An empty clinical space. Naked with years of raped neglect finds a new meaning. Inhabited by the sounds of abstract ambient looping that resembles industrial clanging and the movement of water. In the middle, stands a light source – a life source. The floor is strewn with white paper. From outside she appears to move into frame and allows her body to take the shape of the sound. A dance of moving trance is latched onto the odd looping soundtrack created by Francesco De Gallo.
‘¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿’ is an experimental film by the autodidactic Detroit artist Katai featuring Nil Bambu that presents the natural flow of her body and form – “stillness in motion”. This piece that has been displayed at the New art fest in Lisbon, Portugal in 2017 deals with “the deepest depths of existence” I am told by its creator. Inspiring Nil’s mimetic movement – a balance is struck between western psychology and eastern spirituality. “To be fully aware is to be in a state of no thought or nothingness. In this realm, you can access existence and existence can access you, creating harmony and flow.”
“Nil is filled with the unknown, with the mysterious and with the divine. A hollow Bambu becomes a flute and the divine starts playing it. Once empty, there is no barrier for the divine to flow from you.”
Zen is an experience beyond mental existence reaching transcendentalism. Nil’s zen escapist act is recorded to create a work of art in which she displays no state of mind. It is out of body and is described as a “zen exercise”.
This repetitive loop of motion in a static framework is justified by saying that the work is not related to the circumference of understanding and is instead a study into movement and how sound reacts to it and the other way around – “it is all the same. This combination of audio and visual creates an unrepeated repetition.”
Katai’s practice examines the truth beyond human understanding through directing, creating and the producing of films. Exemplifying time as an illusion in order to facilitate the interrogation of how the world is perceived. “Each piece is a continuation of an endless unfoldment and reflection of the truth.”
Nil is a vocalist from Trinidad and Tobago carrying a message of love and balance between the spiritual and material realms. Her aspiration is for her voice and message to transcend the confinement of time and space.
Katai, Nil and musician Francesco from Montreal, Quebec have worked together on previous projects and fuse to create ‘¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿ – a zen exercise’ a piece that makes you question a zen experience. Their trio then, attempt to create “an evolution of time delayed” or a zen moment.
Conceptually the experimental film piece by these three creatives has substance and invites curiosity. However, despite Katai’s justifications of space not intervening with the zen practice and the audio and visual elements of the video forming an unrepeated repetition, Nil’s movements become monotonous with the sound lurking. Causing early interest that may fall flat. Analysing the piece also brings one to question whether an outer body experience can truly be recorded through film, and whether the definition of ‘zen’ that is used by the artists has been attained.
See the experimental film below: