August 2013 The Worryball, Interactive Artwork artist: Thomas Marcusson October 2013 ANNI GARZA SOFIE DIEU SAMANTHA PERSONS JOCELYNE CLEMENTE SAMEH AL TAWIL DANNY WINKLER EMILIA LOSEVA ALINA d’ALVA TERESA NEISES MORITZ FINGERHUT KITTY VON-SOMETIME A r t R e v i e w Dicember 2013 Kitty Von-Sometime The Weird Tour of China, Part I, Epic
Summary II Kitty Von-Sometime Moritz Fingerhut Danny Winkler & Emilia Loseva (Germany) (Iceland) (United Kingdom) 4 22 14 Moritz Fingerhut works with situations that are unique and accessible for the unexpected, situations that offer the potential of new forms of critical debate. With a interdisciplinary methods, often incorporating text or voice, he aims for speculative approaches to how discourse unfolds, and how content is produced and perceived. My inspiration comes from childhood dreams, from synchronicity, from public participation, in freeing those from their own constraints and a personal obsession with spandex. I proactively involve those outside of art to become art, to live art, to feel art. We make video art which, we believe, is free from the mechanical, what the Futurists called the ''carrion''. Cinema, in principle, has taught people to wean themselves from perceiving the beautiful and the genuine, while its aims are supposed to sharpen perception and establish an artistic order in interrelations of all kinds between objects in motion. Teresa Neises 32 (USA) My mission is to photograph people in their natural environment. To show the real Characteristics of each individual and to create some-thing to be cherished by you for a long time – memories. Our net review presents a selection of artists whose works shows the invisible connection betwen inner landscapes and actual places. Apart from stylistic differences and individual approaches to the art process, all of them share the vision that art is a slice of the world to be shared. An artwork doesn't communicate anything: it simply creates a mental space. Language, gestures, or rather a masterly brush-stroke of a painter are nothing but ways to invite us to explore our inner landscapes". Thirty years have passed since this Borgesean deep and at the same time provocative statement has been written by the fine Italian writer Giorgio Manganelli. [email protected] D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 3 Alina d’Alva (Brazil) 36 Rec On, at Sarai Reader My work consists in take risks. The risk to meet the other without a frame or pre-defined idea. The starting point of my creative process is to let myself be affected by the "world", be this “world” a place, a person or an event and allow a poetic form emerge from this affection. E scape Land Submit your artworks to http://landescapeart.yolasite.com/how-to-submit.php The Weird Tour of China Alone Twelve Haikus in Letargy Agua Viva
Sofie Dieu Jocelyne Clemente III (France / Australia) (France) 70 60 Summary A work of art is the expression of our human qualities. Art is reflexion, emotion. It is a language which unites ages and territories; it is a tool of knowledge. By focusing on the essence of the being and its biotope, my work makes visible the human instincts, touching the senses and offering the possibility to reconnect to the self, to link conscious and subconscious. Anni Garza (USA) 88 The continuous superposition of real and virtual world which we are now so used to, has trans-formed the perception of ourselves and the world. What I would like to particularly emphasize in my artwork is the possibilities in terms of experience that may occur using technological devices as artistic tools. Submit your artworks to http://landescapeart.yolasite.com/how-to-submit.php Sameh Al Tawil (Egypt / Germany) 50 My recent work is characterized by Performances or installations that combinehuman body, sculptural forms with video orsounds and interactive experiences. Objects and environments are systems and instruments, combining physical forms with multi-dimensional and nonlinear audio/visual elements. Mme Jurek Escape Land Rempart de l’’Oubi Samantha Persons (USA) 80 Ready To Go D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 3 I create immersive installations that incorporate built shelters, complex written narratives, props, sound and video; and alternately, media such as short films, coloring books and photography. I use artifacts, dialogues, and suggestion of site so the viewer may empathize and make sense of the characters through their own navigation. Abbie Datanimbus
4 (Germany) #196 Winter E scape Land Moritz Fingerhut works with situations that are unique and accessible for the unexpected, situations that offer the potential of new forms of critical debate. With a interdisciplinary methods, often incorporating text or voice, he aims for speculative approaches to how discourse unfolds, and how content is produced and perceived. A recurring topic of his work is the perception of the common and the challenging of it in order to create a new multitude of points of views. An artist’s statement “ When I was traveling in Japan I found an electric guitar on the street. The guitar was almost new and I did not know, whether I can take it or not. The guitar was placed on the side walk. No owner was around. So I waited for a while, and, since nobody came, I took the guitar with me. But immediately afterwards I, I felt like a thief, so I asked friends, if it could be possible, that someone just left it on the street, for some one else to take it. My japanese friend said: “What? You found a guitar on the street? IMPOSSIBLE!” I said: “ Yes, I found it. There was no owner.” I realized that in Japan it is very rare to have an encounter with something in the public, that is unexpected or that does not belong there. Everything is organized. So I had an idea to create unexpected encounters with art for the people: I collected artworks from colleagues and friends and packed them each in a box with the letters Moritz Fingerhut Moritz Fingerhut From ご自由にお持ち帰りください。 side of the box. In February 2013 I traveled through Japan to place the boxes in rural parts of the country in public spaces. Once the box was deposited on the location, it is up to chance and the passing by people, what will happen. I created an unusual situation for the passer-bys that might distract them from their daily routine. I try to raise questions of excitement: What is this? Can I take this box home? What is inside the box? Where is it from? … Further, if someone takes the box home, how will he relate to it? What will he do with it? It might lead to a very intimate situation between each art piece and the viewer that is not possible in an art gallery. Furthermore the work challenges the perception of public space, since it will change the way people look at their daily routes: once you find something special on the street, you will always remember this place. (Please take me home) written on the out-
Casey WhittierMoritz Fingerhut 2 (Please take me home)
6 Moritz Fingerhut an interview with E scape Land An interview with Moritz Fingerhut Hello Moritz, and welcome to LandEscape. I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? And moreover, what could be the features that mark the contemporariness of an artwork? Hello! As an answer for your question I don’t have a real definition , but I think a work of art always involves some kind of communication and thereby it is not only determined by the work itself, but also by the viewer/reader/listener who brings in all his own knowledge, imagination or interests into the work. So I think an artwork is always a dialogue, both in the process of making or planning it, but also in the process of reception. And thereby I think a work of art is always contemporary. You can only see the works of art from your standpoint that you have now. You can imagine how things were, when the work was produced, but you are always immersed in your own contemporary society and the possibilities that come with that. Would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there some experiences that have particularly impacted on the way you produce your art nowadays? I studied art in Cologne, Germany where I got in touch with a really broad spectrum of what a work of art could be. People like Julia Scher and Siegfried Zielinski who were amongst my teachers there had a mayor influence on my conceptual thinking. But after that I wanted to see something else and get to know yet another way of thinking, so I moved to Bangkok and lived there for about 5 years. I was very interested in the big clashes of disparities that you see there everywhere; like traditional and progressive, rich and poor, etc. It is a very dense city. And even though Bangkok is a metropolis with a very contemporary lifestyle, people there usually are not so acquainted with a western kind of thinking and dealing about art. So this was also a mayor influence for me, to find out that concepts and ideas that I had learned to take for granted, might apply for only a very small group inside a small society. So I think all this influence together led me to a process of working, where I try to shift the art work more away from me, From ご自由にお持ち帰りください。(Please
