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Tag: NR Issue 15

Mark Leckey

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Mark Leckey

NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 208

Feature · Mark Leckey
Words · Ellie Brown

“I’ve felt this for a while about technology – that it’s inducing this strange kind of medieval state, in the sense that they cohabited two realms between the spiritual and the profane.”

“Ah rabbit holes, I know them” texts Mark Leckey, after I ask if we can delay our interview. I have a list of questions I could put to the artist, but I’ve lost myself in the matrix of his work. And where do you start? Perhaps with Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore, the 1999 video that put Leckey on the art world map. But that isn’t the beginning of the artist’s story, something the artist himself has subsequently explored. Leckey grew up in Ellesmere Port, a town used as an overspill for Liverpool in the late 1960s that looks back towards the city on the other side (the wrong side, Leckey would say) of the River Mersey. Leckey studied art in Newcastle, moved to London and, having not found success, decamped to the States for a while. Leckey has spoken previously about how, in the mid-to-late 1990s, he was interested in the music videos that were coming out at the time. But Fiorucci, the result of that intrigue, was less MTV and more ICA. And it was at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London that the video was first screened. Fiorucci, with its thumping music over a montage of found footage of Northern Soul dancers and hedonistic ravers, may have since entered the domain of British art, but the artist didn’t become a household name at the time. That arguably came later in 2008, when Leckey won the Turner Prize for his exhibition Industrial Light and Magic at Le Consortium in Dijon, France – a show which concretely outlined the recurring themes that have since come to define his practice, in which the post-industrial landscape of his youth and the emergence of an alternative, quasi-digital landscape in its place, are recurring motifs. 

A week later, I meet Leckey – wearing a full-length white fur coat, matching plaid shirt and bottoms, and his signature pearl earring – at a pub near the artist’s North London home. Originally, our interview was scheduled to take place on Zoom, but I have a hunch that the rabbit-hole questions I have prepared could better benefit from meeting Leckey, a self-proclaimed hermit, in person. And over a pot of tea, we begin by discussing the art world, the internet and what it means to be a working-class art student today. It’s a topic Leckey has pondered over for a long time, but now, he suggests, if he were in his early twenties, he’d be prioritising NFTs over art school. “I don’t think NFTs are just bad drawings of monkeys,” Leckey says – there might be more to it than that. And if there’s a novelty to NFTs now, the German electronic band Kraftwerk seemed novel, too, at first. “You don’t know what the tail of that is going to be, or the direction it will go.” It’s in no way surprising that Leckey is thinking about NFTs, even if he says he is sceptical because of the environmental arguments made against them; he’s been dubbed the ‘artist of the YouTube generation’, and an art career spent scouring the internet for soundbites and videoclips to use in his work means that, naturally, Leckey is all too aware of what’s happening online. But, having rewatched Fiorucci on YouTube rather than the gallery setting it was made for, I wonder if the artist now considers his work to be made for the internet, or still to be absorbed in a physical environment? 

“Both, I think. I like the immediacy of putting something on Instagram.” Leckey has an upcoming show at Cabinet Gallery in South London, and so when that opens, he will also share the work on social media. But using Instagram doesn’t necessarily give Leckey a clearer indication of what people think of his output. “People can go ‘fire!’ or whatever,” he says in relation to the emoji – one of eight pre-set reaction emojis that Instagram suggests for its users in the comment section. “[But] I don’t know why they liked it. And then you can have an opening and people just sort of nod as they walk out the door – so I can’t gauge any response from that.” Fiorucci was one of the rare occasions Leckey got an immediate reaction, with people coming up to the artist and telling him what they thought of the piece. “And then, nothing happened,” he says of Fiorucci, “it slowly percolated. But it got its maximum impact twenty years later, around 2019.” The resurgence of interest in Fiorucci coincided with a huge show at Tate Britain, O’ Magic Power of Bleakness, in which the artist recreated a motorway bridge from the M53 in Merseyside to go alongside a new video work, Under Under In.  

But it was also around this time that rave culture of the late 1980s and 1990s enjoyed something of a renaissance. Perhaps that yearning for anything closely resembling the rave scene could explain the sudden interest in Fiorucci, even if the other side of it – Northern Soul – remains firmly in the domain of a particular vein of Northern working-class culture. Nostalgia is something Leckey often speaks of, so I wonder if he sees the renewed interest in Fiorucci’s depiction of rave for a younger audience as (misplaced) nostalgia? “Yeah, but then, it’s not,” he says. Growing up in the eighties, he was nostalgic for the sixties, the equivalent decade for today.

“Woodstock and all the rest of it seemed impossible, and I guess that’s part of the thing with rave. It seems both exciting and intoxicating, but also depressing.”

Leckey describes modern-day nostalgia as a “contemporary condition, of technology, of capitalism.” That much is evident in the 2015 video, Dream English Kid, 1964 – 1999 AD, in which the artist used found footage to recreate his childhood, having seen a clip online of a Joy Division concert he’d also attended in his youth. By using found footage, clips from television shows and a 3D rendering of that same M53 bridge, Dream English Kid doesn’t depict Leckey’s own childhood per se, but reconstructs a kind of collective memory. In that sense, he describes nostalgia as being algorithmic in a way; “it’s like data passing through your body.” An equivalence could be gentrification, “in that, as an artist or whatever, you’re just moving into space, blithely unaware of where you’re leading society.” So when it comes to nostalgia, Leckey says, “you’ll connect with these things in a very real way, but you’re actually just at the forefront of clothes manufacturers and all the rest of it that are going to come in your wake and exploit that.” 

There’s a bit in Fiorucci where a voiceover lists off clothing brands – Fiorucci, of course, but also Lee, Fila, Burberry, Slazenger, Lyle & Scott, Lacoste and Aquascutum – to name just a few. These were the brands of choice for the Casuals, a subculture of football supporters in the 1980s associated with designer gear and hooliganism (Leckey was, for lack of other entertainment, a Casual for a period in his teens). And like return of rave to popular culture, the brands that defined the Casual’s Terracewear seem to have seeped back into the collective consciousness, too. But, anyway, it takes a few listens to fully grasp the brands that are listed in quick succession in Fiorucci, the voiceover taking on a rhythm that seems to mimic the hardcore beats that Leckey samples throughout the video. Was that deliberate, on Leckey’s part? “I think when I did that, it was more out of embarrassment,” he says – “because it was me and I didn’t want my voice on it. So, I pitched it down and put loads of reverb on it.” The result was something more akin to an incantation. “And I suppose Fiorucci is about conjuring up a religious experience.”

