NOWISWERE
Contemporary Art Magazine Issue 째10 January 2012
DEAR READERS OF NOWISWERE BE INVITED TO THIS 10TH ISSUE OF NOWISWERE WHILE WE CELEBRATE OUR FOURTH ANNIVERSARY. THE 10TH ISSUE COMPOSES OF COMMISSIONED CONTRIBUTIONS IN OUR SECTION TH (THematics) ONLY. WE HAVE INVITED SOLEDAD GARCIA-SAAVEDRA, LISA SKURET AND MARIANNE ZAMECZNIK TO FEATURE AN ARTIST OF THEIR CHOICE AND CONTRIBUTE A TEXT RELATED TO HIS/HER PRACTISE. LIKEWISE WE INVITED HEMAN CHONG TO FEATURE A SELECTION OF HIS NEW SERIES OF PAINTINGS WHILE WE COMMISSIONED PER HÜTTNER TO COMPOSE A TEXT IN-RELATION. JOIN US CELEBRATING AND, AS ALWAYS, SPREAD THE WORD. VERONIKA HAUER & FATOS ÜSTEK EDITORS
nowiswere was founded in 2008 Copyrights of the magazine are the property of Veronika Hauer & Fatos Ustek. All rights of the contributions are the property of their contributors. Impressum Editors: Veronika Hauer & Fatos Ustek Layout: Veronika Hauer Contributors: Seth Ayyaz, Carlos Ceruti, Heman Chong, Soledad García–Saavedra, Per Hüttner, Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio, Lisa Skuret, Marianne Zamecznik. Editorial comments and proofreading: Mary Jane Miltner Contact: info@nowiswere.com www.nowiswere.com Cover © Veronika Hauer (Cover Design) & Fatos Ustek (Photograph)
FOUR FIGURES (LOW RESOLUTION) AND A TECHNIQUE OF EXTRACTION:THE BIRD GHOST AT THE ZAOUIA Lisa Skuret, Words Seth Ayyaz, Sonic Figures from the bird ghost at the zaouia (2002-ongoing) .........................................................................................4
Paintings by Heman Chong ......................................................................................12 THE BANK OF VERBS by Per Hüttner ......................................................................................23
IN THE MOOD FOR (SELF) SABOTAGE A conversation with Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio by Marianne Zamecznik featuring works by Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio ......................................................................................30
THE SWIMMER by Soledad García–Saavedra featuring works by Carlos Ceruti ......................................................................................43
THematics: hosting texts up to 1000 words or image material of up to four pages focusing on a single theme.
Four Figures (low resolution) and a Technique of Extraction: the bird ghost at the zaouia Lisa Skuret, Words Seth Ayyaz, Sonic Figures from the bird ghost at the zaouia (2002-ongoing)1
Figure 1: Lilat Vortex 31.51483 -9.76608
Figure 2: After Isha’a Recedes Below the Noise Floor 31.59022 -5.59455
Excerpt: Spectral Smearing the birdghost at the zaouia (2002-ongoing) begins as it continues, with a combination of procedures or techniques of extraction. Seth Ayyaz set his sound piece in motion through a process of field recordings of primarily musical events, which he refers to as ‘sonic-social documents’, from which he subsequently removed all sounds culturally designated as music according to particular Islamic debates2. Ambiguously functioning both as ‘playback engine’ as well as ‘machine for listening’, the piece, using the sounds which remain after the extraction of all music as source materials, continuously reconfigures itself in real-time according to ‘investigations made by ear’ - both human and machine listening, processing and transformations. In my own investigations of the piece, while immersed recently in a multi-channel installation of the bird ghost at the zaouia3, I have the sense that I am located in what appears to be a type of aural drawing process from which it is difficult to detect any single, master narrative. Rather multiple, tangential fragments seem to be set into play, spiralling in many directions. Although I know beforehand that no sound repeats literally, I experience an illusory sense of (linear) progression, in response to an ever-fluctuating soundscape. During a few moments, I feel dizzy; overlaid and distorted objects spin slowly clockwise as I close my eyes. Again and again I come back to find myself looking for meaning as abstracted and active ‘lines’ sound like tendrils, shoots and whips. As well as engaging the piece in terms of what is now highlighted, the perceptual background, or the local sounds that perhaps one was not consciously aware of at the time of listening or recording, a question that I find being produced throughout a listening of the piece is: Can one cleanly extract what has been perceptually foregrounded, or designated as the initial object of attention, from it’s field of relation? Rather than examining these musical, or rhythmic extractions, perhaps now mostly contained in some disregarded folder, in terms of lost objects operating like essentialist background hauntings, does their ‘removal’ result in a different type of trail? True, associations hang around the sounds whether they are shared or purely personal, but perhaps it’s a less meaning-full trail, a blurring, functioning in a way more similar to the technique of ‘local scrubbing’ which Deleuze (after Bacon) explored in The Logic of Sensation. By smearing with the local field of forms, what has been erased, rather than necessarily existing as disappearance, takes on a more diagrammatic function – in that it acts rather than illustrates. Perhaps, the birdghost referred to in the title of the piece is not a ghosting as a presence in absence, but acts in the piece more as an ‘asignifying trait’ with a performative function. In the birdghost at the zaouia, the ‘performance’ of the piece is compositional. Form and function here similarly blurred; there is
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Figure 3: Often Contains a Pool, and Sometimes a Fountain 33.51184 36.30664
little distinction between the acts of making the piece and acts of performing the piece as they both perform a similar function. Acting as both machine for listening as well as playback engine, the composition is ephemeral, a poly-referential, and at times, non-referential, continuously shifting diagram, which through its performance, forces (of power) are harnessed and fleetingly made manifest, enabling new flows to be set into operation. In the case of the erasure of all that has been culturally designated as music (musicking being a particularly human endeavor, which also requires a cognising or cognisant listener for it to be categorized as such), what remains of the human and of human agency? What has been ‘designated (and regulated) as music’ may be the (human) figure, whose representation is similarly prohibited in Islamic aesthetics. If in the preparation for the piece, all documentation of the acts of making music have been scrubbed, are the sonic extractions, which act to smear the local field (recordings), figurative, or are they nonhuman? What is clear is that the sounds whether consciously heard or not, are local and do something locally. The scrubbed sections continue to perform, but not from a (transcendental) distance. The sounds act on, and with, various (non)human listening machines in real-time while at the same time informing, forming, and unforming future listening machines in the present. This process activates a different type of figure more akin to a temporal rather than spatial diagram - active listening, as a type of live diagramming process. Locating myself again as listener, I am struck by the sensation that the piece feels like a call. As poly-vocal elements assembled and re-assembled through various processes of listening, the provisional sonic bodies whether naturalistic or artificial, seem to function as a call. The voice? Whose voice? Who is calling? Who is being called? I’m not suggesting here a self-other pairing as in a musical calland-response, but perhaps to a fictional voice calling itself fleetingly into being in the process of calling. This would not be a voice as a repetitive loop, knot, or a disembodied echo, but functioning to squeeze the meaning out of things, perhaps a voice as non-referent sound. Is this voice human? If the piece then functions as a call, it is a call as an aggregation of multiple, yet undefined, voices. Constantly reconfiguring, there does not appear to be a set figure attached to or behind the sonic manifestations of the piece. Not speaking through words (or as erasures of ‘music’, the language of music), the scrubbed sections too, operate as voices unattached to pre-defined cultural figures. Within the temporalities of active listenings of the piece, I feel as if, in a quiet and excerpted way, I have become implicated. One of many voices diagrammatically working to re-plot configurations to which associations, perhaps previously alien to them, might temporarily attach. And it is these calls, now functioning as types of
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Figure 4: Uses and Abuses of Sound through a Ceiling of Alabaster 51.556711 -0.083342
local yet fictional figures, which suggest to me a process in which fiction is not just a product of the imagination; the calls evoke the sensation that fiction is, as well as functions as, a technique of extraction.
