[蒸汽船] Steamboat in the Making, navigating the turbulent world-sea

Image: sssttteeeaaammm, installation view

Praktijk in collaboratie: [蒸汽船] Steamboat in the Making, navigating the turbulent world-sea

[Info box: (on the right of the screen, next to the text)] Auteur: sssttteeeaaammm Location: ruimteCAESUUR, Lange Noordstraat 67, Middelburg, Nederland Witte Rook en ruimteCAESUUR bieden in 2020 samen een beeldend perspectief op de rol van internet in de artistieke praktijk en bevragen tegelijkertijd de waarde van offline tentoonstellingsplekken.

--[蒸汽船] Steamboat is a long term exploratory project by three ArtScientists Nele Brökelmann, Katarina Petrović and June Yu. We came together under a loosely defined interest and wonderment about the origin. As Bernard Stiegler said: “The question of the origin is what constitutes the whole of human

individuation, that is, the whole of desire: the whole of human being insofar as it is essentially desiring.”

The quest of origin taken from different perspectives between us is linked by this essential humanly quest of becoming.

Invitation to a soundwalk: [蒸汽船] Steamboat Drift https://www.sssttteeeaaammm.com/drift.html

at another time stamp these are guidelines for a set of operations directed towards a morphology between shapes seen and unseen visible and thinkable

In our work we are interested in the nature of support structures, from the cosmic sea and the world turtle to screen windows and google search results. In this work, the score is designed to take you on the drift with us. It is a dérive that aims to open up space for explorations of your immediate surroundings and/or your inner landscapes.

In 1956, Guy Debord described dérive as a strategy for movement quite different from that of a journey or a stroll. Characterizing it as a playful, constructive behaviour and awareness of psychogeographical effects. In which one lets go of usual motives for movement and action “and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there.”

www.sssttteeeaaammm.com

Situating In the summer of 2019 Nele Brökelmann, Katarina Petrović and June Yu came together to talk about their shared interest on the origins of things. A year later they found themselves in the production phase for their first exhibition in Middelburg at ruimteCAESUUR curated in collaboration with Witte Rook. Nele, Katarina and June’s experimentation with ways of collective writing, researching and making, as a proposition and training ground for multi-authorship, had taken such a substantial role in their artistic practices that the three decided to take a leap into materializing their ongoing conversations and thought-processes in the form of a process presentation. The first manifestation took place

in July and August 2020. The exhibition consisted of two animations, a video essay and research materials. During the opening a collective soundwalk was performed with the present audience, which is still accessible via the link here.

For the finnissage of that exhibition, on Sunday 23 August, Nele, Katarina and June extended the conversation in a live streamed Artist Talk with Hans Overvliet (ruimteCAESUUR) and Esther van Rosmalen (Witte Rook).

The following text is a screenplay for six characters (three artists, two curators and the steamboat), extracted and adapted from the Artist Talk transcript.

In Four Dimensional Space — Now Nele, Katarina and June are in a multi-logue with the collected materials, events and once again another leap into their second exhibition at Trixie, the Hague. It is the end of September 2020, where has the [蒸汽船] Steamboat been and what did it pick up from it’s stop in Middelburg?

Embed video instead of image: [蒸汽船] Steamboat in the Making (v.1), 2020

Recalibrating - Artist Talk, 23 August 2020 Boarding characters pulled together by string formations.

June with a mind in the clouds speaks the break.

June (On Scene) This wondering about where things start really is the backbone for the turn of thinking support, because how things start implies the question of how things came to be, and the question of how things came to be can only exist with the support and therefore existence of other things.

The steamboat enters the scene as a scribble.

Steamboat (O.S.) I sailed through the veil of mountainous vapor.

Katarina wants to talk about talking.

Katarina (O.S.) The process of getting to know each other's perspective was left open and it was to be seen where that leads us. We could support each other by talking to each other, but we could also, by that same talking, build something together where other artists and their processes and practices can take something from our exchange. The longer we are in conversation, the more we realize that we act as a group, but also as an individual. We are thereby always oscillating between expressing our own views and the view of the group.

Talking through language, a thought important to mention by Nele.