Under Under In also plays on the idea of the almost religious dedication that is afforded to brands. Across five separate vertical videos that seem to mimic the world seen through Snapchat, we’re introduced to a group of kids at the centre of the film, their identity fixed in the brands they wear: Nike Air, Adidas, C.P. Company, North Face. “We’re Stone Islanders,” one boasts. But these kids also seem to betray their youth, drinking a £1.29 Maltesers drink, the sight of which might elicit a Proustian madeleine moment for anyone attending an English secondary school near a corner shop in the twenty-first century. The kids also recite the names of car brands they’re too young to drive, let alone own. But if Under Under In can be seen as a Fiorucci equivalent for a subsequent generation, Leckey thinks that the moment of brand affiliation as self has passed. “I read something really interesting about subcultures in the twentieth century,” he explains “and essentially how using consumption to define yourself has been wholly exhausted.” Now, it’s through opinions, not brands. “I listen to that bit in Fiorucci now and to me, it seems almost quaint.”

If the world that shaped Fiorucci and Under Under In has moved on, Leckey’s work continues to be a source of inspiration for others. There are 327 comments on the Fiorucci stream on Leckey’s YouTube channel – musings from the artist himself over the eleven years since it was first uploaded, and from viewers recalling the first time they saw the film, or the memories it evokes. In one comment, a user asks if they can sample part of Fiorucci. “It’s all part of the Creative Commons. Get in there,” Leckey responds. Soundbites from Fiorucci previously made their way into Jamie XX’s 2014 track, All Under One Roof Raving but, I wonder, so much of Leckey’s work is gleaned from what he finds online – how does he feel about others doing that with his work? “I wish they did it more!” he exclaims. “I mean, it’s just stuff really and it’s there for the taking.” Leckey describes found footage as being a surrogate that allows him to communicate something. “If someone can do that with my work in the same way, then that would delight me.” 

In last year’s To the Old World (Thank You for the Use of Your Body), Leckey repeats, reconstructs and deconstructs a ten second video he found on Twitter over the course of almost nine minutes. The video clip sees a boy take a run up before jumping through the side of a bus stop, his friends, out of shot, laughing (in shock? out of amusement?) as he crashes onto the floor surrounded by glass. But what was it about that clip that was so compelling to Leckey? “I always try and avoid drawing in theory, partly because I’m going to do it really badly, but it’s that Roland Barthes book, Camera Lucida; there’s something in that image that draws you in and connects in some way.” That could be, say, “some hi-res, beautiful, well-shot image,” but in Leckey’s case, it’s “some piece of shit” that affects him so resolutely. “And it’s like, why? What the fuck? Why is this making me feel anything?” He’s been thinking a lot recently about something the sci-fi writer, Philip K Dick, said: the symbols of the divine initially show up at the trash stratum.

“So there’s God in the midst of this shitty piece of videotape of this stupid kid.”

But that stupid clip of that stupid kid resonated more deeply with Leckey – after all, his work is usually, in some way, autobiographical. “As soon as I started watching it, it was like, I did shit like that when I was young.” But whilst Leckey’s work connects with lived experience, the process of making the video is as important. If Leckey set out with different intentions when he began making Fiorucci (it was, he says, intended as a kind of documentary), it quickly became about the medium itself. “I was looking at these VHS tapes and a strange intimacy and distance developed as I was watching. Something about the footage compelled me to look closer into the ghostliness. I’d find myself wanting to merge with it, but at the same time it’s continually pushing me out and repelling me because it’s a ghost and it’s the past – and it’s impossible.” To the Old World comes from a similar place – of simultaneous intimacy and distance. “We live in this continuously mediated space, and all I feel I can do is try and find some intimacy or immediacy in that.” It’s somewhere in this space that Leckey thinks we now reside, where memories and the present exist on the same plane. When it comes to the video clip from To the Old World, “I can be that boy jumping through the bus stop, I can one of his mates watching, and I can be me watching them, watching him. I can be all these things at the same time.” 

To the Old World, which was commissioned for Art Night and toured the UK in autumn 2021, followed a period in which Leckey – like many throughout the pandemic – struggled to make anything, let alone the video. But, he says, he began to see the bus stop in the clip as a sort of portal. “I look at it now, and realise it’s made out of a kind of frustration. There’s this kind of compression in it, and then it’s looking for a release.” At the end of To the Old World, after Leckey’s stupid bus stop kid has been turned into a repetitive motif, rendered in 3D, and re-enacted by an acrobat who recreates the jump from various angles, the piece ends in song – “a song of joy” as the boy disappears into the glint of fractured glass. Artistically, it’s a kind of ultimate release, but the ending also reflects another side of Leckey’s creative output – making music and hosting a monthly show on the Hackney-based online radio station, NTS. Does he find soundbites and music in the same way he finds footage? “There’s less choice with video,” Leckey says; he has a library of footage and sound, but the latter is much vaster. The problem with video is that, sometimes, it seems out of bounds, watermarked in a way that sound isn’t. But Leckey tried to approach To the Old World in the way he would making music or putting together an NTS show – music, with a visual element.

“I want to find a way of using video how I use sound, because it involves a sort of not caring, or not caring so much.”

When Leckey explains that his work is about getting to the root of what compels him about the footage and materials that he is drawn to, he jokingly asks why he “can’t just go out into a field and enjoy nature instead?” But, it seems, that is precisely what his next work will be. He is currently working on an accompaniment to the bus stop video which he summarises as a being “about a hermit getting joyful.” Leckey’s inspiration for this work comes from Orthodox Christian iconography – paintings of religious saints that don’t adhere to a traditional, Western understanding of art history. “These icons are not images or pictures,” Leckey says, but portals;

“When you look at an icon of a saint, you’re looking into heaven.”

So the artist has set about finding his own portal (or, a ‘channel as grace’ as the act of looking into heaven through an icon is called). “I went out to Ally Pally on a really beautiful, sunny day and recorded myself getting overwhelmed by the world.” The idea stemmed from the artist’s contemplation of hope, and hopelessness, during the pandemic – and a curiosity, then, to delve more into the divine. There’s a community of people that Leckey follows on Substack and TikTok who are investigating something similar. “Like I said before, the divine shows up at the trash stratum, and maybe it is.” The trash stratum here is TikTok, where users in Leckey’s orbit are attempting to grapple with what may lie beyond, or within, the internet (comparisons are made between the structure of the world wide web, and its similarities with NASA’s images of space). “There’s a strange confluence of things,” Leckey notes. “I’ve felt this for a while about technology – that it’s inducing this strange kind of medieval state, in the sense that they cohabited two realms between the spiritual and the profane. We sort of exist in two realms now. It’s the immaterial space, like you originally asked me about the internet, and the only antecedent I can think of is the medieval.” And with that, Leckey heads off to Sainsbury’s to get some bits. 

