NEW RESIDENCY : Vytautas Tinteris

The Film maker and Artist from Lithuania arrived at Anatum’s yesterday and will be working in the Emporium to share out his sound performance possibly titled : “Schizophrenia and 50 conflicting personalities inside of me” within the next two weeks. ATTENTION ! We might ask to contribute to his research by inviting you over during the development stage- dates and occasions will be announced here soon !

 

Previous experiments by Vytautas Tinteris include a documentary on a 24 hour self test on the grounds of a supermarket open 24/7 365days a year :

vytas

 

 

UPCOMING RESIDENCY : RITUALS OF RHYTHMS

Rituals of rhythm

RITUALS OF RHYTHM –
Rituals of rhythm is collaborative meditation of music through an intuitive sound performance, the space is cleansed for two weeks before inviting the audience to witness the final improvised performance.
Involving a combination of surround rhythmic variations with music excerpts and noise percussion from elemental sounds, the experimental performance will allow all involved to enter altered states of consciousness through the resonance of sound.
Residents Maxwell Reynish, Sound Artist, and Lani Roncillo, Sound Healer, will live and work in the space to create and discover primitive, post-shamanic sounds, using an eclectic selection of their personal instruments.
“The way you change and help music is by trying to invent new ways to play”
Miles Davis

Dreams in Action II

Image by http://jd-doria.com/

Image by http://jd-doria.com/

After a successful first workshop we kindly invite you to: Dream in Action II

A process to submerge into the world of your dreams/fantasys through Active Imagination

Diving into the subconscious realm in waking life. Tapping into the creative realm for

performance acting dance voice drawing writing improvisation

Bring a dream/daydream you would like to work with.

come in comfortable clothes.


this workshop is aimed at unlocking the undercurrent of personal yet parallel realities

looking to introduce its findings into creative practice

Monday, 4 May, 7pm.

at Anatum’s Abode

Please RVSP via email: anatumsabode@gmail.com

Fee: donations.

Facilitated by Lee Fükke

Dreams in Action

jd-doria.com

jd-doria.com

Techniques for dream interpretation and dream integration for

performance acting dance voice drawing writing improvisation

Bring a recent dream you had, written down in detail

come in comfortable clothes

we will explore the dream content through active imagination


this workshop is aimed at unlocking the undercurrent of personal yet parallel realities

looking to introduce its findings into creative practice

Monday, 13 April, 7pm.

Please RVSP via email: anatumsabode@gmail.com

Fee: donations.

Facilitated by Lee Fükke

ab in Anatum’s FINAL post

FINAL

In my two week residency I achieved what I wanted to achieve – I did intensive ten days (or nine better to say, because one day I took a break) research in an Anatum’s Abode and the city of London. My interest in the research was to feel, to understand, to explore specific site (so we might call it „site-specific research“) – the London megalopolis. Important part of that work was also one day (18 hours) durational performance/observation in the London’s Tube/Overground/DLR system.

I prepared a workshop which unfortunately didn’t happen because of the lack of participants but was replaced by its variation done in two people next day.

I participated on two collective events in Anatum’s and in that occasions I executed two performance pieces. Performances were adapted for the specifities of the evenings itself – first one spoke about the history and present of the Anatum’s Abode, second concentrated on the extension of human communication possibilities.

And finally I presented a lecture „Sexuality in dystopian movies.“ The way it happened, the number of pleased listeners, consequential discussion and created atmosphere was maybe the biggest surprise and biggest satisfaction in terms of my residency.

Below you find some photos with which I am saying goodbye. I would like to warmly thank for the possibility given to me and highly recommend the residency for any other possible applicants.

Thank you.

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ab in Anatum’s day 13 & 14

DAY 13 & 14

These two days were devoted to preparations of „a night of immersive interaction between each other, sharing time and space.“ There were food sculptures designated specially for each person, meal together, concentration, wishes offered to the fire sculpture, ritual dance and singing and so on. It happened to be a nice meeting of people.

I participated with a simple „performance“ – I decided not to speak during the evening and rather try to communicate with others through body language or if necessary by writing. As a sign of my speaking incapability I put a purple lipstick on my lips by which I emphasized that incapable area.

