26 July 2007

AK47

You probably wonder why there is now the picture of a AK47 war gun at the top of this page... In the last months we kept on researching about how traditional dance & music theatre can create its space in modern culture. But admiring Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian or Indian theatre is not enough, also it can be counterproductive because we don't intend to reproduce or imitate them - so we reached the stage of taking distance with these influences to now explore the western culture in this current 'hypermodern episteme' to quote Foucault, to pick the substance of our work... And the modernist project of the early 20th century avant-gardes, this marriage of technology and primitivism sang by the futurists, actually happened, but not the the best, just like the release of the dark side wanted by the surrealists didn't free mankind but led to the merchandising of desire... So when we try to embody the spirit of times, this gun is alas a inevitable icon. At the bottom of the page is its negative double, an electric guitar, the proof that technology and violence can also generate art.