The Azathoth Catalogue
Searching through the Void
(phase 3)
Omer Keinan with Máté Asbót, Raz Mantell, Susanna Ylikoski, and Roi Becker
Introduction
Welcome to this research catalogue, detailing the process of the third phase of Azathoth, enacted during the ON DISPLAY #2 residency program at Lake Studios Berlin. Azathoth is a practice/performance meditating on the elation and horror of the unknowable, contemplating cosmicism and existential dread. The catalogue includes videos from rehearsals and performances, alongside various texts detailing the concepts explored and practices utilized, segmented into four periods. This project is intended to foreground the complex knowledge found in all acts of practice and artmaking, aiming to engender and encourage a community of research and exchange.
A significant aspect of the methodology was the founding of the Reflections Collection. After each rehearsal, the practitioners were invited to reflect on and through the videos and upload their reflections to the collection through an entry form. The goal was tracing certain embodied knowledge that can only be observed through introspection and facilitating the interaction of these knowledges between practitioners. This tool proved immensely powerful in assembling the discourse and honing the practice. We intend to continue its development, tinkering with its many potentialities and applications.
.png)
Week 3
Rehearsals 15-20, 22-27.11.2022
As we approach the filming days, we utilize what sporadic rehearsals we can find to maintaining the practices and discourses of this phase so far. We revisit the core questions which emerged through the Azathoth process as a whole; alongside the concept of the Azathoth mythology, returning to some initial reference material for inspiration and updating the mythology matrix. Further, we make final refinements to the new dramaturgical framework. Meanwhile, we finalize the costume designs and experiment with various camera-fronts.
Week 2
Rehearsals 10-14, 13-17.11.2022
We are integrating Roi and the live-music into the ever-mutating Azathoth. Relative to the congealment and condensation of understandings present in the first week, this week is marked by a combustion of possibilities and their surprising interplay. We are thinking on indulging in and radicalizing our individual and collective approaches, while grounding new ventures in the ongoing tinkering of practices and discourses. Throughout this recalibration, we are exploring the dramaturgical processes of Azathoth in greater details. And preparing for the filming, particularly in terms of the camera-framing and costume-design.
Week 1
Rehearsals 4-9, 06-11.11.2022
We return to the practice of Azathoth and begin developing the Reflection Collection methodology. Through practice and discourse, we focus on three vectors:
1. Exaggeration, or spectra of intelligibility; making the fantasy clear for oneself, for the other practitioners, and for an external eye.
2. Playing with themes and motifs, rendering the mythology palpable through worldbuilding.
3. Expanding the limits of Azathoth in terms of ebbs and flows of intensities and volumes, playing with and integrating more approaches.
Further, we are experimenting with and reconceptualizing modes of interrelations as multidimensional beings with tentacular thinking; resonating through and contaminating one another while maintaining our individual journeys clear and charged; all in relation to the presence of Azathoth, as it manifests through each Run.
Beat 0: Open Sessions
Rehearsals 1-3, 07-09.10.2022
In preparation for the residency, we facilitated a series of open sessions. Through these, we will venture to ask: How can we conduct research through performance practice and archiving? How can we construct a catalogue which can support this process? How do we archivally trace the knowledge that unfolds through practice, and map it through immersing in the catalogue?
Special thanks to those who participated in these sessions and contributed to the cataloguing process: Bence Ungvári, Dany Kirilov, Elise Ludinard, Erika Filia, Henrique Uba, Lena Klink, Maayan Franco, Mizuki Ishikawa, Raul Aranha, Raz Mantell, Roy Amotz, Sidhartta Talukdar, Simon Chatelain, Susanna Ylikoski.
Credits and Logos
Produced at Lake Studios Berlin.
Filmed by Quiet City Films.
Unterstützt durch das NATIONALE PERFORMANCE NETZ - STEPPING OUT, gefördert von der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Rahmen der Initiative NEUSTART KULTUR. Hilfsprogramm Tanz.
Special thanks to DOCK ART and Peter Pleyer.
