INTERMISSION + MISSION
We are Intermission, a multidisciplinary creative collective, comprising of artists, performers, academics, writers, mediums, musicians healers and other medical professionals, we plan on instigating social change and new ways of thinking across Cape Town. We propose to open the conversation into the reality of contemporary hybrid presence.
Fascinated by the points at which art and science intersect, we deal with the interface between how we see the body / world and how we know the body / world. For centuries, artists and scientists have tried to understand the nature of reality, we propose to present the potential of a new type of human to open the conversation around robotics, hybrid bodies, biology, medicine, traditional knowledge, alternative realities and new technologies. We will reflect back on the legacy of scientific experimentations on humans, often involuntarily.
The catalyst for our proposal is the hybrid body, which manages to encapsulate mysticism, memory, “science fiction” and alternative realities. Weaving together different responses to viewing reality – credulity, scepticism and the suspension of disbelief, we are proposing to undertake a very new form of knowledge building and sharing during a series of interdisciplinary events, where art, science and the potential for transcendence meet.
What happens when we transpose technologies of machine onto the primal hardwiring of a mammalian nervous system? How do we handle the discord? Discord because some of the aspects we try to resolve in our existence are incompatible, creating tension and so the playing field exists there too. Is it our Western desire to make all compatible and homogenous? Is it our patriarchal will of Ego to always subdue our authentic Self? Or is it the claustrophobic think tank, the diagnosed disease that can shock us, wake us to begin to mutate in desperation then possibly to evolve and transform into that authentic state.
Our shared concerns with the hybrid body, leads us to ask many questions in the exhibition.
Ø What does it mean to be human in a post-Apartheid space?
Ø How do we understand the body?
Ø How do we understand love?
Ø Where do science and art intersect?
Ø How can we engage with alternative means of perceiving reality?
Ø Can we heal ourselves?
Ø How can body modifications change us?
Ø What is the potential of hybrid flesh?
Understanding hybrid reality is the core of our research and presentation. We will be combining our experiences in the fields of theatre, design, contemporary art, music, botany and skills in traditional and non-traditional healing to explore different aspects of the psychological and sociological relationships (hybridisation) between space and body. We envisage presenting a great diversity of media: inclusive of sculpture, objects, installation, film, video installations, sound, live performance, drawings and photography.
We are concerned with the unique properties of live performance – the possibility of direct interaction between performer and audience; the opportunity to engage the audience’s other senses of taste, touch and smell; and the question of how meaning is going to be constructed from the memory of an ephemeral event. The significance of Marina Abromivic’s piece, The Artist is Present as well as the video and performance work of Orlan and Stellarc, both artists whose work involves deliberately remodelling their bodies into hybridised beings position our research into the hybridised body at the forefront of contemporary art.
There is a culture of fear associated with illness, but also a disavowal of the indigenous knowledge of healing, which was stigmatised through slavery and Apartheid. Under these barbaric regimes, presides a history of incarcerating prophets and visionaries under the assumption that they were mentally unsound and needed to be locked up for their own protection. Women were especially delegitimized. We will be opening up a dialogue surrounding this indigenous knowledge as well as exploring the new technology of mediumship. We will present the possibility of healing through both alternative and conventional medicine, which will provide an opportunity for empowerment.
Our event schedule thematically mirrors western medicine’s methodology of treatment:
Ø Admissions
Ø Examination
Ø Biopsy
Ø Diagnosis
Ø Separation
Ø Dispensary / Tuck Shop
Ø Treatment and Protocol
Ø Dissection / Surgery
Ø Remission
Ø Intermission
Ø Mission
We are Intermission, a multidisciplinary creative collective, comprising of artists, performers, academics, writers, mediums, musicians healers and other medical professionals, we plan on instigating social change and new ways of thinking across Cape Town. We propose to open the conversation into the reality of contemporary hybrid presence.
Fascinated by the points at which art and science intersect, we deal with the interface between how we see the body / world and how we know the body / world. For centuries, artists and scientists have tried to understand the nature of reality, we propose to present the potential of a new type of human to open the conversation around robotics, hybrid bodies, biology, medicine, traditional knowledge, alternative realities and new technologies. We will reflect back on the legacy of scientific experimentations on humans, often involuntarily.
The catalyst for our proposal is the hybrid body, which manages to encapsulate mysticism, memory, “science fiction” and alternative realities. Weaving together different responses to viewing reality – credulity, scepticism and the suspension of disbelief, we are proposing to undertake a very new form of knowledge building and sharing during a series of interdisciplinary events, where art, science and the potential for transcendence meet.
What happens when we transpose technologies of machine onto the primal hardwiring of a mammalian nervous system? How do we handle the discord? Discord because some of the aspects we try to resolve in our existence are incompatible, creating tension and so the playing field exists there too. Is it our Western desire to make all compatible and homogenous? Is it our patriarchal will of Ego to always subdue our authentic Self? Or is it the claustrophobic think tank, the diagnosed disease that can shock us, wake us to begin to mutate in desperation then possibly to evolve and transform into that authentic state.
Our shared concerns with the hybrid body, leads us to ask many questions in the exhibition.
Ø What does it mean to be human in a post-Apartheid space?
Ø How do we understand the body?
Ø How do we understand love?
Ø Where do science and art intersect?
Ø How can we engage with alternative means of perceiving reality?
Ø Can we heal ourselves?
Ø How can body modifications change us?
Ø What is the potential of hybrid flesh?
Understanding hybrid reality is the core of our research and presentation. We will be combining our experiences in the fields of theatre, design, contemporary art, music, botany and skills in traditional and non-traditional healing to explore different aspects of the psychological and sociological relationships (hybridisation) between space and body. We envisage presenting a great diversity of media: inclusive of sculpture, objects, installation, film, video installations, sound, live performance, drawings and photography.
We are concerned with the unique properties of live performance – the possibility of direct interaction between performer and audience; the opportunity to engage the audience’s other senses of taste, touch and smell; and the question of how meaning is going to be constructed from the memory of an ephemeral event. The significance of Marina Abromivic’s piece, The Artist is Present as well as the video and performance work of Orlan and Stellarc, both artists whose work involves deliberately remodelling their bodies into hybridised beings position our research into the hybridised body at the forefront of contemporary art.
There is a culture of fear associated with illness, but also a disavowal of the indigenous knowledge of healing, which was stigmatised through slavery and Apartheid. Under these barbaric regimes, presides a history of incarcerating prophets and visionaries under the assumption that they were mentally unsound and needed to be locked up for their own protection. Women were especially delegitimized. We will be opening up a dialogue surrounding this indigenous knowledge as well as exploring the new technology of mediumship. We will present the possibility of healing through both alternative and conventional medicine, which will provide an opportunity for empowerment.
Our event schedule thematically mirrors western medicine’s methodology of treatment:
Ø Admissions
Ø Examination
Ø Biopsy
Ø Diagnosis
Ø Separation
Ø Dispensary / Tuck Shop
Ø Treatment and Protocol
Ø Dissection / Surgery
Ø Remission
Ø Intermission
Ø Mission
