Bartaku (BE)
http://www.bartaku.net Assignment Serde-Signe asked: “could you show an overview of some of your work that you made as a Serde resident in the past years?” Her question was fused by the hosting by Serde of participants of the 2013-2018 residency project ‘Frontiers in Retreat’. The Liepaja Media Art students asked “How did you get to know Serde”? The answer to this question most often consists of word constructions like: “In 2009 I gave a talk at Serde as part of a conference organized by RIXC. I showed some images of organic dyes converting light into electrical energy. Afterwards, someone told me I might be interested in a berry growing on a field just outside of town. Since this first visit in 2009, annually I found myself returning to ‘1HAMP’ (1Ha Aronia m. Power Plantation):leading to photo series, public labs, performance etc. Often the work is made with local people, Serde residents and often Latvian scientists.” Ance 2011, -12, _13, -14: “Your stuff is in the Back Room Closet" Ance 2015: “Your stuff is in the Flamingo Closet in the Back Room" ‘Residence Take-off’ Rituals During the Frontiers in Retreat Incubator plant biologist Anete Borodušķe performed a science talk on Aronia revealing it being an apple rather than a berry. Keeping the spectators focus effortlessly she explained possible techniques for growing and morphing Aronia. Simultaneously, in a lab in Riga, new Aronia is becoming. A bit later Bartaku showed in the Serde patio an overview of Aronia M./Baroa B. work with a ‘postcard on a vertical string’-talk. BAROA BELAOBARA The Aronia morphing experiment is a consequence of Aronia’s discontent with its scientific name ‘Aronia Melanocarpa, observed at 1HAMP in September 2014. The new variant will have a more suitable shape that fits the nomenclatura better. Also, it was sensed that the best name for the existing berry (apple) bush should be ‘Baroa Belaobara’. Bartaku is used for executing Aronia’s will. The AM/BaBe Distrib. Labsy’ was an interpreted version of Anete’s lab space, located in the top right room of Serde’s workshops. It contained the Aronia morphings, some fake lab elements and a real flow hood with desinfecting Soviet U.V. lamp (recup). Anete performed an in vitro re-enactment facing fake camera’s and a photo of the real 11 Smema-camera’s longing for Aronia Baroa Belaobara to blossom in May 2015. (It did not). White Suits Harvesting ‘Is this for performative reasons?’ the white suit with Baroa juice-painted number ‘8’ asks me. It torpedoed me back to the purple giant circle -indeed like a giant Baroa berry- on my right hip some months before. Some weeks after 1HAMP wanderings. It was possibly not from a tick. Possibly if was from a horsefly. Possibly now also a carrier of the Borrelia bacteria. SKIN has to be taken off via a biopsy. A start-up University-spin off biomed Lab proposed it during the meeting where we discussed the urge of mingling fundamentally human pigment with Baroa pigment. So that it’s relation with the Sun can shine via the human-skin, expressing the new future shape for Aronia M. 6
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