letsgetmortal

Etel Adnan says: 'A simple question can raise reality's temperature'. This installation considers the narrative of 'no going back now', and how to re-weaponise the feeling of inevitability away from malign forces. The world we are making must also seem inevitable.

«Una pregunta sencilla puede elevar la temperatura de la realidad» (Etel Adnan). Esta instalación considera la narrativa de que «ya no hay vuelta atrás». Recupera y re-arma el sentimiento de la supuesta inevitabilidad lejos de las fuerzas malignas. El mundo que estamos construyendo también debe ser inevitable.

The installation conjured bodies made from boiled off-cuts speaking and reaching across distances. The sound played from both speakers and headphones, the refrains occasionally finding synchronicity, referencing the feeling of falling in step with others, chanting together to bombination. The title of the installation comes from Geordie slang, a paradox declared when you want to get completely out yer head.

Riffing off Adnan’s rising of temperatures, vents spinning a permanent hot wind were made from silver steel changed to oil spill via heat. At first, the turning of the vents was machinic, unrelenting, but over the course of the day slowed, faltered, revved back up, becoming emotional, human. These movements were reflected by the sound work as it longed ‘yo estaré allí’ before crying ‘no puedo más’.

The sound work focused on the belief that there is no strength in staying on the same route despite a change in the material conditions. This is often something those in power take pride in, rather than seeing that true power lies in responsiveness, fluidity, and the ability to change direction. The sound piece swerves past an angel trying to hit an endless high note; ancient gaelic mantras mixed with the portable euphoria of friday night trance music; hot prophets cruising the radio channels, wanting to see where it goes in the end, the refrain ‘witness me, witness me’ surging through the static; and conversations screamed from a coaster about inevitability, death, romanticism, fascism, asking, always asking, you live in heaven would you behave like that in heaven?