Artists' films, continuous screenings
Vernissage en présence de Klodin Erb, Dominique Koch, Christof Nüssli, Ali-Eddine Abdelkhalek et Milva Stutz, samedi 5 février de 18:00 à 22:00
En écho au programme de films concerts le 16 février
performances le 19 février
Ten artists’ films are projected continuously in the courtyard room. With : Klodin Erb; Dorota Gawęda & Eglė Kulbokaitė; Yara Dulac Gisler & Deborah-Joyce Holman; Lauren Huret & Maria Guță; Dominique Koch; Soraya Lutangu Bonaventure & Ali-Eddine Abdelkhalek; Christof Nüssli; Philip Ortelli; PRICE; Milva Stutz.
The whole program is broadcasted every day.
Klodin Erb, The Sweet Lemon Ballad (13'13'')
The video work The Sweet Lemon Ballad by Swiss artist Klodin Erb is a film about painting, laid out as a playful experimentation of a self-portrait with a lemon as the protagonist. The form of the ballad determines both image and sound. On a surrealistic journey through painterly settings, the lemon experiences different initiations and constantly reinvents itself. By undergoing these different processes, the fruit changes from an animated motif to an acting figure. At the end of the film, both subject and object, act simultaneously.The scenes are conceived as tableaux vivants and provide an enchanting insight into the multifaceted universe of the artist.
www.klodinerb.com
biography
Klodin Erb is a Swiss painters. In her expressive, fantastic pictorial worlds, she explores the boundaries of painting and simultaneously questions definitions of gender and identity. In an effort to combine topicality and timelessness in her paintings, the artist uses various techniques to “sample” borrowings from art history with motifs from the contemporary world. Klodin Erb lives and works in Zurich and is a lecturer at the Department of Design & Art at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.
Her works are represented in numerous public and private collections worldwide amongst others at the Kunstmuseum Bern; Museum zu Allerheiligen Schaffhausen; Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel and many private collections. Recently she had important solo exhibitions at the Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel and Gluri Suter Huus in Wettingen, near Zurich, Helvetia Art Foyer, Basel and was included in group exhibitions amongst others Veh Landschaften, Talmuseum St. Antönien, Switzerland, Die Augen der Bilder – Porträts von Fragonard bis Dumas, Museum Langmatt, Baden and Docking Station, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau.
Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė, Mouthless Part I (45'26")
“Mouthless Part I, a film work by Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė, is a study of the lack of comprehension, a meditation on free-flowing mutation, and a radical shift of perspective on humankind and the natural world. Confusion seeps into the cracks of history and flourishes in the comforting darkness, intricately organic like wet forest moss. Losing the rigidity of knowledge becomes a liberatory experience which enables finding voice for those who have been denied it – today and through the centuries.”
- Text by Anastasiia Fedorova
Mouthless Part I premiered at horizontal vertigo Julia Stoschek Collection, Dusseldorf (2020) and has been further exhibited and screened at Haunted Haus Swiss Institute, New York (2020); Istituto Svizzero, Milan (2021); Sonica Festival, Ljubljana (2021); Summoning solo exhibition at Quote Unquote, Bucharest (2021); Afterimage, Kaleidoscope Magazine, ONLINE (2021).
www.gawedakulbokaite.com
biographies
Dorota Gawęda (PL) and Eglė Kulbokaitė (LT) are an artist duo living and working in Basel. Both graduated from the Royal College of Art in London in 2012. Their work spans performance, sculpture, photography, painting and video. The duo have exhibited internationally including: Kunstverein Hamburg (2021); Istituto Svizzero, Milan (2021); Kunstverein Leipzig (2021); Swiss Institute, New York (2020); Den Frie, Copenhagen (2020); MWW, Wroclaw (2020); Kunstverein Düsseldorf (2020 and 2016); Lafayette Anticipations, Paris (2019); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2018); 6th Athens Biennale (2018); MMOMA, Moscow (2018); Kunsthalle Basel (2017); ICA, London (2017); MOMA, Warsaw (2016); Berlin Biennale 9 (2016); MaM, Paris (2015) among others. Their solo shows include presentations at: Istituto Svizzero, Palermo (2021); Quote - Unquote, Bucharest (2021); Swimming Pool Projects, Sofia (2021); Lucas Hirsch Gallery, Düsseldorf (2021 and 2019); Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf (2020); Trafo Gallery, Budapest (2020); Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, London (2020 and 2018); Fri Art – Centre d’Art de Fribourg / Kunsthalle Fribourg (2020); Futura, Prague (2019); Cell Project Space, London (2018). They have also participated in numerous international residencies including: Alserkal Arts Foundation, Dubai (UAE); La Becque, La Tour-de-Peilz (CH); Onassis AiR, Athens (GR); Capacete Residency, Rio de Janeiro (BR); Futura AiR, Prague (CZ); Triangle Residency, Marseille (FR); Art in General, New York (USA); Rupert residency, Vilnius (LT). They are the recipients of the Swiss Performance Art Award 2021 and have been nominated for the Prix Mobilière 2022. They are also the founders of the YOUNG GIRL READING GROUP (2013–2021).
