“A free space of poetry should be called ‘Paradise’”.
Interview with Gerhard Stäbler and Kunsu Shim, curators of GOOD-BYE PARADISE?
By Cihan Ataş

Published on 5 February 2023 on mediascope.tv
 Link to original article in Turkish: https://medyascope.tv/2023/02/05/good-bye-paradise-kuratorlerinden-gerhard-stabler-ile-soylesi-ozgur-bir-siir-alani-cennet-olarak-adlandirilmalidir/

Photos: Sena Nur Taştekne © ARTER 2023

In your performance, you connect your art with the elements of the space in which it is created. Since when do you think that art is not independent of space? And how do you relate the spaces of ARTER to "Good-bye Paradise" in this context?

Art, especially music, is always connected with space and time. There are only a few exceptions, for example music for reading, where the imaginary sound is created in the head - which thus actually also has something to do with space (the head) and time, because here too the music must unfold in time. In performances of music, however, the space and the progression in time, i.e. the choreography of a concert, must be considered carefully. For us, art museums are particularly suitable for this because they offer the possibility of involving all the senses in a variety of ways and also allow us to select certain spaces in relation to music that make connections possible between hearing, seeing, feeling, sometimes even smelling.

However, the linking of music with a specific space is not a basic condition of our work. A space, be it a concert hall, exhibition space or a park et cetera, is always there. This or that composition can be performed there. A composition, let's say "4:33" by John Cage, can be performed on a street in New York, but also in the ARTER museum. So a musical work is basically free of a specific space. We were both composer-in-residence at the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, Germany for ten years from 2000 to 2010. During this time, we realised numerous projects in this museum. Since it is primarily a museum for contemporary sculptures exposed in space, there were various possibilities to play with the exhibition space, that is, with the acoustics of the space, with the objects including the exhibited objects in it, with the architectural features. In fact, there are also works of ours that can and should only be realised in a certain place.

When we are invited to a new venue to realise a project, like here at ARTER, we look at the specifics of the spaces, which usually have a different character from each other. Then we start to think about a programme. For "Good-bye Paradise", we have chosen four spaces: the auditorium, the Karbon, various foyers and Gallery 2. In the auditorium, mainly "musical" works can be heard, where the accent is on listening; in the Karbon, mainly performative pieces can be experienced that engage all the senses; in the foyers, the audience itself becomes active and can listen in on the sound of the entire building; and in Gallery 2, the performances are linked to exhibited objects. Finally, at the exit, the audience will be given music to read by the Fluxus artist Nam June Paik as a small gift to take home.

How did the idea come about to develop a performance around the concept of "play"? How do you liberate the concept of "play" from pure entertainment?

Last spring 2022 we had the opportunity to visit the exhibition "This Play". We were very enthusiastic about this and also about the other ARTER exhibitions running in parallel. Because we feel very close to the "tradition" of Fluxus. There were artists on display who were thinking about what "material" is and, above all, how to deal with it in a playful way. Giorgio Agamben writes: "Children, when they play with any junk that comes under their fingers, transform into toys also what belongs to the sphere of economy, war, law and the other activities that we are used to consider as serious. A car, a firearm, a legal contract are transformed into a toy at a stroke. (...) And this does not mean the absence of care, but a new dimension of use delivered to humanity by children and philosophers."

A material, a thing, in today's hyper-materialised world is always functional for people and "materially" connected to them, which means that value today is primarily determined by possessability and practicality. Let's take a ceramic bowl as an object that is useful to us and valued at so and so many lira. In doing so, we forget that things are intrinsically free of it, even if they are "artistically" worked on or decorated. So a bowl is in itself just a thing with a round shape and an empty interior. It is worthless in itself because it is a transient thing, but at the same time it is valuable because it is the only and unique thing in this space and time. "Play" in Agamben's sense is a playful handling of things without a concept of value, comparable to how a child handles an object. There is no purpose to play, there is only "play". Entertainment, on the other hand, is always bound to a purpose. For it is aimed at directing the supposedly playing person towards something, namely to distract him amusingly from reality or to redirect him towards another reality intended by the "game" (e.g. a fantasy world, a martial society, a future society designed according to certain "higher" powers). From the beginning, entertainment is aimed at masses and thus generally defines a mass taste, regardless of whether it is in the sense of the masses. The aim of entertainment is to make everything a spectacle. For everything is to become "visible". With entertainment, there is no longer any mystery about things. Everything is brightly lit and offered for sale for consumption. In "play", however, there are only the players and the things. It is said that in a good game, not only the players would forget themselves, but also the things themselves would dissolve. In the end, what remains is a fulfilled empty space.

How did you get to know the Hezarfen Ensemble? What role does it play in this performance, what does its contribution stand for?

For quite some time, we had been familiar with the name of the Hezarfen Ensemble as one of the most renowned ensembles in Turkey, but we had not had a chance to hear it. During our last visit to Istanbul in 2022, we finally met the ensemble's violist and artistic director, Ulrich Mertin. When we expressed our desire to work together, he was very enthusiastic. In the meantime, we have gained some experience with the ensemble from rehearsals and are very happy to be able to work with them. After all, Hezarfen is an accomplished group of professional musicians who certainly belong to the world class in the field of contemporary music and are always open to expanding their musical performative experiences. We are able to create the four-part ARTER programme together with the ensemble not only as composers but also as contributing performance artists, which makes us very happy.

How do you define "paradise" - why should it be saved? How does your art contribute to the goal of saving paradise?

Most people understand "paradise" to mean something connected with religion. But we use the term "paradise" as something that is precisely free of religious dogma or any ideological maxims. "A free space of poetry" should be called "Paradise". Poetry is nothing other than a space that narrates its time. Without it, it is not animated and tells nothing. Without it, the space is filled and suffocated with social norms, prefabricated information, rules, laws, state measures, regulations et cetera. But space and time are intrinsically empty, should be empty, so that our lived life can fill them. A space is a body and time (with our life) is its soul. Paradise is a lived time in a lived space.

What emotions do you want to evoke in the participants of your performance? What kind of experience can they expect?

Of course, we don't know what state of mind the audience is in. We also don't want to steer his feeling in a certain direction. However, we hope that this project will give them the opportunity to encounter things in a "new" and "open" way, instead of judging them with preconceived information - like "good" or "bad", "I like" or "I don't like".

The programme also includes works in which the concert participants actively participate in various ways, by taking part and even - following our brief instructions - "composing" themselves, even if they have perhaps never done so in their entire lives. The audience will note down sound ideas in words or diagrams, which we will then realise during the performance concert.