Experiment worked quite nicely, created different atmosphere between me and other people. For me it was nice occasion to shut up for a while and to listen more (which is something we all need quite often). Pantomime, touching and writing happened to be my main communicative tools. Maybe might be even more interesting next time not to use the writing as well. On the other hand the writing brought various funny situation – like when I excluded me and my writing partner from the general social situation and established kind of conspiracy between us or when I won one pantomime round by writing guessed word faster than others were saying it.

Beautiful was to use vocal chords not for word producing, but for singing or creating of sounds / shrieking. So the moments of collective singing meant great relief and liberation for me – now I was able to communicate with others in a same way as they did and the connection between us was deeper than usual.

I started to speak again at midnight, after five hours. At the very first moment it was nice to speak again, but I missed my silence as well. Silence might be a miracle.

Below you find my written communication attempts and some „afterpictures.“ Not just random parties but even the „spiritual“ ones ends similarly…

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ab in Anatum’s day 10 & 11

DAY 10

That day I was recovering from the previous whole day Tube experience and preparing afternoons workshop. Unfortunately (and actually quite unsurprisingly as well) no participants appeared.

It was understandable for me because I was offering a four hours workshop in a Sunday afternoon when most of the people have time but on the other hand they also want to rest. When writing a proposal for the event I did my best and was ready to present quite interesting experience, I think. On the other hand I don’t know almost anyone in London so maybe the invitation didn’t came to the right people.
But what can one do, right? 🙂

Below you can see that I was ready – empty space as well as the sweets and tea were anticipating people impatiently.

IMG_7503 IMG_7506

DAY 11

The compensation came another day. Lee and I decided not to forget the Tube research so easily. We entered the Bank station an for approximately an hour we were practising systema, Russian martial art technique in which Lee is skilled a bit and is also able to hand over that knowledge (thank you Lee!).

So we were „punching“ each other, liying on each other, rolling on the ground and so on. One of the goals of my potential workshop was achieved – the Tube became ours playground.

People in the Tube are encouraged to „report anything unusual“ but apparently what we did was still quite usual because nobody – even the Tube employees – was interested in what we do.

By this 11th day I finished the most important and biggest part of my work in Anatum’s Abode. In the 11 days I was exploring possible approaches of how to understand the London megalopolis, I was taking pictures and writing notes about that research. I planned the workshop as one of the results of the work but it is not so importnat that the workshop didn’t happen. The Anatum’s Abode gave me unique, long enough possibility to work on the theme very close to me. I don’t regret that there is no final performance or exhibition (I presented continuously my research on the web and I aloso did one performance, had a lecture (see my next post) and am going to have another performance in Thursday so I deffinitely leave some traces behind in Anatum’s).

It is difficult to sum up what I realized when exploring the Anatum’s Abode in the first days and later on when walking, cycling, busing and tubing the City. I would say that it is important to use all of the differnet approaches how to get familiar with the city. Only one is deffinitely not enough because than you’re missing something.
But the most important thing I found is that observing a city is not enough. Minimally as much important if not more is to meet a people living there. Without a people any city would be – partially – just empty, scary, boring space.

I hope this research of mine will continue in my master program in theatre I’m about to begin next year in the Theatre Faculty of AMU, Prague, Czech Republic. It is nice to know that there is already some work done from which I can build my next research.

report anything

ab in Anatum’s day 9 – part I

DAY 9 – part I

I was searching for some other people who could possibly join me in my Tube odyssey but I didn’t succeed. There was one person considering participation and I am glad even for that.
So it was just up to me – what a difference when I compare Saturday exploration with my previous experiment in Prague based on the same principles. I see two major differencies: fistly in Prague we were four and in London just me alone, secondly in Prague there are just three metro lines (A, B, C) so the systém is quite small and most of the stations are literally under the ground. In London it is just 45%, see) and that system is naturally much bigger.
So this research was more open but also more lonely.

I entered the System around 5.30 am at Limehouse DLR station and get out around 11.30 pm on the same place.
I had to leave the System two times – once in a Heathrow 1,2,3 station, second in a Hammersmith. In Heathrow in was because of a tricky escalator – when it got me up there was no other way how to continue than to leave the System. Because of that I had to get out in some other station in Zone 1 or 2 to avoid a fee for being in the System for two long – so I did in Hammersmith.
I should explain what kind of ticket I bought. It was 7 day Travelcard for Zones 1 & 2 which cost me £32.10.
I suppose it might be done completely without any payment but in a few situations I needed it (like when transfering in some stations – for instance in Bank when getting into the Waterloo
& City line or in Shadwell when transfering between the DLR and the Overground). Also I wanted to feel secure for eventuall control – obviously more time you spend in the System bigger chance is to meet a controller. I was controlled few days ago and saw controller in a Tube other day so I rather wanted to concentrate more on the research and not on the checking if there is any controller. Anyway this day I didn’t see a single one.

