SCHUNCK, steirischer herbst ’20 and Secession Wien
Co-composition, co-sound design with artist Rana Hamadeh for a film installation made in collaboration with Sara Hamadeh. The work is a part of Rana’s The Destiny Project series.
About
This work is a new stage of Rana Hamadeh’s evolving animation film Standard_Deviation. The film, which was developed in close cooperation with the artist Sara Hamadeh, ventures into Sophocles’ famed tragedy Oedipus Rex. Rather than re-narrating the misfortunes of Oedipus, king of Thebes, whose grievous journey of self-discovery unfolds at the height of the Theban plague, the work conducts a reading of the dramatic constructs of Sophocles’ play itself—that is, of his figuration of tragedy as a “technology of endurance.” The film is based on a libretto written by the artist that is translated into different forms, spoken word, operatic renditions, and print. Taking a poetic approach to the ancient story, the work sheds new light on the tragedy’s course by placing the age-old characters before a backdrop of various visual and sonic references, non-linear narrative structures, and eerie spaces.
The digitally generated film sequences suggest a computer game. The film comprises two different visual logics: One logic takes the form of a 2D pixel animation reminiscent of 1980s and early 1990s platform computer games (with obstacles that need to be overcome in order to reach ‘higher levels’). The other logic manifests in a strikingly different 3D animation that reveals glimpses of the inner psyche of the characters, as if viewing the game from two different registers. The 3D-animated insights allow the viewer to accept a warped storyline in this ‘game narrative.’ The plot in the traditional sense gives way to seemingly absurd events that find their genealogy in the characters’ heightened life moments of struggle, birth, death, destruction, and resurrection.
The visualized scenarios are as dreamlike as they are sinister, the action propelled by cogwheels and prostheses. The film is structured around a recurring theme of running, as in Oedipus’s attempt to escape his destiny. Characters such as the leg, the shrimp, the block chairs, the paper plane, and the traffic cone wander through settings inspired by an anatomy theater. Theatres within theatres constantly unfold. The illusive and chimerical imagery is accompanied by a six-channel cacophonic sound composition specifically spatialized for the exhibition. The sound consistently intensifies. A mise-en-abymic loop, a sense of claustrophobia, and the incapacity to voluntarily exit the spaces that we are made to enter—the work is a play on the senses and the nervous system. The experience of trance combined with a sense of disorientation is key.
Generally, Hamadeh undertakes artistic research in discursive projects that grow and evolve over several years and take manifest form in immersive audio-visual installations and stage sets, performances, interactive sound-based system designs and compositions, as well as texts and pedagogical setups. Standard_Deviation is part of her long-term growing series, The Destiny Project. Launched in 2020, The Destiny Project aims at exploring the production, consumption, circulation, and articulation of desire in contemporary global public discourse.
Credits
Work written, directed and composed by: Rana Hamadeh
In conversation: with Sara Hamadeh
Sound design, Sound editing & Mixing: Jorg Schellekens
Object and space design / Scenography: Rana Hamadeh
3-D modelling and animation: Ryan Cherewaty; Vasilis Kasselas
Extra 3-D modelling and animation: Esther de Bruijn
Video editing: Sara Hamadeh
DOP & Camera: Sara Hamadeh
2-D Graphics & animation / Graphic design: Jungeun Lee & Kay Pisarowitz
Operatic Performance: Gerrie de Vries
Spoken Word: Rana Hamadeh
Percussion: Jacobus Thiele
Recording Sound Engineer: Huub Krom (Studio OORbit, Amsterdam)
Recording Sound Engineer: Matthias Landes (Klanghafen Studio, Rotterdam)
Colour Grading: Embel Studio Post
Printer set up: André Castro
Production Assistants: Isabelle Sully and Pilar Mata Dupont
Technical Troubleshooter: Ioanna Tomici
Producer: Rana Hamadeh
Consultant: Rik Fernhout
The Destiny Project / Standard_Deviation was commissioned by SCHUNCK (Gemeente Heerlen) and made possible by SCHUNCK (Gemeente Heerlen), steirischer herbst ‘20 and Vienna Secession, with the generous contributions of the Mondriaan Fonds and Gemeente Rotterdam.
With special thanks to Rik Fernhout, Fabian de Kloe, Virginia Hameleers, Ekaterina Degot, David Riff, Tent (Rotterdam), Anke Bangma, Roel Meelkop, Anita Hrnić, Institute Melly, line kramer, Juha Van ’t Zelfde, Zuza Banasinska, Juan Arturo García González, Coen Brasser, Alaa Abu Asad, Sophie Bates, Clémentine Schmidt, Pitchaya Ngamcharoen, Rima Mroueh and the entire install team of the Secession.
Opening
17 September 2021, Secession (Wien, AT)