PAN
We step into the unknown.

We, a group of individuals rehearse a new version of the ancient Greek play `ANTIGONE’. The tragedy is staged in a colossal 6×10 meter large hand-painted green screen canvas scenery, pointing towards a certain space, that is not there yet, a space that implies we could be anywhere. Wearing scraps, prototypes, traces, and fragments of costumes that would never make it onto a stage, and now they made it into the final cut of this video.
We step into the unknown, it has become our Leitmotif.
One strange year passes by.

We went hiking, onto a mountain called Lusen, in the south of Germany, a seemingly forgotten place right at the edge of the check republic. Once we reached the top we looked in all directions, and there you can literally cross the border, with a simple gaze. All, that seems impossible right now is enabled to speak, gets a voice and a rhythm.

The day before the shoot we went to have a look at the fortress of Passau, where we also peed in public, semi-hidden, while we were asking ourselves if we could detect a Nazi by sight or if they are well hidden behind their everyday mascarade. We don´t know, but we peed on the roof of the Sternernwarte. In times like this, in many places, there are no public toilets to be found, safe spaces are not easy to access unless you have a place on your own. We spent 1€ to feed an audio-guide-machine, telling us how marvelous and prestigious the history of Passau was. We imagined standing here forever and telling people a different story, quite the opposite. Sometimes it is more effective to quickly put on your prosthetic witch-nose, turn around and, directly look into someone’s face.

Meanwhile, fog surrounded the mountain top. The mountain top, dry, in comparison to the way up which was covered in snow. The mountain top, rocky, many rocks, covered in almost fluorescent, powdery lichen. Nothing new to them, billions over billions of years old. We must seem quite anachronistic to them, wondering about a pandemic, they have seen it all. They even experienced the fading of the dinosaurs…

We question materiality: what even is material? How do we store material and how do we identify material?
How do all these above-mentioned events reinform the work we are doing, the lives we are living right now?
And what is quality then? Where and how is quality being constructed? And who decides how many filters are just the right amount of abstraction needed to allow reality?

Just like the song Pan, which calls upon the Greek god of spring and music to be its patron and protector, the creator in-between god and goat at the same time, half humanoid half bestiality, also we – more than we might admit – frequent ‘in-between’: we look at this interstice we provoke, by cracking open and we try to sense what is there to be sensed. By performing togetherness we tease – maybe even provoke an over-romanticized image of unison. In some other places, our mind can find shelter where a green-faced creature appears, quarantined for X-MAS. What a troll!

HECHIZO 2.1

Hechizo 2.1 is a swarm of magic to veil ourselves within. The words flow out of the mouth in a composition, trance-like, mediated through an ‘analog’ tech-medium, a nine euro usb microphone with an in-build speaker, the magic wand of contemporaneity creating the flickering shivering choir of voices, disharmonically wading in search of something greater:

AMOR!

Amor, amor, amor, that is what is called for!

The second music video from the project ‘Federico Luz’ for the song ‘Hechizo 2.1’ is directed by Túlio Rosa and stars Federico Luz & the textile artwork ‘pattern fever’ by Benjamin Mengistu Navet.

The video tells the story of a transformation from one shape to another: aided by the ritualistic everyday action of changing one’s clothes the magician emerges. And, through disappearing & microchip-sorcery, the magician opens up a utopian world of fantastic psychedelia.

This transformation also tells the narrative of a journey, from one place to another. And that is what unites the three entities in this video work. The three artists, Luz, Rosa, and Mengistu Navet meet with their different approaches to colonialism, composing an intense (mis-)match of poetry & sound (Luz), documentary and archival investigations (Rosa), and textile manipulation & knitting expertise (Mengistu Navet) through which methods they each individually research aspects of colonial notions.

VALENTINE

I wrote a poem during my winter period in the south of Spain, on one of my daily walks along the beach. The night before there was a tremendous storm rampaging the coast. The storm gave us millions of tiny, tiny white shells. And an insanely immense amount of waste: nets, plastic, glass, bottles, wood, toys, straws, paper, textile.

There was this paradox situation: anger about this complete failure and disrespect towards nature and fascination for the ugly, this zone things meet and create friction. Suddenly I thought of hanging out with Klaus Nomi, listening to a sweet tiny melody and being like, oh yeah this is sweet. There are waves and steps on sand. Crisp. This story is one of cycles of creation, destruction, unity & willpower of healing, and of change. And: togetherness.

The clothes used in the video are part of a collection created during the first lockdown using only materials from my personal archive.

CORAZÓN AZUL

This music video is a tribute to her, Pimpo.  Pimpo is an empowered woman, powerful, funny, and most of all, Pimpo is free. Free from every judgment, free from every condemnation, and above all free from all your toxic male gazes! Join us on this nocturnal audiovisual journey. Viva la Libertad!

SPELLS

‘Spells’ approaches methods to access, experience, and integrate collective unconscious imageries into awareness. The invisible that seeks to be recognised guides you through an embodied digital consciousness that blinks, reflects, and hallucinates wile reminiscing about love.

The work by Stefan Cantante (video) and Federico Protto Scutti (sound) portrays a 20-year long friendship and collaboration between the two artists, and was first shown embedded in a performative lecture & concert at Hosek Contemporary Gallery in Berlin, September 2022.

‘Spells, Spells, are everywhere…’

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Anna Lugmeier – rendezvous3000

Anna-Sofie Lugmeier is a german artist who works at the intersection of performative and visual arts, she is based in Europe, where she found collaborators in Lisbon, Vienna, and Munich. By creating performative situations she is interested in the transfer of written word-language-systems (by means of collaborative processes) to the human body while working with cinematic tools and techniques. Humour and a woke feminist gesture towards film play the main role in her works, either in front or behind the camera.

Túlio Rosa – Arquivo Atlantico

Túlio Rosa is a performer, choreographer and independent researcher. He holds a Master degree in Performing Arts and Visual Culture – Universidad Castilla-La Mancha/ Reina Sofia Museum (Madrid, 2016), Bachelor’s degree in Contemporary Dance – Angel Vianna Dance School (Rio de Janeiro, 2011).

Aleks Borys – Earth & Human & Universe

Aleks Borys works in the fields of choreography, cosmology, and ecology. Her work looks at the human body, environment/ the earth, the universe and asks what is the choreography and dance that happens between them.

Stefan Cantante

Stefan Cantante is fascinated by subcultural phenomena from different cultures and centuries. Drawing on psychology, popular and youth culture, his current work practice seeks to capture the essence of primal images that derive from the collective unconscious through the use of moving imagery, sound and alternative printing methods on textiles in painting. His work straddles theatre, art and sound spheres, playfully endowing and eschewing high art delineations through the use or disuse of the body. His chosen anti-aesthetic becomes the expression of a subtle critique of art and society.