About our process
Our primary objective at AnarkoArtLab is to decipher where and when collective imaginary TRANS-media-artist can exist; We believe that once once we’ve done that, we have consciousness of ourselves.
What is the collective imaginary? It comes from the capacity and availability of autonomous bodies to interact. The artists who participate in AnarkoArtLab are prepared for a new collective imaginary that is self-determined in the moment by a seed (concept). How does this work? Through the conceptual seed, chosen and defined beforehand by the group, we generate ideas and let them float in the air like bubbles. Then the error, the fantastic, the improvised, the empty, is thrown to the collective, which activates a chain reaction where each artist gives support to the other.
We use different concepts for each experiment: Our experiments are unconscious improvisations. We work with the unpredictable, surprising, polyphonic, polymorphous, and inter-textual. We seek a TRANS-mediation. We seek to break the barriers behind which each member engages in the development of their own part of the encounter. This is the reinvention of the psycho-pantomime through creative collaboration, forming new languages of synthesis and dialogue and new collaborative esthetics.
Our experiments don’t have a beginning nor an end. There is no timed framework. We start from an idea with no place and no time. We search for possibilities: the seeds (concepts) of the unstructured imaginary that continuously moves through a process of reflection within these partnerships. Depending on the combinations and modulations, we start to create different variations and connections that generate collisions between ideas, bodies, actions, movements, and the imaginaries themselves. We use video, images, poetry, texts, words, noise, language—or no language—dance, movement, installations, lights, or whatever we find within our reach at that moment to continue this game of the imaginary.
The AnarkoArtLab process enables the individual imaginary to organize itself and transform, so that any question of territory and creation is blurred by bodies in movement. That’s why we try not to work with memory, or anything tied to tests or predefined rehearsals. We want amnesia. We are only interested in work that incorporates the improvised, the immediate, the risky, the uncertain, the impermanent. In this state of trance, where the moment (time) collapses and space establishes the relationship between subject and object, the participants experiment, and investigate, and everybody can connect at a new level of perception and integration.
The more people participate in the project, the more they want to transgress—because everybody wants to create deconstructive movements, unusual perceptions and unexpected situations. AnarkoArtLab creates for us the pretext for being and creating together. This is art for us. This integration, when it happens, is like a magic miracle. If it doesn’t happen, that’s ok too—we are happy just the same. The rest—the product—doesn’t matter.
What are the forms of “anarchist art”? We’ve arrived at the conclusion that as soon as we try to define them, they stop being anarchical. We know that some artists and theorists are trying to define anarchist art … but so what? We know that we are indefinable by definition.
writings From one of our members,
"The Anarko Art Lab is more than special to me.
It's been fundamental in my experiencing NYC and how I've been experienced by it. It's been the door to intense experimentations.
I remember with deep emotions descending the Living Theater stairs, ignoring by the time what this place meant in terms of revolution.
I had just arrived in NYC when some strange accident of fate brought me to the Anarko Art Lab Festival, back in 2011. I wasn't aware of Judith Malina and Julian Beck, but they sure had invited me that day!
I remember the feeling of entering a secret place where layers and layers of artistic actions created a very unique and powerful ENERGY.
Soon after, I got involved and deeply immersed in the Art Lab, getting to the its core.
The Anarko Art Lab is more than just once a year festival; it's a constant state of mind, a political vision of performative arts in collectivity, the room for multidisciplinary / instant / urgent / experimental improvisation.
A place where artists can penetrate each other.
Today I walked in the woods, when I passed a piano, abandoned by a river. Silent, apparently - the piano.But no. This lost piano was an expression of Art Lab to me: a poetic and performative stage randomly challenged by a group of elements: passing of time, actions, sounds, images, gestures, noises, dances, people.
Art as total R-evolution. Art as collective Freedom.
See, Art Lab's not scared of its own ruins, because it reinvents itself constantly. I SAW it!
At some point I was part of it.
One thing is sure: it will always be part of me"
Ifé