1 the bird ghost at the zaouia is a mutating electroacoustic work for loudspeaker diffusion. It is a sonic fiction that critically engages at the intersection of debates circulating around notions of ‘world music’; the ethics of the microphone and field recordings; and the aesthetic appropriation of acoustic fields into sound art practices. As a multi-channel sound work it exists in three modes: fixed electroacoustic composition, installation and live electronic. Excerpts for your ears: http://www.sethayyaz.com/sound-works/the-bird-ghost-at-the-zaouia. 2 There are debates within Sharia, extending from medieval times, on the ethical permissibility of sound, which Kristina Nelson (2001) has dubbed the ‘sama’ polemic’. To generalise, two poles operate – a (broadly) Sufi influenced perspective that argues for music (under the right conditions) to be itself a spiritual and prayerful practice, through to it’s opposite, a puritanical perspective that holds that music of any kind is intrinsically blasphemous. According to one’s position within the polemic, music exists either as virtue or poison. 3 Installation at Leighton House Museum (London, 2011). The history of Leighton House and its associations with Imperial power was intended to offer a particular context in which to listen.
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Heman Chong Lord of the Flies / William Golding Acrylic on canvas 18 x 24 x 1.5 inches (46 x 61 x 3.5 cm) Signed and dated verso, Unique, 2010
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Heman Chong
The Music of Chance / Paul Auster Acrylic on canvas 18 x 24 x 1.5 inches (46 x 61 x 3.5 cm) Signed and dated verso, Unique, 2010
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Heman Chong
Never Let Me Go / Kazuo Ishiguro (3) Acrylic on canvas 18 x 24 x 1.5 inches (46 x 61 x 3.5 cm) Signed and dated verso, Unique, 2011
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Heman Chong
The Possibility of An Island / Michel Houellebecq (3) Acrylic on canvas 18 x 24 x 1.5 inches (46 x 61 x 3.5 cm) Signed and dated verso, Unique, 2010
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Heman Chong
The Ruined Map / Kobo Abe (2) Acrylic on canvas 18 x 24 x 1.5 inches (46 x 61 x 3.5 cm) Signed and dated verso, Unique, 2010 Time Out Of Joint / Philip K. Dick Acrylic on canvas 18 x 24 x 1.5 inches (46 x 61 x 3.5 cm) Signed and dated verso, Unique, 2011
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The Bank of Verbs
next to the door. The former suggested that I had some money and the second that I had an appointment later in the day. My stomach made noises that indicated that by Per Hüttner I needed to eat. I wanted to go to the kitchen but there -Inspired by paintings by Heman Chong was none. The place comprised of the large room and a bathroom. I could hear the sound of thunder and when I looked out, the sky was dark gray and a heavy wind How do you name a first memory? What do you call and rain engulfed the city. I grabbed the umbrella from something that comes before that, a slight reminiscence the suitcase and left the room. of a sleeping state that yet remains connected to a sensory impression? These are the kind of mundane questions * that manifest the core of my existence. But the more I live and hear the experiences of others, I understand that my The lift was very slow, so I went downstairs using the predicament constitutes a form of luxury. As if I was part stairs and on the ground floor I found myself in a large of a scientific experiment that itself takes the form of a and yet rough industrial- looking lobby. I headed for divine intervention. Unless I explain my predicament what the glassed corner with transparent revolving doors when a voice called out to me. A small rodent-like man I write might not make any sense. came running towards me waving a book. He stopped in front of me panting as if he had run a long distance. * But in fact, the desk was only a few yards away. You see my story does not start with my birth or my genealogy. No, I woke up in a large empty room. That is “Ded ya’ sleeep w’ll, sir?” his pale face kept twitching. not quite true. I woke up to the sound of construction “Very well,” I replied. But the words felt uncomfortable work and with a pounding ache that travelled through and lost in my mouth. my entire body. My skin displayed no visible signs of “Sir, ah’ve beeen a’sked tooo g’ve ya thes,” he held out violence that could explain the pain and yet I knew that another novel without a cover. the numb throbbing in my muscles had kept me from “Thank you,” I looked at the object. It had the word ‘Hunger’ appropriately written across the cover and calm sleep. the author’s name Knut Hamsun beneath it. But there An alarm clock on the bedside table told me that it was was also a sentence ‘do not be surprised by the sand08:47 and the sun shone in through some tall open woman’ written in pencil. windows and a gentle air played with the long white “I though the correct term was ‘the sandman’ and not woman,” I sniggered. curtains. “Ah, beg ya paaard’on,” the rodent twitched. “It is a beautiful day,” I thought to myself and I found “Oh, never mind.” a novel lying on the sheets. It seemed new, though the “Es a rea’lly gooood boook, tha’ one,” he emphasised. cover had been ripped off. Still the title read clearly in “OK, do you know where this place is?” I held out the address indicated in my agenda. bold letters: ‘Crash’. “Ooooh, tha’ es a verry nice restauraaa’nt. Ya juuust “Maybe that is where the pain comes from?” I thought teaaacke the tram 3 tooo the eind o’ the line out’side,” to myself. I started to read the book to find out if there he pointed through the glass door. were any clues to my predicament. As I read on, two “Great, how far is it?” things became clear to me. English did not seem to be “Maaay’beee 45 min’tes,” he smiled. my mother tongue, because there were many words “In what direction?” that I did not recognise. Also, I probably had not been “It ooo’nly go’es one waaay.” in a car crash, because there were no metal contraptions “OK, thanks a lot!” “Not ‘tat aaall” the rodent bowed oddly. “Ah’ll seee ya coming out of my joints. toneght. Enn’joy th’boook!” I got dressed. I found a suitcase with clothes that fit me. As I got dressed the un-definable pain returned and I * had to sit down repeatedly before I was ready to leave. I looked at myself in the tall mirror. The clothes seemed Outside the rain was pouring and the wind was too formal. I looked through the suitcase, but all the deafening. I opened my umbrella and walked a few hundred yards until I found the stop for the number other garments were even more alien to me. 3 tram. There was a sturdy glass hut that protected me I found a combined wallet and agenda on a low table from the rain, so I could fold my umbrella. The place TH + 23
was strangely depopulated considering the number of tram stops. But on the other hand, there was intense and frantic activity at the building site. The building under construction I assumed will be a humongous casino or games arcade. It was easily 7 or 8 stories tall with an asymmetric dome at the top that bulged out over the boulevard. The style was some kind of futurist retro modernism. All the metal beams and outlines of the building were covered with neon lights and lamps of all sorts. Hundreds of Asian guest workers milled around the place and there was welding, angle grinding, electrical installation and painting going on everywhere. I enjoyed the sight of this spectacle with the eyes of a young boy. But suddenly a rough voice called out. “What are you doing here?” three leather-clad policemen eyed me with great suspicion. “Oh, I am waiting for a tram, sir.” “Tram?” “Yes, the number 3 tram.” “Tram!” all three policemen broke out in a hearty laughter. “You really think that there will be a tram this morning? You are joking, right?” “No I am serious, quite serious.” “Really?” the policeman regained a slightly more earnest gaze. “Yes, Really.” “Well you better get the hell out of here. There will be no public transport before 3 pm,” all three men made it absolutely clear that they meant business. “Move on, we can’t have vagrants getting pneumonia right under our noses.” I realized I had better leave, and headed off in search of a place to eat. * It was a bit awkward with the waiters in the beginning. I was thrown out of one place and I was very badly treated by some other waiters. But once I understood the tradition of how visiting restaurants worked, I had a wonderful brunch with meat and vegetables. After that, I went to a local library and alternately read my two books. At 3 pm, public transport started working again and the rain stopped. I left the library and walked back to the tram stop. I didn’t know how to interact with people in the busy streets of the city. Their gazes frightened me and sometimes their smiles seemed to suggest something more than just a friendly recognition of my existence.
