task while
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performance nowadays tends to be used by musea or galeries as an entertaining opening moment, like a clownâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s act in the circus. On the other hand, we
see that performance in visual art nowadays starts to take in a more profound and independent place. Most of my performances however are alone, me
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with a camera or pencil, without audience. For instance, during my â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Atelier Antwerpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; period, 20112014 I did many performances without audience in
the empty building of my atelier, an old bottlery site. It resulted in photographs and series, including the ROOF series. With the ROOF series I continued my
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search regarding space/time/movement. On the large roof of my atelier, with a view over the city of Antwerp, I focused upon positive and negative space and how to connect it into one image. It resulted in a white serie, void with movement relating to abstract traces of a city landscape in the background. When I printed the result on large rag paper,150cmx100cm, the photographs almost appeared to be like chalk drawings. The rag paper enlarged the fragility of the subject and enlarged the aspect of my physical drawing at the roof space. The essence of art is that it wants to communicate. In a Masterclass I talked about performance and the difference between theater and visual art in terms of communication. You refered to Marina Abramović's earlier on. She once made a statement on the difference between theater and performance in visual art: ‘Theater is fake while Visual Art is real’. I can agree upon it to a large extent. For me the essential difference lies more in the form of communication itself. Theater communicates from a second position. Meaning it is occupied with the other, the viewer. It is therefore a director sits on the audience side during rehearsals, to see what is being displayed and how it is received on the other side. The art work is constructed from this 2nd perspective. It implies a lot, since you have to do what is right and necessary for the other. Visual Art communicates through the first perspective, not the other, but I, the artwork itself is central. Even where and how the artwork should be displayed for instance depends on what the artwork needs, not on what the audience needs. Sometimes with full consequences, for instance work that is destroyed or buried or burned. Originally theater and poetry, movement and visual art where much more connected. Somehow they turned into separate worlds without wondering about the other. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Michiel. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects?
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How do you see your work evolving? I am in a state of transformation. I am not sure about it all yet, I am trying to find out more. My latest work, the film Amor Fati, connected to my personal artistic state. I think the film announced the end of episode 1 in my work. At the moment I left everything behind and I am gone for 5 months. I gave up my atelier space and stored all my artwork. When I come back a new episode starts. To give the right answer what exactly I will be doing, I am not sure yet. .. It makes me think of this story: Once I was preparing an exhibition and the artists were together in a bar discussing the right form of the presentation. It was urgent, time was running short, just some days to go before the opening. Then one artist wrote a text on a paper beer mat and passed it on around the table. Every artist looked at it and passed it on to the next one,.. ..Then the paper mat came to me and there was written: ‘If you still don’t know what you will be doing by now, you are lazy!’ I had to laugh and picked up a pen and wrote underneath it: ‘If by now you already know what you will be doing, you have become lazy’. So it is good to be prepared and still dare to not know. Keep on questioning with an inner focus. When I return I’ll first focus on creating new work. I like to continue teaching masterclasses. A documentary film is being made about my work, by Robbert Kiem What So. It would be good if I can place all my work at a gallery in the near future when I return, until now I did it all by myself. Some exhibitions are planned and I hope my work will keep on finding it’s way out, as it does now, in this
An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator Lande.scape@europe.com