BODY LINE, 2021, 10:01 minute, single-channel video with stereo audio. Performance and edit by Mari Amman (US/NO), sound composition and arrangement by Zainab Lax and Oh No Noh (DE). Filmed at Selbusjøen, Trøndelag, Norway. Created for first screening, July 2021, Prins Claus Conservatorium during The World We Live In Festival, July 2021, in Groningen, Netherlands. Based on the Norse shape shifting water nymph mythologies, the form gains a darkened torso during time on land, before rejoining with body of water. Symbolically drawing the human body and body of water as connected through the darkened core. The elemental nature of water becomes embodied by in the Body Line performance, exposing relationships between vision and body, landscape and humanity through the allegorical water nymph myth. The line between sensual and sexual is distinctly drawn by the arch of emergence, struggle, and return. During a liquidity of change in human sensory relationship to the environment, the visual impressions of the audio-visual experience are created to project in spaces and emerge on screens. The language of water and body, invites a memory of emergence to life. This video and those on this website are in the Videokunstarkivet, in Oslo, Norway. Body Line are part of the larger body of work Virtual Material including: Trânsito, Teknovisuell Experience, Sonidos, Fleuressence, Relatively Dimensional Still-Life, 1919 in 2017, videos, installations, as prints, projections, wall coverings, acrylic prints, garments. Contact: mariammanart@icloud.com
Markus Rom Born 1990 in Weiden i.d.Opf., Germany, has studied electrical guitar in Weimar and Leipzig. As an instrumentalist and composer he is active in all kinds of musical formations and interdisciplinary productions – mainly in his solo project “Oh No Noh“. Besides that he composes music for film and multimedia. Markus is mostly at home in the broad fields of experimental indie, electronic and ambient music. Apart from playing instruments (mostly guitar, also bass and synths) and using Ableton Live, he likes to find sounds by modifying things like cassette tapes, telephones and game-boys, and integrating them into his musical setup.
Zainab Laxw as born and raised in Germany. She is a multi-instrumentalist and music therapist, with specialisation in Harp. With a western classical background she later focused on several eastern instruments such as the Indian Sarod and the Iranian Tar. With roots in Germany Turkey, India, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan, Zainab has the flexibility and cultural sensitivity to easily adapt to other cultures. In 2017 she graduated as a music therapist at ArtEZ Conservatory in Enschede, Netherlands. She is currently completing a Master at the Center for World Music in Hildesheim, Germany.
“Delicate and sober as always. The staging and performance of the slow and soft movements fit perfectly with the mountains and the water surrounding the figure. Had the video lasted two hours, I would still want to see more.” – John Wagner