In the morning I knew exactly where to go. The Tubes/Overgrounds/DLRs (I decided not to use buses, trams, National Rail or other services) outermost station – in terms of the Zones – is a Watford Junction. At the moment its location is marked as a „Zone W“ and special fares applies there. So I had to go there. Not surprisingly nothing special happened there, the station looked like many others and it didn’t even look so peripheral as some other stations (like nearby Chesham or Amersham for example).
Most of the time I spent by travelling from one endstation to another one, time to time I resigned to any planning and was just getting on and off randomly.

Due to the weekend closures I didn’t have possibility to visit east parts of Hammersmith & City respectively District lines and such stations as Barking or Upminster remained big unknown. Bigger problem were closures in a different parts of the Overground so I didn’t use that a lot. Beacuse of that I also couldn’t reach Haggerston station where happening of the SITE/SPACE group was tooking place. It was quite unfortunate – work of the group is concentrated on doing actions in a public spaces and there deffinitely is some relation to my work. Might be great to become part of a happening during the Tube research but it probably was as it should be.

As I was already pointing out in the previous post staying in the Tube creates quite unique feeling of de-attaching from oneself and entering into some hypnotic, hallucinatory reality. Similar situations are established when having a long flight, long bus ride and so on. The whole world in a Tube is a simulacrum – seems to be normal, usual, but it certainly is not. The Tube has for me a metonymical connection with the city or more specifically – the Tube is the tip of an iceberg for the city. The way how people are structured to the specific rows and patterns and lead through the artificialy made pathways/trains, omnipresent camera surveillance and attack of commercials, lack of the social contact between the citizens, feelings of lostness and so on are more then symptomatic for the phenomenon of megalopolis. And all this we can read in the Tube way much better than in a city as a whole. Because there is nothing else what to look at.

On the other hand it also might serve as some kind of base. When I got out in Heathrow and Hammersmith my possible freedom shocked me and I was happy that I might come back to the Tube world, where everything is understandable, linked, secure.

I tried to perform some action but I was alone and exhausted so I improvized for a while in one station and than didn’t continue with that activity.

After the whole day I was really tired and felt quite lonely as well. During the day I spoke just with two persons and it was just because I was buying food from them.

An underground is a mirror of the society, of the city overhead and because it is mirror you don’t have a chance to see a „real image“ (which you don’t see in the city anyway) but in a way it might bring more truth than observing the real buildings, sights, attractions, parks, shops… Underground is under the pavement, under the city skin and beause of that one can sees all the dirt hidden, all entrails of the megalopolis.

ab at Anatum’s day 1&2

For my first two days I decided not to leave the space of Anatum’s Abode at all to explore the atmosphere of it better.

There were two reasons for it.

Firstly I wanted to gather materials and situations possibly useful for a short performance art piece which I executed at the evening of 14th – “Open Your Skull”  (see more below).
Secondly I thought this might be an approach how to start working on my “city exploration”. I am interested in a ways how to explore, to feel, to understand a city, especially that kind of a megalopolis like London. My idea was that I could start the research by establishing a base, by understanding of my temporary home. I found different objects and spirits around. I did some exercises and tried to explore the space with as big concentration as possible, breathing and touching the space…

This fast gathered material (because two incomplete days is really not enough for understanding of any space) resulted to the performance mentioned above. I got interested by a history of Anatum’s Abode and about the fact that the building used to be a butcher store. Later on because of the great effort of the people who runs the place it changed into a squatt and cultural place. My action followed a simple story of that transformation. I used a red costume, red glove and red light as well as the knife, candle or ink and by that reffered to the butcher practices (such as killing animals), later on all this practices were overcame, I got released from the heavy red dress and walked away playing a musical instrument. My favourite moment of the piece was me dripping a wax from the candle I was holding with my lips on the tongue of the one of the spectators/listeners. It is nice that when performing in a situation where the distance between the performer and the audience is minimal such things – which one wouldn’t expect at all – might happen.

 

Some pics from the action

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Props (for fun)

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