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Textile Department
Master 2, Spring 2020
Tutors:
Bella Rune
Birgitta Burling
Andrea Peach
Word count: 5540
Amanda Elida Varhaugvik
a merging of Costumes, Voice & Transcendence
ABSTRACT
I am an interdisciplinary artist working with a merging of costumes and voice through the performance art medium. In this masters degree project I present costume as the main performer and look at the ability for my performance to create a transcendent experience in a secular art context. The paper will lift some of the historical and contemporary ideas about transcendence in art. I will argue that the singing voice can be used as an enchanting tool to create presence and communicate the inexplicable. By using my own practice as an example I present costume as the initiator and leading star of a performance. Finally, I give insight into the process and making of my master performance, A merging of Costumes, Voice & Transcendence.
INDEX
Introduction……….2 - 3
Artistic Background………4 - 5
Theory & Context………6 - 12
Enchant, from Latin “incantāre” which means “to sing”
……….…….9 - 10
Costume as the main performer
………..……….11 - 12
Methods & Techniques….………13 - 17
Conclusion………18
References……….19
Image Reference list………..20
Appendix………21-22
Images of exam work………..………23 - 24
INTRODUCTION
Can I through my performance,
A merging of Costumes, Voice & Transcendence,
Present costume as the main performer and create a transcendent
experience in a secular art context?
In my master project I am interested in the idea that my performance art could function as a
transcendent threshold in a secular art context. The transcendent threshold is a term originated from the philosophical and art historic concept of the sublime. In Latin, Limen is threshold and Sublime could translate to “stepping onto the threshold” (Thurfjell 2020). Both concepts aim at the experience
of reaching the limit of ordinary reality. The interest for me lies in the wish to evolve the experience of art and especially the display format for textile craft. I believe that in the best scenario an art experience can hold similar qualities to a transcendent threshold, in the way that it can transport your presence from everyday life into the parallel universe of art. My performance art is balancing on a thin line between a music performance, a fashion show and a sacred ceremony. My craft transitions through several layers of techniques and constantly evolves in formats. I work in a liminal state and I believe that it is in the cross section of fields that art can create a vibrating experience. The artist Wassily Kandinsky (cited in Spretnak 2014) uses the concept of vibration when
he talks about his expectations for the release of the art book The Blue Rider:
If the reader of this book is temporarily able to banish his own wishes, thoughts, and feelings, and then leafs through the book, passing from a votive picture to Delaunay, from Cézanne to a Russian folk-print, from a mask to Picasso, from a glass picture to Kubin, etc., etc., then his soul will experience a multitude of vibrations and enter into the realm of art . . . . These vibrations and the pulse that derives from them will be a kind of enrichment of the soul that cannot be attained by any
other means than those of art. (cited in Spretnak 2014,76)
In this paper I will present the different elements that makes my work. Starting off with the chapter about my artistic background that provides a concise version of academic achievements and the different platforms that have led me to where I am today. The Theory & Context chapter will focus on the history of transcendence in art and also present contemporary work that relates to the subject. The chapter will continue into two subheadings, one presenting my ideas of voice in performance art and the second looking on costume as the main performer. In the Methods & Techniques chapter I will give concrete information about how I work and share the process and making of my master work. Finally the paper will be summarized in the conclusion chapter.
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ARTISTIC BACKGROUND
My art is an interdisciplinary assembly of all the different fields I have studied and worked with during my artistic practice of 10 years, therefore I find it relevant to briefly share my background. I have a strong memory of when I first realized the singing voice ability to create what can be described as a cavity in time. I was 14 years old and I was for the first time singing a cappella in front of a real audience. I stood in my white ceremonial confirmation dress and sang the psalm “O lamb of God”. Getting confirmed wasn't a decision made by myself, rather it was a result of having a Norwegian mother and the strong tradition confirmation holds in Norwegian culture. I think it was a mixture of the white dress, the reverberation created by the church acoustic, the stage being the actual altar and the amount of adrenaline pumping through my veins, that left me with a realization. This, the performing arts gave me more belief in something greater than any of the bible studies we had done that past year.
I started off studying to become a singer in high school, after graduation I created a band with my brother and gave concerts under the name ”AUKRA". We created very raw electronic music inspired by acts such as The Knife, Peaches and The Prodigy. For all of our shows I made new costumes. I did the live visuals, the music videos and the album covers. I realized that being just a singer wasn't satisfying enough. I longed for a platform that would allow me to work in a mixed media format where all parts are equally important for the work.
