A disease caused by a fungus, Taphrina betulina, produces the outgrowths called witches’ brooms, which plague some birches creating brushy tangles composed of small twigs growing tightly together, forming tussocks of varying size. Instead of arguing for variation as a basic method for artistic research, I expose these versions as examples of the method, in the demonstration.Īnother impulse and source of inspiration for this exposition is Michael Marder’s book Plant-Thinking (2013), which made me consider the witches’ broom as a specific type of living being, something resembling a plant without really being one. The various versions were not conceived of as a planned research project, but emerged as responses to various invitations and opportunities and developed into a method during the process. These performances with the witches’ broom, however, use an element of the environment attached to the body. Many environmentally oriented performance-as-research or artistic research projects are exploring the body immersed in the natural environment, in the tradition of the work of Ana Mendieta, or Eeo Stubblefield, like the experiments by Paula Kramer or Ciane Fernandes. Thus I will not repeat the descriptions of the process here, but rather show the variations in chronological order (in the demonstration) and thus display their development. There I also mention some artists whose works served as inspiration, like Rebecca Horn with her body attachments and my former student Essi Kausalainen, with her tree root project. In the book Performing Landscape, which can be read online, here, I have devoted chapter eight, Witches’ Broom – Variations of an Audio Play, (Arlander 2012, 215-242.) to describing the working process and the variations in some detail, starting from the short text, which together with the witches’ broom formed the starting point for all the variations. All publicly presented variations and versions, installations as well as performances, are listed in the demonstration section, which contains the sound material, the entire video works and some documentation of the performances. This includes the sidesteps and more or less embarrassing attempts that one prefers to forget when one ends up with something that seems acceptable, as for instance the above mentioned idea of using an actual broom. One of the reasons for taking up the works with the witches’ broom again is this exposition format, which offers the possibility to present and juxtapose several video variations, including the versions never publicly shown, and thus to shed light on a dimension of artistic practice, which usually remains a private concern. And at first I really planned to use an old-fashioned broom in the performance, an idea I soon abandoned, though. In Swedish it could have been something like Vindbo – Markvast. Combining the literal translations gave the title Tuulenpesä – Noidanluuta or Wind Nest – Witches’ Broom. ![]() ![]() The Finnish name ‘tuulenpesä’, wind’s nest, associates with birds’ nests and their rounded form, while the English name, witches’ broom or witch’s broom, as well as the Swedish expression ‘markvast’ or ‘häxkvast’, refer to the form of a broom. ![]() My first public performance with a big witches’ broom on my back referred to its literal names in Finnish and English. Language was actually one of the inspirations for this work, although the first version of the short text or spell I wrote and recorded as the speech of the witches’ broom was in Finnish. I have written about this work previously in Finnish as well as in English (Arlander 2011, 2012) and will now try to express myself in Swedish, too. In a few small performances, which were developed with a three-part sound installation and a performance for the camera in 2006 on Harakka Island as a starting point, I varied and combined the witches’ broom, digital moving image and recorded sound in various ways.īesides looking at the similarities and dissimilarities among these variations the purpose of this exposition is to experiment with changing the language. The exposition presents a series of works with a particular witches’ broom as an example of collaborating with something that is both an object and a living creature. ![]() In this exposition I explore the specific materiality a witches’ broom offers as a collaborator.
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