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Cássio Diniz Santiago
Syntax of Care
The most diverse people are driven into dangerous situations through “enclosures” of language in which hatred of any kind of difference smouldered; the tendency to withdraw, to isolation, sabotages our ability to coexist with others and their different perspectives. “Syntax of Care” is a work in process on the language of other modes of life. Constituted originally by an online dialogue intertwined with a choreographic performance on politics of care. A performative dialogue that brings out the intelligible and untranslatable experience of mutual dependencies, understanding entanglements between different cultures and ways of life, and contributing to a transcultural “knowledge construction” that reflects the peculiarities of every culture or way of life without labelling it. Power of life instead of power over life in dialogue with the economy, social sciences, and performance art. This work in process at this very moment is based on the act of listening. Here are presented 3 fragments of the audio part that constitutes the ground for the online performance and the short film Syntax of Care (working title).
Track 1:
This first track is a requiem to all who lost their lives during the pandemic (that is not over), and at the same time raises the question: what can we learn from these experiences of loss? How can we avoid that each new gesture causes more and more destruction? This first track is inspired by Bojana Kunst’s “Beyond the time of the right care: A letter to the performance artist”.
Track 2:
In the second track-fragment of this work in process, Levi-Strauss’s anecdote is told from a new, third and robotic perspective, no longer that of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, or that of the conquerors and colonizers, but a third voice without a face and without a body, and that colonizes our souls while the world around is indeed disappearing.
Track 3:
The third track is a counterpoint to the Alvin Lucier performance-audio piece: “I am sitting in a room”. Here the indifference to the frequencies of the context and to the other are presented with its blindness about other modes of life. It also quotes a small fragment of John Berger’s description of Bruegel’s Icarus.
