To See is to Change: Nancy Adajania
Duration: 01:53:01; Aspect Ratio: 1.366:1; Hue: 195.011; Saturation: 0.101; Lightness: 0.298; Volume: 0.259; Cuts per Minute: 15.856; Words per Minute: 75.263
Summary: A Parallax View of 40 Years of German Video Art.
Over two days, ten artists, critics and enthusiasts present a "recuration" of the 40 Years of German Video Art (
http://www.40jahrevideokunst.de), a collection being circulated internationally by the Goethe Institut. These respondents brought to the archive their own urgencies and preoccupations, and suggested that this "package" is not a sealed entity, and can be re-read as a history of encounter and entanglement between disciplines, geographies, schools of thought, agents and artforms.
A package in this form this suggests a certain stability in the category "German video art". At the same time its circulation opens up the material, and its context of production and thought, its "Germany", to review by diverse and sometimes unsolicited sources. It is our good fortune to be able to promote such activity. Sehen heißt ändern, to see is to change. For more:
http://camputer.org/event.php?id=45
The 2-day screening program was held on 14th-15th November, 2008, at Jnanapravaha and Gallery Chemould in Mumbai.
Nancy Adajania is a cultural theorist, art critic and curator. Nancy points to the work of Rebecca Horn and Valie Export to speak of the militarization of the body, and the performative insertion of the politicised female body in public space, with Vienna Actionism and the emergent women's movements of the 1960s as twin matrices. She also reflects on Wolf Vostell's deployment of techniques of 'de/collage' in the early 1960s in relation to television, undermining its rhetoric of communicative transparency and diluting its claim to truth-telling authority. She will contextualise Vostell as a Fluxus pioneer and demonstrate his concerns with abstraction, temporality and counter-cultural critique.
Screening:
1975 | Berlin, Übungen in neun Stücken | Rebecca Horn| 40:00
1974 | Raumsehen und Raumhören | Valie Export| 05:00
1963 | Sun in your head | Wolf Vostell| 05:00 mins
Shaina: Very intensely glowing, almost from a gothic package. And a lot of... everyone's abstract... and while coming in works they have chosen.. who was born out of a lot of ... arguments, intense discussions. Sometimes its very, very common with any of us. And I think that brings to this package some kind of energy which is... raise of make comments and talk about what we have seen.
Queen's Mansion, Chemould Prescott Rd, Mumbai
South Mumbai
Shaina: Yesterday, Nancy introduced the package.. I am sorry (?)... he was there.. but I think she very nicely atriculated what we wanted to do in this package and asked some very particular questions... what is there about this package. What does it mean to ask as an artist.. how does it form us... I think one thing that struck me in Nancy is that when she spoke about Germany... an added German suspicion over a nationalist agenda in Germany. And then, this kind of package.
Shaina: I was in fact wondering why we have no suspicion at times. We want Indian art, we want Indian artshows, we want.. you know, the new Indian thing and not just with the art world but, we have some very bizzare nationalist agendas in the end. But we then... when we talk of having Ranjit bring three works that rooted some visions, that's wonderful media art which we saw. We saw once Odenbach's film which he happened to make in America, in Boston.
Shaina: And in one sense the pretty was sitting there in Cultural Institute and he needs program rights, university and look at other archives including the books and drives and stuff like that. The preview system the third film was Geld which was very (?) for us because it marks punk which is an extremely important movement and psychology also.
Shaina:We follow the film... Mriganka.. who brought in works from outside as well... Night and Fog by Alan Resnais... Numero Deux by Godard, Tehran which was something battling (?)... Tehran 1380 by Solmaz Shahbazi. What else? Angela Melitopoulous! 'Transfer'... it was a very in time documentary.. and then Kaushik I guess dealt quite interestingly with Anubis... Bettina Gruber and Rosemarie Trockel's work...And.. Ulrike Rosenbach's dance.. on which we had an intense discussion. We hope we take in a lot of information. And then we can interrupt and have our own... Thank You.
Marla Stukenberg: Thank You Shaina for updating all of us about last evening's happenings. I would like to welcome all of you on behalf of Max Mueller and Goethe institute. And please excuse me for not being there last night but it was just impossible. I would have loved to be here as well. But I'm looking forward to two days continuation.
Marla Stukenberg: I just have some few thoughts on the package and converse interaction. Actually before before you would interrupt, meaning to ask Kaushik.. maybe ww wouyld discuss this question later... initiated by the German federal cultural foundation from four dimensions of various things....(unclear)
Marla Stukenberg: Well actually video art in the (?) also in Germany which developed very much towards the end of the 20th century and then in a very short time span became one of the performing art forms. And all must know that it ranges from video installations to video sculptures to.. making schools of it.. also during performances which is also very much there in international art today. But of course the technical conditions of this medium haven't made it possible to detach the work of art from space.
Marla Stukenberg: Because the same work in video in various locations simultaneously and just like the mass medium of television the electronic images are only present and what it means to all of us today in India or Europe .. I think its one important point for further discussion.
Marla Stukenberg: And then on the other hand there is of course there is the limited life span and decay of (?) which sets tangible limits to video art. And this project... its all about video archiving... this material is sensitive material. And.. I think in archive there are certain standards to be terribly wild. And I think it only comes when the archive shows its treasures. It starts transporting (unclear). And our party with Ranjit Hoskote and Nancy Adajania, Shania Anand and Ashok Sukumaran have done this. And I must say with great passion, Shaina said four days and but I think Max Mueller was also a part of it. And they have angaged six other people to work on this archive who worked separate nights.
Marla Stukenberg: Unfortunately I have not had a chance to meet all the other six people personally but maybe we can do this over our coffee. There is Rana Dasgupta, Mriganka Madhukaliya... is he still there also? Okay, got it. That's great. And there is Sebastian Lutgert who we meet so frequently. And kabir Mohanty and Kaushik Bhaumik who is to come. And... Devdutt Trivedi. So I would thank all of these people who really took time to work on this archive and find all these treasures.
Marla Stukenberg: Each of them approached the archive with their own questions. And they drew out different treasures from it and they put also different things in relation to one another.
Marla Stukenberg: And by this they have given each one their own view of things. And now we hold different sets in our hand. And following these sets we will move along in the archive and trace the development of video art Germany. Atleast this is what I have to understand from our direction.
Marla Stukenberg: And.. yeah.. of course non German artists contributed substantially to development of video art in Germany and other dimensions. So this also an interesting point we may want to discuss.
Marla Stukenberg: Now, of course I would forward to know what you selected from the archive to give your comments and interpretations. And all of this will lead us deeper into the archive of video art. And I belive that during the discussions also maybe references to development and importance and conservation of video art in India will come up.