Credits
Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė,
Mouthless Part I, 2020 Video (45:36)
Film by Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė
Cinematography : Dorota Gawęda & Eglė Kulbokaitė, Fritz Schiffers
Production : Dorota Gawęda & Eglė Kulbokaitė, Marie Gyger Gruppe
Editing : Robin Brass, Dorota Gawęda & Eglė Kulbokaitė
Animation : Dorota Gawęda & Eglė Kulbokaitė, Sybil Montet, Filip Setmanuk
Music : Bill Kouligas
Sound : Haraldur Thrastarson
Graphics : Dorota Gawęda & Eglė Kulbokaitė
Colour : Susi Dollnig
Kenophobia scene directed by : Fritz Schiffers
Kenophobia scene camera assistant : Lukas Störer
Make-up and Hair : Leana Ardeleanu, Dushan Petrovich, Juliette Ruetz
Styling : Tim Heyduck, Erik Raynal
Styling assistant : Manfred Elias Knorr
Casting : Elisabeth Brandauer, Dorota Gawęda & Eglė Kulbokaitė Gruppe
Ghosts : Katharina Achterkamp, Remko Van Der Auwera, Azza Bashir, Iris Bauer, Kilian Butler, Damien Granier, Robert Hamacher, Malina Heinemann, Britta Heinze, Joseph Kadow, Philisha Kay, Devon Kaylor, Cajus Kesler, Manfred Knorr, Matthias Kraemer, Laurids Köhne, Tibor Köhne, Jana Sophie Lehmann, Drew Lint, Yuan Lu, Angelina Mass, Henry Mcmaster, Dorothy Mour, Josip Novosel, Anna Onorato, Ioannis Papadakis, Georgie Pope, Helena Eleonora Rönnmark, Dirk Schlienz, Rami Shalati, Nataliya Susyak, Eleonora Sutter, Odely Tebul, Camilla Volbert, Emily Volbert, @Izaio: Steve, @Nest: Julius Von Lauser, Bong Kim, Robert Laby, @Smc Models: Athena, Elisabeth Gronen, Zoe Lochmann
Costume : Cottweiler, Ninamounah, Mainline, Cc-Steding, Roni Ilan, Fila, Oculāris, Kara Bag, Adidas, Aileen Klein, American Vintage, Cos, Desigual, Diren Duman, G-Star, Lotte Schönfeld, Lou De Bètoly, Magliano, Manfred Elias Knorr, Mara Danz, Maison Magiela, Marie Louise Vogt, Mcm, Mm6 Via Zalando, Nicomede Perverze, Roeckl, Seraina Büchi, Soup Archive, Trippen, Truongii, United Standard, Uniqlo, Vivienne Westwood.
Supported by : Abteilung Kultur Basel-Stadt, Pro Helvetia - The Swiss Arts Council, Fachausschuss Film Und Medienkunst, Fri Art Kunsthalle Fribourg, Wallriss, Fribourg
Thank you : Nicolas Brulhart, Marie Gyger, Sacha Rappo, Julia Crottet, Emma Berset, Pierre Berset, Fabian Stücheli, Bernhard Zitz, Rita Binz-Wohlhauser And Lionel Dorthe From Fribourg State Archive, Eikon, Anyma (Michael Egger), Ferme De La Faye, Granges-Paccot, International Flavors And Fragrances Inc., Alexis Thiem, Andreas Wetterli, Nefeli Myrodia, Ash Bulayev, Myrto Katsimicha, And All Others Involved.
