Trancemission
Development & reflection (2)
Make a collaborative art project work during a global pandemic. How?
The idea of collaborating with new people without knowing what kind of art they produce or their interest is not that easy. The reflection and art production from a confined space was already complicated, but working digitally with artists you know nothing about is even more challenging. We had to think of a digital way of working — a first for me — together, as individual artists but as a group.
We quickly got to know which direction our project was getting to and started by brainstorming primary ideas and connections between them. Also, because all the group members were dispersed around Europe, we had to exchange, explain, inform, suggest, try and communicate exclusively through online platforms. We had no choice. We actually thought of painting and physically sending it to our fellows abroad, but this would have taken too much time. I apprehended the digital form our project was taking (I usually work with ‘traditional’ mediums). We literally had to learn and find out how to work all over again (collaboratively&digitally). Here is where the idea of Trancemission (transmission) came from. We decided to combine that ‘new communication’ aspect with the notion of trance. Trance makes me think of an altered state, a trip towards the discovery of another ‘self’ and a feeling of ‘oneness’ — a personal or shared experience on a quest of the modified mind and desires.
Raving came back often in our discussions; all of us had already been to a rave and had experienced this feeling of being in a closed space or, on the contrary, in the middle of the forest when nothing else matters at that specific moment. It is hard to describe, but connections and ephemeral relations created in these particular environments are profoundly unique and memorable. On a mission to find trance, what it means, and what is a good representation of trance as a feeling, a state, and/or a process?
Primarily, we decided to collaborate by posting images, paintings, sculptures, and other individual pieces on a shared platform. We would then choose any pieces from any other artist and created or add something to them.
In a second time, each of us had chosen one image of our choice (photography, painting, anything.) and shared them with the group on a Google Sheet document. We all individually played a previously chosen music and started almost a live ‘performance’ in which we modified, moved, and deformed all the images simultaneously. Chaos. That would be a good word to describe that process.
Every artist is at home, behind their laptop, instinctively modifying these images listening to the same music; it could be associated with a rave experience in a way. People are together as ‘ravers,’ for the same purpose but, at the same time, in their own bubble, dancing around freely with mindless thoughts, in a trance. The only thing that is genuinely missing was actually physically being together as artists.
By creating collaborative pieces like these above, we shared and connected our personal work, a part of us. For me, the outcomes are superb. New images, visuals, and connections appeared and completed our desire to become one. It feels like we collectively obtained a single vision of everyone’s gaze. How do we look at things, what we create, what we reflect on. This is the exceptional result of our collective vision.
We decided to reassemble our productions and outcomes on a designated website: https://www.trancemission.co.uk
This project was high in experimentations — I would definitely collaborate with these talented-ass artists again.
