Invisible Voice #1 (2017)
a narrative about a narrative…
There are profound consequences if the chicken comes before the egg.
Individual knowledge, that is cultivated privately and never spread, exists purely for the individual. Only extremely rarely will it have any impact or reality on a collective of individuals. ‘The main means of mass communication’ – the media – exists to explain to the collective of individuals events which have happened, but also those which are yet to take place.
Consumption of media has always been a somewhat solitary exercise – newspapers were not intended to be shared, more likely thrown away after having been paid for. Then, the introduction of the radio in the 1920s brought the media directly into the home, cementing the transition from an experience shared with others to a more individual, private experience. We more and more regularly consume media alone, through once analogue and now digital mediators – as such, our consumption of politics, culture, and entertainment has become an isolated experience, existing between us and the media.
The media give us context, highlighting not only our own social classes but the functions of society in the wider world. Cultural influences, like art or film, have social influence; they teach us what is ‘cool’, how to interact with people, and even how to seduce partners. Political influences, like the news, allow us a perceived empowerment, giving the illusion of cultivating cultural and political awareness, and a sense that we have independently come to conclusions autonomously. This is a false perception. To acknowledge the authority and respect the media commands over the individual is vital.
The responsibility of the free press is to ensure that a respect for the diversity of morals exists; to give voice to minorities and disparate cultures; and, crucially, to hold politics and politicians accountable. The press is a defender of civil liberties and a challenger of the status quo; it is vital that the press remains free. According to the RSF World Press Freedom Index), in July 2016 the UK had the 38th freest press out of 180 countries, whereas the USA had the 41st, compared to 34th and 49th respectively in 2015.
However, in constantly challenging and pushing boundaries, the press also set the parameters and restrictions on what is culturally, socially, and morally acceptable. It chooses who and what to question, and it decides what we will be aware of. Fundamentally, it influences our decision-making, morality, and way of life by setting the limits on norms.
‘Life in the United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship’, Edition 2, 2011, is one of the required readings to claim citizenship in the UK. In it are the words of the Home Office: ‘The UK has a free press, meaning that what is written in newspapers is free from government control. Newspaper owners and editors hold strong political opinions and run campaigns to try and influence government policy and public opinion. As a result it is sometimes difficult to distinguish fact from opinion in newspaper coverage.’
In much the same way as a text can shed and change meaning in different contexts, the imagery, phrasing and framing of shots deliberately manufactures misinterpretation. To use an extreme example to highlight this, on 17th April 2015, writing for The Sun newspaper, Katie Hopkins wrote: ‘what we need are gunships sending these boats [Syrian refugees] back to their own country.’ Five months later, on 2nd September, Katie Hopkins wrote in the same newspaper: ‘today The Sun urges David Cameron to help those in a life-and-death struggle not of their making,’ attaching an image of a Syrian child who had drowned. This image alone emphasises the power of relatable imagery – the British population were swayed in the favour of allowing 20,000 Syrian refugees asylum in Britain by 2020.
In practice the free press distributes information with very little accountability – Rebekah Brooks was arrested and suspended as CEO of ‘News International’ as a result of the phone hacking scandal in 2011, but since 2015 she has been the CEO of ‘News UK’, which amounts to little more than the renaming of the original organisation. Meanwhile, the individual absorbs the media’s information often unquestioningly, rarely speaking about it.
Our relationship with political media tells us what we ‘need’ to know. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld – there are things we know, there are things we don’t know, and there are things we don’t know we don’t know. To decide that there is information to which the individual should not be privy is to remove autonomy from not only the individual, but from the collective of individuals who determine their actions and behaviours based on the limited information provided.”
The potential for the narrative of the reportage we are accustomed to in 2016 and 2017 to become fictionalised seems to be growing. The British people’s decision to leave the EU under false promises of £350 million a week being directed to the NHS, and Donald Trump’s progression from the media’s villainous jester to the most powerful man in the world are indicative of the real-world repercussions of the media’s spotlight. Journalists and organisations who report false and speculative headlines seem not to be held to account; ‘clickbait’ (headline grabbing stories) takes precedence and there is no acknowledgement that the media giving attention to these stories, whether in a positive or negative light, gives them credibility.
In determining our perspective, the media decide our future, as their proleptic visions become reality. We don’t own the news, in much the same way as we don’t own our history – it becomes part of the collective record.
2. Odorantur_Lygophilia, installation, 2019
– in which the artist takes the viewer into the Proteus’ environment by triggering various sensory perceptions. Life and evolution in the darkness raises the question as to how proteus can perceive space and how it orientates in it. As an animal species whose eyes have become degenerate for no use of sight, it heightened other senses, including smell. Water pollution
therefore causes not only the accumulation of toxic substances in its body, but it also robs it from another way of perceiving the environment, hinders its communication with other species, and prevents it from detecting its prey.
Artist, research, development: Robertina Šebjanič
Technical support and development: ScenArt d.o.o.
Development of the smell / odour: Marko Žavbi
Production: Projekt Atol (Uroš Veber) and Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana
Year of production: 2019
Special thanks: Tular Cave Laboratory, BioTehna
Production support: Ministry of Culture of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana
3. Piscis ludicrous / Transfixed gaze (Lygophilia), video essay, 15′ 30”, 2018
intervenes into environments and discusses ecology in order to establish substantial changes in an ecosystem. It explores how to perceive the parameters of the ecological needs of other species in the times of dark ecology. It questions the relationship between mythology and scientific facts merged with popular culture, and invites us to gain a more profound view of interspecies cohabitation and coexistence with a focus on relationship between axolotls and humans.
The axolotl is a neotenic salamander native to North America found in the highland lakes of Mexico. The narratives of the axolotl’s complex history, present and future are viewed through different lenses:
-Axolotl as a species that is facing extinction in its natural environment;
-Axolotl as a subject of scientific research considering its extraordinary regenerative abilities and the promise of everlasting life;
A-xolotl as a cultural heritage representing biopolitical and decolonial relations, displaying the connection between mythology in the contemporary world.
More: http://robertina.net/piscis-ludicrous-tranfix-gaze-lygophilia
To be a thing at all – a rock, a lizard, a human – is to be in a twist.How thought longs to twist and turn like the serpent poetry! _Timothy Morton (Dark Ecology)
Drops that resonate in the darkness of the caves, are condensed representation of a complex and extreme environment that is still full of mystery, darkness and a special beauty, where the geological and biological time are seems to happen in different time span.
In the caves the sound of the water dropping has a strong presence, as is the sound that is breaking the silence to the proteus / olm*. This little drops are the “information transfer”, getting the info about the living conditions from above that are coming deep into the cave and they are the source of food for biological life as the building material for the geological structures.
*The proteus or olm also known as the proteus or the cave salamander – Proteus anguinus) is a blind amphibian exclusively found in the underwater caveskast area in Slovenia and also in some parts of of southern European (Italy, southwestern Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Sound composition: https://robertina.bandcamp.com/track/dark-drops-lygophilia
More: http://robertina.net/dark-drops
5. Lygophilia / Transfixed gaze (August – September 2017)
Mexico city, art – research residency at Arte+Ciencia at UNAM and development for a festival Transitio_MX: The project Lygophilia / Transfixed gaze showcases the Axolotl through different narratives:
– as a species that is facing extinction in natural environment;
– as a subject of scientific research considering its fascinating regenerative abilities;
– as a cultural imperative that helps to understand bridge between the past and future.
The Lygophilia / Transfixed gaze encourages viewers to reflect on new (ecological) realities in the time of the Anthropocene. It intervenes into environments and discusses ecology in order to establish the extent of substantial changes in ecosystem. It explores if and how we are able to perceive the parameters of ecological needs of other species in the times of dark ecology.
The mythology and scientific facts, merged with popular culture, invite audience to gain a more profound view of (inter)species’ cohabitation. Since the end of the 19 th century the number of Axolotls has increased, however, in laboratories, where they are examined for their biological advantages of their perpetual youth. On the other hand humans are the cause for (imminent) extinction of Axolotls in their natural habitat. The lakes surrounding Mexico City, where Axolotls originally live(d) in the darkness of the swamps, are losing the symbol which connects the future with the past.
The project thus opens the questions: Who observes whom? Who is seen as a monster and who is perceived as an optical illusion?
Credits (not final credits yet as project is still in research / development phase)
Author: Robertina Šebjanič
Assistant: Roberto Rojas Madrid
Curator of Transitio_MX: Pedro Soler
Production support:
Projekt Atol, Ministry of culture of Republic of Slovenia,Transitio_MX, Sektor, Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas y Acuícolas de Cuemanco Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Unidad Xochimilco (CIBAC-UAMX), Arte+Ciencia at UNAM
art/research residency at Arte+Ciencia at UNAM lead by María Antonia González Valerio with assistance of Roberto Rojas Madrid.