I got on the tram and it was a beautiful trip to the place where my meeting was scheduled. The tram took me through some sleepy suburbs of the city. It was green everywhere with children playing innocently. I stepped off the tram next to the sea and breathed in the salty air. The sun came out and it was surprisingly warm. The whole experience was exciting and inspiring. I took off my socks and shoes and walked in the shallow water. I then walked along the beach, sat down and allowed the fine sand to filter between my toes. The restaurant was located in a white painted wooden building with green windows and I sat down in the airy and empty glassed veranda. I didn’t know what or who to wait for. So, I sat there reading Ballard and drinking fruit juice. A lonely waiter folded napkins and polished the silver and my interaction with him went far better than what I had experienced during lunch. When no one showed up, I ordered a filet of fish that I did not like, but it was accompanied by a delicious sauce they said was made of lemon and creamy vegetables they called mashed potatoes. Nothing happened, no one arrived. I spent my time observing the other guest and reading my books. When I asked the waiter to pay and signed my credit card slip, he stared at me with big eyes. “I think we have a package for you,” he whispered. “I beg your pardon?” “I don’t know how to say this.” “Neither do I,” I thought it an odd thing to say and was getting impatient and frustrated. I had already waited for hours. “You see, there was a small package that showed up here a few weeks ago with your name on it,” he looked down. “In the beginning everyone was asking around and trying to find out who this mysterious person could be. But as the weeks went by and nobody could find you, we started joking. So, we called all the guests by your name. I am sorry.” “Oh, that is alright,” I was relieved. “But you still have the package.” “You see the problem is, that someone said. ‘What if it is a bomb or filled with dangerous germs,’ and the discussions went wild.” “So you threw it away?” “Hell no, but we opened it.” “Oh, that is fine. Can I have it please?” “Sure.” We both got up and I followed him towards the kitchen with great excitement. They kept the worn envelope next to the cashier. He gave it to me, with his eyes peeled on the floor. I opened it and it contained another book.
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“It arrived without the cover,” he said nervously. “I know,” I looked at the book. “And there was no message inside the envelope?” “No, just the book without the cover.” I thanked him and walked off staring at the book in my hands. ‘The Woman in the Dunes’ by Kobo Abe. I thought about the message that was written on the Hamsun novel. Still waiting for the tram, I started reading. When I got off the tram, I was surprised to find that all the Asians were still working. They seemed to be even more numerous than this morning, but worked without making a noise. What was even more striking, was that the building was almost complete. But it wasn’t a casino or an amusement park. It was a bank. ‘The Bank of Verbs’ it proclaimed in blinking pink neon. I stepped into the lobby to find the rodent reading at the front desk. He twitchingly gave me three more books without covers. I went to my room and the pink blinking changed the ambiance of the place. I wanted to read some more Abe, but fell asleep almost immediately. *** This is my life story. I am one day old in a grown man’s body. I live in a flat without a kitchen, overlooking a bank that looks like an amusement park. Like yesterday, I awake to a beautiful and splendid morning. I open the windows and allow the fresh air in. I look down and the trams that are coming and going and the bank is open to customers. After my shower, I take my six books and walk down the stairs. I salute the rodent man and step out into the street. But all the trams have disappeared and without any warning a torrential rain descends just like the day before. I leave the books at the front desk and run up to my room to get my umbrella. When I come down, the rodent man holds out a very old belt to me. “What do you want me to do with that?” I ask. “Fo thaa boooks,” his face twitches and he nods at my books. “What, like schoolchildren did way back in the days?” The rodent nods. “That will make me look like a right up idiot, no?” “Nooooo,” he really looks surprised. “Ah haaave thes, if ya’ waaant,” he holds up a stylish leather case. “Bu’ ah assure ya’ tha’ the belt es the latest faaashion.” “OK, I will take your word for it,” I say even if I feel it is the wrong thing to do. “Goood maaan,” he hands me the belt. “Ah’ll seee ya toneght.” *
The rain is far heavier than yesterday, but there is no wind. So, it is actually more manageable. I go to see if there are any trams. The moment I set foot at the tram stop, I can see the three policemen appear in the distance. “Shit,” I say to myself. “How the fuck am I going to get out of this?” I look around and the only escape route leads me directly into ‘The Bank of Verbs’. I dash across the street and enter into a universe that totally baffles me. The whole place is symmetrical and I quickly realize that the entire space is turning like a giant revolving restaurant. On top of that, there are offices that slowly and magically float across the space and everything shines brightly in yellow and red colours. At the centre of the space a giant sign is suspended from the dome some 30 yards up in the air. It spins at such a high speed that somehow the words ‘The Bank of Verbs’ become visible. I stare at the thing in awe and go closer and find that there are immaterial balls that appear and disappear around the sign. They always appear in pairs and on opposite side of the rotating text. I am riveted to the object. However, I can see that the three policemen that have entered the building. They head in my direction