AnaB projectproposal2

graduate proposal (draft?)

general

I want to conduct a research and reach a practice from a combination of materials that I am going to collect during the course of my two residencies in Latin America.

The mentioned Artist - in - residency program is basically an expedition to two remote locations in South America.

One of the reason for applying to the residency comes from a need to see, feel and generate new insights from the remote margins of this planet, locations we - the "civilized West" don't necessary consider connected to us.

The core program is conceived both as an interchange between the artist and his new environment, culturally and geographically, and as a self - directed research project.

The program of the residency is conceived to help expand awareness and create dialogues - in interacting with the specifics of the given location and it's people's culture.

I see these dialogues starting in the coastal region between Panama and Colombia, my first destination, where we will be based in the indigenous autonomous territory of the Guna Yala people.
This region is home to indigenous villages, coral reefs, wild tropical islands, untouched rainforests, and a whole new fauna of everyday rituals, beliefs, all based on their own history and sacred myths. We will be based in a small intimate community of cca 600 people.

The second part of the residency will be deeply in the Atacama Desert where I will be looking to create some dialogues among the limitless dry landscapes and, oh-if-so-lucky with the liminal spaces between them. By then I will have picked up some indigenous magic techniques on how to best interact with the living desert sand and its singing breezes, with no need to anthropomorphize the close by Oasis. As I am loosely imagining it now, the dialogues are not necessarily spoken out, but definitely present in its own form. One of the ways to induce them, is to pose a certain set of questions, in order to arouse a starting point, a form that these answers will start taking.

format

The dialogues are to be collected in a couple of forms.

1. visual record as 16mm film ( donated, various stock)

2. visual record as photographs, both on 35mm analogue film and digital

3. as audio recordings; field recordings - not necessarily to be used as means of connection to a specific visual situation, but as a free interpretation of the certain spaces between

4. as writing; a diary, as a daily log.

My research will be based on observing, tracing and mapping, reading and writing. At first, simple as tracing and mapping out the missing pieces that I feel collectively lost in the practice of everyday / (common)life.
This method will actualize itself through silent observation of the tribe's people and their everyday life. Naturally I can only put it in relation to my own experiences, and experiences of my people. The writing will come from the discipline of writing a diary of observations, and simply from moving. The combination of all approaches will form a body of work that will edit itself according to my experiences.

why

There is something I find spiritual in travelling afar to have a meeting with another culture. A culture so different yet so close to us. My plan is to briefly undo the trap that holds me under the layers of my contemporary living and to change the stale reference point that sometimes hazards on my conclusions.
To box out of that subtle little invisible prison that creeps on you unintentionally. To be in a place where my layers will have the freedom to undo themselves, to go wild and messy, in order to be redressed and worn again. Slightly tilted I hope. I will record my observations to be able to come back to them only later, as a consequence, and draw certain comparisons with our customs of everyday life.
The audio recordings will be explorations in the field of reflexive human sounds, those that are not words, but maybe could be called humming, vocal vibrations, pulsations of sound that we eject unwarily, in moments of either deep concentration, relaxation, fear.. My aim is to collect a material as rich and as fruitful as the relationship between me and the people I encounter will have a chance to be. Uncertain as it is, I might be coming back with material exploring the landscapes only. The juxtaposing of the rainforest to desert. I could get caught into connecting that with concepts of animism and its more contemporary cousin, natural pantheism. I would like to be taken by a storytelling process on its own, based on questioning and released. A question released to its own life, propelled to a space in search for the answers, in the form of a visual metaphor or many other spaces between or within these metaphors. Because my work is very connected to space, and the meaning and the function of that particular space to the setting ( space) of the image, I'm very excited to be moving out of the expected into the setting of the others, where I will only be a short visitor And this is to my advantage, I hope because without being used to a certain context, you are more prone to seeing these stories or inventing them, on the fine line of the visible and the invisible.

timeline

South America from October 17 - December 05 2018. Three weeks in the jungle, three weeks in the desert. This is the material production time. Editing time is from December to April. Research time already started and will last until I finish my project.

who can help you and how

From the top of my head, Brian Eno, John Cale, Terry Riley, Moondog, Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Tacita Dean, Parva Naturalia, Donna J. Haraway and experimental futures, Agnes Martin, Maria Reiche . Guna Yala lullabies, and many more.

relation to previous practice

I hope to find some coherence and a connecting thread with my current exploration of the subtle mystery of image, its magical symbolism, its energetic vibrations and even healing properties. Using the 16mm filming format as a scenography tool - using image ( and its notorious flickering atmosphere) as a designing tool.

relation to a larger context

I still have to make room for myself and find a setting I will operate in. There are so many themes that can connect with my research and can be interweaved within my project, but I have to stay really focused not to lose myself to them. I'm in the process of dicovering many new anthropological impulses connected to the category of cinema called the New Nonfiction.

references

1.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-INeMspNSQ0

Spinning Away Brian Eno, John Cale

Up on a hill, as the day dissolves With my pencil turning moments into line High above in the violet sky A silent silver plane - it draws a golden chain One by one, all the stars appear As the great winds of the planet spiral in Spinning away, like the night sky at Arles In the million insect storm, the constellations form On a hill, under a raven sky I have no idea exactly what I've drawn Some kind of change, some kind of spinning away With every single line moving further out in time And now as the pale moon rides (in the stars) Her form in my pale blue lines (in the stars) And there, as the world rolls round (in the stars) I draw, but the lines move round (in the stars) There, as the great wheels blaze (in the stars) I draw, but my drawing fades (in the stars) And now, as the old sun dies (in the stars) I draw, and the four winds sigh (in the stars) Songwriters: Brian Peter George Eno / John Davies Cale

2.Klaus Nomi The cold song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLG9pW5-EAc

What power art thou Who from below Hast made me rise Unwillingly and slow From beds of everlasting snow See's thou not how stiff And wondrous old Far unfit to bear the bitter cold I can scarcely move Or draw my breath I can scarcely move Or draw my breathLet me, let me, Let me freeze again Let me, let me Freeze again to death Let me, let me, let meFreeze again to death... Songwriters: Gordon Sumner

3. Miles Davis in a silent way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMINC9EOZME

4. Alice Coltraine ft Pharoah Sanders- Journey into Satchidananda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQtEFdyhgdE

5. Moondog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMyjoYGGlNw

6. Sun Ra : It's after the end of the world

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3alIZ7llxQ

7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMyjoYGGlNw

Moondog from the H'art songs

I'm this, I'm that; I'm sharp, I'm flat; I'm young, I'm old; I'm hot, I'm cold;

I'm right, I'm wrong; I'm weak, I'm strong;I'm high, I'm low; I'm fast, I'm slow; I'm here, I'm there; I'm foul, I'm fair;

I'm bold, I'm shy; I'm wet, I'm dry;

I'm good, I'm bad; I'm gay, I'm sad;

I'm lost, I'm found; I'm free, I'm bound;

I'm best, I'm worst I'm blessed, I'm cursed;

I'm false, I'm true; I'm I, I'm you!