Statement of Collaboration

The collaborative work of Luca and Katrina Dayanc is grounded upon exploring the edges of communication (of nonverbal and verbal forms) through installation and performance, expanding on the artists independent interests in functioning and collective experience of being neurodiverse. Communicating as conceptualized by Bataille, considers the communicating subject as suspended in motion between the dissolution and preservation of the self. Luca and Katrina’s performances are suspended, not stagnantly, in a space of exploring the tension of preserved/dissolved, living/dead, self/other, for instance through mixing rehearsed and improvised actions/speech. Similar tonalities of their live voices create an enunciation assemblage- words of each performer are consumed by the other and consuming- displacing clear meanings or communicative function- rather propelling toward dead dialogue where words are held by the loss of sensical or linear narrations. Connection through individual contact with these im/materials enables indirect contact and inter-action between Luca and Katrina, by extending one's self- becoming more than singular body. Movement beyond the singular self- into the gaps/ towards the edges provides/ produces an immaterial connectivity.  

Proximity and relation between the performers are rarely direct- mediated through contact with discarded or destructed material (clothing, paper, found metal) and the expired immaterial (breath/ voice). Waste materials tie closely to Katrina’s individual explorations of what is cast off from central notions of productivity yet are nonetheless essential for maintenance of systems. Luca’s experience and interest in the voice and exhaled breath as something expelled/expired- on the ‘life/death junction’- contributed to the developments of immaterial aspects in initial collaborations. Both artists found themselves on the edges/ with excreted materials and thus their practice starts at this end- an exploration of the oscillation between central (systems-of communication, place making, sense-making) to peripheral (including body and material wastes) and back. While Katrina brought in the notion of the fold- following research into Deleuze- which manifest literally (through fabric/costume) and structurally in performances (through the repeated use of voice which fluctuated between sensical phrases and non-sensical sounds), Luca contributed to developing these notions through research into the extended glove as an excessive, decorative and erotic item. Gloves, costume and words take on multiple functions. Materially and performatively their collaborations inhabit a space of growth through connections (of animate and inanimate bodies) rather than exponential expansion. Resonating with Joe Moran’s choreographic contribution, Materiality Will Be Rethought, to Carlos Bungas installation where materiality of bodies and objects are queered and transform the space depending on their use, they investigated an extended self, folding between multiple and symbiotic interactions. Akin to Yiannis Adoniou and Stavros Apostolatos work Portrait of an Unknown Man where performers remain in visual not verbal contact, Katrina’s collaborative performances allow a different connectivity. One that critiques ideas of functionality which privilege automation, direct (im-mediate/without medium) responsiveness and constant contact. Even immaterial mediums like the voice do not render connection immediate as the performers employ delays and unsynchronized responsiveness to the others voice and breaths. 

Written documents- produced in collaboration, contaminate by each performer before and sometimes after an iteration/ rehearsal posed as part transcript, part score- something which read / consumed the previous iteration and fed / feedback into the future runs as well as situating itself as a surface for multiple authors and sources of communication/ contamination some of  which were of unknown origin (i.e. subconscious). These active archive materials escape death- they are survivors of the live body but beyond it- products of the death of production- waste from waste- surplus and leaking after activity- as a foundation of regulation and maintenance of the activity itself- they create a site to return- allow survival after death- multiple lives lived. Aligning to Dr Haralambidou’s reading of Duchamp's use of architectural drawings, as erotic in that they point to the possibilities of becoming embodying a tension/ suspension of possible/ideal and norm/actual the pages of their collaborative publication suspend themselves in 'climactic (im)possibility'.  

As an exploration of preservation (of contact) in conjunction with destruction Katrina initiated use of rusting and fixing rust, amplified through saturating sculptures in vinegar, salt and water. Working together on presentation, various sculptural installations drew upon use of liquid- leakage, drips and excessive moisture (often kept out of buildings for maintenance) and suspensions of multiple temporalities. Slipping into counterpoise formations (a concept brought forward from Luca’s own reading) aligned with the awkward posing seen during performances. Sculptural and human bodies between motion and stagnation explore what is upheld. Saturated by shattered words, performances move away and towards the relief of understanding afforded to audiences during instances of coherent language use and responsiveness between performers. Not released totally into something graspable and consumable, audience enter a practice weighted by dead time, where boredom and useless are investigated. 

The collaborations move beyond Andrei Tarkovsky definition of contact as to falling into rhythm with each other through shared time and proximity. Rather they move towards arhythmic contact between performers, materials and audiences that do not always share logical time but create layers different times. 

The excessive by its nature falls spills out outpouring into new  

temporal                                                                                                            containers continually  

continually 	 

                                                     sustaining arrhythmia.