with stern faces and confident pace. I walk towards a till where it says ‘new accounts’ where a young man who reminds me of a woman, works. “Well handsome,” he says. “Welcome to the Bank of Verbs, what can I do for you today?” “Oh,” I look over and the policemen have stopped at a distance and scrutinize my movements. “I saw this amazing building and I wanted to hear more about your business idea to see if I should bank with you.” “Well,” the feminine man seems concerned. “Most of our activities are unknown to most of the staff and only very few people close to the CEO know anything about the operation,” he stops. “And the board of course,” he adds nervously. “What do you mean?” “The board of directors knows about our operations.” “I see, but you don’t?” “Gee nooooooo,” he starts to giggle and his hands moves all over his boyish face. “But handsome, tell me, who are you banking with now?” he says. I get out one of my credit cards and show them to him. “Well if you want more than just boring old banking like that, you have come to the right place.” “So, what exactly can you offer?” “We can offer a totally new life.” “Wow, what do I have to do?” “Well, I could start out by trading in some your books.” “Really? Their covers are missing. Is that a problem?” “No, it is even better. Let me have a look at them.” I undo the belt and can see that the policemen turn around to leave. But they look upset and sulky. They
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cast annoyed looks over their shoulders and one of them kicks angrily at a pram. “They are a bit of a menace,” he smiles. “But you know what they say – cops will be cops.” “Oh!” “I could trade in these three,” he holds up the two books that I have read and one that I have duplicates of. “In return, you will get three new books and a credit card.” “Sounds great!” “You will of course get better deals once we have been ‘verbing’ a bit.” “Of course,” I smile a contrived smile. “I need your credit card,” he says while he ducks for a passing office. “Oh, silly me,” I give him back my credit card. He gives me a copy of Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ and Kafka’s ‘The Castle’. But before I can start leafing through them, he rips off the covers and returns them to me with a smile. He processes all the paperwork and gets me to sign some documents and I have the feeling that I am doing the best deal of my life. He heads off to talk to his superior and I wait reading my Orwell. He returns after a few minutes, gives me a beautiful suede pouch for my papers. “It isn’t as trendy as your book carrier, but it is very practical,” he says. I nod my head. “Is there anything else I can do for you?” “Well, I really don’t want to run into the police. Do you have a back door that I can exit through?” “Just follow me.” He walks to a corner of the building where a miniscule lift takes us down into the cellar. We walk in a long, narrow corridor without doors on either side. We come to a brightly lit white door were he types in a security code and we enter into a modern shopping mall. “There you are,” he kisses me on both cheeks with two loud smacks without actually touching me and waves goodbye. “Sorry, can I ask you a question?” “Sure,” he is already holding the door open with his left foot. “You really have no idea how this bank works?” “No, of course not! But,” he waves me over. “I think it is all a great write off that they create for tax reasons,” he whispers in my ear. “OK.” “Bye handsome” he says and the door slams shut. I am alone. * I have lunch in a Korean restaurant eating a delicious kimchi soup that burns my mouth in an interesting and surprising way. I spend most of the afternoon in a café
reading the rest of the Orwell. At 3 pm the weather improves and soon thereafter public transport starts to run. I walk around the city and smile at as many people as possible. They all smile back, some men touch the brim of their hats and others wish me a good afternoon. As the sun sets, my feet feel tired after all the walking. But as I am about to enter a restaurant that only sells drinks I see a familiar silhouette reflected in the glass door. I turn around with both pleasure and fear. I am unsure how to address this situation, but quickly decide I surely have nothing to loose. I cross the street and enter into the building, which is an exact copy of ‘The Bank of Verbs’ I have visited this morning. I walk up to one of the cashiers. “Welcome to The Bank of Verbs, what can I do for you today, sir?” the young lady looks tired and annoyed. I hesitate. “What can I do? I am not familiar with banking.” “Can I have your credit card?” I give her my card. “You can exchange your books.” “That is all?” “No, but what other service would you like?” I think very hard, but my mind is blank. “OK, I would like to exchange this book,” I give her the Ballard. “I can see that you are a new client, that you are in the ‘to have phase’ but that you are doing well so far. Very good! I will be able to give you a good exchange.” “Thanks, that is very kind of you.” “I will give you ‘The Wind up Bird Chronicle’ by Murakami. We have no notation of your language skills. Which language would you prefer?” “What was the original language?” “Japanese,” she frowns. “Can I have a look at it?” I say shocking myself. She disappears for a few minutes. When she comes back she slaps the new book hard on the counter in front of me. I open it and much to my surprise read it without any problem. “I will keep this one.” “Can we note your language skills and mother tongue?” “I am a bit short on time. Can we do that another time?” “Sure,” she rips off the cover. “Anything else, sir?” “What does ‘to have phase’ mean?” “I am afraid I cannot disclose that until you have reached ‘to be phase’.” “And how do I do that?” “I am afraid I cannot disclose that. Anything else?” “No thanks, you have an enjoyable afternoon.” “You have an excellent evening, sir.”
