Mena El Shazly on A Light Footprint in the Cosmos

“Celebrating the substantial motion of thought and/as creative practice,” A Light Footprint in the Cosmos took place June 24-27, 2022, at the School for the Contemporary Arts, with an extensive list of participating artists and scholars. Presenting itself as “a celebration of research methods and intercultural dialogues,” the conference consisted of in-person / online hybrid panels, a roundtable, three exhibitions (held in the SCA’s Studio T, the Or Gallery, and Centre A), a workshop, a performance, and two curated screenings. I think the word “celebration” here implies the involvement of pleasure, which, in the case of the Substantial Motion Research Network (SMRN), is both a means and an end. With the rapid growth of digital infrastructures, the SMRN employs non-Western and traditional practices to search for convenient and effective technical solutions to contribute to a light footprint, as the conference’s title indicates.

I personally joined the SMRN in January 2022, and participated in this conference with a talk at a panel, and I shared a video piece that was screened in one of the curated programs.

A Light Footprint in the Cosmos co-organizer Radek Przedpełski programmed the participant’s presentations into thematic panels that, in my opinion, led to thought-provoking connections, which encouraged informal conversation and discussion after each panel and during our generous meal and coffee breaks. On the last panel, for example, titled Three Ecologies, participants found themselves going back to certain themes and concepts discussed in the first panel, Points-clés/Portals. This not only created a harmonious thematic full circle, but also raised questions about the future plans of the network – the notion of portals also evoked transformation. While I will only focus on some panels here, information on all of the panels’ thematic threads (as well as much more information about the entire conference) can be found here.

Midpoint on the first day of the symposium, members of the SMRN, including myself, gathered on stage to elaborate on our ‘SMRN method’, which was also the title of the roundtable. We shared three images that we wanted to put into conversation: a spell from Daqāi'q al-Haqā'iq (Subtleties of realities) from Iran, after 1265; a 2022 painting by Steven Baris from his series Never the Same Space Twice; and Juan Castrillón’s contemporary talisman, Encoded Physiology of a Hummingbird, from 2020. These images provoked a discussion on the power of media, raised questions and doubts about underestimating the use of ancient talismans, and drew attention to the challenge of “giving in” to the fetishization of ancient sources simply because of their attractive aesthetics. The purpose of this conversation was to familiarize other participants in the symposium about our collective method, a method that “unfolds hidden connections” related to media and world cultures. As we engaged in conversation on stage, we also relived the usual discursive mood from our online monthly meetings, but this time reversed: existing physically on stage, but looking at an old talisman that resembles our Zoom heads.

During the roundtable, Azadeh Emadi talked about the beginning of the SMRN, which was founded after Emadi met Laura U. Marks to discuss their shared research interests and Marks’ 2010 book, Enfoldment and Infinity: An Islamic Genealogy of New Media. The 17th-century Persian Islamic process philosopher Sadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī’s theory of Substantial Motion inspired Emadi’s doctoral research and concept of the network. Al-Shīrāzī’s theory that each individual is "a multiplicity of continuous forms, unified by the essential movement itself" informed the design of the SMRN, in which each member both learns from the other members’ inputs, while also contributing to the learning of the other members. Emadi recalled the need she and Marks recognized to create a shared network with artists, scholars, and other practitioners to collectively discuss and get feedback on their research and works in progress. Today, the SMRN includes members from all over the world.

In general, the talks at the conference left participants biting their “finger of amazement” (engüşt-i hayret), an expression from Turkey that Nezih Erdogan brought up in relation to his research on early cinema in Istanbul. The audience also “marveled at the pictures” Erdogan presented as part of the panel Collective Imagination and Imaginal. Some participants elaborated on recurrent themes in their art practice and talked about their research and current projects, some of which were presented in the exhibitions, screenings, or performances. The fact that the presentations complemented the artworks, and vice versa, created a productive and fertile atmosphere for the curious, providing space for a potentially deeper experience.

In the panel Cosmological Diagrams, Steven Barris talked about his series of paintings, Never the Same Space Twice, three pieces of which were part of the exhibition at Centre A, and one piece was the promotional image for A Light Footprint in the Cosmos. While not mapping an actual space, “the abstract geometric visual language [in Barris’ pieces] evoke hybrid topological route maps and flow charts.” Experiencing the work at Centre A, I felt that the lines, curves, and angles in the compositions enacted a virtual experience that spoke not only about today’s navigation experiences, but also strangely evoked Islamic geometry. On the same panel, Somayeh Khakshoor spoke about the cycles of the moon and the word لا, an Arabic word meaning ‘don't,’ ‘no,’ and ‘not’. Both titled لا (La; No), Khakshoor’s presentation complemented her short, diaristic film.

