Tag Archives: dying

MRI MS_Vanitas. Life in motion

Jatun Risba: MRI MS_Vanitas. Life in motion

(Rampa Lab, Zavod Kersnikova, Ljubljana, 18.12.2017)

Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas. (Vanity of vanities, all (is) vanity; Ecclesiastes)

→ SEE, PLAY WITH, DISRUPT AND APPROPRIATE (PARTS OF) THIS ASSEMBLAGE

About:

‘MRI MS_Vanitas. Life in motion’ is the final elaboration of Jatun Risba’s art project MRI MS. My Regular Imagining of Multiple Self during its incubation at RAMPA Lab, Zavod Kersnikova in 2017. It is conceived as a mixed-media interactive assemblage with various tools and things for looking at and understanding the world. The edible human brains were formed with the use of rapid prototyping techniques, while the use of ordinary, found objects (“readymades”) reflects previous trends in manufacturing and artistic production.

As suggested by the title, the artwork is considered within the art genre of vanitas: memento mori representations, which remind the viewer of the evanescence of all matter reality. In contrast to vanitas still lifes, ‘MRI MS_Vanitas’ is conceived in a way to be “in motion”: the brain is melting, the candle is burning, the liquids are blobbing while the user is losing his or her sight in an endless game of reflections. Under observation here, beside the memento mori, are the complex and dynamic relations of particular objects to imagery and to the individuals and societies who both shape and are shaped by them. A performative autopoietic feedback loop (Fischer-Lichte, 2008) is established between objects and their users (makers).

‘MRI MS_Vanitas’ is deliberately set in a transitory ‘non-place’ (Marc Augé, 2000) – in the entry hall of a public building. There the rejected body of objects gets revived by offering to the casual passersby an opportunity to discover curiosity and attention and gather silence. The mirrors, the magnifying glasses, the artist book, the self … can then become something we look at, as well as into, in different, unique ways. What for?

‘MRI MS_Vanitas’ implies an appropriation of the “art that works” (Mustapha Khayati, 1966) which is realized through the appropriation of art (and life) itself. We can muse at its futility, mull over its grandness. We can …

Context:

Jatun Risba works as performance and intermedia artist, third theatre practitioner and writer. The long-term art project ‘MRI MS’ (2015-) is based on her lived experience as a woman and her détournement of Multiple Sclerosis into an exercise of Multiple Skills. Each ‘MRI MS’ situation is based on the use of a particular body or interface technology by means of which the artist highlights and maps the process of psychic and collective individuation. After a long-durational deconstruction and revelation of the self (in the 12-hrs Inter-esse performance ‘Exercises in dying’) and after a mind hacking distortion of reality with the use of special glasses (in the participatory research event ‘MRI MS_Upside down’) the artist further develops the motifs of transitoriness and in-betweenness but through a different medium. More information about her work at www.facebook.com/JatunRisbaMRIMS

The full video of the performative installation MRI MS_Vanitas. Life in Motion is available here.

Ecstasy of death

October 27^th 2017, Dika Gallery, Kamnik

Ecstasy of death is a suggestive miniature by Jatun Risba and Miša Gams. The performance enacts language patterns, customs, rituals, sentiments and beliefs concerning death and the process of dying in the Slovene ethnic territory. In order to be seen, heard, felt by the spectators. In order to be remembered, acknowledged, reflected upon and updated.

The project was organized in partnership with the local art community of Kamnik, a medieval and Baroque city in the lap of the mountains, and performed in close proximity to the Day of Remembrance on November 1st. Before 1991, in the time of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia (in ex-Yugoslavia), the feast was named “dan mrtvih”, the Day of the Dead. On this day locals pay respects to the deceased by visiting the cemetery where they light candles and bring flowers to the graves.

Below you can watch a short trailer of the work. More photos by Janez Zalaznik and a critical review (in Slovene) of the event are available here.

Exercises in Dying

On Ash Wednesday, 1st of March 2017 from 12 to 24 o’clock, you are invited to the performative event Exercises in dying at Klub K4 at Kersnikova 4 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. You can follow the Facebook page “Exercises in dying”, where the video of the performance will be broadcast live and also available for commenting.

In the interim stage of the project ‘MRI MS’, the artist Jatun Risba will perform a long Inter-esse performance, in which she will walk through the physical, aural and psychological stages of herself in order to deconstruct and liberate the self. The Inter-esse (from Latin interesse: ‎’to be or lie in-between’, also ‘to go beyond the self’) performative practice explores liminal forms of the thinking body – movement, gesture, voice, breath, and contact – in the functioning of the autonomic nervous system, at the level of the limbic system.The limbic system is the phylogenetically older, mammalian part of the brains that takes care of motivation, memory, emotions and willingness to study.

The twelve-hour performance of Jatun Risba is a challenge of physical & mental endurance and a trans-individual experiment in movement, emotions, and interaction, which manifest in the process of psychological dying. The aim of this action is to forget the known from the past – cognitive and behavioral conditioning, fear and sadness – for a new, fresh start.

Production: Rampa Lab, Zavod Kersnikova

Project is supported by Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, Municipality of Ljubljana and Student Organization of the University of Ljubljana.

Arts of Self

Umetnosti Sebstva (US)