Momentarium : : by Markuz Wernli Saitô

Exchanges among practitioners.

On my path of learning and exploring I was privildeged to have a dialog with creative minds whose work stood out for me. Here is a collection of interviews to include you in the discussion as well.

The conversations are grouped into the four topical areas of Participation, Service, Collaboration, and Everyday, looking at the practical implications in the creative practice of my vis-à-vis in a non-conclusive way.

Facilitating Meaningful Participation

Taeyoon Choi [media | play | locomotion] Seoul:
"Everything that is static in the world is mapped and everything that moves is tagged, location-aware and on the network. Consider the patterns of migration (...) that might emerge when that data was harvested."

Sue Hajdu [a little blah blah] Ho Chi Minh City:
"I do really enjoy these kinds of unlikely situations and unlikely combinations (...) because of the kind of mental spaces they can open up in the minds of all the participants."

Stephan Köhler [Villa Dieu Seul Sait] Berlin and Benin:
"Don't act like a saint, instead become clear on what kind of learning process for oneself is to be accomplished. It is important to clearly and sometimes rigorously articulate one's own position. "

Ayumi Matsuzaka [A+A Public Art Unit] Berlin:
"I am interested in receiving a kind of energy and flow of open-minded thoughts from newly encountered persons through my art process. It is a pleasure for me to create totally unexpected directions together."

Titus Spree [Wanakio Project] Naha, Okinawa:
"All kind of influences enter from outside no matter if one wants that or not. The question is, how are these influences converted and processed, e.g. how the cultural world is responding to the ongoing situation."

Sugawa Sakiko [Kissa Hanare] Kyoto:
"No one gets angry when they eat good food. Also, food is a form of politics that you can practice right away in everyday basis."

Akira Takayama [Point B performance group] Tokyo:
"I am reconsidering what kind of role the theater can play in town. What I would like to establish is the theater as a place of action for encounters, the workings and making, and dispatching a message."

Motoko Uda [Curator of The Dream Collector] Ho Chi Minh City:
"As long as the documentation of the project (showing the struggle of not being able to find participants) can somehow make up for the lack of participation."

Utilizing the Service Paradigm in Art

Brett Bloom [Temporary Services] Chicago:
"It is the social spaces that artists produce. This can produce a sociological analysis if we are talking of art as providing a service."

Lori Gordon Auffhammer [Infinite Exchange Gallery] San Francisco:
"You have to be convinced to convince others because you ask a lot of them. That way you can generate a platform for others to speak and find trust. The doubts inside myself are guiding me."

Tadej Pogačar [P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum] Ljublijana:
"Playful activities make evident what systems don't function properly. Ultimately the artist can be a moral figure through positive attitude, sincerity, solid work."

Aspects of Collaboration

Friedemann Derschmidt [Rites Institute/Denkarium] Vienna:
"Especially in socially engaged projects prolonged monitoring and guidance is elementary. I find it irresponsible as a media artist to just temporarily tap into social issues..."

Ichi Ikeda [Water Art Project] Kanagawa:
"Collaboration is like a telescope for our complicated society to put things and processes into perspective."

Jane Trowell [PLATFORM] London:
"We ensure that there is space for people to be supported in difficult times. It's also important to stick to the principles and criteria of a project, which we try hard not to compromise for a deadline."

Wolfgang Zinggl [WochenKlausur] Vienna:
"We go into projects which allow us to sort out the themes ourselves likeÊa classic artist who has full autonomy over the subject matter."

Claudia Eipeldauer [WochenKlausur] Vienna:
"There is no ideal way of co-operation, because each is in some way transforming. It is initiated through the readiness of the individual participant to be fully dedicated to a problem over a given time and under certain conditions."

Art, Audience and Lived Realities

Seyed Alavi [public installation, community art] Oakland:
"In an ideal scenario, only the I (me, the individual) exists, they (the other) don't matter. You is the public; I means that I am. But with public art I can take you into the present."

Grady Gerbracht [architecture | sound | social dynamics] New York:
"I see my art as some sort of enactments of gestures in public places: it is a somewhat detached process, like a grenade which triggers thinking later."

San Keller [action | relationship | structures] Zurich (Switzerland):
"In most of my actions I relate to the participants in the positive and negative. This very connection is the great advantage of action art."

Rebecca Klobucher [interdisciplinary painting | sculpture] Saugatuck:
"What works for me is building a reputation among the public where I connect to the place by working and enduring it for an extended time."

Lee Walton [Experientialist | Live/Theater] New York:
"Through repetition ordinary acts take on whole new meanings. This heightened affinity suddenly turns the huge space of the whole city into focus, maybe just because another person is lighting a cigarette."

Alessandro W. Mavilio [DOEI Taoist Movies] Kyoto:
"Without any distress people around me keep their own momentum. The pure dynamic of life remains undisturbed. In this equilibrium I am getting fully receptive and the audience begins to be my teacher."

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Each moment of the everyday, every action of living, poses the question: how it might be lived differently, more truthfully and respectfully. Through conscious interventions Momentarium provides a forum of inquiry on human coexistence.