Khakshoor’s film was screened as part of the Cosmological Diagrams program in the SCA’s Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema. Curated by Marks, the program featured recent work by members of the SMRN. The work of Mansoor Behnam caught my attention, particularly in the way it proposed alternative scenarios with the use of the voice over, a tool that, in my opinion, is most often insensitively overused, sometimes abused. Behnam’s film proposed scenarios that demonstrate the power of cinema and how it can shift the perception of reality to suggest multiple meanings. The screening’s program was punctuated by songs gathered by Millie Chen and Arzu Ozkal from their SRS (Silk Road Songbook) project. Cosmological Diagrams did not just leave me feeling “cosmically connected and thoroughly grounded,” as promised, it also illustrated cross-cultural connections and processes of unfolding and enfolding.

Lynn Marie Kirby created a customized SMRN scent through descriptions of “places that have driven [our] creative works” that she had collected from fellow members prior to the conference in order to create a collective SMRN profile. Kirby views scent as a time-based experience, as she described in her presentation Impermanence: Towards an Ephemerality of Making, which was part of the panel Body and Breath. The smell could be experienced here and there during the four days of the conference, as members delved into discussions and events. The scent, which I am smelling now as I write this review, interacted with each member differently, and itself kept changing over time, resonating with Sadra’s concept of Substantial Motion. On the same panel, Kalpana Subramanian presented her doctoral research on respiratory aesthetics in experimental film and media, asking the question: “How can we move towards a breathing cinema?” Drawing on non-Western media genealogies, examples of embodied cinema, and her own experimental media praxis, Subramanian curated Cinema of Breath: Rapture/Rupture, a program of short experimental films that investigate “the cosmology and poetics of breath in cinema,” which was screened in the SCA’s Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema. I found the way Subramanian programmed the works invited the audience to feel the interplay between their own breath – sometimes breathing deeply, other times interrupting their breath – in relation to the sequence of films in the program.

The days of the conference were long and intense. However, the screenings, as well as the workshops, performances, and exhibitions, which were “integral” to the conference, helped to create a much-needed rhythm and flow. J. R. Osborn and Evan Barba led a workshop titled The Book of Iteration on the use of the ancient Chinese Book of Changes, or I Ching, as a creative method, adapting it into contemporary design language. Participants were guided on how to build a hexagram and iterate it. One lucky participant, myself, got a public reading by the online oracle. Due to the ambiguity and obscurity of the digital medium, the sight of a digital oracle looking at me with its hexagram eyes and talking to me on stage was remarkably convincing. At the midpoint of the conference, after the presentations on the second day, Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang performed in the SCA’s Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre. Interested in “music at the border of sound,” the duo, who have been collaborating and touring together for more than a decade, played their most-recent composition, titled Azure, which was written for voice, drone harmonium, viola d’amore, and sampler. As Kenney explained in her presentation on the panel titled Vibration and Breath, which took place on the third day of the conference, the title is based on a pun between Farsi and English – “az u” or “from/of them” – inspired by a ghazal (lyric poem) by Hafez of Shiraz. Their performance, and its timing at the midpoint of the conference, was like the conference’s own heartbeat, where the language of words is disrupted and the sensual world of Azure takes over.

The three exhibitions curated by Nina Czegledy, also titled A Light Footprint in the Cosmos, featured works by 17 artists. The artworks sought to “illuminate hidden connections and reveal diverse yet complementary concepts and practices.” With the first step I took into the exhibition in the SCA’s Studio T, I felt completely elsewhere. The darkness of the space emphasized the illuminated (and illuminating) artworks, which addressed both historical influences and contemporary matters. To me, this setup highlighted the capacity of time-based media to celebrate the freshness of being alive. The sounds of the Ney flute permeated the exhibition space at the Or Gallery, as Juan Castrillón is seen in one of the videos performing on the instrument. These exhibitions were well documented by Joseph Malbon, who filmed guided tours led by Czegledy and Marks (watch them below), capturing the magic of the displayed work, as well as the impact it had on those who experienced it.

A Light Footprint in the Cosmos was, to me, indeed cosmic, deeply interfolded, and widely decolonial. It was a much-needed happening and celebration for those who are interested, in Marks’ words, in “artist-scholar collaborations, minor media genealogies, stealthy cross-cultural connections, and forays into apparent mysticism.” Even though I attempted to keep this review somewhat short, a lot more could be said about this conference and the research network. As Marks said at the end of the conference, “we’ve been rendered into cosmic dust.”

Biography

SCA MFA student Mena El Shazly's (b. Cairo) work is grounded in video but encompasses embroidery and sculpture. Her practice is concerned with entropy, bodies and (light)-sensitive surfaces that carry knowledge and memory. She studied performing and visual arts at the American University in Cairo and is a former fellow of the Home Workspace Program at Ashkal Alwan, Beirut. El Shazly also has a well-established curatorial practice and has organized several video art events and workshops. She is the current Artistic Director of Cairo Video Festival for video art and experimental film organized by Medrar for Contemporary Art.

vimeo.com/melsh | menatelshazly.wordpress.com | www.medrar.org | www.cvf.medrar.org