Questions I have made:
17th of september Adriano asking Chloe, Lilia answering on behalf of Chloe Dear presentation of Chloe on september 17th. You made a strange entanglement of spacial architectures visible to me: architectures of Chloes body, of my gaze, of the room... Sliding backwards as forwards as backwards through and between them. On the spot but moving “maybe, maybe” from “here, here” to “and there, and there”. It made me feel enveloped by space as a dynamic, yet structuring agent. I want to ask you about time, are there as many times entangled as spaces? and if so is there a way to make these entanglements graspable the way you to me made different kinds of architecture visible? Yours truly, A
SINA ASKS ADRIANO, FLAVIO WILL ANSWER ON BEHALF OF ADRIANO I saw a kind of a free-and-easy flow of a sensory-motor casual-ness (not necessarily an explicit “purposeful schema” nor an explicit “communicative schema”), keeping its own spatial continuity, and running on its own inner fule. I saw, let’s call it, “inner life of syntax” that is not in conflict (or doubtful), and is not hooked on anything (particular) as well. If that was a form of “talking,” then I couldn’t guess what was the situational perspective of that talking subject (what is it seeing, or noticing, that makes it make those signs). That means, it was (generally) difficult for me to know “who” is talking, and therefore “whom” is being addressed. Therefore, status of a conscious observer hard to defined (or not directly addressed). But maybe that was not wanted (the question of address, let's say). So I go back to the movement itself, thinking about perceptions and associated actions involved in the performance: the flow (continues spatially-malleable dance-impro). Does personality needs to be able to flow in order to move past anything that establishes itself firmly? To put it differently (if you like), is metamorphosis (a form of continuity obtained by a certain type of [sometimes painful] discontinuity) possible?
Anapaula asks Flavio Adriano answers on behalf of Flavio what context do you have to construct in order for your different 'selves' to be manifiest?
24th of september
Adriano asks Quinsy Response by Deborah Dear Quinsy You cleared a table and asked who knows how to play domino. A couple of people said yes and agreed to play, me included. We played once, and then another different group played. You seemed to know the game well, playing fast and having a idiosyncratic way of holding and placing the pieces. I had fun playing and watching others play. Apart from or, on top of, that fun the simplicity of the proposal generated an absurdity for me, and the experience confronted me with my own expectations about what (art)work is at apass and what you might propose in relation to your research. So while the proposal was simple and enjoyable, it opened a range of questions for me. It made me think of the work of Krõõt Juurak in the sense that I always feel like I can explain her work to a five year old, and how this quality deepens the profound and complex nature of the work, rather than flattens it. Giving a lot of space, while at the same time challenging my understandings or presumptions of the situation, of what we are doing here and of who we are here. Me question is: Is it necessary in order to create that kind of absurdity and complexity through simplicity, that the proposal is performed by you and that its a single table, or could it be delegated and several? Thanks alot, Adriano
Diego to Adriano Response by Magda If the viewer/visitor/participant/spectator/partner (depending on the context of exhibition/sharing) is the one who is providing from outside, randomly and without knowing the structure to this practice, I wonder what does this "inside without knowing" mean, how the notions of breathing alignment and synchronicity could mingle with the notion of mirror neuron and how to engage the visitors in order to let them know that they are the practice's condition of existence instead of someone who is staring at something passively?
Rui asks Kasia (Adriano answers) The impossibility to embody the story could be linked to the relationship between words and images. A system of signs destroys the possibility of a sky resemble a specific sky with all its incommensurability, it is “any sky”. In your presentation, the distance between words in squares seems intent on finding something in the gap. Is there something always unable to see? Gaps, ellipsis, interstices… Are they possible tools to create a presence rather than only a mystery?
1st of october
Adriano asks: Magda, Muslin Brothers answer
You put headphones on and announce the beginning of the performance. Opening a private and a public space at the same time.
"This is not a room…. it is an architecture of feelings/a shelter/a jungle of desires/the plants, touching my lower back from a distance…"
Crowdsourced experiences stream through you, from headphones, through mouth, into the”not a room”, immersing.
A leaky phenomenology sprouts, not quite yours, leaking into and through, not quite ours, immersing, leaking into.
Boundaries blurred with accumulation of cuts: Headphones between your ears and ours, last weeks proposal between the text and the situation, one experience slicing through another.
A phenomenology that becomes leaky by cutting and weaving.
My question is about the place of group. How defined or developed a group need to be to engage in such cutting and weaving?
Quinsy asks Adriano, Sina Answers
Hey Adriano and Sina,
No longer gyrating. Sitting seemingly still. Seemingly aloof. Seemingly present. Together alone. Seams of absence unwoven. Movement rendered motionless. A game of sight. Intense scrutiny of the beyond here. Beyond this moment. Stillness is the move. On top of every mountain there was a great longing. Solange quoting Dirty Projectors. Kasia quoting W.G. Sebald. Wandering through thoughts. Legs and knees. Elbows and wrists. You're embodying gaps. Blinks between red words. A yarn of opaqueness. And yet. There is Deborah's hand. And yours. At what moment does the gaze of another elicit a smile? What does that smile carry with it?
Sincerely, Quinsy
Kasia asks: Rui, Adriano answers Dear Rui,
In the video you screened we see two men talking. However we never see them depicted fully. There is a sense of fragmentation, body fragmentation.
I see torso, head, hands. I see faces. But - although the take is very still, static - I experience destabilisation. The communication is torn apart. The filmed room is full of melancholy of impossibility.
At certain point Falvio asked Diego to tell the story that he reports once > again, but without words, only by ‘using’ his face. I see Diego's eyes changing the strength and content of his gaze, its focus, I see subtle shifts in his facial expression.
My question is: to what degree we need our bodies to communicate?
Warmly
Kasia
15th of October
Adriano asks Lucia and Piero Deborah answers on behalf Lucia and Piero Dear presentation of Lucia & Piero, A promise of observation. Observation from you - of what concerns most of us. You were sitting next to eachother. Soft, patient, listening. An analogue complicity situated between one big and two smaller screens. Descriptions turn "poetic" "I'M FLOATING, THE HEAD IN THE AIR." "I REMEMBER STANDING FOR SOMETHING. CAN I STAND FOR SOMETHING NOW? NOW SITTING?" "HOW MANY METERS OF AIR OVER MY HEAD?". Not much is written, is this writing an excuse for sharing time/presence? For sitting next to eachother and in front of us, while the laptops offer a small protection from full exposure and/or transparency. If that is so, what is the minimum of text and screen needed to give a cover for presence?
chloe asks Adriano- Flavio Answers. This is rather a question from the inside, as I danced alongside you I didn't have the experience of reading from the outside. It was clear from the discussion afterward that the dancing was implicating something other than our own immediate expression. That the dance moves through us rather than being soley produced by each of us. However I was curious how to move from implication to responsiblity, which would be to impart agency to the audience whom we are 'using' for our dance. I don't know exactly how to write it more clearly— but I think it is a move of the spectator from understanding the code, from reading our dance, to feeling somehow that them being there matters for the dance. Hmm still maybe unclear, its hard to be precise. There is something to think through in relation to the labor of the audience, if the audience is learning how to be an audience, where is the space for them to 'change' lets say?
Deborah Asks Flavio, Adriano answers thoughts of archeology and other conceptual tools, but actually what I keep coming back to is my understanding that you wanted people to remove the sheet, be exposed to your exposed body, and have to confront what you choose to confront us with: nakedness, scars, history written on flesh. Exposure as vulnerability and risk, relating sometimes in your history to shame and trauma.
That's my understanding of what you wanted. Instead, no-one removed the sheet, except for an arm, a foot. So your nakedness lay hidden, and your exposure unexposed. Then we are archeologists of a different sort, tentative, unwilling (or slow in willing), too slow in any case to uncover what is waiting to be uncovered.
It reminded me of Abramovic's Rhythm 0 (1974) where she placed 72 objects around, like a feather, knife, rose, etc. It took hours, and it started off slowly, but the temptation and lack of resistance brought out an intensity and and aggression that seems to me linked to a dynamic of vulnerability-violence-temptation-shame.
It seems difficult to bring the audience quickly to a dynamic that might only arrive unconsciously (a slow, imperceptible gradient of action), which mirrors social time (blind, un-individuated, sometimes thought of on the level of drives/impulses).
What are the methods that you can bring the audience into your vulnerability in a short space of time? Who is the agent? What happens when the lines are blurred?
Tenderness
xd
12th of November
Adriano asks Diego, Kasia responds on behalf of Diego
Dear Diego, You told us a story of revolt and oppression. I was struck by the intimate, yet opaque relation between your body and the story. You talked in third person, but as if the young man in your story might have been yourself. The use of lo-fi and low volume background track, which may have been original recordings related to your story or something else, further twisted my sense of where and when the story took and takes place in relation to “here and now”.
Probably I am ignorant regarding your history. And while I write this, I wonder if I should know, when and where the story took place and what the relation to your body is.
I want to ask you what you would like me to do with the story you tell? Do you want me to consider the ancestral or vicarious memories in your body, and consider the many-ness of you? Do you want me to learn about the history of this kind of revolt and oppression? Do you want me to learn about the particular moment in history that shapes your story? Do you want me to think about present-day oppressions in a historical perspective?
Thank you, and apologies for the late question, Adriano
Question by Muslin Brothers for Adriano, Rui Answers on behalf of Adriano During your presentation we were the object that changed position, while being with our eyes closed someone lead us to the new location, other senses become sensitive in order to estimate and evaluate ourselves in the space. where am I positioned in the space? Who am I standing next to? What direction am I facing? We were pretty occupied by that also after your presentation was long ended; A space for distance, A place of displacement Afterwards i checked the definition of Displacement In physics, Distance and Displacement are two distinctly different quantities. Distance is a ‘Scalar quantity’ that refers to the total movement of an object without any regard to direction. We can define distance as to how much ground an object has covered despite its starting or ending point. while displacement is a ‘vector quantity’ therefore has a direction and magnitude. It refers to the measure of how far out of place is an object. So for the question- Where would you find this kind of ‘Displacement’ present in your work?
Lilia asks Rui, Adriano responds on behalf of Rui Got in search for On Violence by Hanna Arendt and found a talk she gave in 1968. Here is the link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GUNDQ2CyPw The subject of her analyses is of another kind and another time but very insightful about issues of power. I had to recall what you told us before we started shooting the last film: I am not sure it’s about violence but rather about pessimism as a component of life, the other side of optimism that forces us to eliminate, obscure, hide certain aspects of our lives in the hope of happiness. Following your advice, I got the book of Lauren Berlant for a.pass, "Cruel Optimism" and in the introduction I read: "optimism is cruel when the object/scene that ignites a sense of possibility actually makes it impossible to attain the expansive transformation for which a person or a people risks striving; and , doubly, it is cruel insofar as the very pleasures of being inside a relation have become sustaining regardless of the content of the relation, such that a person or a world finds itself bound to a situation of profound threat that is, at the same time, profoundly confirming." This sentence makes me think of the films you have been doing during the Looming Score. The way everything is already there stuck and perpetually unfolding, a kind of satisfactory pessimism. I keep thinking about method and the frame and the camera and the editing and the instructions and the actors as a machine of dependencies! A series of situations (filming) where a group of people (actors) embody the machine. I could come back to Hanna Arendt and think about ‘action’ as the place of the political. What is next episode?