RadioCona's So.und.ing Project hosts Wanda & Nova deViator

My text about Wanda's and Nova deViator's collaborative art projects has been included in a radioCona broadcast as part of its Zvo.či.ti / So.und.ing Project in December 2010. The project consists of a series of audio broadcasts about Slovenian composers, musicians, sound innovators, activists, multimedia artists, authors of electro-acoustic and various sound experiments. (Photo: Nada Žgank)


The radio broadcast about Wanda's and Nova deViator's work can be heard here.
Below are the English and the Slovene version of the text.

Co-effectuation: Maja Delak and Luka Prinčič alias Wanda & Nova deViator
The collaboration between Maja Delak and Luka Prinčič began two year ago with the performance Ways of Love (2009) and continued with Frozen Images (2009/10) – the latter was credited to pseudonyms Wanda and Nova deViator. Maja Delak is this year’s recipient of the Prešeren Foundation Award, a choreographer and dancer, who has behind her a considerable number of collaborations with different musicians, dancers, actors, and choreographers. The same goes for the musician, DJ, and intermedia artist Luka Prinčič, who first appeared as a performer precisely in the joint projects with Maja Delak, while in this exchange, Wanda picked up the microphone for the first time, wrote the lyrics for their trippy electro tracks, and also sang them.

Their projects intertwine many – often colliding – languages: rhythm, voice, music, noise; video, photography, theory; manifestoes, poetry. It seems that their reparatory investigation, this courageous picking up from all over, wagered on the possibility of their own surprise over the outcomes of their collaborative process and over what may emerge from their overlapping, dissonances, resonances, slips, and congruencies. It seems that their wager is won – as they have offered to the home audiences a new aesthetics and politics; well, at least to that part of the audience who had missed or overlooked the Ljubljana-based queer dissidents from the 80s.

Maja Delak and Luka Prinčič's performative events scream with punk ethics and kitchy porn chic aesthetics, which come together also in Western grassroots or DIY feminism of the “third wave”. I was reminded of the fact that this feminism skirted the borders of our country precisely at their appearance at the International Feminist and Queer Festival Red Dawns, where Frozen Images resonated as a genuine manifesto! It was a moment of relief and joy and empowerment, because the authors intentionally and unbendingly, passionately and sexily, approached the themes that are rarely dealt with in our space, certainly not at the same time: lust for enjoyment, anxiety, hypersexualisation and pornification of our bodies, violence, idealisation of love, and of course – the motor of everything – consumerism.

Ways of Love meander between the sampled, or temporarily “frozen”, scenes of two types of gender roles: those marked with violence and those founded on consensual submission and dominance. The insight into how to become aware of the power relations in relationships and how to break the vicious circle of violent love is disclosed in the performance precisely with the emptying of form – which could not be other than violent and painful. The second performance event, Frozen Images, raised a possibility of stirring up and overcoming the violence we exert over ourselves under the pressure of buy-and-sell images of Sex Appeal, Beauty, Health, Youth, and Success – with laughter. With lust. With objectifying to our own taste. With our own perverseness and again – with love.

This sumptuous and made-for-all-senses multimedia work by Maja Delak and Luka Prinčič is a genuine cut’n’paste, a swift image and sound collage that allows for many readings and listenings, many feelings and reflections. But only after one tears away from the fleeting images and voicings; only after one dances to the wild riot grrrl version of You Don’t Own Me, with Wanda and deViator jumping all over the stage. And this may very well be the most beautiful achievement or co-effectuation Maja Delak and Luka Prinčič’s collaboration: their accessibility and clarity – despite the work’s decentredness – makes their work is inspiring and empowering. Ultimately also because the “you” from You Don’t Own Me does not refer to a man made of flesh and blood but rather to Martell or some other corporation that imposes patriarchal patterns of behaviour for everyday use. (Translated by Katja Kosi.)