Moritz Fingerhut where I set only the framework or the starting point, but the work itself can still evolve. By the way, you travel a lot, and you have recently had the chance to get in touch with the Japanese scene... so I would ask you what are -if any- the main differences between the Western scenario and the Eastern one? I am not sure if I can point out general differences. But I remember that while I was in Tokyo I visited a small gallery in a district called Koenji. They had a very minimal exhibition of an artist called Hitomi Masaru. He hand-folded tiny birds made of paper. They were so small and precious, you could almost not hold them in your hand. So they used chop sticks to pick up the paper birds. He made a lot of these birds, a whole box full. It almost looked like pop corn, but if you looked closely, you saw tiny birds. I think I was very impressed about the detail that went into the work and also the great dedication to a single work process. Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece? I usually don’t start form a technical question, but from a topic, or from a situation. For example if I read something that catches my interest, or I am at a place. Then I research and I always try to create a work that is challenging and that can make a difference. The technical aspect comes after that, when I think about the implementation. My recent works often also involved some unplanned elements as I try to keep the work open. So things can change, or they can also go wrong. I’m actually more surprised if a work turns out to be the way I planned it, than when it changes. Now let's focus on your artworks: I ‘d like to start with 7 take me home) readers have started to admire in the introductory pages of this article. And I would suggest to our reader to jump directly to http://www.fingerhut.me/projects/Please-Take-Me-Hom e/ and have a more complete idea of it... in the meanwhile, could you take us through your creative process when starting this project? When I was traveling in Japan I found an electric guitar on the street. The guitar was almost new and I did not know, (Please Take Me Home), that our
8 #196 Winter E scape Land whether I can take it or not. The guitar was placed on the side walk. No owner was around. So I waited for a while, and, since nobody came, I took the guitar with me. But immediately afterwards, I felt like a thief, so I asked friends, if it could be possible, that someone just left it on the street, for someone else to take it. My Japanese friend said: “What? You found a guitar on the street? IMPOSSIBLE!” I replied: “ Yes, I found it. There was no owner.” I realised that in Japan it is very rare to have an encounter with something in the public, that is unexpected or that does not belong there. Everything is organised. So I had an idea to create unexpected encounters with art for the people: I collected artworks from colleagues and friends and packed them each in a box with the letters written on the outside of the box. In February 2013 I traveled through Japan to place the boxes in rural parts of the country in public spaces. Once the box was deposited on the location, it was up to chance and the passing by people, what will happen. I hoped to create an unusual situation for the passer-bys that might distract them from their daily routine. Thereby I tried to raise questions of excitement: What is this? Can I take this box home? What is inside the box? Where is it from? ... Further, if someone takes the box home, how will he relate to it? What will he do with it? My thought was that it might lead to a very intimate situation between each art piece and the viewer that is not possible in an art gallery. Furthermore the work challenges the perception of public space, since it will change the way people look at their daily routes: once you find something special on the street, you will always remember this place. Finally I would like to say thank you to the contributing artists: Agnes Brandl-Fingerhut, Hathairat Charoenchaichana, Fabian Engl, Kiertichai Lert-Utsahakul and Kevin Pawel Matweew. As you have remarked, a recurring topic of your work is the perception of the common and the challenging of it in order to create a new multitude of points of views: since our art review is called "LandEscape", we would like to stop for a moment to consider the "function" of the landscape, which most of the times seems to be just a passive background... I'm sort of convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to de- (Please take me home)
Moritz Fingerhut 9 decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this? The role of art is always to question. It is a tool for questioning. And since we are always acting inside an environment (culturally, socially, etc) art is also a tool to question this environment and to bring about new perspectives and languages. I would like to give a quote from Ludwig Wittgenstein: “ The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” I think it is very suitable for the questions concerning environment. (Please Take Me Home)
10 Moritz Fingerhut an interview with E scape Land I would like to mention that you have recently published a book entitled VIEWERS CAN, that is now available directly on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Viewers-can-MoritzFingerhut/dp/1492283487/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=138090912 4&sr=8-1&keywords=moritz+fingerhut It consists of compiled quote excerpts from art related texts. As you have remarked, it acts as as instructions for the audience, on how the artist intended the perception and understanding of his work. This is a very intriguing subject... it is not rare that artists shrink from explaining their creations: most of the times, they are inclined to offer a platform to the audience, to pave the way towards a feedback... Yes, I was thinking, that often we cannot see the original art work. We see a picture of it in a book, or in the internet. Or if we see it live, there is an accompanying text to tell us about the intentions of how the artist wants the audience to react when he encounters the art work. The texts act like instructions, but it also limits the experience. So as a reaction, I collected quote excerpts from art related texts, such as exhibition catalogues, artwork descriptions, etc. which seem to prescribe what the viewer can see/ feel /do when he encounters a work of art and formed them into a constant stream of commands, orders and demands to the reader. Another piece of yours on which I would like to spend some words are All National Anthems Of The World that our readers can discover at http://www.fingerhut.me/projects/allnational-anthems/ and Rec: On... If I have been asked to choose an adjective that could sum up in a single word your art, I would say that it's "kaleidoscopic": while crosRec: On Rec: On
Moritz Fingerhut 11 crossing the borders of different artistic fields have you ever happened to realize that a synergy between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts? I discovered for myself to work with sound, because in my opinion, it is not so enticing to be taken as for real. We seem to have more trust in what we see, than what we hear, even though we all know the extensive possibilities of manipulation. I’m interested in to work with pluralities and sound is an interesting medium for that since it is possible to layer things and thereby come to new forms. For All National Anthems Of The World I layered all national anthems of the world on top of each other, so that you hear them at the same time. The result is very brutal, in my opinion and in a way resembles the complexities and conflicts that are involved when 7 billion people live on the same planet. For Rec:On I was interested the following question: How do you document the process of creative emergence? The exhibition I participated in “Sarai Reader 09” in Delhi was conceived as a project that developed over time. Artists were invited to create the work while the exhibition is going on. So to document this process based exhibition project I wanted to create an open channel, where I do not choose and decide what will be in and what will be out, as you do for example when you take a picture. The camera man always sets the frame. So in my installation I placed a microphone and a looper in the exhibition space that would record and playback 24 hours a day for 3 month. Each 17 hours the looper recorded another 17 hours, which were simultaneously layered on top of the previous recording(s). This process is called “overdub”. The speaker continuously played the live recording together with all the previous recorded layers. Thus the looper created a collage of recorded sounds that more and more added up and commingled over the course of the exhibition period. Everybody was free to use the microphone. So, by constantly recording and looping the sound, the device served manifold: for documentary purpose, for production, for involvement and as source of inspiration. Inhabitants of the space were be able to refer back to happenings that already occurred and re-integrate them into their inventive process. So even though it was a sound work, it involved live presence, the gallery space, the audience, the other artists’ work, etc. And yes, as you said, in a way it became a work that accumulated the synergy of different artistic fields.
12 Moritz Fingerhut an interview with E scape Land And I couldn't do without mentioning an interesting work entitled Cash For Civilization that you have created about ten years ago in collaboration with Michael May: I'm sort of convinced that Art these days could play an effective role not only making aware public opinion, but I would go as far as to say that nowadays Art can steer people's behavior... what's your point about this? Do you think that it's an exaggeration? I think the media can steer people’s behaviour, and art is one part of the media. For “CASH FOR CIVILIZATIONS” we altered the art work by Iftikhar & Elizabeth Dadi, which was a big banner that read “CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS”. We did not have the permission tho do it. So it was actually an act of vandalism. But also an act of involvement. The slogan “CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS” is a term developed by Samuel P. Huntington to describe the theory that people’s cultural and religious identities will be the primary source for conflict in the post-Cold War World. When I saw the banner I was cought by the term “Civilization” and thought about it, what it actually means. What are those civilizations, or who are they. So I came up with the idea, that more than the cultural or religious differences, the disparate distribution of wealth is the actual reason for conflicts. So in a way, I thought “Cash for Civilizations” is more honest. Your works have been exhibited all around the world and you: by the way, it goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist, I was just wondering if an award -or better, the expectation of an award- could even influence the process of an artist... What' your point about this? By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces? A work of art is often not useful from itself. It can often not be sold, it might be ephemeral, etc. So artists need other ways to support this kind of work. Then awards or grants are a way of the public to support art projects. So I think artists know that they have to work with this system to be able to do their work. You have to research, where you can apply for funding, etc. And in a way this also influences the working process and the art work itself. And as I described earlier, in my opinion the feedback is part of the work. The art work form itself is just one part. Thank for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts, Moritz. My last question deals with your future plans: anything coming up A sequence of images from Cash For Civilization, 2004 Michael May & Moritz Fingerhut DETOX ART @ QUART FESTIVAL, Christiansand, Norway
Moritz Fingerhut 13 for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of? Recently I was participating in a artist residency in Copenhagen called “Human Hotel”. I stayed with a family for 10 days. My original intention for artistic collaboration was to reorganize and recreate the host’s family photo album through photo collages and montages. However, news came that all of Kristine's family photo albums, as well as many other precious belongings from her childhood and that of her daughter's, had been taken by movers and thrown away by mistake. We had to then start from scratch. During the course of the residency, Kristine and me verbally recalled her old photos, letters, and memories that could once be seen through photos and souvenirs, but are now intangible memories. Recordings were made in the home she grew up in, locations around her home town, and personal places around Copenhagen. Visitors who came to the exhibition of The CHRISTENSEN ROOM were invited to listen to these intimate recordings on personal headsets, interpret her memories through their own imagination, and draw on paper whatever images came to their mind. In other words, recreate the visual documents that were once lost. The complete recordings can now be found on http://christensen.fingerhut.me and I’m pleased to tell that we are currently in the process of creating a book with the collected drawings that were created at the exhibition. The book will be out soon. The Christensen Room, Human Hotel,Copenhagen | August 2013 An interview by [email protected]
14 (United Kingdom) #196 Winter E scape Land We make films in defiance of cinema, in a way, expiating its sinfulness, constructing the methods to liberate cinema from aesthetic prosiness and Philistinism. We make video art which, we believe, is free from the mechanical - digital nowadays -, what the Futurists called the ''carrion''. Cinema, in principle, has taught people to wean themselves from perceiving the beautiful and the genuine, while its aims are supposed to sharpen perception and establish an artistic order in interrelations of all kinds between objects in motion. When working on films - which are all different - we are interested, like any other artist, in images, form, colour, texture and rhythm, but the subject in our films is strictly speaking subjectless, even if it seems intelligible. We avoid metaphors and symbols, and if these appear looming on the screen it is pure delusion to take them for what they are not, and what they are, really, is of ephemeral matter. We do not teach or impose any new ideology or Higher sense, for the human sense is so small and so petty; as to the movement in nature, it has neither meaning nor purpose. This ''Great meaninglessness'' was captured by the wise men of the East long ago. We believe that creativity is nothing else but the release of personal phantoms, and the higher order of the world, reason, nature is drawn of spontaneity and impulsiveness. We know nothing about the world and matter, we create our own world for ourselves by grasping and revealing the fragments of the impossible. In this constant movement, if people were given the ability to grasp everything and see the physical wholeness, they would all go mad. Haikus, our shortest and simplest film, is about that. An artist’s statement Danny Winkler & Emilia Loseva
Les Satinover 2 A still from Twelve Haikus in Lethargy
16 Danny Winkler & Emilia Loseva an interview with E scape Land An interview with Danny Winkler Hello Danny and Emilia, I would like to give you welcome to LandEscape with my usual ice breaker question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, what could be the features that mark the contemporariness of an artwork? EL: According to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, art is a work exhibiting human creative skill or its application, which essentially means that whatever you wish to call art is art. Another approach would suggest that art is a play of creative forces in colour, sound, stone, word and imagination. Culture is a play, art is a play, life is a play. Creative activity as necessity can be designated as an attempt to escape from common sense or to obtain it. Anyway, art is made of what is not art, a universe is being formed out of the chaos. Everything is reality for an artist, and by establishing a new reality, art does not need any other realities, it explains itself and does not require explanations. What is contemporary is that which lacks the absolute truth. Physics states that everything ends with entropy – this is also a feature of contemporariness – eschatological moods, aesthetical mutations, the diffusion of high styles and the mixture of the artistic dialects. The avant-garde is left behind, it ceased to exist. We are happy to live in these puppet-show times, free from metaphors, inspired by what Baudrillard called “the transmutation of all the values, uncertainty and unpredictability”. Strictly speaking, you can build anything on this principle, from the pyramids to the museums of the cultural pathologies. Baudrillard himself was obviously inspired by this, otherwise what would he have been writing about and would he have been writing at all? Would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there particular experiences that impacted on the way you currently produce your works? Moreover I would ask you what's your point about formal training: I sometimes happen to wonder if a certain kind of training could even stifle a young artist's creativity... EL: Well, where to start? Years and years of music studies and certain attempts at composing and performing with some experimental artists. It was ages ago though, but it is good to be educated enough to understand music. Then linguistics – languages are actually what expand consciousness, more than yoga or kabbalah. I have been studying the Philosophy of Arts and other fashionable sciences by myself – this seems to be an endless process. Then – writing… This is just a bad habit like smoking. It is wonderful to be able to include all this knowledge and pseudo-knowledge in the projects with Danny and other artists I work with. Training cannot spoil an artist – this is a great delusion to think that someone could become a man of genius but the Academy spoiled him. A genius either does not bother to get a degree or simply gets it and leaves it all behind. DW: What I find curious to observe is not how background impacts on the content of artworks, but how biological characteristics/the chemical Danny Winkler & Emilia Loseva
17 Danny Winkler & Emilia Loseva ge to be shot. For sure some images are thought through, but what is most interesting is the ‘capture’ of images as one might grasp a flying insect. More time is given to taking what has been brought into the art space and organising it with other elements of sound, altered treatment etc. EL: I believe that all genuine things happen spontaneously, easily. The world we live in is like a glass of champagne sparkling with ideas. Unfortunately, we are limited in space-time terms to be able to realise all of them. Now let's focus on your artworks: I would like to start with the interesting work entitled Twelve Haikus in Lethargy that our readers have started to admire in the introductory pages of this article: would you tell us something about the genesis of this piece? What was your initial inspiration? EL: Twelve Haikus in Lethargy (Unfinished)! – this is the full title and it is important not to miss the “unfinished” aspect. It took us two evenings to complete the work. There were some amazing images – leftovers from the main, as we call it, “Indian films”, Ebir Nāri and Than, and we had never made a proper short video – 7 min – this is, by the way, the contemporary speed of perception. I wrote a kind of stylised haiku-imitated series of verses in a free Silver-age style. The music was composition of the brain affect a work, for instance in how individual focus, or lack of, is borne out in plastic. Gus van Sant discovered this same thing in his ‘frame-by-frame copy’ of Hitchcock’s Psycho – the impossibility of replication. Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on in your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece? DW: For most of the images there is almost no focus or preparation until confronted with the imaEmilia Loseva A still from Twelve Haikus in Lethargy
