Over the last two weeks, we have presented 6 of the 9 projects developed within the CPH:Lab in Copenhagen. Today we discover the last three, while waiting for the new call for the next edition of the programme.
The role of residencies and laboratories has always been relevant in the cultural sphere. Not only do they offer artists the time and space they need to develop their creative work. It also allows them to create a connection and relationship with fellow residency artists, mentors and institutions, which helps them to look at their work with new perspectives and recognise new potential for development.
In the immersive field – be it VR, AR, metaverse-related productions, artistic games and more – it often becomes a time when creators learn how to push the boundaries of these new technologies and where this becomes possible because different sectors meet and bring that exceptional cross-disciplinarity that is often at the heart of revolutionary artistic insights and society-changing ideas.
We recently discovered one of the most renewed talent development programmes for this sector, the CPH:Lab (part of the CPH:DOX Festival), which takes place annually in Copenhagen for and is conceived as “an incubator for documentary projects that seek to explore the potential of digital interactive technologies and advance new visions of what a documentary can be in a digital age” (from CPH:Lab’s official page).
We have already discussed six of the nine projects selected for the 2022-2023 edition (read more about Zedna, Unstable Evidence and Slipstreaming here. Read more about Collateral Echoes VR, The Forest That Breathes Us and Diplomatic Rebel here). Today we are going to discover the last three works: Nëpp Nëppël, Ghost Genes and Babel.
NËPP NËPPËL by Elijah Ndoumbe, Laetitia Walendom (France, Chad / 2023)
Nëpp Nëppël is a multimedia collaborative project using the artistic process to explore gender justice and advocacy in sensitive contexts.
Nëpp Nëppël is a multimedia immersive installation and documentary project centering the experiences of marginalised people in West Africa. The project uses the artistic process, mainly painting and photography workshops, to explore gender justice and advocacy in sensitive contexts. With a focus on disrupting traditional modes of documentary making, Nëpp Nëppël relies on participants’ fully informed consent to shape the documentary content and their portrayal therein (x).
AGNESE – What kind of technical and narrative approach you chose for this work?
ELIJAH NDOUMBE – The technical approach to the work is still in development – that is part of the conversation of prototyping according to safety, security, and context. Because we are working with narratives that are in a context of criminalization of identity, we have to be extremely careful in how we approach documentation and narrative storytelling. Every step of our process has been an opportunity for us to check in with our protagonists and narrators to assure their safety is centered in whatever ways we move forward.
With this regard, we aim to provide insight on ways other documentary storytellers working with and across technology can be better situated in context, and prioritize moving with a lens of care in their work rather than focusing on outcome of story and production. We are working across film, art, and cross-media installation for this project.
A. – What kind of impact did the lab have on the development of Nëpp Nëppël?
E. N. – The lab helped us hone in and execute our mini-prototype, which was helpful for us to then map out how to execute the project at its full scale and the many elements we need to be thinking about in that process. The biggest help of the lab was the interactions across other projects and with visiting parties interested in discussing more ways to activate within and in proximity to the XR space.
A. – What do you need, now, to keep the production going?
E. N. – We are looking for financial partners to sustain upcoming production in 2024.
GHOST GENES by Sister Sylvester (Ireland, 2023)
Ghost Genes is a science-seance that uses embodied technology for a convening with the ghosts in our DNA, and in the history of genetics. It asks who creates the parameters of identities, and invites the listener to eavesdrop on the ghosts that haunt our genes.
A. – Ghost Genes is an audio AR experience that is part of a wider body of work called ‘Good Genes’. Why was it important for you to look at the emergent fields of biotech and synthetic biology in this way and what do you think Ghost Genes adds to this series?
SISTER SYLVESTER – I’ve been working on the Good Genes series since 2017, when a drunk technician at the Berliner ensemble gave me a hat which he said hadn’t been washed since Brecht’s time. It led to a series of performances that look at genetics and the emergent fields of synthetic biology and biotech. Ghost Genes is different from the first two pieces in form- it is an installation rather than a live performance- but also in subject. In Ghost Genes I’m exploring the ghosts in the history of genetics, and the ways that they continue to haunt us today.
By that I mean, the ways that the eugenicist origins of genetics still linger in the field, in ways that are so taken for granted that they can be hard to spot- and how these ways of thinking threaten our bodies and communities, especially for anyone outside of what this particular society considers ‘productive’ or ‘normal’.
A. – Why did you choose to approach this topic using embodied performances and, from your previous experiences with the other connected works, what’s the response you usually get from the audience?
S. S. – The idea of the embodied performances came from the subject matter- the work is about genetics, and the impact that synbio (a/n synthetic biology) will have on our bodies, so it makes sense that the work affects bodies physically as well. And I wanted to do that in the least mediated way possible- I was feeling frustrated with awkward headsets and wires and screens and all these clunky things. Many of the audience members will not have a working knowledge of synthetic biology, so placing the performance in their physical matter takes it out of the realm of the academic, and makes it immediate and emotional.