Credits

Images · Mark Leckey
https://markleckey.com/

Illya Goldman Gubin

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NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 196

Feature · Illya Goldman Gubin
Words · Matthew Burgos

Exploring the ambiguities of life through the rapid shifts the present feels

The first three-dimensional, physical object that multidisciplinary artist Illya Goldman Gubin made comments on the everyday obstacles creatives face in a world dominated by consumerist logic. From the descriptions, several images may come up – glitching computer screens, broken doors, burned bridges, thrashed rooms, or maxed out credits cards – but Gubin built his storyline around an object famed for the hierarchy metaphor: a ladder. “The sculpture is a physical manifestation of the internalized struggle to climb the proverbial social ladder, our personal hopes, dreams, and challenges manifesting in a sculpture of rough materiality,” says the artist. Soon, viewers will find out the interconnectedness of everything Gubin works on.

An atelier and an art shop define the homes of Gubin. The first sees the continuation of his artworks, a deviation from a fashion line or merch and a journey towards works of art created from works of art. “The greed for a dialogue between clothes and artworks becomes a study. The clothes are created with the Japanese idea “Ichi-go, ichi-e”. This means ‘One Time, One Meeting’ which reminds us of the ephemeral nature of everything around us,” the brand states. It lies upon the idea that one can never dip their toes into the same lake twice as the water flows – always moving, never settling.

From this ethos, the atelier comes to life. It breaks the binary continuum of thinking and feeling, science and mysticism, tradition and innovation, handmade and luxury goods, and perfection and imperfection. Gubin’s installations underline the complexity of human consciousness to unearth the depth of self-understanding. He borrows terms from Judaism and infuses them into his words, serving as reminiscences to the cultural imprint. For the artist, the culmination of multiple perspectives, fused with self-reflection, gives birth to a realm of new sanity, a marriage between codes of the past and newly acquired knowledge.

Gubin not only explores the ambiguities of modern life, challenged by the rapidly shifting conditions of the present, but also creates multi-layered reflections of everyday perception. He transforms paradigms, materials, space, and time into works that usher the audience into a sensorial experience, an invitation to think, feel, see, hear, and meditate. From that cocoon of meditation, Gubin captures the zen and essence of perpetuity and mold them into sculptures, canvasses, furniture, bags, bowls, t-shirts, lamps, soils and so much more. His body of works remains in a constant state of flux, moving in and out of the spirit to understand the self, to open the mind and heart, and to liberate one’s spirit.

For NR, he celebrates his voice and visions as a multidisciplinary artist through a tone he knows best: poetic, philosophical, polished, and pragmatic.

NR: Where and how did your fascination with “breaking the binary continuum of thinking and feeling, science and mysticism, and blurring the line between tradition and innovation, handmade and luxury goods, perfection and imperfection” start? What personal experiences nudged you to found I G G?

IGG: It started from questioning my inner self and finding answers in different areas and philosophies. I wanted to bring ideas and questions together. I wanted to start an open dialogue.

“It is all done for energy and the closeness to the earth.”

Your atelier is divided into an art shop and a catalog. Starting with the art shop, you reiterate that “it is not a fashion line or merch, but works of art that are created from works of art.” Is there a reason you’ve stressed this?

Yes. I try to push the boundaries of a clothing piece by combining and intertwining it with my artistic practice which, as the result, becomes a significant enlargement of my work.

For instance, the surface of the Struktur shoes is ‘hand-worked’ with the same medium as the ‘Struktur’ artworks. Additionally, the shoes are physically attached to a ‘Struktur’ artwork, which has an indirect invitation to be removed by the owner by force. The end result is a state of wearable artwork.

As for your catalog, I am looking at your first project (“Ladder”) and your recent (“Karton Vase”). Between these years, what changes did you make and experience in your artistic, creative, and business style?

My mind became more balanced. My visions are clearer, and the narratives become more conscious. An artist is a student of his own studies trying to find an answer to a question of one’s personal experience.  

How do you perceive timelessness during the shifting conditions of our present?

My own beliefs, interests, and paradigms are guiding my open-mindedness. Timelessness is still influenced by the Zeitgeist;

“the only difference arises from how you process the flow of information from the observation to the understanding, a contemporary way of thinking.”

Could you share a few projects that resonate well with you, projects that seem to converse with you? What are their backstories?

My latest projects cannot be really examined separately. They all share a similar spirit, a similar beginning, and a similar aim. My aim is always to heal my spectators’ precoded opinion and/or thinking which is given by their experience.

My ‘Karton’ furniture evokes a non-useable feeling, a forgotten childish dream. ‘Profil’ sculptures give spectators a distinctive look of regular fabrics hanging from the ceiling. My ‘Juxtaposition’ piece revokes a human act of protecting objects for their longevity.

All of these do not appear to be what they look like at first glance. I always encourage the spectators to interact with my work.

“I believe that only through the physical dialogue can my work achieve an ending. The idea is bigger than the outcome.”

In line with our theme Celebration, how do you celebrate yourself as an artist, a designer, and a creative? What joys outside your work do you live up?

To be honest, it feels very difficult to acknowledge the point where one can put a checkmark on the work. The work is always in the process. However, I am trying to learn to celebrate every day. The sum of the process is the outcome of the work. Living in the present can help one to realize happiness. 

Is there anything that we should look forward to from you in the upcoming months?

At this time of answering the questions, I am in Los Angeles. In April, I will participate in a large group show at Side Gallery where I am excited to show my ‘Karton’ furniture series.

When I think further from here, I do not know what is coming next. Probably this is being in the now?

Credits

Images · Illya Goldman Gubin
https://www.igg-atelier.de/

Sylke Golding

Posted on by nr

NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 170

Cover Feature · Sylke Golding
Words · Ellie Brown

“every day is a plus – to wake up and be healthy, and to find myself in this unique position”

I speak to NR cover star, Sylke Golding, over the phone a few days after the shoot. How did it go, I ask? “It was great! A great little team. I always love it when they pick me,” she says. “At this point it’s such a plus.” Sylke started modelling at the age of 18, scouted – as she explains below – when living in Sweden. Now, age 55, Sylke is still modelling. After a break of a couple of decades in between, that is. Over the past couple of years, the fashion industry seems to have opened itself up to more diverse representations – widening the pool, as Sylke says. She had begun noticing this shift in the kinds of models she was seeing, not long before modelling came calling (again). It started around four years ago, when a colleague’s photographer friend was looking for models for an editorial with mature models. After came the runways (for amongst other brands, Deveaux), the street style spots (on Vogue) and the fashion editorials in print. Sylke’s certainly got the look – but as she ponders, what is that? “The way my bone structure is, because of the way the camera picks it up through the lens?”

It’s curious listening to Sylke discuss the similarities and differences between her experiences of the fashion industry as a young woman, versus in her fifties. She describes the former experience of being about fitting a certain mould – and a quick stalk on Sylke’s Instagram brings up some throwback snaps from back in the day. There’s a shot by Patrick Demarchelier and an outtake from a Grazia cover by Steve Landis; it’s true, her bone structure really does work with the light. But what really shines through in her modelling work from today (and again, reflecting on what Sylke discusses below) is a certain joie de vivre – a smile that’s incredibly infectious, where great cheekbones can’t be replicated.

As important as someone like Sylke’s visible presence marks a shift in the fashion industry – the grey hair, the lines, the signs of ageing – it seems that she also really enjoys just doing the job. She speaks of how, though photographers more often shoot digitally these days, the recent resurgence of interest in film is interesting too. Sylke describes the “raspiness” that comes with film – “I love the dirt on it, so to speak, and the hue”. And there’s a different set-up that comes with film, too. “Now it’s all digital and usually you see it on a little laptop, and you get an idea but, [this shoot] was all on film. So, you take the first picture to check the light, take a few digital shots, but then you’re kind of in the dark. Sometimes, you just have to trust the process.” I ask Sylke if she finds it easy to trust the process, to trust the team. “It’s funny you ask that because, in my regular life, generally, I need to have control and I always try to think ahead and say, ‘What can I do?’” But with modelling, it’s about switching off – “it’s kind of freeing,” she says. Going with the flow, especially given the past two years of the pandemic, and being able to model breaks up the monotony of everyday.

NR: Is there anything you take with you to a shoot – something that never changes, regardless of the different jobs, teams or concepts you’re working with?

SG: Yes – it’s being me. All I can bring to the table is me. You know, sometimes I think, what are the expectations? But as much as I think, “Why me?” I’m also thinking, “Why not me?” I always try to remember that, with social media and my agency, [clients] pick me [for who I am]. I’m turning 56 in July, and although the modelling pool has gotten much larger because there’s more inclusivity, my age group is still much less represented. So, when [a client] picks me, then it’s like, they want me. I don’t know where I read this recently, but I read it and it sort of stuck with me, that people don’t change, they only become more of themselves. I think there is a lot of truth in that. I can be inspired by people, but then it still has to be translated into something because otherwise, we are all just copies, you know? It doesn’t work – and I think the camera knows that as well. You know, if you’re not comfortable within yourself, the camera will read it – and the people around you will read it. So I love that challenge of expressing you, and to answer your question, that doesn’t change.

“That is the challenge – to be actually me, to give them who I am.”

NR: Something you mentioned before we spoke on this call was the idea of destiny – and in relation to what you’ve just said, I wondered how that is realised for you?

SG: Destiny ties into when I first became a model. I lived in Sweden at the time, my family had left East Germany when I was 14. And then I was scouted when I was 18 and I started modelling in Italy and Paris. [Being scouted] came at a time when I really desired change and wanted to leave Sweden. But back then, there were only really one or two ‘moulds’ of model. I worked with a lot of beautiful young women, and we were all trying to fit that mould. If you didn’t fit that mould, there was work but it was much harder to reach a point where you could work consistently. And then when you reached 25 or 26, it was done. It really slowed down to the point that you couldn’t help but see the messages: “Look, there’s a door and it says exit. See it?” So then I just stopped at that point and turned away from modelling. I had dropped out of university to pursue modelling, and [then] I had to find out what I wanted to do next. I did a bunch of jobs, a couple of decades went by – you know, the quote un-quote ‘regular life’. And I never really thought about modelling again. But in the past five years, I started seeing little signs that something was afoot. Friends would say, “Maybe you should model!” But I was like, no. No, I should not. And

“lo and behold, modelling came and found me again; I was asked by a photographer who was looking for a mature model.”

And then I was like, “Alright, what the hell? Why not?” I did it, it hit social media, and then it just happened. So I often find myself thinking about destiny; I feel like both times modelling came, I didn’t actively pursue it. It pursued me. I would say that the only way I would do it again is if it came and knocked on my door. And I said it many times. So, lately, I’m really of the mind that you should be careful what you say because once you say things out into the universe, it has a way of responding. And it’s for the good, it’s for the bad – whatever the energies you put out there, you will attract them. So, I wonder how actively, or subconsciously, did I will this to happen?

NR: Do you feel like your visibility is as important for you as it is for other women to see?

SG: I hope so because you see women, or society on a whole, struggling to accept age – women growing older, men growing older. I see men colouring their grey out and I think it looks ridiculous because you can see it. I try not to judge, but it’s just, you can see it. I rationalise the process for myself, and it makes me stronger, which is that in the end, people are scared of dying. And we all, in some way, have to get to grips with that. And I think the problem is that, of course we want to postpone it, but that’s all we’re really doing. I want to encourage everyone to find a way to accept it because I’m trying just the same to accept this. So, I hope that [my visibility] helps. I hope changes in the industry are here to stay; that they are truly opening up, and that the pool remains larger, and become larger. And that everybody is included because, as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Who’s to say who is beautiful or not? I want [to push for] acceptance of what is real; I strive for that. I want to be honest; I want it to be real – to reframe that into a positive. And I hope it encourages people.

“I hope [my experience] tells the story that, you know, you could be happy with growing older. You can be fulfilled and satisfied.”

NR: The industry is notoriously gravitated towards youth. From your experience of being a model at a young age, before coming back to the industry later on, has much changed?

SG: It has, and it hasn’t. The first shoot I had, it was like nothing has changed – the hair, the make-up. The process of getting ready hasn’t changed. It’s still the same creative process. The pool has gotten a lot bigger. I work with models that could be my children; if I had children, they could be my children. Back then,

“I think it was more about fitting a mould, and it was less about who you were as a person.”

And now, it’s much more like, “Oh I like them. I think they could really contribute to the story.” I think that’s a huge change – they want character, you know. They don’t just want a prescribed performance from the model. I think it’s much more collaborative, even from the model; it’s like, “Show us who you are.” Overall, it’s the same industry. It’s the fashion industry – it’s the same. Same exciting, crazy journey and I think it’s full of people who just love excitement because every day, you pretty much meet new people and it’s a new scene.

NR: On your Instagram, there’s a post where you say that it’s a myth that age is just a number. And going back to what you said about how, as you age, you become closer to who you truly are – is that what you meant about this ‘myth’?

SG: You don’t have to be confined by the number of your age, I know what people mean by that, I think it’s well-meaning. And I used it too in the beginning, but then I thought about it. It isn’t just a number. Age is about acceptance, it’s not just a number because I’ve got here. I’m lucky to be here, every day is a plus – to wake up and be healthy, and to find myself in this unique position. And I’ve said this before and I think it holds true: every spot, every wrinkle tells a story.

