Myrthe van der Mark - At this height, but not yet in its fullness
“The world theorises as well as experiments with itself. Figuring, reconfiguring. Animate and (so-called) inanimate creatures do not merely embody mathematical theories; they do mathematics. But life, whether organic or inorganic, animate or inanimate, is not an unfolding algorithm. Electrons, molecules, brittlestars, jellyfish, coral reefs, dogs, rocks, icebergs, plants, asteroids, snowflakes, and bees stray from all calculable paths, making leaps here and there, or rather, making here and there from leaps, shifting familiarly patterned practices, testing the waters of what might yet be/have been/could still have been, doing thought experiments with their very being. Thought experiments are material matters.” Karen Barad - On Touching – The Inhuman That Therefore I Am
Context and research lead to decision-making through a process of change and being. Family practice - transmutation, transformation, trance into practice: how one element can be transformed into another. Matter changing form, rites of passage: different stages of life. What does mystical union and the out-of-action of ability mean? Investigation of the synergy between ephemerality and materiality, body and mind and going outside one-self.
In this residency, Myrthe van der Mark continues the development of a new work for Artefact 23: Between knowing and understanding. Notes on the ecstatic being.
Myrthe van der Mark’s practice is best described as a dynamic performance-collage founded on improvisation and associative leaps. Her research, in various mediums, aims to discover what it is like to shape oneself and what it means to be human. From a broader perspective: how do the possibilities that performance opens up intersect with other disciplines? A discrete perspective on practice, foregrounding, concept and language. A gesture that derives from direct experience and alludes to absence and presence. On the ability to sense things before they hit you. Predominantly visual, ephemeral, direct, figurative language of gestures and movement.