Attraction. Petrification B PETRIFIED, tidal love
⎮Intimate – cosmic dialogue of elements
performative video, immersive sound composition, scanography - series of processual - performative images
premiered at sound gallery IGLOO, Jihlava, Češka, curator: Miloš Vojtěchovský,
exhibited at artKIT gallery, Maribor, 2022; Pavlova hiša⎮Pavelhause 2024; Sodni stolp & UGM 2025
How do the primordial, the eonian concrete reality, and the moving moment, the stone and the woman, meet?
Exhibition view at the Rosa. Zemlja ∞ Kozmos exhibition. Sodni stolp_2025. Umetnostna galerija Maribor. Photo DK
Attraction. Petrification develops the theme of human-stone hybridity. It realizes its
manifestation through several variations and media: performative video,
abstract sound composition, and a series of prints of
processual-performative images.
The artist explores human-stone
hybridity – that strange otherness of radically intimate proximity –
through performative collaboration with entities radically different
from herself (or so it seems at first glance). The immobile stone
entities, with their eonian persistence in a seemingly unchanging pose,
emanate a field, a kind of tidal wave, which gently but persistently
attracts much more malleable life forms. She uses the camera (sound,
video, photography) to record what is happening: how her body reacts and
behaves in a specific geological formation, how the subtle
oscillations of the latter affect performative coexistence. The second
axis cyclically unfolds in an intimate space. The creation of
processual images with a scanner, mirror, stones and her own body
follows the light of the lunation and the cycles of cosmic sequences in
time (full/new moon), responding to each period's emotional states and
creative moods as encouraged by the moonlight or its absence. The
sound field – the connective tissue between the elements – invites you
to the intermediate (sub)sound substrate of minerals and liquids, to a
deep listening of the elements. Sound has direct access to the human
interior and seeks resonant harmonies. In the process of creative
encounter, the elements create new fields of synchronization,
intermediate bodies blossom, and eavesdropping/appearances of subtle
manifestations of ambient spirits, atmospheres with light and shadow
emerge.
The inspiration for the exhibition Attraction. Petrification is the creative attraction between rocks and human. The artist draws attention to the intuition that human is not only close to animals and plants, but the closeness descends much deeper, into the inorganic, the mineral, and extends timelessly into the cosmic. The friendship between my hand and this stone enacts an ancient and undeniable eros, the affinity of matter with itself (David Abram, Becoming Animal; An Earthly Cosmology). The performative practice with the elements is based on processuality, on deepening and expanding the perceptual field. Attraction. Petrification offers a process of attunement with the elements, this time with rocks.
The inspiration for the exhibition Attraction. Petrification is the creative attraction between rocks and human. The artist draws attention to the intuition that human is not only close to animals and plants, but the closeness descends much deeper, into the inorganic, the mineral, and extends timelessly into the cosmic. The friendship between my hand and this stone enacts an ancient and undeniable eros, the affinity of matter with itself (David Abram, Becoming Animal; An Earthly Cosmology). The performative practice with the elements is based on processuality, on deepening and expanding the perceptual field. Attraction. Petrification offers a process of attunement with the elements, this time with rocks.
The project was supported by the Municipality of Maribor and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.
enokanalni performativni video (3x), potopitvena zvočna kompozicija, procesualni tiski
Kako se srečata prastaro, eonska konkretna stvarnost, in gibljiv hip: kamen in ženska?
Privlačnost. Petrifikacija
razvija temo človeško-kameninske hibridnosti. Svojo pojavnost
uresničuje skozi več variacij in medijev: performativni video,
abstraktno zvočno kompozicijo, serijo tiskov procesualno –
performativnih podob.
Človeško-kameninsko hibridnost – to čudno
drugost radikalno intimne bližine – umetnica raziskuje skozi
performativno sodelovanje s skrajno drugačnimi entitetami od nje same
(tako se vsaj zdi na prvi pogled). Nepremične kamnite entitete s svojim
eonskim vztrajanjem v navidezno nespremenljivi pozi izžarevajo polje,
nekakšno plimovanje, ki nežno, a vztrajno privlači veliko bolj gibke
življenjske oblike. Kamero (zvok, video, fotografijo) uporabi za
beleženje dogajanja: kako se njeno telo odziva in obnaša v specifični
geološki formaciji, kako slednje s subtilnimi nihaji učinkuje na
performativno sobivanje. Druga os se ciklično odvija v intimnem
prostoru. Ustvarjanje procesualnih podob s skenerjem, zrcalom, kamni in
lastnim telesom sledi svetlobi lunacije in ciklom kozmičnih sekvenc v
času (polna/prazna luna) ter se odziva na vsakokratna čustvena stanja in
kreativna razpoloženja, kot jih vzpodbuja mesečina oziroma njena
odsotnost. Zvočno polje – vezivo med elementi – vabi v vmesni
(pod)zvočni substrat mineralov in tekočin, v globoko poslušanje
elementov. Zvok ima neposreden dostop do notranjosti človeka in išče
resonančna usklajevanja. Elementi v procesu kreativnega srečevanja
ustvarjajo nova polja sinhronizacije, razcvetajo se vmesna telesa,
vznikajo prisluhi/prividi subtilnih pojavnosti duhov ambienta, atmosfere
s svetlobo in senco.