Yara Dulac Gisler and Deborah Joyce Holman, Unless (16'43")
Unless is an artist moving image, which follows five characters through mundane, ritualistic situations of Basel’s industrial, eerie neighbourhood of Dreispitz. The project explores the potential of intimacy, elusiveness and illegibility as politically charged tools to resist the instrumentalisation of identity politics within the Western neoliberal, colonialist project.
www.deborahjoyceholman.com
biographies
Deborah Joyce Holman est une artiste multidisciplinaire dont le travail traite des stratégies de refus. Elle s’intéresse à ces stratégies à travers la figure de l’escroc. Elle pratique l’écriture, la sculpture, l’installation, le film et la création d’images.
Son travail a récemment été présenté à Unfinished Live, The Shed, New York City (2021) ; 7e Biennale d’Athènes (2021) ; TransBona-Halle, Bâle (2021) ; exposition de nomination pour le prix Kiefer Hablitzel, Bâle (2021) ; Conceptual Fine Arts Live, Milan (2021) ; Cherish, Genève (2021) ; Centre d’Art Contemporain, Genève (2021) ; La Quadriennale di Roma (2020) ; Material Art Fair, Mexico City (2020) ; A Soft Spiral (solo), Mikro, Zurich (2019) ; Fondation Entreprise Ricard, Paris (2019) ; Auto Italia, Londres (2019) ; Live In Your Head, Genève (2018) ; Alienze, Lausanne (2018) ; OSLO10, Bâle (2017) ; Locale Due, Bologne (2016), entre autres.
Elle travaille actuellement comme conservatrice associée à Auto Italia, une organisation artistique de l’est de Londres. Elle est la directrice fondatrice de 1.1, une plateforme pour les praticiens en début de carrière dans les arts, la musique et les pratiques textuelles, avec un espace d’exposition à Bâle, en Suisse, qui a fonctionné de 2015 à 2020. Elle a organisé des expositions, des DJ mix et de concerts avec des artistes tels que Precious Okoyomon, Tabita Rezaire, Languid Hands, Jeremy Nedd, CUSS Group, Rashayla Marie Brown, Bonaventure, Real Madrid, Mathilde Agius, Jessy Razafimandimby, LAFAWNDAH et Trustfall, parmi beaucoup d’autres.
Deborah a été commissaire des expositions collectives annuelles 2018 et 2019 pour Les Urbaines, Lausanne, intitulées …and their tooth, finest gold et Cinders, sinuous and supple respectively. Ces expositions comprenaient des œuvres nouvellement commandées par Alfatih, Shamiran Istifan, Christelle Oyiri, Dorota Gawęda & Eglė Kulbokaitė, Olu Ogunnaike, Ashley Holmes, Atiéna Riollet, Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi, Mohamed Almusibli, Tarek Lakhrissi, Jasmine Gregory, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Jala Wahid, Maïté Chénière, entre autres.
crédits
By Yara Dulac Gisler & Deborah Joyce Holman
Commissioned by Explorers Film Club
Supported by Pro Helvetia Stiftung Jugendkulturpauschale Basel-Stadt
With: Yara Dulac Gisler / Deborah Joyce Holman / Mirco Joao Pedro / Cynthia Matumona / Suhyene Iddrisu
Camera: Jumana Issa
Director of Picture: Jelena Luise
Sound recordist: Ananda Schmidt
Styling & Make-Up (concept): Desmond Chan
HMU & Styling assistants: Jahsiri Asabi-Shakir / Chaïm Vischel
Production assistant: Caroline Honorien
Set assistants: Joy Asumadu / Glenn Asumadu / Timon Essoungou / Imani Fux / Alice Lushima / Sera Ndlovu / KT Omole / Fatima Salum / Nahom Weldemehret
Editing: Deborah Joyce Holman / Rodan Tekle (from Studio Junbi)
Grading: Natacha Ikoli
Score: Yara Dulac Gisler / Deborah Joyce Holman / The Bells (Remix) - Bearcat / Dion McKenzie
Mixing: Jackie Poloni
Mastering: Russell E. L. Butler / Merlin Züllig
Graphic Design: Ann Kern
Editing Subtitles : Imani Robinson / Covington Sam-Sumana
Exterior eye: Jeremy Nedd
Special thanks: Atelier Mondial / Ali-Eddine Abdelkhalek / Hochschule für Kunst und Gestaltung Basel / Julie Machin / Flavio Luca Marano / Ivy Monteiro / None Nissen / Uncle Naa Dom aka Fred Biney / David Nana Opoku Ansah / Philip Ortelli / Point de Vue Basel / Jonas Schaffter
Maria Guta et Lauren Huret, The Soothsayings of Iris (21')
The Soothsayings of Iris is the first collaboration between Swiss based artists Lauren Huret and Maria Guta. Based on the «73 Questions» Vogue format and inquiring the «viral» type formats by highlighting their awkwardness and problematic aspects, as well as the impact of their instant worldwide broadcasting – this prophetic satire is an interview with a fictive character, mash-up of several intriguing public figures that populate our networks. Inspired by their adoptive Swiss environment and the US West Coast, the artists are fascinated by the spread of specific ideologies like new-age mysticism, tech gurus and the phenomenon of over-hyped celebrities. The piece is a commentary on how we deal with digital identity and the influence of media representation on the collective psyche. The Soothsayings of Iris, a video work that we want parodic, syncretic, strange and disturbing, is a commentary on what nourishes us and what challenges us on a daily basis. Our landscapes are constituted by new media and social networks.
www.laurenhuret.com
www.mariaguta.com
biographies
Maria Guta (1983, Bucharest) is a Romanian artist based in Switzerland.
Her work mainly looks into mechanisms of self-representation, production and promotion of the self and persona construction as a strategic form of public identity. Making use of video, performance, as well as immersive and social media, she reenacts these mechanisms by placing herself both behind and in front of the camera and performing in most of her works.
In the current context of Digital Transformation, she is intrigued by concepts as beauty, eternal youth and immortality.
She is also a passionate researcher on celebrity culture and the new forms of fame and influence created with social media and each new technology.
She holds a BFA in Graphic Design from The National University of Arts in Bucharest and a MA in Art Direction from École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL). Her works were presented, among others, at Istituto Svizzero, Roma (IT), HeK Basel (CH), National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest (RO), MU Hybrid Arthouse, Eindhoven (NL), Sundance Film Festival - New Frontier (USA), Locarno Film Festival (CH), GIFF - Geneva Film Festival (CH), Swissnex San Francisco (USA), Gessnerallee Zürich (CH), Roehrs and Boetsch, Zürich (CH), Istituto Svizzero, Milan (IT), SomoS Art House, Berlin (DE)
Maria is currently collaborating on a regular basis with artist Lauren Huret.
Lauren Huret was born in Paris in 1984 and has lived in Switzerland since pursuing a master’s degree at Geneva School of Art and Design (HEAD). Her work, mainly composed of videos, installations, performances and collages, is based on an on-going examination of the influence of belief systems and mystical ideas on media and tech culture. Her various research projects have taken her to Silicon Valley to examine A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) and to the Philippines to investigate content moderation and the new status of the image in the age of mass-sharing. Lauren collaborates regularly with the artist Maria Guta and together they are developing pieces that reflect a common fascination with the icon and hyper-mediatization of the human figure.
Lauren has recently exhibited and performed at, amongst others, Jeu de Paume, Fondation Ricard and the Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris, FR, the Haus der Elektronischen Künste and the Swiss Art Awards in Basel, CH, the Printemps de Septembre biennial in Toulouse, FR, at the Kunstmuseum in Lucerne, CH, at Pioneer Works in New York, US, Kunstverein Göttingen, DE, and Copenhagen Contemporary, DK.
She is currently doing her research on sacred imagery.
credits
Written, directed and performed by Maria Guta & Lauren Huret
Camera: Raphaël Piguet
Camera Assistant: Gabriel Balagué
Music and Sound Production: FlexFab
Color Grading: Léon Orlandi
Editing: Maria Guta, Lauren Huret, Raphaël Piguet, Baptiste Jehan
Costume and Set Design: Maria Guta & Lauren Huret
Accessories: Worn
Thanks to: René Haeberli & Marion, Pablo Fernandez, Raphaël Piguet, Gabriel Balagué, Baptiste Jehan, Hunter Longe, Sonia Garces, Hélène Gagliardi, Camille Buhler et Magdalena Brozda, Benjamin Elliott, Aurélien Reymond, Iulia Popescu, Tobi Zimmerman, Cosmin Tapu & Mihaela Vasile, Mary Ellyn Johnson, GIFF festival
To our inspiration: Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Dr. Ruja Ignatova, Elizabeth Holmes, The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Osho, Elon Musk, Anthony William (The medical medium), Rudolf Steiner
Produced for “Intervals of attention”, a project run by Rokolectiv Festival and co-funded by A.F.C.N.
Funded by Rokolectiv Festival, International Film Festival Geneva - GIFF, Swissnex San Francisco, OFC - Swiss Art Awards, Art Foundation PAX
Christof Nüssli, Visibility (9'03'')
“A stream of consciousness takes us from a society that is afraid of teenagers and birds to drone pilots wearing bomber jackets to the question of whether smoke can make change visible. Should we hold on tight or let ourselves be blown by the wind?”
www.christofnuessli.ch
biography
Christof Nüssli (*1986, Zurich) is a visual artist, whose interdisciplinary approach involves video, sculpture, installation, photography and writing. His work has been exhibited in various institutions and film festivals. In 2020, Nüssli received a Master of Fine Arts from the Glasgow School of Art.
credits
Director: Christof Nüssli
Camera: Florian Dombois, Christof Nüssli, Christoph Oeschger
Editing: Christof Nüssli
Sounddesign/Music: Claudia Vasiliu
Audio: Stereo
Acknowledgements: with Videos from Christof Nüssli, NASA, US Department of Defense and Florian Dombois, Christoph Oeschger, Fabian Gutscher (Research Focus Transdisciplinarity, ZHdK
Dominique Koch, Sowing the Seeds for the Future (60')
ICARDA owns one of the world’s largest collections of old or wild seed varieties, which it continuously plants and archives. ICARDA’s research goal is to prevent hunger crises as a result of droughts and other disasters. In the face of rising global temperatures, water shortages and new pathogens, these seed varieties are becoming important building blocks for science to rediscover and apply the characteristics and survival skills they have acquired over thousands of years. The transmission of indigenous knowledge about these wild seed varieties - capable of adaptation and survival for thousands of years - is fundamental to ensuring the genetic diversity of plants as well as feeding humanity.
In Sowing the Seeds for the Future the images from the research institute are interwoven with a conversation with the natural philosopher Andreas Weber, who deals with the idea of unconditional reciprocity and paraphrases this with the concept of “edibility”. In addition, another fictional voice conveys the perspective of the stored seeds.
www.dominiquekoch.com
éléments biographiques
Dominique Koch (CH) vit et travaille à Bâle et à Paris. De 2004 à 2011, elle a étudié la photographie à l’Académie des arts visuels de Leipzig. Elle conçoit ses installations comme des « laboratoires de pensées » qui fusionnent différents domaines de recherche donnant lieu à des enchevêtrements hybrides et à des rencontres intellectuelles improbables. Ses récentes expositions personnelles incluses Holobiont Society au CAN, le Centre d’art de Neuchâtel, Maybe We Should Rejuvenate the Words Rather Than the Bodies à Rinomina à Paris et Beyond Chattering and Noise au Centre Culturel Suisse de Paris. Ses œuvres ont remporté plusieurs prix et ont été présentées dans le cadre de diverses expositions collectives, notamment au CCCB de Barcelone, au STATE Studio de Berlin, à la Shedhalle de Zurich, à l’Istituto Svizzero di Roma, à la Biennale de Lagos II, à A Tale of a Tub de Rotterdam, au Frankfurter Kunstverein, au swissnex de San Francisco, à la Kunsthalle de Bâle, à l’EKKM de Tallinn, à Copenhagen Contemporary et à la Kunsthalle de Mayence. Ensemble avec Tobias Koch ils ont été sélectionnés pour la résidence principale à la Becque en été 2022.
distribution
Réalisation, caméra, montage: Dominique Koch
En conversation avec: Andreas Weber, Mahmoud Solh, Mariana Yazbek et Ali Shehadeh.
Sound design & musique: Tobias Koch.
Voix off: Stephanie Németh-Parker
Nanoflights, images scientifiques: Stefan Diller, Scientific Photography Wuerzburg. Scanné sur un TESCAN MIRA3.
