75 SPECIAL ISSUE Dura Mater (hard mother), and Pia Mater (tender mother), are membranes that cover and envelope the brain and spinal cord. On the one hand, being women gives our work special value purely due to the cultural and historical context of being a woman in a patriarchal society - the perspective of life through the ‘Other’ if you will, giving the work more gravity (gravid with existence). The fact that the ‘feminine’ is always portrayed as emotional - and therefore misinterpreted as weak, is one layer of femininity that the film could be focusing on. Why are emotional responses (of the heart), considered weak? From this angle, the ‘twin’ portrayal within the film could be displaying both ‘tender mother’ and ‘hard mother’ as both crying. Thus the strength and ability of ‘femininity’ is her emotions, and what they teach us about ourselves and others. All emotional responses are connected to the tear ducts, whether it be tears of pain, laughter, happiness, sadness, rage, envy, joy, yearning, disappointment, LOVE etc. On the other hand, ‘Dura Mater, Pia Mater’ asks us to reconsider notions of femininity (and masculinity), Lucy and Layla Swinhoe eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral
SPECIAL ISSUE 76 from the theoretical perspectives of either ‘essentialism’ or ‘a representational construct’, but consider them as a bit of both. For instance, celebrating (in the essentialist approach), femininity as emotional, but also realising (from the perspective of femininity as a construct), that we (women), are capable of action just like men, and vice versa. We are both physical and emotional beings; we are both masculine and feminine. You certainly can’t deny that modern society is masculine dominated. Most, if not all institutions are created, run and organised by men (but may include some women in elite circles). However, even when it seems a woman has some power (women by the likes of Margaret Thatcher, or more currently Hilary Clinton and Theresa May for example); they are just women in patriarchal suits who answer to the policies, institutions and corporations that control the game. We are at a junction in time when there is a fine line in issues such as feminism between the real thing, and it being used as a guise - as in social engineering, to gain a desired outcome. So we must be vigilant. The agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries Speculum - The Wings of the Phoenix (1 & 3) Diptych
77 SPECIAL ISSUE dialectic or double standard is something we must fight, but it is also a form of psychological warfare keeping us in a perpetual state of competitive angst, albeit for the right reasons sometimes. However this can’t be helpful when life is frequency – it just keeps those at the ‘eye’ of the storm safe from the ravages of its destructive path. In a timeless sense, the film asks us to view ourselves from a transcendental transgender perspective – our dualistic notions of reality within our minds can poetically pollinate trans-sexually, and create new versions of ourselves and reality, while understanding what is. This is what human potentiality is all about, and how it can be channelled. ‘Autonomous aesthetics’ if you like. Your works invite the viewers to an open reading, with a wide variety of associative possibilities, playing with symbolic references: would you tell us something about the importance of symbols in your pratice? Lucy and Layla Swinhoe eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine
Everyman Film Stills (Frozen Warnings) No. 42a & 42b Diptych
SPECIAL ISSUE 78 Symbols are something that we have always used in our creative practice. Symbols are the perfect epitomy of the balance between idea and form, concept and medium. For instance, all art is associated with drawing. No matter what medium is used it can still be considered drawing. Drawing is all about line, tone/shade, form/proportion, perspective, texture and composition (etc.) - about making a mark. Becoming conscious of these characteristics both practically and conceptually allows our perception of reality to deepen. On one level, drawing is about being mindful when making one’s mark, and being mindful of the influences of marks already made (whether physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, historical, political, social etc.). Artists ‘draw forth’ and transmute – in this sense drawing is like alchemy. Throughout the history of human thought, we have always expressed our understanding of reality through opposites – it’s how we come to know the differences (and ultimately the similarities), between things. On the surface, simple concepts such as up and down, left and right, dark and light, open and closed (etc.), help us to navigate our environment; yet understood symbolically, can deepen our understanding of reality and our place in it, and introduce us to the esoteric. We are collaborating identical twin sisters using ourselves as a symbol to represent opposite/parallel aspects, or counterparts. Within all schools of thought there is this binary perception within the language. Within politics they use left and right, within philosophy they speak of dialectics, within religion good and evil manifests, within science dark and light energy/matter is evident, within mathematics positive and negative is expressed (etc.). Where do you draw the line between ambiguities? From what perspective does