Stamsund Conversation/Critics in Conversation #1: Jan Fedinger- Land(e)scape 3
The following is a rough overview of the conversation as it took place on the day.
Anette (A) and Diana (D) introduced the Critics in Conversation project, speaking about how criticism is more than just putting value on a piece of work. The project wants to open up criticism, to learn how to host criticism, and think about its processes in and with public.
The conversation started with asking Jan about how he sees his work- is it a visual designer working with light as a material?
Jan talked about it being dependent on different fields or contexts. Somebody can be a dance artist or a theatre artist, but it can be difficult sustaining both. The designer follows the idea initiated by the artist, so there is a difference there. He is not interested in designing the light, but sees himself more as a performer- a performer working through light.
Jan spoke about his interest in light as a felt presence, and his work trying to show that presence. He prefers not working for somebody, but with somebody- so in his collaborations, he often only starts talking about light toward the end of the rehearsal period.
Light defines how we see something, Jan says, speaking about how he found it unsatisfying, for light to always be perceived as invisible in a theatre production. In his work, he’s both performing and creating something, and draws on both theatre and visual art.
Anette brought scenography into the conversation, because it gives more space for different elements to be equal part of a performance, as opposed to the bottom of the hierarchy. The conversation shifted towards the paradigm of visual arts and theatre, and Anette spoke about duration and space as particular to theatre.
Returning to the work, Land (e)scape, Jan said it’s a visual work, as is the title. It can be many things. Landescape LandEscape. Landscape. It is playing with different notions of a similar thing. Its subtitle- “if you keep staring at the sun another world will emerge”, it’s telling of the piece in that way.
He speaks of it as a fixed performance of light. He uses the term performance to distinguish it from an art installation. His urge is to create something that does the same to him as a dance performance (not an installation).
The reasons “to make” in dance is different than the reasons “to make” in theatre. It is about showing something, at least for me, to create a space where I am stimulated to think. When he’s watching dance, he’s experiencing a state where he is taking in visual impulses.
Diana asks- it’s something inward, something personal, to which Jan says, yes, even therapeutic.
Anette talks about the difference between experiencing an installation and a performance, which invites a kind of adjustment to the time frame.
The conversation shifts towards visual art as a frame for analysing a work, and moving on. Thorbjorn mentions that entering the piece, with its fixed duration, felt like a milk birth situation, which took time to navigate spatially.
Jan spoke about the performance as a contract- it captures time in a place where light and time are not related, when the midnight sun comes into the landscape.
Diana spoke about the works of two artists, Anthony Gormley (Blind Light, Hayward, 2007) and Miroslaw Balka (How It Is, Tate 2009)- one a sweaty glass box filled filled with steam, the other a black void to walk into. The contrast of light and darkness, and how they shift the body in space.
Jan says that in this way, the project starts in Stamsund, with the local experience of light and time. Light is not a reference to time at this time of the year in Lofoten. It is gone. He references a piece of video work by Guido van der Werve called ‘the day I did not turn with the world’, in which the artist spent twenty four hours in the North Pole, allowing his stillness, facing the sun, to involve a movement around the axis of the world.
Jan talks about multiple realities at play in these moments of light, where time is not just time. The initial thought of the piece was to experience this detachment from time. The role of the smoke is to make the space disappear. How do you make time and space disappear, double the perception field? The smoke is instrumental in this, as it gives new layers to the experience. The piece is non narrative- it starts with darkness and moves towards light.
Diana and Anette speak about the need for the duration, the slowness and exposure of the space. Jan says, the moment that you understand what something is, you get rewarded by your body. So here the smokes slowly disappears, so you start seeing more. It is like offering a reward for experiencing and seeing. The darkness also needs light and luminosity. The main body of the piece is the transition between the light state and the dark state. Thinking of associations, we think of bad light being dark, god light being light. Darkness being perceived as bad, but creating good darkness, different kinds of darkness. Back in the days the darkness used to be a place for more things not necessarily associated with bad things.