Credits

Model · SYLKE GOLDING at MUSE NYC (Agent DANIEL SISSMEIR)
Photography · RICKY ALVAREZ
Creative Direction · JADE REMOVILLE
Fashion · SUTHEE RITTHAWORN
Makeup · MARIKO HIRANO
Hair · JEROME CULTRERA at L’ATELIER NYC
Writer · ELLIE BROWN
Fashion Assistant · JOAO PEDRO ASSISS
Special Thanks · MALENA HOLCOMB and DANIEL SISSMEIR

Arianna Genghini

Posted on by nr

NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 152

Légami

Credits

Models · ELENA and LORENA at MONSTER BADD and FABRIZIA at VISION STREET
Photography · ARIANNA GENGHINI
Fashion · ALICE MANFRONI
Casting · GIOVANNI at VISION STREET CASTING
Makeup · ELENA GAGGERO
Hair · ERISSON MUSELLA at BLEND MANAGEMEMENT
Fashion Assistant · VIRNA MARCHESE
Makeup Assistant · EDOARDDO BACIGALUPI

Valie Export

Posted on by nr

NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 220

Feature · VALIE EXPORT
Words · Ellie Brown

“The most important issue for me is: how can we live together peacefully?”

In 1968, the artist VALIE EXPORT walked into a porn film screening at a cinema in Munich, wielding a machine gun and wearing crotchless pants. Forcing the gaze of cinemagoers to meet her bare crotch, VALIE EXPORT sought to demonstrate that women, in film, were merely passive agents – look instead, she demanded, at a real woman, not a depiction of how they are shown to be seen. But only part of that story is true; it wasn’t a porn film screening, and the artist did not have a machine gun. Nonetheless, the tale of VALIE EXPORT’s action has entered the domain of art legend. Part of the myth that surrounds what really happened can be attributed to a series the artist created the following year. In Aktionshose: Genitalpanik (Action Pants: Genital Panic, 1969), VALIE EXPORT is photographed wearing those crotchless pants, her legs wide, as she holds a machine gun across her chest. But if, by entering the cinema in Munich, VALIE EXPORT forced the viewer to confront a ‘real woman’, the Aktionshose series is less clear-cut. Here, the artist adopts a macho abrasiveness – such is the power of a staged photograph to manipulate how gender and identity are represented and viewed. By contrast, the triptych Identitätstransfer (Identity Transfer, 1968) takes a nuanced approach to explore a similar theme. Across three portraits, the artist subtly adapts the way she poses, how her clothing hangs, and the expression on her face. Who’s to say which is more feminine, and which is more masculine? 

Part of the Vienna Actionists art group in the 1960s, VALIE EXPORT was an early adopter of using film to confront and subvert representations of gender and identity. As VALIE EXPORT tells NR, Aktionshose is part of her expanded cinema practice, in which the traditional boundaries of film are subverted, and the viewer (unwittingly at times) plays an active role. This is perhaps most obvious with Tapp und Tastkino (Tap and Touch Cinema, 1968) which saw VALIE EXPORT invite members of the public to put their hands in a curtained box, shaped like a television or the stage of a theatre, that the artist wore across her chest. Inside the box, VALIE EXPORT’s, mostly male, participants were able to touch her bare breasts for 33 seconds, whilst directly confronted with the artist’s face in close proximity. It’s impossible to underplay VALIE EXPORT’s contributions to feminist art practice – even down to her name itself. The artist changed her name to VALIE EXPORT in 1967, in reference to both a childhood nickname and a brand of cigarettes, thus removing the patriarchal connotations that her former name (her father’s surname, and later, her husband’s surname) had. In this way, VALIE EXPORT’s work is a negotiation, nay confrontation, of the patriarchal ways through which a woman’s experience is constructed.

Crucial to this, is the artist’s navigation of space. VALIE EXPORT’s early work came at a time when Austrian society was still deeply conservative. In the series Body Configurations from the 1970s, for example, the artist is photographed contorting and morphing her body to complement the built environment of Vienna. Yet no matter how far VALIE EXPORT adapts her body in sculptural ways, she remains unable to fully replicate the cold, patriarchal surfaces of her architectural surroundings. The series is, nonetheless, a reclamation of space – as is the fact that the screenprints of the Aktionshose series were pasted up in public spaces around the city. Whilst the artist has adapted to using new video technologies over time, and broadened the themes she explores (such as politics and violence), the impact of VALIE EXPORT’s early work, radical as it was at the time, remains important today.

NR: Aktionshose: Genitalpanik and the legendary story about the original action, remain hugely influential; did you anticipate the impact that it would have? 

VE: Of course I expected it to have some effect, but not that it would have this kind of impact. Aktionshose: Genitalpanik is an ‘Expanded Cinema’ practice, which was screened for the first time in a Munich art cinema. In this action, I walked through the rows of the theatre wearing the Action Pants. The audience left the theatre, and it emptied quickly. Afterwards, I used the same pants to create a self-staged photo series in and in front of an abandoned movie theatre and made the poster, which has become quite well known. I tried for years to exhibit the photo series and/or the poster, but unfortunately people refused to show them. I only succeeded in exhibiting the works very late in my life. 

Do you think an audience’s reaction to your work varies depending on the time period in which they engage with it? Have people’s reactions to your work changed over time? 

I have difficulty assessing whether people’s reactions to my work have changed over time.

“I think that the reactions are just as strong today as they were back in the day but might go in a different direction.”

Today, my works are also documents of a time of artistic and political awakening, and represent the breaking away from prevailing rules and opinions that are prescribed by society. With my artistic expression, I try to portray socio-political and cultural-political oppressions and norms through art-political processes and to sharpen the perceptions we have of them. 

Have your own reactions/feelings towards your work changed over time? If so, how and why? 

My own reactions and sensibilities have not changed. I always perceive my works in the context of the respective time in which they were created.

“I create my artistic expression with a view on the present period of time – and maybe also with a gaze to the future.”

You’ve spoken previously about how your art was made in reaction to the society and culture that it was contemporary to – how much of that moment in time has changed, and how much has remained the same? 

I don’t think a lot has changed fundamentally. It requires a vigorous process of awareness to perceive change and to recognise the repetitive. Often the same things are only embedded in a different context.

How has your practice changed over time and have the initial demands of your work given way to new concerns? 

The passing of time gives rise to new concerns. But these concerns also always seem to have a common thread. 

From your perspective, what conversations should artists be having now – and through which mediums should these be communicated? 

I believe conversations should be had about every possible issue and communicated through all kinds of mediums.

“The most important issue for me is: how can we live together peacefully?”

The theme of the magazine’s issue is ‘celebration’; what would you celebrate in relation to the impact that your work has had on the themes you sought to explore/counter? 

Oh, I could think of many rituals that would lead to a celebration – but they are mostly determined by rules. I wish for a free celebration. 

When you came up with the name VALIE EXPORT, which you stamped on your work and as an identity through which to communicate meaning, did you consider that you were creating yourself as a brand? 

I didn’t invent VALIE EXPORT as an alter ego but a trademark. As a trademark with which I export my thoughts, through which I export my ideas, weave them into dynamic networks. For some years now, VALIE EXPORT has become a trademark: VALIE EXPORT®. This is how it should always be spelled, but the capitalisation is mostly ignored. The trademark is an advertisement for VALIE EXPORT rather than myself. 