one judge black from white, or negative from positive? Are these merely a visual representation of life as dichotomy (an ‘absolutist’ high modernist view)? What about the spectrum(s) bridging the gap(s), epitomising the nature of reality as fragmented yet colligated – representing the sum of its parts as the whole (a ‘relativist’ postmodern view)? These questions directly correspond to the duplex/simplex/multiplex nature of our creative practice. The ‘twin’ theme hopefully highlights that the whole is the sum of its parts – that as human beings we need to come to a deeper understanding of life and the cosmos as a holistic entity. That we are all connected at the source of all things – like twins springing from the same egg. Of course these notions have always been summed up in agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
79 SPECIAL ISSUE Lucy and Layla Swinhoe eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral Everyman Film Stills (Frozen Warnings) No. 16
agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries SPECIAL ISSUE 80 Dura Mater, Pia Mater Film Still
81 SPECIAL ISSUE the yin and yang sign – which today is one of the most known symbols in pop culture. We basically personify this sign and ‘put it into practice’ as it were - test its strengths and weaknesses within various situations, its validity within several environments. A constant within the flux and the flux as the constant. Sound plays a crucial role in Dura Mater, Pia Mater : 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 modern alphabet as the eye became more essential than ear. How do you see the relationship between sound and images? Very strongly - as mentioned earlier, all art is a spiritual process; and this trance-like state travels on a hypnotic river of vibration which conjures up visions etc. Our automatic drawings were always done with music playing, as music is a powerful catalyst. We are all conscious/sub-conscious beings whom are part of the universe, and who have the universe within us. We are one verse or ‘song of one’ – or maybe this is described more accurately as ‘multiverse’ or ‘song of many’– where the multi makes up the one. We and everything we perceive are formed from vibrations and frequencies. Sound creates form and forms create different echoes. Everything feeds off everything else, and causes reactions and/or surges of energy. Similarly, we are all sexual beings as we are all spiritual beings, and fundamentally we’re all musical beings – our musicality is the bridge between (and beyond), the two former states. There is a field of research called ‘Cymatics’, where different patterns emerge on a chosen medium – such as a plate covered with sand or other such particulates, and/or on the surface of water etc., purely by the vibration of sound. The resonances made visible look eerily reminiscent of ancient symbols and mandalas, not to mention patterns found in nature. So yes there is a sense bias, but this sense bias doesn’t make sense as vision is sound. As you have remarked in the ending lines of your artists' statement, everything is in flux, and so the work is ongoing… The power of visual arts in the contemporary age is enormous: at the same time, the role of the viewer’s disposition and attitude is equally important. Both our minds and our bodies need to actively participate in the experience of contemplating a piece of art: it demands your total attention and a particular kind of effort—it’s almost a commitment. What do you think about the role of the viewer? Are you particularly interested if you try to achieve to trigger the viewers' Lucy and Layla Swinhoe eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine
Automatic Drawing 1 Neg-Pos Diptych
Automatic Drawing 2 Neg-Pos Diptych
SPECIAL ISSUE 82 perception as starting point to urge them to elaborate personal interpretations? Yes, that’s a very good way of putting it, whatever level ‘art’ may be understood as here. Again twins as a symbol can represent this very relationship between the artist and the viewer, the creator and the reciever. Complimentary polarities without, but also complimentary polarities within. We are all microcosms of the multiverse with multi-parallel dimentional possibilities. If life is about passing on knowledge through reproduction, then similarly art is a birth process in itself – a mastering of ones anchestral process of translation, giving life to new and varied forms of expression. Reaching out and touching the soul of other lives - this is the sacredness of commitment. One of the agreeable attributes of using film as a medium is that it captures reality much more precisely than either 2-Dimentional, or 3-Dimentional materials and techniques. We experience life in 4-D (timespace), and so creating art with moving image or film, is creating 4-Dimentionally. The other dimentions exist in and of themselves, but holistically speaking 4-D is an expansion of our understanding – there are many more dimentions still. Making the audience aware of the forth dimention is making them aware of not only their environment, but their place in it. More importantly it suggests their invovlement as either exhurting influence or inviting directorial control. This is where we try to achieve to trigger the viewer’s perception as a starting point to urge them to elaborate personal interpretations... of themselves in the ‘scene’. In a sense ‘directorial control’ can be understood here as the powers that be, and in order to exhort one’s own influence into the arena, one must transcend the ‘status quo’. Anyone can transcend, it’s not for a special few. There is no mediatory in the traditional religious sense- a concept dangerous to authority who doesn’t want their subjects to realise that they agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries Images and Illusions No. 58
