Notes on the Endotic Set n.1
What’s needed perhaps is finally to found our own anthropology, one that will speak about us, will look in ourselves for what for so long we’ve been pillaging from others. Not the exotic anymore, but the endotic.
Georges Perec,‘The Infraordinary’
Narrative Machine Series. Notes On The Endotic Set N.1
Conceived under the idea of an editorial space, Narrative Machine Series is an ongoing project that works as an architectonical device made of movable walls, chairs and displays. It has functioned as the architecture supporting and displaying other artists and curators’ work or presence. The interweaving of objects, displays and programs of activities produced space to reflect upon the social potentialities of the art spheres and to rehearse possibilities of organization of information, perception and bodies. Underlining its editorial nature, it has been released with an ISBN with Broken Dimanche Press.
The next direction in which this project developed was based on a term coined by George Perec, described in his book The Infra-ordinary: the endotic. Contrary to the exotic, the endotic is a very subtle but powerful tool to generate a situated practice from. I consider it subtle because it looks to the imperceptible of the everyday life, to the visible but hidden details of the space and gestures of the bodies around us. It rescues the astonishment from the forgotten obvious, trapped by its naturalization. I find it a powerful tool because it leads us to read and listen to our surroundings, always looking from unexplored stances. From this immanent display, the very local traces a priceless threshold from where to approach the complex global.
The structure supporting this research is a domestic one: the wood used in the previous Narrative Machine Series is transformed into a new structure in my own kitchen. This room will host a series of conversations and performances, and artworks along few occasions. The aim is to investigate the idea of the endotic in collaboration with a group of guests. Our focus will lie on the supposedly insignificant elements of the everyday life.
Program
February 23rd — Valentina Karga
Valentina introduced her practice, which often reflects on personal lifestyle choices and employs ordinary, common activities for the creation of a collaborative space between the artist and the public. On display, there was a recent work, ‘the construction of fire and other stories’, which is an archive about catastrophe and how we interpret it. Bread making and eating was also part of the program.
http://www.valentinakarga.com/
February 25th — Caique Tizzi
Artist curator, cook and cultural producer Caique Tizzi, was the second guest. Caique -who is one of the Agora Collective´s founders- cooked a dinner while introducing Agora’s program and presented AFFECT 2015, which started in May moderated by Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga with Stine Marie Jacobsen, Yves Mettler, Diego Agulló and myself, and coordinated by Paz Ponce.
Agora is a project space founded in June of 2011 – in Berlin Neukölln – with the mission to create a prototype of a community that reflects on alternative models for cultural, social and economical production today. After so many experiences working collectively – Agora felt the desire to conceive a program that would reflect Agora´s personality and its collaborative approach, which crystallizes it in AFFECT.
March 11th — Santiago Taccetti
“What happens when it is the making that instructs the maker? What happens when the art makes the artist? When I make a work, there is sometimes a turning point; a moment when the conceptual and sensuous materials bind in such a way that the composition begins to resist my attempts to shape it according to my original intentions, and develops, against my will, its own sense of what must be done in order to be itself. It doesn’t happen all the time. But when it does, I feel relieved, because it means the minutes, days, or years of working up to this point were worth the effort. But there is also a degree of despair, because the initial conception of how the work ought to be no longer holds sway in how it will continue to evolve. I am no longer the prime mover of the work. My directions are no longer followed. Beyond this certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.“
Paul Chan, A Lawless Proposition.
Santiago Taccetti centers his work on the concepts of simulation and deceit. Our relationship with technology and how it continuously defines our social identity is revised using everyday materials and found objects in ways that stimulate new perspectives from which to perceive contemporary culture. Taccetti’s process thrives on the tension between planned and random elements encountered during the investigative process. The misuse of basic construction materials by means of an abusive interaction with external arbitrary factors like time and natural conditions, produce a series of errors and accidents that alter any predetermined output. All that emerges from these collaborations is embraced as part of the working process; they become fundamental tools redefining the conventional notions of identity and authorship.
March 18th — Ethan Hayes-Chute
Ethan Hayes-Chute’s work explores different ways of living and various interpretations of home. Through drawings, models, and life-size installations, he interrogates ideas of self-sufficiency and self-exclusion. Fascinated with stopgap solutions, improvised tools and a job well done, Hayes-Chute is continually on the hunt for small interventions and simple inventions. He lives between Berlin, Germany and Freeport, Maine.
For this session, he showed and discussed some of his custom-made tools & jigs; a range of successful, useful, pointless and/or failed devices. Additionally, as a group, we explored, perusing and blending a custom sprinkle-y spice-based mixture for later use in some aspect of this contemporary life we’re living. Participants were requested to bring with them a small sample of their favourite granular matter for inclusion into the evening’s concoction.
March 19th — Isabel Lewis
Isabel Lewis (1981, receives her mail in Berlin) is an artist of Dominican and American origin. She grew up on suburban island off the coast of southwest Florida. Isabel used to live in New York City where she danced for many choreographers and as well showed her own commissioned works from 2004 onward at various theaters across the city. In 2009 she quit reading things and making things and moved to Berlin. She spent the next two years being in love and working as an editor and a DJ. After some time she began working on a collection of notes that would become her solo show entitled STRANGE ACTION. She also started reading again. Isabel draws from her training in literary criticism, dance, and choreography as well as from party and popular culture. Her current work takes the form of hosted “occasions” Within the occasion hospitable conditions are generated for the mixing of modalities from the sensual to the discursive. The occasion is a celebratory meeting of things, people, plants, music, smells and dances.
March 25th — Valeria Merlini
Valeria Merlini (Italy) is a Berlin based sound artist, turntablist, DJ and curator. After studying architecture in Florence, Italy, she obtained a Master’s degree in Sound Studies at The Berlin University of the Arts. Her work explores everyday sounds within an urban context through an interdisciplinary and critical approach. She is a co-founder of Studio Urban Resonance, a member of the Italian record label Burp Enterprise and co-runs Staalplaat Radio. As a DJ she focuses on experimental electronic music, constantly extending the conventions of turntablism, musique concrète, free improvisation and composed music. She is the director of Museruole – women in experimental music festival and has participated in numerous international events and exhibitions.