Garden Daftar Manifesto/Exhibition Proposal Regarding: Nedim/Talal/Rashad Daftar (online)-Daftar Garden (Tapies Fondacion) exhibition April/May 06 As of Berlin KW Iraq Equation, We, Nedim/Talal/Rashad have been working on a new edition of Daftar> Garden Daftar. This has taken the form of an on line (creative flow) in conference, conversations and internet file exchange. The discourse, research, art exchange and inspirational work processes between us is documented in detail > text, graphic illustrations and works including objects, computer animations and programming. www.daftar.nl presents a sketch (example) of this interaction, the definitive outcome to be uploaded after additional site construction and editing. We aim to be on line by the exhibition date this being a website launch as well as Garden Daftar exposition. Former editions of Daftar(Notebook) were concerned with art in general presented online in basic magazine format, Daftar Garden explores a broader interrelation of issues within art and the medium used; computer and internet (new media) and Culture in light of the present situation in Iraq, set within universal paradigms of reality and the virtual, continuity and nothing. Daftar Garden is intensely modern, a further degree of exile from the norm in search of an ancient (Ur) language and home. It is the modernity of the medium and what it represents with/to our contemporary art practice with its subjective and global heritage that we are in dialogue with. Daftar Garden (Hadiqa) has a simple manifesto gathering us and our creativity in a working belief that bipolarity is a universal commonality. This bipolarity is the lever whose pivotal point is one and the same (give or take) for all of us, be this in our mind, our environment or globally. We seem to be at a tipping point in many ways and as in Daftar Garden need to define the obscured obvious returning a fundamental base from perversions of the idea. Just like water channelled into fields, art can overcome the will foreign to life. And like water, art is both real and virtual, more than its parts or any icon. Art is found where ever there is well being or tragedy and is only hollow in dishonesty, made ugly by stupidity and/or exceptionality in a denial of principles of mutual understanding and proportionality. Fondacion Tapies a Garden Daftar installation proposal in the manner of Daftar Garden conversation with images Rashad Salim: We propose a spatial installation Daftar "Garden" in Fondation Tapies Museum Talal Refit: I propose placing seed symbols at the poles for example: basement >Compost Rashad Salim: and have a dark room built with no angles: inner space Talal Refit: at which location, entrance? Rashad Salim: no, the junction defined by the polarities Virtual, Inverse Space, Ground zero, parallels and inversion >< extraversion,
Rashad Salim: build it like the wood structures in KW Berlin…if possible larger and non linear. Nedim Muhsin: like the inside of the head or skull, we are looking at transitions from virtual representation to actualised (physical) art works Talal Refit: I wish to locate the elements of the installation in a logical place or area and have symbolic dimensions >location signifiers to the design of this space. Talal Refit: But let’s maintain a flexible project approach to ease it's efficacy Rashad Salim: The built space can be entered by a spiral as represented in the Sammara Milwiya but inverted excluding light into a darkness more complete then that of Berlin. In this darkness are objects, presentations and projections from Daftar Garden. Talal Refit: yes exactly, the installation must posses the same character of physical transparency and subjective involvement Rashad Salim: A space where the virtual garden, its thought, imagining and memory take form defined by artificial light…exploring into and out from the idea of Ground Zero. Nedim Kufi: On a night flight last month from Beirut we passed over Milan, it looked like pearls strewn. I remembered Baghdad, I was transported to Baghdad as if flying above it recollecting nights of drink and pleasure forgetting that I was above Milan. I would like to project a vision of these lights, to see this again maybe as a screen print on glass, backlit from the floor... maybe as a curtain punctuated with holes. Rashad Salim: Do you see this in the dark room and how is it linked to the garden? Nedim Kufi: Baghdad is the garden… now in a night of transgressions, her sky as well. I wish to erase from the garden sky the nightmare...with light, even if now only with virtual light Talal Refit: I wish to construct a minimal model of the Milwiya (Samara Minaret): this core installation at the axis of the polarities extending outward into analogue space and time Talal Refit: imagine being in the “eye of the hurricane”, all around things flying turning in a storm but you are in an absolute stillness…I see this stillness centred on the Milwiya… an axis of virtual stillness dominating the vectors that pass through the installation and the Museum building. Rashad Salim: Yes I guess this virtual axis is the one we are now in. The process as well as the means of our work and conversations could take any of a number of representational forms including>performance>projection>graphic printout and collage…it depends on what Iraq Equation and The Fondacion will allow to happen Talal Refit: if we succeed in visualising this fact in minimal appliance that would be perfect, as transparent as possible using simple symbols and effectively corresponding these elements in a geometry of signals sent pole to pole… knowing or feeling this without necessarily (on one level) …building it Rashad Salim: leading back to Daftar Garden space and its geomantic orientation in the museum space, so we project a multi dimensional and virtual topography where these symbolic points connect in the delivery. Talal Refit: yes the subjective vectors produced from the poles cross-sect where the visual elements of our installation take place Rashad Salim: Daftar Garden’s textual body from key words to conversations and articles have been integral to the art making and the
understanding…these elusive concretes, illuminated in a dark space silent except for the sounds of water flowing> the Sawaqi (small irrigation canals) of our virtual Daftar Garden. Talal Refit: or just a telephone standing there when you pick it up, it speaks to you Rashad Salim: maybe, but what about three LCD monitors + one = four small monitors Talal Refit: that can be a box with four walls? Rashad Salim: I prefer nonlinear space, the linearity derived from the art and objects in the space but it would be interesting to have text strips (digital or analogue) linking the monitors or otherwise representing our conversations. Nedim Kufi: ( ﺍﻟﺼﻤﺖ ﺍﻟﺘﺎﻡabsolute silence) Nedim Kufi: ( ﺍﻧﺎ ﺍﺟﺪ ﺍﻟﻤﻌﺮﺍﺝ ﺍﺭﻗﻰ ﻣﺮﺍﺣﻞ ﺍﻻﻓﺘﺮﺍﺿﻲI consider The Miraj : Prophet Mohamed’s night journey and ascent to heaven, the supreme virtual passage) Rashad Salim: this is the issue between the world of “traditional” virtual reality and the contemporary happening) Nedim Kufi: ( ﻭﻫﻮ ﺳﻔﺮ ﺧﺎﺭﺝ ﺍﻟﺰﻣﻦit’s a journey outside of time) ﺍﻭ ﺍﻁﺎﺭ (ﺍﻟﺰﻣﻦframework of time)( ﺑﻞ ﺍﺳﺮﻉ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺰﻣﻦquicker then time) Talal Refit: yes the journey outside time and space Nedim Kufi: ( ﻭﻫﻮ ﻛﺬﻟﻚ ﻭﺍﻗﻊ ﺣﺎﻝas it is also the reality of a state)( ﻟﻠﺤﺎﻟﻤﻴﻦfor dreamers) ( ﻭﺍﻟﻤﺒﺪﻋﻴﻦand Creatives) Rashad Salim: you know the Askari (golden) mosque also in Samara that got blown up…well that represents another traditional (virtual) gateway, a link to the end of time as we have known it Nedim Kufi: ( ﺍﻟﻌﺮﺍﻕ ﺍﺣﻮﺝ ﻣﺎﻳﻜﻮﻥ ﺍﻟﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻤﺖIraq is in dire need of silence) Talal Refit: the whole world needs this The manifestation at the Iraq Equation Exhibition Barcelona is not the end objective of Garden Daftar but another step forward in stewardship. Daftar
the Milwiya in Sammara/Iraq
Baghdad at night/ map from Google Earth