Residencies Online Screening Programme: Stakes of Conscious(ness)

Residencies Online Screening Programme: Stakes of Conscious(ness)

With national frontiers sealed worldwide and bodies forced into a standstill, it can be all the more relevant to embark onto journeys of the mind and explore different states of consciousness. Which shape(s) does human consciousness take when time unfolds within conditions of spatial confinement? What happens when the body plunges into increasingly immaterial networks and disembodied social relations? Is an emancipated society already inscribed in the deep recesses of our conscious? Stakes of Conscious(ness) brings together works of Danilo Correale (Italy/United States), Liu Yu (Taiwan), and a new film by Marianna Simnett (United Kingdom) specifically produced for this occasion, three artists whose residency at NTU CCA Singapore has been disrupted by the viral pandemic. Each work modulates a unique mindscape and pushes our imagination beyond the boundaries of normative reason, the entrapments of capitalistic development, and the limits of our sensorium.

Curated by Dr Anna Lovecchio, Curator, Residencies

DANILO CORREALE
Reverie. On the Liberation from Work. Transition, 2017
HD colour and sound, 20 min. 

Developed in collaboration with a hypnotherapist, Reverie. On the Liberation from Work (2017) is a two-part hypnosis exercise that soothes the body and the mind into a state of relaxation wherein “the ease of a post-work society” slowly comes into focus. Through the lull of the voiceover and mesmerising visual aids, Transition releases our mental confines and prompts us on a inward journey towards a future society where work is no longer commanded and humanity is free to dedicate itself to mutual care and collective improvement. Neither a retreat nor an escapist lure, Reverie. On the Liberation from Work rather paves the way for visions of future freedom by eliciting a renewed sense of presence and the empowering awareness that the future is there for us to shape.

LIU YU
Somehow I feel relaxed here, 2017
HD colour and sound, 12 min 52 sec. 

Taking place within the ruins of Taiwan’s former Zhongxing Paper Factory—built by the Japanese in 1935 and heavily bombed during WWII—Somehow I feel relaxed here (2017) overlaps fragmentary experiences and visual narratives that blend the boundaries between past and present, space and time, sleep and wakefulness. Recounts of World War II air raid survivors, images captured by urban explorers’ handheld cameras, and sequences from online war gaming sessions unfurl along a guided meditation path led by a entrancing voiceover. Through these site-specific and mind-shifting detours, the film draws an imaginary map where the entanglements of historical decay, memory, and disembodied experience chart out different modes of consciousness while also speculating on the status of contemporary corporeality.

MARIANNA SIMNETT
Tito’s Dog, 2020
HD colour and sound, 6 min 56 sec. 

What impact does lockdown have on identity when borders are closed and movement is restricted? In this work, produced during the recent global lockdown and performed in Croatian and English, Marianna Simnett enacts the remarkable story of Tito and his dog, Luks. Tito, the former President of Yugoslavia, was a contested symbol of unity in the artist’s childhood memory and this month marks the 40th anniversary of his death. Continuing her investigation of interspecies relationships whilst also confronting her own identity, Simnett uses makeup and prosthetics to transition from human to German Shepherd as she tells a story of survival and animal suicide.

22 May - 5 June 2020

Stakes of Conscious(ness) brings together works of Danilo Correale (Italy/United States), Liu Yu (Taiwan), and a new film by Marianna Simnett (United Kingdom) specifically produced for this occasion, three artists whose residency at NTU CCA Singapore has been disrupted by the viral pandemic.

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