unsatisfactory answers to Frequently Asked Questions

Ivetta, Joyce, Josiane, Amanda, Greyson, Yen-Chao and Oliver have collaborated enthusiastically to the game of answering an unFAQ question via immersive video. The process has required them to undertake certain challenges: firstly, that of complying with technical parameters defined by a single sequence shot; additionally, the pandemic occurred, a global reality which echoes an era of vulnerability.

The art of video constantly addresses notions of time and space, however, within the unFAQ project, temporality has been emphasized. The ‘pandemic’ time, even though it is never pointed at in the videos, is present within the unspoken, since the production dates are very evocative. The framework itself implicitly contains a dimension of isolation because it was requested of the artists that they capture and formulate their reflections within their intimate or domestic environment, or close to their home, the spaces that inspire them.

Within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers Jason Camlot and Katherine McLeod argue that “we no longer sound the same to each other, and we listen to the world differently than we did before (1)”. The pandemic has affected our sound environment, it has transformed it by, among other things, the presence of more silence and the development of listening via videoconference digital devices, etc. We can broaden this statement by postulating that all our senses in general and our relationship to the world have been affected. During this historical period of isolation, artistic creation has continued remotely at an interrupted rhythm in an atmosphere tainted by anxiety and discomfort.

Greyson Gritt and Amanda Christie have chosen to film their sequence in a snowy grove. Greyson proposes a nature hike close to his home in Sudbury (On), a way to visit and listen to mother nature, and the elders who have walked on the land. At the time of composing the question for the artist, I was discovering Winona LaDuke, a politician woman, Ojibwe American, activist, and the author of the book To Be A Water Protector: The Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers, in which she argues ardently for a new green economy.

Amanda Christie frames her scene during a windy day, close to Moncton (NB), sitting among conifers and abandoned domestic objects (doors, tables and bedframes) that convey memories and unknown tales. The stability of the artist resembles an antenna-body, which is reminiscent of the omnipresent flow of electromagnetic waves interconnected with corporal energy and celestial bodies.

The theme of transmission, which implies the sharing of ideas, returns with Josiane Blanc and Joyce Joumaa. From Toronto, Josiane comments on the quote from Aimé Césaire, upon which the question is based. In her artistic practice, as a socially engaged film director and scriptwriter, she devotes herself to transmitting her cultural heritage. In front of the camera, she delivers a joyful cacophonous monologue broadcasted across several screens. Through this sound pileup, hearing becomes attentive and precious. We can discern, among other things, snippets about the importance of the artist’s responsibility in cultural production. The Lebanese American poet Etel Adnan (2) inspires Joyce’s sequence. The lost paradise, mentioned in the question, is Lebanon, a country which has seen the birth of the poet and Joyce, a land which they cherished but which they had to leave to expatriate themselves to foreign land. The tragic explosion in the Port of Beirut in August 2020 represents the triggering event that generated the video. The narrator, located in the Lebanese capital, recites her dramatic experience by means of oral tradition, thus allowing the preservation of the collective memory of a nation, since this mode of transmission is constituted by information, memories and knowledge held in common by a group of people. (3)

Ivetta Sunyoung Kang, Yen-Chao Lin and Oliver Lewis bring us within their domestic intimacy. Ivetta’s artistic practice is crossed by the meanders of corporal memory and the study of mental phenomena. The artist’s performance Proposition 1: Hands; Tenderhands underlies the question and consists in exchanging heat between two people through touch. This language of proximity through the sharing of energy in an intimate setting becomes artistic expression. Touching, like listening, is paying attention to another. I go further by hinting at the German philosopher Gernot Böhme who wrote: “Listening is a being-beside-yourself, making us aware of both what we pay attention to and how we are paying attention.” (4) Through an inverted and pivoting camera, Ivetta’s present video reveals to us her Toronto apartment in a play of light and shadow that seeks to disrupt architectural landmarks. Being attentive to the perspective of the space becomes a challenge. One of the rooms of Yen-Chao Lin and Oliver Lewis’ Montreal dwelling hosts the low-tech performance Cloud of Pages, which seeks to deconstruct the interaction between the elements that shape time, namely, history, memory, archives and power dynamics. Through a flamboyant universe, dotted with sparkling lights and book sheets that get shredded, Yen-Chao and Oliver question said elements. Among them, how is their functioning articulated? Is the objectification of the mechanics of power possible? The French historian Michelle Perrot defines history as a discipline which is directly tied to time: “To have an appetite for history is not simply to see the structures that last… it is to be mindful to the passing of time and to that which creates change.” (5)

Each person’s time has taken different tempos. To create remotely is to maintain a distant dialogue in the curator-artists relationship. Having found shelter in their comfort zone, the artists have composed works wrapped in their own reality, anchored in what is real.