M1+1

M1+1

MACHFELD1+1 Die Partitur der Verdoppelung
[The Musical Score of Duplication]

M1+1 the companions: Miss Coochie, Jack Hauser, Sabina Holzer, Sabine Maier, Michael

Mastrototaro, Paul Sernine, Anton Tichawa, Miryam Van Doren, Irma Vep

M1+1 das begehbare Journal [the accessible journal]

We, M1+1, start our imaginary voyage in the art sphere. The journey takes us through unexplored places. Paths come into view. We enter a clearing, change our point of view and let our minds wander.

Our gaze meets our own reflection, or rather, a likeness. Like a phantasmagoria of the stage. We find ourselves, it seems. Or is that our companion?

As we take our next step, our counterpart takes another one.

Our backgrounds are diverse. A heterogeneous conglomeration from film, photography and the media, visual and performing arts.

Our interests are varied.

We meet in practice, in joint actions, in doing. Our concepts relate to the ways we work with material. Action arises from specific motivation, is accompanied by it – evolves together with it.

In this open space of art, material, objects and actions emerge. Interacting art.

We meld the “intimacy” of physical perception with virtuality when accompanied by our living musicbox Anton der Holzfäller [Anton the lumberjack, from a David Lynch film].

At the brink of Machfeld – original title M1+1 (MACHFELD1+1) – is the science-fiction doppelganger project by Machfeld (Sabine Maier & Michael Mastrototaro), together with ex-filmmaker Jack Hauser, performer and choreographer Sabina Holzer and living musicbox Anton Tichawa, for the future. Godard’s One Plus One, the 35 mm black and white movie La Jetée by Chris Marker (inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s film classic Vertigo) are just a few of the many materials that make up this physical and mental art space M1+1, this accessible journal.

We create:

– spaces: architectural, social, spiritual

– We create an art space. Art space versus art market.

Art space as autonomous space.

Art space, released from the dictum of fashion and market.

We exchange:

-notes

-clothes

-hair

-attitudes

-faces

-works

Notes in pockets

The blue and white Paul Sernine, as well as Miss Coochie and Irma Vep secretly slip each other little notes on scraps of paper:

First note:

Paul without Paul, again, sends the first text for duplication. Duplication into the uncanny…says Michael Mastrototaro.

If we consider life, a single existence seems unique and continuous, a movement through change, a becoming. What if this becoming is duplicated at a certain moment? We are familiar with duplications, with the doppelganger from cultural history, from literature via visual arts to film, and more. Doppelgangers follow certain imagined figures who nevertheless serve varied purposes:

Miss Coochie takes up the suggestion of a note and passes a text:

-The doppelganger as impostor.

-The doppelganger as phantom.

-The doppelganger as experiment.

-The doppelganger as stuntman.

-The doppelganger as avatar.

-The doppelganger as (self-)portrait

-The doppelganger as proxy.

-The passport, the ID card, as proxy.

-The doppelganger as projection.

Or as a social game of confusion, like in the popular children’s book Das doppelte Lottchen [aka Two Times Lotte].

Second note:

In 2008, Paul and Paul, in New York’s Coney Island, walk into a blind alley and exchange their clothes.

Doppelganger: doppelganger as motif.

Doppelgangers were a frequent motif in visual arts and literature, especially in Romanticism, German Expressionism and Film Noir.

The doppelganger can easily, through similar appearance, similar habits, – similar voice (dubbing artist) lead to phenomena where reality merges into fiction. Similarities influence our perception.

-Mirrored movement.

-Interrupted.

-Possibility of time-shifts.

-The lighting atmosphere changes, forms shadows and variations.

– Space-time curves.

-In the art space, the ear, the gaze and mind.

-Movement.

Third note:

In 2009, Paul as Jack Hauser contemplates M1+1, the accessible journal.

M1+1 does not mean copying. There, one could have one original and countless copies. Neither does it mean headquarters and subsidiary. No. Not so. To an <image>, we add another <image>. In the sense of montage in film. Or the technique of collage. We add one Machfeld to another Machfeld, synchronously. Immaterial operations as material for composition. Artistic, material composition of the fictional character. Everything becomes material in the becoming: A reality is added to another reality within reality. Similar to free jazz, punk or noise art, this project dares to enter the uncanny areas of creativity, community and improvisation. Such intensities are to be questioned for and translated into visual art.

Not a welcome into reality, but a welcome into effectiveness.