Collaborative art plays with notions of authorship and the idea of the artist-genius working in isolation. When we talk about community, it is crucial to think about how we work together. 

To put our desire for a softer, creative and imaginative work flow at test, we formed a fluid working structure:

 

Jour Fixe

An important working method has been a weekly Jour Fixe with the core team. The core team has met on a weekly (AKA Jour Fixe) basis over the time period of 6 month consistently where each one of us shared their knowledge in the form of writing, filming, editing, sound recording, clay and fashion workshops. During that time, based on a few starting scores, we slowly built together ze_R0!Ayns world. Over discussions we maneuver between the questions: How do the inhabitants communicate with each other? Are the inhabitants human? Do they have Gender? What happened to the world and how did we end in this world? And many more questions we raised to create from puzzle parts one cohesive world and narrative.

 

This as well allowed a space to discuss, share and reflect the progress. The regularity enabled not only exchange of ideas but allowed us to find difficulties and solutions, as well as redistributing tasks and infrastructure allows a fluid and adjustable working process.

 

ManYfest

To create a safer or a softer space we started to write a manYfest that will declare the wishes and offerings of all participants to the group and the working process. The manifest will serve as a guideline of utopian thinking to a reality of collaborative working. It will be published on our platforms to be accessible as a working tool. 

 

 

Collaborative work

The core group is constructed with artists from different disciplines to allow this multi-layered project. Each one of us has chosen the form we wish to work and has autonomy to develop further according to the developments we reach during the Jour Fixe. This allowed us to move freely and creatively to further develop specific aspects of the production, focusing on one medium and bringing the research and process back to the group reflection. We have established the following responsibilities: 

Podcast, Visuals - Sculptures, Stage, Costumes, Sound, Production and Public Relations, Graphic and Storytelling.

 

Social Media

We insist on seeing Social Media as a new public space for creating communities, sharing knowledge, and participating in art and culture. Social Media is a space which differs from the conventional institutions not only by its unique forms of expressions but especially allowing local and global public engagement. For us, a core decision to integrate Social-Media is to expand our reach and to perform to an audience that is not accustomed to visiting established institutions. 

 

We have created 6 different Social-Media channels that are characterised with the two approaches to art - 5 which are presenting the 5 characters: The Sonorist, The Collector, ze_mycelium, The Translator and The Messenger. They are living and communicating from the future, from ze_R0!Ayns world. The other one is the project documentary. 

 

Social-Media_documentary - ze_R0!Ayns channel

It is a channel to share our working progress - making it visible and comprehensible, allowing more people to get familiar with the process of developing creative ideas. 

 

Social-Media_characters

Character driven approach:

The 5 characters are a work been developed during our Jour Fixe. Through discussions and workshops, the 5 characters were created. The channels have been set up one per character. Each channel is revealing the perspective of each of the characters on ze_R0!Ayns world and by that we learn about the world. They share their private surroundings, living their lives in the future. 

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Sustainable art production

 

Augmented reality

Scenography in public spaces requires a certain responsibility as issues of sustainability and environmental protection are likely to be raised.

Stage design, quite intrusive by nature, creates additional spaces inside of a space.

Our wish, however, is to re-contextualize the places of everyday life in such a way that the environment is not changed but it is intervened in. The public places which we consider for our performance-installation stand out because of their wonderful vegetation, therefore the aspect of environmental protection is crucial. At the same time, we do not want to deprive the public of their places of encounter, instead we want to highlight the importance of common spaces where all beings can gather.  

 

We decided to work with augmented reality (AR) instead of a usual stage design which would only be used for a few days and then thrown away.

AR merges digital and physical spaces and plays with what is and what could be.

It transports the futuristic world of ze_R0!Ayns into the current state and encourages the visitors of the performance-installation to ask themselves: What else could be here?

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Costume - New perspective and aesthetics 

Costume design that has low to no environmental impact is a daunting task at first but, as a set of principles, this is the non-negotiable foundation of this production.

 

What purchasing ready-made clothing at affordable prices means in a geopolitical sense is clear: a staggering number of textile production takes place in countries of what can be considered the geographic south of our planet. Burdened with a flurry of bleak environmental, economic and humanitarian statistics - this strengthens a racial division and exponentiates disparities between the euro-centric north and the diverse south. Hence, as an egalitarian, anti-racist group, fast fashion can not and never be a solution.

 

We will create costumes that have been sourced from the tons of donated clothes often available in bags of multiple kilos that have been deemed "not good enough" to be hung in the various second-hand locales. There lies the possibility to create an aesthetic that is not based on "worth", "class-coding" or linked to gender expression. 

Re-interpreting texture, color and shape - we aim to create a dis/utopian style that equates individuality with aesthetic, de-codes sexuality of garments and applies sustainable solutions, that’s at the forefront of our visual identity as well as the audience's reception of our proposed "future"

 

Sound

We regard the sound aspect of this project as a multi-layered sound escape, which builds upon a pre-recorded archive of sounds.We aim to generate a new experience. A unique audio experience which in its form could be regarded as a visual medium (Vrg. Ira Glass). We would like to take the audience to other worlds, shifting from one space to another with the glimpse of an eye. With the power of sound editing and engineering, we would like the audience to travel from underwater to the highest mountain, from the most intimate space to a cathedral. 

 

Our basis for not only musical but sensuous scores is the amphibian as it is innately able to inhabit both aqueous and gaseous habitats. This species can therefore guarantee the survival of the future earth. The sound of ze_R0!Ayns legitimizes the musicality in croaks, groans, low and high frequencies of non-human species and the fact sound and music is key to their and therefore our survival. 

 

In our performance installation there are no speakers, only headphones. High sound quality, low self-noise and good stereo separation through a wired system, thus suitable for spatial presentation (Atmos, outdoor recordings, artificially created rooms, HRTF curves for surround emulation).