Lucy and Layla Swinhoe eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral 83 SPECIAL ISSUE themselves possess power. On the flip side then, in this sense ‘directorial control’ can also be understood as autonomy. So, rather than simply acting as an unconscious supporting agent, the subjects involved can express a critical consciousness and a collective activism for or against the very systems they are bound by. We are the masters of our own lives – our lives are our works of art, our creations. It should be what we make of it shouldn’t it? Women can be an active force in the collective (considered a masculine trait), and men can have an attitude of passivity (considered a feminine trait), and vice versa etc. etc. a commitment to one’s self and beyond on every level. We all individually embody masculine and feminine essences, as does the environment. Modernist culture however is patriarchal, and therefore is hypocritical in this sense and so doesn’t work. A new more real and balanced feminism needs to come to fruition, where culture and society functions sustainably through the balanced masculine and feminine essences of ‘active care’. The representational characters within our work (which are also the spectators watching themselves), are seen not as oppositional in the making of the image/scene, but complimentary. The impetuous way modern technology has came out on the top has dramatically revolutionized photography, that today has changed from a manual process to an instantaneous digital process. German visual artist Gerhard Richter once remarked that "it is always only a matter of seeing: the physical act is unavoidable": how would you consider the relation between the abstract nature of the ideas you explore and the physical act of producing your artworks? Art makes use of many different technical bodies – it needs a vehicle when it meets the land. ‘Art’ like spirit is omni-present; the ‘artist’ just channels it. The visual (etc.) language or aesthetics act as a translation for arts content. The voice of the ‘medium’ communicates, as a body, for the idea /concept. The potential energy of both the medium and the mind as a whole is the function of art and life (they are complimentary), and, as vice versa, art and life are both manipulations (for better or for worse) of mind/matter. The transforming alchemical changes of state(s) reflect the intention(s) of the creative perpetrator. Everything is in flux, and so the work is ongoing. We realise ‘complimentary polarities’ not only through the works context (the display is usually an alignment of opposites in various compositions), and content (the twin aspect deals with duality and union through using our bodies as the canvas, to suggest positive and negative perspectives), but through media processes. Photography requires a negative to form a positive (as does film, printmaking, casting, moulding etc.) – this naturally embodies the concept in our work. However, photography today has changed from a manual process to an instantaneous digital process. Therefore the ‘whole’ is embodied - one thing relies on the existence of another, and they therefore interact. These are merely two faces of the same coin, as are twins’ individuals from the same source. Photographer Thomas Ruff stated that "once nowadays you don't have to paint to be an artist. You can use photography in a realistic way. You can even do abstract photographs". What is your opinion about the importance of photography in the contemporary art? We think the most obvious point is the breaking down of barriers that photography as a medium brings. It’s a place where high and low art can come together - anybody can do it; it can be utilised at the grass roots level, yet one can
also master it in such a way as to intensely flirt with the formal qualities. However art is the process of thought – any medium can capture it. The fact that everyone has access to a lens these days on their mobile phone incorporates a collective experience of spectatorship. There is always someone watching and recording. Along with the ever increasing surveilance cameras, we are constantly bombarded with a deep sense of paranoia. We are literally living in George Orwells 1984, where every aspect of peoples lives are monitored and manipulated. This predicament is observed in our film ‘Everyman Film Stills (Frozen Warnings)’ which can be viewed here - https://youtu.be/A5ke40z_Eoo Observation changes behavior, and as in quantum physics where the characteristics of atoms change once they’re observed; we are all social atoms that build up the collective picture under the influence of observation. So in this sense photograpy/film is a source of control that captures and imprisons in real time. Photography is the exposure of our lives. And referencing modern technology again, photoshop can manipulate that exposure to a frightening degree of unreality and fraudulance. As conscious beings, one needs to return to the