Consultancy / Special thanks:
Tzintia Mendoza, Dr. José Antonio Ocampo Cervantes & Arturo Vergara Iglesias & Alan Roy Jimenez Gutierrez & Angelina Saldaña from CIBAC-UAMX (Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas y Acuícolas de Cuemanco Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Unidad Xochimilco), dr. Jesús Chimal Monroy and Brianda Berenice Lopez Avina at Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas UNAM, Arte+Ciencia UNAM University, María Antonia González Valerio, Roberto Rojas Madrid, dr.Luis Zambrano from El Laboratorio de Restauración Ecológica UNAM, Francisco Martinez Perez, Secretario Auxiliar de la Cantera Oriente (REPSA),Miha Colner (Sektor), Sarah Hermanutz, Annick Bureaud, Ale de la Puente, Ida Hiršenfelder, Kristijan Tkalec (Rampa Lab), Gregor Aljančič (Tular Cave Laboratory), El Laboratorio de Restauración Ecológica UNAM,Transitio_MX festival at Centro Multimedia celebrado en Centro Nacional de las Artes (CENART)……
+ more organizations and individuals involved in the conservation of Axolotl at its natural environment (full credits of all the collaborators will be updated – as the project is still in development and it will premiered at the Transitio_MX festival, Mexico City)
UPDATE: 2017, 21 September: In light of all the tragic events that happened in last days in Mexico and as gesture of the solidarity are all public events canceled. Due to the earthquake and the declaration of emergency in Mexico, the Transitio_MX festival is canceled. – premiere 26. September, 8 pm, at Transitio_MX festival at Centro Multimedia celebrado en Centro Nacional de las Artes (CENART) in Mexico City, curated by Pedro Soler,
art/research residency at Arte+Ciencia at UNAM, lead by María Antonia González Valerio with assistance of Roberto Rojas Madrid
Later Date was an early-pandemic performance in which the artist hosted text-based, one-on-one chats with people to imagine future plans that could only transpire “later.” InI Heard Talking Is Dangerous, I showed up to friends’ doorsteps to deliver a monologue via text displayed via phone screen and text-to-speech. Participants were then invited to visit a URL to continue a text-based, in-person conversation about danger, safety, and the uncertain future. InWhat do you want me to say? visitors to the web-based work are asked by a digital clone of my voice, “What do you want me to say?” However they reply, my voice responds by speaking their own words back to them. Then it asks again, “What do you want me to say?” In SleepoverI would show up to a friend’s yard with a sleeping bag, text them “hello,” and then spend the night outside their home—without ever coming into physical contact. In NFT artworkGood Night, I text “goodnight” to a designated recipient every day before she goes to sleep for as long as she is alive.
Declared heroic by their peers for refashioning culture into what the group considers to be more honest statements, Negativland suggests that refusing to be original, in the traditional sense, is the only way to make art that has any depth within commodity capitalism… _NEW YORK TIMES
Negativland isn’t just some group of merry pranksters; its art is about tearing apart and reassembling found images to create new ones, in an attempt to make social, political and artistic statements. Hilarious and chilling. _THE ONION
A provocation and a punk-inspired commentary on our mercenary culture…eloquent and impassioned spokesmen for ideas like a “creative commons”…it’s salutary to see these smart and influential guys get a gallery show.
_ART IN AMERICA
Negativland, longtime advocates of fair use allowances for pop media collage, are perhaps America’s most skilled plunderers from the detritus of 20th century commercial culture…the band’s latest project is razor sharp, microscopically focused, terribly fun and a bit psychotic.
_WIRED MAGAZINE
The project also exists as an open source software, which can be modified by any programmer with knowledge of OpenFrameworks so that he or she can make their own version, with different content. An example may be someone who trains the algorithms with images from missing aboriginal women in Canada. To download the source code please visit our GitHub.
On the launch of the “Level of Confidence” project, already the piece is planned to be exhibited at the MUAC Museum in Mexico City and at Universities across Mexico like Iberoamericana, UAM, Universidad de las Artes, Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes and others. Internationally the piece is being shown at Lozano-Hemmer’s exhibition at Art Bärtschi Gallery in Geneva, by the FOFA Gallery at Concordia University in Montréal and by the Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego in Argentina. We shall update this page as more exhibitors show the work.
The piece can be acquired for art collections, but all proceeds are directed to a fund to help the affected community, for example in scholarships for new students at the normalista school. The work is editioned with 12 copies and one AP, includes all the equipment, installation and a certificate of authenticity. It can be acquired through any of Lozano-Hemmer’s galleries.
Object-Subjectivities: FPC performing at No References
The performance “Object-Subjectivities” (OS), performed by 10 Floating Projects members, annotates Linda Lai’s wall installation of the same title. OS dialogues with “Object-Activities” in 1989 and “LOOK: Object-activity” in 2006. OS is a series of structured improvisations in 3 acts with a coda. Cleansing with water is the overall metaphor. The 1989 performance “Object-Activities” was a cross-disciplinary modernist art experiment. Performed in July after the June-Fourth massacre, it was a “mourning” event. The 2016 performance “Object-Subjectivities” asserts the therapeutic power of “doing things together.” The principle of “collective co-individuation” manifests itself in a play with objects. Each performer follows his/her own self-made “algorithmic” routines.
The resultant performance is a meditative space that also invites sharing and exchange.
Concept/structure: Linda LAI; Producer: WONG Chun-hoi; Water closet (design): WONG Chun-hoi, Wing CHEUK; Chinese text: LAI Wai-leung; Performers: Linda LAI (live automatic writing), WONG Chun-hoi, Andio LAI, WONG Fuk-kuen, Hugo YEUNG, Fiona LEE, Kenji WONG, Anna CHIM, DING Cheuk-laam, and CHEUK Wing-nam.