Marla Stukenberg: I would like to thank very much Ken for this co operation throughout this project. In particular Shaina, Ashok, Nancy and Ranjit. Mentioned before for their really great committment. And I also thank Mr. Shrey (?) from Chemould ... Dr. Laxmi Podar also from Chemould and Ms. Rita from Jnanapravaha I would like to thank for their great support to give Max Mueller the space right now. Thanks a lot and I hope all of us enjoy... this today's programme and our interaction. Thank you.
(Audience claps).
Nancy: As I move on from here, Good morning. Thank you for coming again. I'll thank you also coming yesterday when there were atleast 4-5 magic openings. Your shows to come for this programme and I think that already makes a point. That, you are here for this kind of intellectual stimulation. So, thank you for that.
Nancy: I now inaugurate today's programme with the films of Rebecca Horn and Valie Export. I have chosen two women performance artists and I will look at their work against the background of 1960's and 70's body art and happenings. Against the background of united actionism as well as the students protestant movement in the 60's.
Nancy: I will be looking at these women performance artists to explore the way in which they use the body as material and looking of communication. And I introduce to you the first film of Rebecca Horn. It is called Berlin 1975-1975. And they just imagined the film. I thouhgt i will just show the film and talk about it after you see the film.
Ubungen In Neun Stucken (1974/75) By Rebecca Horn:
Horn has been known for her performance works that involve the wearing of feathers, horns, and mirrors. Since her participation in Documenta in 1972, when she was in her 20s, she has energetically pursued a range of artistic activity that continues to explore new territories in art, including kinetic sculpture and film. She has continued to capture the fascination of a great number of people with an interest not only in visual art, but also film and dance.
Barbara John in her essay on Rebecca Horn says, "Rebecca Horn produced the Berlin-Ubungen In Neun Stucken (Exercises in Nine Parts) in her studio in Berlin. Like the title implies, these are based on a clear artistic concept addressing place, time and action. In the empty room of an apartment in an old German building, eight performances and an epilogue take place within a designated time period, shot on an 16mm color film material."
She continues, "The performance revolves around the theme of establishing contact-acoustically through the clicking sounds made by the artist, visually through the woman and the bird blinking at each other. The playful luring of the bird has sensual and erotic overtones. The significance of the dress made of feathers as both a protection for the body and a luring device that has occupied Horn throughout the course of her many works."
----------
1974-75| 'Berlin-Ubungen In Neun Stucken:Rebecca Horn' by Barbara John in 40 Years Video Art De. Digital Heritage: Video Art in Germany from 1963 to the present, Rudolf Frieling/ Wulf Herzogenrath (EDS), 2004, pp. 152, 156.
http://www.40jahrevideokunst.de/
The film Ubungen In Neun Stucken (1974/75) starts.
The film ends.
Nancy: So typically I will speak immediately after this film. I will let the film work on you and through the various layers of your mind.
Nancy: All of us has part of this ten year called (?). Have left some kind of diffidence about talking... maybe after seeing various films and the reason was how do you convey the meaning, interpretation of a film without killing it through over contextualization or explanations. And yet, how do you totally preserve and maintain the intellectual and emotional surface of the work? And, that is extremely daunting.
Nancy: Rebecca Horn, to begin with as I said... we have to see her work with in the context of body art and movement as well as the students protestant movement of the 60's.
Nancy: The body is subjective to various extremes and the movements of the body are constantly tested nude and in fine space. And the nude artists were of course intact in the gender body... when this is nude we can say larger politics of human life and mortality within war like situations.
In a video performance, a stage action is confronted with an electronically mediated image of the same event and both are exhibited simultaneously to the audience.
Two separate, but interconnected discourses take place at the same time, enabled by the instant-relay property of the camera. The monitor displays sequences of images that are an objective refraction or a distorted manipulation of the live performance. The discourse of the body is combined with the discourse of the electronic medium. The juxtaposition of the two information systems allows the audiences to compare and critically assess the two simultaneous presentations of an organic body and its artificial image.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'From Video Art to Video Performance: The work of Ulrike Rosenbach' by Gunter Berghaus in 'Avant Garde Film' by Alexander Graf, Dietrich Scheunemann (EDS), 2007, pp. 323.
Nancy: You have discussions going on in the 60's and 70's upon the nuclear weapons... you have discussions going on on the Cold War and particularly the war movements between Algeria and Vietnam. So its against this time of political fervour that the idea of testing the movements in the body springs up and male and female artists look at the politics and aesthetics of experimenting with the body in their own distinct manners.
In all three forms of representation, the female human being was objectified in principally the same manner: she occupied the same status, she was subjected to the same distortions, and she was denied her own voice. The advantage of Video Performance over Body Art or painting was its ability to juxtapose 'woman as subject' with 'woman as object' in the same live event.
The synchronous feedback of video technology offered a unique means for making the viewing process a focus of attention.
It problematized the relationship between the real woman in the performance area and the image of the woman on the video monitor, and thereby fostered a new type of spectatorship.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'From Video Art to Video Performance: The work of Ulrike Rosenbach' by Gunter Berghaus in 'Avant Garde Film' by Alexander Graf, Dietrich Scheunemann (EDS), 2007, pp. 324.
The first events that combined body centered live-art with an electronic mediation through the video camera took place around the year 1970. Vito Acconci and Dan Graham can be regarded as the fathers of this new genre, but it was soon taken up by women artists and in the course of 1970's it developed into a favourite genre of feminist Performance Art.
There was a general tendency amongst women artists to be drawn towards body centered video performances; whereas male artists were often more engaged in exploring the formal and more material characteristics of the new electronic medium.
Video performances offered an ideal outlet for feminists who sought to confer value upon women's experiences and achievements, expose and subvert the traditional images and roles assigned to the women in the mass media and develop a new identity outside the constraints of the patriarchal society.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'From Video Art to Video Performance: The work of Ulrike Rosenbach' by Gunter Berghaus in 'Avant Garde Film' by Alexander Graf, Dietrich Scheunemann (EDS), 2007, pp. 323, 324.
'The Body Politic' edited by Michelene Wandor in `972 signified the importance both literally and metaphorically of the body within feminist thinking. And yet, it would be true to say that, from the start, feminism has had trouble with the body. In particular, this has been with the question of how to theorize the body as the borderline between the biological and social, the natural and the cultural.
25 years later, issues around representation, the body and the gender difference have become even more complicated. Feminist politics has mutated and diversified, both as a result of pressures from within and in response to external conditions. Questions of the body and its status within the culture and language have been at the heart of recent theoretical debates.
These political, theoretical and technological shifts have challenged the fixed polarities of sexual difference which underpinned much early feminist art practice in the 1970's. But women's art has also begun to reconstruct our conception of what female bodies might mean in our culture.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Introduction' by Rosemary Betterton in 'An intimate distance: women, artists and the body', 1996, pp. 8
Nancy: And even within one women performance artist, Rebecca Horn's politics would be very different and differently new from that of Valie Export's. So Valie Export's is different from Angela Melitoupoulous. In Rebecca Horn's case for instance, she was borh just before the Second World War. And there is this very interesting autobiographical insight into her work where I read that her father Mr. Terrence Thorings... he read fairy tales in the night... and he would narrate the fairy tales to the child in such a way as if they were real. Because he would locate these fairy tales within the actual sights of the town. So stories of goblins and witches would suddenly become very true.