I started studying performance art at what at the time was the only foundation studies offering performance art in Sweden, called “Svefi” located in Haparanda. It was a challenging education, focusing on self evolvement, the body as a tool and mental endurance. After finishing pre school and before starting my bachelor in fine art at Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, I worked in the film and theater industry as a costume and props assistant. This really gave me insight in the specific ability that costumes have, to transport the actor into a character. In the final fitting you could actually witness how the costumes worked as the last puzzle for the final transformation to happen. Working in the film industry also gave me insight in the hierarchic structure between all the
During my bachelor in fine art I spent three years exploring ways to intertwine my singing with my handcraft. I made several collaborations with the music academy and arranged live performances where the singers were merely a construction for my costumes. After graduating in 2015 I felt that I was lacking a language to express the inexpressible namely the ”feeling/vibration” that I was searching for in my performances. I started to study religious science with the idea that history and knowledge about the field of the indescribable might give me some insight and tools to borrow in a secular context.
These different experiences and studies have led me to what I'm working with right now. In the craft context that my master work will be situated in I think my background provides me with the tools to present a showcase for textile that perhaps questions the traditional textile platform. Experiencing textiles through performance, where movements and tactility help you get closer to fully understand their whole being, is a different experience than looking at costumes on mannequins through a protective glass window. In the following section I will look deeper into the theory that has been a huge inspiration for the emotional language of my work.
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THEORY & CONTEXT
The belief in art as a transcendent threshold first started with the philosophical and literary concept of the sublime. First popularized in Europe in the eighteenth century by the writings of Edmund Burke (Robertson and McDaniel 2013, 326). Burke described the sublime as a feeling of awe and supreme aesthetic pleasure in the presence of the vast. Burke gave name to the quasi religious veneration of nature, but the term sublime began to wonder beyond the context of nature and was used for basically any experience that was overwhelming the mind and senses. The author and religious science professor David Thurfjell writes that the sublime is the feeling of getting
spiritually overwhelmed by art or nature in a way that is both frightening and enjoyable. Thurfjell argues that it is precisely this duality that makes the sublime, according to many who have written about the concept, the most powerful of all human emotional states. (Thurfjell 2020)
According to Jean Robertson & Craig McDaniel who have written a chapter about Spirituality in
Art in their book Themes of Contemporary Art (Robertson and Mcdaniel 2013, 321-351), belief in the
sublime was transferred into transcendentalism during the nineteenth-century America. The supporters believed in a spiritual reality that could transcend the material world. This philosophy was associated with writers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Robertson and McDaniel argue that it was during the beginning of the twentieth century nonobjective art began to be used as a method for experiencing spirituality through art. Instead of using the existing aesthetic language from religious institutions such as Iconography, secular artists felt the urge to develop new tools to talk about the mystery of life.
”The potential for artwork too manifest some form of mystical communication that transcends our ordinary reality is great. Abstraction lends itself naturally to this goal, since many of the concepts of
spirituality are by nature abstract (such as infinity)”. (Robertson and McDaniel 2013, 335)
The idea of art to have a transcendent function seems to continue to spread. Lumen project is a newly founded Swedish art group driven by Nathan Larson and Lina Enqvist that creates
In today’s world, we are lacking spaces to come together and experience awe, illustrated by Alain de Botton’s metaphor of “atheist cathedrals”. Lumen Project takes this metaphor literally.
What many of us seek is a church-like context, free of the trappings and baggage of religious or culturally specific iconography, within which we can congregate to “recover that sense of human belonging.” (Stephen
Batchelor), We wish to experience magic and stillness, and a renewed sense of something greater. The
Lumen Project and its partners look to address this hole in the core of our being. (Lumen Project 2019)
Lumen project Stockholm was the first large scale event presented by the group. The event took place in the Eric Ericsonhall and was a music and light festival of 12 hours nonstop music and visuals. Lumen project writes that even though the events can be enjoyed on the same surface level as any concert (i.e. as entertainment), their events are conducive to meditation, sleep, and
transcendence and aim for a higher social, even spiritual, purpose. (Lumen Project 2019)
In the Eric Ericsonhall which formerly functioned as a church called Skeppsholmskyrkan Marina Abromovics performance The cleaner also took place during her retrospective show at Moderna Museet in Stockholm 2017. This work was a one week long vocal performance consisting of 30 performance artists and several choirs creating an ongoing soundscape for the visitors to lose themselves in. What both Lumen project and Abromovic have in common is their attempt to create a context where the audience has no other option than to accept and experience the situation, and therefore their work. Unlike Abromovics work The Cleaner and Lumen projects music and light
festival that was held in a de-consecrated church I have come to realize that it is more interesting for
me to show my work in spaces that have no relation to spirituality. If I can create a sacred atmosphere in a white cube with the tools only being my art then I would feel I have succeeded.
