Knowledge through sensory apperception
an interview with valentina miorandi and sandrine nicoletta aka drifters
Non-Euclidean alpine adventures transform the universe into a place wherein our self and the world surrounding us can be understood. It all starts from the Galleria Boccanera in Trento, the epicentre of a worldwide visiting path stretching across the continents. The visitor may travel even as far as Shanghai to experience the artistic potential of naturalistic exploration. Just like an authentic flaneur, astray from the rest of the world, unaware of the passing of time.
Let’s talk about the name you have chosen: Drifters. How and why did you choose it and how does it relate to your artistic experience? Drifter is synonym with flaneur, an individual who wanders across the world by relying on his mere emotions, his instincts. Last year we found ourselves in Cambodia where we unexpectedly met in Siem Reap. Since then we have been wandering together, adjusting to our reciprocal pace, just as if we were involved in a dialogue. Of what exactly consist the Heuristic Records? Do they act as travel journals or they consist of cognitive experiences mediated through the act of physical and temporal displacement? Heuristic Records are composed of video-dialogues in which the interviewees are invited to answer the following question: “How do you stand up and proceed?”. Every person interprets the question differently and then starts, very accurately, to describe his/her own ways of proceeding with his/her life. The concatenation of chosen words suggests a path leading towards the inner depths of the single individual, a path that suddenly becomes steep when words run out and only vivid images are left. At this point we invite the traveller to translate his/her sensations into a sound, a word, a vibration, a “soundimage” acting as a supplement to pure thought. A prosthesis enabling our body to expand beyond its boundaries whilst extending our cognitive activity and refining our though processes. Constantly enriched by neologisms originating from virtual spheres such as those of finance and technology, we feel that our vocabulary needs to be compensated by terms pertaining to different categories. Heuristic Records does this through a collection of “acoustic-images” belonging to an empirical realm, constellated by elements expanding our vocabulary by means of words, images and sounds, which are profoundly rooted in our living experience.
What relationship is there between the alpine environment you referred to with the title of the exhibition Non Euclidean Alpine Adventures and your personal experience of the (art)world? Are mountains a starting point, a stop, a shelter, an arrival or none of these? Non-Euclidean Alpine Adventures is an expedition prompting thought and aiming at the extension of our cognitive experience. It is also an open reply to the question “How can we enlarge/extend/enrich the narratives we are immersed in?”. It is a path stretching out to numerous destinations, which can be visited privately according to one’s personal taste. The visiting path allows travellers to explore new locations, accompanied by alpine guides. The latter are special individuals we have crossed paths with during our lives who agreed to join the visitors for trekking or strolls around different towns across the world. There is neither an arrival nor a linear path to follow. Everything is subject to the spatial curve of the planet, to our approach and desire to go beyond what is already known to us. It is important to be responsive to the fact that what attracts us reveals who we are. Is the heuristic approach characterising numerous of your projects rooted in the desire to embrace uncertainty or in the attempt to transform fortuitousness into an artistic tool? To put it differently, is yours a total uncertainty or a sought-after uncertainty? Rather than uncertainty we would call it indeterminateness, just like that characterising quantum mechanics at that particular stage when it is not the “beyond” that is of interest as much as the relationship between individual electrons. Experiments with particles taught us that the world is in a state of continuous, incessant palpitation, a coming into being and disappearing of evanescent entities. An ensemble of vibrations. A universe of happenings rather than things. The only way electrons can survive is through interaction or encounters and this is exactly what we try to recreate in our art. Non-Euclidean Alpine Adventures was in fact intended as a constellation of encounters between external geographies and internal morphologies mediated by language. Is your showdown with history mediated by the knowledge of the past or through its transformation into art? We tried to render artistically our awareness that there is no origin, no stratification, no succession of things or fact. That there is no present, no Nunc Stans. Our attempt was that of inviting other individuals to ponder upon the possibility of thinking for the pleasure of it by inviting them to stop and reflect on the cognitive repercussions of our physical perceptions. What role does photography play in your work? The value we ascribe to photographs varies according to the particular display we show them in. The aesthetic quality of images is at the heart of our artistic debate although we force ourselves out of our “comfort zones” in order to broaden the horizons of our practices further. We are in fact experimenting new forms and approaches by constantly reminding ourselves that we cannot solve new problems by adopting the same methods we employed when we first created them.
Do you use videos in order to set photographs into motion and create a narrative, despite the latter being non-consequential? Non-Euclidean Alpine Adventures was intended precisely as a cinematographic script in which the single individual is in charge of the editing process, talks with the actors and crosses spatial boundaries by expanding his personal experience. The visiting path is accordingly punctuated by physical exercises and images waiting to be produced. Our aim is that of inviting travellers/spectators to narrate themselves. What role do words play in your work? Are words reflections on the meaning of their context of usage or are words inadvertently chosen so as to prompt a deeper reflection on the correspondence underlying the binomial word-image? We understand words as prostheses. It has in fact been proved by psychological and neurological studies that when we make use of tools such as small sticks to reach out to objects, our brain responds in a peculiar way. Interestingly, our bodily perception is altered and our peri-personal space –that is the spatial surface we can occupy without moving-expands accordingly. Therefore if words can expand our body, they can also empower our cognitive experience. Our bodily conformation inflects our way of being situated in the world. Knowledge is both embodied –that is determined by the culture we are part of and the language we speak- and dynamic. In fact, according to the relationship our body entertains with the physical and social contexts we inhabit, the way we envisage the world surrounding us changes and with it the words we use to describe it. Heuristic Records therefore gathers sounds and words belonging to an empiric realm in order to facilitate the understanding of the vibrating matter characterising the moving body and mind. We recorded the intimate and private movements of individuals; those determined by impulses, reflexes, desires and fears distinguishing the single being. Endless forces move the body and the soul alike and we tried to follow their paths. Our aim was that of engendering a creative experience through the mediation of language in order to expand the latter’s boundaries and foster the possibility of making new encounters.
franz magazine has released the interview “knoledge through sesory apperception” by Allegra Baggio Corradi (October 2015)