Simnikiwe Buhlungu: long time, lung time continuuuum!!! (a conver-something)

long time, lung time continuuuum!!! (a conver-something) is the third collaboration between IMAI – Inter Media Art Institute and KIT – Kunst im Tunnel in Düsseldorf. The project commenced with the invitation of artist Simnikiwe Buhlungu to research the history and legacy of the IMAI archive; its roots lie in early experimental video works from the 1970s and 1980s, but also in post punk and new wave music from the Rhineland area and beyond. Buhlungu extended her invitation to artist Valie Export, the KIT ventilation system, a Juno- 6 synthesizer, and musician Pamela Z by introducing a conver-something, a format that is already well-established within the artist’s practice. Taking an unusual formal turn, each guest has been requested to convene together in KIT’s underground tunnel space to explore the possibilities of spatial lungwork and chronological interruptions.

Drawing on IMAI’s own video archive, the Austrian video maker and performance artist Valie Export sets the tone with her Breath Text: Love Poem (1970–73) from a series of multisensory video poems that invite spectators to synchronize their breath with the artist, while simultaneously leaving traces of text-which-is-yet-to-happen on a sheet of glass. With a particular sensibility for polyphonic synthesis in the form of remnants of a khuaya, Buhlungu shares a new sound work titled Juno-6 (2024). Created in collaboration with a Roland Juno-6 synthesizer, it explores a multivalent approach to breathe. As a polyphonic synthesizer, the Juno-6 has been invoked to share strategies of patching-as-remembering-as-writing-as-breathing in Buhlungu’s sound piece, which will permeate and reverberate around KIT’s underground concrete construction.

Gathering in KIT’s underground space is contingent upon infrastructure that introduces, circulates, and expels air—read: ventilation. Following its mechanized birth in 2006, the fully integrated cooling, heating, and ventilation system above ground at KIT is a hidden but vital element that is essential for gathering underground sustainably. As the ventilation system must regrettably—yet understandably—continue working, it will be conjured underground through a quartet of metal piping, Ventilated Pipe Progenies (2006/24), which will huff and puff as a descendant of the space’s ventilation system. This is anchored by the video documentation of Pamela Z’s 2014 Breathing (Carbon Song Cycle), which will be accompanied by a live performance as part of the conver-something in which the artist samples acoustic instruments with electronic ones, mechanical with digital devices, and machines with flesh and blood. (Pamela Z)

stiftung-imai.de