Credits

Images · Valie Export
https://www.valieexport.at/

Jingze Du

Posted on by nr

NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 130

Feature · Jingze Du
Words · Matthew Burgos

Displacement fuels the desire to persevere until one’s art resonates with self-identity

The aura of displacement rocked the beginnings of artist Jingze Du when he first arrived in Dublin, Ireland from Yantai, China at the age of 13. With his mother’s belief in his artistry keeping him on his feet, he sought after refining his communication skills in English, a prerequisite of survival in an English-language-dominated country. As soon as he fed his mind with vocabulary, those used in the arts field as well, he set off his artistic endeavors until he gave birth to portraits and approaches that explore the extremes of his identity: strength and weakness; fast and slow; masculine and feminine; validation and rejection; external and internal; conformity and independence; and the space in between his Chinese and Irish self.

On starting out

A memory the artist dearly remembers stems from his meeting with painter Wu Xiaolin who had felt reluctant to take in the young man as his mentee. Upon seeing his drawings, a conviction compelled him to accept him, and Du learned individualism as his art style. For every stylized artwork the young artist would produce, his mentor would frown upon it and ask him to rework what he produced, to find his center and self along the way instead of infusing what the public could already see. Soon, Du developed his sense of composition, contrast, light, and shadow, and the necessity that each work must possess an immediate emotional impact.

He started investing more of his time in painting at the age of 15. His mother, his ever-devotee, would encourage him to visit museums and exhibitions, and Du would halt walking to observe the paintings’ surfaces from different angles, soaking in the techniques, emotions, and motivations of the artists on the wall.

On being distant

After his undergraduate in the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Du flew to London to study his MA at the Royal College of Art. He admitted feeling lost during his first year, drawn from the costly tuition and living costs of the city. He sought refuge in his studio, spending most of his time holing up and toying with his newfound, tension-filled creativity. The artist felt isolated from his decision, but it soon found a new light as he visited the studio of Ellius Grace, an old friend from Ireland.

Their conversations opened up alleys for the artist as the friend had offered him a list of interesting bookstores to visit around the city. From then on, Du enjoyed the luxury and life London could offer him, hopping in and out of museums, galleries, fairs, artists’ studios, parks, dessert bars, and hotpots as often as possible. He later realized that the longer he placed himself outside of his studio – although he still thought that being inside carried a personal value too – the more he felt the power London held over him.  

When he came home one day from a city trip, he received an offer from The Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin on a six-month residency that would start in January 2020. The prestigious proposal came with a spacious and sunlight-filled studio, a game-changer for the artist, but the new space only formed a chunk in the overall buzz that rushed in his veins. Coming back to Dublin felt like home to Du. Setting his eyes upon the landscapes, surroundings, and buildings that dotted the skyline, the scenery reminded him of some scenes from Macbeth: the weather, the wind, the mud, the rituals, the pagan forces, and the humans who kneel at the mercy of nature.

On identity

Looking back in the past, Du refrained from identifying identity in his works. He struggled with the role individuality played in his art even though he had gathered up the tools, mediums, and ideas of such roots from his mentor Wu Xiaolin. Eventually, the theme of identity rose to the surface, and the artist slowly accepted that it would often, if not always, infiltrate his works. These days, identity seems to act as a second skin for him. He feels comfortable and safe exploring his past, discovering how much of his mindset echoed the philosophy of existentialism before his move to London in 2017.

From a technical perspective, he began tinkering with linen instead of canvas as the finer grain conferred on him the ease to improve the quality of his paintings over a surface. He also started using much thinner oil paint which enabled him to better control his subtle, tonal differences. The shifting shades of warmer and colder grays resonated well with him, an element that now nudges him to aim for simplicity that yields the tunes of soulfulness. 

He confesses that whenever he lives in a new environment, his former identity meets the foreign one, a resurgence within him commencing. Since his former identity may sometimes, if not oftentimes, face defeat, he retreats and becomes an outsider, which he shares his learning mechanism to observe the new and the old, the contrast and the complement in the facets of his life.

Returning to Ireland meant returning to a familiar place, and Du believes it enabled him to explore the extremes of his identity, giving birth to his series In between where various extremes interact: strength and weakness; fast and slow; masculine and feminine; validation and rejection; external and internal; conformity and independence as well as the space in between his Chinese and Irish self.

On creative process

When Du introduces additional elements, colors, or forms into his works, it carves a path of experimentation for him on how the newer figures interact with the existing ones. He hopes for a reaction to come out, perhaps a revision of his current style, but he never forces anything. He welcomes his results with open arms and values organic growth more than anything else. His penchant lies in embracing joy from the inability to foresee the direction his artworks lead him to, enjoying the journey as he moves forward with every stroke, emotion, and material he anchors. Heart wins over the head, and his logic surrenders to his intuition. Each work informs future works and projects.

The subjects and themes he accumulates before diving into his creative work involve a plethora of identity and influences rooting from the East and West. Aside from this, he seeks knowledge on history to help him comprehend the context of his practice and support the statements he will include in the backstories of his works.

His viewers have asked him if globalization affects his work, and while he responds positively when inquired, he reiterates not going beyond his means to create a series or piece that concentrates on globalization. Its nuances penetrate the subtlety of his drawings and mediums, but more than anything else, he invites his viewers to view each of his works with an open heart, to feel it rather than reason out with or explain it.

On changes

Somehow, Du has learned to start as many projects as he can, boundless from any structures or systems. A free-flowing thinking that asks him to develop and further each work whenever he can, stripping himself bare from any pressure to finish it on time or as soon as he can. These works may evolve and transform into products of his mind that steer away from his original ideas, but for the artist, that has always been the plan. For Du, time changes and so do his artworks, so does his identity.

Credits

Images · Jingze Du
http://www.dujingze.com/

Ottavia Di Leo

Posted on by nr

NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 084

Days of Heaven

Credits

Model · ALI HONCHARUK at D MODEL AGENCY
Photography · OTTAVIA DI LEO
Stylist · LINDA DEGIORGI
Makeup and Hair · CINZIA TRIFILETTI
Set Designer · BEATRICE ISABELLA BONETTO
Fashion Assistant · DILETTA POLIMENA
Set Designer Assistant · SARA SACCHETTO

Antonio Dicorato

Posted on by nr

NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 070

Credits

Model · ANNEMR at THE WALL
Photography · ANTONIO DICORATO
Fashion · DONATELLA MUSCO
Casting · MICHELE BISCEGLIA
Hair Stylist · HENZO LORUSSO
Make up · SARA DE CHIRICO
Fashion Assistant · LAURA BELLINI
Production · ANDREA C RAVALLESE

Arthur Delloye

Posted on by nr

Nr Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 106

Credits

Models · ULIANA and QUAYE at ELITE, NANDINI at IMG and MUMIN at 16PARIS
Photography · ARTHUR DELLOYE
Fashion · NOEMIE BELTRAN
Makeup · SALOI JEDDI
Hair · ANITA BUJOLI
Casting · OCÉANE LUCAS
Production · JUDITH HAIK at LA MULTINATIONALE
Photography · Assistant KLEBER DE QUAY

Pan Daijing

Posted on by nr

NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 046

Cover Feature · Pan Daijing
Words · Ellie Brown

“I don’t feel like I’m just choreographing the movement; I’m also choreographing the space.”

