* The title of the piece is inspired by the illustration Spiritual Activism: Acts of Vision by the writer Gloria Anzaldúa as well as Anzaldúa’s essay now let us shift… the path of conocimiento… inner work, public acts in this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation, Ed. Gloria Anzaldúa, AnaLouise Keating (2002)
Fold poster, 280 x 410 mm, Gate Fold, 32 copies iPad, Music Apps: AUM, Mood synth, Borderlands Audio track, Modular synthesizer Sound-reactive LED-light, x6 LED strips, Seeeduino, Grove LED Strip Driver Single-channel Video, Davinci Resolve 14, Adobe After Effects CS6, Resolume Avenue 6, Screen 300 x 200 cm Dual Cassette Tape Deck x3 Type I Cassette tapes Mixer, Behringer XENYX UFX1204 Speaker System, Sony SRS D8 PA-System (Oberkeller)
BACKGROUND
When and how does one’s appearance play a role in performance?
In the field of performance, my personal experience is that it has become increasingly difficult to represent someone who looks like myself. It leaves a feeling of inadequacy and it feels like taking the place from someone who could do the job better.
As performers, as well as backstage, one is ascribed a role based on how one looks, and one can be expected to act accordingly. It is about a categorization, or stereotyping through conventions, in accordance to one’s body, which are inscribed on the person before one gets a chance to describe oneselve. As a result, some people are reduced to their bodies and looked upon as bodies.
When constantly singled out and categorized as Other because of one’s body, the only way to protect oneself against the piece-by-piece dehumanization is constructing a wall: brick by brick. Each brick contains the Self, protects the human flesh and blood, but at the same time operates as fencing.
OBERKELLER
Brick by brick, together with her fellow students, Angela Merkel, who used to be called Europe’s political mother, helped built this room which had laid in ruins for so long that young trees grew on the top.
The fold poster shows a gate folded board of a subjective perspective, which is as detailed as a walk. The board is shot from above, creating a unity. The fold poster is also veiled in the color blue. Open it, and you are invited to view my unconscious intentions, my intuitive exploration, bridging the way to Oberkeller. My intention was to reach the heart of the matter, in the way that Oberkeller is to Leipzig.
MONDASIAN AUDIO TRACK
My back is to the audience on the very bottom of Oberkeller on the right side vault. I create silhouettes with lazy hands against the spotlight. Finger motion, opening and closing, forming a fist. Hand pushing, pulling and sweeping. I playback a “Mondasian” * old school robot sounding audio track from my iPad, the text is a poem I wrote. Meanwhile, my soundreactive LED light, carelessly attached on a blue veil, reacts to the audio track: during silence a weak indigo colored flickering; during speech a bright lemony white.
I am a figure that hardly acts and lets the audience look, listen or follow. The voice is robotic and the figures mouth is kept open. There is neither action nor expression really, but rather a diluted and inhibited machine state. Is it too late? Has the robotic reality taken over the person piece per piece and left only lazy hands and an open mouth? Or is the figure resisting at this very moment? Because when it speaks, the LEDs light up Oberkeller.
*In the science fiction series Doctor Who, Mondasians are artificially modified humanoids, originating from earth’s twin planet Mondas. Regular Mondasians where converted into Cyberman by leftover cyberfication machinery. The first appearance of Cyberman was in 1966.
In the episode “The Doctor Falls”, one of the main protagonists, Bill Potts, is transformed into a Cyberman. Bill initially remains unaware of her cyber-conversion because of her strong sense of Self.
INSIDE / OUTSIDE
I now turn around and playback another audio track. A generated cosmic music (Kosmische Musik) that keeps evolving. Opposite me, a video is projected. In it a protagonist is marking, unraveling and linking the proximity between inner and outer Oberkeller with 50 meters of nub yarn. Oberkeller becomes an exploration of internal space. It becomes the Protagonist that lets audience look, listen or follow. At the end of the video the gaze is returned, with a clear blue sky as its backdrop.
ARCHIVING NOCTURNAL DREAMS
I am sitting next to the stairs on a patchwork of carpets surrounded by old and new technical equipment. I am reading out loud the collection of recent dreams of friends, family and fellow students into my Dual Cassette Tape Deck from letters, and it is audible in the small local speakers next to me.
I asked friends, family and fellow students to send me their dreams description. What interested me was the perspective and position of the dreamer in the dream. Another element that caught my attention was the way dreamers started their notes. I always begin with “Dreamt”. Someone started with “I am writing now”. Others jump right into describing the events of the situation, without much ado.
