Serpent and Lily (2018), is a creative research about the materiality of death in hair. It is a project about cutting off hair to construct a violin bow and derives its name from the first published book by Nikos Kazantzakis’ Serpent and Lily (1906). In Serpent and Lily (1906) the author commits himself with a diary, and is found in love and death. His love for an Irish woman begins to take over his rational thought, and his passion against corruption. For Nikos Kazantzakis, the erotic love found in Serpent and Lily (1906) was associated with physical pain, desires, and violent afflictions of the mind. Kazantzakis affiliates himself with a serpent lusting for the lily, and his youth tangles among the urgency of love, passion, and fantasy.

In some extent, Serpent and Lily may relate to Judith Thomson’s violinist thought experiment concerning moral issues about abortion and the right of life of the innocent. In this thought experiment Thomson imagines from one end a famous violinist who has a rare kidney disease and he will soon die if he is not treated. On the other end, Thomson imagines the other person who can save the life of the violinist. The story Thomson tells is that the person who can save the violinist’s life was kidnapped and was taken to the hospital where he is undertaking the first phase of the organ transplantation to save the violinist’s life, but without their conscious consent. When the person wakes up at the hospital, they find themselves in an accusing situation where they have to decide (a) whether they will undergo the organ transplant and save someone’s life and (b) their right to decide what can be done with their body. Both decisions carry an emotional baggage and an unresolved moral dilemma. The project is a symbolic act towards the above issues.

Serpent and Lily

Lythomancy (2019) is an ongoing research project and derives its inspiration from Serpent and Lily (2018) human hair violin bow. When I created Serpent and Lily (2018) I desired to play with it but its fragility did not allow any long-lasting friction. So, I began to think of different ways to produce sounds out of its movement and therefore I began to research the possibility to pass electricity through hair. I insisted on the idea to pass electricity for half a year even if I knew from the very beginning that it is almost impossible to do so because hair is an insulator. When I began to research on the history of hair, its anatomy, structure, socio-cultural and socio-political associations, I came across a study on hair waste by Ankush Gupta that states: “hair is considered a waste material in most parts of the world and accumulation in waste streams causes many environmental problems” (Gupta 2014).

It is then when I began to take the research more seriously as it transgresses the notion of beauty. Further in my artistic research, instead of thinking hair as one solid form, I begin to think of it as a parasite. Hair becomes noise within information and the research shifts towards the understanding of basics in physics.

The research involves how sound, magnetic fields, coils, and microphones work and firstly took form when I created the link concerning crystals. Therefore, the research shifted towards making crystals in which I began to grow and try to see how they react if I embed hair in the process. The experiment succeeds so far, but I still need to continue the research to make it work as a piezo microphone.

Lythomancy

Mind Split = Siamese Twins is a steampunk, dark-surrealistic performance that creates overlapping axes, firstly, through and between Friedrich Nietzsche’s early philosophical thought concerning the Apollonian and the Dionysian entities, the myth surrounding Friedrich Nietzsche’s mental breakdown in Turin 1889, and eventually considering Nietzsche’s correspondences to Cosima Wagner, signed as Dionysos, a moment where the unreal in Nietzsche’s life takes form. Secondly, the happening creates four body-entities (characters) developed by mythological figures and narratives found in Greek mythology. The characters investigate sound and movement through wearable performative sound sculptures. The duality in the characters allows the happening to emerge through all the conflicts, co- existences, inter-communications, overlaps, oppositions, discussions, compressions, and repressions the creatures (performers) create. The hybrid nature of the characters draw attention to the possibility to observe and explore Dionysian and Apollonian states inside one another, and to question how and when one sees them in the state where they begin to exist simultaneously. The formulation happens in the in-between layers of information and noise. Thirdly, the happening creates an axis to the working group’s autobiographical narratives related to traumatic events whereby derealisation, a state of mind where reality ruptures, occurs. The third axis of Mind Split = Siamese Twins creates a bridge to Friedrich Nietzsche’s mental breakdown through sound and movement by affiliating noise with the Dionysian and information with the Apollonian. Through the third axis, derealisation, the happening relates to the state where noise overcomes information, and therefore objects lose their identification (pre-identification). In derealisation, the characters discharge their repressions until they themselves lose the sense of what is real, and consequently encourage the spectator to lose their sense of reality as well. The happening seizes the blurriness between information and noise, as well as the real and the imagined.
Mind Split = Siamese Twins imagines Nietzsche’s breakdown and creates a narrative where Nietzsche (as the absent author) visits his mental breakdown once again under an indeterminate derealised state. Through Nietzche’s imagined breakdown, the four body-entities emerge and take agency in the absent author’s mind and body. The happening begins with a dream-trip in the author’s derealised state while the spectators witness the state of pre-identification in a simultaneous co-existence; on the one hand, the past entertains the moment before “self-abandonment” and “loss of memory”, and on the other hand, the spectators witness the present where the happening seduces the suffering within the characters themselves.

