exercises in becoming uncertain (variation IV) | Marianna Christofides

In what ways can largely silenced forces exerted on vulnerable bodies (human and more-than-human) be rendered visible and audible? How to transform adversity into potential, hardship into hope?

In places long since scarred by man-made catastrophes in Japan, Onassis AiR fellow Marianna Christofides has been listening for the quiet hum of energy forces that have the capacity to convert disasters into sources of creation.

In the fourth variation of her continually evolving film lecture performance “exercises in becoming uncertain,” Christofides navigates ways of in-habiting crippled worlds otherwise. Her endeavor is guided by encounters with artists, activists, scientists, scholars and their lifework rich in mindfulness and modesty. Embodied ecologies of knowledge emerge in this exploratory cinematic reading from practices as diverse as sustaining one’s cattle and living amidst radioactive land after the Fukushima triple disaster as a life-long form of protest; or ecofeminist mythopoetic writing in support and empowerment of the sufferers impaired by mercury poisoning in Minamata.

Christofides’ 16mm essayistic film narrative juxtaposes the nuclear uncanny with the mercurial uncanny, corporate nationalism(s) bleed into environmental injustices, the destruction of an ecosystem jibes with the birth of an island, whilst the monitored Earth draws her pulse through electricity signals on a screen in Tokyo. A bowstring is strung to breaking point, converting potential into kinetic energy.

Activated by encounters in fractured ecologies and bruised lifeworlds, the artist lyrically wrestles with some of the key environmental issues and societal challenges of our times. Her cinematic ‘exercises’ become a tool to tune the audience into strategies for living on in midst of abuse, violence and destruction.

“exercises in becoming uncertain” has been made possible thus far through funding by the VISIT Fellowship Programme 2020/E.ON Stiftung, the Berlin Artistic Research Grant Programme 2020/21 with the support of the Berlin Senate Department of Culture and Europe, as well as by TRANSIT, Deputy Ministry of Culture, Cyprus and Point Centre for Contemporary Art, Nicosia. The research for the project was supported by the Villa Kamogawa, Goethe-Institut Kyoto, the Earthquake Research Institute at the University of Tokyo, Soshisha Center, Youkobo Art Space, Saikoneon AiR (all Japan), and by Onassis AiR.

Previous performances [2021] Sinema Transtopia by bi’bak, Berlin (Berlin Artistic Research Grant Programme), [2022] mumok Kino, Vienna (Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation in collaboration with Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen, Innsbruck), and Pallas Theatre, Nicosia (IAPT and Deputy Ministry of Culture - Cultural Services Cyprus).