Danny Winkler & Emilia Loseva 18 #196 Winter E scape Land there waiting. It is a Zen-piece to the extent the Western intellect can apply its miserable irrationality to a foreign metaphysics. And the main artistic device here is that the visuals are from India and they have nothing to do with haikus and Zen and Gagaku music, but it works. The realism of nature is one of the features that mainly pervade this video: moreover, to produce another interesting work of yours entitled Ebir Nari (Beyond the River), you have decided to shoot directly in India and in the Caucasus... So I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience? EL: “The realism of nature” is part of what could be called “our ideology”, namely, “stolen languages”, and it wasn’t a kind of decision to go there and shoot this “realism” to make a film. Danny travelled, brought back disconnected pieces of footage and we made a few separate films. Ebir Nāri will become a classic video in 100 years’ time maybe. Not very many people understood the true quality of this artwork, meanwhile, I am certain about it, we created a story incomparable with anything else in a time when people accept without any doubt the statement that all stories have been told. The creative process is this invaluable direct experience for me personally. Danny loves walking around the globe; I love travelling too, but I do not use any cameras because I do not want to miss things and I want to remember everything as I have seen it all with my eyes. Danny also does not use his camera very often, only on these special occasions. So we do not have this obsession of reflecting and storing everything around us. By the way, since our art review is called "LandEscape", I would like to stop for a moment to consider the "function" of the landscape suggested by your work: most of the times it doesn't seem to be just a passive background... and I'm sort of convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this? EL: Our landscape is never a background, even when it is “passive”. Everything moves in this world, A sequence of stills from Twelve Haikus in Lethargy
Danny Winkler & Emilia Loseva 19 constantly changing, even the stills and photographs, stones and pavements are in perpetual motion. What is “hidden” will remain hidden since this is the law of the way of things. There is no need to decipher anything. Nature and art reveal themselves without our foolish efforts and pains. Revelation is a blessing, they say, it is a religious term, you cannot achieve it by labour. When it happens, you cannot find the words to talk about it, it is beyond our vocabulary. The inner nature, the true self – some would say it is pure light, others would call it “darkness” or “shadow”. Remember that famous repetitive meditation practice – “who am I?” When you get there, you will never talk about it. Those who do talk, do not listen to them, they are either liars or clinically insane. In these last years we have seen that the frontier between Video Art and Cinema is growing more and more vague. As film producers, do you think that this "frontier" will exist longer? By the way, how have new technologies as DSLR and digital editing impacted on your process? EL: If you see all Alexander Sokurov’s works, you will not be able to identify the ”frontier” because he uses and develops his own ABC. I adore the perfectionists of ”bad quality” and those who destroy the digital “deceit” by using the technologies only as tools, not as the means of expression. DW: As with film, the charm of video is to be found both in its alteriority and degradation – only with video this can be more difficult to achieve. I can say this in another way, perhaps, though the continued development of digital technologies will soon nullify this argument: it is still harder for video to flatter the filmmaker. A sequence of stills from Twelve Haikus in Lethargy
20 Danny Winkler & Emilia Loseva an interview with E scape Land During these years you have established a fruitiful collaboration... I personally find absolutely fascinating the collaborations that artists are capable of establishing together: could you tell us something about this effective synergy? By the way, the artist Peter Tabor once said that "collaboration is working together with another to create something as a synthesis of two practices, that alone one could not": what's your point about this? Can you explain how your work demonstrates communication between two artists? DW: The synergy is as mysterious as the lack of synergy with another. It happens, it exists, just as the lemon tree exists, and why that exists it is not possible to explain. EL: Obviously, as some artists-friends say, this is not an accident that we met and coincided. It really feels like being a lemon-tree. When we do works separately or with other people, the outcome is something different of course. When I work with other artists, I waste a lot of energy and often end up with disappointment – errors occur and you cannot change the outcome. Working with Danny is always rewarding in that sense that each idea is realised completely and there is nothing I would wish to change. Your work Twelve Haikus in Lethargy has been recently selected at the VIDEOHOLICA International Videoart Festival, Varna... it goes without saying that feedback and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist, I was just wondering if an award -or better, the expectation of an award- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how important for you is the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think who will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces? DW: These works are not about communication. objects to be found, picked up or discarded. As such, my concern is not with the audience. EL: And still it is a pleasure to know that there are a few individuals who “find” these “objects” and “pick” them up. It is true that we do these works for ourselves, not for communicating messages, but isn’t that what art should aim for – self-contained form and self-consistent subject matter? Thank you for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of? EL: There is an upcoming book of translations of A sequence of stills from Twelve Haikus in Lethargy
21 Danny Winkler & Emilia Loseva preparing my own book for publication, children’s poems for adults with extremely funny drawings. Danny will possibly go to India again to do a proper documentary this time. one of the Russian Futurist poets, Vasilisk Gnedov, which we hope to publish shortly. We are conducting some preparations for our next film about a Russian-Latvian sculptor Victoria Pelshe, deep in the snowy woods, where she has a village-house and wild animals roam among pine trees. By “preparation” I mean we are hoping to obtain a grant, at least once in life it should happen! I continue collaborating with Latvian artists and A still from Twelve Haikus in Lethargy An interview by [email protected]
22 (Iceland) #196 Winter E scape Land With no education in the fields of art, cinematography or direction I take what is in my head and make it real. I am a child born of the emerging digital world and have a compulsive hunger to record what I do. My existence is but a drop in the ocean - all the documentation I have forms the ripples. My inspiration comes from childhood dreams, from synchronicity, from public participation, in freeing those from their own constraints and a personal obsession with spandex. I proactively involve those outside of art to become art, to live art, to feel art. Those who are entangled in what I do, what I make, are often completely unknown to me before the pieces merge us together. Undercurrents of female empowerment run deep, specifically with regard to the female form but come secondary to creating visual images. I envelop the viewer in a candyland, summoning them without them knowing why there is a sudden desire to come out to play. The series The Weird Girls Project is to date the majority of my total works. The women involved are unaware of everything involved in the performance until they arrive on set. Many do not know each other. They free themselves of everything and I direct their involvement in a world I have created for them – a place both challenging and safe – and draw out parts of them they didn’t know existed. I love what I create. The more I create the more I want to . An artist’s statement Kitty Von-Sometime Kitty Von-Sometime
Les Satinover 2 Kitty Von-Sometime Photography by Egill Bjarki