Enchant, from Latin “incantāre” which means “to sing”
When it comes to performances art that includes singing I believe the audience is focused and present in a way that differs from the traditional interaction between art and viewer. I would argue that you could explain this by the pure means of social behavior norms, as simple as it is considered to be rude if you look down at your phone or walk away when someone is performing. In my practice, I also consider the element of tension that can be created when someone sings, especially if they sing acapella. The voice is a very personal medium in the sense that it is created out of your own body. Because of the singing voice unique qualities and individual characteristics I believe it can be a very fragile and exposing act to sing, that is reflected amongst the audience.
The singer, composer and performer Meredith Monk have had a huge impact on the development of voice techniques and in using the voice as an instrument. In an interview with Krista Tippett, Monk describes the voice as a whole other language of feeling and energy that could talk about the
inexplicable.
“We have so many more shades of feelings that we can’t label. And I guess ultimately as an artist I’m so interested in uncovering the invisible and uncovering, you know, the mysterious and uncovering, what would I say, the inexplicable. So the things that we actually can’t label, that’s the
kind of mentality in terms of the voice as the messenger of my soul” (Tippett, 2013)
I find a lot of resemblance in Monk´s interest in the inexplicable and mysterious. The fascination for the inexplicable is what led me to study religious science and also what led me to work in the art field. I don't want to uncover the invisible because then it would lose its quality, but I do want to find a way to express the inexplicable through my work. Monk says that the beauty of a live
performance is that we are all in the same place at the same time, it might sound simple but she has a point when she ends by saying that she don't think we have that many situations in the world.
I always think of the relationship between the audience and the performer as a kind of infinity sign or a figure eight of energy that goes from the performer to the audience and then back from the audience back to the performer, and it’s just this constant flow of energy between these two bodies of people. But the beauty of a live performance is that we’re all in the same space at the same time,
and I don’t think we have that many situations in the world like that. (Tippett, 2013)
To stay present and to fully grasp the essence of art in a traditional white cube setting can be quite challenging for a viewer, at least if the artists wish is for the viewer to go beyond the facade. To experience an artwork requires in my opinion some sort of bridge between the work and the viewer. In my performances I see my voice as that bridge. I experience that the sound embraces the
”Typically, contemporary audiences never fully achieve a state of altered consciousness. At some point we inevitably turn away from the artwork and back to our everyday lives. But while we stand and let the flow of
sounds and images surround us, we may feel we are on the threshold of a spiritual awakening.” (Robertson
and McDaniel 2013, 333
In the performance I did at Not Quite, Fengerfors in 2019, I used long hand painted silk bags that carried a stone inside. I unfolded the silk and placed them on a harmonium. The weight of the stone allowed me to create a standing chord. The sound was massive and echoed through the stone walls, yet the aspect of not being able to fully control how the weight of the stone shifted, the music kept on evolving on its own. While the soundscape filled the room I unfolded the layers of textile I carried on me and placed them ritualistically around the Art hall . Afterwords when I spoke to the audience, some of them said that they were taken by the fact that these small gestures had created such an emotional presence in the room.
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Costume as the main performer
The traditional purpose of stage costume is to be a supporting structure for the character and the narrative. It is often described as the final puzzle in entering a role, almost like a transformative second skin. For me it is important and interesting to change the existing structure and relation between costume and performer. I want to underline that I don't create costumes for a specific person where the costume is meant to portray or visualize that individual. I create wearable textile art that uses the body as a tool to create movement and a more tactile experience. The body is in my performances used as a supporting structure for the costumes, and the voice and the music is meant as a soundtrack for the portrayal of the costumes. The artistic research project Costume Agency by Christina Lindgren (KHiO, Norway) and Sodja Lotker (DAMU, Czech Republic) researches the agency of costume in performance and how costume can generate or be a centre of gravitation in a performance. Costume Agency will arrange Critical Costume 2020 that consists of workshops, a conference, and an art exhibition. The event will focus on researching costume as the main performer and the costume designer as the initiator of a performance.