Pan Daijing is an artist and composer whose work defies easy categorisation. Earlier this year, Daijing released her third album, Tissues – an hour-long record taken from the artist’s performance piece of the same name that was shown at the Tate Modern back in 2019. The work was conceived as an opera in five acts, combining Daijing’s long-standing exploration of electronic music. In a Zoom call from Berlin where Daijing lives, the artist jokes that Tissues almost predicted the pandemic – not least because of its title, but also as a performance about hopelessness and a pervading sense of despair that seems to categorise the world we live in now. As an exploration of the operatic voice, Tissues is not immediately like Daijing’s earlier albums, 2021’s Jade and Lack (2017), which are more akin to noise music – with electronic sounds evoking the eery, isolating hum of an industrial landscape, interspersed with distinctively, sometimes uncomfortably, human guttural sounds.

Daijing has performed, as a musician, at a string of Europe’s best festivals and at other venues, whilst also being commissioned, as an artist, to work with museums and art institutions – where sound and music remain central components within these pieces. Below, we discuss the boundaries of her work, drawing on the German composer Wagner’s notion of Gesamtkunstwerk, or the ‘total work of art’. It seems, to me, a term that aptly describes Daijing’s practice, without putting too much of a label on her, or her work. In fact, it is through music and art that Daijing aims to transcend categorisation in itself. By using music, sound, light, movement and design, Daijing creates work that explores a hybrid realm of what we often want to label as either ‘music’ or ‘art’, and thus allows the separate components to be interwoven and to communicate with one another.

Daijing describes a lifelong fascination with the human voice – as a child, she says, she would close her eyes and listen to someone’s voice, at school for example, and try to guess who was speaking. “It’s an interest I’ve always had,” Daijing explains, “and when you look for inspiration in life and in work, you always go to places that you’ve always felt fascinated by.” In essence, Daijing’s work is inextricably woven into the fabric of the space, the environment, the context, in which it is experienced – whether that is in a gallery setting, in a club, or alone – listening to her records in solitude. 

NR: As a starting point, you recently worked with the Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong on a series of new works, and as part of that, the piece Echo, Moss and Spill included elements of live performance. Was that your first live performance since the pandemic?

PD: Throughout the pandemic I was still working at a steady pace and Echo, Moss and Spill was my second exhibition-based work of the pandemic. Before that, I created a new work for Shanghai Biennale at the Power Station of Art. But that was a little different, it was mainly installation-based work on view for three months. Echo, Moss and Spill was a commissioned by Tai Kwun Contemporary as a performative environment in the format of a solo exhibition, alongside video work, sound and installation work. Alongside this, I was also commissioned by the institution for another work, One Hundred Nine Minus, which was a single sound installation. During the pandemic a lot of work had to be shifted because, with performance, there’s a lot of interaction that didn’t work with COVID rules, so I was quite grateful that, in Hong Kong at the time, there were almost no COVID cases. I caught a good moment when people were more relaxed about the situation; we could have more human interaction. And the performers didn’t have to wear surgical masks, we designed the costumes to have masks as part of the wardrobe. But even playing shows was strange because, right after the first lockdown when everything was still closed, there were still small things happening here and there. And when I was back in Europe in the summer last year, there was two, three, months where I was able to also make new work. I also did a few concerts myself, as well as show some of my composition work, travelling with an opera singer. Of course, COVID did influence my work significantly, but I am grateful to have been able to have continued working while so many others were forced to stop.

NR: Back in 2019, Tissues, an exhibition of performance work, took place at the Tate Modern – so just before the pandemic kicked off. Why did you release an hour-long snippet of Tissues as an album, which is obviously a different medium to how it was first performed?

PD: The idea of archiving performance work and putting pieces into different formats, to extend the lifespan, is always a part of my idea for a project. But, with Tissues, music is very prominent because this piece specifically touches on the idea of classical opera, the philosophy of making an opera, and the idea of music as an art form. The listening experience is also prominent in this piece, and I think, for me, making records is important.

“I think it’s important to have this dialogue with listeners, so they can have a piece of me that they can revisit, because in performance-based work, or ‘live art’, very often it’s just a moment.”

Of course, you can still revisit your memory, something I often call a performative relic. But sound-based work is very specific. With my first record, Lack (2017), maybe it’s a weird comparison but it’s kind of like a thesis written after a long period of research. It was a display of certain ideas I was exploring, summarised. And then, Jade (2021) was like a personal journal – sharing an intimate part of myself with strangers, which brings me closer to them. And they can listen to it without bias, without assumption, and I found that quite romantic. The performance of Tissues had limited capacity, and it was also exhibited alongside another piece, a day exhibition called The Absent Hour – so there’s this idea of seeing an operatic performance at night, and in the day, you’re coming to see the exhibition. I did feel that the experience of Tissues had its own momentum, that it could live longer. It was only really those who happened to be there for the performance who have a piece of that memory, but it’s also nice to be able to let this memory have a new life. So, the recording is a totally different piece to Tissues, as an artwork, but it’s an interesting way to have it archived. And personally, for me, I think Tissues was something I spent a really long time working on, as a chapter of my exploration of operatic vocalisation, so this is a way for me to give this a nice summary.

NR: The archiving side of what you’re saying is really interesting, and as an extension of this, how do you want your audience to engage and arrive at your work – considering that live performances are more grounded in the memory, whilst with the record you have the physical copy, or a stream on your computer? It’s a very different way of experiencing it.

PD: I think it’s also interesting that a record is very accessible. I think a lot of people know me through my music, which is natural because you can find it on the internet, and you can listen to it. It allows immediate engagement, and can be very personal, which brings a longer life to the performance work that existed in the past.

NR: How much of Wagner’s idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk also inspires your work?

PD:  I wouldn’t consider this concept an inspiration, but understandably people have often related this concept to what I do because I’m involving so many different aspects in my work, acting simultaneously as composer, choreographer, director, designer and performer. Especially at the beginning when I was exhibiting more of my art practice, people really questioned whether it is music or art, or what does this stand for? But I don’t separate my music practice or art practice; for me they are my artistic practice as a whole. That being said, it is also important to acknowledge that, even though most of my artworks have elements of sound, and are centred around the idea of music, it’s a totally different creative process and outcome, as well as scale of production, than when I make music work. So, though I’m not someone who aspires to be something or someone, or do a particular type of work, I do feel that how the idea of total art is used in Wagner’s work is in line with how I feel towards my work. The idea of total art is also quite often used in architecture, when architects make buildings and do the interior design – and later, the Dadaists talked about it too. When I’m writing, I don’t think I’m just writing with music or writing with words. I don’t feel like I’m just choreographing the movement; I’m also choreographing the space.