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*
books that I have read. I get a Joseph Conrad’s ‘Lord Jim’ and William Golding’s ‘The Lord of the Flies’. All I find that moving my body is invigorating and decide the reading goes well, apart from the Joyce book that I to walk home. I pass a virtually empty flower shop that find hard to get into. displays a few select and exotic looking plants that bloom with an irresistible beauty in a theatrical light. I have found another bank branch in the opposite side I am drawn to them with a compelling force and enter of town. Even though its architecture is identical to the and watch miracles of nature with an open mouth. I am others, I still find it different and appealing. So, I decide unsure how much time has passed, before a handsome to walk there in the morning sun before the 9am rains man in very nice shirt and dark blue apron approaches start. me. “They are remarkable, aren’t they,” he says. But on my way from the bank, I realise that my eyes “Yes,” I am stunned. “I don’t think I have ever seen such have been replaced during the night. The experience beauty.” with the flowers, has allowed me to look at reality “I am sure that your wife would appreciate it I greatly if differently. I understand that the beautiful objects you brought some home.” on display in the stores’ shop windows are for sale in “I beg your pardon?” exchange for money. “They make a wonderful gift to someone that you love.” The first object I buy is an amazing low table that also “I don’t understand.” functions like a lamp. “I kill two stones with one stone,” “If you have a special friend, you can give them to him I think and hand my credit card over to the sales man. or her.” “I don’t have any friends. Maybe I should?” I smile with “I am afraid with this card there will be an odd 9% pride. surcharge.” he says. “So, why don’t you buy some for your own pleasure?” “Oh, try this one then,” I give him my Verb Bank card. “Really, can I?” “With this one, there is a 35% surcharge!” he says in “Absolutely, which ones take your fancy?” astonishment. I hand him back the first card with a “All of them.” smile and we work out the details for delivery. “Let me reformulate that,” he smiles. “Which ones do I buy a small bookshelf, things for my bathroom and you like best?” little gadgets that will enhance my sleep and robots “I point to some white orchids and some succulents that will clean the different parts of my little home. I with blue flowers.” also buy small and ingenious machines for making tea, “So, why don’t you get some? They would make a coffee and snacks that I have never heard of, but which beautiful bouquet.” seem tasty. Most things are delivered, but I still have “Can I?” so many bags that I need a special shoulder holder for “With great pleasure,” the man picks some out and puts the umbrella. This wonderful contraption allows me to them together in a bouquet which he then holds out use both hands to carry my possessions and still use to me. the umbrella. I stop for a fruit juice and to rest my feet. “Royal!” I start reading a newspaper because I can see that the He wraps the flowers in some paper and I hand over other solitary people around me read newspapers. my card. I find the content very strange and uninspiring. I read strangers’ opinions on mundane and uninteresting Back home, the rodent man helps me to construct a events. When they write about something exciting, vase from an old plastic bottle. I spend hours studying they do it in an over-simplified and moralizing fashion. the flowers. I have never beheld such beauty. I compare I get very upset by the whole experience. The waiter their differences and similarities and how they are suggests that I have an alcoholic beverage to calm constructed. In every leaf and fold I can see millions down, which does the job beautifully. of years of evolution and hundreds of years of genetic grafting. Before I go to bed, I light a small lamp over * the blossoms and fall asleep clutching my pillow and watching their colourful beauty. When I woke up this morning everything that I bought * yesterday is gone and has been replaced by a nagging headache. Magically, the flowers are still here. But When I wake up in the morning, I can see that someone everything else has disappeared. Even the new vase is has pushed a copy of Stanislaw Lem’s ‘Solaris’ under gone and they have put the blossoms in another plastic my door. I go to the bank and exchange a few of the bottle that has been cut in half. TH + 27
I feel very depressed and decide to go to the sea. But the rain has started already and the trams have stopped. So I walk out with my umbrella intending to go to the bank, but have no books to trade in and I really do not feel like reading. I buy a new shoulder umbrella and before I know it, I have bought dozens of things and I am weighed down by shopping bags. The salesman suggests that I take a cab. I am astounded to find that it has a staggering 75% surcharge, but choose to try it all the same. I have never been inside any form of transport apart from the tram, after all. The car is more private, but louder and bumpier and generally less enjoyable than the tram. I have a long lunch and try to read some Joyce, but I cannot focus. When I put the book back into my new expensive bag, I realise someone has slipped a new book in it. I start to read ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’. I enjoy it a lot and lose track of time and eventually I realise that I am late for the deliveries of all the stuff that I have bought today. I hurry home, but stop to buy some gold-lined shower towels. When I try to pay, the woman explains that there is a problem with my card. I leave without the merchandise with a mixed feeling of anger and relief. When I arrive sturdy men are unloading a large dining table and matching chairs. I receive deliveries of different kinds for a few hours. When I am finally alone, I find my home too crowded and cluttered. So I go down to the lobby to talk to the rodent man about what I have read during the day. We talk until late and when lie in bed I wish that someone will rob me of all my possessions. * When I awake, I realise to my great pleasure that my wishes have been granted and the place is as empty as the morning before. I read some more Murakami and when the rain arrives, I take my umbrella to go out and annoy the three policemen. I go to the tram stop and study the timetable. The three leather-clad brutes materialize with great punctuality. I have devised a complex escape plan that I carry out. I watch their confusion, which gives me great pleasure. When I am at the entrance of the bank I whistle and all three men turn to look at me with the same expression of anger. I wave at them with my umbrella and a big smile. They run toward me, but by the time they arrive at the blinking doors, I am already talking to a banker and they know they cannot touch me. “Good morning, there seems to be a problem with my card,” I say and hold up my credit card to the well-groomed woman. She swipes it and some
machines blink and she informs me that I have to go to ‘Regressions and Upgrades’ which is located on the fourth floor. The lifts are like the insides of pinball machines and the muzak agonising. The fourth floor is in relative terms sober and minimal only some large offices move to and fro. When I sit down to wait for the man to receive me, I become aware that I can see my own home in great detail. I believe I can even make out the succulents with blue flowers, but I am not sure. I am called into a room by a balding man behind a large desk. “I am afraid I have some bad news for you,” he looks at me with bored expression. “Oh,” I say. “You have regressed. That is why we had to act.” “Oh.” “It does not look very promising.” I have no idea what he is talking about and there is a long uncomfortable silence between us. He keeps looking at the papers. “So, what can I do to make all of this more promising?” “Oh,” the man replies and then he goes silent. “Maybe you can do things with others?” “What do you mean?” “With your wife, friends or colleagues.” “I don’t have any.” “Look,” he removes his glasses. “Who is the nicest person you have met?” “You.” “That cannot be,” he laughs. “If you close your eyes and think about the most enjoyable time you have spent with anyone.” I do as I am told. “You can open your eyes now,” he says after a long time. “Whom did you think about?” “Mostly, I was thinking about you.” “Anyone else?” “Yes, I was also thinking about the rodent man.” “So, do something with him.” “Like what?” “What do you do together?” “We talk.” “Oh,” I sit and think for what seems like an eternity. “I want to exchange this,” I hold out the Conrad book. “Even if I have not quite finished it.” “You can have ‘Briefing for a Descent into Hell’ by Doris Lessing or ‘The Tempest’ by William Shakespeare.” “I don’t want them.” “You can have ‘The Waves’ by Virginia Woolf or ‘The Music of Chance’ by Paul Auster. “I don’t want them.” He goes on repeating the names of dozens books and finally I say. “You don’t understand.”
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“I am sure I do.” “Well, I want another copy of ‘Ulysses.’ That’s what I want.” “Oh,” he says and picks up a copy that lies next to his computer and hands it to me. I rip the cover off and give it back to him. “You have a good day,” I reach out my hand and he shakes it oddly. I get up and leave. “Excuse me,” he says as I am about to close the door. “I have to re-evaluate your situation.” “Oh,” I say and leave. When I stand waiting for the pinball lift and listen to the annoying muzak, he peeks out from his office. “For the better that is,” he proves that he can smile. I smile back and step into the pinball machine. * I walk home in the rain and I find the rodent man reading at the front desk to my great pleasure. “Goood Morrn’en, ded ya’ sleeep w’ll, sir?” his pale face twitches. “Yes I did. I also have a present for you.” “Fooor mie?” “Yes, Have you read this?” I give him the copy of ‘Ulysses’. “Weeell, Ah haaave tried a fieeew t’mes, bu’ never got paaasst paaage 8,” he laughs. “Neither have I, so I thought that we read it together. A few pages a week and like that we will eventually make it!” “Cooool, Ah’ll aaask mah frieeend ‘ose a wrrrieterrr tooo join us. Heee ‘ould looove that.” “Amazing, I will get a copy for him from the bank tomorrow.” “Wyie, dooon’t wie gooo tooo the sea’side ‘oootel on sat’rrr’day?” “Perfect! Let’s read the first 10 pages and see what happens?” “Siuure!” “I go back to my room and start my investigations into Bloomsday 1904. I can feel that something fundamental is moving inside of me.”
