There is no Land
Sonic Performance
SF International Art Festival, Fort Mason
Center for Arts & Culture, San Francisco, USA
2019 FESTIVAL THEME: THE PATH TO DEMOCRACY
Date: 2019
Duration: 3 hours
Team:
PIER 1 - Blue Boat: - SOUND PERFORMER: Lucien Jeanprêtre - ROWER: Ärika von Edler
PIER 2 - Yellow Boat:- SOUND PERFORMER:Jessica Fertonani Cooke
- ROWER: Adea Francis Guldi
PIER 3 - Red Boat:
- SOUND PERFORMER: Guta Galli
- ROWER: Martin Mladenov
GROUND WORKER (instructing public):
- Alexia Marouli
KAYAK INSTRUCTOR:
- Ted Choi
VIDEO:
- John Macaque Thierry
PARTNERS:SFIAF, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, The City
of San Francisco, Wallis Foundation, City Kayak and GoFundMe
GOFUNDME DONORS
Laurent Delcasso, Vanessa Bossart, Katia Alves, Vasudhaa Narayanan, Eduardo Augusto Muylaert Antunes, Charles Victor Pereire, Janette Najar, Maria Antonia De Carli, Juvenal Fernandes, Eneida Terra
Araujo, Bruno Grigoletto.
There is no land, is a 3-hour sonic site-specific performance part of San Francisco International Arts Festival 2019 program, themed:
The Path to Democracy.
The piece investigate hollow structures within western
capitalistic system based off industrial an economic growth. I pose the question:
where do civilians stand within obsolete utilitarian systems that oscillates and collapses within its own structural pitfalls?
This collaborative performance took place UNDER THE 3 PIERS OF FORT MASON. It was performed by 3 sound
artists - each of whom are accompanied by a rower, a boat, sound equipment and designated to one pier.
All 3 performers create a sonic landscape using specialized sound equipment designed to emanate sound through waterproof amplifiers as they touch the pillars under the piers. Each one of them wore heavy-duty rubber gloves supporting contact mics connected to amps in addition to safety vest and headlamps.
The intention of the artists was to listen to each other, the sounds they create and of the ocean in order to build a sonic ritual/procession/symphony to fill the 'vacuum' between water and structure. In light of the crisis of Democracy we face in the USA and worldwide today, the vacuum beneath the piers are metaphors to vulnerable structures and inhabitable landscapes post-industrial society stands on.
The ocean beneath the performers is symbolic of a connecting world-wide womb. The possibility to 'travel' on these waters odes to the human connection to the infinite and to creation. What do we seek to birth?
My intention for the project is for performers and viewers alike to live transmutation while facing natural phenomena, ritualistic intention-based healing embedded in the questions: what vulnerable structures do I stand on? How much vacuum can I transmute in the landscape? Can I see, hear or comprehend the entire scope of a territory. What systems do we want to birth into the future?