Video password: Nicolina0220

Mind Split = Siamese Twins

Hydra (2016) is a headpiece performative sound sculpture constructed of fibreglass, three metallic tubes positioned within the fibreglass that protrude and extend from its external surface, two metallic bars, thirteen metallic guitar strings along with their tuning keys, and one helmet on the inside part of the instrument. Hydra can be adapted accordingly and can act as an acoustic instrument, or produce sounds that can be amplified through other means, including two external speakers. When adjusting the two external speakers, hydra can create analogue delays due to the circulation of the signals.
Hydra as a character is an anthropomorphic creature. She communicates through sound and movement. The mythical and human appearance she holds transform the space she is in. Hydra constantly transitions between human and non-human; boldness and transparency. Hydra’s behaviour is sensible, sensual, truly odd, and transformative. The way she communicates is absurd and obscure. Hydra does not necessarily have sense of what a space is, or how she is perceived within a space. This lack of sense-space is one aspect that brings out the oddness in her, as well as her curiosity. She is sensible and strange at the same time in a sense that you cannot actually understand how she thinks, but her strangeness captivates you. The way she moves feels like she is already transformed, without memory, without communication. Yet, she communicates through her dance. Hydra’s sound communication is not aggressive but it feels like her words are anti-rythmic.

Hydra is inspired by the mythology of the Minotaur, a half-human and half-bull creature in Greek Mythology. The mythology of Minotaur shows an aggressive creature that eats humans and so is locked inside the Cretan Labyrinth until its death.


Hydra

Dithyramb (2017-2019) is an extension of the body, made out of wood, a leather corset-harness, contrabass strings, black horse-riding helmet, and metallic, acrylic, and electronic components. It is considered a string- based instrument and can be attached to effect pedals, synthesisers, sound mixers, soundcards, and music software. Dithyramb consists of five main separated parts that are attached to each other:

1. the bridge, which is attached to the wall;
2. the body, including the horse-riding helmet, the tuning peg, and its wooden
construction;
3. the skeleton, an adjusted wooden part that contributes the weight of the construction
and the applied tension. The skeleton is placed on the back of the performer;
4. the leather corset-harness, by which the skeleton is attached. The corset-harness’
function is to distribute the construction’s weight and the applied tension to a wider
surface. The corset-harness is worn by the performer, tightened to the upper body.
5. the neck, contrabass strings connecting the device with the bridge on the wall. The neck
(connecting strings) is the part that decides the amount of applied tension and weight.

The performer needs to wear the corset-harness, and allow their body to fall backwards in a diagonal axis (partly hanged), thus creating a force opposing the wall’s direction. To initiate sounds out of the contrabass strings, the performer needs to put an additional force, tension, pulling and weight towards the same direction, opposing the wall.

Through body movements and the performer’s weight, dithyramb’s sounds vary in tonality, pitch, timbre, frequency and the producing of tremolo. With body movements, the performer has the ability to initiate and develop pressure fluctuations that travel outward (sound wave) and cause the performer’s body to vibrate and produce different qualities of sound. The sounds created by the performer’s physical weight vary due to some parameters that are introduced by the instrument’s neck choice and its positioning on the wall. The first parameter concerns the height of the instrument’s placement in relation to the performer’s height, and the second concerns the minimum tension (70 kg) that needs to be applied in relation to the performer’s physical body weight. Both parameters, especially the second, concern the amount of force and pulling the performer applies to reach the standard of 70 kg.

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