Spooky Action at a Distance (working title)

…If we regard the récit as the true telling of an exceptional event which has taken place and which someone is trying to report, then we have not even come close to sensing the true sense of the récit. The récit is not the narration of an event, but the event itself, the approach to the event, the place where that event is made to happen – an event which is yet to come and through whose power of attraction the tale can hope to come into being, too. – Maurice Blanchot.


A project by: Per Hüttner
Curated by: Adrienne Drake

The structure:
1. Per Hüttner has written 6 interconnected short stories that deal with the life of specific person, his life and work. Each story is told by someone who knows the protagonist well – family members, old friends and colleagues.

2. The six stories will be passed on to 6 storytellers.

3. The storytellers will recount the stories to six creators who based on what has been told to them and create work that is related to drawing in one way or another. These are not representations of the story, but visual interpretations or impressions.

4. The work is shown publicly in the form of a traditional exhibition. Along with potential seminars.

5. The audience is asked to imagine the original story, or come with another story based on what they see. Two specially commissioned writers are invited to create a story based on what they see in the exhibition.

6. At the end of the exhibition we will publish the first 6 stories (This is the first time that they are shown to anyone but the storytellers.) in an extensive catalogue along with a selection of the narratives that the audience have offered. The publication will also include the two commissioned texts and ample photographic documentation from the exhibition.


Background
Per Hüttner is an artist and director of the international research organization Vision Forum. He has been engaged in a research into how processes of inspiration, translation and movement across genres affect our understanding of communication and knowledge production. His work often offers a new form of platform for the encounter between the audience and the artwork as well as a meeting place for people from different genres to discuss central issues in life.

Adrienne Drake is a curator and director of The Guiliani Foundation in Rome. Drake and Hüttner have been collaborating on projects since 2008.

Transformations
The process of the project researches various forms of shifts. On a practical level, the content goes from written to oral, from oral to pictorial and back to written format. The project will involve a large number of creators from many different countries, so there will also be translations between various oral and written languages. The project also involves translation from one genre to another: from literature into art, design, notation etc.

Goals
The goal of the project is to further the understanding of what transformations of information means in our lives and how impressions are coloured on our outlook on reality. It looks at how moving across mediums and misunderstanding each other can be ways to further our knowledge and open new paths for creativity. It also looks for new ideas that are born from interdisciplinary dialogues and translations between genres.

Practical Issues
The project is a Vision Forum project and as such it has core funding both for travel, production and for publication. Vision Forum will look for further funding for the project.