Reality Show

(Working hard on a show with the Portuguese academic group CITAC...
Here's a teaser of the performance, called Reality Show:)

REALITY SHOW from Vvoi on Vimeo.

Reconnaissance - installation view

The Actors - Reconnaissance, by Wojtek Ziemilski

This is a short fragment of my work called The Actors. The first volume - Reconnaissance lasts 50 minutes. You can see this excerpt in sort-of-HD here.
Any galleries interested in showing this work, write me, and I'll send you a DVD.

My New Art

I've been very very busy with the opening of my video installation.
Today is the opening night
I won't tell you much, and will leave you with the small text that accompanies it instead:


THE ACTORS
Part 1: RECONNAISSANCE

reconnaissance. or: finding oneself. or: recognition. the recognition of someone else. someone is recognized. or: recognizing. you are (this) someone. this is (this) someone. or: meeting again. discovering again something one knew already. electra's paradox: electra knows, and does not know, that it is her brother standing before her.

reconnaissance. checking. how far. how far one can go. how far one needs to go to. where are the borders. when do i fall into something else. and whatwho is this something else.

i like knowing so little about them.
i like that they remain actors.
and that they are actors in a way no different from all the others.
i like what they're able to do because of how we called them: actors.

The Actors opens (link in Polish) at the TR Warszawa in Poland.
Hopefuly I'll be able to post a short excerpt of the video soon...

From teaching to curating

I have been giving some video/art workshops recently, as part of the Stranger Festival process (produced in Poland by Kultura Miejska).
I am quite astonished by the quality of the work my students made. Below are three examples of work I find particularly interesting. The Stranger Festival might not be the ideal place for them, but after a little post-production, I will be sending them to galleries and festivals. It really makes me think of creating a sort of a production system with workshops and then promotion of selected works, like a curator/producer...

EXITO=success / EXIT=exit

I am delighted to inform you that I have been invited by the TR Warszawa theater (Warsaw, Poland) to create and direct a video department/workshop/center/section/thing. There is great enthusiasm concerning the project on both sides.
Thus, I am thrilled to be going back to Poland (at least for some time).
Thus, I am extremely sad to be leaving Portugal (at least for some time).

I hope to have more on this initiative in a few weeks.

For now, all my friends and friends of this blog are invited to a farewell party on February 2, at a place that will be disclosed any moment.

UPDATE>> we will be partying at the Lounge bar (www.barlounge.blogspot.com, although I have no idea how knowing the virtual address can help), at rua da Moeda n.1, in the Cais do Sodre area (by the post office, near the ETIC school). We'll be starting around 11pm. See you there!

Pictures from Hamlet Light

A few pictures from Hamlet Light. Just so you know I've been busy.

Photos by Susana Jesus

Hamlet Light - rehearsalsss

I am now going back to rehearsals of Hamlet Light, which will have its premiere on September 15th at the Teatro Municipal de Faro and will be in Lisbon on September 28-30.

In order to enjoy theatre, shouldn’t we forget it? Forget that we’re inside a theatre, forget how it works? How about if we just forgot the whole idea of a production and simply focused on how to advertise it? If instead of the play the audience saw the creation of a play’s trailer? What would remain? What would the new scale of possibilities be?


More on this later.
(My activity here might slow down a bit. Or not.)

Technorati: theatre, theater, performance, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Blue.

Untitled

Technorati: photography, fine art, visual art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Parantheses from Barthes' Camera Lucida (1&2)

1.
(1852)
(this is how life is made up of small solitudes)
2.
(one needs to classify, to group, if one wants to constitute a corpus)
(Professional/Amateur)
(Landscapes/Objects/Portraits/Nudes)
(Realism/Pictoralism)
(if it exists)
(a certain photo and not the Photo)
(spoken out)
(from what it represents)
(which happens in the case of any other image, charged since the beginning and by principle with the mode in which the object is simulated)
(professionals can)
(out of commodity it is necessary to accept this universal which, at the moment, only sends us towards the tireless repetition of contingency)
(I believe the sharks, according to Michelet)
(I didn't know yet that out of this stuborness of the referent in being always present would appear the essence of what I was looking for)
(there is no photography without something or someone)
(to take pictures of)
(the voice of science)


all the parantheses from chapters 1 & 2 of Camera Lucidaby Roland Barthes (my translation)

Technorati: digital art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Good news

I am absolutely delighted to inform you that the project Hamlet Light, which I direct, is one of the winners of Jovens Artistas Jovens, a contest/cultural program produced by the Centro Cultural de Belem and 14 other theater venues across Portugal.
picture by José Manuel Soares

Technorati: theatre, theater, performance, performance art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

My Portuguese flag

Performative helmets

Two additional pictures of the performative helmets from the Monomads performance.

Technorati: art, contemporary art, new art, vvoi, vvoitek, modern art, cool

Monomads

Wow. The show went just brilliantly well.


Here is what it's all about:

1. Concept. An intimate space in the middle of a busy city. Street art as a space for communication : a stage. Theater in the most unlikely place. But not quite street theater. Not in the sense of puppets and circus acts.

2. Inside. Stories of the homeless. Actual stories, told without any pathetic tones, no moralizing or tear-jerking. The lives, tastes, loves, sleeping choices and favorite football team, of those we avoid most. A confrontation with difference - a private meeting with a stranger.

3. Realization. Five 2,5-meter-long egg-shaped, hallow forms with two holes on the bottom. Ten chairs.

4. Material. Scotch tape. At least 95% of the "performative helmets" were made with transparent scotch tape. Some also had a little resin and 2-3 layers of transparent film. The holes and the tips were reinforced with wire.

5. Experience. It's night. People go out to have a few drinks. As you approach one of the city's busier squares, on it you see several strange, large shapes that look like sculptures. There are people gathered around it. You come closer and notice there are legs sticking out underneath the sculptures. Actually, those are two people sitting with this thing on their head. Bewildered, you approach one of the production people. S/he says: "This is a performance that's part of the FATAL academic theater festival. One of the people inside is a performer and the other is a spectator. If you wait a little, you can try it. It lasts about 5 to 10 minutes and is free." You wait, then sit on the spectator's chair. The helmet is put on your head. You are isolated from the rest of the world. The sound changes completely - it hushes. But also visually, you have nowhere to run - all you see is the face of a young person. A head completely cut away from the rest - including the body. The person looks at you. S/he starts talking. You have been told to remain silent, so you just enjoy the ride. She talks in the first person, telling you about how she ended up on the street, who his parents were, and why the bakery window is the best place to spend the night. She speaks calmly, with no rush. It doesn't really sound like a theater monologue, but more like just someone telling his story.

6. Joker. The joker is another type of experience in the performative helmet. What you hear, then, is not a story. The performer describes a face. She speaks as if she were describing her own face. But after a while you realize she is actually describing your own face. Neutrally, without judging. Simply telling you exactly how your face looks to her.


The performance went on for three nights, between 11PM and 2AM. We had spectators non stop, often with big lines of people waiting. The performers gave their individual performances about 250 times, which was the maximum they could. Nearly a thousand people stopped to watch the performance as an installation and read the flyer we gave them (many more were watching from across the street). 90% of the "inside" spectators came out very impressed and enthusiastic about the project (needless to say some of them are theater-goers, but many others would never consider going to theater). Many people waited in all the lines to go through all of the performative helmets, since the story was different in each of them. There were a lot of smiling faces. There were tears. A young homeless punk who first wanted to ridicule the event, after hearing two stories asked one of the perfomers if they could change sides - which they did, and the punk told her life story. She asked the perfomer to keep the story as a secret between them.
Now, we are all exhausted. It was very intensive, with nearly none production support.
But this was so good, it would be a pity too keep it at that. If you know of any festivals/venues that could be interested in this work, let me know. We are now preparing a "festival package", in English, possibly with local performers, street-level research and acting and sculpting workshops.


