“Hope,Test- a strategy of performative memories" is a collection of seven written pieces deriving from Toni Steffens archive of performative materials at the intersection of perception, fiction, emotion and pseudo scientific observation.
The project is to project.
In a 3D canvas images perform for (not only) a human gaze that imagines itself as an audience. The materiality of these images shapes, looks out, elaborates and confuses itself until something unfolds in front of our all eyes.
"Maybe when we speak of “movement”, Amsterdam is limping a bit, as we have a problem of relations. I wish institutions and freelance artists were to engage much more and had honest and challenging conversations. It should be an ongoing conversation where we acknowledge that we need each other."
Unfamiliarities is a space for artists of various disciplines to present their work in progress and to create a conversation subsequently. The project finds its genesis in the desire to design a space, where fragile, unfinished, and perhaps unfunded works can be witnessed and nourished. The aim is to create a momentum for artists, that stimulates their artistic processes by means of exchange.
“Metamotion for 270degrees” loosely departs from the biblical story of Salome. The work approaches the young, dancing female body to touch upon myths around femininity in western art history, in conjunction with christianity and the implemented cancellation of that character. Hovering in and out of those images, the performer enters into dialogue with different objects, times, references and narratives and switches roles, being its facilitator, user, friend, sparring partner.
Since 2017 Toni Steffens and Sigrid Stigsdatter create a body of work that researches and deals with the politics of collaboration as a shared encounter. Their choreographic practice tries to evoke a space that can communicate, negotiate and alternate its needs like a self expressing environment.
Through a subtle and precarious approach,“An attendee” tries to guide the audience perspective into the details of space, along the edge of (un)spectacular events, towards the frictions of different encounters.
“The Orange Rest/Sacrifice” is a former form, originally designed by Toni Steffens and Sigrid Stigsdatter. It was for the first time interactively realised at the Picnic Pavillon in Venice, May 2019 and later the same Year at QRU Amsterdam East. ”Orange Rest” offers a Vitamin C Boost and the possibility to rest and rejuvenate. Facilitated as a simple station to take a break from hectic life, oranges get prepared to be juiced by the audience member laying on them.
Orange Rest/Sacrifice
Quadrupedalism
Quadrupedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where a tetrapod animal uses all four limbs to bear weight, walk, and run. (google)
Human beings practicing Quadrupedalism engage in an initiative to remember their planetary pasts, with a physical condition of moving with the face closer to the ground and the back exposed to the sky and sun. The proximity to the legs, feet, sexual and internal organs and intestines, combined with the amplified sensation of the function of the lungs creates a naif, intimate “self-folding”, that has been compared with the activity of navel-staring. Arguably bypassing a state of self indulgence through imitation of animal reality, the intimacy with themselves is generated precisely, through a process of species estrangement and the resulting amplified experience of the bearing of one’s own body. Quadrupedalism has been interpreted as a process of hopeful re-situating through strategic disorientation. As the human body’s dominant navigation faculties, the eyes, are actively restraint from perspective and overview, human beings, practicing quadrupedalism, usually seek for a physical experience of the re-negotiation of domestic hierarchies. Practitioners have been further expressed feelings of relief and nostalgic dwelling, describing the achieved state within exercising as moments to remember, where the species could have evolved to otherwise. The intrinsic potential of this “otherwise” has become particular desirable for practitioners to sense, in the face of human made crisis and devastation.
Through a subtle and precarious approach,“An attendee” tries to guide the audience perspective into the details of space, along the edge of (un)spectacular events, towards the frictions of different encounters.
“The Orange Rest/Sacrifice” is a former form, originally designed by Toni Steffens and Sigrid Stigsdatter. It was for the first time interactively realised at the Picnic Pavillon in Venice, May 2019 and later the same Year at QRU Amsterdam East. ”Orange Rest” offers a Vitamin C Boost and the possibility to rest and rejuvenate. Facilitated as a simple station to take a break from hectic life, oranges get prepared to be juiced by the audience member laying on them.
Since 2017 Toni Steffens and Sigrid Stigsdatter create a body of work that researches and deals with the politics of collaboration as a shared encounter. Their choreographic practice tries to evoke a space that can communicate, negotiate and alternate its needs like a self expressing environment.
“Metamotion for 270degrees” loosely departs from the biblical story of Salome. The work approaches the young, dancing female body to touch upon myths around femininity in western art history, in conjunction with christianity and the implemented cancellation of that character. Hovering in and out of those images, the performer enters into dialogue with different objects, times, references and narratives and switches roles, being its facilitator, user, friend, sparring partner.
“Hope,Test- a strategy of performative memories" is a collection of seven written pieces deriving from Toni Steffens archive of performative materials at the intersection of perception, fiction, emotion and pseudo scientific observation.
The project is to project.
In a 3D canvas images perform for (not only) a human gaze that imagines itself as an audience. The materiality of these images shapes, looks out, elaborates and confuses itself until something unfolds in front of our all eyes.
"Maybe when we speak of “movement”, Amsterdam is limping a bit, as we have a problem of relations. I wish institutions and freelance artists were to engage much more and had honest and challenging conversations. It should be an ongoing conversation where we acknowledge that we need each other."
Unfamiliarities is a space for artists of various disciplines to present their work in progress and to create a conversation subsequently. The project finds its genesis in the desire to design a space, where fragile, unfinished, and perhaps unfunded works can be witnessed and nourished. The aim is to create a momentum for artists, that stimulates their artistic processes by means of exchange.
Unfamiliarities
DATES/ NEWS
2-3/09/2023: "Line,lo0sing line", Research Presentation at Oldenaller, commissioned by Fransien van der Putt, working with the archive of painter Claartje Berger
3-5/07/2023: Research residency at Oldenaller, commissioned by Fransien van der Putt, working with the archive of painter Claartje Berger
23/06/2023: "THE FATE CAST / IN THE SEARCH / OF FOUR PETALS", during " Even in the dark I know I am sleeping with myself" at Perdu Amsterdam, Collaboration with Mercedes Azpilicueta
24/05/2023: "SPRING WOUNDS" as part of the warp, a shared evening at KUNSTKAPEL, AMSTERDAM
30/03/2023: "WEAVING PASSAGES FOR THE MOMENTOUS", Extra Intra Reader #2 :A SLIGHT BREATH, editors HARRIET FOYSTER, ROSIE HAWARD, NELL SCHWAN, editorial board for intercurricular Programmes, GERRIT RIETVELD ACADEMY, SAN SERIFFE, AMSTERDAM 2023
10/11/2022: "HOPE,TEST- A STRATEGY OF PERFORMATIVE MEMORIES", PUBLISHER: 4BID GALLERY AMSTERDAM
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2022: "SPINAL CATASTROPHE" RESEARCH PROJECT, SUPPORTED BY NEUSTART KULTUR, #TAKE HEART, PACT ZOLLVEREIN, BERLIN/AMSTERDAM, RESEARCH
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2022: DRAMATURGY FOR ELVAN TEKIN, TANZFABRIK BERLIN
08/07/2022: "THE FATE CAST / IN THE SEARCH / OF FOUR PETALS", DURING "CHANGE FEELING" , COLLABORATION WITH MERCEDES AZPILICUETA, VANABBE MUSEUM EINDHOVEN
02+03/07/2022: "ON J0YFUL MILITANCY", PERFORMING FOR MERCEDES AZPILICUETA, ROZENSTRAAT, AMSTERDAM
19/05/2022: "SPINNER" PREMIER AT FLAM FESTIVAL AMSTERDAM
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