In search for the oracle’s body
participatory event
04 November 2022, 19:30, City Art Gallery Varna, Lyuben Karavelov 1 str., Varna Bulgaria
Duration: 120 min.
In search for the oracle’s body is the result of a project-laboratory by Maryna Makarenko and Diego Agulló led in the frame of Moving Body festival.
Devil, devil, this
is yours, give mine back!
Ukrainian magic spell poetry for finding something lost
In times of technological acceleration it is useful to return to other types of knowledge, like occultism: to look at old practices that might help to better understand the present. Magic practices of incantation and magic spell poetry are soft technologies and are an alternative to the high technologies predominant in the present world. Soft technologies are about the intuitive inner body`s availability to navigate the world. Rituals are an embodied identity. Rituals are a universal language. Rituals create a collective resonant body. Rituals offer other types of narratives that are not about acceleration, but stillness, where symbols are unchanging, and anyone can access their universal language. Rituals are tools to confront history. Rituals are language to speculate and write other histories. What would our lives be if we observed them through the lens of rituals and magic?
Maryna Makarenko was born and grew up in Ukraine; currently lives and works in Berlin. Her works span through a variety of formats, from films and video installations to collective performances and workshops, addressing the phenomena of transient states: processes and bodies that deviate beyond normativity. They are presented internationally at festivals and venues such as Kunstmuseum Ulm, Videonale.17 in Kunstmuseum Bonn, Images Festival Toronto, Transmediale Vorspiel, Goethe-Institut Tel Aviv and Martin-Gropius Bau Berlin, among others. She graduated with a BA at the Institute of Journalism in Kyiv, she holds another BA in Visual Communication and Diploma and Meisterschüler in Art and Media at the Berlin University of the Arts. She has been a guest for the Integrated Media Program at OCAD University in Toronto and for BA in Dance, Context, Choreography at the HZT Berlin.
Diego Agulló is an independent researcher and a dilettante artist intervening mainly in the field of contemporary dance and performance investigating the affinity between Body and Event. Having a background in philosophy, his work covers different media such as dance, performance, essay writing, publishing books, video art, laboratories for research, the organization of participatory events and daily Qigong / Tai Chi training.