Me and Performaria co-director Verónica Fernandes next to one of the performative helmets. Inside of it, the person to the right is performing, the one to the left - watching.

photos by José Miguel Soares

Technorati: installation, art installation, performance, performance art, theater, theatre, visual art, art, contemporary art, new art, vvoi, vvoitek, modern art, cool

Sneak Preview

Two pics from a recent rehearsal:

Technorati: performance, performance art, art installation, art, contemporary art, new art, vvoi, vvoitek, modern art, cool

Close

The performance is almost on. I have been working 12+ hour days, but at this moment everything seems fairly okay.
What can I tell you so far...
The performance could be considered somewhere within performance art, street theater, documentary theater, installation or street art. It's called Monomads (Monómadas), from "nomad" and "monad". The performers will be using performative helmets (hehe). The point of departure is the nomad state - which in the urban context means mainly (though not exclusively) homeless people. Oh, and expect a rare intimacy. For good or bad.
The performance takes place in Lisbon, at the Largo de Camões (right in the center), on May 4-5-6, from 11PM to 2AM. To get an insight you need about 10 minutes, for a deeper insight you need probably about 30-40 minutes. So if you're around, drop by to see Performaria (that would sound something like Performery in English). And if not - I'll be back here as soon as I can - with a quick review of how it went - and then, the usual...

Technorati: art, contemporary art, new art, vvoi, vvoitek, modern art, cool

Surface

Untitled (2005)

Technorati: photography, visual art, fine art, erotic art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Art + Landscape = Artscape

Here is a project I participated in a short while ago:

The Logical Picture of the Facts is the Thought, group project (by artLAB) (2005)

The inhabitants of the city of Penafiel, Portugal, were temporarily deprived of their most beautiful landscape. The entire Lovers’ Garden vista point was covered by 150m of white canvas, creating a border between the scenery and the park. The onlookers’ immediate reaction was a decision on their own place in the landscape.

The vista point separates the public space of The Lovers’ Garden from private vineyards. The visitors faced a choice: either stay in the public park without the scenic landscape, enjoying the new cosiness created by the canvas, or go behind the canvas and rediscover the view, but as a private, intimate experience. Then, the visual isolation from the nearest surroundings gave the panorama an unexpected closeness.

This collective work was the fruit of an artistic residence and workshop around “New Ways of Approaching Landscape”. The basis was research done on the relationship between the city dwellers and their most beloved panoramic viewpoint.

The picturesque wine hills are also next to the city center, making them a target for real estate development. Several areas are soon to be transformed into cheap housing blocks. The Logical Picture… is a reaction to this situation. It presents the landscape as a prohibited fruit, a “thought-provoking picture”.
(And I must tell you, rarely have I seen people react like that to a work. It made us feel good.)

This initiative was created by artLAB*projectos in September 2005, with the support of the City of Penafiel, the Caixa Geral de Depósitos bank and the Superior Institute of Agronomy (Universidade Técnica de Lisboa)

----

Of course, the first superficial reaction is - it's pretty close to what Christo does. Which, in my humble opinion, is false. It does take up a similar language, but uses it in a distinct manner. The idea is not a "package", nor a "fence". And it is very distant from the modernist "art for art's sake" approach that is at the core of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's work. Here, a clearly social work was made. A "public" work in a meaning I like to use.
The long title, a quote from Wittgenstein, makes it clear - we want you to think, not just leave the work as a "neutral" fact.

Technorati: visual art, art installation, installation, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Little fish jumpin'

Vvoi, Urban Fish (2004)

Technorati: photography, installation, art installation, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Self-portrait with a view

(see previous post for sample reference)

Technorati: visual art, art, contemporary art, vvoi