24 Kitty Von-Sometime an interview with E scape Land An interview with Kitty Von-Sometime Hello Kitty and a warm welcome to LandEscape. I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, what could be the features that mark the contemporariness of an artwork? Thank you. Well, I do not like answering this question. I feel the age old question is still a question as there isn’t exactly an answer. Would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there particular experiences that have impacted on the way you produce your artworks these days? By the way, as a self-taught artist, I would ask you what's your point about formal training... I often ask to myself if a certain kind of training could even stifle a young artist's creativity... My background carries deep threads of creativity since childhood, but no education in art or film. All the work I have done comes from a love of the mediums and an exploration I have undertaken on my own. I would love to know more, and often crave a bigger background in my head, but sometimes I enjoy the utter naivety I have. Asking me how it would be comparatively if I had training is like asking an only child what it would be like to have a twin. They wouldn’t know. So neither to do I. My main concern with formal training versus non formal is that I believe an artist should be recognized by their work, and not necessarily a history of formal training. I completely understand and respect education, but feel that not having it shouldn’t exclude you from opportunity or acceptance if you can show works of worth. Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what techni-cal aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece? My productions are huge. For The Weird Girls Project I spend on average 3-4 months working on one piece. Initially I develop the concept alone and then work with costume makers and film crew preparing the shoot day. These days on set I have around 20-30 women participating and a crew of between 30 and 50 people. Technically, working with film requires a great deal of forethought. I also ned to build a solid relationship with the crew as it is not like working on a normal film set. The women are completely unaware of the entire day before they show up. They do not know where they will go, what they will do, what the concept is nor what the costumes are. So even with a shot list and a storyboard, a great deal comes down to me working with women on the day, encouraging Kitty Von-Sometime (photo by Egill Bjarki)
25 Kitty Von-Sometime would like to start with a very stimulating work entitled The Weird Girls Project whose stills have been admired in the starting pages of this article, and I would suggest our readers to visit your website at and reacting to their personal limitations and boundaries and working them through it in the confines of my personal visual story. By the way, do you visualize your works before creating? Do you know what it will look like before you begin? Always. I often refer to myself as a concept artist as the concept is what begins, everything else is concerned with enabling me to share that concept with the outside world. My skills in installation and in filmmaking and direction are constantly self monitored. I feel I have grown each time the end result gets closer and closer to being exactly what I birthed in my head. Now let's focus on your artistic production: I http://www.theweirdgirlsproject.com/about.html in order to get a wider idea of this stimulating work: in the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of this project? What was your initial inspiration? The project started as a one off, not particularly meant for repeat nor to be a progressive work of art. I had many female friends who not only were lacking in something to do, but also were buried deep into self consciousness and body related issues. Some of these were related to eating disorders, abuse, rape, bullying or other personal From The Weird Girls Project, Episode 3, The Dark Side
Kitty Von-Sometime 26 #196 Winter E scape Land As you have remarked, the Project involves ordinary women rather than professional actresses or models... I personally find absolutely fashinating collaborations that artists can established together: especially because they reveals a symbiosis between apparently different approaches to art, especially as concern whom I would define "non professional artists" as "ordinary women"... and I can't help without mention Peter Tabor who once said that "collaboration is working together with another to create something as a synthesis of two practices, that alone one could not": what's your point about this? Can you explain how your work demonstrates communication between several artists? My work is collaborative in nature but this project is very much under my direction. As someone who has not had any traditional training in art or film making, over the years I have collaborated with film makers, costume designers, choreographers and cinematographers through the life of the Project to enable my initial visual concept to come to life. In the early days I would very much need multiple collaborators for this but these days as my experience has grown and my ability to understand how to get to the end visual goal is strong my collaboration has become less. These days I am opting to collaborate only with musicians and a cinematographer. The rest I am now in complete creative control over and have the skillset I need to get there. This does not mean I am not open to working with others, From The Weird Girls Project, Episode 13, Love the Earth Part I and II From The Weird Girls Project, Episode 13, Love the Earth Part I and II
Kitty Von-Sometime 27 I have just found that my pace of work is very fast and I run my work like a machine and other creatives can sometimes find that unenjoyable or hold my productions up. There are many people I would love to work with in the future however. With regards to using ‘ordinary women’ – this means I take women from all backgrounds who want to be part of a work of art but have possibly not been exposed to a way to do so. A feature of your work that has particularly impacted on me is the skilful capability of communicating a wide variety of states of mind... have you ever happened to discover something that you didn't previously plan and that you didn't even think about before? I'm sort of convinced that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal hidden sides of life and nature... what's you point? Every episode of The Project unfurls a new experience - both for myself and the women participating. It is something that comes with the format of the women reacting to a completely unknown day and for me, I have to interact with their responses and guide the visual concept into being. From The Weird Girls Project, Episode 8, Kaleidoscope
28 Kitty Von-Sometime an interview with E scape Land It goes without saying that your artworks are strictly connected to the chance to create a deep interaction: so, how important is the role of your audience for your artworks? When you conceive a piece, do you happen to think to whom will enjoy it? I start my work to be seen. I cannot even imagine leaving a piece somewhere in the dark without an audience. I am at heart an exhibitionist and feel like our lives are so very short, our work and actions are what stay here – not our physical being. I want my work to be accessible. I want people who think they don't know anything about art to enjoy it. People who say they aren’t interested in art to enjoy it. I feel many people are threatened by what they see as art, that art is only art if it is intellectually challenging, if it is in some way difficult. I am very preoccupied with enjoyment and my work is heavily focused on that. If I have been asked to choose an adjective that could sum up in a single word your art, I would From The Weird Girls Project, Episode 1, Neon Fame and The Last Supper The Weird Girls Project, Episode 14, Replica
29 Kitty Von-Sometime nor programming before – yet I submitteda concept and won the commission – now I am in the process of searching out teachers to collaborate with to see if I can pull it off. say that your it's "kaleidoscopic": while crossing the borders of different artistic fields have you ever happened to realize that a synergy between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts? In all honesty I do not think that deeply about it. I am aware of what my work is, what it has achieved and areas it has managed to succeed. I have an end visual I want to achieve and utilize whatever disciplines I need to get there. I think maybe this is where my lack of formal training is in some ways an advantage. I don't feel that areas outside of my ‘expertise’ are threatening. I managed film making without initially knowing what I was doing, began installation with no idea how to make it happen and so a new idea and a new discipline is completely accessible to me. Right now I am working on a public light installation for Iceland and UK. I haven’t touched light Episode 7, No Seeing Eye
30 Kitty Von-Sometime an interview with E scape Land without asking to the artists that I happen to interview, since even though it might sound the simpler one, I receive the most complex answers: what aspect of your work do you enjoy the most? What gives you the biggest satisfaction? The work itself is done for enjoyment. My enjoyment in making it. The girls enjoyment from participating and the public’s enjoyment in viewing it. I can’t not make it, I feel empty without a creative project bubbling in my head. Thank you for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts, Kitty. My last question deals with your future plans: anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of? As I mentioned, I have a public light installation lightwork taking inspiration from the magic of biolumiescence. Above the public’s head, in an outside location a swarm of jellyfish will be hung. In addition I am always working on new developments for The Weird Girls Project and am awaiting some grant responses and also some proposals for festivals abroad who have asked for submission of The Project to be involved in their events – art and cultural festivals alike. I also hope to work with some age related charities to approach women’s consciousness in aging. The Weird Tour of China, Part II Shanghai Bright Night The Weird Tour of China, Part II, Shanghai Bright Night. An interview by [email protected]
31 Kitty Von-Sometime Episode 7, No Seeing Eye
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Teresa Neises 2 Teresa Neises My mission is to photograph people in their natural environment. To show the real Characteristics of each individual and to create something to be cherished by you for a long time – memories. Photography has been a passion of mine for most my life and I decided to pursue it as a career. I am glad I did; my husband died earlier this year and I am so thankful I have something meaningful to do with my life. I hope you will join me as I grow as an individual and as a photographer on my journey to becoming whole. Teresa Neises An artist’s statement 33