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Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio, Untitled, 2011
IN THE MOOD FOR (SELF) SABOTAGE A conversation with Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio
MARIANNE ZAMECZNIK: According to Wikipedia the word sabotage derives from 15th century Dutch when workers would throw their sabots (wooden shoes) into the wooden gears of the textile looms to break the cogs, fearing the automated machines would render the human workers obsolete. Or it derives from the French sabot (a wooden shoe or clog) via its derivative saboter (to knock with the foot, or work carelessly) or it derives from the late 19th-century French slang use of the word sabot to describe an unskilled worker, so called due to their wooden clogs or sabots; sabotage was used to describe the poor quality work which such workers turned out. LORENZO: The concept of sabotage provides an interesting key to my work. It gives meaning to a large part of the behavior of the artist not normally seen as work, but belonging to the sphere of life. Self-sabotage in my case is a clue to the blurred distinction between what I call “work” and “not work”. Now I am very interested in what you mentioned regarding the origin of the word in the context of industrial production. It seems you can draw a parallel between production of goods and the art system. Non-professional production, or sabotage, can be an instrument of workers’ struggle against exploitation. If we carry this concept to the art world we can say that there are artists who act in accordance with the rules of production and artists who do not act according to these rules. MARIANNE: At the risk of being ignored, under-estimated and without possibility to work. LORENZO:Well – maybe it is a bit naive to say that you will become invisible and without money if you don’t act according to the rules. I think it’s important to understand that self-sabotage is not a conscious choice. It’s something that is linked to your background, or attitude, it is a part of your identity, but encompassing culture, encompassing everything. Maybe the key to this discussion about self-sabotage, industrial production and the art system is quite simply that a part of your behavior is not conscious - otherwise it would be quite pretentious to compare an industrial system, with workers and loss and capital, to what happens in the world of an artist. MARIANNE: But in many ways the role of the artist is comparable to that of the alienated industrial worker. TH + 31
LORENZO: A good parallel between art and industrial production could be to see the super professional artist as a kind of Stakhanovite1, a symbol of an overachieving worker who raises the standard of production, raising the bar for the rest of us, turning our work into some sort of perversion as regards to what you need to produce in order to meet the requirements of the system. MARIANNE: I guess there are some Stakhanovites around, some famous art practitioners who have a crazy output in terms of quantity.Work faster, network more, read more, travel more and produce more or you lose your job. LORENZO: And that is maybe why content is not always that interesting. In the end this is how one produces ideology. The comparison between the worker in art and in the industry leads to an interesting analogy. For example, we could say that there are some disciplined artists doing everything that the system expects of them. And then there are some artists who don’t - and the difference between these two different attitudes is the goals and expectations they generate. I think art practitioners today feel the pressure of satisfying the expectations of an audience or an elite in the field of arts. But there is a large group of people who put another emphasis on the word “art”, and who work with art because it’s necessary - because art exists in the world of ideas. If you work very hard on public relations and spend a lot of time sending emails, you risk to miss out on that. MARIANNE: Each artist should work and behave according to his or her own way of thinking, as one of many possible ways of working. Maybe resistance to the market driven system in the form of sabotage is indeed necessary in order to keep the field of art open. LORENZO: Maybe there is no real answer to this. For me, it can happen that I don’t work for a long time and then I work. For long periods of time I don’t read about art. Sometimes I have long periods without seeing exhibitions. I make an exercise out of trying to avoid memorizing the names of artists - just the artworks. And I read more about politics and society than about art. MARIANNE: I guess in the near future, if one believes the doomsday prophesies about a new depression, nobody is going to make money on contemporary art anyway. And if you take away the collectors, you have a very different view of art.We will have to redefine how we work and what we are really working on.Today still, becoming an artist is a real career choice. LORENZO: Training young artists to become “publishers” of themselves is one of the perversions of our times. How can you define what you are going to do and define its quality? It means that you already know what you are doing. What room can you then give to
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the sphere of ideas in your work? MARIANNE: For many artists the studio practice is not important anymore either. LORENZO: I’m not talking about studio practices. I’m really talking about it on a theoretical level. Some artists make work that is so perfectly structured. I strive to do something I cannot define, but that maybe someone else can define - in another context or in another time. We have some artists who claim they do political art. It is not enough to declare what you are doing. Doing that is attempting to objectify it. MARIANNE: I’m linking this to studio practice because I’m thinking about how investigations on the theoretical level can happen in dialogue with the material. Maybe it’s a romantic idea about material, or theory. Looking at your work, it seems you have a very close dialogue with materials. I am guessing that your work not only comes out of walking in the street looking at the world around you. LORENZO: Well, I do work with certain materials. For me it is important they have an affected quality, something that reminds me of the idea of sabotage. Something that gives me a familiar feed back. Sometimes my working hours are spent in the studio, but not all the time, not at all. It is not something defining my work. But the materials I work with are things that remind me of something else - they need to have their own background. You have seen the stuff in my studio. It’s a bunch of rubble that I find on the street; things that give me feed back on everyday life. MARIANNE: Your use of materials gives your work a certain style, a kind of homemade style that makes me think of you as a crazy inventor. LORENZO: I guess one could say that I have a style, but apart from the materials inherent limitations, I always strive for some sort of perfection. Like the clock machine I showed at Momentum for example - the form was “home made”, but apart from this it was also striving for a sort of perfection, mathematical and logical. MARIANNE: A clock is in itself an ambitious instrument to carry out in this form. LORENZO: It is the form of failure.The clock is a good example of what I’m trying to talk about. MARIANNE: Self-sabotage and sabotage are very different - one being psychological, the other being strategic, an expression of resistance. At the same time they have some nice overlaps; one part of you opposing the rest of you. As a human, one part of you wants to fit into society, into the system, while at the same time something inside you wants to be awake and wants to do the right thing. On the other hand, the psychological sense of self-sabotage is destructive TH + 33
force, a movement inwards, reinforcing itself, not leading to any resolution. LORENZO: Self-sabotage is not an action that you consciously do in a programmatic way. It is unconscious and more linked to an attitude. In this regard sabotage is something that connects you to the most intimate parts of yourself. Self-sabotage expresses a fear of failure. The first failure you experience in life is when you have to approach language. In that moment you experience the gap between what you feel, what you need and the representation of this. You have to start to use language. As soon as you start to touch the language-problem, whether it is learning to draw, write or talk, you are attempting to translate what you want into action. You will immediately produce an image of failure. Maybe one can define sabotage as exposing this failure of translation. I think this exposition is an act of liberation. It sets you free. MARIANNE: Your work is in many ways articulating failure. Your pieces work but they are also frail. They look as if they are about to break down, be it in the glitches in the machinery or in the materials you use. LORENZO: Looking at my work through the prism of sabotage, I guess one can boil it down to a question of will.What we are trying to demonstrate is that there is no will behind this kind of sabotage, but rather an attitude. There’s no manual for sabotage. It is something involuntary, something you cannot control. In my work, I want to nullify the distance between the work and the person that makes the work. MARIANNE: Does it mean that the work itself is a transition between you as a worker and you as a person? So the work itself reveals you and your work, the whole picture. The saboteur striving for liberation. That’s kind of beautiful. But tell me: what does your day of sabotage look like? LORENZO: I would rather define my day in terms of pursuing a set of goals. I strive to be free - in a very post modern way. I’m the owner of my own time - I still feel this - which is no small thing these days. Another goal is to have a high quality life and to have the possibility to investigate the real. MARIANNE: All in all, even if the field of art and its top-down power structure is full of hypocrisy, it is a good place to do a wide range of investigations - it is a place of liberty in the end. Even if you don’t get rich. LORENZO: If I was rich I would be happy too, but the world we are living in is so horrible, so it’s no point in seeking fame, power and money. It is much more important to be conscious about what is happening around you in this segment of time. It is the most important satisfaction you can have in your life.