use of true optics (the minds eye), to become and stay vigilant in these strange times that we are all living in; and to penetrate through this state of confusion, and coruption. At a deeper poetic level the physical and spiritual symbology of photography as a medium that utilises photons is its importance in the artistic realm. Photography is basically drawing with light (whether realistically or abstractly etc.). And as artists, we can expose truths about reality, whatever state it’s in, epitomised through (and therefore directing the viewer towards), the light. Over the years your artworks have been showcased in several occasions and you have been chosen as finalists in the 'East-West Art Award Competition', with an exhibition at 'La Galleria', Pall Mall, in London. One of the distinctive hallmarks of your practice is the capability to create direct involvement with your spectatorship, who 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. 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? Yes, as the work is multi-faceted, the thought process behind it is inevitably multi-faceted. The work is both an expansion of us as individuals (as the artists), where we absorb life and channel it into art, and an awareness of the collective that recieves that art thus effecting life. It’s a symbiotic relationship, and like all systems is cyclical; a SPECIAL ISSUE 82 agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral eries Special Edition Reveillez! Wake Up! Diptych
feedback loop of communication from a distance, where different viewpoints are the nature of widening ones perception of reality. To nudge the spectator in certain directions and give them clues to find truth, not dictate truth is encouraged. It also works the other way round – we won’t let spectatorship dictate the outcome of creation. There is also another dimention that comes into it – that of the transcendental – where, as you say, we urge the reciever to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. In this sense we are opening up the doors of possibilies, not only in the mind, but as action in their living reality (which starts in the mind). This is where the ‘cycle’ is realised to be a spiral more than a mere circle. It doesn’t just go round and round, it moves forwards. Like the DNA strand, in this deeper realm we realise our own spiritual power. We are the creators of our own lives, and therefore can have a Lucy and Layla Swinhoe eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral 83 SPECIAL ISSUE
SPECIAL ISSUE 82 agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries profound affect on the collective conscious/subconscious, for better of for worse (the spiral can travel downwards and upwards). That’s down to the intentions of individual will. So, in effect art/life are about mastering ones life/art. We are creative beings who have been robbed of the realisation that we are. Our lives are dictated for us, and therefore we have no direct experience of ourselves (and the true potential of others), and no real perception of what is and what could be. But instead of focusing on the pricked finger and where that leads, we need to be mindful of the weaved, the weaving and the yet to be woven. To transcend from a state of sleeping beauty to a state of awoken relational aethetics, as it were. To discuss the language used in our works on the subject of audience reception, Dura Mater, Pia Mater asks one to consider the concept of multi-layering not only within the work, but within life, by using visual language and symbology in a simplistic form – the onion. Given this and the title (terms used in anatomy), the work opens the viewer up to a multidimentional world of interconnection. Everyman Film Stills (Frozen Warnings) No. 6 & 7 Diptych
Lucy and Layla Swinhoe eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral 83 SPECIAL ISSUE Everyman Film Stills (Frozen Warnings) and Images and Illusions are more direct with both visual and textual language in that there was a conscious effort in the decision-making process to involve the viewer. Both films unfold in a kind of journey of discovery while exposing the various obstacles that hinder human potential. The films - paricularly their endings, hand the receptor the keys to unlock the latent path with phrases like ‘we’re all pawns, your move’, and ‘there’s no time to lose’, ‘relative autonomy’, ‘as above, so below’, etc. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Lucy and Layla. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? We are currently working on a project in the making titled ‘Speculum’. The connotations to the word ‘speculum’ today are related to the female genitalia, and the horror it invokes in most people as a kind of medical torture device (with an ethically fraught history).However the older meaning in occult history is that it is a mirror used for scrying and spirit contact. In these photographs (which again will develop into moving image with sound), we are referencing ‘Shamanic gender transcendence’. In order to reach what the Hindus term the ‘kundalini experience’- an enlightening experience that shamans reach in the peak of their trance state, one has to consciously (consciousness is considered the masculine essence due to the individual ‘protruding’ into their living environment), enter their feminine-like sub-conscious (a womb like intrusion within the