Matter, Gesture and Soul by MATTER, GESTURE AND SOUL

A cross disciplinary artistic research project that departs from, and investigates several encounters and alignments between Contemporary Art and Archaeology. Its primary goal is to create a broad selection of autonomous and collaborative artistic, poetic and scientific expressions and responses to Prehistoric Art and its contemporary images. It will seek to stimulate a deeper understanding of contemporary and prehistoric artistic expression and the contemporary and prehistoric human condition. The participating artists and archaeologists will create autonomous projects, but also interact with each other in workshops, seminars and collaborative artistic projects. The secondary goal of Matter, Gesture and Soul is to establish an international cross disciplinary research network at the University of Bergen and strengthen the expertise in cross disciplinary artistic and scientific work with artistic research as the driving force. The project is financed by DIKU and UiB and supported by Global Challenges (UiB)

A SHAMANIC PERFORMANCE TO APPROACH THE ORIGINS OF ART

The performance you see through my eyes is both material and immaterial: the hand draws lines, and the fire reveals the cuts in the cave rock.

The mind of my body is divided into two symmetrical parts that act together: my left hand cuts white lines in the flesh of the cave, and my right hand gives them life by moving the flame.

I breathe in the rhythm of cutting the stone, or maybe I cut the stone in the rhythm of my breathing.

I feel outside of my physical body, and the rock and the fire shape my heartbeat, the blink of my eyes and the rhythm of cutting the stone.

I cut the stone as I skin an animal, in the same rhythm, with the same short and pressed movements and I no longer feel my body weight, but only the sound of scratches, the heat of the flame and the smell of smoke.

This is the new reality in which I begin to exist, with gestures guided by the surface of the stone wall of the cave, which I kill with each cut of the bone blade.

The act of sacrificing the wall-animal, the movements of my body and the disembodiment were all transferred to the lines of the drawing on the wall.

Do you see my body movements in it?

Do you feel the pain of sacrificed stones?

Do you understand what art means?

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