Nancy: It's like she would walk out on the street and she might start thinking that that street is haunted. Like, in a way I feel that she is doing something that her father did to her as a child. She threw... whatever thought producing scenography of the self in these nine exercises. She is bringing... she is in a way possessing our bodies and dehaunting our mind. This is a kind of fairy tale exorcism which is happening to us.
Nancy: And the scenography constantly changes. Suddenly through just a minium of thought you have a sense of the ocean in the room or you have the sense of a forest with birds and foliage. And each time the scene changes it moves from the peacock wishing the idea of flight to a prism with the finger extensions scattered against the wall or the presented limbs of the three legged race that the lovers have.
With, again the rpesented limbs attached to the back magnets. So the idea of the aspiration for union and yet, the union itself turning into a bodage. Because the same magnet attracts and bring the lovers together also make the limbs very heavy. And they bind them to a relationship that they perhaps want to be liberated from.
Nancy: The sense of touch is extremely important in this whole film. Whether its the fingers wanting to scratch the wall and in a way extending the body itself to fill up the room or its the mirrors which are reflecting the defracting virtually- the body of the artist or the very first frame where you have a room with windows and you have a mirror in the middle. Which already extends the space. And, in the end the windows are left open and the world from outside comes in with the twittering of birds.
Nancy: Throughout the film you have the idea of treating body landscapes. And therefore the metaphor of oasis in this is very apt. Because, again you are not sure whether this entire scenography was enacted or whether its like a father's fairy tale story which really do not happen. Because in a way you were completely concorted and fabricated.
Nancy: But, abbreviation for this kind of a union- a union which is within a certain natural landscape of an oasis remains. Now we connect this again to Ulrike Risenbach's film of yesterday where you have confinements of a room or confinements of a circle.... In Rosenbach's case. But you want to actually liberate yourself from this confinements and she enacts the delicious dance to liberate herself. That which you cannot do it is another thing. But, the aspiration is to liberate herself.
Nancy: So, in Rebecca Horn you have the peacock dance, you have flight, you want to open out fan tails in case of showcasing vanity... you have the need to scratch to the walls of the prism with the finger extensions.. make prostatic limbs so as to be able to walk with a certain heaviness and lightness.
In 'Action Pants: Genital Panic' (1969), Valie Export strolled the aisles of cinema known for showing pornography, fully clothed except that the front of her pants was cut out. The photograph of this performance shows her carrying a machine gun.
Export's gesture is meant to undermine cinematic male voyeurism by taking it out of the realm of filmic image and making it real. By the machine gun she makes it clear that she is the one in control of her own body.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Beauty: The Monstrous Feminine' by C. Jill O'Bryan in 'Carnal art: Orlan's refacing', 2005, pp. 114.
Time and again, feathers, tubes and funnels flowing with colored liquids appear in Rebecca Horn's work but also, alchemist's material such as mercury or salt, and sulphur and charcoal. The central themes of her work are the flow of life, genesis, the passage of time and eventual decay, but also the heaviness and lightness.
Her mechanical sculptures and apparatuses made of everyday items- knives, scissors, suitcases, eggs, metal poles, a blind man's cane, feathers, violins or brushes – conjure up with life- without actually being alive themselves.
They visualize mechanisms and feelings deeply rooted in life, such as power, struggle, isolations, threats as well as liberty and eroticism. Horn's poetic objects develop a life of their own, taking a resolute stand with regard to personal, societal and historical occurrences.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Mechanical Sculptures' and 'A Journey into the interior of the body' by Uta Grosenick in 'Women artists in the 20th and 21st century', 2001, pp. 240, 245.
Nancy: And, I would also like to point out to the metaphor of the body as presented... which in a way is to commit all the militarization of the body... which again something I would like to connect with the politics of the body as seen in war like situations, in fictual situations. So that when, the contraptions and machines that she makes, are all about human fragility and also about violence.... commits all violence.
Nancy: And there is a certain way of youthful that she has said about the mechanical installations. Where, she says that these mechanical installations of hers have a certain tract in them. So its a constant animation of inanimated objects. And she says that her machines and mechanical installtions a lot like washing machines or cars that are true means. They faint, collapse and then suddenly stop.
Nancy: And, it is also known that Berlin 1974 and 75 it is transition dot. Because, she is moving from the early 70's when she made her body performances, when she would actually clothe her friends in different kinds of costumes and masks. There is a famous iconic work called 'Unicorn' in the early 70's where she just put a warm coat, a fine coat on one of her friend's and just sets her out into the town and just asks her to walk through the forest and the fields with people around.
Nancy: And she is naked just with the bandage wrapped around her body and she walks with this fine unicorn horn on her head. And it creates a very strange, absurd situation because a lot of men just look at her and just fall of the isles as the unicorn travels through the town. So getting back this whole happening, archetypal anomalities which also connects to visbily Trockel's film of yesterday. But it does in a very different manner.
Nancy: Because these are tough images which are being taapped into (?) sexual... and she is constantly innovating with these energies. Kind of.. flatting from the pyre as well as a very serious manner. And even in this film for instance through sound, colour and light there are moments and.. things are extremely calm and beautiful... very erotic and suddenly there are moments of extremely sinister happenings.
Nancy: I think I would just like to end by Rebecca Horn's disserations by saying that Rebecca Horn went on to make other kinds of performances, poems, films, photographs. And, she has made films on the Gulf War as well as on the Nazi torture methods. So again the metaphor of the body being tested in various inflictual situations is continuous.
Nancy: In fact after listening to her was also contraption of just knives which are in friction with each other. So very much like the cutting of the hair for instance. Whenever she is using the scissors to cut her hair, and she might almost slice off her eyes. And all the metaphors in the films have.. are so themselves to hope a certain borrowing to surrealous painting as well as films.
Nancy: For example, in the jungle scene there is connection with the Max (?) the love and (?). And of course the cutting of the hair scene is the ruels are shared by the... but the eye is sliced off. She also was very acusstomed to Wilson's idea of body consiouness machines. And they administered a writer who influenced Bishop and the other surreals.
Nancy: So, what I was trying to show here to you is the rich resonance of ideas and traditions that have been played with. Whether it was Ulrike Rosenbach yesterday or its Rebecca Horn today, there are different kind of stands which no one used for production of the self. Again when I use these words like production of the self, gender and space- to me they become null and cliched.
Nancy: And, unless we try to look at the very rich tapestry from where these words emerge, these words can just become cliches and stereotypes. So if the patriarchy is one kind of cliche, feminist definitely becomes another kind of cliche. And, we have to find a way through it- through an understanding of complexity.