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Součinkovanje: Maja Delak in Luka Prinčič alias Wanda & Nova deViator
Sodelovanje Maje Delak in Luke Prinčiča se je začelo s performansom Poti ljubezni (2009) in nadaljevalo z Zamrznjenimi podobami (2009/10) – pod slednje sta se podpisala kot Wanda in Nova deViator. Maja Delak je, kot že veste, lanskoletna nagrajenka Prešernovega sklada, sicer pa koreografinja in plesalka, ki ima za sabo že lepo število sodelovanj z različnimi glasbenicami, plesalkami, igralci in koreografi. Enako velja za glasbenika, didžeja in intermedijskega umetnika Luka Prinčiča, ki je v projektih z Majo Delak prvič nastopil kot performer. »Wanda« je prvič prijela za mikrofon, napisala besedila za njune zatripane elektro komade in jih tudi odpela.

V obeh projektih se prepleta – in bode – mnogo jezikov. Ritem, gib, glas, glasba, hrup. Video, fotografija, teorija. Manifesti, poezija. Zdi se, da je njuno reparativno raziskovanje, to pogumno jemanje s sto koncev in krajev, stavilo na možnost, da bosta morda presenečena nad tem, kaj bo v procesu skupnega dela in doživljanja nastalo iz njunih prekrivanj, neubranosti, sozvočij, spodrsljajev in ujemanj. Meni se zdi, da sta stavo dobila. In z njima domače občinstvo, saj sta nam ponudila novo estetiko in politiko – vsaj tistim, ki nismo vedeli za ljubljanske queer diverzante iz osemdesetih.

Iz njunih performansov kričita naredi-sama pank etika in kičasta porno chic estetika, ki sta se menda prvič srečali v enem od zahodnih feminizmov »tretjega vala«. Da je ta feminizem naše kraje skoraj povsem zaobšel, sem se zavedla po njunem nastopu, ko sem občutila pravo olajšanje in radost in moč. Zdi se mi, da zato, ker sta tako premišljeno in odločno, strastno in seksi stopila naravnost k temam, ki so pri nas redko na spisku, sploh pa ne skupaj: o gnanju za užitkom, hiperseksualizaciji in pornifikaciji naših teles, o idealiziranju ljubezni in o potrošništvu, ki vse skupaj poganja. Na feminističnem in queer festivalu Rdeče zore, kjer sem Zamrznjene podobe doživela prvič, je performans zvenel kot manifest!

Poti ljubezni so nasemplani in razdrobljeni, začasno »zamrznjeni« prizori vrste nasilnih spolnih vlog, pa tudi prostovoljnega podrejanja in nadvlade – vlog, ki jih v performansu niti približno ne enačita z nasiljem. V njuni prvi predstavi je olajšanje in uvid v to, kako prekiniti začarani krog nasilne ljubezni, prineslo prav izpraznjevanje forme, ki ni moglo biti drugačno kot nasilno in boleče. V drugi predstavi, Zamrznjene podobe, sta nakazala možnost, da je v nasilje, ki ga nad sabo izvajamo zaradi varljivih kupoprodajnih podob o tem, kako izgledajo seksapil, lepota, zdravje in mladost, mogoče podrezati s smehom. Poželenjem. Mislijo. Objektivizacijo. Perverzijo. In ponovno – z ljubeznijo.

Njuno razkošno, skoraj vsem čutom dostopno multimedijsko delo je pravi cut'n'paste, hiter slikovni in zvokovni kolaž, ki dopušča veliko branj, veliko poslušanj, veliko občutenj in razmislekov. A šele potem, ko se odtržeš od bežečih slik in besed. Potem ko z Wando in deViatorjem, ki skačeta po odru, zaplešeš na njuno podivjano riot grrrl verzijo komada You Don't Own Me. Performansa Maje Delak in Luke Prinčiča navdihujeta in dajeta moč, ker sta dostopna. Ker si pustita blizu. Pa tudi zato, ker v tistem »you« iz You Don't Own Me ne vidita moškega iz mesa in krvi, ampak prej kak Martell ali drugo korporacijo, ki šopa patriarhalne vzorce obnašanja za vsakdanjo rabo.