Another Deep

Sébastien Robert / Mark IJzerman (FR/NL)

Performative installation

PRATICAL INFORMATION

Module du GMEM
Friche la Belle de Mai

Fri. Jan. 17, 2025 
Showtimes: 6pm, 7:30pm, 9pm
Running time: 40 min

Full price: €8
Reduced rate: €6

Another Deep is an A/V live performance by Sébastien Robert and Mark IJzerman exploring the impending deep-sea mining in the Svalbard region (NO) and its inherent implications on our environment, geopolitics, and indigenous ecosystems. The project seeks to facilitate a more informed and nuanced discussion of a hidden process that is out of sight but whose full impact is not yet clear, while highlighting the stark contrast and inherent tensions in the region, reflecting on climate change, industrialisation and resource exploitation. Another Deep started during the Arctic Circle Residency program, where Sébastien Robert and Mark IJzerman collected a range of audio and visual material.

Sonically, both artists collected recordings of other-than-human such as cetaceans (belugas, minke whales, sperm whales), as well as melting glaciers (under, on and above water) with the help of dedicated hydrophones and ultrasensitive microphones. Underwater, they gathered visual footage from a surprisingly rich ocean floor down to -100m with a drone combined with a digital microscope. This footage includes other-than-human beings invisible to the human eye, kelp forest ecosystems and intriguing cavities. On land, they used medium-format analogue photographs and 3D LIDAR scans to capture various textures (rock formations, glaciers, whale bones) and abandoned mining sites

With thorough research dedicated to collecting audiovisual materials, the A/V performance provides a distinctive view of the textures, entities, and elements in the Svalbard region. Using audiovisual composition, it seeks to translate an ambiguous and uncertain future into a concrete and unsettling present. This approach invites the audience to reflect on the repercussions of anthropogenic activities that often go unseen.

Artists

Mark IJzerman

Mark IJzerman is an interdisciplinary artist exploring planetary processes such as eroding biodiversity and warming waters from more-than-human perspectives. Working on the intersection of ecology and media art, IJzerman uses digital technologies to create processes that have their agency to make works creating intimacy between us and the other-than-human. His work is always informed by field research and working with other professionals. He was the 2022 recipient of the S+T+ARTS4Water ‘Biodiversity in the Rotterdam Port’ residency hosted by V2_. He has performed his A/V works at various media art festivals around Europe (Rewire Festival, Meakusma, Transmediale/CTM Vorspiel, Le Guess Who?, FIBER Festival, Mapping Festival) and has most recently exhibited works at MU in Eindhoven, Art Center Nabi in Seoul, V2_ in Rotterdam, De Lakenhal in Leiden and on the International Space Station. IJzerman is a tutor at Ecology Futures MA at the Master Institute of Visual Cultures in Den Bosch, where together with his students he looks at how sensory technologies can be used to address climate emergency through experiential projects. He is a part of the new media collective Zesbaans and runs the sound art blog Everyday Listening.

Sébastien Robert

Sébastien Robert (1993. Nantes, FR) is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher who develops a practice at the intersection of visual and sound art, technology, science and ethnography. Most of his projects revolve around a research cycle, You’re no Bird of Paradise, through which he explores disappearing Indigenous sonic rituals and cosmologies. Beyond simple documentation, yet not an ambitious ethnographic archiving project, he aims to translate these immaterial resources into long-lasting tangible works of art made of materials that echo the traditions of the communities encountered and the geo-specificities of the territories explored. Through his work and research, Sébastien searches for possibilities to create an engaged and expanding artistic dialogue between non-Western perspectives and new technology while questioning our perception of our environment and highlighting the epistemological diversity of our world. Sébastien has recently exhibited his work at Scopitone (Nantes, FR), Light Art Museum (Budapest, HU) and FIBER (Amsterdam, FR) and has performed at various internationally recognised festivals such as Rewire (The Hague, NL), Organik (Hualien, TW) and Mirage (Lyon, FR). Sébastien graduated with honours from the ArtScience Master between the KABK – Royal Academy of Art and KC – Royal Conservatory of The Hague in 2020, where he now lives and works.

Distribution, credits & mentions

A/V performance by Sébastien Robert and Mark IJzerman – Co-produced by BEK – Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts), V2_, Lab for the Unstable Media, Chroniques, Biennale des Imaginaires Numériques, the GMEM – Centre national de création musicale, Multiplica / Rotondes – Part of the CHRONIQUES CREATIONS Platform, supported by the DRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, the Région Sud Provence- Alpes-Côte d’Azur and the city of Marseille – With the financial support of Mondriaan Fund, Stroom Den Haag, French Institute Norway and Culture Moves Europe – With the technical help of Michelle Barker (underwater drone), Diane Willow (microscopy), the EYE Museum, the National Library of Norway and the University of Edinburgh (archives) – Initiated during the Arctic Circle Residency (Svalbard, NO)