(Embrace) The Hope of The Future – Poiesis and the conditions of aesthetic transcendence in an economy of display

Departing from the ongoing research project Three White Soldiers, Johan Forsman and Anders Paulin discuss some artistic strategies they developed (or stumbled upon) along their way. By reframing the protocol of a project based theatre production (focused on a final presentation) into an open ended endeavor – and where the research topic of ”contemporary economy” not is understood as a field to understand or decode, but rather a landscape of linguistic figures and patterns to travel with into yet unknown territories – their process has opened some new perspectives on notions like fiction, display and mimesis.
Three White Soldiers is an archive of stories, collected by Anders Paulin and Johan Forsman through a series of pilgrimages following the material as well as virtual landscape of contemporary economy.

The performance starts at Wall Street and at the server co-locations hosting todays robotized traders; computers trading at the stock markets in velocities challenging our concepts of time and space. From here Anders and Johan departs on a journey studying the relations between material and immaterial values, various ”time-spaces” operating beyond the human perception, and the use of patterns and images to visualize worlds and events impenetrable to the human horizon. As they go, they collect stories and respond to associations. To avoid already known financial narratives, they start to follow the directions given by shamans and spiritual guides they meet along the way.

From the surreal speeds of high frequency trading they turn their focus to the extreme gravity of mining. The work begins to challenge the borders between fiction and facts and the process starts to intervene in their personal life. Simultaneously, notions of contemporary economy return in new shapes and forms as they travel up through Lapland, only to suddenly find themselves barefoot amongst ancient temples in Egypt.

Three White Soldiers is neither a critique nor capitulation towards the networking super speed of contemporary economy, rather an attempt to travel along its patterns and linguistic figures: A journey accompanied by the fetishes of the financial market, algo-spoofers, astronauts, bitcoin miners, ancient gods and japanese rice traders.

BRA 10 programme
18.00 –  Seminar Johan Forsman and Anders Paulin (in english)
21.00 – Performance: Hanna Monola
Dj: Iris/Linnéa Forsberg
Surrounding: Cora Hillebrand och Stefan Jensen
Food: Camilla Engman
Poster: Hanna Monola