Nancy: And, we make other kind of traditions to bear our understanding of performance art. I move now from Rebecca Horn to Valir Export. You have a very different kind of background for Valie Export.
kabir Mohanty: In... in this case of Rebecca Horn, one could say that she is other than ... (unclear)... you see.. what is amazing is that when that starts happening to the mirror or (?) he has instead of water... she has the sense of time. You know its like the person is a film maker. You know .. that gene you know... so it speaks the opinions of time. It speaks of watching in a work by somebody who has a sense of doing work with the body, work woth performance. It is thick in a entire realm of sense of visuals, sense of rhythm.. which is so filmic! So if you want to actually learn this, that here is someone who has absorbed you know... centuries of work with movement which is in time. And something that all film makers lack here. You have the sense to say that you can feel also finding his sense of time... 10 flows into this world.
Kabir Mohanty: So I understand as this is the second or third time I'm watching this. I'm just amazed. So this distinctions.. you know of performance, body art and .. inspiration and film... in the end here you feel that its all the scenes are.. you're dealing with the video. You are shooting it it. But its not an idea of time. Experience of time... particularly in the entire work. Needless, it must be !
Nancy: Particularly you watch the film with the shot angles and transmit so it is making within filming time.
Kabir Mohanty: So what I am saying... is that it has been said that you are sitting constantly, you are right.. you know... why did Sarkovsy say that I can count on my few hands... the film makers wound... as I say... our film, their time.
Nancy: Yeah, sure but he said all this- this is largerly restricted. Of course it is the modern image of time. But then- if you just for example in the jungle sequence, what you actually mean by interesting.. that's Van Gogh's painting- the (?) painting. And you have an artist performing within it... which I think threw some kind of eroticism.
Kabir Mohanty: So she also creates many many things at the same time. And the digits we didn't technically use at the same time... some... kind of gummy bowls for very very mediocre minds.... some think they are watching the film maker.
Kabir Mohanty: But its very rare. When you sya that they are somebody. Some profound artist. What you are saying.. women performace artist.
Nancy: No- the only reason was because I wanted to sort of... set off, alomost like a music score ... a kind of rich resonance of various sources that were for the making of these works. And not be trapped into films, or video art or body art or happenigs. because once we start doing that, then in a way you limit the range of the work. It is always spacious and expansive. And it draws from these various traditions and enriches us.
Kabir Mohanty: I wonder if did somebody would may think that somebody has to save our work... but one really needs to discuss if somebody...
Jitish Kalat: ... and no one has really taken and I share your view that one has been probably has exactly also set the revolt today... and such a layout behind the work. The other thing I would really think about is as if to the opposition to the idea of performing is the notion of development. I think the century began on the theory - the idea of the film... which also goes through a lot of performance artists of that time. And indeed performing is a great development of the selfless tool... or the selfless (?)... you know. Through which I think is used for the concept of development. And I think one also one also reaches these words. And I think... thats's it.
Nancy: The self apparent differences.. or self perceptions which is very much also not an aesthetic performance art. Especially, for women performance artists.
Nancy: Absolutely the reference... the unicorn.. the unicorn walking through the fields and streets and stuff and people looking in a haste..they fall on the bicycles... off the doors and clothes... and I guess the reference and erotic again connecting to a larger political framework of (?) and China movements. That's true. Again, religious conflicts.. which is also a very important point in talking.
Nancy: For example, if you take an artist like Marina AbramoviÄ.. I am introducing her to this conversation because she is an artist who was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavian. She started her performances within Belgrade itself. And, her performances were extremely violent. They were testing the limits of her body- the body to the extreme- nailing herself, touching herself, almost setting herself on fire.
Nancy: So, what was her work? Her work, her project was ready to converse and highlight the body so that something else can be introduced in its place. And she had a family background which is extremely distinct for certain orthodox church. From her grandfather's side... her parents were you know.. commanders.. and their natures... they were Partisans in the Second World War.
Nancy: And, they were Director of the Mueseum for the restoration of art in Belgrade itself. And you have for instance, with this Balkan taken rights has part of a background serving orthodox church and communism. So, all of these sources then in a way come into homework. So yes, it is about filmic time, its about duration, temporarity, sadistic experience of what we see in the drama... all the light, touch.
Nancy: But, it is also meaning of these various things and many times it may be contradictory. So you have religious impulse and you also have a political background which may or may not go together. And therefore it is always fascinating to look at these kinds of backgrounds. You have for example Marina AbramoviÄ pretty important performance written Ten in the 70's where she almost in a chauvinistic manner cuts her hair in a method of self cleansing and starts throwing it into a fire.
Nancy: And then, she jumps into this fire which is shaped like a star. And start calling it a symbol of communism. So, its symbolic of communism and its also a burning star which has to do with Christ.. so its self cleansing. Its questioning communism but its also questioning the self. So its cleansing your self, refreshing your body and spirit. And then she walks in with the star and collapses. And, goes unconscious.
Nancy: The reason why I am trying to in a way constantly touch on these bigger complexities is to show you that each artist brings in a very different kind of politics and aesthetics to their work. Because when you use large categories like feminism or body art or happenings then suddenly the individual's work gets lost. And, my work as an art practcioner, I am always interested in multiple sources and inheritances of an artist.
Nancy: And, especially into the secret histories of the artist- both the performer and the conceptualist. Should we now move on to Valie Export?
Nancy: Valie Export is an artist who again had a very profound religious experience and she went into a conflict which is very, very orthodox.... use of this kind of art, paintings, drawings, sculpture etc at a textile institute. And then moves on... and then she gets married, gets divorced goes back to art making. And she also is at the helm of actionism. Vienesse Actionism is a movement which was mostly dominated by male artists and they treated body as a three dimensional cultural object. And then, subejected it to all kinds of extremes- nailing it, trying to execute it.
Nancy: But, what Valie Export does is, that she is influenced by Vienesse actionism but she mediates with actionism to a kind of feminist actionsim. And, also media actionsim. Because, she is concentrating on the gender point. So, she while giving actionsim thinks of the main body in a very.. kind of limited space and politcs. She brings out the female body from the realm of objectification and liberates it.
The female body in performance art, whether nude or not, can also articulate women's sexuality as never before possible in the most non – essentialist multiplicity of voices. The deconstruct oppositions based on gender entrenched in patriarchy, women's performance art provides paths to alternatives, to concepts of difference, subverting the canon of codified sexuality imbedded in centuries of theater and cultural work, and revealing binary sexuality as another construction complicit in oppression of women and their full exploration of female sexuality.
Women's performance art is the manifestation of the struggle and a resistance to economical and ideological violence done to women. As such it foregrounds the genderization of culture and the over determination of sexuality, both which are instrumental in the subjugation of women, the repression of female subjectivity.