34 Teresa Neises an interview with An interview with E scape Land A warm welcome to LandEscape, Teresa. We would start this interview with our usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of art? By the way, what could be in your opinion the main features that characterize a piece of Contemporary Art? I would like to say Thank-you for this great opportunity to show my work in your magazine. I just spent last weekend with some very talented photographers. Each night select individuals stood up and talked about their work. Teresa Neises Everyone had their own unique approach to their body of work. I find that a work of art is the result of several components put together to create one cohesive thought or idea. We all know the rule of thumbs and anyone can follow those but it goes beyond that to get a great composition. I feel you need to have passion for what you are doing to make a great piece. We would like to ask you something about your background: are there particular experiences that have impacted in the way you currently produce your artworks? By the way, what's your point on formal training? I sometimes ask myself how much a certain kind of training could influence too much a young artist's creativity... I became interested in photography when I was a teenager. My father loaned me his camera and tried to explain f/stop and shutter speed to me. Unfortunately math was not a strong subject for me as a young teenage girl and so he set the settings for me and I just used it as a normal camera. I became interested again when I had my first child and actually would stare out the car window on short road trips thinking how great it would be to travel and phoTeresa Neises Stepping Stone, year
35 Teresa Neises tograph the landscape. It wasn’t until 2 years ago that I actually decided to pursue photography and went back to school. I am a strong supporter of education in the sense that it teaches you self-discipline, helps you get familiar with time management, meeting deadlines and learning to accept constructive criticism from your fellow peers. I also found that with the new digital age it was faster to learn how to work both the camera and the editing processes. I also am a little conflicted about the creativity being influenced. I think that you need to supplement your learning outside of the classroom as well. I personally have been using the classroom to explore areas that I would never have tried. Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece? This has been a struggle of mine… for the past 2 years I have been working on projects that the teachers assigned. I have been very fortunate in one aspect that life just happens to present the subject I need to fill the assignment. I am really bad at writing down my thought process or the technical aspects that went into the shoot. I try to be prepared Nature Sculptures, year
36 E scape Land Teresa Neises for everything since I don’t always know what I am walking into when I go to shoot my subject. I usually end up having more equipment than what I needed. I am constantly thinking on what or how I should approach the work though, even when I am trying to sleep. I will have an idea of what I want to convey and show up and be surprised by something totally different and shoot that instead. Now let's focus on the artworks of your that our readers can admire in these pages: I would start from your series of photo that you took at Starved Rock Park: what was your initial inspiration? Could you lead us though the development of this project? These were actually taken on a field trip with the Student Photography Society Club. I had heard that this was a beautiful park in Illinois, great for photographing. So when I heard that the student club was planning an excursion I joined in the festivities. I love waterfalls and was told the park had 3 of them; I was extremely disappointed when I arrived and found they were all dried up due to the lack of rain this year. I decided not to let this keep me from enjoying all that nature had to provide. As I was walking the paths trying to keep up with everyone I started to notice all that the park had to offer. There is more to landscape than just a scenic view, so I started to explore this relationship between the paths and nature. Although I'm personally not that fond of "interpreting" an artwork, I would go as far as to say that it's a narration of colors that shows how colors are capable of communicating the idea of beauty besides the contests: would you like to tell us something about your "photographic palette"? I can honestly say that 2 years ago I felt every-thing needed to be in color. I struggled when the teacher said we had to shoot in black and white and was slightly offended. I now struggle as to when to keep something in color or if it should be black and white. I left the photos for Starved Rock Park in color because there has been a drought in the area and not everything is as green. Would the images present well in black and white? Yes… I feel they would have
Teresa Neises 37 probably been even better in black and white. I still love color over black and white but have accepted the fact that it plays a vital role in the perception of the artwork to the viewer. Your works deals with in contaminated Nature, but I would go as far as to state that even though we can see few "human steps" as suggested by the title "Natures Sculpture": I would go as far as to say that your Art speak us also about sociopolitics, but from a intimate viewpoint. Do you think the main art’s purpose is simply to provide a platform for an artist’s expression? Even though I'm aware that this might sound a bit naif, I must confess that Paths we take Standing Tall
38 Teresa Neises an interview with E scape Land I'm sort of convinced that Art could play an effective role even in facing social questions, not only speaking, but also steering people behavior... what's your point about this? I agree. I believe that art can have an affect on people and their behavior. It is a great platform for artists to explore social media that is preserved for a lifetime. We are surrounded by ugly behaviors that have been kept quiet or not spoken of due to embarrassment. We go about our days not thinking twice about how our actions impact the world or people around us. The news channel throws it in our faces but we can shut that off and go about our day. Photographs or all mediums of artwork preserve that little bit of history in time for future generations to see. Our history books would just be words had there not been someone there to capture the essence of that History. I whole-heartily believe in the saying that “a picture speaks a thousand words”! And since our magazine is called "LandEscape" I cannot do without asking you: what is the significance of the landscape in your art practice? I can see that it doesn't play the passive role of a simple "background", isn't it? I am still exploring that myself, I use to do the big picture pretty landscape that you would expect but then through my teachers I have learned to start looking at the details and each individual part that makes up a particular scene. In doing so I have discovered the art of nature herself. Mankind does everything to destroy her but even in death she survives. We trample the ground but she will still grow there, we litter and she overtakes it, we burn and she returns full force. In some ways I think this is also about me. I recently lost my husband and even though a part of me has died I too continue to grow and survive my disaster. The artist Nina Bumbalkova once stated that photographs should not be considered memories themselves but they interfere and they are sort of like building blocks that we create with in the process of remembering and recalling. Sometimes, I happened to think that one of the role of an artwork is to allow us to discover a hidden Ariadne's thread, that for example often let us to discover an unexpected political side of
39 Teresa Neises an artwork... If you look up art and politics you do see that they have had a vital role in our society each playing off the other in the development of our nations. Be it poetry, music, literature or painting the government has at one point or another tried to censure free expression. I use to view photographs as memories in time of loved ones to be cherished. I have since learned the power of one simple image. I do like the analogy of artwork being a hidden Ariadne’s thread. I just figured out this past weekend through my images a hidden message to myself that life goes on and that we all have a path to follow. artists I interview, and although it might sound a bit simplistic it gives me back the most complex answer: what aspect of your work do you enjoy the most and what gives you the greatest satisfaction? Well up until recently I enjoyed tackling the various projects the teachers set forth for us. My eyes were opened and I learned more about photography and art then I would have had I ventured out on my own. I have always considered myself a landscape artist and that will always be my passion, but now I have learned there is more to photography than a pretty picture and I find great satisfaction in attempting these different art forms. Thank you for sharing with us your time and your thoughts, Teresa: my last question deals with your future plans: what direction are you moving in creatively? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of? My future plans are to continue photographing the healing process that I am going through. I did an editorial on the first month of my grieving for a class project and I want to continue documenting the emotional process of my healing. I started journaling my thoughts and feelings to help me work though the pain. I’m hoping that when I finish this project to produce a book with images and text. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Neises-lifestyle-pho tography/427872483996121 Twins http://teresanphotographer.com/