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Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio Installtion view at Momentum Biennial, Moss, 2011. Foto:Vegard Kleven Pages 34/35 Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio Untitled, 2007 Photography, 100x140 cm Courtesy Galleria Fonti Napoli
1 Stakhanovite; The Stakhanovite movement began during the second 5-year plan in Russia as a stage of the socialist competition. The Stakhanovite movement was named after the worker Aleksei Stakhanov, who had mined 102 tons of coal in less than 6 hours (14 times his quota). The Stakhovite resolution of 1935 stated; “The Stakhanovite movement means organizing labor in a new fashion, rationalizing technologic processes, correct division of labor, liberating qualified workers from secondary spadework, improving work place, providing rapid growth for labor productivity and securing significant increase of workers’ salaries”. Any opposition to the movement caused the label of “wrecker”, according to Robert Service in A History of Modern Russia, from Nicholas II to Putin.
Page: 38 Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio Apartment plant, 2000 Digital print on paper, 140x100 cm. Courtesy Galleria Fonti Napoli Pages: 40/41 Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio Untitled, 2005 Photography, 70 x 100 cm
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The Swimmer by Soledad García–Saavedra
This is how space begins, with words only, signs traced on a blank page. George Perec My first encounter with Carlos Ceruti’s artistic practice came about when I embarked upon the curatorial outline of a group show called Urban Residues1 in Santiago, Chile, and I invited him to participate with a commissioned piece. The exhibition explored the potentiality of physical and immaterial outcomes in the everyday life and territory of Valparaíso, a region located about 75 miles from the capital of Chile. Enclosed by hills and valleys, its urban fabric right upon the coast of the Pacific Ocean, and at the core, the dynamics of the ports, industrial oil refineries and settlement expands into rural communities and landscapes. In addition to this panoply, the exhibition observed the current states of abandoned and disposal waste in the cities through artworks that looked for alternative revalorizations of rejected or ‘out of place’ materials and sites.As Whiteley2 or Mellado3 have pointed out, discarded and unwanted things depend on economic wealth and excess of production. By the same token, their encounters are revived in the cycle of use, forgotten and discovering objects, artefacts and places that prompt a different use for their states of ruin and obsolescence. Although this is a modern condition of cities around the world, the particular situation of Valparaiso and its emblematic seaport, stands on what Mellado called heritage trash, a word-irony that deals with the twofold sense of legacy. His assertion reflects on the controversial world heritage status of the city declared by UNESCO in 2003 as Humanity Patrimony reporting in its aims the conservation of its cultural sites. Such a scenario opens up questions whether some cities might rely on their picturesque garbage to preserve their cultural identity. Furthermore, whether this endless complaint about the actual conditions could remove and turn these messy tensions into artistic acts and reformulations? These interrogations, involved in the framework of the exhibition, compose the wider-base contexts that specifically evolve in the work proposed by Ceruti through contingent journeys. In 2009, Ceruti initiated, together with the photographer Ramón Aldunate, a research and collaborative project entitled Cartografía de la fisura (Fissure’s Cartography), proposing as both a photographic data record of abandoned spaces and forgotten suburbs in Valparaíso and a Manifesto. The latter embraced conceptual ground akin to Gordon Matta-Clark’s
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Design plan of The Swimmer by Carlos Ceruti
thematic of anarchitecture. Particularly, the manifesto depicted the inevitable and positive entropy of cities, seeking to reveal the natural decadence of a natural cycle operating within the framework of social and urban residues. These issues and facts were collected and integrated by Aldunate and Ceruti into the cartography project and revealed fortuitous constructions, wastelands, deviant and deserted spaces of the local suburb in Viña del Mar, a city of Valparaíso region. Amongst these, both artists selected the abandoned setting of a communal pool to produce the ongoing installation project, The Swimmer. c f i r s t o s s
The Swimmer’s inventory: a. 20 meters of steel b. 5,000 blank sheets of notes c. 8 fluorescent lamps d. 1,000 meters of nylon fishing thread e. 10 rolls of tape This initial version took the form of a large, curved indoor metal structure covered in its external and internal surfaces by 5,000 blank sheets that imitated on a smaller scale the abandoned pool from a sport complex recorded in Fissure’s cartography. As the artist was working in Viña del Mar and the installation was destined to travel to Santiago, the metal structure required an adaptable and easy way to built and dismantle responding to the demands of transport and fast tempo of exhibition installing. Divided into six parts and joined by cables and plastic rods, the metal structure was overlaid by cheap sheets of school notebooks with carefully matched lines. - Each sheet to then be freely and quickly destroyed. The preference of these materials and their destiny, features the provisional, ephemeral and contingent architectures designed by Ceruti, but also reflect on the ordinary nature of things, their eventual journeys and their passing time. In addition, the flexible structure and the external contour of the pool composed of blank sheets, enables us to think in an in-between space of potentiality regarding to upcoming
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and preceding gestures, and its actual form. In our minds as in the actual use, it implicitly stimulates the familiarity of written letters and stories of the moment and all the doodle signs that could be draw in the straight lines of notes. Nonetheless, those potential acts remain absent, recalling instead, a path of missing words or void texts, somehow the erasure and disappearance of the past. This time frame, delivers a temporary existence of Ceruti´s work, which reflects on the shifting flux of time, mind and objects and their evanescence trajectories. Yet, these lines will turn more comprehensive if we detain in The Swimmer´s fictional journey, the one that gives the title to the installation piece. In 1964 the writer John Cheever published his short story The Swimmer, which entails the one-way journey of the main character Ned, into familiar and unknown territories that takes place in the course from one pool to another conforming an infinite one. Depicted by uncommon edges, grounds and surfaces, the pool itself becomes a compass on a diverted map, whilst the swimmer becomes a cartographer who navigates through its own vague records and loose memories. It is a voyage of impossible return, of illusionary now’s and at the end, of lost destiny; a direction that constantly loses its track. Naturally, the story drives into the essence’s account of time, water or words; all of them slipping through our fingers unless we get a forceful grip on it, put it in record, a capsule, a glass, or print them on a blank sheet of paper. The domestic container of the pool reflects as well on that urging control, but if the container it is slightly open, it changes or moves, its corpus gains different forms, granted by the particular realities of each new space of appearance. That’s the stream of The Swimmer´s journey. S EC O N D RIFT
