UIQ (the unmaking-of)
light enough to see by

par Graeme Thomson et Silvia Maglioni

UIQ (the unmaking-of) is a spatialized electro-acoustic soundwork that Graeme Thomson and Silvia Maglioni have created around Félix Guattari’s unmade science-fiction screenplay, Un Amour d'UIQ. Working with the paradoxical condition of the unmade as something both already and not yet present, a potential field of shifting forms and forces, the filmmakers have sought to ‘produce’ Guattari's film through a collective experience of envisioning, without filming a single scene.

Wondering how to give shape to the film and to the bodiless entity of its central character, UIQ (the Infra-Quark Universe) - that according to Guattari has no clear sense of identity nor spatial or temporal limits - Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson held a number of seeances in several different cities (including one at Les Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers). They invited participants to become the receivers, hosts and transmitters of UIQ, contaminating each other in turn with their own visions and ideas of Guattari’s film and of UIQ’s possible manifestations, both within and beyond the limits of the screenplay.

The soundwork recombines recorded fragments of these seeances in a composition of 75 voices, woven together with electronic signals and processed field-recordings, elements that circulate in the space, offering glimpses of a missing film and universe that, though invisible, can begin to affect the listener's vision.

Originally installed at The Showroom, London for the artists' solo exhibition it took forever getting ready to exist, and currently on show at Casco, Utrecht as part of the collective exhibition We are the Time Machines, the soundwork will be presented at Les Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers in a specially conceived, site-specific form: light enough to see by.

The work was co-commissioned by The Showroom and The Otolith Collective, with the support of Arts Council England and Fluxus. Seeances were hosted and supported by black tulip/espacio practico (Barcelona), ZdB (Lisbon), Univerzita Karlova/Druna (Prague), no.w.here (London), Casco (Utrecht), Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers (Aubervilliers) and Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao), and by all the seers who gave their time and visions.

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photos : View of the activation of the soundwork Friday 22nd January 2016 at Les Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers - all right reserved