Nele (O.S.) Our shared language is English, neither of us speaks the others’ mother tongue. Therefore we are from the very start of our collaboration in a continuous translation. It enriches and feeds the dynamics between us.

Image: Giel Louws, from the collective drift during the opening

Fastforwarding A post-thought to be emerged that perhaps necessarily overlooks the history of everything that happened, a postthought in conversation with the speakers, who at that time did not know exactly what is to be said at the next instant.

The knowing not knowing, speaking yet not knowing exactly what to say captures June’s attention.

June (O.S.) This doubleness in that we are observing something building amongst the three of us while it unfolds is, in my view, the poetry. It is the consciousness in observation of itself, of not being able to capture itself. So it is us really not being able to capture this thing that we are trying to build. Yet, we are giving it an enormous amount of time, attention and care - that to me is the poetic aspect. That speaks to me.

The knowing not knowing creates a problem of stability and trust.

Kata (O.S.) I think what we all definitely share is a really strong associative method of going about things. One translation is immediately a hundred more translations. This is sometimes a really good thing and sometimes not.

Laughter fills the space between the characters.

Hans (O.S.) Your mountain is not my mountain, but I will be vulnerable - I have to. I have to be at my best to speak this other language.

‘Are you always comfortable on a wobbly boat?’, thinks and manifests the general mood.

Image: sssttteeeaaammm, installation view

The things that form stable string formations and support a continuous existence gradually take shape in the words being spoken.

June (O.S.) When we talk about the collaboration, where the collective or multi-authorship comes in, is that you bring yourself in front of two others. You not only have to become vulnerable or transparent, but you also have to give your best, you have to strive for a new you.

Hans (O.S.) Even in the word itself: collaboration, there is labour. Labour originating from latin is ‘giving birth to’, a very positive thing and at the same time one of the most painful things you can imagine. And ambiguity is already baked in, but yeah, we try to avoid that. [laughing] Katarina (O.S.) I never thought about that, that we are in continuous labour. [laughing] Esther (O.S.) Tell us about your labour: How does it happen to come to something like this? What is the way to it?

Katarina (O.S.) I think we are asking the same question.

Image: sssttteeeaaammm, view of ruimteCAESUUR during the opening

A loop is formed as the question returns itself to the incapability of being captured or observed. But we will move on, as the boat leaps across the waves.

Esther (O.S.)

You are talking about doubts and interference, on the other hand you work together. That makes you stronger, makes you help each other, so there are less doubts. To me, as I look at you, you don’t have a lot of doubts because you work together.

The boat returns in motion, which redirects the attention to the notion of care.

Katarina (O.S.) It adds some kind of a support that you can ask this group that you work with to think intimately with you, but it doesn’t make anything less of a doubt.

Nele (O.S.) We talked about if we wanted to become an institution or stay away from that. And this constant induce of doubt, which keeps us movable but also on unstable grounds, is what will help us keep learning and not get stuck in a certain agenda.

June (O.S.) That is also where the steamboat comes in and not a steam-train. Because a steamboat navigates a sea that is full of turbulence and changes and uncontrollability-ies.

As the boat heads off into the new new sea, it leaves a trace on the minds, recalibrating its path with every wave it encounters.

Esther (O.S.) You are thinking about the steam in steamboat, mentioning steam as a by-product, but it’s not irrelevant. That is the funny thing - something that is not very relevant becomes more relevant, not in the notion of the steamboat but in the way you speak about it. The steam is the most important thing.

Katarina (O.S.) The same approach is an attitude of care. You begin with what is of the essence to us being human, really, and nurturing that humanity in us, at this age. It is a turn of care and making kin, as Donna Haraway put it - in this reliance that you put in the other, you have more of a kinship, more of a family binding. I personally totally agree with Haraway, I can only foresee that kind of an approach as a constructive way to look at the future.

Because if we are not capable of creating such relationships, well - what are we capable of doing then?

The mist is rising from the mountainous landscape, taking over the scene.

Embed video of [蒸汽船] Steamboat Artist Talk - full length [蒸汽船] Steamboat Artist talk - full transcript