EMOTIONAL SEASONS 2010 experimentations with performance and new media art - a project series by ART IN PROCESS also includes

Christmas | The Cloned City | Not quite kosher | Fool's Gold | OffSeason

INTERNAL ROOM in collaboration with international artists

CONCEPT
Each participant of previous Seasons plus other selected artists were invited to submit a work to be included in the production of the final Emotional Season_Internal Room. Individual pieces were then brought into each other's context. Each participant created her/his own performance following certain guidelines. It had to be a performance within their own personal space at the time of production. The initial idea: a room as metaphor for our body. Our inner being is our most personal space. If we would visit this personal space more often we could avoid a lot of sorrow, fight and misunderstandings in the outside world. The work shows a visualised sequence of us within our personal space, how we identify this space and how we explore it, how we feel in there.
ART IN PROCESS has initiated this project: a partnership based in Fremantle, Australia and Langenlois/Austria - working across installation, video, new media, performance and live art. Emotional Seasons, the 2010 project-series, develops through international collaborations with other visual and new media artists, performers and musicians.

ABOUT SINGLE PERFORMANCES

ELISABETH M EITELBERGER (Austria/Australia) - Performance was filmed on the 20 July 2010 in Sydney at Artspace, Woolloomooloo

This performance symbolises my struggle with being/accepting myself as who I am - in different cultural environments. White body powder and aluminium foil symbolise the nearly desperate attempt to take on layers of a different cultural identity. The work questions cultural acceptance/misunderstandings, multilingual communication, feelings of isolation and vulnerability, layers of self-identification but also human pride. I use different materials to cover my body: white body powder, crepe bandage to cover my hair, aluminium foil, and my old but beloved nightdress. I have written down some words in German and English, which I use for creating the background on the wall; next to that I place a white plinth; I sit on it like a statue. I carry a linen bag over my shoulder, filled with small pieces of aluminium foil. The action starts: I try to cover one foot, then one hand, then one ear and my mouth with aluminium foil. The foil does not stick very well; I start taking it off again, try to dust off the powder. I stick a fragile sticker onto my nightdress and sit upright facing the camera.

PATRICK TAGOE-TURKSON (Ghana) - The Ant and the Slipper Ant Hill - Performance was filmed during his participation in the NatureArt Biennale in Gogju (South Korea) between August and September 2010

I use the found slipper sheet which I stitched together manually and the jute+ slipper cloth in this performance to synonymously make analogy to the complexity of humanity-to show that everything around us and more importantly within us is equally important. For instance the way we relate to our external world (our inner feelings) as against our external experiences. The ant hill may look beautiful externally, but within it is a whole world on its own. We may wear our shoes or slippers because of their external appeal but alas, under the foot is the real action. I wrap myself with the slipper sheet and move in a straight but interrupted by items of daily life like the sunglasses, cameras, hat, can drinks, shoes, and so on which a found along my course. I stop to pick as much as these items which I can carry along. I did this because I believe that as we walk on the part of life there are a lot of experiences, challenges, things we meet on our way, some of them we pick, others we leave behind. It is the things which we pick- those experiences that eventually become our our true self, our internal room. The performance eventually ends with me and my gathered items in my slipper ant hill.

SABINE WUTSCHEK (Austria) - Performance was filmed at the practice Albertgasse 26, 1080 Vienna, Date: 24th August 2010

The internal space is a space within the skin. My internal space is above my belly button, inside my body. I feel that all power originates from there and that this space accompanies me all the time. I clearly feel this spot gently embedded within the tenderness and softness of my organs. Reachable and connected with the outside world through all my apertures: mouth, nose, ears, vulva, anus and belly button. I started to make a visionary journey approximately two years ago. I wanted to know, how my inner space would look like. This space was empty and I sat on a wooden chair in a bathrobe out of white terry cloth. I visited this space again and again. And never, sitting on that chair in my bathrobe, anything changed. I haven't been looking inside now for more than a year. Meanwhile I have found a space within the manifest world, which feels like my space. I used Internal Room to put my bathrobe on again and sit on a chair in this/my space to see what I could discover today within this space and what I actually would do. The video is the outcome of this exploration.
Edith Grandits, behind the camera, went on this journey with me. Thank you!

insidefrantschesko by aka FRANZ SRAMEK (Austria) - Performance was filmed on 29 August 2010, biotop- fallmerayer, Vienna; helping hands: sabine wutschek = gentleangel

There is a persistent popping of flashbulbs in my head, consisting of thoughts, images, sounds, and more... and I think that my soul has chosen the slowness to be able to overcome this clutter in my head and to find my way through life.

ROBERT MEDRALA (USA) - Performance was filmed at his work studio in Philadelphia, USA

SORAMARU TAKAYAMA (Japan) - Performance was filmed in July 2010 in Perth, Western Australia

宇宙はあなたの体内だった
泣かないで　星が瞬いている
The cosmos is within you
So don't cry, the stars are twinkling

宇宙はあなたの体内でも生まれた
The cosmos was born within you

私の内側は私のようで私ではない
私の外側は私でないようで私だ
I am not the familiar self, looking out from within
I am the unfamiliar self, reflected back from without

身体の内側も世界で満ちている
それは外側より広いとは言えないが狭いとも言えない
The inner self is its own brimming world
If it is no larger than what is beyond, still it is no smaller

存在とは言語である
Existence is language

我々が背負っている罰
それは言語だ
Upon our backs we carry a burden
That is our language.