Since my early twenties I’ve written down my nocturnal dreams. In dreams our position and perception seems to say something about the intention behind our actions. Normally, The Unconscious is described as our unknown wishes and desires. What is unknown to the mind. What we call “intuition” seems to be a sort of knowledge not yet known (to the mind). In this way, the guiding force that we call “intuition” becomes helpful in understanding the unconscious. Intuition is like thinking with the heart: it requires feeling, and closeness. Intuition works in the dark, but without hiding. But intuition is like seeing through touch. The same applies to dreams, which certainly work with conventions, but are best described/explained by their effect on us.
PATCHWORK
I am copying the cassette tape into another one – creating an archive of the dreams. At the same time I am taking samples from the tape into my iPad. Each time I listen to the samples, I get to know the recorded reading: the collected samples create a patchwork that can be heard in the PA, a hypnotic cacophony of voices in the heart of things. The discoball in the vault section starts turning, spinning fragmented dots of light and voices, the audience in Oberkeller in a lucid state across time and space. The harshness of the inhuman figure is replaced by a subject that creates music, the medium which best dissolves the border between Self and the Other.
Thanks: All artists involved in the project, everyone who sent me their transcribed dreams, Moritzbastei, Rick Barkawitz, Alice Hatamian, Stéphane Querrec, Antoinette Belin, Max Schneider, Camilla Safrankova, Tlalit Raayoni Last, Ella Raayoni Last
Eine Videointervention von Jakob Argauer, Danny Degner, Jakob Wierzba, Melody Panosian
27.01.2013
10.00 – 12.30
Live-Video-Übertragung, Leinwand 180 cm x 360 cm
Begleitende Publikation, DIN A4, 20 Seiten, Auflage 450
Jährlich am 27.01. lädt die Stadt Leipzig anlässlich des Gedenktages für die Opfer des
Nationalsozialismus zu einer Gedenkveranstaltung ins Neue Rathaus und zum Mahnmal in
Abtnaundorf ein.
Mit bereitgestellten Shuttle-Bussen fahren die TeilnehmerInnen vom Neuen Rathaus Leipzig zur Gedenkveranstaltung nach Abtnaundorf. Dort findet die eigentliche Gedenkveranstaltung statt, die mit dem Rücktransfer ins Rathaus, einer Schweigeminute, kurzen Redebeiträgen und einem Catering ihren Abschluss findet.
Am 27.01.2013 haben wir die Veranstaltung als Bestandteil des protokollarischen Ablaufs der
Stadt Leipzig in Form einer Videointervention, einer Publikation und eines Redebeitrags begleitet.
Dafür wurde ab 10.00 Uhr eine Live-Video-Übertragung vom Mahnmal auf eine in der Unteren
Wandelhalle des Rathauses installierte Leinwand projiziert. Zeitgleich waren damit im Rathaus die Vorbereitungen der Veranstaltung am Mahnmal, die Ankunft der Gäste, die Gedenkveranstaltung unter Beteiligung von RednerInnen und des Gewandhauskinderchores und die Abreise der TeilnehmerInnen nebst Abbau der installierten Technik zu sehen.
Während des Bustransfers haben wir eine Publikation verteilt, die sich als längerfristige
fotografische Beobachtung sowohl mit dem Ort des Mahnmals als auch mit seinem weiteren
Umfeld auseinandersetzt und das Vorgefundene jenseits von Ritualen des Gedenkens in seiner
alltäglichen Praxis sichtbar macht. Mit der Rückkehr ins Neue Rathaus hatten die TeilnehmerInnen die Möglichkeit vor die Live-Übertragung und damit vor das Bild des eben besuchten und bereits wieder geleerten Ortes zu treten. Vor diesem Bild des Gedenkortes mit allen Spuren der Veranstaltung und bei gerade einsetzendem Schneefall haben wir unsere Arbeit in Form eines Redebeitrags vorstellen können. Um 12.30 Uhr wurde die Live-Projektion abgeschaltet.
What kingdom. Of all damn human. Animals. Nothing important
Objects, video installation, performance
2011
@ Spinnerei Leipzig
4 GB USB stick with 11 videos
The stick includes the floorplan of the performances and 11 preporatory videos with music by David Hamer Atlas, Anne Laplantine, Sean Cannock, DZR:P amongst other stars.
This collection of videos was played continously on my computer during the installation. Below the computer USB sticks, including price information. The music video King was shown during the performance.
“I need someone from the audience”. I put on King video on my computer. The audience member pours milk on me while I am upside down. I put coal on my feet and hands like chalk in sports. Acrobatics with legs and feet.
With my back to the audience, I put little red eggs in my swimsuit. Pink water runs down, mixed with the milk on the floor, it forms a pink little lake.
“I need someone from the audience, it concerns filming”. The audience member films the last 30 min of the performance. Cleaning up takes time.
Various interactions happen during the performance. Two performers from another show come in and I ask them to join.