Diana asks about our political affiliations with light- energy consumption, climate change, the arrival of electricity as signals of different concepts and ideas about light. Jan speaks about the attitude to light bulbs being an example- the difference between energy input and consumption, the way in which we light our rooms, the levels and quality of light affect our associations with it. So of course, it is a political battleground.
Jan also mentions the emergence of festivals of light, and the awareness of how light can perform. He moves to speak of the specificity of the piece, how it really is of this place, but possible to tour, and the conversation also moves to the production of sound, which is also important to the piece. The music is recorded live, analogue electronic music that is filtered noise made to create an harmonic experience. It is about modulation. Taking a sound and modulate, very slowly changing. Hard to notice. I call it” visual noise modulation”. The performance is an interplay between the two elements, light and sound.
Thorbjorn speaks about falling into a meditative mode, not calm but in a different kind of meditative state. When you meditate you start thinking about things that has happened two years ago or longer- I came into a dialogue with myself. I think that had to do with the two different rhythms of the light and the sound.
Anniken asked, when you think about this, have you any thoughts about the affects of/on the audience?
Jan calls it a daydream machine, like meditation. In daydreaming we are free beings with freedom of interplay between consciousness’s. How can he create the best conditions for this? He thinks about this deeply, but it is also very simple- “a tent with lights around”.
The conversation moves to discussion the meditative qualities of the piece, the active state of mind it requires, as opposed to relaxation, and the philosopher Bachelard is mentioned as having said “being is originally wellbeing” – a dimension that appears in daydreaming. A reservoir for daydreaming that is seldom triggered. Jan speaks of the difficulty of anticipating people’s experiences, which seem so different. You never quite know, even tough you have an intention and want to open up a space.
Irene brought into question the experience of the floor not being straight which changed the piece a lot, with the floor not being straight. Jan speaks of the environment. The moment stuff isn’t what we expect, we open up. It is a discussion between ourselves and the environment, and ourselves in the environment. And creating and alternative reality, where we can experience different effects.
The conversation ended with discussing the freedom of choice within the work, but also the painting that introduces the piece and marks the moment of transition into it.
The following is a rough overview of the conversation as it took place on the day.
Anette (A) and Diana (D) introduced the Critics in Conversation project, speaking about how criticism is more than just putting value on a piece of work. The project wants to open up criticism, to learn how to host criticism, and think about its processes in and with public.
The conversation started with asking Jan about how he sees his work- is it a visual designer working with light as a material?
Jan talked about it being dependent on different fields or contexts. Somebody can be a dance artist or a theatre artist, but it can be difficult sustaining both. The designer follows the idea initiated by the artist, so there is a difference there. He is not interested in designing the light, but sees himself more as a performer- a performer working through light.
Jan spoke about his interest in light as a felt presence, and his work trying to show that presence. He prefers not working for somebody, but with somebody- so in his collaborations, he often only starts talking about light toward the end of the rehearsal period.
Light defines how we see something, Jan says, speaking about how he found it unsatisfying, for light to always be perceived as invisible in a theatre production. In his work, he’s both performing and creating something, and draws on both theatre and visual art.
Anette brought scenography into the conversation, because it gives more space for different elements to be equal part of a performance, as opposed to the bottom of the hierarchy. The conversation shifted towards the paradigm of visual arts and theatre, and Anette spoke about duration and space as particular to theatre.
Returning to the work, Land (e)scape, Jan said it’s a visual work, as is the title. It can be many things. Landescape LandEscape. Landscape. It is playing with different notions of a similar thing. Its subtitle- “if you keep staring at the sun another world will emerge”, it’s telling of the piece in that way.
He speaks of it as a fixed performance of light. He uses the term performance to distinguish it from an art installation. His urge is to create something that does the same to him as a dance performance (not an installation).
The reasons “to make” in dance is different than the reasons “to make” in theatre. It is about showing something, at least for me, to create a space where I am stimulated to think. When he’s watching dance, he’s experiencing a state where he is taking in visual impulses.
Diana asks- it’s something inward, something personal, to which Jan says, yes, even therapeutic.