“I’m not just building an installation; I’m also building the environment. This just comes naturally from the beginning.”

NR: On a practical level then, how do you envision the way sound, space and movement work within a performance?

PD: In my practice all these different elements come together in an unbiased way. It’s about how sound, space, movement and visual artwork combine to create a narrative and express an idea. I’m fascinated by the musicality of space, or the rhythm of speech. But it’s the idea of music that’s usually at the beginning of making a work. And of course, after that, it becomes much wider. Over the past few years, playing concerts has become a smaller part of my practice, because creating these large-scale projects is a demanding process that requires time and focus. But I do still find that it’s important because I find the process of making music live, sharing it with an audience and having a very vulnerable moment on stage is an important way of researching certain ideas or testing materials. And it can be unpredictable; I’ve learned a lot as a musician, this understanding of certain moments of interaction and the idea of having an audience in the space. 

NR: How do you negotiate between, say, organic sounds that are made by the human body, versus the artificial or manufactured sounds?

PD: It’s interesting because I often think about it when I’m making work. I like exploring the limits of the human mind or, you know, working with the idea of the extreme, and challenging the extremes within us and the world, which also comes from a place of vulnerability and fragility. At the same time, paradoxically, it’s also about power; the human voice is magic because every person’s voice is unique. A voice reveals sensitive and detailed information about a person, and that’s something I found really fascinating and I like to collect this information. And this is why I also find opera singing to be a strong instrument because there’s a stillness and an athleticism. At the same time, it’s similar to noise music; it’s like extreme amplification but through the human lungs. There’s a kind of power to it because it’s impressive that sound is being generated by an organic being. And I found this quite interesting because I have the same relationship with the analogue synthesisers I use. It’s kind of like a dance. Of course, these are sounds made by a machine, but when I hear my own recordings, I can hear how I felt when I was touching those knobs or those wires. It reveals the language of choreography, so it is a dance with the machine; machines are cold and dead, but humans playing them give it life. So,

“I found this relationship between the voice and machine to be very intertwined and they have very natural, strong connection.”

NR: In a previous interview you discussed how noise can be therapeutic, and I wondered how you found the periods of lockdown which seemed to be characterised by silence and a lack of noise outside. Did the absence of sound affect the way you worked? 

PD: I like the idea of the absence of sound because it’s that that triggers your imagination. And it’s actually really hard to find that in everyday life; I don’t often listen to music because I can’t handle music as background noise. When I listen to a good piece of music, it gets my full attention and all of my sensors are triggered, so I’m really focused. I listen to music really quietly – so it’s funny because whenever I play music, people always ask for it to be louder, but when things are quieter you are forced to pay more attention to your senses. It’s a more concentrated form of listening. And I think, now, when we talk about noise in the world, it’s this kind of balance of the volume that is the problem. Certain sounds are too dominant and certain frequencies take over. I think the darkness of the time we’re in, and there has been darkness in every period of history, but maybe something’s overtaken too much.

You’re talking about noise in everyday life, but when it comes to what I was saying about the therapeutic nature of noise, I guess that comes down to the definition of ‘noise’. If we’re talking about the therapeutic nature of like noise as a music expression, silence, for me, is considered noise as well. It’s abstract.

“I think silence is as confrontational as a very strong soundwave.”

That’s what makes a great piece of noise music. And I don’t like confrontation that is forceful, but confrontational in that it feels like an encouragement. When I encounter a piece of work like that, it’s therapeutic because it helps me, it invites me to generate a certain direction. I think it’s very therapeutic because I think that’s what therapy does in general for people; no one can solve all your problems, they can only invite you to have a dialogue with yourself. I think it’s important to be honest with yourself, and this is what I want to achieve in my work as well. 

NR: That makes me want to turn back to Tissues and how, as an hour-long one-track record it demands you to listen to it in its entirety. 

PD: Music has the potential to provoke emotional, physical and imaginative responses, encouraging the listener to explore places they wouldn’t usually visit. But it takes time for this effect to surface and to feedback. I think about what I could possibly trigger through this listening experience, and when you’re talking about how you cannot go in and out of Tissues, it’s very much on purpose. Sometimes, I want the work to be a bit demanding so that it’s not so easy to digest. I don’t shy away from this kind of intensity in my work – maybe it’s not always pleasant, but that’s also fine. Tissues in its recorded form can only do so much compared to the experience of the performance. But this record does contain some of the spirit of the work, but it needs to be listened to in full to really come close to that experience. With the performance,

“it’s about the choreography, the installation, the landscape of lights – the darkness and the brightness, and all of that comes together. “

So, when you’re listening to it, it’s much denser and more compressed and, in a way, almost less distracting. When someone listens to Tissues, it’s a moment of solitude. 

NR: As a final point, then, I wanted to ask you about your live performances and how important site specificity is to you?

PD: From the very beginning, even when I was just playing concerts, I’ve always considered how architecture and space are important for me. I would turn down certain shows because it didn’t have an energy of, you know, I don’t feel inspired by the space. All of my work is site specific because

“it’s a big concern when it comes to making an experience-based work; the musicality of the space, the poetics of the space, is a very dominant element of how we encounter one another and how we encounter something.”

You cannot just hang something on the wall and think that is the only thing you’re looking at. I think, for the kind of work I do, it’s impossible. So, in this sense, I want to work with space through a 360-degree perspective to create a work that an audience can inhabit, to expand this kind of experiential process. With Tissues, the idea was to consider the Tanks as a sleeping giant, and the work is awakening it. The visual aspect of Tissues was to trigger the sensation that the space is moving, that it’s breathing, and that we are not just in an oil tank – it’s a gateway to a bigger world. Right after Tissues, I created a new work Dead Time Blue, featuring three opera singers and five dancers [in the atrium of] Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin in early 2020. The idea of the work was to make the whole space feel like a lung making sound, breathing, and singing. I think most of my sound installation work is about the operatic voice and the acoustic nature of the space as a way to make it feel like the whole building is singing. And, of course, there are the visual aspects – the movement, the dance, it all comes together into much more of a live experience. It’s important when I’m working to find a space I feel inspired by, and work to awaken the beauty in that environment.

Credits

Talent · PAN DAIJING wears BOTTEGA VENETA throughout
Photography · NINA RAASCH
Creative Direction · JADE REMOVILLE
Fashion · FABIANA VARDARO at COLLECTIVE INTEREST
Set Design · KRISTIN BAUMANN
Makeup · SABINA PINSONE
Hair · KOSUKE IKEUCHI
Fashion Assistant · ALEIX ILUSA LOPEZ
Location · RAW STUDIOS

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