In April 2010 I was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for a one month Ethiopian traditional dances workshop at Adugna Dance Theatre Company. Adugna was also the only contemporary dance company in Ethiopia.
There are 84 Ethiopian dances and I practiced 4 of them; Wello, Guragigna, Tigrigna and Wolaita. The dances come from different tribes in different regions in Ethiopia. These tribes differ in traditions, religion etc.
Wello – a dance from Wello tribe in the northern Ethiopia.
Guragigna – southern Ethiopia.
Tigrigna – north / middle Ethiopia.
Wolaita – southern Ethiopia.
The dances are summarised under the name Wuzuwaze and more shoulder emphasized dances go under the name Eskesta. In all Ethiopian dances there is a integration of rhythm/movements and improvisation is enabled because every body does the dance differently. The dances are performed in groups or in pairs and as rituals, they serve a narration.
I was taught these 4 Ethiopian traditional dances by 2 teachers. I also attended morning classes in contemporary dance with the Adugna Dance Theatre Company and gave a choreography workshop for Adugna Dance Theatre Company. In addition, I taught contemporary dance to the children that study Ethiopian traditional dances at the Ethiopian National Theatre.
Addis Ababa is a green city that looks like a roller coaster. Holes spontaneously emerge in the asphalt. When I first arrived in Addis it was full Easter celebrations. Many women had solemn white
linen dresses and scarves and the streets where swarming with goats and chickens. As soon as the Easter weekend and the 55-day fasting was over there was no honking and bleating in the night and the only sound left was the dogs howling.
My first teacher in Ethiopian traditional dances was Shiferaw Tariku. These private classes where relatively formal, although these are social dances. The music, signals the parts are for “transition movements” and “dance movements”.
Because some dance sequences required a partner, Shiferaw danced with me.
My sceleton and my joints needed alot of practice to adapt to the shoulder movements. Shiferaws goal was to teach me the above 4 dances beacuse of their distinguished rythms.
My second teacher in Ethiopian traditional dances was Temesgen.
Temesgen is famous in Ethiopia for being an excellent traditional dancer. He teaches the traditional
Ethiopian dances to 4 year old children to 20 year old teenagers. There are a total of 40 children that dance with Temesgen. They practice at the Ethiopian National Theatre where they dance on the stone floor.
The first time I visited Temesgens students in Ethiopian National Theatre they asked me to give some classes in contemporary / modern dance two times a week. I tought them an old solo dance phrase, titled Isis. We made a group composition of the solo. We also made an improvisation out of the Isis movement material.
Temesgen is very religious, starting the class, they all join hands in a circle and pray together. Temesgen had never tought a foreigner traditional Ethiopian dances, prior to me. To see Temesgen dance was like seeing embodied music. He sings constantly while dancing. Temesgen always asked me, “You feeling it?”. According to him, feeling the music and its rythm was core.
You should create your own dance style, follow the music, follow the rhythm within.
During my visit, Adugna was the only contemporary dance company in Ethiopia. The Adugna members work in diverse ways; as dancers with international choreographers. Also, Adugna creates dance with people with AIDS as well as with disabled people. They have had training in classical ballet, contemporary dance and African dance. Their dance studio had a functional dance floor but the audio equipment was very unpredictable. There was electricity on occasions but you never knew when. There was no electricity when it was raining.
My schedule consisted of morning training in contemporary dance/improvisation with Adugna dance company and in the afternoon I had my own traditional private Ethiopian traditional dances training. Adugna asked me to give a workshop in choreography.
In One hour walk we walk in couples for one hour through the city to create a piece of choreography. The process and research time becomes identical with the rehearsal time. We walk around a shared public space, then we bring that experience back to the studio and show a choreography. Me and my working partner Adissu walked around the Markato Market, where half a million peoples houses had recently been totally removed. During that walk we tossed a mango back and forth between us, to make it softer. We talked about that for others, I was a forengee.
During my stay in Addis Ababa I also participated in a traditional coffee ceremony, preparing the ceremony myself. Later, I was also invited to an orthodox wedding ceremony.
Weaving the Webs is a video installation that includes 8 performance actions.
Each performance action had its own title; Dry, Suitcase, Factory, Ones, Zeros, Unlooped, Looped and Woven and each about 2-7 minutes long.
The installation was transformed after each performance action; The web changed shape and quality, the net was interwoven and the boxes where moved around.
During the 3 week exhibition period mine and Sara Harro’s ideas where also interwoven.
We wanted to keep our process similar to the hypertextual chaos that is characteristic to the internets condition.
We dealt with health and community in the drudgery and mediocrity of neo-liberal culture.
We where inspired by cyborg women, innocence in all its forms, computers as artists, people as machines and nature as technology.
