Elk
This page is a space for notes concerning the colaboration between Kaffe Matthews, Larisa Blazic and Eleonora Oreggia, intersecting oracles, noise, video, architecture and much more. Codename is ELK.
The starting point and the focus idea is the creation of one Oracle Machine in the form of a performance-installation - or surpassing of it, intersecting personal skills, experiences, interests and objectives. Goals: have fun, learn, create something which contains the essence and the character of all of us.
January 20th. Naming the project.
We are moving ahead with realistic ideas and now seem to be calling our project Triadic Oculus.
I prefer the sound ocule which in fact is singular of ocule.
What is the meaning of Oculus?
let us consider this..
Meeting 5, ELK. London, January 19th 2011.
at Penthurst st, 9pm with trolley in toe and many figs and pears. we plan the made proposal which turns out as u can see..
Location: Paris, Petite Ceinture (an abandoned railway line in paris).
Questions of mobility, in between places.
Shape of a question mark, a circle.
Meaning: the small belt.
Panorama From Top of a Moving Train film by Georges Méliès filmed in this railway.
1. Pre-production (research and concept development)
BoDig (Istanbul, Turkey) in September 2011
2. Development (concept to creation)
body>data>space (London, UK) in Jan/February 2012
3. Production (creation to production)
Transcultures (Mons, Belgium) in April 2012
4. Dissemination (production to live audience)
CDA Enghien les Bains (Paris, France) in June 2012
<kaffe>
Ocular Triad (triadic ocule) is a performance research group that makes audio-visual site specific art works by using live input from the cosmos above, the geology beneath and contemporary urban data that it processes through its oracular system.
Concept.
</kaffe>
<ele>
A triadic play with the Oracular | The third Oracle site specific performance/installation
- description / abstract
- concept / theme
- audiovisualisation
- references
- outcomes
Elk is a series of site specific performances/installations investigating human uncertainty and decision making processes in contemporary post-industrial urban societies.The installation is a unique work interacting with the physical environment and the social strata of the place.
The work will enact an artistic intervention in a specific pre-existing natural or industrial location (es: old cave, abandoned railway, ancient dismised church,
unfinished architecture) developing an ad-hoc theatrical electronic and software system to open questions reflecting the current state of our society on the one hand,
and the relation between humans, free will, machines, tools and the idea of the Supernatural in the contemporary.
The interaction and generation of an output will be based upon three main types of data: local, remote and phisical (?)
Remote data includes satellites, the internet (databased and live streamed as webcams), cable tv,
Local data include humidity, temperature, radio waves, on-air tv, microphones,
Study on circle and Number 3
Drammaturgy
Streaming
Clock
Systems of navigation
Questions:
- why are these institutes collaborating?
- budget
- can the 15% funding be time/equipment?
- distribution works in places
- we are busy, do we have a chance?
Audiovisualisation / realisation / how
- selection of a space in the place
- creation of sistem of logic - whose rules are inspired by number 3 and the circle -
able to manipulate the different data sources and to generate answers to specific questions
system of input / output
based on software and electronic components
open source
spectator/user is the person posing the question
the supernatural entity is embodied by a machinery apparatus
which embeds / synthesises the system
the question is posed through an old telephone close to the altar/machine
the answer can be sound, noise, video, recomposed speech, text, still image, collage ++
it can be abstract, narrative, symbolic, time-based, nosense, and nothing as well.
After this ---> dramaturgy
what is sexy about us?
different skills
background
instruments
</ele>
<lara>
What: ELK is a hybrid project that is looking into relationship between ancient and contemporary oracular activities and divination techniques across various cultures to create comparative understanding how and why were they used in the past. This is then taken into contemporary urban societies context to explore the rise of oracular activities in crises to create parallel divinatory entities that will help contemporary human experience the //divine// again and thus rediscover direction.
Why: Many examples through history show human anxiety over “what the future brings”. Native Americans, ancient Greeks and Romans, Chinese, Africans, literally any culture during its history had had examples of oracular activities as attempts to establish connection with higher powers to give them guidance and advice how best to live life. Sometimes the seekers were rich and powerful, statesmen seeking guidance on future of whole countries, sometimes-ordinary people searching for answers to ordinary questions.
This super-fast-forwarded into information age of data streams, remote sensing, cctv sniffing, satellite broadcast overload, of urban living angst, of separateness, of nowness, of information anxiety, of petrified thought, of abandonment of authentic self. Does human have any control over their life today – one would like to think so, yet, in the entire fast-consumer-driven-high-achieving daily grind, human is trapped. Logics and rationality led them to believe they can control their lives, capitalism induced advertising driving the consumer, took away the control. Who is the higher power in power here?
</lara>
Meeting 4, ELK. London, January 17th 2011.
the cosmos, the heavens, the ether, the sky, ethereal
the land, the humans, the data, product of human societies
the earth, the rock, the soil the molten core of the planet.
so the human is also the connector portal between these things.., we are going to make a system to harness that,, to create new works... performance installation,
site-specific performance/installation
theatrical rather than minimal/cerebral
video output audio output input from the audience
capoeira related synthesis of dance visuals, sound, trance that is participation
what is happening to human animal when removed from working with hands, creating crafts and objects
urban society detached from instinct, from original nature, human incapability to connect, to detach, to release him/herself from desires created by the capitalism
machine – what is machine in this work?
uncertainty in life as main drive for people to seek oracles,
Meeting 3, ELK. London, January 8th 2011.
We need to find a name for the project, deadline: Russian New year. This project will have its own website/url/name. Relation with 'The Oracle Machine': child/parent. Connection to various other influences declared as well, Kaffe's and Lara's work and fields of research plus 'The Psychogeophysics Summit". The name 'oracle' stays in the project's title.
Meeting 2, ELK. London, December 19th 2010.
Collaboration starts. Oracle is a powerful name which means a lot and we all use it everyday. Finding a point of touch for cooperation.
- cosmic music and astronomy - remote places and their interaction - relation tangible intangible - tendency to control - spirituality vs consumption - greater smaller | ego/themselves - Eleonora: surpass the Oracle Machine's block!!!
Todo list:
- look at each others work and discuss various conceptual and aesthetical issues to brainstorm
- read the Oracle project so far (and publish what lays unpublished)
- ELK mailing list for fast communication and fast retrival of emails' archive
http://lists.xname.cc/mailman/listinfo/elk
Meeting 1, Lara + Ele. London, December 17th 2010.
MADE = call by Body-Data-Space, covers September 2011 to June 2012 Collaboration among different entities, city involved are London, Paris, Istambul and Mons (BE).
This is a co-operation between lead organiser centre des arts d’Enghien-les-Bains (Paris, France) and partners body>data>space (London, UK), Transcultures (Mons, Belgium) and BoDig (Istanbul, Turkey), in the framework of the EU’s Culture programme (2007-2013).
- January 24th --> deadline (general idea) - Feb/March --> shortlisted
- 15% funding in remote working
noise, video, architecture
THE CITY IS TALKING BY ITSELF references: - the Oracle Machine - Psychogeophisics methods
city planners: high power --> citizens are obliged to use the city as it is; constraints
URBAN PRESSURE - NOISE - EXPERIMENTAL ELECTRONIC
invisible forces
real-time ----- vieo abstraction
recombinatory system --- abstract --- narrative
set of rules of logic, grammar, syntax
noise ---> language (visual sign, phoneme)
-- question of CONTROL (control as Karma)
city as a living entity
--> interrogating the city
historically it is all about change in the city