Inspiracija razstave Privlačnost. Petrifikacija je ustvarjalna privlačnost med kameninami in človekom. Umetnica pozornost usmerja v slutnjo, da človek ni le bližnji živalim in rastlinam, ampak se bližina spušča še veliko globlje, v anorgansko, v mineralno, in se brezčasno razteza v kozmično. Prijateljstvo med mojo roko in tem kamnom uprizarja starodavni in neizpodbitni eros, sorodnost materije s seboj (David Abram, Becoming Animal; An Earthly Cosmology). Performativna praksa z elementi temelji na procesualnosti, na poglabljanju in širjenju zaznavnega polja. Privlačnost. Petrifikacija ponuja proces uglaševanja z elementi, tokrat s kameninami.
Inspiracija razstave Privlačnost. Petrifikacija je ustvarjalna privlačnost med kameninami in človekom. Umetnica pozornost usmerja v slutnjo, da človek ni le bližnji živalim in rastlinam, ampak se bližina spušča še veliko globlje, v anorgansko, v mineralno, in se brezčasno razteza v kozmično. Prijateljstvo med mojo roko in tem kamnom uprizarja starodavni in neizpodbitni eros, sorodnost materije s seboj (David Abram, Becoming Animal; An Earthly Cosmology). Performativna praksa z elementi temelji na procesualnosti, na poglabljanju in širjenju zaznavnega polja. Privlačnost. Petrifikacija ponuja proces uglaševanja z elementi, tokrat s kameninami.
Attraction. Petrification, exhibition view at artKIT Kibla, Maribor, 2022, photo Janez Klenovšek
Attraction. Petrification, exhibition view at artKIT Kibla, Maribor, 2022, photo Janez Klenovšek
About stones, boulders and forest creatures
text by Miloš Vojtěchovský
Near the border of Slovenia with Austria, the mountain river Lobnica flows into the valley of the river Dráva through the Pohorje forest. A wild and steep gorge at an altitude of about 1000 m above sea level with rocks covered with moss and two waterfalls is not easily accessible. The poet OR Poiesis returns to one of the local rock formations for several years and studies its infinitely slow metabolism. In Slovenian, she calls the almost immobile forest being "kamen" and with poetic association she connects it with the term “kami” - which in Siberian regions refers to a shaman. In Shinto, "kami" means shrine, the abode of spirits. In our landscapes, we would perhaps describe such a rock formation as a boulder - which is probably a Proto-Slavic word, the origin of which etymologists look somewhere far to the East, or in the times of the Celtic settlement of Central Europe. The term boulder often has an ambivalent meaning, which is perhaps due to its immobility, permanence, eternity: balwan is a boulder in Polish, but also a fool, a log, a sea wave, a cloud of smoke and a pagan god. In Russia bolván is a stump, in Bulgaria balván is a large stone, but also a heavy beam. In Polish, Ukrainian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian and Russian the root of the Proto-Slavic blvan reveals the links to pagan spirituality: in Ukrainian, Russian, Serbian and Croatian they called statuettes or other forms of a pagan god balvan.
In short, stones and boulders have long been associated with something spiritual, sacred, or heavy, motionless, not only in the ancient communities of the Slavs, but in fact wherever people and stones on the planet coexisted. Figuratively, we can complain that with the emergence of urban culture and civilization, we forgot about such archaic "magic of stones": the stones turned into dead inert matter in the hands of the architect and bricklayer in the construction of cities, walls, fortresses and paving. In 2017, the New Zealand government granted legal personality to the Whanganui River, giving it the opportunity to defend itself if anyone could prove that the River’s rights are at stake. The animistic paradigm of attributing subjectivity and sacredness to natural beings seems to be slowly but surely returning in various regions and cultures. Especially in places where the original, "primitive" communities and structures were not completely wiped out.
The activities of OR poiesis at the interface of music, sound art, poetry and performance have a deep and essential connection with nature, landscape and the sacred topology of places. She usually turns to rivers, valleys, trees, stones, rocks, because she knows that they speak to us with their liquid, watery, stony, airy tongues. We can learn those languages again and meet the non-human world, discover the understanding that we have almost lost due to our predatory intoxication by technology and noise. The theme of installation B PETRIFIED - a poetic, geological mode of a dialogue between human and place, which has its premiere in the Jihlava Gallery, follows on from her previous realizations The Golden Walls, Doors to Paradise and KISETSU quarry, which the artist will introduce during the opening of the exhibition.
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exhibition view at sound gallery IGLOO, 2021