double double
Duo exhibition and LARP with Zuza Banasinska, at PuntWG Amsterdam.
The project was supported by the Goethe Institute and the European Union through the program Culture Moves Europe.
‘double double’ is an exhibition and LARP (Live Action Role Play) by Zuza Banasińska and Myrto Vratsanou. The artists explore the figure of the double as a device towards non-hierarchical kinship, through a reflection on mirroring, shadowing, occupying negative space and other modes of proliferating the self.
Doubling is treated as a methodology for story-telling and speculation, reflecting and refracting unstable identities. Mirroring becomes a way to process, relate, collaborate and become hybrid. Split pebbles and neolithic carvings lead to superimposition, glitches and other ghosts of the cinematic apparatus. The artists appropriate the method of traceology to speculate around corrosions, fissures and wounds, generating doubles as a filling compound for canonical knowledge gaps. Similar to the original yet other, these copies interrupt linearity and unearth ghostly qualities.
At puntWG, Banasińska and Vratsanou constructed a stage for this exploration, focusing on the story-telling potential of interpreting traces, early cinema’s doppelgangers and other projections, in the form of a film and a series of objects and drawings.
This “stage” was activated through 2 participatory LARP sessions, revolving around a film production dealing with corrupted footage and a missing protagonist. Participants were invited to embody film-makers or film-characters, to reflect on what lies in the negative space of the missing hero, and what new tropes of kinship can be discovered there.
The discussion-based Live Action Role Play was shaped by the participants themselves. It was structured as a playful, immersive way to approach theoretical and conceptual thought. Participants were given character cards, which they then made their own. Each session included warm-up exercises, discussions and storyboarding tasks. We are currently putting together and archive of the results of every LARP session so far, which we hope to share with future participants.
Exhibition view
PuntWG, 2024
(Photo by Ilya Rabinovich)
Exhibition view: "Becoming Andrzej", animation loop by Zuza Banasinska and 'Storyboard" drawing by Myrto Vratsanou.
PuntWG, 2024
(Photo by Ilya Rabinovich)
Storyboards
Myrto Vratsanou
Ongoing series, colour pencil on paper, cardboard, metal clips.
2024
(Photo by Ilya Rabinovich)
Drawing as an editing process which records the research for this project through non-linear story-boards of possible scenarios. The series weaves together altered scenes and details of doubles in film with camera glitches, tutorials on mould-making, early visual effects and other instances of reflection, refraction and projection.
The two lapses (They say you can’t draw blood from a stone)
Myrto Vratsanou
Clay, natural pigments, copper.
2020
(Photo by Ilya Rabinovich)
Clay mixed with sand, natural pigments and minerals. Split in two and kiln-fired. Attached to the wall with thin copper rods.
The objects were initially conceived as part of researching the pebble mosaic traditions of the island of Spetses in 2019, and they were then created in 2020, to be attached onto the preserved walls of the building of Het Hem. They return now, in 2024, as portals between thoughts on doubling, constructed archaeologies and trace fictions.
“Sometimes you’ll find when you open up a stone, you can’t stop the bleeding. Stories don’t float above landscapes like gusts, they’re always down in it” (text excerpt about the work by Angie Keefer, 2020)
The problem with history is, it keeps happening, which confuses everyone over time, as one thing becomes another again. And again. Just walk in circles for a while, and you’ll see. There’s a little villa in Greece where a certain woman once lived who disguised herself as a man and took off for Italy to study painting all on her own, as only men could do at that time. Rumor has it, after she returned, she went mad, burnt all her canvases, as well as herself, then hunkered down, haunting the place for the next century and a half. And they say you can’t get blood from a stone! But they would be surprised. Sometimes you’ll find instead when you open one up, you can’t stop the bleeding. Stories don’t float above landscapes like gusts, they’re always down in it, and you can tell, because words as innocent as “till” end up meaning all sorts of unforeseen things (glacial sediment; to cultivate the earth; up to a point; cash register...) over time, as plates shift and crush.
— Text about the work by Angie Keefer —
Kontrewers
Zuza Banasinska
work in progress, video, 17 min.
2024
(Photo by Ilya Rabinovich)
Kontrewers is a small village in central Poland, its name literally meaning a “dispute over a borderland”. There, in the early 1990s, next to a dinosaur footprint, a local farmer found a stone with mysterious carvings. Determined to be from the neolithic, their story is subject to many speculations. A ritualistic mark? Proof of alien visitations? Devils’’ claws? Representations of gods? Medium of communication?
"Kontrewers" is a multidisciplinary project, with a film as its main outcome, using the stone as a device of navigating this borderland of multi-temporal relations, constructing a world out of documentary and staged materials.
The exhibition included a public program of 2 participatory LARP sessions, revolving around a film production dealing with corrupted footage and a missing protagonist.
Participants were invited to embody film-makers or film-characters, to reflect on what lies in the negative space of the missing hero, and what new tropes of kinship can be discovered there.
The discussion-based Live Action Role Play was shaped by the participants themselves. It was structured as a playful, immersive way to approach theoretical and conceptual thought. Participants were given character cards, which they then made their own. Each session included warm-up exercises, discussions and storyboarding tasks. We are currently putting together and archive of the results of every LARP session so far, which we hope to share with future participants.
Zuza and Myrto doubling during the LARP.
(More documentation coming soon)