We are excited to invite you to the 3rd edition of our Modern Body Laboratory series, taking place on Saturday November 27, 2021!
This edition is a performative exhibition exploring the theme PORTALS.
Curatorial Statement
For more than a year we have been balancing on a threshold, at the precipice of something we cannot quite grasp, bracing ourselves to cross to some other side.
We have a looming, collective sense of exiting the known and heading somewhere else; maybe this will be a radically different world, or maybe it will be exactly the same; maybe it will be a world with sweeping changes or one with small differences that barely matter; a step towards utopia or a plunge into dystopia.
As we find ourselves crossing through this portal, we take a moment to hover in the nebulous spaces it offers, to gaze into some of the darkest voids and brightest rays of what is possible, to look into the past, the present, and the future, into realities and hypotheses, into lived experiences, empathic sensations, and thought experiments.
For this third Modern Body Laboratory edition we present four works that act as portals, transporting us to spaces, situations and vantage points that offer new perspectives, new visions, and new experiences, enabling us to reflect on the inertial forces of this collective hyperbody we all inhabit together – what we call humankind:
- Marko Ciciliani‘s durational Rave SÉANCE is a pseudo-occult ritual that invokes the ‘dark magic’ of Artificial Intelligence to rediscover the spirit of the rave, a trance-inducing gathering we have lately been deprived of.
- Future Voices / Zukunftsmusik by the Society for Nontrivial Pursuits extends an invitation to think together about the world to come, opening a portal into our collective imagination about the future, and engaging with our thoughts, fears, and hopes. For this event we invite Ji Youn Kang to take the helm in a special ‘takeover’, actively sculpting this journey as a durational performative installation.
- María Molina Peiró‘s The Sasha is a film that explores our human desire to extend the borders of our known world, and how we use technology to share life-changing experiences – like walking on the surface of the Moon and seeing the Earth from outer space.
- An Absurdist Archive of Isolation: a full-body workout radio play by Bridge Fiske / Joseph Lau / Stelios Manousakis / Stephanie Pan is a participatory radio play that opens a gateway in your own home, guiding you through a transformative reimagining of your relationship to space and time.
Ways to experience
- Upload your own thoughts and reflections on the future at the Future Voices website before or during the event.
- Experience An Absurdist Archive of Isolation: a full-body workout radio play at home, before or after coming to the exhibition. The piece can be accessed on-demand through our website from 16:00 to 00:00 local time on Nov. 27.
- Join us at WD4X/iii workspace between 17:00 – 20:00 on Nov. 27 to participate in the Rave SÉANCE, to listen and contribute to the Future Voices, and to watch The Sasha.
Before your visit, please have a look at the information regarding current Covid-19 protocols for our venue here.
WHAT
Modern Body Laboratory #3: Portals | Performative exhibition
Presenting works by:
Marko Ciciliani (AT/HR)
The Society for Non-Trivial Pursuits (DE) & Ji Youn Kang (NL/KR)
María Molina Peiró (NL/ES)
Bridget Fiske (UK/AU) / Joseph Lau (UK/AU) / Stelios Manousakis (NL/GR) / Stephanie Pan (NL/US)
WHEN
Saturday, 27 Nov 2021
17:00 – 20:00 (on site)
16:00 – 00:00 (online, free access)
WHERE
WD4X, iii workspace
Willem Dreespark 312, 2531SX, The Hague
Modern Body Laboratory #3: Portals
Performative Exhibition
Date & Time
27 November 2021
17:00 – 20:00 (on site)
16:00 – 00:00 (online, free access)
Tickets
Available here and at the door
Cost: sliding scale 5-10€
Venue
WD4X, iii workspace
Willem Dreespark 312
2531SX, The Hague
Presented Works
Marko Ciciliani (AT/HR) | Rave SÉANCE
Durational audiovisual performance-installation
Rave SÉANCE is a performance-installation which creates an audiovisual environment that fuses aspects of Rave culture and esoteric séances. By combining aspects of techno music - characterized by electronic sound production and mechanical repetition - with pseudo spiritistic practices, it thematizes the coupling of scientific discovery and magic, which has flourished since discoveries in the field of electricity have entered popular culture in the 18th Century. As expressed by C. Clarke’s bonmot “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. Rave SÉANCE thereby traces the widely unreflected preoccupation of media-art with the magical.
