We constantly settle in frontier zones. Being citizens of different countries, we cannot be together legally now, quarantine has forced us out into the field beyond the law. For two months, we have been escaping from biopolitics in the occupied territory of Crimea, the territory outside the law, and we have this opportunity only because there is no state cares about it. We are living on the beach and this narrow border strip is controlled only by an abandoned military base and the inability to sail away far. We have high-speed Internet, the Internet is everywhere now, it is the only thing that does not surrender to biopolitics and therefore the Internet is a human’s friend. Our present job is to be together in the neutral zone and explore the Internet as a means of remaining human.
Обживаем нейтральные зоны. Мы не можем быть сейчас вместе легально, у нас гражданство разных стран, карантин вытеснил нас в поле за пределами законности. Вот уже два месяца мы скрываемся от биополитики на оккупированной терриории Крыма, территории вне закона и имеем эту возможность только благодаря тому, что государству нет до неё никакого дела. Мы живем на пляже и эта узкая пограничная полоса контролируется только заброшенной военной базой и невозможностью уплыть далеко. У нас есть высокоскоростной интернет -- потому, что интернет теперь есть везде, это единственное, что не сдается биополитике и поэтому интернет -- друг человека. Наша работа сейчас -- быть вместе сейчас в нейтральной зоне и осваивать интернет как средство остаться людьми.
Saaren kartano - Saari residence
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The Work grows from a 2020 performative expedition in uninhabited badlands, where laying communication through a discovered virtual labyrinth became part of the action. The public source dates the expedition to May–August 2020, while the video carrier belongs to 2021. The later Turku presentation remains a distinct Event.
All the time of the hard lockdown we spent in wild uninhabited badlands. To stay together illegally (we are citizens of different countries), to work as usual, and just not to be an object of biopolitics. During these four months, our everyday life immediately acquired the feature of performative practice, which was materialized in the form of an Index of all personal belongings that were around us, and that made up something like our common body.
However, this life was not isolation, quite the opposite: it was the preservation of our world and the communication. We had the opportunity to deal not only with the lighthouse keeper and the hermit who lived nearby but definitely to face the whole world: for this, we used to climb on a mountain for 3G access.
In a situation of lockdown, when physical presence is impossible, and the transfer of objects is scandalously expensive, we have managed to join the New Performance Festival in Turku, Finland, where we implemented a concept in which a material object was encoded into a digital code and then recoded into materiality on the other side of the border. The basis of the work was The Index describing our joint life by listing the objects with which we dealt. The courageous festival team got down to the re-materialization of the Index. The main principle was the opportunity to substitute the Index item by whatever object at the discretion of the interpreter of the work. As a result, a surprisingly detailed and inventive interpretation was created in Turku that amazed us with its scrupulousness. Undoubtedly, it is not only a story about our life on the run from biopolitics, but also a self-portrait of the authors of the interpretation. The work got the name of the Tunnel.
Thanks for co-authors of the work: Leena Kela, Antonín Brinda, Anni Sundbacka, Salla Karvonen, Henrikki Jokela, Lotta Valtanen, Isa Lehtinen from the New Performance Turku Festival.