Distribution : Studio Dominique Koch
Milva Stutz, For Real, for Real, for Real this Time (8'45'')
What significance do corporeality, closeness and vulnerability have in times of progressing digitization? What do we mean when we talk about „real“ bodies and emotions today? And how can we use the potential of digital technologies against discriminatory patterns of thought and behavior? The animated short film For Real, For Real, For Real This Time explores possibilities of a feminist appropriation of digital spaces and technologies. An older women moves and dances lustily through a space in the middle of a server farm and, together with a snail, covers it with a shiny layer of slime. The myth of cyberspace as an immaterial space is questioned, slimed, feminised and embodied.
www.milvastutz.ch
biography
Milva Stutz artistic practice includes animated videos, drawings, and sculptures and she is interested in the relationship between body, intimacy and technology. In the interplay of digital and analog, Stutz deals with questions around body and materiality: What is perceived as lifeless, untouchable, non-human, and how does that change the way we behave physically and emotionally? She lives and works in Zurich.
credits
A film by Milva Stutz
3D Animation: Quaint/Sandro Lochau & Alessandro Holler
Stop Motion Animation: Milva Stutz
Animation Support: Lukas Egger
Sounddesign & Mastering: Zentralton/Roland Widmer
Voice: Margret Nonhoff
Editing Support: Lucia Cadotsch / Antshi von Moos
Compositing Support: Dominic Gut
Color Grading: Michael Etzensperger / Ueli Nüesch
Financial Support: Bundesamt für Kultur / Pro Helvetia / Guggenheim-Stiftung
Philip Ortelli , Liberty, Love and Loneliness (24')
For Liberty, Love and Loneliness (2021), Philip Ortelli lead research in the gay holdings of the “Archives sociales suisses”. In the resulting experimental film, he depicts the reality of the life of queer people in Switzerland. At the same time, he shows that a whole part of this story has not been documented for fear of reprisals or censorship. The artist highlights that this lack of knowledge is still embedded in many minds and remains a factor of discrimination and violence committed against LGBTIQ people. In this sense, his work must be understood as an extension of the archives and an attempt to determine what being queer means today.
www.philiportelli.com
biography
Philip Ortelli (b. 1991) is an artist working with video and sculpture, oscillating between concept and intuition. Recent works circle around queerness and its complicated history of representation. Since graduating from his MBA at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, he has shown his work at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Kunsthalle Bern, Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Kunsthaus Langenthal and the Centre d’Art Pasquart. Ortelli has been awarded several prizes such as the Werkbeitrag and the Freiraumbeitrag by the Canton of Zurich, the Kiefer-Hablitzel Göhner Prize, and received several grants by the cities of Bern and Zurich, the Pink Cross, the Lesbian Organisation Switzerland and several other organizations.
Credits
Camera : James Bantone
Composition sonore : GOLCE
Animation : Alfatih
Avec le soutien de : Pink Corss, Organisation Suisse des Lesbiennes, Transgender Network Switzerland, Heinrich Hössli Stiftung, Kultur Stadt Bern, SWISSLOS Kultur Kanton Bern
PRICE, Mantras for a Club (sequences) (26')
Sequences (Mantras for a Club) draws material from an iteration in December 2020 at Theater Neumarkt Zürich. The individuals exaggerate and amplify the performance of a public self, creating an ellipsis of consumption. By displaying the production of emotional value to the level of exhaustion, PRICE centres the contemporary desire for constant performance.
The camera gaze focuses on the internal and external viewpoint of the performer’s perspective, navigating between (and thus complicating) the relationship between the periphery and centre. PRICE draws from a canon of synthetically produced modes of behaviour to form what he terms „the choreography of the work“. Using theatrical language of the neo-baroque and imaginary, the work produces an ongoing „othering“ in a challenge to the exoticization that body politics enact.
biography
PRICE (Mathias Ringgenberg 1986, Rio de Janeiro) lives and works now in Zurich. He studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy Amsterdam before receiving an MA Performing Arts and Theater from HKB, Bern in 2015.
PRICE is a fictional character who appears in various performances. His work is characterized by elaborate soundscapes, costumes and stage design often developed in collaborative constellations. His productions play with the audience’s expectations of the exposed, ostensibly authentic self of the performer, who emotes before their eyes. They are interspersed with pop-cultural set pieces, mechanical sounds, rhythms and his own singing voice. The voice forms a central element of his work. PRICE views it as an acoustic form of emotional communication outside language’s imperative to create meaning.