Rave SÉANCE offers a circular setup of 5 tables where up to 12 people can sit together with the performer and actively participate.
See more information on the project here.
An iMAL co-production, with the financial support of EASTN-DC,
With special thanks to Frederik de Blezer for help with generating AI material and Roel Das for robotics
Marko Ciciliani (AT/HR) is a composer, audiovisual artist, performer and researcher. The focus of his work lies in the composition of performative electronic music, mostly in audiovisual contexts. Interactive video, light design and laser graphics often play an integral part in his compositions. Ciciliani’s works have been performed in more than forty-five countries across Eurasia, Oceania and the Americas. They have been released on five full-length CDs and three multimedia books. Ciciliani is Professor for Computer Music Composition at the Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz.
The Society for Nontrivial Pursuits (DE) & Ji Youn Kang (NL/KR) | Future Voices / Zukunftsmusik - takeover edition no.3 : Portals
Performative sound installation
»Future Voices/Zukunftsmusik« invites people from all over the world to give voice to what they expect, hope, or fear for the future. Their contributions flow into a generative sound stream composed from these individual »Future Voices«; voices that would otherwise remain unheard within an attention economy that favours loudness, provocation, and conspiracy theories. The Society for Non-Trivial Pursuits (S4NTP), believes these voices have constructive things to say, and through this project try to channel the power of a collective and diverse sonic stream of consciousness.
For this event, Modern Body has invited composer/sound artist Ji Youn Kang to take the helm, actively sculpting this journey in a special 'takeover edition' of the project that takes the form of a durational performative sound installation.
See more information on the project here.
Invitation to contribute
We live in a present with many, very different possible futures. They range from doom to bliss, dystopia to utopia.
What do YOU think about the future?
What do YOU expect, fear, hope, propose, plan for the future?
You can make your voice heard: We are collecting a multitude of voices that compose a 1-year-long sound stream.
Here you can record your own statement; you can listen to the generative stream here.
Created by: Adel Akram Alameddine, Vinzenz Aubry, Valentina Berthelon, Alberto de Campo, Özcan Ertek, Pedro Ferreira, Juan Pablo Gaviria Bedoya, Bruno Gola, Isak Han, Hannes Hoelzl, HyungJoong Kim, Yun Chu Liang, André Martins, Sujay Mukherjee, Sangwon Nam, Carlos Andres Ortega, Cagil Ozdemir, Marcel Schwittlick, Ilija Šorševiç, Lisa Maria Steppacher, MengXuan Sun, Fang Tsai, ChunLi Wang, Anne Wellmer, Tsingyun Zhang.
Commissioned by Deutschlandfunk Kultur / Klangkunst, ORF Kunstradio, CTM Festival.
The Society for Nontrivial Pursuits (DE) – present, past, future students, alumni/ae, teachers, and associates of the class for Generative Art at UdK in Berlin – explores the possibility spaces of complex behaviors in feedback systems, chaotic circuits, social systems or computer programs. We design, build and program our own audio/visual performance systems based on a variety of devices, sensors, analog electronics, and software synthesis. S4NTP has been active since 2010, and comprises a flexible team with a wide range of artistic and technical experience. We hold regular performance evenings and exhibitions in Berlin, and have performed and exhibited at festivals, conferences and exhibitions worldwide.
Ji Youn Kang (NL/KR) is a Korean composer, performer and sound artist based in The Hague. Most of her music pieces have been composed based on the rites of Korean Shamanism, and many of them were written for Wave Field Synthesis System, exploring the relationship between musical and physical spaces. She is also active as a solo performer seeking for the ways to combine three different sound areas on stage; acoustic instruments, analog and digital sound with DIY analog synthesizers and live processing on laptop. Currently she is teaching at the Institute of Sonology in Koninklijk Conservatorium, and Avans Hogeschool in Breda.