mind), in a kind of psycho-spiritual intercourse. This fusion between opposites (represented through the masculine and feminine aspects of reality), creates a unification, a neutral point or creative spark – a gateway, a portal or vortex to the spiritual dimension. So the shaman is now an androgynous god-like being on its astral flight through the inner and outer cosmos. So the speculum image of peering into the vagina isn’t far wrong in this sense – it’s just on another level. In a sense the work is a continuation and deeper exploration of the themes portrayed in ‘Dura Mater, Pia Mater’. Being as most of our recent work has been dominated with socio-political readings (even though the spiritual theme is subtly always there), we want to visually encapsulate the higher realm of transcendence more overtly within this new work. There is also another work that is coming to fruition (but only conceptually at the moment), which is again heavily socio-political with an emphasis on the viewer – so watch this timespace. This piece will also include a work within a work – where we hint at a side project that is also in the making (of which only part of this side project will be referenced). The side project in the making is a multiple collection of poem cards. An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Dario Rutigliano, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com
Natural, pure and spontaneous. It is on this dimension that I propose my work's development. As a freedom and permission to multiply, separate, transform. I allow myself to be a book, to wear it. I wear the sea, I wear the repulsion, I wear the solitude, I wear myself as a child. I decide when I'm born. It's all about choices and the powerful machine that is our own mind. And this is my new childhood. Literature inspires me and for freedom of expression I try to materialize it. Einstein once said “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”. I seek to explore impermanence, autonomously, using different languages, techniques, and unconventional materials most often ephemeral. Through a search for the answer or just a reaction to the personal experiences I try to express them in a playful way as a conversation with the viewer. As a request for help or just the reflection of intense relationships of dialogue with our demons. Think of the body as something volatile and immaterial. A body in constructive transformation. This body that can be object, house, a feeling of longing, yellow, slurry. I'm just a correspondent. I try to stimulate the senses and different ways of thinking the inner and outer body. Paula Blower The answer is in the verse, 2016 - Photographer Marcelo Hallit
SPECIAL ISSUE 66 Revolving around video-art, installation, sculpture and photography, Shahar Tuchner's work rejects any conventional classification regarding its style, to explore a wide variety of social issues regarding consumerism, multiculturalism and representations of reality through the media, that affect our media driven and Shahar Tuchner Lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel Peripheral ARTeries meets In my art, mostly revolving around video-art, installation, sculpture and painting, I often deal with social issues that are on the global agenda such as consumerism, multiculturalism and representations of reality through the media. My video-art works attempt to examine the relations between image, movement and music and the cultural baggage each of these elements contains. In my sculptures and installations I frequently use readymade materials as a means to explore the tension between the common nature of various everyday objects, and their potential to become part of a work of art. Many of my works deal with the cultural weight various foods hold, and use food and its cooking and consumption methods as a symbol for cultures associated with it, while referring to the unique social context of each dish. My art also deals with social issues and explores the power administrations and establishment hold on individuals, especially those that are part of minorities and weakened groups. In my work I often use humor as a way to integrate different worlds and cultures and allow for a new perspective on them. The humor usually hides a more serious message of social criticism in regard to current issues. As part of my artistic process, I use the vast realms of the Internet as a virtual field where I gather my readymade video and audio materials, that come from different times, places and genres (documentary, commercial, etc.). The cultural mixture I create in this way becomes a post modern tapestry of East and West, high and low, and various post modern formalistic contrasts such as sound and image. I work in a freestyle manner and the technique I use for each work is determined in the process of creation, often altered and adapted to best suit the idea behind the piece. My work process is born from a concept that becomes matter or from matter that becomes a concept, but both of these aspects always retain an unexpected relationship and attempt to remain fresh and expand the boundaries of the artistic object's role. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
Seeded Floor, 2010