A. – How did the LAB impact the development of the whole project?
S. S. – The lab was amazing! I would never have arrived at this point without it. I came in with a lot of research, but without any idea of what I wanted to make. All I knew was that I wanted to challenge myself to make work outside of my usual comfort zone, which is essay films and performance lectures. But there was so much great feedback and provocation, from the mentors and the other lab participants – it felt like a real community of support that has expanded beyond the lab itself. The lab gave me a structure to think about my work in a different way, and to take a lot of risks with imagining what the piece might be. And then I was fortunate to work with the amazing Sarah Ellis as a mentor over the past 6 month, and she challenged me to think in new ways practically and creatively. It’s given me the confidence to make a real shift in the way that I work, and the kinds of work I make, and I’m sure it will have an impact on my work in general going forward, even beyond this piece.
BABEL by Bonnie Lisbon, Harry Clunet-Farlow and Sara Didierjean (France, 2023)
BABEL is a « dance-umentary », a documentary you can dance to. Conceived as an immersive and interactive audiovisual concert, it is inspired by the biblical myth of the Tower of Babel to explore Humanity in its diversity and unity.
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A. – This is the first time I hear the word “dance-umentary”! What is BABEL and where does the idea come from?
HARRY CLUNET-FARLOW – Both Bonnie (a/n Fanny Fortage, performer under the alias of Bonnie Lisbon) and I work in the event industry. She is a VJ and I am a DJ and with our company, ENTER.black, we really wanted to merge our worlds.
We started thinking about BABEL three years ago, during the French elections, which showed a huge increase in clashes on issues such as diversity, minorities and so on. It was clear that people in France could no longer understand each other. We wondered why we were all fighting when somehow we were fighting for the same thing. We realized that the original story of Babel was the perfect metaphor for what was happening around us. Being between two generations, knowing what happened before but not knowing what will happen next inspired us to create a work that spoke of this difficulty in communicating. We have so many challenges to face today – environmental problems and inequality, to name but two – and if we don’t understand each other, we will never be able to deal with them.
My background in sociology and Bonnie’s interest in languages and, in particular, her desire to closely examine how colonisation and languages have influenced the way we behave as a society were relevant in the development of this initial idea.
A. – Why did you decide to use this specific musical approach and this technology?
H. C. F. – We like audiovisual experiments and we wanted our piece to be live and really club style. This is because we noticed that whenever you put an audiovisual piece on the market, it is always very quiet and requires concentration. Instead, we wanted our work to reach a different audience, someone who would respond with an excited: “OK, we want to act! We want to do something!”. That’s why we went for a piece with a more energetic soul.
We have already played part of it at the Ideal Bar in Copenhagen during CPH:DOX and before that in Montreal. Recently we also presented it at New Images. The audience seems to like it. It alternates this mixture of video images that some have called mesmerizing and this energetic movement required from the audience, with people also dancing on stage. It is fun to see the fusion of these two aspects.
Currently we have developed four of the six chapters we have in mind, each based on a different country, and we need two more countries to finish the piece. Then, of course, every time we show BABEL we work on it, change it a bit, improve some aspects, to try and find the right balance between the dancing and the documentary aspects.
Finally, we are discussing how to address different agencies: the fact that we play live is something we have to take into account. We need to learn to communicate differently depending on the context and the audience we address.
A. – How did the CPH lab impact your work?
H. C. F. – The CPH:DOX was an extraordinary experience, perhaps the best residency we participated in, because of its creative aspect. Usually, in previous residencies, we were left alone in terms of the creative aspect, but here our mentors – especially Vassiliki Khonsari – really helped us to redefine the basis of what we were developing, to shape the story, which was a bit blurred in the beginning. They helped us frame BABEL as a dance-umentary, which was a great starting point to think about it differently and develop it further with a clear idea in mind.
A – What do you need now to do it?
H. C. F. – Right now we are looking for co-producers. Both CPH:DOX and New Images have been very good in this respect, allowing us to meet several interesting people. Of course we are also looking for funding, but above all for residencies. We need them to travel and create the new chapters of our stories, which will be set in different countries, but also to have the time to work on certain aspects of the piece, especially interactivity.
With this third article we conclude our in-depth look at the projects selected for the CPH:Lab of the CPH:DOX festival in 2022-2023.
We will keep you updated on the upcoming deadlines to take part in the new edition of the laboratory and will return in the coming months to some of the discussed works so to follow their development more closely. In the meantime, stay up to date on CPH:DOX and CPH:DOX Inter:Active by visiting the official website.
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