Traveling back to its original setting, the most recent installation of The Swimmer took place this November for two days at the centre of an old and empty stadium’s field in Concón’s municipal soccer’ site, a small borough in Valparaiso. It took a collaborative form, as the installation was surrounded by four paper printed photographs of Aldunate distributed in the direction of the four cardinal points, depicting sequences of a vague figure falling into the water. At the mid or zero point, the different version of the installation positioned a new surface, adopting flour sacks from the nearby bakery of Concón’s neighbourhood. The
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The Pool, Photograph by Ram贸n Aldunate & Carlos Ceruti
entire piece looked from a zenith view nearly composing a cross portraying a symbolic sign for the current circumstances of the stadium. Here we came across to a new episode of a possible case of heritage-trash. As new constructions replace the old ones, the stadium might be converted into a more efficient and productive terrain. It faces an uncertain, fragile and unpredictable situation, which brings the stadium into limbo. Or as The Swimmer foresees, it might be natural to swim towards the course rather than against the tide? 1 Urban Residues was a group show curated by me that took place in the III Chilean Art Fair, Ch.ACO at the Centro Cultural Estaci贸n Mapocho, Santiago de Chile. The exhibition examines our relations and behaviours within the city and its potential outcomes through the works of the artists Anamaria Briede, Carlos Ceruti, Guillermo Gonz谩lez, Antonio Guzm谩n, Luis Salas Van der Meer y Carlos Silva & Alfredo Da Venezia. 2 Whiteley, Gillian, Junk, Art and the politics of Trash, I.B.Tauris, London, 2011, 4 3 Mellado, Marcelo, La Provincia, Editorial Cuneta, Santiago, 2011 (2001), 7-33
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The Swimmer, Installation view at show Urban Residues, Ch.ACO, Estaci贸n Mapocho, Santiago. Courtesy of the artist
The Swimmer, Installation view at the Municipal stadium of Conc贸n,Valpara铆so. Courtesy of the artist.
The Swimmer, Photograph by Ram贸n Aldunate
Contributors Seth Ayyaz lives in London and is composer-performer spanning live electronics, free improvisation, noise, electroacoustic, and Arabic musics. Drawing on his background in neurosciences, his work is concerned with (dis)embodied perceptions and how these resonate across psychological and social spaces. His work offers counter-narratives to current metaphors of cultural exchange and hybridity, instead foregrounding issues of friction, displacement and translation. www.sethayyaz.com Carlos Ceruti is a visual artist. Bachellor in Art and currently completing a Master in Architecture and Design, mention City and Territory at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile. His installations and interventions had been produced in different places of the public space of Valparaíso, Viña del Mar, Concón and Santiago. Among them, highlights Estudios de Cama (2006-2009) and the collective projects Escalofrío / Frases de Hielo (2003), Urbanofagia (2005-07) y Equipaje para una desaparición (2006) supported by Fondart and Balmaceda 1215 (Chilean grants). Heman Chong is an artist, curator and writer. His art practice involves an investigation into the philosophies, reasons and methods of individuals and communities imagining the future. Charged with a conceptual drive, this research is then adapted into objects, images, installations, situations or texts. In 2006, he produced a writing workshop with Leif Magne Tangen at Project Arts Center in Dublin where they co-authored “PHILIP”, a science fiction novel, with Mark Aerial Waller, Cosmin Costinas, Rosemary Heather, Francis McKee, David Reinfurt and Steve Rushton. Soledad García–Saavedra is an independent curator with an MFA in Curating at Goldsmiths College, University of London and History of Art at Universidad de Chile. Current exhibition and publication projects ventures on reframing trash trough artistic works and archives. She was recently resident curator at the 8TH Mercosul Biennial, Geopoetics in Porto Alegre, Brasil. Since 2010, she is coordinator-curator of archive and research of the Centre for Visual Arts Documentation at Centro Cultural Palacio La Moneda, Santiago de Chile. Per Hüttner, 1967 is a Swedish artist who lives and works in Paris. He was trained at Konsthögskolan, Stockholm and at Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. He has shown extensively in Europe, North America, Australia and Asia, solo exhibitions include “Repetitive Time” at Göteborgs konstmuseum, “Xiao Yao You” at Guangdong Museum of Art in Guangzhou and “I am a Curator” at Chisenhale Gallery in London. Participation in group shows include The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, ICA in London and Centro
de Arte de Salamanca and the Liverpool Biennial. Four major monographs on the artists work have been published recently. Hüttner is the founder and director of the Vision Forum, a project based and experimental research program without geographical location. www.perhuttner.com Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio, born in Italy, 1972, lives and works in Naples and Berlin. Recent exhibitions include Imagine Being Here Now, The 6th Momentum biennial, Moss, Norway; se il mio cervello fosse un canestro at galleria Fonti, Naples; Trailer park, curated by Jorg Heiser at Teatro Margherita, Bari, Italy; Persona in meno at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Guarene; Black Pearls at Emilio Mazzoli Galleria d’Arte Contemporanea, Modena, Italy; Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio, at Ancient&Modern, London. Lisa Skuret is a writer and artist exploring the intersections between contemporary arts, politics and life using whatever forms that seem necessary: text, sound, object, performance. She studied Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths College London (AHRC Award 2007-08), Interactive Media at University of the Arts London, and Psychology at Smith College (USA) and University College London. Currently, Lisa is working with Vision Forum (Linköpings University, Sweden) on a collective arts-research project resulting in an upcoming exhibition and publication, Time Capsules and Conditions of Now, at David Roberts Foundation in London. www.lisaskuret.com Marianne Zamecznik, born in Norway. 1972, is a freelance curator and exhibition designer based in Berlin. From 2007 to 2010 she served as Chief Curator of 0047, an independent organization for projects in and in between the fields of art and architecture in Oslo. Recent projects include The Feast (with Oliver Laric, Josefine Lyche and Pawel Jarodzki) at the European Culture Congress in Wroclaw, Poland, 2011; the 6th Momentum biennial in Moss, Norway, entitled Imagine Being Here Now, where she was also responsible for the exhibition architecture in collaboration with Norwegian artist Øystein Aasan, 2011; the exhibition and upcoming book The Space Between Us about the exhibition architect Stanislaw Zamecznik, in collaboration with the Modern Museum of Warsaw, 2010.