The Left Hand, Stakra, As if the Color
3 x video art
Sara Bonaventura
The left hand of darkness
“Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the right hand of light.
Two are one, life and death… like hands joined together”
Ursula K. Le Guin, The left hand of darkness
This is a drawing exercise, recording in real time my left hand and a white paper,the right hand was not holding a pencil but rather adjusting knobs and patching oscillators, of a Jones Raster Scan, similar to the Rutt Etra Scan Processor, but one of a kind built by Dave Jones for Sara Hornbacher and powered by Signal Culture. It looks easy, but it is not so comfortable, rather a process of prosthetization in which a very familiar part of the body becomes alien, sucked by the uncanny vortex of the machines, in which we believe to see a glimpse of creation, when two index fingers touch each others, but the triangulation ends up with a unsettling unity. in Mandarin: 孤掌难鸣 meaning something like It’s hard to clap with only one hand.
The piece is inspired by Ursula’s novel The left hand of darkness.
Sountrack: Handplant, by EVN from his album Oh Cruel Science, on Enklav label
As if the Color
10' color, 2017
Triptych version of a choreography performed by Annamaria Ajmone, processed with analog synthesizers during a residency at Signal Culture, Owego, NY (US). The video presents a body that has been triplicated and entangled in a network of exterior conditionings. The perceptual value of the same choreographic action changes as the colour changes. “It is a multiplicity that is being bended and explained, and it is up to us and our ability to conceive it and to try explaining it" (Deleuze) Soundtrack by Caterina Barbieri.
Stakra
4' 50'' color, 2017
It’s a mystical and hallucinatory journey of a resilient subject, not yet completely seduced by the machines; entangled in their challenging system, but radiating dynamism while struggling for self determination.Getting lost, falling apart, splitting, vanishing and resetting. Finding balance in between. The performer is Annamaria Ajmone. Soundtrack by Von Tesla. A choreography processed with analog synths and a wobbulator, a modified monitor known as Paik Raster Manipulation Unit, at Signal Culture, Owego, NY (US).
