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Plankton::Bar 30/11 2007

During two months B::C offers a residence to artists whose artistic oeuvre is based on 'nomadic' ideas and dynamics and on their cultural and sociological impact.The theme automatically produces a series of related references such as 'migration', 'origin' and 'movement' which are closely related to the concept of a nomadic way of living.The line of flight between 'nomadic-migration-origin-movement' was explored on different levels during the three months residency. Starting from a personal level, via a local and national perspective to a worldwide scale, this idea served as a research topic and at the same time as an inspiration for artistic translations.The artists used, during the period, several tools to map a possible territory of thoughts in common. A blog, walks, images, mapping exercises and dialogues document the process in which ideas are exchanged between the artists and theoretic Bettina Wind.During the Plankton::Bar the different tools and their (temporary) results are shown and the artists want to try out and question the impact.'

'To take a step in the right direction.Which direction is that?And that direction is which?' (Petter Alexander Goldstine)

'Kissing time with necessary narratives shaping incoherent spaces; creating cohesive structures to walk within. Fullstop.' (Dario Vacirca)

'I walk to remember where I come from. I walk not to forget. I walk to trace a path to follow.' (Claudia Conduto)

'Rather than trying to define 'nomadic structures', we expose our way of living on these moving grounds and invite the audience to share this walkabout with us.' (Christina Clar)

"What is home?"

" (...) I suspect, has less and less to do with a trip into the past and more and more to do with a journey into our future, where people will have to think of home in more and more imaginative and nonlinear ways. The classic story of the exile's return—intrinsic to the human condition, some would say, since Adam and Eve (or the Buddha)—has gone virtual. And when I think of bringing all the pieces of my home into one place, I may think of an airport (where a cousin is at gate 43, a school friend is just coming through customs and I can get the magazines and foods of almost every one of my homes). "What is home?" someone asks me. I pull out from my pocket a picture of a longtime partner. I speak of the Benedictine monastery to which I retreat four times a year. I think of the English language, my companion for every moment of my life. I cite the books and ideas and loyalties I take everywhere I go. Home—the need for solid ground—is as vital as it ever was, but now more and more of us are obliged to find it on the move. For millions of us, the journey becomes the destination. And a part of us—at sea, in the air, in passage or in passageway—wishes that there were a simpler way home." [Pico Iyer in "TIME Asia"]

THE PROJECT

In our days, individuals constantly move their places of living and work across the world. They settle down for a year, a month, or even a week in a new place, only to move afterwards to another place, in another city, another country, or even another continent. Transience has become a way of life for an increasing share of the inhabitants of the global world. There are, of course, various specific reasons for such mobility, but ultimately, what is the attraction of transience? … Arriving? … Leaving? Or the Space In-Between?

With economic globalization we can be in different places of the world without changing location. We can eat New Zealand kiwis, or savor coffee from Brazil no matter where we are. The thrill of discovery has also fallen. Even the more remote civilizations have less to offer through mobility; we saw it before on “National Geographic”! Mobility no longer requires a dramatic change in our habits, nor does it bring the novelty of a new world to explore. In the past, mobility was the search for revelation; nomads sought knowledge, experience, or wealth from new places and cultures. Today, a nomadic life is enriched by becoming more in the path to get there,… wherever! Deleuze and Guattari explain:

“(…) A path is always between two points, but the in-between has taken on all the consistency and enjoys both an autonomy and a direction of its own. The life of the nomad is the intermezzo”. [“Smooth and Striated Space” (p.380)]

The “intermezzo” and the experience of traveling the path is the essence of a nomadic life. What drives the nomad is the thrill of the Space In-Between. Transience is the spirituality of the modern nomad!

I walk to remember where I come from. I walk not to forget. I walk to trace a path to follow – Mobile phone Photographs
For the next 6 months I will be in traveling to different places, including: Brussels, Lisbon and Singapore. From November 2007 to April 2008, I plan to use a mobile phone to take daily photographs of the sky at those locations at precisely 10 am C.E.T, using the mobile phone’s alarm to remind me of the shoot. At the end of the project around 180 photographs will be displayed on a wall.

At any point in time, the sky in Singapore is different from the sky in Brussels, itself different from the sky in Lisbon. The differences are not only due to the specificities of each location, but, more importantly to their position on the globe, their latitude and longitude. To emphasize this, all photos will be taken at the same Brussels time (10 am CET), regardless of the local time zone.

This “diary of the sky” will depict the number of days spent in each place: an unchanging storyline of the changes from my traveling. Over the next six months, my location will change constantly, but the sky that I will photograph will always be there. Perhaps photographing the sky will help us to reconsider the importance of a nomadic life. Perhaps a nomadic way of living will guide us to our origins. Beyond doubt it suggests we achieve a certain level of detachment from places on earth when we have transience life style. [Claudia Conduto]

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