Anette talks about the difference between experiencing an installation and a performance, which invites a kind of adjustment to the time frame.
The conversation shifts towards visual art as a frame for analysing a work, and moving on. Thorbjorn mentions that entering the piece, with its fixed duration, felt like a milk birth situation, which took time to navigate spatially.
Jan spoke about the performance as a contract- it captures time in a place where light and time are not related, when the midnight sun comes into the landscape.
Diana spoke about the works of two artists, Anthony Gormley (Blind Light, Hayward, 2007) and Miroslaw Balka (How It Is, Tate 2009)- one a sweaty glass box filled filled with steam, the other a black void to walk into. The contrast of light and darkness, and how they shift the body in space.
Jan says that in this way, the project starts in Stamsund, with the local experience of light and time. Light is not a reference to time at this time of the year in Lofoten. It is gone. He references a piece of video work by Guido van der Werve called ‘the day I did not turn with the world’, in which the artist spent twenty four hours in the North Pole, allowing his stillness, facing the sun, to involve a movement around the axis of the world.
Jan talks about multiple realities at play in these moments of light, where time is not just time. The initial thought of the piece was to experience this detachment from time. The role of the smoke is to make the space disappear. How do you make time and space disappear, double the perception field? The smoke is instrumental in this, as it gives new layers to the experience. The piece is non narrative- it starts with darkness and moves towards light.
Diana and Anette speak about the need for the duration, the slowness and exposure of the space. Jan says, the moment that you understand what something is, you get rewarded by your body. So here the smokes slowly disappears, so you start seeing more. It is like offering a reward for experiencing and seeing. The darkness also needs light and luminosity. The main body of the piece is the transition between the light state and the dark state. Thinking of associations, we think of bad light being dark, god light being light. Darkness being perceived as bad, but creating good darkness, different kinds of darkness. Back in the days the darkness used to be a place for more things not necessarily associated with bad things.
Diana asks about our political affiliations with light- energy consumption, climate change, the arrival of electricity as signals of different concepts and ideas about light. Jan speaks about the attitude to light bulbs being an example- the difference between energy input and consumption, the way in which we light our rooms, the levels and quality of light affect our associations with it. So of course, it is a political battleground.
Jan also mentions the emergence of festivals of light, and the awareness of how light can perform. He moves to speak of the specificity of the piece, how it really is of this place, but possible to tour, and the conversation also moves to the production of sound, which is also important to the piece. The music is recorded live, analogue electronic music that is filtered noise made to create an harmonic experience. It is about modulation. Taking a sound and modulate, very slowly changing. Hard to notice. I call it” visual noise modulation”. The performance is an interplay between the two elements, light and sound.
Thorbjorn speaks about falling into a meditative mode, not calm but in a different kind of meditative state. When you meditate you start thinking about things that has happened two years ago or longer- I came into a dialogue with myself. I think that had to do with the two different rhythms of the light and the sound.
Anniken asked, when you think about this, have you any thoughts about the affects of/on the audience?
Jan calls it a daydream machine, like meditation. In daydreaming we are free beings with freedom of interplay between consciousness’s. How can he create the best conditions for this? He thinks about this deeply, but it is also very simple- “a tent with lights around”.
The conversation moves to discussion the meditative qualities of the piece, the active state of mind it requires, as opposed to relaxation, and the philosopher Bachelard is mentioned as having said “being is originally wellbeing” – a dimension that appears in daydreaming. A reservoir for daydreaming that is seldom triggered. Jan speaks of the difficulty of anticipating people’s experiences, which seem so different. You never quite know, even tough you have an intention and want to open up a space.
Irene brought into question the experience of the floor not being straight which changed the piece a lot, with the floor not being straight. Jan speaks of the environment. The moment stuff isn’t what we expect, we open up. It is a discussion between ourselves and the environment, and ourselves in the environment. And creating and alternative reality, where we can experience different effects.
The conversation ended with discussing the freedom of choice within the work, but also the painting that introduces the piece and marks the moment of transition into it.
- 1 June 2017