However, from the more obvious political stance, women's performance art provides an instance of the 'heterogeneous and heteronymous' face of feminism, that is, both the differences and commonalities among women are made visible and celebrated. While women performance artists speak their personal, lived experience, and explore the most intimate aspects of their individual lives, their explorations relate directly to the common category of their woman-ness.
As women, their relationship to representation is unique so that the performance context necessarily creates a dissonance with the representations of 'Woman'. Thus the woman performance artist cannot help but assert an image that is simultaneously heterogeneous and heteronymous; singular and yet categorically related to all women.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Women's performance art: Feminism and Post Modernism' by Jeanie Forte in 'Performance: Critical concepts in literary and cultural studies', Philip Auslander (ED), 2003, pp. 264
Nancy: She moves into the complex spaces and has this expanded cinema action, street action. And injects the politicized female body into public space. And she was also influenced by (?), John Cage, Richard Punk.. mostly people from America. Because she felt that the women's movement was not very strong so she invented other kinds of sources.
The deconstructive nature of women's performance art is doubly powerful because of the status of women in relation to representation, a status which, in the performance context, inherently foregrounds the phallocentricity of modernism/patriarchy and its signifying systems.
Women performance artists show an intrinsic understanding of culture and signification apparently reached solely through their own feminist consciousness – raising and political acumen' manifesting the metaphor most central to feminism, that 'the person is the political'.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Women's performance art: Feminism and Post Modernism' by Jeanie Forte in 'Performance: Critical concepts in literary and cultural studies', Philip Auslander (ED), 2003, pp. 253, 254.
Nancy: Valie Export explores the iconic work ... this talent of cinema and it was performed in ten European cities.. made in the 1960's. Should we first just show this little clip? Its not in the package but I say we have to see it because you cannot really talk about Valie Export without talking about this particular work. Can you please show it?
The film 'Raumsehan Und Raumhoren (1974) by Valie Export starts.
Although Valie Export's dominant role is not mentioned as important when seen against the background of Viennese Actionism, it is nonetheless strikingly refreshing in its reversal of the usual distribution of positions. While not articulated as feminist, the role assigned to women in these artistic events of the 60's places Export in a category of her own.
A different treatment of the body went hand in hand with the upgrading of women's roles. The Actionist's conception was sculptural, placing the body into space as three dimensional objects, and making it subject to destruction with other objects and materials.
Export, recognizing the reductionist tendencies, in their unilateral demolition actions, developed the concept of the body as expansive. Taking it out of the static realm of objectification, Export releases the body into the mobility of signifying interrelations.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Introduction' by Roswitha Mueller in 'Valie Export: A fragment of the imagination', 1994, pp. 18
Women's performance art has a particular disruptive potential because it poses an actual woman as the speaking subject, throwing that position into process, into doubt, opposing the traditional conception of the single, unified (male) subject.
The female body as subject clashes in dissonance with its patriarchal text, challenging the very fabric of representation by refusing that text and posing new, multiple texts, grounded in real women's experience and sexuality.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Women's performance art: Feminism and Post Modernism' by Jeanie Forte in 'Performance: Critical concepts in literary and cultural studies', Philip Auslander (ED), 2003, pp. 254.
The film ends.
Nancy: Valie Export's talent of cinema... Valie Export creates a contraption just like Rebecca Horn created peacock visions and figure extensions. She creates a little cinema around the body. And there's a curtain and the other part of the body is naked. And she walks into the street with this mobile cinema strapped around her body. And, there's this companion as well as the actionist as we said.
In Valie Export's works, the body embedded in and part of a system of communication is neither identical with this system nor immune to it. It is affected by all the factors that go into defining a particular social and cultural environment, upon which, in turn, exerts its influence through psychosomatic givens.
While this dialectical exchange between body and culture is most evident in Export's performances it is one of the major concerns of all her art. This expansive view of the body also places much importance on a different use of media, and it is not surprising that Export's work in contrast to that of Viennese Actionist's, not only included but also emphasized technological media like film and video from the outset.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Introduction' by Roswitha Mueller in 'Valie Export: A fragment of the imagination', 1994, pp. 18
Nancy: And, he in a way calls people to look at the street performance. And people... there's a curtain... and at any point.. its a man and child with their who stands through this curtain and you feel the banging has stopped. This is the way we are gonna point feminist work. A work which has been much annotated in feminist history.
Nancy: Its an expanded cinema work because Valie Export felt that the woman's body was being objectified by the bourgeoise ideaology in cinema. So you're sitting within this comfortable cinema hall and you are passively consuming the female body. But, if you wanted to work in this bourgeoise idea of cinema, and you want to bring the woman's body out into the street, and if you wish to socialize, sexuality in a very different way, by liberating it- liberating it as she said, from these scriptures of family, partriarchy and state.
Nancy: And she liberates her body, just walks into the street and allows people actually anybody to touch her body. And hence it is also breaking away rules related to the woman body but also social rules related to homosexuality. Because even I would actually come back to touch her body.
Nancy: Ashok is also fascinated by this work. Would you like to say a few things?
Ashok: I would like to talk about... I would like to talk about in relation to the touching thing. Because I would talk about that metaphor. In the media tradition there are a couple of connections meanwhile that they have. These, Valie Export where I think (?) found it a lot of things as similar to that as a kind of interactive project.
Ashok: And of course there is the idea of what actually happens when you touch something. I mean a body penetrating completely.. and though its doubtfully.. other questions in ... (unclear).. that was the connection.. we can..
Nancy: And, as I suggested.. thats an interesting issue as well. But again touch in very different ways.. so touch in Rebecca horn was erotic. Touch in Valie Export had a physical and social interface. And also interface between media and self. Where you are taking this huge cinema screen and shrinking it. Literally to fit your own size. And then allowing for people to come touch it. So ahain what visual communication, tactile communication.
Nancy: But I think you can bring that out in your discussion later when you talk of interactivity. Valie Export... again another important thing is that many people say Valie Export works should be seen against the background of actionism. But as I said, she makes many retours and transitions from actionism by practising main art. The most important thing was her intervention in the realm of media.
Nancy: So whether it is in a tap in touch cinema or its the film that you're going to see now, which is again a 1974 film... which is space seeing and space hearing. Let's see the film and then I'll talk about it. About how the media constructs and frames the female body.
Raumsehan Und Raumhoren (1974) by Valie Export:
In her essay on Valie Export, jeannette Stoschek says, "Raumsehen Und Raumhoren (Space Seeing and Space Hearing) shows how sound and body enter into a relationship in space, and how concepts like listening space'; 'seeing space' or 'sound space' are laid open to visual experience and body and sound images come into being in that space. The sound and space images suggest the impression of movement in space, but the sequence of movements is al illusion created by four video cameras, six monitors and an image mixer."
She continues, "The composition and arrangement of the different image sequences are subject to a fixed, precisely planned choreography that tries to eliminate anything random and gives the whole sequence a subtly concealed, seemingly geometric structure."
Further she says, "Export, who has been working with video, film and photography as media since the 1960's and captures here performances and actions permanently on video or photo cameras, does not use the video camera as a documentary recording device, but initiates a discussion about its technical capabilities. Here she is analyzing the medium and its apparatus, functions and effects in order to be able to use them to identify the processes by which images emerge, along with subjective perception and the construction of reality."
She continues, "Export's performance refers to the different ways in which the public is presented: in the context of her performance they can see both the person standing still in the space and the monitor image. This is a difference that is not easily understood by the viewer who later sees only the videotape, as the performance context is missing. Export uses cinematic resources to create close-up and distant views, different focal lengths, and the split image on the screen to create an artificial, virtual space. The curical feature is that the space is created and structured by the medium. At the same time, she addresses to the possibilities of manipulating an image and an action conveyed by electronic means.'
....."Export confidently uses her own body as her initial artistic material in her own body as her initial artistic material on her work in different media, from photography via film and video to digital computer images."
-----------
1974| 'Raumsehen und Raumhören:Valie Export' by Jeannette Stoschek in 40 Years Video Art De. Digital Heritage: Video Art in Germany from 1963 to the present, Rudolf Frieling/ Wulf Herzogenrath (EDS), 2004, pp. 140, 142, 143, 144.
http://www.40jahrevideokunst.de/
------------
Links:
http://www.medienkunstarchiv.at/werk.php3?vid=4030&e=1
http://www.valieexport.at/en/biografie/
The concise cinegraph encyclopaedia of German Cinema by Hans Michael Bock. Eds: Hans Michael bock and Tim Bergfelder, 2009, pp.115.
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=z7gFT_Duq1cC&printsec=frontcover&dq
The film 'Space seeing and Space hearing' by Valie Export starts.
The film ends
Nancy: Space seeing and space hearing 1974. Its a closed circuit action. In a studio with four cameras and a mixer. This is almost like.. in a way this work reflects the title of our paradigm self 'To see is to change- 40 years oif German video art'. Here you have Valie export standing in the whole eyes inmobilized in space but through a series of parallax, visual and sound modifications you either sense proximity of the artist or sense a distance.
Nancy: And both ... as viewers may sense proximity and distance but also it is the artist herself, producing a sense of nearness and farness... within her own space through these visual parallaxes. And, as you can see the sound is a calculated mechanical beep. And when Valie Export is shown closer, the sound is accelerated. And sometimes its very initial.
Nancy: in the second exercise, you do not have split screen but still you have just a montage of the various body parts of Valie Export. When you look at this film, you again think.. come up with this idea of uniting this whole contraption, confining themselves in an argument in a studio. And then, testing the limits of the body.
Nancy: What you see is, there's a kind of vulnerability and an imprisonment of the base, an imprisonment within the base of the camera. There is no liberation from parameters that have been set up for her. And these parameters she has set up herself. Because she has almost drafted every movement below the camera and of where she would stand within the space.
Nancy: And they themselves interpreted the fact that at a personal level I would say, that for me, its almost as if I'm waiting for a certain kind of threshold moment where she can innovate, liberate herself from this incaseration. I have borrowed from the Jain Philisophy- It's like... I'm waiting for this treasure, moment of Kaivalya... which in a way means that this world is emancipated from living here. It's reaching that transcendal self. Or you can refine a way about it and mean it.
Nancy: And that treasure moment - it doesn't happen - you are left with that sense in you- that's the moment which should happen. And the body is always vulnerable, subjective to (?). That, the moment it doesn't happen it may fault. And I collect this interpretation of mine with something that Valie Export has said. In the 70's she felt completely alienated from herself and from her body.
Nancy: And she felt that culture in a way- culture; the capital 'C'- it was trying to locate the women's body, limiting it. And she felt that the real picture could only be seen through tear or cut or split. That's the way we have seen these exercises. And that's where the drama of human self realization occurs.
Nancy: I think that with that I would like to call unless you have any questions. Then I will show the next film which doesn't have anything to do with women's art. Any questions? Rana you would like to add something.. about Rebecca Horn..? Because he said something very beautiful yesterday ... where he said that you know.. its just a kind of.. Rebecca Horn's 9 exercises.. its just a kind of equipment you have gone upon. Would you like to elaborate a little more on that?
Rana Dasgupta: Well, it's one of those kind of experiments which requires it says... embracing political.. finer questions, finer experiments of this kind. It should really convey that kind of drama. Otherwise we're left with that kind of an exercise. While Valie Export researches the issue and she takes time to to make herself kind of nervous in the body.. which shouldn't start with (?) because that would get us somewhere .. certainly ignore... interrogation of the artist...
Nancy: Thank you and I would like to add to Rana's intervention by saying that these exercises would turn into some kind of empty gesture and the fact that it does not is because it's not just plain narcissism called navel gazing. It is really about transformation; and self transformation. And that is why she is able to mobilize these nine exercises.
Nancy: And as you said, that they were a success. Anybody else?
Tejal Shah: I just had something interesting in the case of Valie Export and the creation of her identity as Valie Export and then the China..(?) He exposed her as something that she became and then in the corridor there was some castration in place of penetration. It cannot penetrate... I mean just in terms of (?) and the Marina ... there is some kind of indentity... constant layout... For me its kind of women in pressure.... as a feminist gesture.
Tejal Shah: I mean that it is more interesting... that creates your own identity ... and of course normally how she insists her way.. in a way it creates a form itself... (unclear)..
Nancy: Just Valie Export it means you have to go to the webpages saying it's not a a visual medium.. it's a name that she... after she divorced.. she insults him to go back to power. It's a name that she takes up as a secret package called Valie Export... since again it's about how its her identity, how its her brand name.
Nancy: So that ... in a name you have something submerging in the later... Apart from that I am very happy to talk about her work 'Genital Panic'. I'll just very briefly talm to you about Genital Panic and then we move on.
Nancy: About Genital Panic, her hair is in dissaray.. she has a machine gun in her hand and she walks into a theatre which is different. And the crucial thing is that she cuts off the crotch of her bags. So she is walking through these roads of nails, watching a sonographic film, in a way almost blocking their view and walking very close to them.. in this kind of an avatar. And I think many of them straightaway walk out. Because anyway many of them back to the talent of cinema because its one thing to walk out of a cinema hall to consume a woman's body.
Nancy: I mean you actually see a woman... a physical woman who in a way... with this kind of consciousness.. walking very close to you.. this is very terrifying.
Nancy: I think we come to the art ... Marina Abramovic which is a kind of feminity which does not surface.. transcend itself and coming from the feminist package. So again feminist activist also... because that's an important institution. But in Valie Export the thing is I think if I quote her right... she talks about digesting herself of any kind of eroticism. I think that's something she does..
Nancy: So, aagin I mean very different kinds of roles of art making. Rebecca Horn's case- its a contagious instinct... you can feel the pores of your body, almost like goosebumps. You feel that actually in your body... you are breakingt into sweat. You see the name of Rebecca Horn which turns into a kind of surveillance eye in the jungle chest.. her skin, her section. So there are very different rules which again... eroticism itself is an element which is used by the likes.
Nancy: Eroticism itself is an element which is used by the (?). In one case it's been aggressive point of eroticism is other case, in Rebecca Horn's case it is narcissim which is transformed into a kind of orthodox. So..anybody?
Jitish Kalat: I was thinking as well, when I say it is erotic... the other point that comes is also a from of orthodox looking at... say, making a lot more stuff ... You know, and there is .. I mean early happening that probably chose to Valie Export.. but I think, as the backdrop of feminist bodies changed, they probably invented these systems. I think, we need to get earlier somewhere... probably I mean ...
Tejal Shah: I was thinking, these are also works which became as in ... which clear politics... so that's a capital increase before and after. And you see the kind of things... I mean within the right performances and looking at the photography. So, for me, even if I look at the .. an artist's earlier work, I feel that there is a very clear frustration which is... something like Rebecca Horn, Valie Export..
Nancy: I would like to add one more interesting thing. Marina Abramovic's work is really about experience- it's about introspection. But Valie Export's work is very much about representation. I think that is the crucial thing. Representation and provocation. How the body is framed through the media. Probably the society would also push into the movement. That is really the way you have been distinguishing.
Nancy: Shall I begin or it's time up? We go on to the next film. I am very happy there's a lot of talking together because yesterday we were a little... sort of... we were intimidated by each other. It's okay... we should sort of... This is a film which is very close to my heart. It's a film which we should have perhaps seen yesterday. We should have started with... Let's forget women performance artists for a while and come to a realm of fluxus art.
Nancy: We have Wolf Vostell who is the co-founder of fluxus. He also refosted his self... It has been very difficult to move for some reason from fluxus pioneers. And also these were the pioneers of (?). In the 60's and 70's... Wolf Vostell made 'Sun in your head' in 1963. This is also the date when Philo Farmsworth makes electronic television which is a set of television sets which he puts around for search. Some are broken, some have been shut down. Some stand to interfere the broadcast through the magnets aorund them.
Nancy: So, he is in a way already moving into a TV estate and TV sculpture. But, in the same year, you have Wolf Vostell who makes a... almost kind of a protero video 'Sun in your head' which is a film which he made with his camera in projection, where he just shot of TV footage as it was beingf recorded.
Nancy: So, he recorded TV footage almost over a few weeks. At that time, even in the early 1960's when television many a times had a breakdown, blackout, antenna would not be tied... and the image would get distorted.. so apart from the distortions that were already there in television, the television image can also get manipulated... the television image manipulated the antenna... antenna manipulated the interlaying scanner detector of television itself... so that you have this kind of a certain interference in the frame.
Nancy: I will tell you more about the very position of Sun in your head within the context of TV happenings that Wolf Vostell actually initiated. Just a little more about Wolf Vostell is that he has a variety of inhertances- you have fluxus, you have happenings, you have pop painting... so here's a man of many pasts and let's begin by seeing 'Sun in your head' by Wolf Vostell.
Sun in your head (1963) by Wolf Vostell:
Vostell's large-scale happening '9 Nein Décollagen' ('9 No – Dé-coll/ages) took place on 14 September 1963 in nine different locations in Wuppertal, and was organized by the Galerie Parnass. The film transfers to the moving image Vostell's principle of 'Décollage'. While up to then Vostell had altered TV pictures as they were being broadcast, he was now able to compose the temporal sequence. Since no video equipment was available in 1963, Vostell instructed camera-man Edo Jansen to film distorted TV images off the TV screen. The film was re-edited and copied to video in 1967.
In her essay on Wolf Vostell, Sabine Maria Schmidt says, "What Vostell as an artist found so fascinating about the television was primarily the way in which it generates constantly dissolving, overlapping and at times distorted image sequences."
She continues, "Most of the rapid image sequences in Sun in your head are shot through with horizontal interference, which also has the effect of making them jump about, the work also makes use of pixel-like resolutions and anamorhotic distortions. Just how Vostell achieved these effects is not known, but they are most likely to have been caused by incorrectly adjusted antenna or outside electronic interference."
While, in his essay on Wolf Vostell, Benjamin Lima says, "In Sun in Your Head, several seemingly unrelated images flicker in and out of view, accompanied only by a high-pitched tone. A human figure is visible, as the ambient light goes up and down. Text reading "Magasin der Woche" is visible, then a picture of Marilyn Monroe. Light flashes on and off, as we see a hint of a face, then hints of abstract pictures. A crowd and a street scene, then what seem to be movie credits. Then airplane cockpit gauges, and the airplane's belly, inscribed with "US Air Force", and then a man with a headset, followed by wings with engines. The plane lands, the screen flashes, and we see a man with a headset. Similar images follow for six minutes. The visual effect is like channel-surfing with a TV set, minus the diegetic sounds, and indeed, the images we see come from broadcast television."
Further he continues, "Vostell created an icon of the televisual image-stream, a montage of images disconnected at the level of narrative but connected both at the physical level of the transmission and at the level of abstract symbolism. All of the images relate to the themes that Vostell continually pressed as together defining contemporary social reality: the consumer society, entertainment and advertising; the city, crowds and entertainment; industrial transportation; the military-industrial complex. It is important, however, that Vostell did not leave the film as an autonomous work, a meta-televisual object. Instead, he incorporated it into Happenings in 1963 and 1964."
-----------
1963| 'Sun In Your Head: Wolf Vostell' by Sabine Maria Schimdt in in 40 Years Video Art De. Digital Heritage: Video Art in Germany from 1963 to the present, Rudolf Frieling/ Wulf Herzogenrath (EDS), 2004, pp. 76, 78.
http://www.40jahrevideokunst.de/
Sun in your head: Elements of ritual in Wolf Vostell's TV Decollage by Benjamin Lima, pp. 2
ben.lima.googlepages.com/VostellTVRitual.pdf
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/sun-in-your-head/
http://www.janosgatgallery.com/janos_gat_gallery/WOLF_Vostell.html
The film 'Sun in your head' by Wolf Vostell begins.
The film ends.
Nancy: Wolf Vostell is supposed to be an initiator of decollage. He, as I said, manipulated the green signals creating distorted images, interference, some white surfaces. And, by doing this, he was taking TV footage of ministers and parade, politicians greeting each other... and turning it almost into a kind of TV action... painting...
Nancy: Jackson collected 15 differences. So, you have this kind of fluid abstraction with a .. almost a silent eye exploring the soundtrackgoing on in the background. And, its an extremely disturbing work. The entire work is actually meant for disturbance. And it is very delusional because at that time, TV was just unexplored as a medium of art. As I said, already it was pioneered by Wolf Vostell who was inventing TV screens in his paintings- that's how it began.
Nancy: But, he had not made this kind of transition into making TV or making a film based on television footage. He called this method 'Decollage'. Its believed he actually read in a grahpic (?) in the magazines about... in an accident which happens. And, its a French article, its about airplane which during takeoff burns out and falls into a river.
Nancy: So the word for takeoff was 'Decollage'. And its something that's associated with the (?) and accident. And therefore he decided to choose this concept of 'Decollage' of fragmented reality in his work Sun in your head. But you must remember that other sources tell us that 'Decollage' by rule is something that is new. Already the work by French artists like (?) and (?) who were using decollage in their works.
Nancy: That is, they were taking up street posters and balls and tearing what was reproduced and creating their work. So there the idea was that it was not a collage that you just take the opposites and you hang the opposites together. But you actually take up the whole and cut it up into fragments. And then you try as best as possible to put it together. But of course, it doesn't come together.
Nancy: So, the opposite method of collage. And there are of course the sources, historians who actually say that Wolf Vostell is very much aware of the French Developments. And using this hint as painting in this media... and if you of course see, he begins to manipulate TV sets. And most of all political implication of his work is that television in his hands has not become a state of quality apparatus.
Nancy: In fact, he very finely actually manipulates the signal or the static of television in that you are decoding. Before time of course you simply couldn't. So you are questioning the value of truth and transfer as a power.. you come across the apparatus of television. As if its coming from a certain authority and then you break the authority. You hate most images.
Nancy: So, thr truth telling authority of television is completely submerjed in this work. And, sorry for bringing this... so many contextual media.. its very important for me to talk about fluxus. To contextualize them historically, this work was not shown the way it is today. It was shown as a part of a TV happening of nine decollages... where you were put into a bus and you were taken to various sites.
Nancy: And, this film was shot in 16 mm. And, it was shown on a projector. I think people were actually sleeping and would then go to work. So always talk about a very different context in which this work was first seen. It was not seen as a video.. there wasn't video that time ... its 1963. Video becomes vital around 1965. As the legend goes Philo Farmsworth captured the first solo around 1965 and there was a mutual post production about the thing.
Nancy: So, as I said, it's a kind of photo video that Wolf Vostell has made. I think its these nine happenings. People are actually made to go through very sinister sights. So they are locked up in a old factory, a defunct factory and there's a dog howling outside. So its almost like you are in a hair raising shelter. Then the television is actually put into these graves. So its almost as if its going to be killed and its going to have another life.
Nancy: And then the television is actually shot at after all the broadcast. So its within this context of happenings that sun in your head was shown. And this is also the time when airing on electronic projects into (?). So this all is being done to disseminate information. Before the symbol of television the symbol of the (?) which of course Philo Farmsworth breaks and supports.
Nancy: So, earlier it was the piano which was a bourgeoise fixed chair... which had all these bourgeoise meanings attached to it. And now, it becomes the television which is watched with your families at home, with your near and dear ones. So again, to break that old view in television, something that would foster thus to the world.
Nancy: And many other artists apart from Wolf Vostell who would try to make or execute the television. So it was shot at. There was also a happening where Wolf Vostell... which was called The Revival...where it takes the television at a certain top of it all .. there is almost a communist gesture .. people paint with an iceberg ... with prinkings... and after that it is a couple of feathers and then shot it... the paintings are suspended.
Nancy: Suddenly you see, you know various kinds of traditions which have been supported. And all these various atristics which are either shot either in context of (?). To show that different kinds of traditions which were in play. What is in is that the temperature is also would also be seen as the mystificaion of improvement. Then.. resurrection. So even that aspect would be told to have a limit of these happenings.
Nancy: Well I think that states us much is (?).. now what has media found during that result which I guess is that in the cattle of notes to Wolf Vostell... I will give you the whole formal backrgound, the institute of French decollages, and I told you about carnival and and impulses... But there's a very important background fact which is not written into the catalogue which is a very important missing note.
Nancy: Wolf Vostell had to go into Czechoslovakia because his mother was a Jew. And his childhood was spent in these aerial shelters. And he talks of his first happening which happens as a kid. You were assigned three and he sees the bombs come down... on the trees and he captures this thrilling effect have seen these walls come down... like flogging dead birds. So that is the first experience about happening.
Nancy: And it also sees all that is jet planes. And therefore the metaphor of the plane that you have seen- the plane which does not take off in sun in your head is something ... it was a childhood memory of catastrophe in an accident. And I think this is a very important link without which you can't understand why for instance does it hold for...this metaphor of catastrophe accident.
Nancy: And he also talks about how he returns to his mother and his family on foot- that too alone. And sees what disaster the war has done. Just one complex detail that is very important is, I will talk to you about fluxus.. happenings of which he was a pioneer. He was also making pop art which was very similar to that of (?) and (?). And his metaphor of the airplanes is something that I would connect with for Beuys. And (?). (?) airplanes would fly over poppy flowers and all.
Nancy: And Beuys because the aeroplane was a kind of... it was motif.. it was used by many of these artists. And it was part of a biography and autobiography of Beuys because his whole fictional biography says that the world has turned into an accident and he falls of the plane and these people in the Tartar region keen back to death by embalming in effect. In fact he felt.
Nancy: In that kind of you know... fictional autobiography becomes the groundwork of his various chauvinistic works. So, what I am trying to show you is that the airplane before Wolf Vostell convoys Hansom Befer was actually known more for the aviator. He hero of... the character of flight was in aviator. And that is something that we can connect to (?) and (?)... and all constructivist and modern.
Nancy: During Vostell's time its not the aviator but the airplane which comes as a symbol of catastrophe and destrcution. So again I was trying to show you all probably... movement.. from ther hero.. actually working for strains too to the fact that you can't. It's a big corruption. Everything.. you know all these fall apart in reality... falling apart and you can't bring them together. I will be silent.. I think... exhausted. But atleast we will discuss what I said now.
Ranjit: In some scenes there is... scrambled and terror.. the setting of the performance... It's a kind of battling around the character. In aviator, the plane is is damaged..free... and we pick up, how we have found ourselves... (unclear).. Well each thing makes sense that there is a record of several airplanes. And I am very attracted to the plane which has lost its consciousness, is sharply compressed, or even deranged.
Nancy: That's beautiful... on consciousness compressed... almost in instances like money... which would come from various kinds of inheritances and missions and each of these can be seen in a kind of fluxus like that. We can see all the instances through and through. It's not one or another. Is there anything else? Yeah.
Jitish Kalat: In relation to the airplane... you need not see, the resolution ... that's the airplane to the airplane... that is contested over...
Nancy: Anything else? Thank you very much.
(Audience claps)
Pad.ma requires JavaScript.
