Archival project:
Vignettes flickers fades
“Vignettes flickers fades” is an experimental archive made for the 20th anniversary of Critical Path choreographic research centre. It consists of a text, a sound montage, a map, and live performances.
The project was inspired by the concept of ‘a gap’ and focuses on memory as an archival material. It pays equal attention to that which is remembered and that which is forgotten or transformed into an utterance.
“I knew that the details I was missing weren’t stored on the hard drives but – more securely – in the tissues, bones, brain synapses and steps of the dance artists who have walked in and out of the Drill Hall over the last twenty years.
If they can remember. ”
“Vignettes flickers fades” developed through the participation of eleven dance artists who have had an ongoing and longstanding relationship with Critical Path: Lizzie Thomson, Ryuichi Fujimura, Vicki Van Hout, Nikki Heywood, Linda Luke, Martin del Amo, Patricia Wood, Angela Goh, Rhiannon Newton, Victoria Hunt and Jane McKernan.
Eleven one-on-one conversations, each lasting roughly two hours, unfolded using the same format: The Questionnaire
The specific interview method traced the kinesthetic and multi-sensory resonance of Drill Hall, the heritage building where Critical Path is housed, as well as the indelible impact of the choreographic research centre on the professional and personal lives of the dance community.
“Starting in the southern part of Rushcutters Park, from where you can’t see Drill Hall, I wanted to observe what is remembered before we get to the building, before contact with the features of the space inspires remembering.”
“Archivists fear the incompleteness, see it as a failure, but philosopher and art historian Georges Didi-Huberman notes: ‘The essential of the archive is its gap, its perforated essence.’ The gap – a void or an empty space – is where the inexpressible lingers; an invisible force that breathes air into the condensed data of the archive.”
“Vignettes flickers fades” consists of a text, a sound montage, a map, and live performances. It forms the 16th edition of Critical Dialogues, Critical Path’s annual publication.
The edition can be ordered here:
The sound montage leans on the poetic to archive the atmosphere of the heritage building, with an aim to take the listener on an imaginative and embodied journey through the space and the memories it holds.
The montage was made through collaboration with acclaimed sound artist and musician Alexandra Spence, and is accompanied by a map, created by visual artist Elia Bosshard.
The aim of “Vignettes flickers fades” is to reflect not only the significant moments in Critical Path programs and activities, but to invoke sounds, smells, colours of Drill Hall, its water-based location and porous features that imbue creative processes.
This embodied approach to archiving aims to capture the atmosphere — immortalise the ambience and the impact of the space by accessing its resonance in the bodies of those who have danced research here.
SOUND MONTAGE CAN BE HEARD HERE :
The “Vignettes flickers fades” project was assisted by Woollahra Municipal Council’s Cultural Grants Program, through Critical Path.