María Molina Peiró (NL/ES) | The Sasha
Film
In 1972 the astronaut Charles Duke landed on the Moon on the Apollo XVI. He was in charge of taking photos of the lunar surface with a high-resolution camera.
Questioning the veracity of photographic documentation through its narrative, The Sasha is an inquiry about the human perspective on Earth and our constant struggle with our temporal and spatial limitations. From the exploration of space to cyberspace, from an analogue Moon in 1972 to a virtual Moon on Google Earth today. A story about parallel universes where eternity seems to be lost between frames and interfaces.
Direction, production, editing and postproduction: María Molina Peiró
Voice: Tania Theodoru
Sound: Sergio Gonzalez Cuervo
Music composition: Natalia Dominguez Rangel
María Molina Peiró (NL/ES) is a media artist and filmmaker based in Amsterdam. Her artworks and films have been shown internationally in art centres and film festivals such as Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), MACBA (Barcelona), International Film Festival Rotterdam, Louvre Museum (Paris), Washington National Gallery, BFI London Film Festival, MMCA National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul), International Film Festival Oberhausen, Hong-Gah Museum (Taipei), Vilnius National Gallery, Reencontres Internationales, EYE Film Museum (Amsterdam), ISEA Korea, London Science Museum amongst many others. Her films are distributed and part of art film collections like Reina Sofía Museum, EYE Film Museum, LIMA Collection, HAMACA or Cinesud.
Bridget Fiske (UK/AU) / Joseph Lau (UK/AU) / Stelios Manousakis (NL/GR) / Stephanie Pan (NL/US) | An Absurdist Archive of Isolation: A full body workout radio play
Immersive sound and participatory movement experience
An immersive participatory radio play for solo audiences at home that unfolds and transforms your environment through music, your movement, and text.
This genre-blurring 26-minute trip offers a deep dive into our relationship with time and the freedom of isolation. The narrator guides you through a sensory choreographic journey, plunging into contemporary storytelling and podcast wormholes while soaring past an eclectic mix of dramatic song, techno, musique concrète, raggacore, field recordings, indie pop and ambient music.
There will be time to move with fury, fall into the softness of cushions and collapse into the folds of time. It is all as you choose.
The piece is streamable on demand on our website on November 27, between 16:00 and 00:00.
• This work is preferably experienced through headphones, but speakers are also possible. Please ensure you are free to move safely e.g. put your phone securely in a pocket or use wireless headphones.
• This work is recommended for general audiences, with audiences below 12 years under adult supervision.
• This work encourages physical participation and interaction with your environment. Ensure any choices you make about use of space, architecture and objects are safe. Please modify and adjust your movement to support your needs and capacity to the level your body is ready for. Always follow medical advice on participation in physical activity. By engaging with and participating in this work you take full responsibility for your personal health and all aspects of the environment you are in at all times.
Text: Bridget Fiske, Joseph Lau, Stelios Manousakis, Stephanie Pan
Music/sound: Stelios Manousakis & Stephanie Pan
Choreographic score: Bridget Fiske & Joseph Lau
Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, and Stroom Den Haag.
Created with the support of The Lowry.
Also supported by The Lowry Centre for Advanced Training and Upasana Arts
This work is part of They Gather, an international and interdisciplinary project creating ‘gatherings’ of people, action, dance, sound and music. Via various interrelated works, ‘They Gather’ explores the boundaries between audience, participant and artist, creating dialogue with environments, societies, politics, histories and speculative futurologies.
Made by: Bridget Fiske (UK/AU) – multifaceted independent artist with a 20 year portfolio working in local, national and international contexts; Joseph Lau (UK/AU) – choreographer, performer and facilitator; Stelios Manousakis (NL/GR) – artist and curator exploring relationships between time, space, body, system and sound; Stephanie Pan (NL/US) – vocalist, performance artist, maker, and curator.
Modern Body Laboratory #3: Portals is presented by the Modern Body platform and iii, in collaboration with iMAL and with financial support from Creative Industries Fund NL, The Municipality of The Hague, Performing Arts Fund NL and EASTN-DC.