69 SPECIAL ISSUE Shahar Tuchner eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral unstable societies, to draw the viewers through an unconventional and multilayered experience. In his body of work that we'll be discussing in the following pages he effectively triggers the viewers' perceptual and cultural parameters. One of the most impressive aspects of Tuchner's work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of inquiry into the relation of humans and with the interference of information and media: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Shahar and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. You have a solid formal training and you graduated from the Open Program at Hamidrasha School of Art at Beit Berl College: how does this experience as well as your work as a graphic designer influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does the relationship between your cultural substratum dued to your Israelian roorìts inform the way you relate yourself to art making in general? When I studied at ‘Hamidrasha’ fine arts school, I tightened my perception of ‘what art is’. I got real tools for understanding my work and its probable interpretation. Through studying, I was introduced to some of the most known and bold artists I now admire. Those artists who searched for the revolutionary factor, for the game changer masterpiece. Since then, maybe even since ever, I asked questions about art while working: What is art’s function, what part of myself is expressed through it and what will be my contribution to the legacy of the arts. As a graphic designer I use different image proccesing software. I use these tools in the work I create, so the message will be more accessible, while being visually appealing and interesting. My Israeli heritage affects my work both intentionally and subconsciously. Israel was founded as a melting pot of different cultures from around the world, by Jewish immigrants, in the aftermath of the Second World War. These people joined together to form a new society, but kept old traditions from each region such as food, language, mentality, etc. When I create my work, I don’t start with a specific idea, I try to stay away from restrictions, so i’ll be fresh and as free as possible. More than once, when I’m done I can look back and describe what I did, or give it meaning. Nevertheless, as much as I wouldn’t like my personal and family’s cultural narrative to interfere with my work, it almost always will find a way in. The results of your artistic inquiry convey together a coherent sense of unity, that rejects any conventional
SPECIAL ISSUE 70 classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit https://www.shahartuchner.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your 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. If I need to think of one central idea that connects me to my work, I’d choose humor. I’m drawn to different, funny images. Art is a form of mass entertainment. Same as theatre, films or any other form of leisure. I would see it as a success if someone would walk into the gallery, take a look at my work and smile, laugh or simply enjoy it. I’d feel I made a difference. Still, I always add irony or a angle of critique regarding daily life issues. For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected Shik Shak Shok, a stimulating video 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 insightful inquiry into the merge between Eastern and Western cultures the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of Shik agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
71 SPECIAL ISSUE Shahar Tuchner eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral Seeded Floor, 2010
SPECIAL ISSUE 72 agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries Floating Worms, 2011
73 SPECIAL ISSUE Shak Shok would you shed a light about your usual process and setup? The internet is one of my main sources for materials. I collect funny, interesting or images that catch my eye. Usually, i’d serf the web from short videos, to images, aimlessly following links I like. It can lead me anywhere. Regardless, I enjoy listening to music. While listening to music I imagine the the sound as moving images or a series of pictures that create a strong sensation or feeling. Lots of these music segments are tagged and cataloged in my mind, so that I can create what I imagined when I first heard them. There’s no time to create all of them, but many do manifest themselves in works. We can recognize an effective sociopolitical criticism in your inquiry into the themes of consumerism, that you accomplished in Fast Food. 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 Joep van Lieshout's works, could be considered political, do you think that your work could be considered political in a Shahar Tuchner eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine
Floating Worms, 2011
