Distance, transmission, and journey in the collective construction of an Itaaká
(2023)
author(s): Bruno Moreschi, Irineu Nje'a Terena
published in: HUB - Journal of Research in Art, Design and Society
This exhibition discusses the collective construction of an ancestral instrument of the Terena indigenous people in the context of the artistic residency Con/Cri/Tec, held in 2023 at Casa do Povo, in São Paulo. The functions of the itaaká instrument, as well as the process of creating it in the residency, offered decolonial opportunities for understanding the idea of "distance" beyond the non-indigenous scientific view. The first contribution to this expanded understanding of distance comes from the functions of the itaaká, in particular, that of reducing the distance between the terrestrial and the spiritual worlds, based on the idea of "transmission". The second perspective of distance analyzed here came from the experience of building the itaaká, seen in the Terena culture as part of a collective initiation ritual. The making of itaaká performed in the artistic residency showed part of this ritualistic character and how this ancestral instrument relates distance to the idea of collective construction of a "journey".
Viral Drawings: Transmission BC / QT / AV
(2021)
author(s): Karen Schiff
published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
This exposition reflects on the drawings I was making at different stages during the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially they are compared to my long-term practice of making abstract drawings patterned on language, and then they are used to theorize a "poetics of transmission." This framework is discussed in relation both to how the virus is transmitted and to how ideas are created and circulated. Various analytical interpretations of the drawings are considered. At some moments, I treat dots in the drawings like ideas or virus particles; at other moments, the strategies I use for connecting the dots represent the process of generating ideas. The drawings become tools for the "research" of thinking through physical and intellectual contagion.
they didn't bring enough water
(2019)
author(s): William Smart, Lindsey french
published in: Research Catalogue
In early 2016, Lindsey french and Willy Smart gleaned water samples during a series of anomalous rainstorms in the Southern Californian desert. Later, these samples were ‘released’ publicly via personal humidifiers.
Combining photographic documentation of humidity, the affected certainty of diagrams, and an associative written text that slips between theoretical and personal registers, the research exposition, “they didn’t bring enough water,” catalogs this process of reception and release.
The project floats on our attempt to follow a logic of water in our research — from the start then there is no pretense toward rigid methodology. We collected samples erratically, in line as much with our moods as with the sites we’d marked out in advance of the trip as potential intrigues. In other words, the bonds we seek out here aren’t those of solidarity, but liquidarity. Water is not then the tested object of our actions, but rather an active agent in our research. Crucially, the release was staged publically: the humidifiers fogged up the windows, our breaths mixed. Release here is meant in the sense of a record release — of circulation — rather than in the sense of a caged animal set free.
The materials collected in this research exposition include photographs of each water sample at the moment of its release, diagrams of forms taken by the released water vapor, and a written text. The text folds (but does not tie — liquidarity reigns here too) historic information on sample sites with personal associations and theoretical conversations initiated during the days of collection: during long drives, before sleep, and at the sites themselves. The text thus is loose — it slips between pronouns and landscapes and concepts — there’s not quite enough present perhaps for total coherence, like the sign we encountered at a trailhead at the beginning of the research trip — “THEY DIDN’T BRING ENOUGH WATER.” This apparent warning, with its seductive vagueness, would crystallize in the following days into an aphoristic methodology that is carried over into the presentation of materials here. What we didn’t bring perhaps we (perhaps you) will find here.
RELAY
(last edited: 2025)
author(s): RELAY ARTicle
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
RELAY is a three-year EU-funded research project supported by the ERASMUS+ programme „Cooperation Partnerships" that focuses on developing the artistic and educational fields of choreography, dance and music.
The concept that gave our project its name – RELAY – is based on deep trust in the transiting and transmissive foundation of both artistic production and knowledge development. RELAY underscores a fluid and processual element in the intersection of art and education. Not only does the actual production and development of knowledge and artworks depend on collective – and therefore transmissive – efforts, but the future life of those productions depends on how they are shared. For example, a dance technique only lives through those who practice it. A piece of music is passed on (through ear, instrument technology, or score) between practitioners, producers, and listeners. Every hand-over gives the possibility for development, re-iterations, and productive misunderstandings.
The exposition here gathers the findings, reflections and insights into the principles and methods of RELAY as well as obstacles, hiccups and (creative) failures as a work-in-progress.
Authors and Contributors: Ana Papdima, Andreea Duta, Catalin Cretu, Evita Tsakalaki, Jan Burkhardt, Konstantinos Tsakirelis, Laura Lang De Negri, Maia Means, Max Wallmeier, Mihai Mihalcea, Nadine Kribbe, Rasmus Ölme, Sergej Maingardt, Stella Malliaraki, Vera Sander