40 (Brazil) #196 Winter E scape Land I was born in Brazil in 1971, years later I moved to Bonn, Germany where I received my MFA in visual arts from the kunst Akademie Alanus Hochshule. I currently live and work in Tunis, Tunisia. I’m an architect and visual artist working with many differents medias including installations. My work consists in take risks. The risk to meet the other without a frame or predefined idea. The starting point of my creative process is to let myself be affected by the "world", be this “world” a place, a person or an event and allow a poetic form emerge from this affection. Distract myself enough of myself to find what is not sought, but that happened. The process is an important part of my work, integral to any consideration of a "final product". Get "empty" of "ideas" but willing to the encounter is a key element in this process where the duration is one of the conditions necessary for the production of the instant of the "event" that can be understood here as the "work of art". In view of an "aesthetic" that comes naturally from a relative "ethics" with the world. An artist’s statement Alina d’Alva
Alina d’Alva 2
42 Alina d’Alva an interview with E scape Land An interview with Alina d’Alva ted on the way you currently produce your works? In Brazil I did a degree in Architecture and Urbanism and worked for some years in architectural offices in Sao Paulo. Gradually I was migrating to the urban area where I had the opportunity to work in the master plans of small towns in Brazil, as well as working with suburban communities on issues relating to the improvement of the area where they lived. Perhaps because of these experiences, the relationship with the space is so familiar to me and greatly influences my work as an artist. The Masters in Germany helped me find the middle ground between the artist and the architect. Hello Alina and a warm welcome to LandEscape. I would start this interview with my usual ice breaker question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, what could be the features that mark the contemporariness of an artwork? A work of art, in my view, becomes art when composes and decomposes with everyday life. It can be gesture, action, object, installation, architecture, reflection, no matter the "how", but it is important that it is able to show to the human being, other sides of the common place. Through his affective relationship with the world the artist allows something new to emerge, or he simply throws light on what was always there and no one noticed. The artist is someone who realizes the immensity of what is surrounding him. He highlights the delirium of society that is always on the run and passes without seeing, hearing or touching. When art leaves the pedestal, the frame, and its immobility, it is not anymore a monument, it becomes a moment. Then art becomes alive, falls into another dimension of existence, influences the space, is influenced by the place and renews the sense of everyday life. I think contemporary art can not be conceptualized by theorists and art critics because it is heterogeneous, multiple, diverse. There are no rules. It can remain true to trends, legitimizing institutions, the market, but it can also be treason, reaction and denial. I believe that to be alive and actual (or contemporary) art should emerge from relations. It is through “encounters” that new possibilities are open, where "reality" is not given beforehand but reformulated every time the encounter takes place. Would you like to tell us something about your background? You hold a MFA in visual arts that you have received a couple of years ago from the Kunst Akademie Alanus Hochshule, in Germany. How has this experience of formal training -and especially moving from Brazil to Germany- impacAlina d’Alva
43 Alina d’Alva I had excellent teachers and I think that objectivity and structure of German thinking taught me to channel my subjectivity. In the beginning there was a big cultural shock and during this period my work was very marked by the things of my home country and identity issues, especially regarding the cultural and religious fusions of Africans, native people, and European and the influence of religious syncretism in my personal life. Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece? Each situation is unique. If it is a site-specific work, is an inevitable consequence of my relationship with the place, with people, with what "find me". Nothing is fixed before-hand. I do not cling to any technique, it is set during the process and is a consequence of it. The definition phase for me is the most time consuming and more difficult as well, but, at the same time, very intense and very lively. When I "discover" what the project wants to be then I just carry it out, and then the technique, the "how to do it" is very important. It's like a picture out of focus, where the focus will just be very clear at the end, perhaps on the display. The process of mounting the work, usually only lasts a few hours, or a day. But the process is not linear and is very intuitive to me. Now let's focus on your artworks: I would like to start with your Whispering Walls, an interesting project that you have developed in partnership with the tunesian artist Raffa Bacha, and that our readers have started to admire in the introductory pages of this article: would you tell us something about the genesis of this project? What was your initial inspiration? Sidi Bou Said is a town in northern Tunisia located about 20 km from the capital, Tunis. The entire town is located on top of a steep cliff, which overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. The town got its name from a Sufi who lived there in the 12th century and establishes a sanctuary. What most caught my attention in Sid Bou Said was the tension between what is apparent and what is hidden. Between what the city shows- in its streets crowded by marketers eager to sell their products to tourists - and what its narrow streets and walls hide. In one of my first visits to Sidi Bou Said I was told by the locals, scandalized, that the mausoleum of the patron saint of the place (The Marabou) had been burned, probably by a radical Islamic group that does not tolerate the worship of saints. The Marabout was a Muslim religious leader and teacher in the Maghreb, but this term also refer to a tomb of a venerated saint, and such places have become holy centers and places of pious contemplation in Tunisia.
44 #196 Winter E scape Land an interview with This accident and the reaction of the population (inevitably) lead me to new discoveries. Simply being willing to " be " there and hear people allowed me access to some of the hidden life of this place, listening to stories passed down for generations, retold and recreated or even invented over the years, but never loosing there attraction. The device I used for this project was to listen and record (during the period of a month) stories of the residents of Sidi Bou Said about the saints who lived there and everything that revolved around them. These stories, told in different ways by different interlocutors, formed the raw material for this installation. It was then edited and transmitted by loudspeakers installed in the walls of the mausoleum of Sidi Azizi. For this purpose I had to create false walls out of MDF sheets. The idea is that when you enter the space of the mausoleum viewers listen to all narrators talking at once. Just a big buzz like what you hear in the streets and cafes of the city. To hear the stories clearly, one needed lean closely to the wall with the ear at some little holes, like listening a whispered secret. During the exposition the Marabou space functioned as a place of encounter with the invisible life of the village Sidi Bou Said. A place where the voices of the residents were amplified. A portal of "simultaneity" that allowed access to something that was long hidden to those who pass always in a rush. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, your art practice consists in taking risks. The risk to meet the other without a frame or predefined idea. I'm sort of convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this? The capitalist world distorts the time of the human being, makes him track time and money, following hastiness without seeing what is around and without seeing himself. The artist is the one who allows himself to stop, slow down and pay attention at the world. Thus he is open to receive something from the world and offer it to people and in this "giving" and "receiving" the work "happens". When the artist accomplishes this, the result is pure From Wishpering Walls, detail, Paredes falantes From Wishpering Walls
Alina d’Alva 45 poetry. The art and life converge to the pleasure of the subjective construction of the world. Another piece of yours on which I would like to focus is the recent video installation Agua Viva, held in Takrouna, a Berber village from Tunisia: I think that's important to underline that while "Agua Viva" in a word-for-word translation means "living water", actually it is referres to the Portuguese name for jellyfish... could you lead us through the development of this project? Takrouna is a Berber village in Tunisia, built on a fossilized rock covered with cactus from the Tertiary era at an altitude of 200 meters. The village consists of stone houses whose architecture reflects the Berber construction methods: a small inner courtyard surrounded by vaulted rooms. Today Takrouna is a place in ruins. During the past fifty years the village was emptied of almost all its inhabitants and only three families live in the ruins on the hill. The departure of the inhabitants began mainly with the Second World War. At that time, Takrouna was the scene of clashes between the Allies and the German-Italian military, but the main cause of the exodus of the inhabitants was the lack of water that made life impossible in the place. In my first visits to the village, I had no idea what kind of work I would perform there. The beginning of my creative process always occurs by telling myself: “be open to the unknown and no predefined ideas”. Traversing the aridity of the ruins of the hill I realized and admired, that the walls of the houses, were incrusted by fossil seashells. This led me to the discovery that the village was built upon a rock of tertiary age full of fossils. Agua Viva Agua Viva