“Costume does not only perform via the body; it extends to space, landscape, and audience. It is an actor in itself. Costume is communication and communicated, it is a tool for research, it dances phenomenologically, it affects us kinesthetically. It is an agent. It is a force field. Costume performs. It does things. And the costume designer becomes director, thinker, researcher and shaman – constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing realities, different ways of being, into the ’unthinkable’." (CostumeAgency, 2019)
I find this research very relevant and interesting. Creating costumes is the starting point of my process, They evolve and change under my hands and lead the way in the making of a performance. I often make oversized costumes and let chunks of textile embed the body like a cocoon. I let big pieces of fabric hang over my head like a curtain between myself and the audience. A translucent fabric that helps me emphasis my role as inferior. Veils and scarfs are a recurring object in my work, I use them to create a sacred calm space for myself, but also I like the idea that singing inside a fabric turns me into a soft speaker.
has worked in a similar way with costume, though his work is much more politically motivated. Cave creates “Soundsuits”, majestic costumes that started off as metaphorical suits of armor in response to the Rodney King beatings and have evolved into vehicles for empowerment (Art21, 2020). Cave lets the Soundsuits serve as a second skin that conceals race, gender, and class, allowing
viewers to look without bias towards the wearer’s identity (Art21, 2020). I love Cave´s use of different material and how extraordinary his costumes are. Cave also constantly seem to experiment with different platforms when showing his work, He has arranged dance performances, parades and fashion videos. The images below are from a fashion photoshoot for Vouge Uk, taken by Raymond Meier. They are a very concrete example of portraying costume as the main character.
Another great example of artists working with the combined universe of fashion and art is
Moonspoon Saloon. Saloon is a Danish fashion and art collective led by artists Sara Sachs, Evren Tekinoktay and Tal R. Saloon has made iconic fashion performance shows that has expanded the traditional catwalk and turnt it into a much more experimental platform, Combining live music,
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dancers and shifting characters in the presentation of their collections. I can relate my work to their fashion performance show from 2009 at the Victoria Miro Gallery, A show performed together with the American group We Are The World. (notjustalabel, 2020) In the performance the musicians wear
long red translucent fabrics covering their faces. The collection is being presented on the musicians and on different characters that enters the stage /catwalk. Besides three YouTube videos there is nearly no photos or information about this show and the group We Are The World seems to have distinguished. I guess you needed to be there. The Designers platform Not just a label (NJAL) describes Moonspoon Saloon as the frontiers of art and fashion;
Saloon works on the frontiers of art and fashion, with an impressive output of unique edition clothing, art performances, experimental films, textile works, exhibitions and prêt a porter
collections. All collections are staged in a performance that can be anything from a royal ballet, to roller-skating models in a museum, or a bizarre performance with a giant head on parade through Chinatown in Los Angeles. With the addition of films, posters and artwork, each Moonspoon Saloon collection becomes a universe in itself. (notjustalabel, 2020)
What inspires me with Saloon is that they create a universe around their collections. In
METHODS & TECHNIQUES
In my artistic practice I use what can be described as transitional methods. I constantly develop and revive my work. My material craft transitions in techniques and in layering. Layering is both a method and a technique in the way that the technique of using patina or layering textiles upon each other is a method to create a certain depth. The physical result of my work rarely settles on a final format, my recent and my upcoming work live simultaneously in a forever evolving flow. A staged photograph becomes a pattern for a dress and the dress becomes a theme for a performance.
Anthony Howell explains the notion of transference in performance art in the book The Analysis of
Performance Art. Howellwrites, “ Use something you have already used again, but in a different way to the way you used it first.We might call this transference of use” ( Howell, 2000, 137).
Staged photography and textile photo printing techniques are very important parts of my practice. When I document my costumes the photographs also become artwork. The pictures are staged, arranged and photographed by me.When the photos are taken I want to transfer them onto textiles. As an example you can locate image 8 in the creation of a new textile print, in the process image 7 below. To use my own photographs as textile prints and patterns is a way to create my own prints and a way to give new qualities to a flat picture. It is also a method for presenting my work in a full circle.
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SELECTED PHOTOGRAPHS
Image 8. Amanda Elida Varhaugvik, Photograph “ The Robe”, 2019
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Image 10. Amanda Elida Varhaugvik, Photograph “The Pointed Hat ”, 2019
For the live performative part of my work I often include other people. My process starts with creating costumes and they are the core element that additional elements feed off. Either a vision of the number of costumes decide the next step, which is who to invite in the portrayal, or sometimes a curiosity towards a specific person or instrument leads the way. For my master work I will invite a cello player and an actor to join me in the performance. When I work with other musicians I arrange practices where I present core melodies and musical structures that we together experiment around. I try to some extent keep the musical parts of my performance improvised. I create a structure to rely on, but leave room for the live moment to influence. I sing using a vocal loop pedal that allows me to build harmonies and create on going atmospheric sound waves. Working with voice inspired by a tradition of singers such as Björk, Fever Ray and Susanne Sundfør, I experiment a lot with vocal effects that manipulate the voice. I find these effects helpful in looking at the voice more as an instrument then a messenger of words. I also believe that you can locate my transitional methods in this.Transporting the voice through a filter, creating loops on top of each other that together make a unison.
In contrast to performing in theater or film you are not expected to act when performing in the performance art tradition. You are meant to perform as yourself. I believe that I become a hyper present version of my self, aware of every breath and move I make. This is also the instructions I give to my performers, to slow down the pace, be aware of every inch of your body and let every single action be done with ultimate awareness. My performers are like soft meditative scaffoldings under the costumes.
The photos are taken in my grandmothers house and portray her huge collection of porcelain angels. The carpet functions during the performance as a stage. The three tower hangers are wooden
structures that will support the costumes after the performance. I find it quite challenging to leave the costumes behind and have people experience them outside of their intended context, which is the live performance. Making the tower hangers is an attempt to experiment with that situation. In my previous work I haven't left costumes behind after a performance, the live performance has been the only opportunity to witness my work. In this work I will allow people to experience the
aftermaths of a performance and let the pieces speak for themselves. The performative part is going to consist of sound and choreographed movement. The movement will circle around the costumes and will present ways of handling them. I see it as a poetic yet instructive movement that balances between showcasing function and relation. The sound will be music that I composed performed by myself on a vocal loop pedal and Elsa Bergman on double bass.
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CONCLUSION
In this paper I've been interested in arts ability to create transcendent experiences in secular art contexts. I have looked on the voice as a tool to demand presence and I have questioned costumes traditional role and suggested a new one, as the main performer. Whether or not my performance will provide a transcendent atmosphere is yet to be answered, but I can conclude that both
historically and presently artists are using the language of art to communicate the inexplicable. To work interdisciplinary is a great way for me to combine my skills and challenge the showcase format for textile. I am curious to see how I can take the idea of costume as the main performer further and investigate ways of making their presence even louder. Writing this paper made me realize that I am creatively curating my own skills, presenting them through a visual experience beyond traditional formats. To make conclusions about a work that is yet to be shown, especially a performance is quite challenging. I believe there will be a lot of thoughts and questions that will fall into place after the work is done. Therefor I will allow myself to elaborate further in the appendix.
REFERENCES
Books
Howell, Anthony, The analysis of performance art: a guide to its theory and practice, Routledge, London, 2000,137
Kandinsky, Wassily. Om det andliga i konsten. [Ny utg.] Göteborg: Vinga i samarbete med Konstakademien, Stockholm, 1984
Robertson, Jean & McDaniel, Craig. Chapter Nine; Spirituality 321-351. Themes of contemporary art: visual art after 1980. 3. ed. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2013
Thurfjell, David. Granskogsfolk: hur naturen blev svenskarnas religion. Stockholm: Norstedts. 2020
Wood, Catherine. Performance in contemporary art. London: Tate Publishing, 2018
Websites
Art21, 2020 “ Artist Nick Cave” Acsessed: January 5, 2020. https://art21.org/artist/nick-cave/
Costume Agency, 2019 “About Costume Agency” Assessed: January 4, 2020. https://costumeagency.khio.no/
Lumen project, 2019.”About”. Accessed: September 16, 2019. https://www.lumenproject.se/
Mpr News, 2018. “Meredith Monk lifts up emotional power of voice”. Accessed: January 30, 2019. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/10/04/meredith-monk-lifts-up-emotional-power-of-voice Not just a label, 2020 “Moonspoon Saloon” Accessed: March 11, 2020.
https://www.notjustalabel.com/moonspoon-saloon
On Being, 2013. “Meredith Monk Archaeologist of the Human Voice”. Accessed: January 30, 2019. https://onbeing.org/programs/meredith-monk-archaeologist-of-the-human-voice/
IMAGE REFERENCE LIST
1. Amanda Elida Varhaugvik, Photo Collage, 2019
2. Amanda Elida Varhaugvik, Performance at Not Quite, 2019
3. Amanda Elida Varhaugvik, Performance at Dotdotdot during Sthlm Craft Week, 2019 4. Amanda Elida Varhaugvik, Performance at Not Quite, 2019
5. Raymond Meier, Photos of Nick Caves costumes for Vouge Magazine UK, 2010. Online source: http://raymondmeier.com/2010
6. Magasin 3; Photo of Moonspoon Saloon, Performance California, 2009.
Online source: https://www.magasin3.com/en/event/magasin-3-and-moonspoon-saloon-proudly-present-california/
7. Amanda Elida Varhaugvik, Process pictures 2019
8. Amanda Elida Varhaugvik, Photograph “ The Robe ”, 2019
9. Amanda Elida Varhaugvik and Tania Ezpeleta Dahlin, Photograph “The Dress”, 2019 10. Amanda Elida Varhaugvik, Photograph “The Pointed Hat”, 2019
11. Amanda Elida Varhaugvik, Photograph “The Scarf”, 2019
APPENDIX
Less than two weeks before the opening of our master exhibition, I was planning to have the final rehearsal with the performers. The costumes where pressed and ironed, the wooden tower hangers was grinded and the faux leather staged had just been pierced with eyelets. Everything was meant to come together for the first time. The immaterial powers of the cellos vibrating sound-waves in unison with the delicate materiality of the veils. But then the pandemic Covid-19 took its grip around the world and the school decided to close down. Days followed of hundreds of confusing and desperate emails back and forth between us students and staff. No one knew what to do or how to handle the situation. Should the exhibition and the examinations be postponed? Or should we keep the dates that was less then two weeks ahead and formulate an entirely new non-physical way of examining students art works?
Konstfack decided to convert both the exhibitions and the examinations into a digital version. For me as a performance artist who practices live music and explores themes such as presence, this was a huge thing to adjust to in such a short time frame. I realized that for the examinations I had no other option than to show my performance in a video format. I started to plan for a video shoot that needed to happen as soon as possible. After many desperate emails I luckily got the permission to shoot the video at Konstfack since the whole installation plus all the equipment was stored there. I traveled to the other side of the city to borrow an exclusive key to Konstfack from a teacher. With strict guidelines, a sound-technician, a film photographer, an actress and a double bass player, I entered the completely empty school building to shoot the performance on a Sunday morning.
I only had a few days to cut and edit the video before it needed to be sent to the opponent. As I sat and looked at the material I realized that it was an entirely different piece that I was going to hand in. I started to feel anxious and nervous from the lack of artistic control. I had never before worked with video in this way and I started to doubt that the format would be able to express and represent my work in the way that I had intended. My master project was based on the question whether or not I could create a transcendent experience in a secular art space through performance. The thesis investigated theories on how art can be used to create a shared presence and the unique qualities of the live singing voice. How could experiencing a video of a performance, on your computer, in your sofa, at home, even touch upon those qualities?
The day of my examination I sat at my kitchen table in front of my computer with a pressed shirt. I constantly saw my nervous face on the screen as if I would have had the presentation in front of a mirror. I started my pdf presentation and talked out loud in my otherwise totally empty and quiet apartment. Then the face of my opponent Patrik Söderstam popped up. Söderstam started by sharing the emotions he had felt when watching the performance video. He described it as an oily feeling, that the sound of the bass had struck him hard, unpleasant but still mesmerizing. He said that it was almost too strong, that he wanted to leave but then the prints of the flowers came along and eased up the balance. I was very relieved after he had shared his feelings around the video, cause then I understood that it could communicate even through a screen. Söderstam lifted some very interesting points and reflections about my work. We talked about the sequence in the performance when the veils are removed and the faces are shown. Söderstam meant that in this action the textiles are perhaps no longer the main performers and that the faces have a to strong presence that overshadow the remaining costumes. I have also noticed this shift when watching the video and I am curious to experiment with a version where the faces are never revealed. Söderstam and I also talked about the film camera becoming yet another layer in my work, how it fits quite beautifully into the method and metaphor of transference. I feel that the film camera actually captured the tactility and the movement of the textiles in such a detailed way, that perhaps wouldn't come out at as strong in a live performance.The conversation with Söderstam was overall great but due to nerves and the foolishness of not recording, I don't remember all parts of it. I do remember that in the end he brought up the construction of the costumes, him being a schooled designer that can locate the flaws of my sowing skills, not having a seamstress background. He pointed out that maybe I should use the methods from my fine art background and apply them on the construction of the costumes in a more radical way, instead of trying to fit into the traditional craft. Even though I am eager to broaden my textile skills and will continue to learn I found his suggestion on how to approach the manufacturing of costumes very relatable and liberating.
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