long time, lung time continuuuum!!! (a conver-something)

In the organizer's words:

After Images against Darkness, 2012 and Watch Out, 2018, long time, lung time continuuuum!!! (a conver-something) is the third collaboration between the IMAI - Inter Media Art Institute and the KIT - Kunst im Tunnel in Düsseldorf. The starting point of the project was the invitation to artist Simnikiwe Buhlungu to research the history and collection policy of the IMAI archive, which has its roots in experimental video art of the 1970s and 1980s as well as in Rhineland and international post-punk and new wave music. Buhlungu successively extended her invitation by including the artist Valie Export, the KIT ventilation system, a Juno 6 synthesizer and the musician Pamela Z in the context of a ^{conver-something1} - a format already established in the artist's practice. The guests were invited to come together in the underground space of the KIT to try out spatial breathwork in their very own temporal ^logics2. What textual, sonic and infrastructural expressions (for a before; for the after) do these attempts at a shared inhalation and exhalation allow?

The tone of the exhibition is set by a work from the IMAI video archive: With the multisensory Breath Text: Liebesgedicht, 1970-1973, the Austrian video and performance artist Valie Export invites visitors to synchronize their breath with that of the artist, leaving traces of a text yet to be written on a pane of glass. Buhlungu's interest in sound syntheses as relics of polyphonic ^khuayas3 in turn flows into a new sound work by the artist, which was created in collaboration with a Juno 6 synthesizer. The work explores various approaches to breathing, using various tools and instruments to create auditory bookmarks (intros, outros, interludes, preludes, samples, watermarks, etc.).

The encounter in the underground rooms of the KIT depends on an infrastructure that supplies, circulates and removes air - i.e. the ventilation system. Since its installation in 2006, KIT's fully integrated above-ground cooling, heating and ventilation system has fulfilled its function as a hidden element that facilitates the underground encounter. As the ventilation system understandably has to be in constant operation, it is supplemented underground by a quartet of metal pipes which, as descendants of the ventilation system, cough and snort loudly. These are sonically overlaid by the video documentation of the performance work Breathing (Carbon Song Cycle), 2014 by US musician Pamela Z, which is accompanied by a live performance in which the artist samples "acoustic instruments with electronic, mechanical with digital devices and machines with flesh and blood "⁴.

Simnikiwe Buhlungu was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and currently lives in Amsterdam. Based on her interest in knowledge production(s) - questions of how knowledge is created, who generates it and how it is disseminated - the artist locates socio-historical and everyday phenomena using various approaches and research-based methods. In this way, she maps points of knowledge that can be used to locate different levels of perception and resonances.

Curator: Nele Kaczmarek

long time, lung time continuuuum!!! (a conver-something) is open to visitors from Saturday, February 24, 11 am. The highlight of the exhibition will be a concert with Pamela Z and an artist talk with the musician and Simnikiwe Buhlungu on Wednesday, April 24 from 7 pm. Free admission on both days.

Price information:

Admission: 4,- EUR Reduced: 3,- EUR Groups (from 10 persons): 3,- EUR Severely disabled persons incl. accompanying person: free Children and young people up to 18 years: free The Düsseldorf Art:card applies Every 2nd Sunday of the month: free