46 Alina d’Alva an interview with E scape Land During this process of investigation of the place I had to spend a few days in Lisbon and went to visit the Oceanarium, which is a place where you can see in close-up range many fish species. In such a submarine aquarium I found these beautiful beings who are the jellyfish. One of the oldest forms of life on the planet. When I was there "submerged" and surrounded by water I remembered Takrouna, that was underwater itself a thousands of years ago and where there must have been plenty of aquatic life... In that very moment, far away in Lisbon, I had a clear picture of how my future installation in Takrouna would look like. "Agua-Viva” is the Portuguese name for jellyfish, and literally means “living water”. The video-soundinstallation Agua-Viva intended to bring the “water”, and with it, the “life” back into one of the abandoned houses of the former prosperous Berber village. In this installation, the jellyfish were projected on the wall and ceiling of an abandoned house of Takrouna. Its reflection on the surface of the water covering the floor together with the sounds of deep seawater, of singing wales and old Berber lullabies created the illusion of being flooded by water all around. And I cannot do without mentioning the performative video entitled Gottesdienst that I would suggest our reader to view directly at your website http://alinadalva.com/section/263101_Gottesdienst.h tml... or better: I do think that the best way to Capela, from Gottesdienst snatch the spirit of this piece is to visit it the chocolate factory Cima Norma, Switzerand, since the personal involvement of the audience plays a crucial role in this piece: at the end of the projection, the space around is filled with the scent of lavender essence: so it's a piece that should be "felt" and not just watched to... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces? The construction of this work took place during the three-week period of residence in Dangio (Tessin/ Switzerland) It was through the daily relationship with the place that the project emerged. I should carry out the work in an old chapel that was used by employees of the chocolate factory Cimma from Gottesdienst
47 Alina d’Alva ment where all aspects of sexuality and procreation were increasingly linked to sin, a woman could not be entrusted to take care of sacred realities. The German word Gottesdienst (literally, "God's service") may be defined as both "divine service" and "public worship.” Man's sacrificial service toward God in the offering of hymns and prayers. The white curtains, which are washed and immersed in lavender and then stretched into the chapel, were found dirty and crowded inside the factory warehouse. They belonged to the little church. I had the impulse to wash these white and delicate fabrics, as an impulse to care. From that point I started to create my Gottesdienst, my free offering to the spirit. A simple ritual of re-connection with creation. Be an agent of a new human condition: that of absolute detachment from sin. A form of power against another form of power. The performance was filmed within the space of the chapel. The video installation was assembled after, at the same place. During the exhibition the space of the chapel is filled with the scent of lavender essence that was used in the water where the clothes were dipped in. With sound, video and smell, the visitors are immersed in a place that emanated a great quietness. Spirituality perhaps? But surely something connected to the simplicity of life. Caption 6 Norma. At the beginning of this process, many questions: What to do in a space dedicated to the cult? How touching it without profaning it? But this act of profanation could also be the very act of freedom (liberation)? The real act of communion with the spirit? The video shows a very simple scene: A woman goes into a chapel carrying buckets of water. She kneels down and starts washing clothes. Slowly she stretches the clothes on wires inside the chapel. Gradually the altar will be sealed. When she finishes she leaves the place. In biblical times, the interplay of purity and impurity took center stage in many patriarchal religions. In an environment where all aspects of sexuality and procreation were increasingly linked to sin, a woman could not be entrusted to environ- from Gottesdienst
Alina d’Alva 48 #196 Winter E scape Land an interview with Your art practice is particularly multidisciplinary and you work with many differents medias: from drawing to video, to sound installations: if I have been asked to choose an adjective that could sum up in a single word your art, I would say that your it's "kaleidoscopic": you produce installations, sculptures, and Video art. By the way, I'm sort of convinced that new media art will definitely fill the dichotomy between art and technology and I will dare to say that Art and Technology are going to assimilate one to each other... what's your point about this? To be honest the medium that I use in my work does not define my work. They are never determined a priori. Each situation is unique. I use various media because every affection that touches me asks me for a different way to communicate and each media solves the issue in a special way. The technology can enrich and give a great dimension to the work, but it is not all. Drawing, for example, is a very important technique for me. I cannot live without a sketchbook. The drawings help me to capture moments of tenuous perception. They are like photographs of the thought. They are captured by the hand connected to the heart. This moment caught on paper can strike a chord on the viewer about their own …can evoke a language that can touch things that are important in life. Put in another way, I think Art and Technology always have been somehow connected. You are currently based in Tunisi, in the Northen Africa, an interesting side of the world that has recently come to the fore about social and political issues: so even though I'm aware that you have been asked about this at least a thousand of times, I cannot do without asking you: what are the main differences in the art scenario between Tunisian and Europe? And especially, what can we learn from the Arabic scene? Tunisia was the first Arab country to bring down its authoritarian leader, to hold democratic elections and bring to power moderate Islamists. But the party to power (called Ennahda), found himself caught between a progressive movement, and Sid Azizi radical Islamists. Some of these radical Islamist From Ghottesdienst
Alina d’Alva 49 movements consider all kind of artistic expression as being blasphemy and therefore condemn the artists’ work and persecutes the artist himself. Last year, in June, I took part in an exhibition (the Spring Arts exhibition at the Palais Abdellia) that was attacted by islamists who called death threats on 27 artists that participated. Following this art event a wave of incitement to murder for "disbelief and offense to the sacred" was launched via social networks and forums . In addition, the Minister of Culture Mehdi Mabrouk publicly defended the islamists terror because these artists deliberately touched the realm of the sacred. On his Facebook site, Ennahda has even claimed that any insult to religion should be severely punished by prison. Today the danger of these forms of radical islamIsm are still not banned. The actual transitional regime does not enough to condemn extremist groups that threaten the freedom of expression. This fact causes much frustration and disbelieve as for the so called arab spring among artists, but they don’t give up and keep producing good work. Sometimes I think that the tension even inspires for deeper and more powerful art. Thank you for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts, Alina. My last question deals with your future plans: anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of? For the moment I am participating in a project with a group of artists and researchers from the And_Lab Lisbon. The AND_LAB is a Centre for Artistic Research and Scientific Creativity, directed by Jo„o Fiadeiro and Fernanda Eugenio, and positions itself as a platform for education and research at the interface between creativity, sustainability, politics and daily life.http://and-lab.org/ We are working on a sort of "game" that involves multiple artists online, that will have a second phase in an artist residency in Lisbon and will be finalized, hopefully, with an exhibition in Lisbon and Brazil. Wishpering Walls
50 (Egypt / Germany) #196 Winter E scape Land “ Born in Cairo 1978, studied and practiced art in Egypt, Germany and Switzerland since 1999, check my detailed biography on www.samehaltawil.com “ My recent work is characterized by Performances or installations that combinehuman body, sculptural forms with video orsounds and interactive experiences. Objects and environments are systems and instruments, combining physical forms with multi-dimensional and non-linear audio/visual elements. Architectural and site considerations are often parameters for designed spaces that explore the physicality of visual and sound in relationship to human sensation. Objects and sculptural forms are frequently interactive and involve viewer participation with touch or motion. This aspect of my work involves an ongoing dialogue between the tactile and the aural, cause and effect relationships of viewer action within reactive systems, and personal versus social dynamics within interactive structures such as play and collaboration. Both The static or interactive systems in my pieces are either programed or constructed from hand-made instruments and customized software, often running in a balanced state while uninterrupted while containing flexible parameters that are sensitive to viewer actions or environmental conditions. Fusing visual elements and physical media, my work also explores the conflation of vibrational energetic processes with material form, and shifting relationships within sensory dynamics and perception. These ideas engage my interest in the transformative potential of these processes when applied to material forms, and the resulting subjective experiences within the viewer. Most recent works explore therapeutic potentials of immersive audio/visual experiences. An artist’s statement Sameh Al Tawil Sameh Al Tawil