In PRICE’s work, different spaces—each with their own economies, mechanisms of historicization and exclusion, norms and potentials—overlap: the stage of theater and performance, the club, digital space, the fashion runway, the exhibition space. The drama known as PRICE unfolds against the backdrop of spaces divided into their individual, constituent parts. His performances alternate between total immersion and the abrupt unmasking of the means of theatrical staging. Part of this involves the emotional work that has to be invested in order to maintain the fiction of the performer’s individual identity—a genuine expenditure that is always also an effect, like the artificially shimmering sweat on his forehead. These are not the irreconcilable oppositions of artificial and authentic around which he moves. Rather, PRICE is interested in the conflicting relationship between these socially normative
categories, the realm of which is the (queer) self, the (queer) body. Misfit costumes reference a variety of other possible forms of wearing by different bodies; instances of stumbling and struggling sneak into PRICE’s work. For him, failure is always also part of a queer strategy: an indifference to assimilation, rigid identities and the demands on the self in digital capitalism. It is a second-degree failure that is always part of the presentation.
Credits
PRICE with Camille Cléadon Decraux, Tamara Alegre, Tiran
Camera: Mirjam Graf & Chantal Kaufmann
Clarinet: Ivan Cheng
Guitar: Federico Capon
Track: „Life“ composed and produced with Cecile Believe, Modular and Tobias Koch with vocal
contribution by Cecile Believe and Thibault Lac
Curtain design in collaboration with Victor Barragán
Production Consulting Eva Buehler
Production Rebecca Ammann
Production assistants Olivia Bertschinger, Paolo Mereu
Leather mules by I S E
Underwear Knitwear by IAHAI
Co-Produced by Stadtgalerie Bern, Arsenic Lausanne, Theater Neumarkt Zürich
Soraya Lutangu Bonaventure & Ali-Eddine Abdelkhalek, Taking Care of God - A film (11')
Taking Care of God (2019-2021) is a hybrid performance piece initiated and directed by Soraya Lutangu Bonaventure and starring Kingdom Gospel Club, a Gospel collective from the Congo. The project aims to explore the intersections that exist between the world of church and the club scene, analyzing their use of music and dance, and their search for trance through rhythms. Based on footages showing the processes of creating the eponymous performance in Kampala, Soraya and frequent collaborator Ali-Eddine Abdelkhalek developed a film highlighting the respective trajectories of the performers and conversations on the perception of spirituality in the world.
www.eternalresear.ch
www.aliabdelkhalek.ch
credits
Ali-Eddine Abdelkhalek.
Mixed media artist/designer. Live and work on the internet. Here you’ll find personnal and commissioned works. Worked as a graphic designer for the swiss national film archive. Art director and graphic designer of the fashion collective and online platform Faubourg823. Part of EUROSTANDARD studio with PB and CR.
Credits
Proposal, art direction, dramaturgy Soraya Lutangu Bonaventure
Music composition Soraya Lutangu Bonaventure
Vocals, performance Kingdom Gospel Club
Choregraphy, dramaturgy Soraya Lutangu Bonaventure, Kingdom Gospel Club Movement research : Tamara Alegre
Movement advisor Jeremy Nedd, Natasza Gerlach Light : Jacqueline Sobiszewski
Set design Giulia Essyad
Technical direction Thibault Villard
Vidéos, post prod. Ali-Eddine Abdelkhalek Costume : Bobby Kolade
Outlook Erika Nieva Da Cunha, Natasza Gerlach
Sound and light operator Thibault Villard
Sound engineer , Kampala Rey Sapiens
Tour manager Iman Waser
Executive production Mathias Ecoeur- Ars Longa , Ana Ladeira
Production Cie Eternal
Co-production Arsenic (Lausanne), Grütli (Genève),Gessnerallee (zürich), Dampfzentrale ( Bern), Kaserne ( Basel), Südpol (Luzern)
A co-production in the framework of the Reso-Dance Network Switzerland Programmers’ Fund.
Supported by Pro Helvetia, Fondation suisse pour la culture.
Support Ville de Lausanne, Loterie Romande, Pro-Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council, Fondation SIS, Fondation Corymbo, The Uganda Museum, Fonds Culturels Sud - Artlink
Partenaires du festival