SPECIAL ISSUE 74 certain sense? Moreover, what could be in your opinion the role of Art in the contemporary age? I agree with Orrosco. My work is political, I try to deliver critique with a wink and nudge, that on the one hand shows life itself, and on the other hand gives you food for thought on the matter discussed. I have a lot to say about social injustice that I see around me. It’s upsetting to see such high levels of inequality. Israel is a kind of western country, and yet our government is corrupt. This is personally difficult to deal with. I have an inner struggle between my desire to live in a remote place where I can get some peace and quiet, and care about no one besides my family, and my understanding that we all need to work together as a society to do away with corruption and become better as a whole. We need to accept differences with love and compassion. I try to reflect that we are all globally connected through my art, in a broad perspective, like my ‘fast food’ work that deals with the global western epidemic of obesity, and its ramifications. Picasso said there is no such thing as nonpolitical art, that all art must be political. I partly agree with this statement. Art should convey a message of critique, and should change reality from the bottom up, but the flip side of it is that there are other aspects to contemporary art’s role in society, such as entertainment for the sake of entertainment, aesthetics for the sake agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
75 SPECIAL ISSUE Shahar Tuchner eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral Fast Food, 2014
Fast Food, 2014
SPECIAL ISSUE 76 of aesthetics, and providing a reflection on daily life. All of these can be interpreted as a form of criticism. We have appreciated your successful attempt to examine the relations between image, movement and music and the cultural baggage each of these elements contains. 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 the properties that you search for in the materials that you combine? In particular, what does appeal you of the materials you incorporate in your works? As I mentioned, my materials might contain humor, but also a sense of naive truth. I look for something that I can personally relate to as a human and artist, that will draw me deeper into the idea of the work. After this intuitive phase, I follow my intuition and continue my work. I like to use extraordinary materials, colorful or symbolic, to create a strong impact I pass on from myself to the audience. You are a versatile artist, capable of crossing from a discipline to another, including video, sculptures and installations. What does draw you to such cross disciplinary approach? What are the qualities that you are searching for in the materials that you include in your works? And in particular, when do you recognize that one of the mediums has exhausted it expressive potential to self? What draws me to this kind of multidisciplinary work has a partly technical explanation, since I can work agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries The Beginning of the End, 2012
77 SPECIAL ISSUE well with a wide range of medias. Combine this with my desire to master each technique, and my tendency to spread out on a lot of projects simultaneously, and there you have it. Maybe my ADHD/ADD makes me jump and spread out like that. I believe that as an artist, the more versatile you are the better artist you become, with more sources to rely on for ideas and inspiration, making your overall work better. Shahar Tuchner eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine
SPECIAL ISSUE 78 I look for materials that are accessible, easy to get and that will have readymade characteristics. It’s important that they fit my work as much as possible, and that they are of high quality, even if I’m not using ready-made materials. Though I like adding blurry or grainy film footage. It adds that magical feeling to the work. Regarding the potential of mediums, it really depends. I go with instinct and agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries The Beginning of the End, 2012
79 SPECIAL ISSUE gut feeling. Sometimes I have to stop the work process, rest or do something else, so I can come back and see my work clearly again. That's when I can decide on issues I couldn’t make up my mind about before, like if anything is missing or if the work is in its right format. Sound plays a crucial role in your videos: for example, The Mensch shows Soviet gymnasts performing their exercises in perfect sync with the theme of the popular TV show "The A-Team": 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 modern alphabet as the eye became more essential than ear. How do you see the relationship between sound and images? The connection between sound and image is critical. The work can’t really function without this connection between them. In my work, sounds relies on image and image relies on sound. They complete one another to create a unified structure. The more these two elements are in sync, the better the work becomes, the better it conveys its content and connects with its audience. The relationship between sound and image, their parallel effect are what makes this magic happen. In ‘the mentch’ this connection is plainly visible/audieble. While viewing the images of mass power and the energy of synchronized movement, the sound has a similar feel of strength, like a call for action. When the video cuts are synced with the sound, it Shahar Tuchner eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral
agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries SPECIAL ISSUE 80 brings forth the force and beauty of the work. In your sculptures and installations you often use readymade in order to explore the line between common everyday objects and art: how do you consider the relationship from everyday life's experience and your creative process? In particular, do you think that Art ― both regarding its production and its consumption― could be disconnected from direct experience? I can’t really disconnect my daily life from making art. I asked my mother once why does she think I do art the I make it, use the materials I use and so on. She answered that it’s actually pretty easy to explain. We live in a home, buy groceries every week, decide what to cook every day, eat, watch tv, listen to the radio. This is my life, and my art is how I choose to talk about it. Into this framework, I put my ideas about matters that I’m concerned with, by adding rhythm or humor. In order to be an artist and make art, I personally don’t think you have to connect it all to your own experiences, but usually forms of art that come from within are better and more accessible. They create added value. A bit lesser than that, of course depending on the situation, is when you experienced something through someone else like observing a group working together, or relating to a story you heard from someone else. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be a personal experience. It’s more like an actor who wants to play in a sci-fi movie as a human eating alien. The Thing, 2014
81 SPECIAL ISSUE The actor, hopefully, doesn’t have to experience this personally in order to perform the part. Over the years your works have been shown in group exhibitions at leading galleries and art spaces in Israel and around the world, including the prestigious Venice Biennale and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh: one of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create a direct Shahar Tuchner eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine
SPECIAL ISSUE 82 involvement with the viewers, who 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. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries The Mensch, 2012
Shahar Tuchner eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral 83 SPECIAL ISSUE what type of language is used in a particular context? As I mentioned earlier, art to me is a form of mass entertainment. As such, I put a lot of thought into how the audience will react. It doesn’t necessarily have to be amusing, but art is a basic necessity that must address and be accessible to as many people as I can reach, not only to a narrow group of art lovers. If art affects people, leaving some memory after they leave the gallery or moving them to any sort of action, it means the work had influence, and is making change. For me, a successful work is one that was shown in a group show among many others, and a visitor can suddenly recollect on that specific piece a month later. It is a personal sucess, and goes to show your work is good. If your work stands out, you did your part. Usually we see a lot of art, and remember none of it after a short while. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Shahar. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I’m preparing a few surprises, working on a new body of work with some special paintings. I have video-art pieces i’m working on as well, dealing directly, indirectly and around issues I recently worked on. My work is developing in both video and other medias unexpectedly, more outstanding, curious, exciting and of course funny and powerful. In every new work I try to refine my message as much as possible, making it a more direct, memorable statement.
SPECIAL ISSUE 148 Incorporating a variety of techniques and rejecting any conventional classification regarding its style, Laura Mychal's work draws the viewers through the point of convergence between reality and abstraction. Her body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages provides the viewers with such multilayered visual experience, capable of triggering their cultural and perceptual parameters: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to Mychal's stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Laura and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. You have a solid formal training and after having earned your BA from Mills College in Studio Art, you nurtured your education with an MA in Art Education from the University of Arizona: how do these experiences influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does your Laura Mychal Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, USA Peripheral ARTeries meets My work focuses on my emotional and physical connection to nature and the environment around me. Growing up in the woods along the coast of Northern California I obtained a deep reverence for the natural world and that subconsciously shows up in the abstract expressions of my drawings and paintings. I often create texture with paper, cardboard, cloth and other things gathered from around me as a practice in self-awareness at consumption and waste. I work with paint to transform the materials and cre- ate textured landscapes, integrating the materials into the organic landscapes. Found materials in art have traditionally bridged the gap between art and life and I seek to continue that thread while attempting to make sense or find hope in the reality of our wasteful culture and climate change. I aim to integrate the material as a way of trying to come to an understanding of how our consumeristic culture makes sense with the natural world. I will scrape, rub, and sand my surfaces in a push/pull relationship process that continues until I sense the work is complete. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries