Repetition Island

SM: We received an invitation and it was quite a surprise invitation for us. Raimundas invited Mont Analogue (www.montanalogue.org)  because he saw our publication in Rome, and this was the beginning of the dialogue. We received this invitation when the project was already defined and the idea of repetition was already there. The blog was open and the dialogue with the artists and between the artists had already started. So we followed this dialogue. Mont Analogue – usually appears as a publication that is hosted by different magazines, but we also work with events and this border between theoretical thinking and performance art. We thought that Repetition Island would be a possibility for use to publish a new issue. So we decided that we would appear only once in the structure and this appearing is in someway the moment of publication of our new issues, which is a real Meteorite. So, the third issue of Mont Analogue is a Meteorite that traveled from Amsterdam to Paris and now from Paris we will travel next week to Italy and from Italy to Finland and after Bulgaria. Somehow this Meteorite will travel and it will be the way in which we publish our third issue.

PDM: This Meteorite is a Hapax. A Hapax is a word that can appear in a book, in a story, in a language just once but it is part of the system of the language. It is an anomalous word – a sort of misplacement – in relation with the language system. We decided to establish this kind of connection but in Repetition Island – which is, of course, about this idea of repetition –  not only an idea of uniqueness. We tried to reflect on the “repetition” not simply from its opposite, but to contradict the implications that this concept contains: to be the touchable exception that proves the rule, and to emphasis the distinction between ‘bare’ and ‘productive’ repetition - where the latter means repetition without an original and/or the repetition of difference. In that sense, this appearance is unique – it happens once – but in its absence it is in relation to the structure. It places an exception somehow but it is always in relation to the structure of the whole.

SM: And also the question is about the notion of repetition in relation to the idea of identity and difference. And also in the system of representation to the logic of the original and the copy. So what is the repetition of identity and what is difference?

PDM: And in that sense the idea of a Meteorite is something that does not belong to the earth, but somehow is contact. And in the moment of contact there is transformation of something – but it is just something. So it is the idea of “What is this idea of somethingness?”.

LW: Can I ask you about the specifics of the performance? At the beginning there was this overwhelming sound and then it transformed into a dialogue between the two of you. I wonder how that came about: was it improvised and was there a cue to incite dialogue.

SM: Yes. Because for us the relations between different elements are very important. Theoretical thinking and the creation of art work. So usually what we offer to the artist is the exchange of ideas. This is how we work. Dialogue. We offer and start a dialogue and then we start to move it – to shift it. It is about the shifting of one point. And this shift actually creates space. Reactions.

PDM: Reactions to submit to analysis by a group of artist the Hapax. The visual artist Lot Meijers has created a 3 minutes video to find the new issue number (MA#7.23) because any Mont Analogue issues are not regulated by any linear progression. The sound artist Lorenzo Senni has created a video, BetterLivingThroughAcid, without sound, where the laser traces serve as a precise score with a specific sound quality of the image. And also the performer Gertjan van Gennip and BAROKTHEGREAT. The artists do not present a work they have done before. These are first time creations. All of them where performed for the first time in relation to the Hapax.

LW: There was also an element of performance or dance.

PDM: Yes, the artists BAROKTHEGREAT. They are two women that work together. One is a musician and the other is a performer and choreographer. They work with this dimension of the rhythmic repetition and the appearance of something that is anamorphic through the body that inhabits the space like something perverting the familiar.

SM: The spoken piece after BAROKTHEGREAT is the work of the Dutch artist and performer Gertjan van Gennip. He works with these creature that appear through prophesies. Half-divine and half-animal creatures, his figure lives everyday space announcing powerful and evocative texts defined by medieval rhythms. So his performance was a prophecy.

LW: The relationship between theory and performance is very strong in your project, do you see a similar relationship occurring in Repetition Island?

SM: The relation is absolutely strong in Repetition Island. This is why Raimundas decided to invite us. I think he also decided to invite us because of the very different pattern in the way we deal with thought. What is happening here, in this idea of repetition discourses cannot be other than relative. And so there is the creation of meta-discourse. For me the new challenge in relation to philosophical thinking is if we are able to return to fundamental questions from the old metaphysical systems. Is it possible to return to these questions?

PDM: But I think it is not the return but to go because it is another condition.

SM: Yes, for me it is related to the phenomenology. To trace this subtlety.

LW: Have you identified these fundamental questions?

PDM: For example, what is Real (or the Real)? But also - what is the human condition? What is the future? What is the Desire?

LW: And does your practice seek to answer these questions?

SM: No, we are not answering. We are practicing. We don’t think that we have the answers. We are practicing the way we share these questions. It is philosophical practice through artistic work. There is fusion in the moment of sharing. The other point is the creation. Because when you start to create you start to transform.